Sitting of 28 October 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
MR. SPEAKERin the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
  Ordered,
  That the Lords Message yesterday relating to the London Transport Bill be now considered.
  Ordered,
  That the Promoters of the London Transport Bill shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with that Bill in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office of their intention to suspend further proceedings not later than the day before the close of the present Session and that all Fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid.
  Ordered,
  That on the fifth day on which the House sits in the next Session the Bill shall be presented to the House.
  Ordered,
  That there shall be deposited with the Bill a Declaration, signed by the Agents for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the present Session.
  Ordered,
  That the Bill shall be laid upon the Table of the House by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill has been presented and, when so laid, shall be read the first, second and third time and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read.
  Ordered,
  That no further Fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during the present Session.
  Ordered,
  That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  ADJOURNMENT MOTIONS UNDER STANDING ORDER No. 9
  Return ordered,
  of Motions for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), showing the date of such Motion, the name of the Member proposing the specific and important matter and the result of any Division taken thereon, during Session 1980–81.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  CLOSURE OF DEBATE (STANDING ORDER. No. 30)
  Return ordered,
  respecting application of Standing Order No. 30 (Closure of debate) during Session 1980–81, (1) in the House and in Committee of the whole House, under the following heads:—

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Date when Closure claimed, and by whom

  Question before House or Committee when claimed

  Whether in House or Committee

  Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by the Chair

  Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion

  Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

  and (2) in the Standing Committees under the following heads:—

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Date when Closure claimed, and by whom

  Question before Committee when claimed

  Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by the Chair

  Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion

  Result of and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

  —[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  DELEGATION LEGISLATION
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Instruments considered in Session 1980–81 by the Joint Committee and the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments respectively pursuant to their orders of reference, showing in each case the numbers of Instruments subject to the different forms of parliamentary procedure and of those within the Committees' orders of reference for which no parliamentary procedure is prescribed by statute, and the numbers drawn to the special attention of the House or of both Houses distinguishing the ground in the Committees' orders of reference upon which such attention was invited; and of the numbers of Instruments considered by a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c. and by the House respectively, in Session 1980–81, showing the number where the question on the proceedings relating thereto was put forthwith under Standing Order No. 73A(5).—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  PRIVATE BILLS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS
  Return ordered, of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into this House and brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed in Session 1980–81:
  Of all Private Bills, Hybrid Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1980–81 were reported on by Committees on Opposed Bills or by Committees nominated partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; the number of days on which each selected Member served; the number of days occupied by each Bill in Committee; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been proved; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been not proved; and, in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders, whether the Provisional Order ought or ought not to be confirmed:
  Of all Private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1980–81 were referred by the Committee of Selection to the Committee on Unopposed Bills, together with the names of the Members who served on the Committee; the number of days on which the Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended:
  And of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which were referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  PUBLIC BILLS
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Public Bills distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, during Session 1980–81 showing:

  the number which received the Royal Assent, and

  the number which did not receive the Royal Assent, indicating those which were introduced into but not passed by this House, those passed by this House but not by the House of Lords, those passed by the House of Lords but not by this House, those passed by both Houses but amendments not agreed to; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills were dropped, postpone or rejected in either House of Parliament, or the stages which such Bills had reached by the time of Prorogation or Dissolution.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  PUBLIC BILLS

    SELECT COMMITTEES
    Return ordered,
    of Select Committees in Session 1980–81, with the Sub-Committees appointed by them; the number of the meetings of each and the number of meetings each Member attended; and the number of Members who served on Select Committees; together with the total cost (estimated where necessary) in respect of each Select Committee and Sub-Committee both for the Session 1980–81 and for the financial year 1980–81 of:—the attendance of witnesses; overseas visits; visits within the United Kingdom; Specialist Advisers' remuneration and expenses respectively, and other work commissioned; entertainment; the preparation for publication of the Minutes of Evidence; and printing and publishing; with so much of the same information as is relevant to the Chairmen's Panel and the Court of Referees.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

    SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE AND BUSINESS OF SUPPLY
    Return ordered,
    of (1) the days on which the House sat in Session 1980–81 stating for each day the day of the month and day of the week, the hour of the meeting, and the hour of the adjournment; and the total number of hours occupied in the Sittings of the House, and the average time; and showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day, and the number of hours after the time appointed for the interruption of business; and (2) the days on which the Business of Supply was considered.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

    STANDING COMMITTEES
    Return ordered,
    for Session 1980–81, of (1) the total number and the names of all Members (including and distinguishing Chairmen) who have been appointed to serve on one or more of the Standing Committees showing, with regard to each of such Members, the number of sittings to which he was summoned and at which he was present; (2) the number of Bills, Estimates, Matters and other items referred to Standing Committees pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.) or Standing Order No. 73B (Standing Committees on European Community documents) considered by all and by each of the Standing Committees, the number of sittings of each Committee and the titles of all Bills, Estimates, Matters and other items as above considered by a Committee, distinguishing where a Bill was a Government Bill or was brought from the House of Lords, and showing in the case of each Bill, Estimate, Matter and other item, the particular Committee by whom it was considered, the number of sittings at which it was considered and the number of Members present at each of those sittings.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

    SPECIAL PROCEDURE ORDERS
    Return ordered,
    of the number of Special Procedure Orders presented in Session 1980–81; the number withdrawn; the number against which Petitions or copies of Petitions were deposited; the number of Petitions of General Objection and for Amendment respectively considered by the Chairmen; the number of such Petitions certified by the Chairmen as proper to be received, and the number certified by them as being Petitions of General Objection and for Amendment respectively; the number referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses; the number reported with Amendments by a Joint Committee, and the number in relation to which a Joint Committee reported that the Order be not approved; and the number of Bills introduced for the confirmation of Special Procedure Order:
    Of Special Procedure Orders which, in Session 1980–81, were referred to a Joint Committee, together with the names of the Commons Members who served on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each such Member attended.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

ENERGY

  Pressurised Water Reactor (Sizewell)
  Mr. Ennals
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will take steps to publish the pressurised water reactor safety documents in relation to the Sizewell public inquiry.

  Mr. John Moore:
  The then Secretary of State told the House—[18 December 1979, c. 291.] —that the principal documentation on safety will be made available to the public inquiry. I understand that the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate intend to publish reports as soon as practicable and well in advance of the public inquiry.

  Fuel Charges
  Mr. Arthur Lewis
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether, in view of Her Majesty's Government's announcement of a 4 per cent. salary and wage increase limit in the public sector, he will take action to limit any increases in fuel charges for coal, gas and electricity to 4 per cent.

  Mr. Lawson:
  No: the financial and economic considerations involved are different. In any even, the 4 per cent. pay factor announced on 15 September is a broad measure of what the Government think reasonable and can be afforded as a general allowance for increases in public services pay at the present stage of planning public expenditure: it does not imply that all public service pay increases will or should be 4 per cent.—some may be less and some may be more.

  Gas Appliances
  Mr. Greville Janner
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied with the standards and frequency of inspection of gas appliances and with the standard of their installation.

  Mr. John Moore:
  The installation of gas appliances is dealt with in the Gas Safety Regulations 1972. A person installing a gas appliance has to be "a competent person" and has to comply with those regulations. Any person failing to comply with the regulations is liable to prosecution. After installation the responsibility for ensuring that appliances are inspected and serviced rests with the consumer. Any person who knowingly uses or permits the use of an unsafe appliance also commits an offence against those regulations.

  Under the Gas Safety (Rights of Entry) Regulations 1976 authorised officers of the British Gas Corporation have a right to enter customers' premises to examine gas appliances for the purpose of ensuring that the Gas Safety Regulations have been complied with, and, subject to a right of appeal, such an officer may disconnect an
  344
  appliance if he considers it necessary to do so to avert danger to life or property. Except in an emergency, this right of entry is only exercisable with the consent of the customer or pursuant to a magistrate's warrant, the issue of which could only be justified if public safety were at risk. I believe that the above procedures are satisfactory.

  Paraffin
  Mr. Skinner
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the rise in the cost of paraffin and introduce a subsidy for those who use paraffin as a main source of heating.

  Mr. Gray:
  Increases in premium paraffin wholesale prices since 1979 have largely reflected increased sterling crude oil costs. In addition, there have been increased unit supply costs as sales have fallen; certain cost increases specific to paraffin production and supply; and normal cost inflation. Paraffin retail prices are set by the retailers concerned, who must have regard to increases in the wholesale price and in their own unit supply costs.

  The four United Kingdom manufacturers of premium paraffin gave assurances in 1979 that future wholesale prices would reflect no more than the additional cost of supply compared with the cost of supplying the regular grade. I am satisfied that these assurances have been honoured.

  Assistance towards meeting fuel costs—including paraffin costs—is already available through the social security system.

  Coal Deposits (South Warwickshire)
  Mr. Pawsey
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is now in a position to make a statement about the National Coal Board's intentions in South Warwickshire, in the light of the substantial deposits of coal existing in this area; what is the scale of the deposits; and whether they can be exploited from existing coalfields.

  Mr. John Moore:
  This is a matter for the National Coal Board which is, I understand, currently evaluating the results of exploration work in South Warwickshire.

  Natural Gas (Definition)
  Mr. Skeet
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he proposes to re-define natural gas for the purpose of the proposed legislation to cover specification gas only.

  Mr. John Moore:
  No.

  British Gas Corporation
  Mr. Arnold
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy, further to his statement of 19 October, Official Report, column 21, when he intends to seek powers to require the British Gas Corporation to proceed with the sale of its showrooms.

  Mr. John Moore:
  I have nothing further to add to my reply of 19 October to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers).

  Electricity Generation
  Mr. Cook
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the total amount of electricity in megawatt-hours generated to date by (a) Calder Hall and (b) Chapelcross power stations.

  Mr. Mellor:
  By the end of September 1981 Calder Hall and Chapelcross power stations had generated totals of 37,261 and 37,645 thousand megawatt hours respectively.

  Mr. Cook
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the total amount of electricity generated in megawatt-hours to date by all the United Kingdom's Magnox stations, other than Calder Hall and Chapelcross.

  Mr. Mellor:
  The total was 415,777 thousand megawatt hours to the end of September 1981.

  Domestic Gas Supply
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy what figures are available for the numbers and proportions of households in the United Kingdom not connected to a gas supply; if he will take steps to enable the British Gas Corporation to make gas available to more households; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Moore:
  The British Gas Corporation has no statutory duties in respect of Northern Ireland. Of an estimated total of just over 20 million households in Great Britain, approximately 5 million do not have a gas supply. The British Gas Corporation has a statutory obligation to supply up to 25,000 therms of gas a year to any premises situated within 25 yards of a suitable main and it is already empowered to make connections outside that limit where it is economic to do so. The total number of new connections to domestic premises in 1980–81 was 236,000. I have no plans to extend the corporation's obligation to supply.

  Heat and Power Schemes
  Mr. Allen McKay
  asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the present position of Government plans to effect the installation of combined heat and power schemes.

  Mr. Mellor:
  Work is progressing with the market and engineering surveys for the CHP/DH feasibility programme announced by my hon. Friend, the Under-Secretary of State on 23 June. These surveys will assist the lead consultant, W. S. Atkins and Partners, in making comparisons between the nine locations being studied in detail and in preparing recommendations to the Government about the next stage of the programme. W. S. Atkins and Partners now expects to present its report by February 1982.

PALACE OF WESTMINISTER

  State Opening of Parliament
  Mr. Garel-Jones
  asked the Lord President of the Council whether the State opening of Parliament on 4 November 1981 will be televised.

  Mr. Pym:
  Following previous precedents, arrangements are being made for the opening ceremony on 4
  346
  November 1981 to be televised. In addition, authority has been given for the ceremony to be filmed for newsreel purposes.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Members (Redundancy Pay)
  Mr. Arthur Lewis
  asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will take steps to improve the redundancy or severance pay of hon. Members using a rate similar to the scheme currently operating for dockers.

  Mr. Pym:
  No. As I told the hon. Member on 22 January, the House decided on the appropriate level of severance pay for hon. Members when it voted for the existing arrangements on 4 March 1980.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Capital Gains Tax
  Mr. Charles Irving
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the cost of collecting capital gains tax; and how much is produced by capital gains tax in a full year.

  Mr. Proctor
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the present yield from capital gains tax; and what is the cost of its collection.

  Mr. Ridley:
  The figures for 1980–81, the last full year for which information is available, are as follows:
  Net yield £508 million;
  Estimated cost of collection £l3.1 million.

  Mortgages (Tax Relief)
  Mr. Proctor
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the cost to the Treasury of tax relief on mortgages and the cost of the Exchequer subsidy on council houses; and by what amount the basic rate of tax would be reduced if both were abolished.

  Mr. Ridley:
  The latest year for which estimates of both items are available is 1980–81, when the cost of tax relief on mortgage interest was put at £1,960 million, and the cost of housing subsidies—subsidies to local authority and new town housing, excluding rent rebates, but including option mortgage subsidy—at £2,200 million. On the basis of these estimates, the basic rate of income tax could be reduced by 4½p.

  VCB(4), Customs and Excise
  Mr. Kilroy-Silk
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will seek to replace work being lost to VCB(4) of Customs and Excise by transferring other work to Bootle.

  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne:
  The reduction of work in VCB(4) is part of a continual process of increasing the efficiency of the administration of value added tax. In 1981–82 this will lead to a loss of eight posts, slightly less than a strict pro rata share of the reduction for the whole of VAT control division B, over two-thirds of which is located at Southend. Customs and Excise will continue to consider Bootle as the location for new headquarters work provided that this can be done without impairing the operational efficiency of the department.

  Value Added Tax Headquarters (Liverpool)
  Mr. Kilroy-Silk
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the future of the value added tax headquarters in Liverpool and the 320 jobs involved.

  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne:
  As I have indicated in my reply to the previous question, that part of the Customs and Excise headquarters which is located in Liverpool is not under threat. However, as with any other part of the Civil Service, it cannot be exempted from the search for increased efficiency and must expect to bear its share of any savings that are made.

  Stamp Duty
  Mr. Adley
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of domestic property transactions were eligible for payment of stamp duty by individual purchasers in 1980; and what was the relevant percentage in 1950, 1960 and 1970.

  Mr. Ridley:
  I shall let my hon. Friend have a reply as soon as possible.

  Mr. Adley
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer at what price level stamp duty was payable on domestic property transactions when it was first introduced; and what would be the qualifying figure now if full account were taken for inflation since the date of introduction.

  Mr. Ridley:
  The stamp duty thresholds apply to transfers of all property other than stocks and shares, and transfers of residential property are not treated distinctively. Stamp duty was payable on all levels of value until August 1958 when an exemption threshold of £3,500 was introduced. The minimum chargeable value has changed several times since then. The various exemption limits, together with their current values after adjusting for inflation by reference to the most recent figures available for the movement in (a) the retail prices index and (b) the Building Societies Association's figures of average house prices, are as follows:

  Original Threshold

  Revalorised (a) RPI

  Threshold (b) House Prices

  £

  £

  £

  August 1958

  3,500

  21,920

  36,030

  August 1963

  4,500

  25,220

  35,000

  August 1967

  5,500

  26,710

  32,720

  August 1972

  10,000

  34,880

  31,170

  May 1974

  15,000

  41,960

  34,330

  May 1980

  20,000

  22,870

  21,530

  Value Added Tax
  Mr. McQuarrie
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire East of 23 October on the payment of value added tax by the Spastics Society, if he will consider granting relief to all charitable organisations which are engaged in working with the disabled.

  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne:
  I shall let my hon. Friend have a reply as soon as possible.

  "Public Money"
  Mr. Ian Lloyd
  asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table giving a detailed breakdown of the item "subsidies and grants£38.6 billion" given in
  348
  table 2 of the article "Public Money" in Issue No. 137 of the Treasury economic progress report, classifying individually any item over £5 million to any single recipient, under the following headings: local authorities, nationalised industries—by industry—other partly of wholly owned public authorities or organisations, private organisations or companies in which the State has less than 50 per cent. of the issued share or debenture capital, other organisations, individuals and bodies.

  Mr. Brittan
  [pursuant to his reply, 22 October 1981, c. I69]: Information on current grants and subsidies by individual recipients is not held centrally. The following table gives more detail of the items concerned.

  £ billion

  Social security

  27.0

  Housing subsidies (including rent rebates and allowances, and option mortgages)

  2.6

  Grants to universities etc.

  1.2

  Student grants

  1.0

  Subsidy to British Rail

  0.8

  Other transport subsidies

  0.7

  Overseas aid

  0.7

  Agricultural subsidies

  0.6

  European Community contribution

  0.5

  Special employment measures

  0.5

  Redundancy fund, maternity fund benefits

  0.4

  Manpower Services Commission

  0.4

  Other

  2.2

  Total

  38.6

WALES

  Housing Development (Harlech)
  Mr. Ray Powell
  asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will review his decision to allow the housing development for Harlech to go ahead.

  Mr. Michael Roberts:
  No. I see no reason to do so.

CIVIL SERVICE

  Home Transfers (Salary Advances)
  Mr. Forman
  asked the Minister for the Civil Service whether she will make a statement about the limits imposed on the advance of salary available to civil servants who have to move their homes as a result of being transferred in the public interest to a new place of work which is not within travelling distance of their old home.

  Mr. Hayhoe:
  A civil servant who is obliged to move home on transfer in the public interest to a new place of work may be eligible for an advance of salary if the net proceeds of the sale of the existing property, if any, and the maximum mortgage available from commercial sources is not sufficient to cover the cost of a suitable property at the new station. The maximum advance payable within upper and lower limits is six months' pay, and this remains unchanged. The limits are adjusted from time to time in line with salary and house price movements. The upper limit will be revised to £9,500 with a further £1,000 for tranfers into London. The lower figure will be £3,375 plus an additional £1,000 for transfers into London.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Food Aid
  Mr. Hooley
  asked the Lord Privy Seal what was the total value of the European Economic Community food aid programme in each of the years 1975 to 1980 at current prices expressed in £ sterling.

  Mr. Neil Marten
  [pursuant to the reply, 21 October 1981, c. 136]: The cost of the European Community food aid programmes in each of the years 1975 to 1980 was as follows:

  Year

  £ million

  1975

  97

  1976

  73

  1977

  120

  1978

  163

  1979

  143

  1980

  188

  Mr. Hooley
  asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will list the aggregate value of contracts for food aid under the EEC food aid programme secured by each member State of the EEC in 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981 so far.

  Mr. Neil Marten
  [pursuant to the reply, 21 October 1981, c. 136.]: The Information is not available in the form requested. The Court of Auditors of the European Communities has published details of expenditure on food aid as follows:

  Country

  1978

  1979

  MEUA

  £ million

  MEUA

  £ million

  Belgium

  64.1

  42.56

  108.9

  7.04

  Denmark

  0.1

  0.07

  17.7

  11.44

  France

  129.4

  85.92

  100.2

  64.77

  Germany

  192.0

  127.49

  219.0

  14.16

  Ireland

  17.9

  11.89

  21.9

  14.16

  Italy

  43.5

  28.9

  21.4

  13.83

  Luxembourg

  0.9

  0.6

  6.8

  4.4

  Netherlands

  67.6

  44.89

  42.4

  27.41

  United Kingdom

  3.5

  2.32

  3.6

  2.33

  Information for 1980 and 1981 is not yet available.

  Mr. Hooley
  asked the Lord Privy Seal (1) what contracts for the supply of food have been secured by British suppliers under the EEC food aid programme in 1979, 1980 and 1981 so far;

  (2) what are the main foodstuffs supplied by British producers under the EEC food aid programme in each of the years 1979, 1980 and 1981 so far.

  Mr. Neil Marten
  [pursuant to the reply, 21 October 1981, c. 136]: The information is as follows:

  Year†

  Commodity

  ‡No. of Contracts

  **Total Value of Contracts

  £

  1979

  Butter

  1

  1,530

  Skimmed Milk Powder

  3

  ,172,564

  1980

  Butter

  1

  904,999

  Butteroil

  1

  462,800

  Skimmed Milk Powder

  9

  1,945,702

  1981*

  Butter

  1

  765,450

  Skimmed Milk Powder

  7

  4,619,450

  Wheat

  2

  1,366,743

  Wheat Flour

  3

  350

  * To 9 October 1981.

  † Years relate to the calendar year in which expenditure was incurred by the United Kingdom Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce.

  ‡ No information is available about contracts awarded to British suppliers by intervention agencies in other member States.

  ** Commodities bought on the Community market are valued at world market prices; i.e. net of export refunds; but no value is attributed to commodities removed from intervention.

TRADE

  Non-strategic Exports
  Mr. Lyell
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade what progress has been made in obtaining United States agreement to the export to China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Warsaw Pact countries of nonstrategic high technology products manufactured in the United Kingdom and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Rees:
  Exports of high technology products are subject to restriction only when considered strategically sensitive. Such restrictions are operated in concert with our allies and are the subject of continuing discussion. A major review is due in autumn 1982. Since the invasion of Afghanistan, controls on exports to the Soviet Union have been tightened.

  One-day Markets
  Mr. Speller
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will seek powers to ban the one-day markets that sell goods which do not conform to fair trading legislation and whose vendors have disappeared by the time the customer seeks restitution.

  Mrs. Sally Oppenheim:
  No. The existing law already provides a number of ways of tackling abuse. The Director General of Fair Trading, for example, is required to collect evidence of practices which may adversely affect the interests of consumers and has certain powers to initiate action in relation to such practices. Local trading standards departments have powers to prosecute traders who commit offences under the Trade Descriptions Act, the Mock Auctions Act and certain other consumer protection legislation.

  I can assure my hon. Friend that I share his concern. I know that the Director General is aware of the problems which arose at one-day markets in my hon. Friend's constituency and elsewhere in Devon this summer and of the prosecutions which ensued. He is keeping a close watch on the situation but does not consider that any new legislation would be justified at this stage. He has already recommended the adoption of local codes of practice by those hiring out premises where one-day sales present local problems and has indicated to me that he will be prepared to use his powers to the full where evidence justifies action against individual traders.

  Electrical Appliances (Imports)
  Mr. Gregor MacKenzie
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade what representations he has received from manufacturers of domestic electrical appliances concerning imports of such goods; and what response he has given.

  Mr. Peter Rees:
  I shall reply to the right hon. Member as soon as possible.

  Cars (Prices)
  Mr. Grist
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade (1) if he will refer to the Director General of Fair Trading the differences in retail prices charged for cars reimported to the United Kingdom from other EEC countries compared with the recommended retail price charged for the same cars sold in the United Kingdom without having been reimported;

  (2) if he will refer to the Director General of Fair Trading the differences in retail prices charged for cars imported into the United Kingdom from other EEC countries compared with those charged for the same cars elsewhere in the Community.

  Mr. Peter Rees:
  I have no plans at present to refer these prices to the Director General of Fair Trading for investigation under section 13 of the Competition Act 1980.

  Mr. Grist
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade why new British-made cars are sold cheaper in other countries of the EEC than in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Peter Rees:
  Car prices in particular markets are essentially a matter for the commercial judgment of the companies concerned. I should be concerned if there were any evidence of unfair trading practices lying behind price differentials. International comparisons are always subject to the exchange rates, which can change markedly.

  Mr. Grist
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether the prices of British car exports to the European Economic Community have led any other member country to make representations on the basis of dumping.

  Mr. Peter Rees:
  I am not aware of any such representations.

  Printing Equipment (Imports)
  Mr. Proctor
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade what is the cost of equipment imported for the United Kingdom printing industry.
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  Mr. Peter Rees:
  I shall reply to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

  Commercial Road Vehicles (Non-tariff Barriers)
  Mr. Grist
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade what non-tariff barriers are placed in the way of imports and reimports of commercial road vehicles to the United Kingdom from other EEC countries: and to what extent these barriers relate to the prices to be charged in the United Kingdom market.

  Mr. Peter Rees:
  National type approval for commercial vehicles, which is shortly to be introduced, is intended to improve road safety standards. The Government are looking towards the harmonisation of all vehicle regulations within the Community. It is not clear whether remaining differences between standards for commercial vehicles in individual European Community countries have a bearing on prices in force.

  British Ships (Registration)
  Mr. Adley
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade what progress has been made on the review of the legislation relating to the registration of British ships.

  Mr. Sproat:
  A consultative document was issued on 5 October 1981. A copy of that document is available in the Library.

  Exports (Sudan)
  Mr. Lyell
  asked the Secretary of State for Trade what representations he has received concerning risks to the continuance of the export trade by United Kingdom pharmaceutical manufacturers and other export trades to the Sudan as a result of the proposed withdrawal by the Export Credits Guarantee Department of cover other than in cases where business is covered by confirmed irrevocable letter of credit; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Rees:
  I shall reply to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Prisoners (Escapes)
  Dr. Summerskill
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many convicted prisoners have escaped from (i) police and (ii) prison custody during 1980 and 1981.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The information in respect of escapes from police custody is not collected centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. As to the escapes from prison custody, the information is not readily available in precisely the form requested, but figures for the total number of prisoners who escaped during 1980 and the first nine months of 1981 are given in the following table.

  1980

  1981

  Escapes from

  Male

  Female

  Male

  Female

  Closed establishments for adults or young prisoners

  74

  —

  49

  1

  Open establishments for adults or young prisoners

  385

  88

  263

  31

  Closed establishments for young offenders

  105

  —

  79

  —

  Open establishments for young offenders

  1,095

  53

  728

  5

  Escapes from escorts and supervised working parties

  108

  5

  135

  2

  The figures include absconding from open establishments and from supervised working parties.

  Prisoners (Sentence Statistics)
  Mr. Knox
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the number of persons at present serving prison sentences of (a) up to 6 months, (b) 6 to 12 months, (c) 1 to 3 years, (d) 3 to 10 years, (e) 10 to 20 years and (f) 20 to 30 years.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The information requested is given in the following table:

  Population of persons under sentence* of imprisonment in prison department establishments in England and Wales on 31 August 1981: by length of sentence

  Length of sentence

  Estimated number of persons†

  Up to and including 6 months

  5,500

  Over 6 months up to and including 12 months

  4,500

  Over 12 months up to and including 3 years

  10,900

  Over 3 years up to and including 10 years

  5,600

  Over 10 years up to and including 20 years

  400

  Over 20 years up to and including 30 years

  **

  Over 30 years‡

  1,700

  Total

  28,500

  * Includes persons imprisoned in default of payment of a fine; excludes those sentenced to borstal training or given a detention center order.

  † Rounded estimates. Components do not add to the total because they have been rounded independently.

  ‡ Including life sentences and those prisoners detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure.

  ** About 10 people only in this group.

  354
  Mr. Proctor
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons are in prison having committed offences which involve fraud in claiming supplementary benefit or other abuses; and what is the cost of these persons' imprisonment.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The information collected centrally does not distinguish between different types of offences of fraud. The numbers in prison department establishments in England and Wales on 30 June 1980 who had been sentenced for offences of fraud is published in table 1.5 of "Prison statistics, England and Wales", Cmnd. 8372. Information on the average cost of maintaining an inmate in custody in the financial year 1979–80 is published in paragraphs 101–2 and appendix No. 6 of the "Report on the work of Prison Department 1980", Cmnd. 8228; average costs are not available separately for different categories of prisoner.

  Local Authorities (Emergency Planning Staff)
  Mr. Pawsey
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department which, if any, local authorities have increased their emergency planning staff and by how many as a result of the increased funding now made available.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  During the current financial year approval has so far been given for the following increases in local authority emergency planning staff:

  Local Authority

  Additional No. of Staff

  Bedfordshire

  3

  Berkshire

  1

  Cheshire

  4

  Cornwall

  4

  Derbyshire

  6

  Devon

  3

  Dorset

  3

  GLC

  8

  Hampshire

  1

  Hertfordshire

  5

  Humberside

  4

  Isle of Wight

  1

  Leicestershire

  3

  Lincolnshire

  4

  Greater Manchester

  5

  Merseyside

  5

  Northamptonshire

  3

  Northumberland

  2

  Shropshire

  3

  Somerset

  2

  Sussex (East)

  4

  Surrey

  5

  Wiltshire

  2

  Yorkshire (North)

  4

  Civil Defence
  Mr. Pawsey
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department which local authorities have said they will not take part in civil defence exercises; and what steps he proposes to take to provide civil defence for these areas.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  Local authorities are not required to notify the Home Office if they decide not to participate in local civil defence exercises. Cleveland, Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire county councils have declined to take part in "Hard Rock 82", a national civil and military home defence exercise which will take place from 29 September to 5 October 1982.
  355
  Failure to participate in exercises does not mean that no civil defence planning takes place in that authority.

  Glue Sniffing
  Mr. Greenway
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will seek powers to ban the sale of those glues which have an intoxicating effect, to all persons below the age of 18 years.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  No. My right hon. Friend considers that the disadvantages of such a course, including the possibility of the users turning towards even more dangerous substances, outweigh any advantage there might be.

  Prisoners (Clothing)
  Mr. Grist
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether prisoners in prisons in Great Britain will be permitted to wear their own clothes.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  Remand prisoners and female prisoners in England and Wales are allowed to wear their own clothes. There are no plans to extend these arrangements.

  Exorcism and Black Magic
  Mr. Cartwright
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will seek powers to regulate the activities of organisations or individuals claiming to offer an exorcism service to the public;

  (2) if he will seek powers to control the activities of organisations or individuals seeking to involve members of the public in black magic or witchcraft.

  Mr. Raison:
  We have received no recent representations about the practices referred to by the hon. Member and are not aware of any evidence that would justify the introduction of legislation of the kind he envisages.

  Prisoners (Suicides)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East, Official Report, 28 July, column 388, if he is yet able to make a statement on changes in the guidance issued to prison staff about suicides and attempted suicides.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  A circular instruction was issued to staff in August. A copy is in the Library of the House and I sent the hon. Member a copy on 4 September.

  Police and Fire Services (Pay)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the current salaries for (a) a police recruit and (b) an 18 year-old in the fire service; and how this compares with each of the last three years.

  Mr. Whitelaw:
  I shall write to the hon. Member.

  Data Protection
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has had calling for an independent data protection authority; and what is his policy towards the setting up of such an authority.

  Mr. Whitelaw:
  I announced the Government's proposals for legislation on data protection in reply to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr.
  356
  Proctor) on 19 March. I have since received a number of representations in favour of the establishment of a data protection authority. I hope shortly to be in a position to publish a White Paper setting out the Government's proposals in more detail.

  Prisoners (Statistics)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he intends to collect detailed statistics about the ethnic origins of people in prison; if so, for what purpose and to what use they will be put; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  Subject to a satisfactory outcome of a feasibility study to be carried out shortly, my right hon. Friend hopes to start in 1982 the central collection of information on the ethnic origins of those received into Prison Department establishments. This would make it possible for example to assess the implications for the regimes of the various establishments of the ethnic origins of prisoners.

  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give details about the proportion of prisoners from ethnic minorities currently in each prison in England and Wales.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  This information is not at present collected centrally.

  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were in prison at the latest available date; and how many he estimates will be in prison in April 1982.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The number of inmates in prison department establishments in England and Wales on 23 October was about 44,000. The latest available projections, which were made at the end of 1980 and do not take account of changes in policy or practice since 1980, were given in reply to the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Young) on 23 July.—[Vol. 9, c. 206.] It is not possible to give a reliable estimate of the population to be expected in April 1982 or any other specific date.

  Young Offender System (Black Persons)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to be able to publish his study on black people in the young offender system; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The report of a study on ethnic minorities in borstals is currently being prepared for printing and we hope that copies will be available through the Home Office library by the end of the year.

  Parole
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will instruct the Parole Board to give its reasons for refusal to grant parole; and if he will introduce opportunities for prisoners to appeal against refusal.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  No. My right hon. Friend agrees with the Parole Board that the giving of reasons would be incompatible with the present parole scheme. I would refer the hon. Member to paragraphs 72 to 81 and apprendix M in the "Review of Parole in England and Wales" published by the Home Office in May.
  357
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any new proposals to extend parole to prisoners on shorter sentences.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The review of parole made clear the difficulties in the way of applying parole as such to those serving shorter sentences, and for this reason canvassed an alternative possibility.

  Sentencing Policy
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent the evidence available to him indicates that longer sentences are more effective in reducing further offences than short ones.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The available evidence does not suggest that longer sentences are more effective in reducing reoffending than shorter sentences.

  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to reduce the number of offenders sentenced to imprisonment and the length of sentences.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  As I made clear during Question Time on 22 October we are considering measures designed to reduce the prison population by reinforcing the move towards shorter sentences, information on which is to be found in chapter 7 of "Criminal Statistics for England and Wales 1980" Cmnd. 8367.

  Short-term Prisoners
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce automatic release on licence for short-term prisoners.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  We are considering the comments we have received to the proposal for a scheme on these lines canvassed in the review of parole earlier this year.

  Amusement machines
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to enable local authorities to control the introduction of prizes machines into specified premises and to prohibit amusement arcades in certain areas where local authorities consider these to be detrimental to the interests of the area and its inhabitants.

  Mr. Whitelaw:
  Local authorities already have power under the Gaming Act 1968 to refuse to grant or renew permits for amusements with prizes machines in specified classes of premises. This power does not extend to premises used wholly or mainly for the provision of amusements, but under the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976 local authorities have power in certain circumstances to refuse to grant or renew permits for such places. I have no present plans for changes in the law in this area.

  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to enable local authorities to regulate the installation and use of electronic amusement machines in premises open to the public.

  Mr. Whitelaw
  Electronic amusement machines which do not give prizes do not fall within the ambit of the gaming laws. I do not consider that it would be appropriate to extend this legislation outside the field of gambling.

  Drugs
  Mr. Charles R. Morris
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of people registered as drug addicts for the years 1978, 1979 and 1980.

  Mr. Whitelaw:
  The numbers of narcotic drug addicts known to the Home Office are published in Home Office statistical bulletin 15/81, "Statistics of the misuse of drugs in the United Kingdom, 1980". There were 2,402, 2,666 and 2,846 respectively at 31 December 1978, 1979 and 1980.

  Mr. Charles R. Morris
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the percentage increase in known drug abuse in the Greater Manchester area for the years 1978, 1979 and 1980.

  Mr. Whitelaw:
  I shall write to the right hon. Member.

  Mr. Charles R. Morris
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were found guilty of offences involving controlled drugs in the years 1978, 1979 and 1980.

  Mr. Whitelaw:
  The number of persons found guilty of offences involving controlled drugs are published in Home Office statistical bulletin, 15/81, "Statistics of the misuse of drugs in the United Kingdom, 1980". There were 13,394, 14,054 and 16,919 respectively in the years 1978, 1979 and 1980.

  Mr. Charles R. Morris
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the figures for deaths from drug addiction during the years 1978, 1979 and 1980.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  I have been asked to reply.

  The numbers of deaths assigned to drug dependence (International Classification of Diseases [ICD] No. 304) in England and Wales were as follows:

  1978

  106

  1979

  111

  1980

  89

  A revision of the ICD operated from 1979 and, consequently, the 1979 and 1980 figures are not strictly comparable with 1978. Indications are that they are ten per cent. lower because of the classification change.

  Heroin
  Mr. Charles R. Morris
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many kilogrammes of heroin were seized by Customs officials during the years 1978, 1979 and 1980.

  Mr. Whitelaw:
  The quantities of heroin seized by officers of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise during the years 1978, 1979 and 1980 were 59kg, 43kg and 36kg respectively.

  Criminal Law Act 1977 (Sentencing)
  Mr. Dubs
  asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his assessment of the effect on the prison population of the implementation of section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

  Mr. Mayhew:
  The effect of bringing into force section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 depends on the extent to which courts impose partly suspended sentences as an

  359
  alternative to immediate imprisonment rather than fully suspended sentences of imprisonment or non-custodial penalties. On the most favourable assumptions the effect could be a reduction in the prison population of up to 4,000.

INDUSTRY

  Carpet Industry (Financial Support)
  Mr. Bulmer
  asked the Secretary of State for Industry how much money has been given by his Department in

  Section 7: Offers of regional selective assistance

  Section 8: Offers of selective financial assistance

  Number of offers

  Assistance offered £'000

  Number of offers

  Assistance offered £'00

  North-West

  1

  131

  —

  —

  North-West

  12

  990

  11

  46

  Yorkshire-Hmberside

  12

  1,177

  10

  18

  South-West

  —

  —

  4

  30

  London and South-East

  —

  —

  1

  240

  Wales

  *3

  *1,006

  —

  —

  Scotland

  *

  *

  7

  18

  *28

  *3,304

  33

  352

  * Assistance under section 7 of the Industry Act to companies in Wales and Scotland is the responsibility of the Secretaries of State for Wales and Scotland respectively.

  Details of Scottish assistance are given in the answer to the question answered by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher).

  Information relating to regional development grants given to companies in the carpet industry is not readily available and cannot be provided without disproportionate cost.

  Industry Act 1972 (Assistance)
  Mr. Mason
  asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will list the number of applications for Industry Act 1972 section 7 assistance received by his Department from the Barnsley borough council area in 1979, 1980 and 1981, the sums of money involved with each successful application and the dates on which the payments were made.

  Mr. MacGregor:
  Information on individual offers of selective financial assistance under section 7 of the Industry Act 1972 is treated as commercially confidential until the first payment of grant is made when details are published in "British Business" in accordance with arrangements announced by the then Secretary of State for Industry on 31 July 1974. Payments are made singly or in tranches over several years.

  The total number of application and the value of offers in the Barnsley travel to work area—the nearest definable area for which information is available—were as follows:
  360
  financial support to the carpet industry since 1 January 1975; what form this assistance has taken and under which schemes it has been given; and if he will divide the amounts to show how much has been spent in (a) the North of England, (b) the South of England, (c) the West Midlands, (d) Wales and (e) Scotland.

  Mr. MacGregor:
  Selective financial assistance in the form of grants has been made available to companies in the carpet industry under sections 7 and 8 of the Industry Act 1972 for the period 1 January 1975 to 31 August 1981 as follows:

  Number of Applications

  Value of Offers £million

  1979

  9 (8 successful, 1 withdrawn

  1.6

  1980

  1 (withdrawn)

  —

  1981–31 August

  2 (under consideration)

  —

  Loan Guarantee Scheme
  Mr. Beith
  asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he will make arrangements to ensure that his Department is informed of the total number of applications for the loan guarantee scheme received, and refused by the banks concerned.

  Mr. MacGregor:
  No. A key part of the scheme is that the lending appraisal and the decision to lend are taken by the banks in each case. The scheme enables the banks to grant loans which would not have been given in the absence of the scheme, but the reasons for a refusal are a matter for them.

  Cars (Prices)
  Mr. Grist
  asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will take steps to ensure that British car consumers pay prices comparable to those paid by other EEC consumers for the same make and model of car.

  Mr. Wakeham:
  No. Car prices in particular markets are a matter for the commercial judgment of the companies concerned.

  Steel
  Mr. Allen McKay
  asked the Secretary of State for Industry what was the total import of steel each year from 1977 to date, by category and tonnage; from which country the steel was imported by category and tonnage; and what is his estimate of job loss in the steel industry caused by steel imports.

  Mr. Wakeham:
  A summary analysis giving annual information in respect of 21 finished steel products and 42 countries or groups of countries is prepared by the Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau—ISSB—from the detailed overseas trade statistics. The information is given in the appropriate ISSB publication "Iron and Steel Industry: Annual Statistics for the United Kingdom", copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  On the final part of the question, the information requested is not available.

  Liverpool-Belfast Ferry
  Mr. Parry
  asked the Secretary of State for Industry what representations he has received concerning the proposed closure of the Liverpool to Belfast ferry; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [pursuant to his reply, 27 October 1981]: My right hon. Friend has received one letter from an hon. Member, which has been transferred to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, as he has responsibility for this matter.

SCOTLAND

  Unemployed Persons
  Mr. Gregor MacKenzie
  asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish in the Official Report the percentage figures for male and female unemployed in the Glasgow travel-to-work area as at June 1979 and similar information for the latest convenient date.

  Mr. Younger:
  The information is set out in the following table:

  Percentage rate of registered unemployed in the Glasgow travel-to-work area

  Males

  Females

  June 1979

  11.0

  6.5

  October 1981

  19.9

  10.8

  Note: Figures are not seasonally adjusted.

  Mr. Gregor MacKenzie
  asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many men, women and young persons were registered as unemployed in Rutherglen and Cambuslang, respectively, in June 1979; what are the comparable figures in these two areas at the latest convenient date; and how many of the three groups have been unemployed for more than six months.

  Mr. Younger:
  Information is not available in the precise form requested. The following table gives the number of males and females registered as unemployed in Rutherglen and Cambuslang in June 1979 and October 1981.
  362

  Rutherglen

  Cambuslang

  June 1979

  October 1981

  June 1979

  October 1981

  Males

  2,471

  4,981

  693

  1,368

  Females

  1,075

  2,061

  289

  609

  The following table gives details of unemployment analysed by age and duration in July 1979, the nearest date to June 1979 for which information is available, and in July 1981, the latest date for which information is available.

  Rutherglen

  Cambuslang

  Total Unemployed

  Unemployed for 6 months or more

  Total Unemployed

  Unemployed for 6 months or more

  July 1979

  Adult Males

  2,096

  1,088

  612

  349

  Adult Females

  843

  347

  256

  71

  Young Persons (Under 18)

  256

  63

  340

  21

  July 1981

  Adult Males

  4,316

  2,736

  1,238

  819

  Adult Females

  1,679

  858

  554

  296

  Young Persons (Under 18)

  380

  110

  315

  26

  Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries
  Mr. George Robertson
  asked the Secretary of State for Scotland (l) how many organisations were invited to submit views on the consultation on the review of the present law and administration on salmon and freshwater fisheries; and how many of them were in the categories of salmon fishing and freshwater angling;

  (2) when he expects to complete his consultation on the review of the present law and administration in salmon and freshwater fisheries; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) how many representations he has received on his consultative document on the review on the present law and administration of freshwater fisheries; from whom they have been received; and what has been the balance of views.

  Mr. Younger:
  The Government's intention to review the administration of and legislation on salmon and freshwater fisheries was announced in November 1979. A consultation paper was issued in December 1979 to bodies in Scotland with either a direct or indirect interest in salmon and freshwater fisheries. The review has not been rushed and it has been made quite clear that anyone with an interest in the subject matter could offer comments. The document has received a good deal of interest in fishery and angling circles and has been made freely available to anyone who asked for a copy.

  I have so far received 54 written comments from national, regional and district organisations, local clubs and individuals representing a comprehensive range of those concerned with salmon and freshwater fish or related matters.

  The review is not yet complete, but it has revealed widely differing views. Some have broadly endorsed the proposals for change though in some cases subject to a number of qualifications—for example, on the number and composition of area boards. Others, notably a number of

  363
  the freshwater and angling interests, have indicated strong resistance to the concept of both area boards and rod licences.

DEFENCE

  Combat Aircraft
  Mrs. Knight
  asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he estimates that her Majesty's Government and the Governments of France and West Germany will be able to work out common specifications for the future combat aircraft; whether an agreement on the specifications of this aircraft is imminent; and whether the extension of European co-operation to other types of aircraft, including helicopters and a transport aircraft, is being considered.

  Mr. Pattie:
  We are continuing discussions with potential partners on future combat aircraft, but it is too early to say what the outcome will be. Opportunities for European collaboration on future weapon systems, including helicopters and, in the much longer term, for transport aircraft, are under constant review.

  Missile Siting
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement regarding his discussions with his North Atlantic Treaty Organisation colleagues on the siting of United States missiles in Europe.

  Mr. Nott:
  At the meeting of the NATO nuclear planning group at Gleneagles on 20 and 21 October, Ministers noted with concern that the imbalance in favour of the Soviet Union in long-range theatre nuclear forces has not only continued but worsened. Against this background they emphasised that NATO will continue to move ahead with the December 1979 two-track decision to modernise the Alliance's long-range theatre nuclear forces while seeking arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union on theatre nuclear forces. The full text of the final communiqué has been placed in the Library of the House.

  United Arab Emirates (Aircraft Sales)
  Sir Timothy Kitson
  asked the Secretary of State for Defence what progress has been made with the sale of 30 British Aerospace Hawks to the United Arab Emirates announced by the Prime Minister on 23 April 1981; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Pattie:
  Negotiations continue on the detail of the contract.

  Commissioned Officers (Social Representation)
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts
  asked the Secretary of State for Defence what study he has made of the evidence supplied
  364
  to him indicating 82 per cent. of officers passing out from Sandhurst come from independent schools and over 34 per cent. from 14 particular public schools; if he will take steps to ensure that commissioned officers in the Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force are more socially representative; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wiggin:
  No such evidence has been supplied to me. Applications for commissions are encouraged from suitable candidates from schools of all types and acceptance depends entirely upon their ability to meet the high standards of an officer. No distinction is made between applicants from the State and independent sectors.

  Western European Union
  Mrs. Knight
  asked the Secretary of State for Defence if he is satisfied that the present structure of West European Union meets the requirements of the modified Brussels Treaty; or, if not, whether any adaptation to new requirements is proposed.

  Mr. Humphrey Atkins:
  I have been asked to reply.

  Her Majesty's Government continue to attach importance to Western European Union and have no plans to seek amendment of the modified Brussels Treaty. The Government have, however, noted the Assembly's view, as expressed in its recommendation 365, that resources of the individual organs of Western European Union should be redeployed to adapt the latter to present conditions, and are giving careful consideration to this recommendation.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Scottish Universities (Statistics)
  Mr. Ernie Ross
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of academic staff posts in Scottish universities are held by women; and what is the corresponding percentage for heads of department.

  Mr. Waldegrave:
  In 1979–80, the latest year for which figures are available, 9.6 per cent. of academic staff posts—comprising professors, readers, lecturers and assistant lecturers and others—in Scottish universities were held by women. No comparable information exists in respect of heads of departments. However 1.8 per cent. of professors in Scottish universities were women.

  Mr. Ernie Ross
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what were the numbers of both men and women (a) applying for and (b) accepting places at Scottish universities in each of the past five years; and if he will express these figures in percentage terms.

  Mr. Waldegrave:
  The numbers of United Kingdom domiciled men and women applying for and being accepted for places at Scottish universities through the Universities Central Council on Admissions in each of the past five years, are shown in the following table:

  Applicants

  Acceptances

  Per cent.

  Applicants

  Acceptances

  Per cent.

  1976–77

  7,503

  3,365

  44.8

  5,082

  2,374

  46.7

  1977–78

  7,862

  3,653

  46.5

  5,256

  2,545

  48.4

  1978–79

  7,419

  3,697

  49.8

  4,926

  2,654

  53.9

  1979–80

  7,466

  3,659

  49.0

  5,412

  2,643

  48.8

  1980–81

  7,841

  3,816

  48.7

  5,860

  2,886

  49.2

  365
  The figures do not cover all home applications or acceptances as some Scottish universities do not participate fully in the UCCA scheme.

  Mr. Ernie Ross
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will provide a percentage breakdown by sex of the number of postgraduates at Scottish universities in each of the past five years.

  Mr. Waldegrave:
  The information in the following table relates to all postgraduates, both full and part-time, at Scottish universities:

  Men Per cent.

  Women Per cent

  Total number

  1976–77

  75

  25

  7,782

  1977–78

  75

  25

  7,816

  1978–79

  74

  26

  7,848

  1979–80

  73

  27

  7,680

  1980–81

  72

  28

  7,842

  Computing Science
  Mr. Beith
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many students were admitted to the departments of computing science in the British universities in (a) 1980 and (b) 1981; and how many students studied or will study computing science as a subsidiary subject in British universities in (a) 1980 and (b)

  Mr. Waldegrave:
  In the academic year 1980–81, the latest year for which figures are available, 1,912 students were admitted to courses in computer science in United Kingdom universities. No information is available on numbers of students taking computing science as a subsidiary subject.

  University Graduates
  Mr. Knox
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of university graduates in the United Kingdom found first-time employment in industry in the latest year for which figures are available; and how many in the previous five years.

  Mr. Waldegrave:
  For graduates of United Kingdom universities in the academic year 1979–80, 27 per cent. of first degree, and 10 per cent. of higher degree graduates were known to have found permanent home employment in industry and commerce by 31 December 1980. These graduates made up 61 per cent. and 39 per cent. respectively of all who entered permanent home employment. Other graduates may take up further education or training, return to their home country overseas, enter temporary employment or be unemployed. Information for earlier years may be found in the annual publication of the University Grants Committee "Details of First Destinations of University Graduates", copies of which are in the Library.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Russell Johnston
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what rate of reduction in staffing in his Department is proposed for the three years August 1981 to August 1984.

  Sir Keith Joseph:
  The manpower target for the Department of Education and Science for 1 April 1984 is
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  2,230 staff in post. No further reduction has been planned for beyond that date. The number of staff in post on 1 August was 2,521.

  School Leavers (International Comparisons)
  Mr. Colvin
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will publish a table showing the percentage of 18-year-olds in higher education in the latest year for which figures are available for the following countries: Sweden, the United States of America, Japan, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Waldegrave:
  The following table shows the percentage of 18-year-olds in higher education in 1976—the latest available year—in the selected countries, as published by the OECD in "Education Statistics in OECD Countries, 1981". Differences in the usual age at which young people enter higher education and the educational systems of the countries underlie the wide range of ratios shown.

  per cent.

  Sweden

  0.3*

  United States of America

  32.2††

  Japan

  40.1

  Belgium

  not available

  France

  10.9†

  Italy

  4.4*‡

  Netherlands

  6.0**

  West Germany

  1.0

  United Kingdom

  7.3††

  * 1975

  † Excludes agricultural education

  ‡ Universities only

  ** Non-universities only

  †† Full-time and part-time

  Schools Council
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the total cost to public funds per annum of the Schools Council.

  Dr. Boyson:
  In 1980–81, the Schools Council received £1,677,000 as a grant in aid from the Department of Education and Science. It also received £1,615,000 from the local authorities, paid as a deduction from rate support grant under the terms of section 56(9) of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list in the Official Report the members of the Schools Council and their respective salaries.

  Dr. Boyson:
  The chairman of the Schools Council and members of its various committees are listed in the council's annual report, which is available in the Library. None receives a salary in respect of service with the Schools Council.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list in the Official Report the reports that have been issued by the Schools Council; and what action has been taken as a result.

  Dr. Boyson:
  The Schools Council's annual reports list the many reports which have been issued by the council or on its behalf. The findings of a study on the impact of

  367
  the council's work form an appendix to the recently published report on the review of the Schools Council by Mrs. N. K. Trenaman.

  British School of Osteopathy
  Mr. Grist
  asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he intends to recognise the qualifications of the British School of Osteopathy for the purpose of making possible local authority discretionary student grants.

  Mr. Waldegrave:
  It is already possible for local education authorities to make discretionary grants to students on courses provided by the British School of Osteopathy, but I cannot at present reconsider the designation of such courses for mandatory awards purposes.

SOCIAL SERVICES

  Constant Attendance Allowance
  Mr. Knox
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people currently receive constant attendance allowance.

  Mr. Rossi:
  There were about 8,400 recipients of constant attendance allowance under the war pensions and industrial injuries schemes on 30 September 1979. My hon. Friend may have in mind also the attendance allowance under the general scheme in respect of which the most recent estimate is that there were 295,000 people in receipt of it on 30 September 1980.

  One-Parent Families
  Mr. Pendry
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, Official Report, 28 November 1980, columns 297–98, he will provide more details of his Department's working calculations of the 900,000 one-parent families in Great Britain, including breakdowns of one-parent families created in the following ways (a) single parenthood, (b) death of a parent, (c) separation and (d) imprisonment of a parent, giving features for the female and male heads of households and dependent children involved in each category.

  Mrs. Chalker:
  I refer the hon. Member to the latest available estimates (referring to mid-1979) of the number of one-parent families by marital status, given in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) on 23 July 1981—[Vol. 9, c. 224–225].

  I would also refer to the final table in my reply to the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) on 23 July 1981 —[Vol. 9, c. 221–224] giving the average numbers of dependent children in one-parent families according to the marital status of the parent. These figures are based on analyses of general household survey data for the years 1978–80.

  Families in which the parents are separated by temporary cirmcustances (such as imprisonment) are not included in the OPCS estimates for numbers of one-parent families.

  Retirement Pensioners (Earnings Rule)
  Mr Proctor
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the cost to the Exchequer of abolishing the earnings rule for retirement pensioners.

  Mr. Rossi:
  The last estimate, made in August 1980, was that the net cost to public funds was about £45 million—at 1979 prices. I refer my hon. Friend to my right hon. Friend's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mrs. Fenner) on 7 August 1980—[Vol. 990, c. 283]. A new estimate on the most up-to-date assumptions is in the course of preparation and I will write to my hon. Friend as soon as it is available.

  Social Security Benefits
  Mr. Ray Powell
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make it his policy to exclude social security benefits from any further reduction in Government expenditure; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Rossi:
  The Government will continue to review the future level of expenditure on social security, along with all other public expenditure programmes, in the light of the prevailing economic circumstances.

  Rickets and Osteomalacia (Asian Community)
  Mr. Alton
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the recrudescence of rickets and osteomalacia within the Asian community and take measures to publicise the dangers of vitamin D deficiency.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  Rickets and osteomalacia among the general population were virtually eradicated in this country in the 1940s and 1950s. The present occurrence of these diseases in Britain is largely confined to relatively small and well defined groups of the population, namely women and children of Asian origin, and the elderly (of all races) who are confined indoors. A health education campaign to combat these diseases in the Asian community was launched nationally in February this year. The campaign which publicises the importance of exposure to sunlight, a balanced diet, and the use of vitamin D supplements in "at risk" groups, has been promoted by the DHSS in partnership with representatives from Asian organisations and the Save the Children Fund, and relies on close collaboration between health authorities and local Asian communities. The local campaign in Merseyside is due to be launched on 1 November and I wish it every success.

  Chase Hospital, Cannock
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will study the problems at the Chase hospital, Cannock, created by a pooled system of clothing for many geriatric long-term patients; if he will take steps to ensure that patients have individual clothing; if he will ensure that similar systems of pooling clothes are not used in other hospitals; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  The Department has encouraged health authorities to provide a personal clothing service for patients in long-stay hospitals although, of course, it is for individual authorities to decide how and when to introduce such a service, bearing

  369
  in mind local priorities. I understand that the Staffordshire area health authority plans to open a laundrette at the Chase hospital, Cannock, in the very near future and that a full personal clothing service will be developed there as soon as staff are available.

  Byssinosis
  Mr. James Lamond
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many cotton workers or former cotton workers are in receipt of disablement benefit for byssinosis.

  Mr. Rossi:
  At 30 September 1979, the latest date for which information is available, there were 3,070 people receiving industrial injuries disablement pension for byssinosis.

  Supplementary Benefit (Fraudulent Claims)
  Mr. Hooley
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, Official Report, 1 June 1981, c. 257, if he will tabulate the benefit irregularities found in the 507 cases of single mothers investigated in the special inquiry in one region between February 1980 and February 1981; and how many of these cases led to withdrawal of benefit or prosecution.

  Mrs. Chalker:
  Records were not maintained to show the nature of the irregularities brought to light in the 507 cases in question. It is known that the majority related to women who, although claiming benefit as single mothers living alone, were not in fact in this category, but were living either with legal husbands or as the wives of other men. Most, if not all, other irregularities were connected with undisclosed work.

  In 421 of the cases, benefit was either terminated or reduced. In the remainder, it was found that benefit had been withdrawn improperly, but the irregularity had terminated and the women were currently entitled to benefit.

  The number of prosecutions arising from these cases, if any, is not known.

  Warrington General Hospital
  Mr. Hoyle
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) when he expects the ophthalmic ward at Warrington general hospital to be opened;

  what was the estimated budget required for fully utilising Warrington general hospital when it opened; how many staff were required overall; what was the staffing and the numbers required in each category; what is the present staffing in each category; and what will be the staffing in each category when the proposed cuts have taken place;

  what is the reduction in the budget at Warrington general hospital; what staff cuts this will involve; what is the reduction in the nursing services budget at Warrington general hospital; and what reduction in the number of nurses this will involve;

  what effect the reduction in staff will have on ward staffing at Warrington general hospital; whether the closure of any wards is proposed; and what will be the effect on services offered to the public;

  370

  whether there are any plans to deploy staff made redundant at Warrington general hospital in any other sector of the National Health Service; and, if so, where.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  This information is not held centrally. It is held by the Cheshire area health authority, which has been asked to contact the hon. Member direct.

  Emphysema and Chronic Bronchitis
  Mr. Wigley
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give an assurance that any change in the definition of industrial disease to include emphysema and chronic bronchitis, when contracted by persons employed in coal mining, will be extended to include those similarly suffering as a result of working as slate quarrymen.

  Mr. Rossi:
  I have no plans to add emphysema or chronic bronchitis to the schedule of diseases prescribed for industrial injuries purposes.

  Industrial Deafness
  Mr. Welsh
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many claims his Department has received for industrial deafness; and how many were successful from 1979–80, 1980–81 and from 1981 to the present.

  Mr. Rossi:
  The information requested is set out in the table below. The occupational deafness scheme was amended on 3 September 1979. The periods selected show the situation since then.

  Period

  Claims made

  Claims allowed

  12 months ending 2 September 1980

  5,253

  838

  12 months ending 1 September 1981

  4,931

  943

  2 September 1981 to 29 September 1981

  327

  69

  Social Security Assistance
  Mrs. Knight
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what rules operate for social security assistance to British citizens arriving in the United Kingdom who possess assets which are frozen in another country and therefore not available to support them.

  Mrs. Chalker:
  The rules regarding the treatment of resources of British citizens arriving in the United Kingdom are the same as those for people who are ordinarily resident in this country. Assets which they possess which are frozen in another country and not therefore available to them would not be taken into account in determining supplementary benefit entitlement. Decisions on individual claims are of course the responsibility of the independent adjudicating authorities, the supplementary benefit officer in the first instance. If my hon. Friend has a particular case in mind and would like to let me have the details, I should be pleased to arrange for it to be looked into.

  Public Service Employees (Pay)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services which groups of public service employees will not necessarily be subject to the 4 per cent. pay norm in the coming pay round.

  Mr. Fowler:
  As was made clear in my right hon. and learned Friend's statement on 15 September, the pay and

  371
  prices factors mentioned in the statement provide a framework for further ministerial decisions to be taken later.

  Invalidity Pensions (Married Women)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East on 6 July, Official Report, c. 32, if the review of the household duties test for non-contributory invalidity pension for married women is yet complete; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Rossi:
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle), on 26 October 1981.

  Dental Therapists
  Mr. George Cunningham
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what recommendations concerning the future of the dental therapists service were made by the Court report of 1976, the Royal Commission of 1979 and the Nuffield report of 1980.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  The Court report recommended the establishment in the provinces of two new training schools, similar in size and approach to the School for Dental Auxiliaries, New Cross.

  The Royal Commission on the National Health Service endorsed the recommendation of the Court committee for an expansion of training facilities for dental auxiliaries.

  The Nuffield report made no specific recommendation on dental therapists but anticipated that changes in their duties would occur to permit them to become even more useful members of the dental team in all branches of the dental services, playing a part in providing routine care for adults as well as children.

  Basic Salary Scales—related to a 37½ hour week from 1 April 1980, and to a 40 hour week prior to that date.

  Incremental Points

  Grade and Operative date

  Min

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Staff Nurse

  1 April 1978

  2,775

  2,906

  2,969

  3,142

  3.265

  3,385

  —

  1 April 1979

  3,020

  3,151

  3,285

  3,418

  3,552

  3,683

  —

  1 April 1980

  4,198

  4,382

  4,566

  4,751

  4,935

  5,119

  —

  1 April 1981

  4,450

  4,645

  4,840

  5,036

  5,231

  5,426

  —

  State Enrolled Nurse

  1 April 1978

  2,500

  2,587

  2,671

  2,758

  2,845

  2,932

  3,016

  1 April 1979

  2,720

  2,815

  2,909

  3,001

  3,095

  3,190

  3,281

  1 April 1980

  3,781

  3,911

  4,041

  4,171

  4,301

  4,431

  4,561

  1 April 1981

  4,008

  4,146

  4,283

  4,421

  4,559

  4,697

  4,835

  Nursing Auxiliary

  1 April 1978

  2,209

  2,272

  2,332

  2,395

  2,458

  2,521

  2,584

  1 April 1979

  2,403

  2,472

  2,540

  2,609

  2,678

  2,746

  2,811

  1 April 1980

  2,965

  3,097

  3,230

  3,362

  3,494

  3,626

  3,790

  1 April 1981

  3,143

  3,283

  3,424

  3,564

  3,704

  3,844

  4,017

  Benefits
  Mr. Rooker
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish in the Official Report the letter sent to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr by the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for
  372
  Mr. George Cunningham
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what indications have been given concerning the possible date for closure of New Cross school for dental therapists.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  No decision has been taken on the recommendation of the Dental Strategy Review Group that the school for dental therapists should be closed.

  Mr. George Cunningham
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services why so little time has been allowed for comments on the proposal in the Dental Strategy Review Group report circulated last month concerning the closure of New Cross school for dental therapists; and if he will give an assurance that no final decision will be taken on this matter until responses to the report have been circulated to interested hon. Members and to the Select Committee on Social Services.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  Comments were requested by the end of October in order that they could be taken into consideration before recruitment started for an intake of students in 1982. Numerous letters are being received and I expect to reach a decision on closure before the end of the year since there would be serious disadvantage in prolonging the period of uncertainty.

  Nurses (Pay)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the current salary of (a) a staff nurse, (b) a State enrolled nurse and (c) an auxiliary nurse; and how this compares with each of the last three years.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  The information requested is shown in the table below. It should be noted that the figures quoted relate to basic salary scales and do not include such allowances as payment for work done during unsocial hours.

  Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker), dated 8 April 1981 about the Prime Minister's pledge on shortfall of social security benefits; and what percentage of the social security budget is made up by the various benefits itemised in the letter before and after the uprating due on 23 November.
  373
  Mrs. Chalker:
  The text of my letter of 8 April 1981 is set out below. The benefits to which it refers account for 63 per cent. of expenditure on social security benefits in 1981–82 and this percentage is not changed by the uprating on 23 November.
  "In the Standing Committee on 26 March I undertook to write to you about the social security benefits covered by the Prime Minister's pledge on shortfall (Standing Committee G, c. 291).This Government is committed to compensate pensioners fully for price increases over the lifetime of this Parliament. This was the pledge repeated by the Prime Minister of 25 February (Vol. 999, c. 371). Pensioners include, in addition to those receiving national insurance retirement pensions, recipients of the following benefits: Widow's pension (including widowed mothers allowance and widow's allowance); industrial death benefit paid by way of a widow's or widower's pension; war disablement pension and industrial injury disablement pension; war widow's pension; attendance allowance, invalid care allowance and non-contributory invalidity pension. Supplementary pension, now aligned with retirement pension, will be similarly protected.Invalidity benefit and unemployability supplement have of course had their uprating abated in 1980 but part of the abatement is to be made good at the 1981 uprating (IVA and its equivalent) and we have given an assurance that the benefits will be restored to the rate of retirement pension when they are brought into tax. The abated rates, transitionally, and the unabated rates thereafter, will be price protected.I am copying this letter to the other members who were on Standing Committee G."

  Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied that the requirements of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act are being met in the London borough of Croydon; what consideration he is giving, in this context, to the higher charges imposed by the council for home helps and to the proposals for further increasing the price of meals on wheels, for making the disabled pay for their bus permits and for charging elderly and disabled people for interviews with social workers; whether the higher charges for home helps are being imposed on disabled people in the borough who are in receipt of supplementary benefit; and, if so, whether any disabled person has had to cancel a home help, or has had the service withdrawn through inability to pay.

  Mr. Rossi:
  My right hon. Friend has received no representations that the London borough of Croydon is not meeting the requirements of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. As the right hon. Member knows, local authorities have power to recover charges for services provided under Section 2 of that Act. I regret that information about the provision of service in individual cases is not held centrally.

  Ambulance Travel (Outpatients)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether revisions are to be made to the grounds on which outpatients are allowed ambulance travel; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  My right hon. Friend has received the report of the National Health Service working party on patient transport services which was published by the Trent regional health authority last month. Decisions on the working party's recommendations will be taken in the light of the views of those we have consulted about the report.

  Birth and Marriage Certificates
  Mr. Speller
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will introduce measures to allow registrars, recording details of births or marriages, to accept that the past employment of anyone may be entered even if that person currently is unemployed.

  Mr. Rossi:
  The Registrar General's instructions to registration officers require information on occupations to be recorded in birth and marriage registers in accordance with the wishes of the birth informant or the parties married. If a person is currently unemployed, registration officers are advised to ascertain the last previous occupation: they are instructed not to enter the term "unemployed".

  Overseas Visitors (Medical Charges)
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will list the hospitals required to carry out pilot schemes on the introduction of charges to overseas visitors using the National Health Service.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  I refer the hon. Member to my hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt) on 26 October 1981.

  War Pensions Welfare Service
  Mr. Terry Davis
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether the current reorganisation of the regional offices of the Department of Health and Social Security and the consequent reduction in their number from 12 to seven will have any effect on the war pensions welfare service.

  Mr. Rossi:
  The reorganisation of regional social security offices is basically designed to devolve more responsibility to local offices. This will have no adverse effect on the war pensioners welfare service.

  Mr. Terry Davis
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will consult war pensions committees and ex-Service organisations before making any changes in the organisation and administration of the war pensions welfare service.

  Mr. Rossi:
  The service has been in existence for over 30 years, and from time to time we look at it to ensure that it adapts to changing circumstances and makes the best use of the resources available, particularly in view of the work done for war pensioners by the war pensions committees and the voluntary organisations. We are asking the central advisory committee whether there are any changes that could be made, and of course no changes will be put in hand without the fullest consultation with all interested parties, notably the war pensions committees and the voluntary organisations.

  Drug Addicts
  Mr. Charles R. Morris
  asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many applications were received by drug addicts for admission into rehabilitation houses; and, out of that group, how many were actually admitted during the years 1978, 1979, and 1980.

  Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg:
  Rehabilitation houses for drug misusers are run by voluntary organisations and the information requested is not available centrally.

TRANSPORT

  Automotive Industry (Type Approval)
  Mr. Gordon Wilson
  asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he has considered the need for type approval regulations in the automotive industry; and what action he will take.

  Mr. David Howell:
  A compulsory scheme of national type approval for cars has been in operation in Great Britain since 1978. I recently signed regulations which will apply similar arrangements to goods vehicles manufactured after October next year.

  Petrol (Lead Content)
  Mr. Gwilym Roberts
  asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will take steps to require suppliers to make available to motorists as quickly as possible a choice between lead-free and reduced-lead petrol; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Howell:
  I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member on 8 June 1981.—[Vol. 6, c. 56.]

EMPLOYMENT

  Postal Services (Vacancies)
  Mr. Arthur Lewis
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment what efforts are being made through the agencies of his Department to fill the 2,000 estimated vacancies within the postal services; and what has been done to secure the filling of those vacancies with unemployed persons.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  The Manpower Services Commission co-operates closely with the Post Office on recruitment matters. I understand that the Post Office is not aware of difficulties in filling its vacancies at present. When the Post Office notifies vacancies to the Manpower Services Commission's jobcenters and local offices they are brought rapidly to the attention of unemployed people who might be suitable.

  Employment Office Staff (Kirklees and Oldham)
  Mr. Richard Wainwright
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many staff were employed in each employment office within the Kirklees metropolitan district area and the Oldham metropolitan district area for each year since 1975; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  The number of staff employed in each jobcenter-employment office in the Kirklees metropolitan district area and the Oldham metropolitan district area for each year since 1975 is as follows:

  Jobcenter-Employment Office Staffing Levels Kirkless Metropolitan District Area

  Jobcenter-employment office

  Dewsbury

  Batley

  Spen Valley

  Huddersfield

  1 April 1975

  12

  5½

  6

  30½

  1 April 1976

  12

  5½

  7

  31½

  1 April 1977

  13

  5½

  7

  31½

  1 April 1978

  13

  5½

  7½

  32½

  1 April 1979

  14

  6½

  8

  33½

  1 April 1980

  14

  5½

  8

  31½

  1 April 1981

  16

  7

  8

  31½

  376

  Oldham Metropolitan District Area

  Jobcenter-employment office

  Oldham

  Failsworth

  Royton

  1 April 1975

  28

  6

  4½

  1 April 1976

  25

  6½

  5

  1 April 1977

  26

  6½

  5

  1 April 1978

  27

  7

  5

  1 April 1979

  26½

  7

  5

  1 April 1980

  27

  7

  5

  1 April 1981

  28

  7

  5

  Staffing levels in jobcenters and employment offices are reviewed at least annually.

  Temporary Employment Subsidy
  Mr. Cyril Smith
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the average waiting time in the Manchester region between claims being received from companies for refund of temporary employment subsidy and payment being made; how many staff are employed on this work; and if there are any plans to speed up the payment of these arrears.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  The average time between receipt of a claim under the temporary short-time working compensation scheme and despatch of payment in the North-West region is about 12 weeks. There are 21 staff involved on the work, and new staff have recently been drafted in to help clear the backlog.

  Redundancy Payments
  Mr. Nicholas Baker
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the average redundancy payment paid to employees in the private sector during 1980 and the comparable figure for the employees in the public sector.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  The information requested is not available.

  Age Statistics
  Mr. Greenway
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many people were of working age in each year from and including 1945.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  The numbers of people of working age in Great Britain in the years for which information is readily available are given in the following table below:

  Population of Working Age*, Great Britain

  millions

  1951

  31.2

  1961

  32.0

  1962

  32.4

  1963

  32.5

  1964

  32.6

  1965

  32.6

  1966

  32.6

  1967

  32.6

  1968

  32.5

  1969

  32.4

  1970

  32.4

  1971

  32.4

  1972

  32.4

  1973

  31.6

  1974

  31.7

  377

  1975

  31.7

  1976

  31.8

  1977

  32.0

  1978

  322

  1979

  32.4

  1980

  32.5

  1981

  32.7

  * Males aged 15 to 64 and females aged 15 to 59 to 1972 and those aged 16 to 64 and 16 to 59 respectively from 1973 when the school-leaving age was raised.

  Wages Inspectorate
  Mr. Ray Powell
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is satisfied that the Wages Inspectorates is adequately staffed to deter unscrupulous organisations from undercutting the wage rates.

  Mr. Alison:
  I regard the present level of inspection, which includes the investigation of all complaints, to be a sufficient deterrent.

  Overtime Working
  Mr. Ray Powell
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he proposes to introduce any measures to curb the amount of overtime being worked in industry to provide work for the unemployed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  It is for individual employers in consultation with their employees to decide whether a reduction in overtime suits their circumstances. In doing

  A precise breakdown of the applications disallowed is not available, but they include between 500 and 550 from the cotton industry, about 75 slate and about 75 pottery. Most of the remainder were applications from or in respect of

  persons not determined by a pneumoconiosis or silicosis medical board to be suffering from any of the diseases covered by the Act;

  coal miners who are covered by the National Coal Board's pneumoconiosis compensation scheme.

  The payments made under the Act by 2 October totalled £20,828,705.

  West Midlands (Statistics)
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) how many persons aged (a) 16 to 18 years, (b) 18 to 25 years, (c) 25 to 40 years and (d) 40 to 65 years were unemployed in (i) Wolverhampton and (ii) the West Midlands at the latest available date;
  378
  so they will need to consider the consequences for efficiency and productivity as well as the effect on the number they employ.

  Hoover Ltd. (UK)
  Mr. Greenway
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will take steps to assist any work force displaced from the Perivale works of Hoover Limited (UK).

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  I understand that the Manpower Services Commission's local jobcenter manager has already been in touch with the company about the possible closure of Hoover's Perivale factory. The Commission assures me that all its facilities will be made available to help workers currently employed there who lose their jobs.

  Pneumoconiosis (Compensation)
  Mr. James Lamond
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) how many applications have been received for compensation under the Pneumoconiosis, &c. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979, at the latest available date for each category of dust-induced industrial disease, both as respects the sufferers and dependants;

  (2) if he will give the numbers of claims granted, refused and pending for each category of dust-induced diseases under the Pneumoconiosis &c. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979 at the latest available date, together with the total value of the compensation paid under the scheme as a whole.

  Mr. Waddington:
  Up to 2 October, a total of 5,111 applications had been received, of which 3,802 were from sufferers and 1,309 from dependants of deceased sufferers. The available breakdown of those applications is as follows:

  Payments made

  Applications outstanding

  Applications disallowed

  Sufferers

  Dependants

  Sufferers

  Dependants

  Sufferers

  Dependants

  Byssinosis (Cotton industry)

  1,792

  223

  42

  4

  Pneumoconiosis

  Slate

  386

  381

  5

  3

  Pottery

  279

  105

  33

  24

  Other

  163

  142

  9

  7

  Diffuse Mesothelima

  2

  45

  1

  —

  TOTAL

  2,622

  896

  90

  38

  1,090

  365

  (2) if he will provide a breakdown of those unemployed in (a) the West Midlands and (b) Wolverhampton by standard industrial classification at the latest convenient date.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  I shall reply to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  Industrial Training Boards
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is yet able to make a statement about the future of the industrial training boards.

  Mr. Peter Morrison:
  My right hon. Friend hopes to be able to make a statement early in the new Session.

  Health and Safety Inspectors (Overseas Secondment)
  Mr. Cryer
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many health and safety inspectors are seconded abroad; under what terms; to which countries; for how long; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Waddington
  [pursuant to his reply, 23 October 1981, c. 215.]: There are three health and safety inspectors seconded abroad. All are on loan: one in the Solomon Islands for two years, one in Bahrain for two years, and one is serving in the British embassy in Rome, initially for two years but since extended to four years. None of these is a charge on the Health and Safety Executive's budget. The HSE inspector at the British embassy in Rome is on detached duty to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, filling a permanent post as Labour Attaché in Rome. The HSE inspector in Bahrain is paid by the Government of Bahrain. The HSE inspector in the Solomon Islands is seconded to the service of the Government of the Solomon Islands under the overseas service aid scheme. The Department of Employment group continues to pay his salary but is reimbursed in full by the Overseas Development Administration.

  Unemployment Costs
  Sir David Price
  asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will bring up to date the figures quoted by the MSC in its report entitled "Review of Service for the Unemployed" that each additional 100,000 registered unemployed cost about £300 million per annum at 1979–80 prices in transfer payments and revenues forgone.

  Mr. Alison
  [pursuant to his reply, 22 October 1981, c. 14]: The Manpower Services Commission estimates that each additional 100,000 registered unemployed cost £438 million per annum at 1981–82 prices in transfer payments and revenues forgone.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Less Favoured Areas
  Mr. Ross
  asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if the survey into the less favoured areas of England and Wales has yet been completed; and when he now expects to put a case for the extension of the United Kingdom less favoured areas to the European Economic Community.

  Mrs. Fenner:
  We have now completed the first part of the survey in which we identified areas of marginal land in England and Wales which met the criterion of land quality in European Community Directive 75/268. We are now testing the areas so identified to see whether they satisfy the economic and demographic criteria in the directive. We still hope to be able to put a case for an extension of the United Kingdom's less favoured areas to the European Commission by the turn of the year.

  Pesticides (Policy)
  Mr. Grist
  asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he proposes to take to implement his policy of a continued cut in the use of DDT and dieldrin and a resumed cut in the use of endrin and other organochlorine pesticides.
  380
  Mrs. Fenner:
  Since 1969, clearances for specific uses of persistent organochlorine pesticides, including DDT, dieldrin and endrin, have been withdrawn as and when suitable less persistent alternatives become available for such uses. By 1 January 1981, clearances for agricultural and horticultural purposes for all uses of dieldrin and most remaining uses of the other persistent organochlorines, including DDT and endrin, had been withdrawn. The few remaining clearances will be kept under review and withdrawn when suitable alternatives become available. Meantime, my hon. Friend will appreciate that annual usage for these remaining purposes necessarily fluctuates with the seasonal incidence of the pests concerned.

  Battery Hen Production
  Mr. Allen McKay
  asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in view of the EEC Ministers failing to agree to enlarge battery hen cages to 77 square inches, he will take a unilateral decision for this to be put into effect in the United Kingdom with a view to replacing battery hen production with a more acceptable method.

  Mrs. Fenner:
  No. We consider it important that we secure improvements in the welfare of laying hens in the European Community as a whole. I remain optimistic that this can be achieved.

  Experimental centers
  Mr. Trippier
  asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has any plans for reducing the number of experimental centers belonging to his Ministry.

  Mr. Peter Walker:
  As part of its task of keeping under review the services it provides to agriculture to ensure that resources are used effectively MAFF has reviewed the resources committed to research and development at its experimental centers. It has been decided that Great House experimental husbandry farm at Helmshore, Rossendale, Lancashire will be closed as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made.

  The changing research and development requirements of the industry in Lancashire and of upland farmers generally will be met by the Ministry's other experimental husbandry farms. Three of these have dairy herds and that at Trawscoed will be expanded to take on dairying experimental work now done at Great House. Experimental programmes on upland sheep will be expanded at Trawscoed, Redesdale and Liscombe and work will continue with lowland sheep at Rosemaund and Drayton, and with the hill flock at Pwllpeiran. These changes will make better use of the Ministry's resources for research and development in these sectors.

  The advisory needs of local farmers will continue to be met by ADAS officers stationed in the region.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Carpet Industry
  Mr. Bulmer
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money has been given in financial support to the carpet industry since 1 January 1975; what form this assistance has taken; and under which schemes, including the schemes to promote employment, it has been given.
  381
  Mr. Adam Butler:
  Since 1 January 1975 a total of £6,313,132 has been paid to the carpet industry by the Northern Ireland Department of Commerce, in the form of grants—including grants towards capital expenditure—and loans, under schemes to promote investment and the creation and maintenance of jobs. A further sum, totalling £3,786,253 has been paid to the industry by the Northern Ireland Department of Manpower Services, in the form of grants under the temporary employment subsidy and temporary short-time working compensation schemes, selective employment premium, and grants under schemes to promote industrial training.

  De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd.
  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people are currently employed by the De Lorean motor company at the Dunmurry factory in County Antrim; how many were employed there at this time in 1980; and what is the projected increase in recruitment for the next 12 months.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  I am informed by the company that at 26 October 1981 De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd. had 2,557 direct employees on its payroll; in addition, 76 jobs are provided on site at Dunmurry by contracted canteen and security companies. At 31 October 1980 De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd. had 440 direct employees. I understand that the company's current plan calls for recruitment of 138 further employees but, as many of these are specialist jobs, availability will dictate the dates of recruitment.

  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list in the Official Report the names and location of companies in the United Kingdom which supply parts, materials and services to the De Lorean motor company in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  I am informed by the company that more than 2,000 companies located in the United Kingdom supply materials, components and services to De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd. It would be impracticable to list all of them in the Official Report but I am informed that the principal suppliers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland are:

  Belfast Tool & Gauge Co. Ltd.

  Belfast

  British Steel Corporation

  Sheffield

  CP Trim Ltd.

  Belfast

  GKN Sankey Ltd.

  Bilston

  Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Co. (GB) Ltd.

  Wolverhampton

  General Motors Ltd.

  Milton Keynes

  Industrial Plating Engineering Ltd.

  Newtownabbey

  International Paint Co. Ltd.

  London

  Lucas Girling Ltd.

  Birmingham

  Modern Tool & Equipment Co. Ltd.

  Belfast

  Norton Villiers Triumph Ltd.

  Birmingham

  Plastic Coatings Ltd.

  Guildford

  Smiths Industries

  London

  Stewarts Industrial Services Ltd.

  Belfast

  Tenneco Walker (UK) Ltd.

  Burnley and Belfast

  Wilmot Breeden (Holdings) Ltd.

  Birmingham

  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the current wages bill of the De Lorean motor company.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  I am informed by the company that the annualised gross wages and salaries bill for the present labour force is estimated to be about £17 million, based on current average earnings.

  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the total tax and national
  382
  insurance bill of the work force at De Lorean and of the De Lorean motor company of Dunmurry, County Amtrim, Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  I am informed by the company that the annualised total amount which would be payable in respect of employers and employees National Health Insurance contributions and PAYE tax is estimated at £6.3 million based on current numbers employed and existing rates of remuneration.

  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what are the current daily and weekly production figures of the De Lorean motor car.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  I am informed by the company that the average daily and weekly production figures are approximately 80 cars and 400 cars respectively.

  Employment Statistics
  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list in the Official Report the numbers and the percentage of the total Northern Ireland work force in full-time employment at the following dates; September 1981, January 1981, July 1980, January 1980, July 1979, January 1979, July 1978, January 1978 and July 1977.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  The information is not available in the form required as the last census of employment was conducted in June 1978 and statistics of the self-employed do not distinguish between full and part-time work.

  The table below gives a breakdown of the Northern Ireland work force for June 1978, the only date since July 1977 for which information is available on full-time employment:

  Number

  Self-employed (full-time and part-time)

  75,895

  Employees in employment (full-time)

  415,081

  Employees in employment (part-time)

  88,130

  Unemployed

  64,658

  643,764

  Figures are not yet available from the census of employment being carried out to September 1981.

  Unemployed Persons
  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people are presently out of work in Northern Ireland; and what proportion of the total working population that unemployment figure represents.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  A total of 112,224 people were registered as unemployed on 8 October 1981, the latest date for which figures are available. This represents 17.2 per cent. of the total working population, which comprises the employees in employment, the unemployed and the self-employed.

  However, unemployment rates are normally calculated by taking the registered unemployed as a percentage of employees in employment plus the unemployed. On this basis the unemployment rate on 8 October 1981 stood at 19.5 per cent.

  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish in the Official Report the annual percentage rate of unemployment in Northern

  383
  Ireland for each of the years 1975 to 1980 inclusive, and add to that table the available quarterly unemployment percentages for 1981.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  The information is as follows:

  Year

  Percentage

  1975

  7.8

  1976

  10.0

  1977

  11.0

  1978

  11.5

  1979

  11.3

  1980

  13.7

  1981 1st quarter

  17.3

  2nd quarter

  17.6

  3rd quarter

  19.2

  Departmental Manpower (Savings)
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the manpower savings that have already been made in each of the Northern Ireland Departments; and if he will provide an estimate of the further savings which he intends to make during the forthcoming financial year.

  Mr. John Patten:
  The manpower savings that have been made in each of the Northern Ireland Departments since May 1979 are as follows:

  Manpower savings

  Agriculture

  287

  Civil Service

  -7

  Commerce

  55

  Education

  81

  Environment

  742

  Finance

  226

  Health and Social Services

  -86

  Manpower Services

  160

  PCC/PCA

  1

  E & AD

  -11

  Total

  1,448

  (The minus figures represent net increases in staff which some Departments have been allowed to make in response to specific demands).
  Because of the planned reorganisation affecting some Northern Ireland Departments it is not possible to provide a breakdown of estimated Departmental savings in 1982–83. Overall savings of about 700 are expected. The savings achieved so far are in line with the manpower targets for 1 April 1984, which are based on comparability with United Kingdom Departments that exercise similar functions.

  In addition, there have been savings of almost 1,800 staff employed by the Departments of Agriculture and Environment as part of the urban and rural improvement campaign.

  Public Spending
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he has consulted the Northern Ireland Economic Council about the possibility of reducing public expenditure in the Province.

  Mr. Prior:
  No. However, when I met the council for the first time on 9 October 1981 I specifically welcomed its work in the public expenditure field.

  Benefits (Exchequer Cost)
  Mr. Concannon
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the estimated cost to the Exchequer, in gross terms, of social security, unemployment and related benefit payments made to people living in Northern Ireland during the financial year 1980–81.

  Mr. John Patten:
  Social security payments made to people living in Northern Ireland during the financial year 1980ߝ81 totalled £671.2 million. Of this sums, £404.8 million was paid out of the Northern Ireland national insurance fund and £266.4 million was met from moneys voted by Parliament.

  Within these totals, payment of unemployment benefit from the national insurance fund amounted to £47.8 million and supplementary benefit payments to the unemployed which were met in full from voted moneys amounted to £58.3 million.

  Public Debt
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the total of public debt in Northern Ireland for rent, rates, gas and electricity; and by what amount this debt has either increased or decreased since May 1979.

  Mr. John Patten:
  Details of the public debt at 31 March 1979 and 30 June 1981 are as follows:

  31 March 1979 (£ million)

  30 June 1981(£ million)

  Increase Decrease (£ million)

  Rent

  8.7

  13.9

  +5.2

  Rates

  3.9

  5.0*

  +1.1

  Gas

  3.7

  3.6

  -0.1

  Electricity

  12.0

  13.2

  +1.2

  Total

  28.3

  35.7

  +7.4

  * The rate debts figures are not wholly comparable because those for June 1981 do not include any debt arising in the current financial year. This will not have been assessed until 31 March 1982. Accordingly, the debt figure at 31 March 1981 has been included in the table above.

  Less Favoured Areas (Extension)
  Mr. Wm. Ross
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he now expects to seek an extension of the less favoured areas in Northern Ireland; and when he intends to pursue the matter with the EEC.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  The survey of marginal land throughout the United Kingdom is now complete and work is progressing on the preparation of a case for extension of the less favoured areas. I understand that my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, hopes to submit this case, which will cover Northern Ireland, to the EC Commission around the turn of the year.

  Dogs (Control)
  Mr. Wm. Ross
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress has been made since 1 August on legislation to control dogs in Northern Ireland; and when he now expects to publish his proposals.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  I have nothing to add to the reply that I gave the hon. Gentleman on 31 July.—[Vol. 9, c. 372.]

  Energy Policy
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he intends to enter into negotiations with the Government of the Republic of Ireland with a view to establishing a common energy policy for the whole of Ireland.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  I am anxious that any opportunities for practical co-operation on energy matters between Northern Ireland and the Republic should be fully pursued. Discussions have taken place on matters of mutual interest relating to both electricity and gas.

  It is hoped to announce shortly the conclusions of the Government's evaluation of a possible supply to Northern Ireland of natural gas from the Kinsale field.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy on energy in the Province.

  Mr. Adam Butler
  Within the context of energy policy for the United Kingdom as a whole the Government will continue to seek opportunities to improve energy supply arrangements in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland electricity tariffs have been brought more closely into line with tariffs in England and Wales. The Northern Ireland Electricity Service is undertaking, at Government's request, a series of studies of the longer term options for reducing its dependence on oil for generation. We shall continue to seek opportunities in the energy field for practical co-operation with the Republic of Ireland. I refer the hon. Member to my reply to his question on that subject today.

  Economic Council
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many times he has met the Northern Ireland Economic Council since he took office.

  Mr. Prior:
  I have had one meeting with the Northern Ireland Economic Council, which took place on 9 October 1981.

  Industrial Disputes (Working Days Lost)
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many working days were lost in Northern Ireland through industrial disputes for each year over the last five years.

  Mr. Adam Butler:
  The information is as follows:

  Calendar year

  Days lost through industrial dispute

  Working days lost per 1,000 employees in employment

  1976

  45,100

  91

  1977

  146,200

  296

  1978

  263,500

  524

  1979

  730,100

  1,421

  1980

  49,400

  99

  Maze Prison (Visits)
  Mr. Wigley
  asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what rules govern the use of the Irish language during prison visits at Her Majesty's prison Maze.

  Mr. John Patten
  [pursuant to his reply, 27 October 1981]: Northern Ireland prison standing orders require
  386
  conversations between prisoners and their visitors to be in English unless they are not capable of conversing adequately in English.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Arms Supplies
  Mrs. Knight
  asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will take steps to promote the harmonisation of the policies of the members of the Atlantic Alliance towards supplies of arms to countries in areas where clear threats to peace exist.

  Mr. Hurd:
  Her Majesty's Government, in common with most of their allies, already take careful account of the impact of each arms sales proposal on the stability of the region in question before authorisation is given. I doubt whether harmonisation of policy within NATO is feasible. NATO and EC countries do, of course, observe United Nations arms embargoes.

  Spain (Attacks on British Tourists)
  Mr. Home Robertson
  asked the Lord Privy Seal how many incidents have been reported to him of British citizens being the victims of violent attacks while travelling in Spain; how many of these incidents have led to successful prosecutions in Spanish courts; and whether he is satisfied that the Spanish authorities are able to provide adequate protection to British citizens visiting Spain.

  Mr. Humphrey Atkins:
  Seventy-one, all tourists, out of some 3.5 million this year. We know of only two prosecutions: in one the defendant was discharged, the second case is still pending. We would normally only be notified of prosecutions when the assailant was also a United Kingdom citizen.

  Where the incidence of assaults on United Kingdom citizens has caused concern in an area of Spain we have brought this to the attention of the Spanish authorities, whose interest in preventing attacks is clearly as deep as ours.

  Greece (NATO and the European Community)
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Lord Privy Seal what discussions he has had with the Greek ambassador regarding the new Greek Government's proposals to withdraw from NATO and the EEC.

  Mr. Humphrey Atkins:
  None.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

  Foreign Affairs Council
  Sir Anthony Meyer
  asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Foreign Affairs Council on 26 and 27 October.

  Mr. Humphrey Atkins:
  My right hon. and noble Friend chaired the Council. I represented Her Majesty's Government and my hon. Friend the Minister of State and my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade attended.

  Ministers completed a heavy agenda and reached satisfactory conclusions on a number of important questions.
  387
  The Council considered the enlargement negotiations with Portugal and Spain and reached agreement on Community positions on a number of important issues. Negotiating meetings were then held with both applicants at ministerial level at which statements were made by both sides on a wide range of subjects.

  The Council discussed the Community's approach to negotiation with Cyprus on a trade regime for 1982 and 1983, which are due to take place before the end of this year. Further discussion will be necessary.

  On 27 October there was a meeting at ministerial level of the EC/Cyprus Association Council to review progress under the 1972 EC/Cyprus Association Agreement. The Cypriot delegation was led by the Foreign Minister, Mr. Rolandis. The Cypriot delegation made clear its preoccupation with the lack of progress in the association with the Community in recent years.

  The Council agreed on an adjustment to the Community levy which should enable Yugoslavia to export its allotted quota of baby beef to the Community. Over the past 12 months Yugoslavia's exports to the European Community of this speciality product have fallen markedly. The reduction in the levy now agreed should enable a satisfactory resumption of exports.

  Ministers gave assent to an article 56.2. ECSC conversion loan of £3.7 million for Sony (UK) Ltd. which plans to expand its plant at Bridgend. It was also agreed that the informal meeting of Community industry Ministers on 10 December should discuss overseas investment in the Community.

  The Council confirmed the position adopted by the Agriculture Council on 19 October that the Commission should resume negotiations with the African Caribbean and Pacific States on the question of the guaranteed price for African Caribbean and Pacific sugar for 1981–82.

  The Foreign Affairs Council discussed North-South issues and proposals for further food aid. My right hon. and noble Friend reported on the outcome of the Cancun summit. General support was expressed for proposals from the Commission and the Italian Government on hunger in the world. The Development Council will give further consideration to these proposals on 3 November.

  The Council spent a full afternoon reviewing progress in the negotiations on the 30 May Mandate in the light of a report from the special group set up to assist in taking this work forward. There was a full exchange of views on the three elements of the negotiation—development of policies other than agriculture, common agricultural policy reform, and the problem of excessive net contributions. It was agreed that the mandate group should work with urgency in order that appropriate conclusions might be reached at the European Council on 26–27 November in London.

  The Council discussed Commission proposals on low cost textiles including renewal of the multi-fibree arrangement but was unable to reach agreement. An additional meeting of the Council will now be held on 10 November in order to consider this question further.

  Finally, the Council agreed that the Commission should open discussions with the International Sugar Organisation, with a view to possible accession by the Community to an improved International Sugar Agreement. This is an important decision, which we made one of the priorities of our Presidency and one which we expect tp be welcomed by existing members of the
  388
  International Sugar Organisation, in particular those developing country producers which are heavily dependent on sugar exports.

  Council of Ministers
  Viscount Cranborne
  asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will publish in the Official Report a statement of forthcoming business in the European Community Council of Minister.

  Mr. Humphrey Atkins:
  At present seven meetings of the Council of Ministers are planned for November. Heads of State and Government will meet in the European Council in London on 26–27 November. The ususal written forecast was deposited in the House on 23 October.

  The Development Council is expected to meet on 3 November to discuss development issues arising out of the North-South dialogue; a report on stocktaking of Community aid in the agriculture and food production sector, a proposal for improval procedures for emergency aid and draft guidelines for the programme of financial and technical aid to non-associated developing countries in 1982. Ministers are also expected to consider Commission proposals on hunger in the world and may in addition have some preliminary discussion on proposals on food aid; on further work required on the energy needs of developing countries, on trade promotion policies and on the role of women in development.

  The Finance Council is expected to meet on 9 November to continue its consideration of the draft insurance services directive. Ministers may also discuss a Working group report on oil subsidies and petroleum taxation that was commissioned by the Council in September, and may consider the economic situation in preparation for the next European Council.

  The Research Council is expected to meet on 9 November to discuss a Commission paper on the current state of Community research and development activity and a strategy for the 1980s.

  The Agriculture Council is expected to meet on 16–17 November to discuss the finalisation of GATT import quotas for 1982 on frozen beef and veal, buffalo meat and high quality beef (Hilton) and to consider proposals on the welfare of laying hens in battery cages and on the consolidation of the main agri-monetary regulations.

  The Foreign Affairs Council is expected to meet on 16–17 November to discuss preparations for the European Council at which the main topic for discussion will be the 30 May mandate.

  The Budget Council is expected to meet on 24 November to consider the amendments and modifications to the 1982 draft budget which will have been adopted by the European Parliament on 6 November. The Council will also meet a delegation from the European Parliament to discus budgetary questions which arise in the inter-institutional dialogue.

  The Fisheries Council is expected to meet on 30 November and 1 December with the aim of reaching agreement on proposals for a revised common fisheries policy.

  Middle East
  Mrs. Knight
  asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will propose that the steps taken by the 10 member countries

  389
  of the European Community to promote peace in the Middle East should be extended to the Gulf area in order to assure countries in that area of Europe's support for any measures they may take to ensure their collective security.

  Mr. Hurd:
  At the Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels last month Foreign Ministers of the Ten welcomed the increased co-operation among the six member States of the newly formed Gulf Co-operation Council, with all of whom the Ten have close and friendly relations. They also agreed to establish informal contacts with the Gulf Co-operation Council in order to consider the scope for possible co-operation between the Gulf Co-operation Council and the Ten.

  We have also welcomed the valuable contribution that the formation of the Gulf Co-operation Council will make towards enhancing regional stability and security. We believe that it should be primarily for the Gulf States to determine their own security needs, and have expressed willingness in principle to help should the States of the region ask us to do so.

ENVIRONMENT

  Local Government Finance
  13. Mr. Myles
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has published his consultation document on alternative methods of local government finance.

  22. Mr. Renton
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to produce the consultative document on reform of the rating system.

  Mr. Heseltine:
  A Green Paper on alternatives to domestic rates will be published very shortly.

  National Parks (Representations)
  Mr. Knox
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied that the changes which are being made concerning the statutory right of district councils to representation on national park boards and committees are adequate.

  Mr. Macfarlane:
  Yes.

  Local Authorities (Expenditure)
  Mr. Adley
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has published his proposals for dealing with overspending by local authorities.

  Mr. Heseltine:
  A technical memorandum on the proposed new rating procedures for 1982–83 was issued on 30 September. Copies have been placed in the Library. I refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave earlier today to the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander).

  Mr. Durant
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment which authorities have increased their spending plans since he requested them to revise their budgets.

  Mr. Heseltine:
  51 English local authorities have increased their spending plans this year, though the majority of these increases are very minor, and 28 are in
  390
  authorities which are still within their volume targets. The vast bulk of the planned increase has taken place in three large Socialist authorities: the GLC, Merseyside, and the West Midlands.

  Sea Defences (Amble)
  Mr. Beith
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what assistance he plans to give to the repair of the sea defences at Amble, Northumberland.

  Mr. Giles Shaw:
  The Alnwick district council is already receiving grant towards the cost of reconstructing the south pier breakwater at Amble. With regard to the reconstruction of the north pier breakwater the council is carrying out an economic appraisal of this scheme to establish the beneficiaries. When this appraisal is received the scheme will be assessed and, if approved, the application for grant will be determined.

  Local Authority Housing
  Mr. Dixon
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many local authority housing starts there have been so far in the current year.

  Sir George Young:
  Local authorities in England started an estimated 13,360 dwellings in the first eight months of this year.

  Mr. Pavitt
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if, in view of the fact that in the London borough of Brent of 11,000 families on the waiting list for housing only 167 earned enough to be eligible for a mortgage, he will now change his previous policy of withholding funds for council housing schemes in the belief that the loss of council houses could be compensated for by an increase in home ownership.

  Sir George Young:
  I do not accept that description of Government policy. I believe that the figures quoted by the hon. Gentleman do not accurately reflect the scope we have created for extending low-cost home ownership. As regards Brent's housing investment programme allocation, I would refer to the reply I gave to the hon. Gentleman yesterday.

  Housing Policies
  Mr. Douglas-Mann
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will reply to the third report of the Select Committee on the Environment on the housing policies of his Department.

  Mr. Heseltine:
  I shall do so as soon as possible.

  New Towns (House Transfers)
  Mr. Newens
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has received any further representations from local authorities with claims under section 10 of the New Towns Act 1976 for a settlement to be made to enable urgent work to be carried out on houses transferred to them from new town development corporations.

  Sir George Young:
  Yes.

  Disabled Persons (Housing)
  Mr. Hardy
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take action to remove the risk of reduction of the stock of council housing designated for the disabled.

  Sir George Young:
  Council housing which is substantially different from ordinary housing because it has been designed or adapted for the use of physically disabled is already excluded from the right to buy.

  Liverpool (Ministerial Visit)
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to pay another visit to Liverpool.

  Mr. Heseltine:
  I visited Merseyside on 20 and 21, and on 26 and 27 October. I have held meetings with local authorities, representatives of local companies, academic institutions, community enterprise projects, and the regional water authority. I discussed the progress being made on the initiatives I announced on 5 August, and how best to carry forward the work of my task force. As well as Liverpool, I have visited Ellesmere Port, Skelmersdale and Halton to see examples of successes in improving the local economy and local environment as will as some of the problems. I intend to visit Merseyside frequently.

  Rented Accommodation (Service Charges)
  Mr. Iain Mills
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will seek to legislate to limit annual increases in service charges made on rented accommodation.

  Mr. Stanley:
  Schedule 19 to the Housing Act 1980 already imposes limitations on the amount of a variable service charge payable by the tenant of a flat. The service charges provisions of schedule 19 are described in the Department's booklet "Service Charges in Flats" a copy of which I am sending to my hon. Friend.

  Government Car Service
  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the total cost per annum of the Government regional car service and if he has any plans to reduce this.

  Sir George Young:
  The budgeted cost for the current financial year is £450,000. This compares with £710,000 in 1979–80 and £530,000 in 1980–81 (at outturn prices).

  I do not plan to make any further substantial reductions in the size of the regional Government car service.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for the environment how many Government cars are used by civil servants in the London area; and if he has any plans to reduce this number.

  Sir George Young:
  The Government car service in London has 47 cars available for use by civil servants of which 32 are in a pool which is also used by Ministers. In addition my Department provides 12 self-drive cars for the use of London-based civil servants. I do not propose to make any further reductions in these fleets.
  392
  Mr. Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many members of her Majesty's Opposition are presently using the Government car service; and what is the cost of this service.

  Sir George Young:
  Five, at an estimated cost of about £86,000 a year.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many hon. Members of Parliament other than Government Ministers or members of Her Majesty's Official Opposition are presently using the Government car service; what are the rules and regulations for this use; and what is the cost to public funds per annum.

  Sir George Young:
  Two, who have the use of the Government car service on advice from the security authorities. The annual estimated cost is £21,000.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many Government cars are used by civil servants in the regions; and whether he has any plans to reduce this number.

  Sir George Young:
  My Department provides a total of 43 self-drive cars for the exclusive use of civil servants in the regions compared with 67 in April 1980. In addition the regional Government car service provides 37 cars in pools serving both Ministers and senior civil servants, compared with 57 in April 1980. I do not plan to make any further substantial reductions in the size of these fleets.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment which civil servants in the London area are able to use the Government car service; what is the total cost to public funds; and whether he has any plans to reduce this use.

  Sir George Young:
  I shall write to my hon. Friend shortly.

  Mr. Speaker's House (Renovation)
  Mr. Greville Janner
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how much he estimates it would cost to clean, restore and renovate the stonework of Mr. Speaker's House.

  Sir George Young:
  Cleaning, restoring and renovating the stonework of the Speaker's Tower, which includes Mr. Speaker's House, is estimated to cost £30,000 at January 1981 prices.

  London Dockland Development Corporation
  Mr. Spearing
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress has been made by the London Dockland Development Corporation since 1 July.

  Mr. Heseltine:
  Ten members have now been appointed to the corporation, including the leaders of the three constituent boroughs. It has acquired more than 500 acres of land and is planning a wide range of projects, some of which are already under way.

  Rate Rebates
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what percentage of ratepayers received rate rebates (a) in Great Britain and (b) in Greater London in

  393
  May 1979 and at the latest date for which figures are available; and what was the overall total paid in rebates in each case.

  Mr. Tom King:
  The available information is as follows:

  Domestic ratepayers receiving rate rebates per cent.

  Amount of rate rebates £ million

  Great Britain

  1979–80

  14.9

  200

  Greater London

  1979–80

  12.1

  27.5

  1980–81*

  13.8

  38.8

  * Provisional.

  Plymouth (Water Supplies)
  Miss Fookes
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will announce his decision regarding the siting of a reservoir in Devon to supply additional water to Plymouth and other areas.

  Mr. Giles Shaw:
  My right hon. Friend hopes to resolve this matter very soon.

  Black Magic (Retail Premises)
  Mr. Cartwright
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will seek powers to prevent the use of retail shopping premises for the propagation of black magic rituals, witchcraft ceremonies and exorcism.

  Mr. Giles Shaw:
  No. I do not think this is an appropriate matter for town planning legislation, since planning powers can be used only for landuse planning purposes. Matters of religion and morality fall outside the scope of the planning system. I am not aware of any other powers open to my right hon. Friend to control occult shops, nor of any environmental justification for taking such powers.

  Unfit Housing
  Mrs. Renée Short
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest estimate of the number of houses unfit for human habitation; and how this compares with the figures for each of the past three years.

  Sir George Young:
  An estimate of 794,000 unfit dwellings in England was made from the 1976 English
  394
  house condition survey, and the results of the 1981 survey will be available next year. Estimates are not made by my Department for the intervening years.

  Basildon (Council House Sales)
  Mr. Proctor
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many houses and flats were sold by the Basildon development corporation, the Basildon district council and the London borough of Waltham Forest Council to sitting tenants in the Basildon constituency between May 1979 and September 1981.

  Sir George Young:
  Sales by the Basildon district council and Basildon Development Corporation in the period April 1979 to June 1981 totalled 2,381; 1,864 by Basildon Development Corporation and 517 by the district council; almost all of these would have been to sitting tenants. Information is not available to the Department on the number of sales by the London borough of Waltham Forest of its properties within the Basildon constituency.

  Radiological Pollution (French Nuclear Installations)
  Mr. David Atkinson
  asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make an assessment of the level of risk of radiological pollution of the Dorset coast from nuclear power stations on the French coast.

  Mr. Buchanan-Smith:
  I have been asked to reply.

  It is already a requirement of the Euratom treaty that member States submit information on their plans for the disposal of radioactive waste from new nuclear facilities so that the Commission can determine whether these plans would adversely affect other member States. This information has been submitted for the nuclear power station at Gravelines, although not yet for the other two power stations being built by France on the Channel coast. The Commission, on the basis of expert advice, concluded that normal operations at Gravelines would have no significant effect on the United Kingdom. Special bilateral arrangements which would apply in the case of a serious incident are under discussion; my own experts, however, advise that it is highly unlikely that any release of radioactivity from Gravelines would have radiological implications for the Dorset coast. The routine monitoring carried out by this Department in the area would, of course, detect any sudden increase in levels of radioactivity.

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

Britain's Infrastructure
Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor: 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 their attention was drawn to the recent series of articles in The Times, entitled "Crumbling Britain", and what long-term plans they have for dealing with the deficiencies exposed thereby in the infrastructure of this country.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, the Government are aware of the articles and the problems to which they refer. They are committed to maintaining and modernising Britain's infrastructure and will continue to do so within affordable levels of public expenditure.
Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask whether or not he thinks that the scale of the problem as revealed in the articles referred to is really beyond the scope of local councils and should receive serious attention from central Government? Secondly, does he not think that the implementation of a large-scale scheme of remedial action in these areas would bring relief to probably the most hard-pressed area of British industry; namely, the civil engineering construction industry, where unemployment at the moment is running at about 25 per cent.?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I think that the problem generally goes beyond merely that of local government itself. If we look carefully at the various headings that the articles cover, we see that they cover a wide range of matters many of which are the responsibility of central Government, the nationalised industries and other bodies. To answer in detail one would have to enumerate all that is being done—and there is much that is being done—because quite clearly one recognises that the problems presented by the articles are very fairly put and one should not try to get away from dealing with them. However, if the noble Earl would wish me to do so, I should be glad to send him the lengthy list which I have before me as to exactly what is being done to try to deal with this particular problem.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, does the Minister agree with the first article in The Times that whatever has happened in the past, the causes of decay lie in successive Governments cutting back on building and repair
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programmes? Will he also agree that, in this terrible economic decline, when everyone except the Government sees the need for increasing capital investment, the Government should be taking steps—indeed, very strong steps—to stimulate the construction industry, which is the single largest employer and in which, as the noble Earl pointed out, unemployment is 25 per cent.—almost double that in any other industry? Would that not generate the industrial activity and employment that is so absolutely urgently needed in this country?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I think that one really cannot suddenly decide that all the problems of the construction industry can be laid at the door of the Government. They have been leading up to this situation for a long time. However, I think that what is perhaps noteworthy is that the latest figures for new orders for the construction industry are encouraging and they raise considerable hopes of recovery in 1982. Total new orders for the June to August quarter are up 21 per cent. on the same period last year and 17 per cent. on the previous three months; orders for private and industrial work have risen by 8 per cent. compared to a year earlier and by 33 per cent. over the previous three months; commercial orders are up 34 per cent. and 23 per cent.; and public orders, excluding the new Heathrow terminal are up 17 per cent. and 3 per cent. respectively. There is no attempt in giving these figures to deny that the industry does have problems that are a matter of concern, but I hope at the same time that it will be felt that the figures that I have just given are encouraging.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, when the noble Lord saw this Question on the Order Paper, did it ever occur to him to wonder, or even to indulge in a bit of research, about what the grandfather of the noble Earl who has asked the Question would have said about "Crumbling Britain"? Did he take the same line when he fought the war as perhaps Winston Churchill fought it, in order to gain victory? Would the noble Lord agree that our problem is not crumbling Britain, but grumbling Britishers? Why do we indulge so much in stinking fish? Are we the only country in the world suffering from recession? Are we the only country in the world suffering from high interest rates? Are we the only country in the world which has to suffer from letters written to The Times by people who seem to think that they have knowledge on military matters? Is that not our real trouble?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his assistance in the matter, and I entirely concur with everything he says.
Lord Hale: My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind that the first Lloyd-George of Dwyfor fought a general election with the support of J. M. Keynes as a candidate and many others, of course, including me, on the necessity of keeping full employment very largely through road development in 1929? Will he also bear in mind today that one of the tragedies in the urban areas concerns the interconnections beneath the roads, which are getting into a state of real danger?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, we certainly bear in mind the last point that the noble Lord has made. As to his earlier comments, I thought that he was about to give me something of a lesson and was willingly looking forward to learning something new, as I do each day.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, if the Government are to tamper with local government—and there was a hint of it in the noble Lord's original reply—will the Minister please take care to ensure that local patriotism is not destroyed?
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I am not quite sure how far that question, in fact, relates to the original Question. However, I think I know what the noble Lord means.

Industrial Training Boards
2.44 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: 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 when they expect to take decisions on the future of individual industrial training boards.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for employment hopes to be able to make an announcement about the future of individual boards early in the next Session.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply as regards timing, which I am sure will be helpful to the industries concerned. In those cases, if any, where the Government are considering the abolition of a training board, will they give the industry concerned the opportunity and the time to suggest alternative arrangements for training?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, as regards further time, I do not think that I can go much further than my original Answer, because I understand that comments on training arrangements were to be submitted by the end of September. I think that at present my right honourable friend is considering all the comments that have come in from the many boards, and no doubt he will have the final say in the new Session.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, whether in future industrial training is to be done under statutory boards or by voluntary arrangements, if programmes such as the New Training Initiative and the Open-Tech are to succeed, is it not essential that there should be some overall statutory framework providing adequate local, national and cross-sectoral links?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, the Government's overall view is that the objectives of adequate industrial training are best achieved by voluntary methods, be that on any local or, indeed, any overall basis.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, is my noble friend
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aware that in industry there is the feeling that a large number of these industrial training boards should be abolished? However, is he equally aware that in the service industries and in the high technology industries it is very important to preserve these industrial training boards, as there is an urgent need to give, in particular, young people the higher skills, which are so badly needed in industry?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, to both the questions asked by my noble friend, the answer is, indeed, Yes.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether or not the Government intend to publish their reaction to the Manpower Services' Commission's board by board industry survey and, if so, when?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not in a position to give the noble Lord a precise answer. Perhaps I could write to him about the matter.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, will the noble Lord not agree that in the present economic state of the country to think of either abolishing or reducing the powers of the industrial training boards is completely against the interests of the country? This is a very serious matter. We shall certainly monitor any replies that he may give and watch developments in the future, because this is a very critical issue.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord and, indeed, the House, will agree that there is no single blueprint or, indeed, single track for any training arrangements, be they voluntary or otherwise. To insist that all training arrangements should conform to any set pattern would not help industry, nor, I believe, the economy.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, in regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has said, will my noble friend agree that this is a good moment for a review of all the arrangements, even if no change is made?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely correct. My right honourable friend is considering all the views that have been expressed to him and he will be giving his views very early in the next Session.

Vienna: MBFR Negotiations
2.49 p.m.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the proceedings and progress of the Vienna talks for the mutual reduction of armed forces in central Europe.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, the western participants in the negotiations on mutual

1069
and balanced force reductions (MBFR) remain committed to progress. The principal obstacle is the dispute over the size of eastern forces in Central Europe and the unco-operative attitude of the East towards resolving this. The western participants made new proposals intended to break the deadlock on 23rd July 1981. We hope that the East will respond constructively in the current round of negotiations.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, have not these talks been going on for eight years? Does the Minister agree that there is extraordinary ignorance, both by Members of Parliament and the public, at what is happening? Can the Government issue periodic reports so that we may know, and do not have to rely on the frequent Soviet Union reports, which naturally are biased? May I ask this: have principles been agreed for the draft agreement? Have the countries involved been West Germany, the Benelux countries, the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, but has no agreement been reached about the volume of reductions?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as for wider publicity of the proceedings at this conference, the Foreign Office do of course publish the Arms Control and Disarmament News Letter, which I know the noble Lord receives and reads. I must confess that over the seven or eight years that the conference has been in progress there has been precious little to report because so little progress has been made. I agree that wider dissemination of this unfortunate fact might be useful and might bring some pressure to bear upon the other side to adopt a more co-operative attitude, but I have to say that there is no basis for agreement at the present time.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is it not a fact that, even if there were complete nuclear disarmament, there is such a preponderance of conventional Soviet bloc forces in central Europe that Europe would then be at the mercy of the Soviet bloc?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is of course quite right. It is also the case, of course, that these particular talks to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has referred are specifically concerned with conventional forces.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that a major difficulty has been the Soviet reluctance to accept effective measures of verification? After years of discussing verification with the Soviet Government, have the Government reached any conclusions about the reasons for this obsession with secrecy?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the problem of verification is certainly a major problem in the context of disarmament talks generally. It is not the specific problem in the MBFR talks at Vienna, where the principal problem remains the so-called data problem. That is the problem of establishing the relevant existing levels of our respective forces before we commence the question of reductions and subsequent verification.
Lord Stewart of Fulham: My Lords, may it not be the case that the Russians are reluctant to reach agree-
1070
ment since they have some reason to suppose that if they go on being obstinate long enough this country and her allies will disarm themselves unilaterally?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that may be the view of the Soviets, but so far as this country is concerned they are mistaken.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is it not the case that what has actually happened in the eight years is that, while the discussions have been taking place, armaments have proliferated and increased on all sides? Is it not the case therefore that if a discussion goes on and on and on, eventually the inevitable nuclear explosion will occur in which we shall all be destroyed? Will the Government take no action designed to break through the impasse?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Western participants to the MBFR talks in Vienna are continuing to make efforts to break the impasse by various presentations and proposals which are made to that conference from time to time. I suspect, however, that the apocalypse to which the noble Lord referred is best averted by means of the nuclear posture which we adopt.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that one would take the Soviet Union's ideas more seriously if they had not increased both their conventional and their nuclear capability every single year over the last eight years, until such time as they now far outweigh both in conventional and nuclear terms what the free world can operate against them? Would it not be a gesture for them to stop deploying SS20s, which are targeted on every major city in the free world in Western Europe, at the rate of one every three weeks, so that we now have 250 of these mobile reloadable weapons, each missile having three warheads, deployed in Western Europe? Is this the action of a Government—the Soviet Government—which is really sincere about reducing the tension and reducing armaments all round?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I cannot of course answer for the motivation behind the actions of the Soviet Union, butt have to agree that the main thrust of my noble friend's supplementary is correct.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, arising from a question on the other side of the House may I ask whether the Minister can confirm that at Vienna the Soviet Union proposed a withdrawal by the United States of 13,000 servicemen, and that the USSR should withdraw 20,000 plus the 20,000 unilaterally withdrawn from the GDR? Arising from the question from the Liberal Party about verification, may I ask the noble Lord whether, in view of the charges on both sides of increased military power, the Government would consider the appointment of an investigation by a neutral authority, for example the Stockholm Institute, or representatives of unaligned Governments who would not be likely to be charged with spying?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if the noble Lord is suggesting some new form of verification, certainly the Government will be prepared to look at that along

1071
with our allies, but of course it would need to be acceptable to the Soviets as well.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, in the meantime would the noble Lord confirm that the only assessment of Soviet conventional forces and nuclear forces in Europe which has ever been used by any Soviet spokesman is the assessment made by the Institute of Strategic Studies in London?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I do not know about that, but the fact remains that, whatever assessment is used, the Soviet strength in conventional forces and tanks and other weapons in this theatre is very substantial, and vastly exceeds that of the Western allies.

Aviation Fuel Duty: AVGAS
2.56 p.m.
Lord Whaddon: 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 small air taxi firms based in the United Kingdom have ceased operation in recent months, and to what extent this is due to problems with the price and availability of AVGAS.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Civil Aviation Authority tell me that during the six months April to September of this year, 15 small air taxi operators surrendered their air operators' certificates because they had ceased operations. During the same period the CAA issued 23 new certificates to operators of this type. Both these figures exclude short-term certificates issued to operators who work seasonally. It is not possible to assess the extent to which the price and availability of AVGAS has influenced these figures.
Lord Whaddon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. Does he not agree however that there is at present a bizarre position in the duty on aviation fuel where the fuel efficient piston engine aircraft using AVGAS are charged 62·8p a gallon and the thirsty jets 3p a gallon? Is this not a monstrous burden on the more efficient aircraft? Will the noble Lord take urgent action to respond to the requests of the general aviation interests that a unified fuel tax be brought in? Is he aware that 98 per cent. of AVGAS is used in business and training and only 2 per cent. in sporting flying? Is he aware that the view from official quarters that reduction of duty on AVGAS might result in use by motorists is nonsense, since if the whole of the duty were removed the price of that fuel would still be higher than that of motor fuel.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, in my former position in the Department of Trade I became very well aware of the views of the air taxi industry in this matter. As the noble Lord will appreciate, my right honourable friend the Chancellor always keeps his cards fairly close to his chest in these matters, but he has said that
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he would ensure that the case for a change in the duty on AVGAS was properly examined.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, without going against the desirability of reducing the duty on AVGAS, may I ask whether my noble friend can say whether he has anything further to report on the use of MOGAS?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the use of MOGAS continues to be studied carefully. However there are, I understand, a number of safety problems. One of the other aspects causing difficulty is the understandable reluctance of the engine manufacturers to allow their engines to be re-rated for a type of fuel where the quality control might be less stringent than for AVGAS.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that some of us will be pleased that he has refused to support this idea, this retrograde idea, this potentially dangerous idea, that MOGAS should be used instead of AVGAS? Will the noble Lord, with his previous knowledge in the other department, with his past experience, make the effort to get hold of those cards which his right honourable friend is holding too close to his chest? Will the noble Lord look at them and tell his right honourable friend that there is reason for the Government to do something to help not only the air taxi people but general aviation?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, there is a good deal in what the noble Lord says about this, but as for my getting hold of the cards close to the chest of my right honourable friend, I doubt whether I should have much more success than the noble Lord did with his Chancellor in his day.
Lord Strathcarron: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the price of aviation petrol in most countries in Western Europe is approximately £1·75 a gallon compared with over £2·50 in this country, and does he agree that this is a scandalous situation?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I agree that different Governments approach their fiscal problems in different ways, which is doubtless one of the matters which affects the price of AVGAS in this country.

Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act 1980 (Postponement of Repeal) Order 1981
3.1 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead) rose to move that the order, laid before the House on 28th September, be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Act with which this order is concerned was passed in October of last year as an emergency measure in order to enable steps to be taken to deal with the consequences of industrial action which prison officers were then taking. As part of that action, there was a refusal by prison officers to receive prisoners into any establishment which already contained a population in excess of its certified normal accommodation. As a result, because of the

1073
chronic overcrowding of the prison system, large numbers of prisoners had to be held in police cells or other temporary accommodation. Before turning to the detailed implications of the order, it may be convenient if I first review the provisions contained in Part I of the Act, since it is these provisions, together with related provisions in Section 8, whose repeal would be postponed by the order. By way of preliminary, however, I would emphasise that none of the provisions in Part I is currently in force and none is brought into force by this order.
Section 1 of the Act, when it is in force, provides that any person whose detention in any type of Prison Department establishment is lawful, may also be lawfully detained in any place in England or Wales approved for the purpose by the Secretary of State, and there are further provisions in Section 1 governing the operation of such "approved places" and the application to them of the ordinary law relating to prisons. The practical purpose of Section 1 was to make it possible to open special temporary prisons to accommodate prisoners who had been excluded from ordinary Prison Department establishments by the industrial action of last winter to which I have referred. There were, in the event, two "approved places". The first was at Frankland in County Durham, and the second at Rollestone Camp on Salisbury Plain. Frank-land and Rollestone held prisoners while the industrial action of the prison officers lasted, and ceased to Operate as temporary prisons in January and February of this year. In passing, I should perhaps mention that Rollestone Camp has recently again been brought into use as a temporary prison, as indeed also has Beckingham Camp in Lincolnshire. But neither of those establishments operates under the provisions of Section 1 of this Act. Each has been declared to be a prison under Section 33(2) of the Prison Act 1952 and each is run, like any other prison, by members of the prison service. The reason for bringing these two camps into use recently as prisons was the unprecedented pressure on prison accommodation brought about by the record high level which was reached by the prison population in July of this year.
Section 2 of the Act, when it is in force, provides that a person remanded in custody by a magistrates' court shall not be brought before the court again for further remands but shall instead, if a further remand is thought appropriate, be so remanded in his absence, except where the court has issued a direction requiring the person to be in court. Section 2 also provides, however, that the power of a magistrates' court to require a person remanded in custody to be brought before it at any time remains unaffected. The exceptional provisions of Section 2 were introduced because of the circumstances which obtained during the industrial action last winter, when thousands of prisoners, including large numbers of remand prisoners, could not be lodged in Prison Department establishments and had instead to be held either in police cells or in one or other of the approved places opened under Section 1, often at a considerable distance from the court. The provisions of Section 2 understandably gave rise to some concern, and to some debate in your Lordships' House, when they were introduced, but, thanks to the good sense and flexibility shown by all concerned, Section 2 appeared to work
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remarkably well in practice. Certainly no evidence was brought to the attention of the Home Office that any defendant had suffered disadvantage through the operation of Section 2.
The remaining three sections of Part I of the Act contained unusual and wide-ranging powers for the Secretary of State to take action to intervene in the ordinary process of the criminal justice system if the circumstances made such action unavoidable. I think it is important for me to point out that none of these powers was, in the event, exercised by my right honourable friend. Section 3 conferred on the Secretary of State power to release prisoners committed or remanded in custody, but only if he was satisfied that it was necessary to do so in order to make the best use of places available for detention. Section 4 conferred power to remove the power which a magistrates' court had to commit persons to prison for failure to pay any sum of money or for want of sufficient distress to satisfy any sum of money. Finally, Section 5 contained a power for the Secretary of State to direct that prisoners of a specific class shall be released earlier than they would otherwise be released, although not more than six months earlier. As with Section 3, the Secretary of State may not give a direction under Section 5 unless he is satisfied that it is necessary to do so in order to make the best use of the places available for detention; and I repeat that Sections 3, 4 and 5 were never used.
That is the effect of the Act. The effect of this order is simply this: Part I, to which I have just referred, and the related provisions of Section 8(1) to (5), which deal with the activation of Part I, shall be repealed 12 months after the date on which the Act was passed. Were the order before your Lordships not to be made, repeal would therefore take place automatically on 28th October of this year. Section 8(7) however provides that the Secretary of State may by order postpone the repeal of Part I and Section 8(1) to (5) for any period of up to 12 months, although not for more than 12 months at a time, and it is such an order that is now before your Lordships. I would emphasise that the order to postpone repeal has not been made because of any expectation that it will be necessary to bring any of the provisions of Part I into force within the foreseeable future. That would require a further and quite separate order under Section 8(2)(b), and my right honourable friend has no intention at present of making any such order. On the other hand, we do not think it would be prudent to allow the complete repeal of Part I and Section 8(1) to (5) to take place at this time, which is what would have happened were the order before your Lordships not to be made.
The industrial action which led to the enactment of the Act a year ago ceased at the beginning of this year. But I regret to have to say to the House that we have not yet arrived at a position where it can be said to have been conclusively terminated. The Prison Officers' Association agreed last February to suspend its action pending the outcome of negotiations on a new duty system to cover working arrangements in Prison Department establishments. Those negotiations have been long and complicated, and while we are working hard for a satisfactory outcome, there can as yet be no guarantee that that will be the case. Nor can we overlook the fact that the prison service

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has been, and still is, under very severe strain from the pressures of overcrowding and decaying buildings. My right honourable friend has no reason at present to expect any recurrence of industrial action on a large scale, but he came to the view that the insurance that this Act provides against the possibility of a breakdown in the criminal justice system should not be dismantled at this stage, and that the total repeal of the Act ought not therefore to take place now.
If it were desired to bring any of the provisions of Part I into force, a further order would have to be made under Section 8(2), under which the Secretary of State has power by order to bring all, or any, of the provisions of Part I into force for a period not exceeding one month, subject to renewal by further orders. If, against our expectations, action of that kind had to be taken, your Lordships would have the opportunity under Section 8(5) to consider whether it was right for the House to support such an order. All that is proposed in the order that is currently before your Lordships, which has been made under Section 8(7), is that repeal of Part I and the related provisions of Section 8 shall be postponed for a period of 12 months. The order ceases to have effect 40 sitting days after it was made, unless within that period it is approved by your Lordships' House and another place. For the reasons that I have given, the Government consider that the order is a prudent, but necessary, measure, and I ask your Lordships to give it your approval. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the order, laid before the House on 28th September, be approved.—(Lord Belstead.)
3.12 p.m.
Lord Boston of Faversham: My Lords, your Lordships will be grateful to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for outlining the Government's reasons for introducing the order, and he has clone so with his usual clarity. But I should be less than frank with the House if I said that I was grateful that the order itself had been introduced. It is, I believe, regrettable that the Government have decided to ask Parliament to postpone the repeal of this Act—the Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act 1980—for 12 months, and to keep it in being for another year. It is regrettable, first, that Parliament is being asked to retain legislation of this kind now by order and, secondly, that the Government consider that the situation in our prisons is such that this step is necessary and justified.
Let me try to deal with those points. The Act was passed a year ago in circumstances of the most acute crisis in our prisons, and at the height of the prison officers' dispute. The Bill was brought in to help to avert a complete breakdown within the prison service, and to avert a breakdown in the criminal justice system itself. That was an unprecedented situation. It had to be dealt with. The Government accordingly decided to bring in emergency legislation. It was right to do so. The Opposition did not oppose it. Indeed, as the Minister and the House will recall, we facilitated its passage through Parliament, and the Bill was passed in one day in your Lordships' House.
Parliament is very jealous of its rights and duties, which exist to safeguard the rights of everyone in this country, and which include the right and duty to
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scrutinise most carefully any legislation that is introduced. Parliament has always been ready to act swiftly in an emergency, as we have seen, and the Opposition was ready to respond and indeed did respond last October, just as Oppositions have been ready traditionally where there has been clear need and justification.
When it was introduced as a Bill, the Act was acknowledged on all sides to contain some draconian powers, powers which, when used, would curtail the liberties of the subject; and that was acknowledged also by the Government themselves. Nevertheless, in all the circumstances it was right to bring in the powers, as we ourselves agreed, and as a temporary measure—I stress those words. But there were qualifications which we all had, not least the Government themselves. They had to have such qualifications to justify the exceptional action that they were proposing to take. The first of the reservations was that the powers were needed in the circumstances, which themselves were unprecedented.
In my submission, it cannot be claimed that there exists today the same situation as existed a year ago. It is of great importance for the well being of Parliament and the public that procedures of the kind used a year ago are reserved only for the most urgent, pressing, exceptional and—if one may make a rare, but proper, use of the word—extreme needs. Parliament has been seen to be able to act with great speed, and, if it could be argued that a situation like the one last year had arisen again, then the proper course would be to bring in a new Bill.
As the Minister has explained, it is true that the powers in the Act will not themselves actively be in operation after the passage of the order. Another order under the Act would be needed to bring them into effect; and indeed, as the noble Lord has also indicated to your Lordships this afternoon, the Government cannot see any reason for activating Part I—I quote the words that he used—" within the foreseeable future''.
But, as we know, one difficulty about orders is that they cannot be amended. We can only take them or leave them, or, by rejecting them, leave the Government with the option of bringing them back in a different form. It is true that by its very nature this Act does not invite much scope for amendment. It is very tightly drawn and, if I may say so, in the circumstances, well drawn, as was the case last year. But that is all the more reason for subjecting its provisions to the fullest possible examination and scrutiny.
Of course it is also the case that the prison population is still at a level which some would readily acknowledge to be a crisis level, but it has been so for some time, regrettable though that is. Last Thursday it was stated in another place that on 20th October the figure was 43,837. And the figure, bad though it is, as it was last year, was not advanced as the reason and justification for the exceptional step in Parliament to meet an unprecedented situation. The Minister has already referred to the use of police cells. As we have heard and understand, they are no longer being used for these purposes, nor indeed is Rollestone Camp, though the Minister has explained that it is being used as a designated prison at the moment. Frankland prison, which was brought into service for these pur-

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poses, is, I think, empty at the moment. So it can be said that there are not pressures in those directions as there were last year.
It is true, too, that the prison officers' dispute has been only suspended, as the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has mentioned to your Lordships. But Ministers have also said that negotiations are proceeding. Indeed, the noble Lord has said that this afternoon to your Lordships. I quote one Minister, who has said that he is,
"certainly hopeful that those negotiations will have a satisfactory outcome".
A representative of the Government has also said that they,
"do not think it likely that there will be any recurrence of industrial action on a large scale, or that difficulties will arise from any other cause with which the present system will be unable to cope",
though,
"it plainly remains a possibility".
My Lords, the situation is quite different from the circumstances of last year, and if some of these powers did not have to be used then (and thank goodness they did not!) they are clearly far less justified now. Moreover, the fact that the Act was to be temporary—indeed, it says so in its very Title—caused it to be more acceptable last year and caused potential criticism of it then (I think it is right to say) to be far less than would otherwise have been the case.
I confess I was somewhat disturbed to find that, in justification of this order, it was said in another place by the honourable and learned gentleman the Minister of State, Mr. Mayhew—for whom I have a very great deal of respect—that:
"If that dispute had now been resolved and had been out of the way for some time, we should be in a different position".
My Lords, I wonder how long "for some time" is meant to be. I also wonder, and am bound to ask: How long now does the Government regard "temporary" as being likely to be? I do not recall words quite like that being used last year in putting the case for the Act, when the situation was at its most serious.
Clearly we all want to see the seal put on a final and satisfactory agreement with the prison officers, and clearly we want to see vast improvements in the often appalling conditions which have to be faced by our prison officers—who, with very few exceptions, do an outstanding job in immensely difficult circumstances. And, of course, we want to see conditions for prisoners improved as well. But part of the longer-term solution must lie—this is in part, at least—in the introduction as rapidly as possible of suitable and effective alternatives to imprisonment and other measures to reduce the prison population.
Many of these have been put forward and discussed over a long period now, and I will not go into details on this occasion, but I will just note that, for example, there were many useful proposals in the Fifteenth Report of the Expenditure Committee of another place entitled The Reduction of Pressure on the Prison System, which was published in July 1978 and the considered response to which, I might also mention, had reached an advanced stage when the last Government went out of office in May 1979. There were also the proposals referred to in the May Com-
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mittee's Report on the Prison Service, which came out in October of that year, 1979; and the report of the Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group, called Too Many Prisoners, which came out in June 1980, with their supplementary report, which came out this September, called Still Too Many Prisoners. Then, again, there were the Fourth Report of the Home Affairs Committee of another place, which came out on the 20th July this year, and other valuable reports from the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders.
So there has been no shortage of ideas over a long period covering more than one Government. These include—and, again, I will not go into details, but will mention just a few of them—such proposals as extending the parole system, extensions of remission, shorter sentences (there have, it is true, been some improvements there by the courts over this past year), partially suspended sentences, alterations in the attendance centre system, including proposals for the day centres, more extensive use of community service orders, intermediate treatment for children and young persons, proposals on probation and so on. There has been no shortage at all of ideas and proposals for alternatives to imprisonment and for reducing the pressure on the prison system and the number of the prison population.
My Lords, I know that the Minister and his department have been considering and pursuing many of these matters. There is, for instance, the Government's document Review of Parole, which was published in May of this year. But if they have been pursuing them (as I believe they have, some of them) then there is even less case for this order. Of course, if they have not been pursuing them quickly enough, then that is even more reprehensible, but it would be wrong and unfair of me to use this occasion to seek to explore that possibility.
My Lords, I am not going to invite my noble friends to divide on this matter, but I hope the Minister will acknowledge the very real concern there is that measures like this Act shall not remain on the statute book one moment longer than is absolutely necessary, and that they should be there at all only in the most exceptional and grave circumstances.
3.25 p.m.
Lord Foot: My Lords, I have listened with great care to everything that the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, has said about this subject, but at the end of it I am afraid I do not share his alarm at the extension of this Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act for a further 12 months. He said, as I understood it at the beginning, that he thought that under this temporary Act the Home Secretary was taking to himself what he called, I think, draconian powers which were a threat to the civil liberties which we in this country enjoy. With one exception to which I will make some reference in a minute, I do not know of anything which has been done under this Act which has infringed anybody's liberty at all, and I cannot see any reason why in the next 12 months, if this Act is given a further extension for that period, what has not occurred during the last 12 months should occur during the next 12 months.

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It is on that account that when I came here this morning I was rather thinking that the debate on this Motion would be something of a formality. I thought it would go through almost "on the nod". But there is one matter contained in the Act to which I should like to make some reference, and that is the provisions in Section 2, the remand in custody provisions. Those provisions have of course a special significance, because last June, in a Written Answer to a Parliament ray Question, the Home Secretary said that it was his intention, in the light of the experience that we had had under Section 2 of this Act, to introduce permanent legislation upon the matter which is dealt with in that section.
Of course, what Section 2 does is to abolish what has been long the law of the land; that is, that where a person is remanded in custody by a magistrates' court that person can be remanded for only eight days, and at the end of those eight days he must be brought back if it is desired to remand him again—or, indeed, he must be brought back in any event. That has been the state of the law, as I understand it, for well over a hundred years. The draconian power that was taken by Section 2 (and here the adjective is, I think, appropriate) was to provide that that should be scrapped, and that for the future it would be possible for a magistrates' court to remand a person in custody in his absence.
Indeed, if one reads Section 2 with care one sees that the magistrates can, if they wish, remand a person in custody for successive periods of eight days indefinitely, without his ever being brought before the court which is making those remand orders. As a result of that, he has no opportunity to apply for bail; he has no opportunity to make inquiries of the court as to how his case is progressing; and he remains in his place of confinement waiting interminably for the day when he will be brought up for the committal or other proceedings.
That was indeed a major change in the law, and that was acceptable, in my view, only because it was a temporary measure to deal with an emergency situation. The emergency situation arose, as the noble Lord on the Front Bench has said, because prison officers refused to take into custody people remanded by the magistrates' court if the numbers then in confinement were greater than the proper establishment figures. Also, of course, the prison officers were refusing to bring these people to the courts. They said, "We are not going to take them to the courts. We are not going to take them every eight days, as the courts require". The reason why the provision making that draconian change in the law about being remanded in custody is of particular significance today is that last June the Home Secretary said that in the light of that experience he was proposing to introduce permanent legislation along the same lines.
I have only this to say. I recognise that there are very great advantages to be gained if one can get rid of this business whereby people have to be brought to the courts every eight days even if it serves no useful purpose. It is obvious that anybody who wants to be brought back to the court every eight days wants to renew an application for bail. In many cases an application for bail is not made because it is hopeless.
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In other cases the application is made but it is hopeless because an application has previously been rejected and there are no new facts to put before the court. So many of the journeys to court which are undertaken under the supervision of prison officers and policemen every eight days are quite unnecessary and impose an almost intolerable drain on our limited resources of manpower and finance, as we all know.
If one could eliminate the unnecessary, fruitless and pointless applications for bail and visits to the courts every eight days, there would be great advantages. At a stroke one would reduce the demands upon the already overstrained resources of the prisons and the police. Based on figures produced by the Justices' Clerks Society, there is good reason to believe that the provisions of Section 2, since the appearance of the person concerned every eight days was no longer necessary, have eliminated about one-third of the remand applications. That is a very considerable figure. I believe the criminal statistics for 1979 show that the number of remands in custody was something like 250,000. The figure which the Justices' Clerks Society have provided give reason to believe that under this provision in Section 2 we have eliminated perhaps 80,000—something like one-third—of those applications. To my knowledge, no one has yet worked out the average cost of taking a prisoner to court every eight days in terms of travel, police time, prison time and the rest. But the cost must be very considerable, and if it were only £10 every time, one is up to a figure of something like £1 million. In fact, it must be very much more expensive than £10 and therefore we are talking about a potential saving running into millions of pounds. That would obviously be a great gain if one could achieve it.
The problem is, can one arrange matters so that the remand system is altered without infringing the basic rights of the person who is being held in custody? Obviously no administrative saving should be preferred to, or allowed to take precedence over, the rights of the individual. The problem which arises here—and it is one which has been discussed over a number of years—is how one can safeguard the rights of the person remanded in custody and at the same time achieve this large gain in administrative expense.
There has been a great deal of discussion on this subject and in the statement which the Home Secretary made in June he made it clear that he was going to ask all interested bodies to advise him on how they believed this objective might be accomplished. I believe that it can be done. Something like 10 years ago in this House I had the temerity to propose that the period of remand by a magistrates' court in future be 21 days unless the person concerned objected and said that he wanted to come hack to the court in eight days. I also suggested in an amendment to a Criminal Justice Bill that was going through Parliament at that time that, if one set up such an arrangement with sufficient safeguards and ensured that the person concerned was legally represented and had been properly advised, and that he could not be detained for longer than eight days except with his express consent, one could achieve all the gains without any of the comparative disadvantages.
Unfortunately, everyone was against me. I believe that I managed to scrape up eight people in the Division

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Lobby when I took the amendment to a vote. It was mainly thrown out because it was very powerfully opposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. He brought his great authority to bear and said that he thought my suggestion was altogether too dangerous. Since that time some proposal of this kind has gained support in all sorts of different directions. The Magistrates' Association, the Justices' Clerks Society and other bodies have come out in favour of some reform of this kind.
I want to use this opportunity to say to the Government that I certainly hope that they will, as Mr. Whitelaw foreshadowed, introduce this amending, permanent legislation at an early date so that it will supersede Section 2, and will give to the person remanded in custody a real safeguard that his basic rights are not going to be infringed. I hope that we are going to see notice of that legislation in the Queen's Speech when the new Session begins; I shall be very disappointed if it does not appear. I do not suppose that the noble Lord can possibly tell us that is going to be in the Queen's Speech, but he might find a form of words to indicate whether something of this kind will be included.
Lord Boston of Faversham: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Foot, sits down, and although I hesitate to cross swords with him because I agree with him on so many legal matters, I did wonder, in his general approach to the order before your Lordships, whether his attention had been drawn to the remarks made by his honourable friend the Member for the Isle of Wight, Mr. Stephen Ross, in another place last night, when the order was debated there. Mr. Ross said that he bitterly opposed the renewal of this legislation; he opposed it when it was first introduced and he always felt that Section 1 was the only part of it which was necessary.
Lord Foot: My Lords, that is only another illustration of the fact that the people in my party disagree very often; and now we have the additional advantage that we can fall out with the SDP.
3.40 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, The noble Lord, Lord Foot, has made the most useful and constructive speech and I am sure it has commanded a lot of attention from your Lordships. May I say that I believe the Government are fully justified in asking for this Act of 1980 not to be repealed, for two main reasons: First, because, as has been said, the prison officers' dispute has not yet been resolved and it is better to be safe than sorry. But the second reason is one on which I should like to dwell for a few moments. It is that the difficulties of prison administration have been increasing steadily year after year for nearly 30 years. Even if the prison officers' dispute had not taken place, provisions of the kind included in the Act which is not to be repealed would in my opinion sooner or later have had to be introduced. The granting of an extra year for considering those matters and for making some of the provisions permanent, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has said, seems to me to be quite essential. There is an almost permanent dilemma with regard to the prison administration so long as crime continues
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to increase and the courts continue to feel that they must send people to prison.
Our prison system is mainly based, so far as numbers are concerned, upon the situation that prevailed round about 1950. There simply has not been the will on the part of Governments or of Parliaments to provide the rapidly increasing funds to enlarge the prison system. There has been so much competition for expenditure in other fields—in health, in education, in roads; in any kind of public expenditure you can think of—that the need to keep pace with growth in the prisons has necessarily had a poor priority. That is the situation which still prevails and I do not see any easy or probable way of its being overcome for some time.
That is why the difficulties within the prison system itself make it essential for the Government to be given yet another year to consider whether these provisions, brought in perhaps accidentally as a result of the prison officers' dispute, should not be made more permanent. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Belstead—and I warmly endorse the tribute paid to him by the noble Lord, Lord Boston—is fully justified in asking the House for an extension of these powers.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, when, sitting next to the noble Lord, Lord Boston, I supported the emergency provisions on that Bench, the things which interested me chiefly were two or three provisions in this temporary Bill for which we had been pressing for years to become part of our permanent penal legislation. One of them has been discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and I agree with all that he said. The only point about that, in relation to this Bill, is that it is faulty as things stand and there is no limit under this Bill to the number of weeks that a man can be held on remand and there is no specific demand that he should give his waiver to his right to go every eight days. I was hoping that, by this time, we should have at least this provision put forward in some permanent way so that these additions could be made and we could discuss any of the further difficulties about civil liberties. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, and the Howard League are opposed to this and I would only say that the Inter-Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group has made the recommendation specifically; and we all hope (as does the noble Lord, Lord Foot) that it will be contained in the Queen's speech. If it is, we will support it from these Benches.
The second thing is Clauses 3 to 5 which were never used. They contained some powers which we think the Home Secretary should have anyway and not only in an emergency. They give him the right to release certain categories of prisoners in certain circumstances—those awaiting trial or serving the last six months of their sentences—and to prevent magistrates from committing people to prison for not paying fines. We believe that the second thing—after extensive discussion, because there are great difficulties about it—should probably become part of our legislation, as should, certainly, the first. So that my disappointment is that instead of getting down to the problems which have been well illustrated by the operation of the emergency powers, the Government are rather lazy in asking simply for extension. But they must have the extension. I hope that before we meet again on this

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subject there will be some serious proposals for adding to the existing legislation these very important items, one of which at least in Clause 2 has shown itself to work extremely well. We shall not oppose the order.
3.48 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I should like to support the Government in their wish to prolong this order. None of us who is in a position to send or not to send someone to prison does so or does not do so as a matter of convenience for the administration. It is a matter for the protection of the public or of the degree of seriousness of the crime. It is not an administrative convenience to send someone to prison or to remand in custody. Getting back to what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has said, it has been my experience in Pentonville Prison that the workshops have suffered considerably due to the escort duties carried out by prison officers, which means there are not enough staff to man the prison workshop. This means that the workshops are closed and the prisoners remain in their cells. This has been given officially as one of the reasons for the closure of many workshops in prisons.
There are two types of prisoner to my mind (there may be others) on remand. There are those who wish to be on remand in custody because they know that their period of remand in custody will count toward their sentence and their eventual release when and if they are found guilty by the courts. There are others who may have served time on remand and, being found not guilty, are released; but that time can never be given back to them.
I wonder whether the Government will be able to give me an answer to the question of whether boards of visitors, many of whom are magistrates, could take on the duties within the prison walls of the eight-day appearance of a chap on remand; so that the administrative difficulties are put to a minimum and the innocent person does not stand in risk of remaining inside for many weeks or months before their case came up before the court. I have often known of cases of people being released on bail who had been on remand in custody. I wonder whether the Government would consider boards of visitors taking on this duty.
3.50 p.m.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I think that it would be fair to say that the solution to this particular problem relating to the overcrowding in our prisons depends entirely on having a policy to deal with delinquents. I am a little surprised to hear that this particular order may only be resolved if the pressure on our prisons can be released. I speak with something like 11 years' experience in the probation service—albeit a good many years ago—and 36 years as a magistrate sitting in magistrates' courts, quarter sessions and crown courts. I feel that the Government must look carefully into this matter as to whether or not there is a real alternative to prison.
What we are faced with at the present moment is a parole system out of which we created a virtue from a necessity. I go so far as to say—and I know I shall be contradicted—that not enough time was given to
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creating a parole system to meet the needs of individuals. The overriding claim was that we had to reduce the prison population and so the idea of parole was conceived and we made a virtue out of a necessity. My noble friend Lord Donaldson says that he hopes that there will be provision whereby it will be impossible to send people to prison for non-payment of fines. But they are not paying their fines now. I do not know how many millions of pounds in the Metropolitan area alone is not collected each year. To have a judicial system that imposes a fine, and when the fine is not paid nothing is done about it, is quite disastrous.
I do not want to take up time because your Lordships may feel, with some justification, that this is not really relevant to the order before the House, but I urge the Government to look carefully at alternatives to prison. I dislike intensely the Executive, the Home Secretary, having the right to say: "We will release this group of people regardless of what they have done, and we will release them six months earlier in order to reduce the strain on our prisons". Our magistrates and judges are not so uninformed, ill-informed and misinformed that they do not know what they are doing. They have before them probation and social reports related to the needs of the individual. I do not think that overcrowding can be dealt with by somebody in the Government saying, "We will reduce this and that". It is an interference in the judicial system which I do not altogether like.
We have to look at the alternatives. We know that community service orders have worked, and worked very well. We know that there are many other things that can be tried. What appals me—and the noble Lord the Minister will expect me to say this—is that the year before last the Home Office gave approval to the training of something like 400 probation officers who completed their training within the past few months. A hundred of them have been informed that there will be no work for them, after we have gone through the expense of training them. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the Home Office to say, "All right, we will introduce various alternatives and we can use these 100 probation officers". I do not know how much it costs to maintain a probation officer for one year, but I do know how much it costs to maintain somebody in prison.
All I want to do is ask the noble Lord—and it may be irrelevant so far as this order is concerned—whether his department will get down to the task of thinking of alternatives to prison? The Government should bear in mind that in the last analysis prison serves a very useful purpose so far as some individuals are concerned, because there may well be no other way of dealing with them.
3.54 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, if I may follow the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, in what has become a rather wide-ranging debate—and I make no complaint about that—on the criminal justice system, I do not think that we have a large number of opportunities to direct our attention to this particular series of issues. It is by happy accident that we find ourselves in a position to do so today. I speak entirely for myself and I support the order moved by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, for two reasons: first,

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as the noble Lord pointed out, the industrial action taken by the Prison Officers' Association has only been suspended. In a situation of that kind it would be very remarkable were the Home Secretary of the day not to ask for renewal of the powers which are set out in the order. Secondly—and we cannot possibly ignore this—we are facing a most dangerous crisis in our prison system.
I am well aware of the fact that in the past few years that particular form of words has been used by people speaking on both sides of this House and on both sides of another place. But the fact is that the situation month by month and year by year is becoming more serious. It would be the height of folly not to have powers of this sort available to deal with a very serious situation. Let me explain what I mean by a crisis in the prison system. I have had the opportunity, both as a Minister and more recently, of visiting a number of our local prisons. Taking the point made by the noble Baroness a few moments ago about the position in Pentonville, it is right to say that the crisis situation which we face does not operate throughout every prison in this country—in fact that is not the position at all. In a number of prisons there is no serious overcrowding problem. The real difficulty faces us in the local prisons where people are serving short sentences, where there are fine defaulters of the kind referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and where there are a very substantial number of remand prisoners.
The problem is that there is a risk of a breakdown in one of these local prisons of something absolutely basic such as the mains services or the sewerage system, which cannot cope with the sheer pressure of numbers of people who are having to be maintained in custody in those establishments. I am well aware of the fact that there are many who say: "In that situation it is the responsibility of the Government to build more prisons".
Unfortunately, it takes somewhere around 10 years to build a prison. First one designs it; then there have to be the prolonged local inquiries that take place in order to get local approval of the scheme. When people hear that a prison is about to be built they do not normally greet this news with unrelieved enthusiasm. There is parliamentary pressure on the Secretary of State of the day and then subsequently there is the building programme. Of course there is always a risk that there will be some financial crisis and a cutback in the capital expenditure of the Prison Department of the Home Office. The fact is that we cannot deal with a crisis situation in our local prisons on a short-term basis. Therefore I repeat that this is the character of the problem that we face at the moment, and it is right for us to recognise where it lies.
There are only two other points that I should like to make. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, said that he thought it was the duty of the Home Office—and of course I agree with him—to look for alternatives to imprisonment. There has been no shortage of enthusiasm in the Home Office through Governments of different political persuasions to looking at alternatives to imprisonment. The Conservative Government of 1970–74 took the power to create community service. They launched six experimental schemes which proved their value. As a result of that, the Labour Govern-
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ment after 1974 extended community service to cover the whole of England and Wales. Undoubtedly that has had a dramatic effect in terms of turning people away from prison. In making some form of very rough calculation as to what would have happened last year if we had not had community service, it is possible that up to 10,000 additional people would have found their way into our grossly overcrowded prisons. That is an indication of the scale of community service and the value it has been as a means available to the magistrates' courts and to the Crown Courts; so I do not think there is a lack of interest or enthusiasm in looking for alternatives to imprisonment.
Again, there has been a great deal of parliamentary argument about getting out of prison some people who are mentally ill, who should be in regional secure units. There has been a fair amount of argument between the Home Office and the DHSS as to how quickly one can get such people out of the prison system altogether; but again that has public expenditure implications for the DHSS and also as regards getting trade union approval and the agreement of local communities to the creation of regional secure units.
The only other point I would make is the very important one made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and referred to also by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. It is an important point and I hope that the Government will have the opportunity to look again at the question of remands in custody and the fact that at the present moment one has to produce people, for perfectly understandable reasons, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, reminded us, at eight-day intervals. This has a devastating effect upon the régime in local prisons. The noble Baroness referred to Pentonville, where there had to be regular closure of workshops. That happens in many other Prison Department establishments throughout this country, making the régime in those establishments even more intolerable than it is in any event. Therefore it seems to me that the proposal made by the noble Baroness is quite right, though I can well imagine some of the objections that may be made, for example, to getting the magistrate members of boards of visitors looking at some of these remand cases in some judicial or quasi-judicial framework. I can understand the arguments which will be used against the proposal. It will be asked: will this be a court and, if so, are the public and the press to be admitted? But the fact is that she is quite right; the sheer pressure of numbers of those who appear week in and week out, in many cases with no apparent benefit to anybody, is having the most serious consequences on the prison system and the sooner we can move to some more satisfactory system, while at the same time safeguarding the rights of the criminal defendant, the better it will be for all of us.
Lord Morris: My Lords, I have listened with great care to what my noble friend Lord Belstead has said, and also to what has been said by other speakers. Not for the first time, I found the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, particularly arresting. He raised a fundamental constitutional point which I believe to be of the greatest importance, for the Act to which this order refers may be called "an Act of Parliament pending". In other words,

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the implementation of this Act depends solely upon the whim of the Executive. It hangs like the sword of Damocles over those directly involved in the implementation of the Act. By such parliamentary means, I believe that the Executive are using, not for the first time, a device which converts Parliament into nothing more than a rubber stamp. My noble friend might well suggest: "Some rubber stamp that talks back to one for over an hour!" However, it is a device which I believe should be used as rarely as possible, in emergency situations. This is the key—where is the emergency? The conditions have changed during the period of more than a year ago and I find this practice is unfortunate. I quite appreciate the reason for it, namely, that it is extremely convenient for an Executive to use Parliament in this way. Nevertheless, abuse of this device does worry me.
4.5 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, said he had expected that this order would be taken formally. All I can say is that it ill behoves any Government spokesman to come to your Lordships' House and to expect any piece of business to be taken formally—for, as we have seen this afternoon, this order has led to an extremely important and interesting debate, with contributions being made by your Lordships from various parts of the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Boston, recalled the extremely difficult circumstances of October last year when the Opposition, and indeed your Lordships' House generally, facilitated the passage of the Act, the repeal of which for a further year would be postponed as a result of approving this order. The noble Lord said in essence, I think, that while the passing of the Act a year ago was justified then, he was less happy about the postponement of repeal at a time when the criminal justice system is not subject to disruption of a kind that occurred last winter. That view was also echoed in the final speech by my noble friend Lord Morris.
However, the position is that the order before the House does not actually bring any of the provisions of Part I of the Act into force at all. We are dealing only with a contingency provision because, as my noble friend Lord Renton said, it is better to be safe than sorry. My noble friend said that bearing in mind first of all that the industrial action which necessitated the bringing in of this legislation is still technically only suspended and not ended. There would need to be, if any of the provisions of Part I were to be brought into effect, an entirely separate order made under the terms of Section 8(2) if circumstances were to develop which made the activation of Part I appropriate. If I may say so with respect to my noble friend Lord Morris, this separate order would have to be separately approved not only by another place but also by your Lordships' House. The Government sincerely hope and trust that the activation of any of the provisions of Part I will not be needed, but my right honourable friend believes it would be premature at this stage to allow the ability to do so if necessary to be wholly removed. I am extremely grateful to those of your Lordships who, either enthusiastically or perhaps not so enthusiastically
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but with understanding, have felt that the order ought to be made.
Having said that, if the House will forgive me, I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, down the road of debating alternatives to custody, enormously important though they are, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, reminded us. Nor will I follow my noble friend Lord Renton down the road of the need for new prisons, although I am glad to say that we do have at last, even in these difficult days, a building programme for new prisons which will enable us to start, beginning in this financial year, six new prisons in the next three years.
However, I think I owe the House the very briefest explanation of the present stage of negotiations with the Prison Officers' Association, on which so much of what I am bringing before the House is based. Very briefly, consultation with governors and the Prison Officers' Association has shown that the original proposal which was brought up after the industrial action of the winter, that there should be a single common attendance system, lacked the necessary degree of flexibility when we look at the range of different establishments that there are in the prison service. It is now proposed that discussions should be directed towards producing a single common working agreement covering a variety of different shift patterns. But the Prison Officers' Association take the view that such a change requires the approval of their members.
I thought your Lordships might be interested to hear that tomorrow a delegate conference of the Prison Officers' Association is due to be held to decide whether further negotiations should be conducted on that basis. On the assumption that the outcome of tomorrow's conference is favourable, negotiations on the detail of such a working agreement can then proceed quickly. I understand that the POA will wish to seek the approval of their members to the final form of the agreement, and its implementation will need to be preceded by a period of local discussion and training. But I hope that this process will be completed with all possible speed.
Incidentally, considering the interest which has been taken in the order, I ought just to say that in the interim, between the ending of the industrial action of last winter, which caused such grievous disruption to the prison service, and today, the Prison Department of the Home Office has been seeking, and is continuing to seek, measures to improve industrial relations generally within the prison service. It has submitted proposals to the POA for revising the Whitley structure and, also, the department has made it clear that it wishes to discuss with the POA the possibility of a procedural agreement, with a view to improving consultative arrangements. It is hoped to put proposals to the Prison Officers' Association shortly, as a basis for discussion on that as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, and, indeed, my noble friend Lady Trumpington and the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, all referred to one part of the Act which I am asking should not be repealed, and that is Section 2. I think it is fair to say that all three said, in essence, that, provided the right arrangements are made, herein could lie very real advantages for the future. Again, very briefly, may I simply reply in this

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way: As the noble Lord, Lord Foot, reminded your Lordships, Section 2, as it is incorporated at the moment in this Act, is not a very satisfactory piece of drafting. It has relied upon a little guidance which was given by the Home Secretary to the courts, in order—of course, within the discretion of the courts—that the attention of the Judiciary could be drawn to some of the needs of Section 2.
The main point which my right honourable friend ventured to make to the courts was that he thought it highly desirable that defendants should be legally represented, if their remand hearing took place in their absence. He asked the courts to give the most serious consideration to the grant of legal aid on the first occasion when the defendant appeared before the court, if the court decided to remand the offender in custody. Experience of the working of Section 2, when the industrial action was on, suggested that it did work well and that the normal arrangements for producing remand prisoners before the courts every eight days might be relaxed.
It is a fact that on 18th June this year, in answer to a Parliamentary Question from my honourable friend Mr. Ivan Lawrence, the Member for Burton, the Home Secretary indicated that he intended to bring legislative proposals before the House at an early opportunity, to enable remand hearings in magistrates' courts to take place in the defendant's absence, subject to certain conditions being met. These conditions would be that the court should be satisfied that the defendant consented to further remands in absence and that he, or she, was legally represented.
That is the situation as it stands at the moment, and although, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, rightly said, it would not be possible for me to anticipate what is in the gracious Speech—I think we must await a further move from my right honourable friend on this matter—I hope that the few facts connected with Section 2, of which I have reminded the House, may lead your Lordships to feel that perhaps my right honourable friend's expressed intention is along the right lines.
May I come to the specific question which my noble friend Lady Trumpington asked. My noble friend asked about the possibility of boards of visitors acting as alternative courts for remand hearings. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, immediately saw, boards of visitors' proceedings in prisons could hardly be open to the public; and, at least, when a prisoner was remanded in absence under the emergency provisions, the court proceedings had to be open to public scrutiny.
Additionally, courts already have powers to remand a prisoner to an alternative court nearer to the prison in which the offender is detained. This power is largely used for dangerous prisoners, but could reduce the problems involved in escorting remand prisoners back and forth in ordinary times. I do not think that I would, or should, make any further comments on my noble friend's suggestion on this matter, because I have tried to indicate in my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, the direction in which my right honourable friend's mind is working on this matter.
Finally, I return to a fundamental question which the noble Lord, Lord Boston, asked me. The noble Lord asked: How temporary is temporary? None of us can today foresee how future circumstances may develop.
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But, for the purpose of our proceedings in your Lordships' House this afternoon, I think it is sufficient to observe that the order before us postpones the repeal for 12 months and no longer. If there were any proposal 12 months hence to provide for further postponement of repeal, then that proposal would itself have to be embodied in a further order needing to be approved by this House and by another place. That is the effect of the order which I have brought before your Lordships' House this afternoon and to which I now, again, ask the agreement of your Lordships.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Salmon Fishing Industry of Scotland
4.17 p.m.
Viscount Thurso Viscount Thurso rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the increasing difficulty of administering the salmon fishing industry of Scotland and of the dangers which face the industry as a result of the failure of successive Governments to bring forward the up-to-date legislation which the industry urgently needs.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in rising to ask the Government the Question on the Order Paper about the salmon fishing industry of Scotland, I feel that I should start by declaring my interest. in the first instance I am an angler, and in the second instance I am chairman of a company that owns a salmon river from source to sea and that operates upon it a rod fishery, a net fishery and a hatchery. I am also chairman of a district fishery board; I am president of the Association of Scottish District Salmon Fishery Boards and I am a member of the appeal committee of the Atlantic Salmon Trust. So I have a lot of interests which I hope your Lordships will find allow me to be informed, rather than prejudiced.
It is about 20 years since the dangers facing the Atlantic salmon in Scotland, and the pressing need to up-date the legislation which controls both the rod and net fishing industry, caused the Government of the day to set up the Hunter Committee to advise them on what to do about them. For 20 years the position has slowly deteriorated. For 20 years successive Governments have sat back and done nothing. The only exception to all this masterly inactivity has been the continued banning of the drift net around the coasts of Scotland. But what a pity it is that this ban has never been enshrined in legislation, and still more a pity that the ban has not been extended all round the the coasts of Britain.
The development of the monofilament drift net has turned an archaic, small-scale Northumbrian fishery into a massive poaching operation on Scottish salmon stocks. One hundred and fifty tonnes of salmon are now caught annually by this fishery, of which 94 per cent. are admitted to be Scottish fish waiting to get up their own rivers. Can your Lordships expect Scottish salmon fishermen to contemplate with equanimity the loss of 140 tonnes of Scottish bred fish? This is a loss of some 31,500 fish to the Tweed and neighbouring east coast rivers.
Think, too, of how we appear to other countries when we seek to preserve our fish from their depre-

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dations and yet allow the very methods which we seek to prevent them from using to be used off the coast of England. The ground that this is a traditional fishery cannot really be upheld when it relies for its murderous success on the totally untraditional, invisible, monofilament fibre. I therefore ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will face up to this problem and give us some hope that this undesirable drain on Scottish fish stocks will be phased out.
Another drain on Scottish salmon stocks about which successive Governments again have done little, and about which this Government appear to be doing nothing at all, is predation by the grey seal. The major part of the world population of grey seals is found around the shores of the United Kingdom. In 1914 when the population was estimated at about 500 the grey seal was first protected by United Kingdom legislation. Thereafter the population grew steadily. When the latest Government legislation on the subject, the Conservation of Seals Act 1970, was passed the population was assessed at just over 50,000. Since then, despite an annual culling programme in the North of Scotland of approximately 2,000 seal pups, the population has continued to rise. It has recently been estimated by the Natural Environment Research Council that the Scottish grey seal population rose from 65,000 in 1980 to 68,000 in 1981 and is likely to rise to 71,500 in 1982.
A seal consumes about 15 pounds of fish per day, of which salmon is a preferred item of diet, and fisheries' scientists estimated in 1977 that around the British Isles 112,000 tonnes of fish of exploitable species were taken annually. Obviously now, in 1981, the figure is very greatly higher.
There has been continuing controversy between fisheries and animal conservation interests about the question of reducing the seal population. The latter interests have in particular challenged the figures for the "take" of commercially exploitable fish and of its importance to the fishing industry. However, though absolute proof in accurate, quantitative terms of the effect of control of seal numbers on fisheries may be hardly feasible, the inference of benefit can be regarded as strong enough to establish the case beyond reasonable doubt. In the meantime, because of the cumulative expansion of the seal population the taking of effective measures to reduce the population becomes progressively more difficult. I therefore ask Her Majesty's Government to face up to this problem, too, and to tell us what action they are contemplating or proposing.
I believe that other noble Lords will be joining in this debate and will be referring particularly to the need for an Altantic salmon convention. I will not therefore go into great detail on this subject but will merely point out the importance of such an international agreement on the exploitation of salmon stocks to Scotland's developing salmon farming industry.
The main objective of any salmon convention must be to regulate fishing for salmon by the intercepting nations. I recognise, however, that where salmon feed elsewhere for example, in Greenland—the country concerned should be entitled to catch a regulated quota. As one of the main producers of salmon in the EEC,
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Scotland has a different interest from most of the other member nations. Scottish stocks have been assiduously protected over the past century against the ravaging effects of pollution, disease and indiscriminate net fishing in the sea. They now constitute the basis of a developing salmon farming industry whose production is likely to increase by four or five times over the next decade. Furthermore, if the present negotiations produce a favourable result, salmon ranching could make a substantial contribution to this process, salmon ranching being the release of farmed salmon into the ocean to feed upon the ocean at large, returning to their point of release.
The position is, therefore, that Scottish salmon fisheries are a growth industry and the emphasis should be on incentives to encourage enterprise and expansion. The Scottish salmon fishing industry feel strongly that it is time that the Government defined the objectives of their policy in this field and indicated what progress has been made in the international negotiations. It is important that this should be done in order that the support of enlightened opinion in the industry can be enlisted and also in order that confidence can be rekindled in the future of the industry at a time when it is facing unprecedented difficulties.
Finally, I wish to stress the long due need to update the administrative structure of the Scottish salmon fishing industry. Updating was overdue in 1962 when the matter was referred to the Hunter Committee. After all, the administrative structure was just about a century old then. It only took the Hunter Committee three years to produce a voluminous report. It then took double that time before a Government, a Conservative Government, produced a White Paper declaring their intention to legislate. Since then 10 years have passed and no legislation designed to update the structure of the Scottish salmon fishing industry has been placed before either House of Parliament. What a sorry tale!
I hope that it is not significant that the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, is not in his place to answer my question. I hope it does not mean that he has lost the enthusiasm to legislate on Scottish salmon which he certainly expressed to me when he entered office in this Government. I hope that the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, is not merely ordered so that with his usual charm he may, with soft answers, turn away the wrath of the salmon fishing industry in Scotland at 15 years of almost total neglect.
Let me offer to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, one excuse which he and his colleagues, and predecessors, could well use to account for the 15-year delay: that the Hunter Report was a load of rubbish. It was a naked emperor. It was unworkable and founded on unsound principles. The word "Hunter" has become a shibboleth, at the sound of which every knee must bow. But although it would be an honest excuse, I will bet that the noble Lord will not use it. He will be briefed to utter the word "Hunter" with reverence and shibbolethic labial dexterity.
The fact is that we must forget about the vast sweeping changes suggested by the Hunter Committee, many of which, like the single trap fishery, are scientifically, technologically and practicably unworkable, and we must deal with the urgent needs of the industry which, if not met, will bring the industry to its knees.
The present administrative structure for salmon and freshwater fisheries in Scotland is outdated and ineffective. The principal legislation dates back to the 1860s. There is no organisation on many rivers. Protection is inadequate and there is an acute shortage of finance. There is urgent and increasing need for new legislation to provide for a new administrative structure for the rivers covering both salmon and freshwater fish, with all the interests represented, and a new system of finance.
The Association of Scottish District Salmon Fishery Boards, of which I have the honour to be president, has made a number of detailed proposals to the Secretary of State about the form the legislation should take, with particular reference to the number and size of area boards; the composition of the area boards, on the elective principle; the form and scope of rod and net licences; improved arrangements for the protection of freshwater fishings and for public access; the introduction of trap fishing as a legal method; definition of legal methods of net fishing; the permanent banning of drift netting; and the variation of annual and weekly close times.
I do not minimise the difficulties of getting new legislation on these lines agreed among all the parties and put through Parliament. Meetings with trout angling representatives have revealed the misgivings felt by these interests. However, discussions with the salmon netting and angling associations have shown a common resolve to get something done. In the light of those discussions we, in the association, are convinced that although there would be great advantages in establishing a completely new comprehensive structure for the administration of rivers, including both the salmon and trout interests, it would be better to proceed on a more limited salmon-only basis rather than risk failure by setting sights too high. Accordingly we have suggested to the Secretary of State that Parliament might be asked to pass enabling legislation which would provide for the amalgamation of existing district boards at their request; the creation of new enlarged boards on groups of rivers where no boards exist at present, also on the initiative of local interests; the framing of a new model constitution for these boards, which would provide for the election of members, including members to represent angling interests, if desired; the flexible introduction of new methods of raising finance, either by rod or net licensing or membership systems or other means; and the vesting of the boards with new powers.
District boards have general statutory powers to protect and improve salmon fisheries within their districts. They also have power to appoint water bailiffs for fishery protection. In order to finance their operations district boards are empowered to levy an assessment—based on rateable values—on the proprietors of the salmon fisheries within their districts. They do not draw on public funds for any source of revenue.
Many of the larger district boards manage to function efficiently and are able to undertake such activities as the maintenance of salmon hatcheries and the improvement of their rivers. Nevertheless, the district board system suffers from the fact that district boards exist in less than half the districts which were originally envisaged. The result has been that extensive areas,
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particularly on the west coast between Cape Wrath and the Clyde, have no local administrative structure at all. Many of the existing boards also are crippled by lack of adequate finance, and experience has shown that, to enable them to function effectively as administrators of salmon fisheries, district boards require additional powers.
We think that the Secretary of State should, on application, have power to change the weekly close time for salmon net fishing by statutory instrument, with discretion to fix the close time either on a national basis or with variations for specific areas. At present any change requires primary legislation. The Secretary of State should have power to change the weekly close time for salmon and sea-trout angling by statutory instrument, either on a national basis or with variations for specific areas. Here again, at present any change requires primary legislation. Fishery boards should have power to change the dates but not the duration of the annual close time for net fishing, but subject to a right of appeal to the Secretary of State. There should be no change in the arrangements for fixing the annual close time for salmon angling (including sea-trout) except that fishery hoards should be able to fix different dates for different rivers in their areas. The River Tweed should be brought into line with these arrangements.
Trap fishing should be made a legal method of taking fish provided that it is on the basis of a scheme prepared by a fishery board, subject to the hearing of objections, and approved by the Secretary of State. Fishery boards should have power to remove, by compulsion if necessary, obstructions to the passage of fish but subject to a right of appeal and compensation. Fishery boards should have power to control the introduction of fish or eggs into their waters, subject to certain dispensations for fish farms.
Fishery boards should have a right to be consulted regarding proposals for water abstraction. At present only individual proprietors are consulted. it should be made an offence to remove or disturb gravel without first consulting the fishery board. Fishery boards should have a locus, independent of individual proprietors, to take action in the courts against such operations.
In place of Schedule G of the 1868 Act there should be a general provision requiring persons creating an obstruction to consult fishery boards about the design of fish-passes. Responsibility for making a fish-pass operate effectively should rest with the obstructor and the fishery board should be able to enforce this requirement through the courts.
Fishery boards should be given a role in the operation of simplified arrangements to grant orders under the Freshwater and Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1976 for the protection of trout and other freshwater fishings. We believe that clear definitions are needed for the operation of net and coble fisheries and for the construction of the main types of fixed engines. The purpose should be to avoid malpractice in the use of net and coble and to prohibit the use of monofilament netting for the leaders of fixed engines. The present prohibition on the use of a hang-net set from a boat should be extended to apply to hang-nets not set from a boat, and the present ban on drift-net fishing which was

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imposed by statutory instrument expiring in 1982 should be made permanent.
The position of the whole salmon industry in Scotland has deteriorated seriously in 1981. I can say this because in fact I am lucky to administer a river where the position has seldom been better. We have had one of our three best recorded years for the rod fishery; we have had a good year for the net and a good run of fish throughout the season. But I think we have had this good fortune largely because we tend to be clear of the main effect of the sea netting, the seals and the other disadvantages which are seriously affecting the east coast rivers of Scotland. The position on the east coast particularly is extremely serious, not only for the rod fisheries but particularly for the coastal nets. This deterioration is partly the result of the combined impact of increased interception of stocks in Greenland, the Faeroes and the north-east of England, and partly also results from competition in the market from farm-produced salmon, much of the latter imported from Norway. This has affected the returns of the coastal nets, but there was a period when the price of salmon dropped extremely low in the wholesale market. Unfortunately, the price to the consumer stayed fairly steady, but there was a moment when the producer was getting a very low price indeed for his fish in the market.
As a result of these factors in combination Scottish catches have dropped alarmingly while the market prices have also fallen, yet at the same time operating and management cost have risen sharply. It is really a situation of crisis for the industry as a whole, and I feel it is time that the Government gave us a lead in this matter; and it is with that in mind that I have asked this Question.
4.38 p.m.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: My Lords, those of your Lordships who are interested in the Atlantic salmon and Scottish fisheries—and indeed that interest of course spreads further afield—will be greatly indebted to the noble Viscount for marshalling the facts which illustrate so clearly the steep decline in the numbers of salmon that have entered Scottish rivers in recent years, to which I would add that the average weight of salmon caught has also steeply declined.
The anglers and the net fishers who operate in Scottish rivers can all testify to these facts and many will agree with the conclusions reached by the noble Viscount, not only in dealing with the actual cause of the decline but also as regards the proposals that he has made about the improvement of the administration of the Scottish rivers through the district and river boards.
There is still a great deal to learn about the habits of salmon as they move from the rivers in which they were born to the feeding grounds and back again, but this much is certain: the damage to the stocks of salmon is not due to any change or convulsion in nature. It is man-made. Man has been totally responsible for the decline in numbers. And if that is so, man's mistakes can, at any rate partly, be remedied.
I want to deal very shortly with the priorities of the situation and the ways in which I believe that at any rate part of the situation can be saved. Once the
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salmon feeding grounds off Greenland and on the fringe of the ice-cap were discovered and over-exploited by netting, the spring and summer run into the Scottish rivers was drastically curtailed. When the scale of the casualties was understood, the Danes and the Greenlanders were co-operative, and what would have been a total disaster was partially averted. I should like to ask my noble friend who is going to wind up this debate about the Greenland agreement. I wonder whether he can tell the House whether the ceiling on catches to which the Greenlanders agreed still operates, and whether the agreement, which I think is due to come to an end about now, is to be continued. Further, if the damage done is not to be permanent, it is also necessary to obtain an agreement with the Faeroes. So if we can achieve agreement with the Faeroes and also continue the Greenland agreement, then at any rate the damage will be mitigated.
Of course, a complete international convention for controlling the catching of Atlantic salmon would be best, but I know from my personal experience that law of the sea brings the worst out of everybody; there is never any agreement in that body, or very seldom. So we should proceed with bilateral agreements, and I put the bilateral agreements with Greenland and the Faeroes at the top of the list necessary to protect the salmon coming into the Scottish rivers. But that has to be supplemented by action to prevent the netting of salmon in the high seas. The noble Viscount is entirely right to call attention to the nylon nets, the monofilament nets. They have converted what used to be a reasonable commercial catch into a massacre. And the effect of these long nylon nets, virtually invisible, has transformed the situation for the worse.
As the noble Viscount has said, in Scotland drift netting is prohibited in the sea. It ought to be prohibited all over, but that would take an international agreement and I think that would be very slow in coming. But the English ought certainly to co-operate and act in the way Scotland does. When we have limited, as I hope we shall, the netting by these means in the high seas, I would like to see the waters within the three-mile limits managed by the district and river boards concerned in partnership with the angling and netting interests. Such a policy would have the great virtue of concentrating all commercial netting on the approaches to the estuaries of the rivers concerned, where the netters, the anglers and the ratepayers have a common interest in conservation because they need a breeding stock for the future, and it means profit to all of them. If England would cooperate, it would make a great deal of difference in the banning of netting in the high seas.
I am bound to say—I have said this often before and I have said it to those responsible in Northumberland—that I think they are very shortsighted not to do this, and I hope the Minister of Agriculture will press them to agree in the future to abolish this netting in the high seas. I have no doubt at all that if they were to do so, rivers like the North Tyne and the Coquet in Northumberland would very rapidly return to their previous excellence, so that everybody concerned with the rivers, and the ratepayers, would all profit. So I very much hope that legislation is in the offing which

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will bring the position in England alongside that of Scotland.
The noble Viscount mentioned seals, which is always a hot subject. I can only give one illustration as to how conservation when it runs mad can upset the balance of nature. The National Trust, who own the Farne Island, with the best will in the world, no doubt, were influenced by the conservationists; so they did nothing about culling seals for years. Where there were 800 seals in the natural condition, there are now 8,000, with the result that the fishing within that area round the Farne Islands has been very adversely affected. Again, I hope, therefore, that public bodies concerned with conservation will not let it run mad, because seals must be culled if the fishermen are not to be very much damaged.
My Lords, I do not think there is any more that I have to say. I have to apologise to my noble friend: I have an engagement inside this House which I cannot miss, and it is just possible that I might have to miss part of his reply; I hope not. But if the Ministry can achieve the agreements with Greenland and the Faeroes, and if we can gradually eliminate the netting by these new means in the high seas, then I think we can look forward to a better future in the Scottish rivers.
4.47 p.m.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, after the very powerful speeches from the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, there is little for me to say. What I wish to say will be brief and largely on one point which I have raised a good many times over recent years in your Lordships' House. There is no need for me to speak of the value of the salmon industry to Scotland, to England and to Northern Ireland. But what I feel is most important is what was touched on by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, a national policy which is absolutely essential as a first step, and as a second step a policy wider than national in order to embrace other countries that use the high seas.
I think that the key words of salmon policy should be "conservation" and "management". To my regret, all conservation and management is unstandardised, even within the frontiers of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Salmon laws, salmon regulations by order at present in Scotland, at present in England, at present in Northern Ireland, remain different and completely uncoordinated. For example, the drift netting which the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, mentioned must be phased out. But, if you look at the regulations and laws in Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom, in Scotland, you will find no standardisation, but different regulations in each particular territory. All Governments have taken and patched up salmon legislation and fishing legislation. None of them have tackled it firmly and as a single purpose. All Governments have promised to do something and all Governments have done virtually nothing.
I sometimes think that in a democracy the trouble is that salmon have no votes. Within 250 yards of where your Lordships are sitting today you can see in fresh water great big succulent trout swimming. Those trout have no votes at all; they have no voice in your
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Lordships' House and they have very little representation in your Lordships' House. However, it is they who have to be conserved both as regards management and preservation.
There is a large measure of agreement in the territories of the United Kingdom which I have mentioned as regard rods and nets. There is no real rivalry between rods and nets because conservation and management are a common requirement to both rod and net waters. I think that the Government can forget the Hunter Report and start again on a national salmon policy for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Once we have got that and put our own house in order—and until we have put our own house in order we shall be rather weak when we go to the EEC and ask for restrictions and regulations—then we can tackle the EEC depredations by various countries who do not produce any fish themselves but only consume those which have been produced in our rivers. When that comes about with a national policy first, for the United Kingdom, and then succeeded by a firm EEC policy which would have the goodwill of all countries who have seen us put our own house in order, then I believe that there is a greater hope for the preservation of salmon than there is at present.
4.53 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, there is increasing concern over the growing threat to the survival of the Atlantic salmon. That threat is, in the main, threefold, as has already been touched on. First, the wholesale netting of the sea off Greenland and the Faeroes. Secondly, the depredation by the large seal population. Thirdly, the wholesale and now commercial poaching in the estuaries and rivers. The poaching of the odd salmon by rod and line and the small net for "one for the pot" is of no concern. The pressures on the salmon are such that if the situation is allowed to deteriorate beyond a certain point the time could come when the total numbers of breeding fish in the rivers will not be high enough to sustain breeding and to produce the enormous numbers of young fish needed to cope with natural wastage, without mentioning the catch by man.
Already the salmon runs at certain times of year have been drastically affected. As salmon rivers deteriorate so will the angling fishing industry decline. Taking everything from tackle supplies to hotels, travel and so on into account, game fishing accounts for a turnover of something around £200 million per annum. It also, of course, attracts a lot of foreigners who bring in foreign currency. Game angling is of particular importance to the economy of rural Scotland. It is a favourite sport of the Scotsman and peculiarly enough of West Midlanders. It is lesser a sport for the Northern, Southern and South-Eastern region people.
Over a third of game anglers are professional, managerial or white collar workers, but manual occupations are increasingly represented and it is of particular value as a recreation for the middle aged who are no longer prepared to undertake more active sports. Nevertheless, one in three game anglers is under 25 and there is considerable recruitment now from the 12- to 15-year old age group. Indeed, 15 per cent. of all households have at least one angler of

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which 20 per cent. are game fishermen—that is, there are about 676,000 game fishermen of which 223,000 are estimated to fish once a week. Game fishing is an important and financially valuable recreation.
I turn first to drift netting which has already been covered. It is, of course, prohibited off Scotland, but fish tour the sea and the coasts. Yorkshire and Northumbrian drift netters, apart from spoiling the English rivers, take salmon of which it is estimated that 90 per cent. are fish going to Scottish waters. Evidence of drift net damage exists in Ireland. Since the 1960s when Irish inshore fishermen were encouraged to fish for salmon, drift net licences increased from 363 in 1962 to 1,048 in 1974 and the total catch went up from 2·8 million pounds to 4·4 million pounds. During that time estuary net catches fell from 416,000 pounds to 79,000 pounds and drift netters were estimated to take 80 per cent. of all salmon caught in 1977. The Irish Salmon Research Trust showed that from 1975 to 1978 the spawning stock had become inadequate to be self-replenishing. Only severe restrictions rectified the situation in 1979. Drift netting is also wasteful due to many salmon escaping the nets and dying subsequently from the damage inflicted. Even those that survive can be so damaged as to make them less valuable when they are subsequently caught. That damage could contribute perhaps to the incidence in recent years of salmon disease.
As regards seals, the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, when opening the debate gave the great figures of the increase and I shall not repeat them. There is still a lobby, feeding on uninformed public opinion, trying to stop culling and seal control and we heard about that this morning on the radio. However, if organised culling with carefully selected marksmen is prevented, sooner or later it will be undertaken by exasperated fishermen with no humane safeguards and with no limits. Firm action is now imperative despite the objectors who are no longer supported by informed conservation bodies.
As regards the poaching of estuaries, that has now become a highly organised affair with groups of men netting thousands of pounds worth of fish a night and substantially stripping rivers of fish for anglers and for breeding. As regards estuary and river poaching, salmon catches in the rivers have been greatly reduced and in some cases the rivers have been totally stripped of fish and will not be re-stocked owing to the efficiency of the poaching. That has led to lodges, once hosting a succession of recreational anglers and bringing employment and income to Highland settlements, actually falling into irrevocable decay through disuse through lack of fish. In certain parts of Scotland poaching has become a local industry particularly in the Western Isles and often poached salmon are processed in Government sponsored HIDB fish processing factories. Needless to say, some of the worst culprits are men already drawing the dole. The stakes are so high that violence is not ruled out to maintain the illegal trade. Let there be no doubt that this is big business.
Anarchy exists in salmon rivers at the moment with illegal netsmen at every estuary, and the same applies to some English rivers. The great succession of rodsmen pay dearly for their fishing and are deprived by the few
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but effective commercial poachers who strip the rivers. The same story goes for Norway where erstwhile famous rivers no longer yield fish except on rare occasions and rural economy has started to suffer. Yet poachers put nothing back and when the river is empty they move on to the next one.
If salmon fishing is to be preserved as an outdoor sport, then the Government must act to ensure the survival and return of the salmon to the rivers of their origin in adequate numbers. It is the anglers who pay the river ghillie and who stock the river. Drive off the angler and off goes the ghillie and the salmon cannot survive the influx of free for all fishing. Salmon legislation is extensive and comprehensive, but varies as regards Scotland, Northern Ireland and England—this point has already been made—each area having a different policy for the conservation of salmon.
As has already been said, too many anomalies exist in present United Kingdom salmon legislation, and a national salmon policy is now needed and needs to be backed by new law. The national policy should include the condition that drift net licences for salmon should be gradually phased out and drift netting for salmon stopped. Likewise, monofilament nets should be prohibited. Monofilament nets damage fish and have already been prohibited in the South-West and North-West United Kingdom water authorities. The Government have accepted the view that salmon escaping the monofilament nets are now more likely to be injured and to die subsequently of dermal disease than if braided nets are used.
There is a need to establish district boards, with finance other than by rates, in order to finance conservation. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, went into this matter in detail. Also, rod licences should be enforced and the submission of an annual return should be mandatory. A much higher fee for a dealer's licence would also help to finance the administration and deter the small-time poacher from taking out a dealer's licence.
The alternative to the licensed dealer scheme is the salmon tagging scheme, such as that instituted by the province of New Brunswick in 1980. Their fishery officials have been satisfied with the results and the scheme has, first, given a measure of the commercial catch of salmon along the shores of the province and, secondly, reduced the wholesale poaching of salmon in inland waters.
Northern Ireland has a comprehensive and legally enforceable scheme for the control of salmon sales, as has the Republic of Ireland. The Irish scheme makes it unlawful to possess an illegally caught salmon, the onus of proof lying with the defendant. Anyone, other than a fisherman or fish farmer, needs a licence to possess or sell salmon. Salmon dealers have to keep registers recording all purchases and sales of salmon. Even hotels have to account for salmon in their possession if they are required to do so.
The registrations on the sale of salmon have not stopped illegal netting, but the Acts have been a great deterrent and have made handlers of illegally obtained fish run greater risks, and have made it more difficult for wholesale poachers to dispose of their fish. The Irish scheme is not so expensive, as time spent checking dealers is equated with time spent on river patrols. But I believe that river owners would be happy to

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contribute further in a levy to cure the poaching problem. There is no reason why the Northern Irish scheme should not apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, and this should be done before it is too late.
Finally, there is the high seas fishing by foreign nations using satellites to spot the salmon. The lack of a unified British salmon policy detracts from efforts by the United Kingdom Government to influence the EEC in seeking the protection of salmon on the high seas, and the control of salmon fishing in the Faeroes and Greenland areas.
5.3 p.m.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, I think that we have had a fascinating debate and the House should be duly grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, for initiating it. He certainly told us about his interests, and that spread of interests certainly gives him a very considerable knowledge of the subject. It was one of my trials and tribulations at the Scottish Office to have to deal with the subject of the Hunter Report. The noble Viscount made it sound so easy. He never mentioned trout at all. But perhaps he will recollect that one of the great central themes of the Hunter Report was that the trout was to be given the same protections as salmon. According to the number of suggestions that arrived from all the varying interests—some welcoming the report and some suggesting the nationalisation of rivers—it was not so simple as he suggested. It was quite wrong of the noble Viscount to say that nothing at all was done.
The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, suggested that salmon had no votes. The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, told us how many anglers there were in the country. In proportion, I think that there is a far greater number in Scotland than in England and Wales, and I can assure noble Lords that nearly every one of them wrote to me on the subject of the Hunter Report; and they have votes, if not the salmon or the trout. So it is not quite so simple.
Of course, when we look at the point that has been raised by all the speakers, that we have no common law in relation to the protection of freshwater fish in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, we can appreciate the difficulties. I was the Secretary of State who banned the use of the drift nets off the east coast of Scotland. I was not popular in that part of the country at that time. As I recollect, it was just before a general election, but I felt that it had to be done. It involved a change in their fishing habits; they had never done such a thing before. I think that they were shut out of other areas and then they realised that off their coast was to be found a fortune. But, of course, it would affect the estuarial fishing; it was quite legal on Tayside and elsewhere, and it would seriously affect the whole rod and line industry and the sport of thousands of people. However, their complaint to me was, "Why stop this in Scotland?" In Cumbria and Northumbria they can do it and it is legal. There, what was a small industry has now become a large industry. It will probably be much more difficult for a Government to interfere with it now than if they had sought to do so 10 or 20 years ago.
There is no doubt that salmon breed in Scottish rivers and English rivers but feed elsewhere, thousands
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of miles away. So the salmon run, subject to all the dangers of the taking of them by various means at various stages of their life. The matter can only be dealt with on the basis of international action. I think the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, said, in relation to Greenland and the Faeroes, that it had been suggested that present arrangements were to end soon. I understood—and if I am wrong perhaps the Minister will correct me—that negotiations affecting Greenland were successfully completed between the EEC and Canada; I think that the allowable catch has been increased from about 1,170 metric tonnes to about 1,200 metric tonnes. However, with the changes in fishing, they are allowed to catch bigger fish, so they will not be catching any more fish, but the weight of fish will be greater.
A few years ago the Faeroes catch was about 70 metric tonnes and it is now five times that figure, and growing. I do not think that the illegal drift net is quite so prevalent as the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, thinks because in Scotland we took action a long time ago to make it easier to catch poachers and those acting illegally. It is one of the few areas in Scotland where you do not require corroboration for a person to be found guilty in the Scottish courts; indeed, I think that it is about the only area. If a river baillee finds someone on his own it can be a very expensive business for the poacher, because all his engines are taken, even a vehicle if he has one and is caught. Therefore, while I do not think that this is so serious, it goes on.
But the greatest need is for an international convention, an Atlantic convention, for salmon. Until we get that, the bilateral negotiations must go on. Could the Minister confirm that there have been successful EEC negotiations in respect of Greenland and of the Faeroes? From the Faeroes' point of view there is still further arrangement to be made so that there can be proper inspection and scientific research done in relation to all that is happening there.
I am glad that the question of seals was raised. If you are in the hot seat when the conservationists in respect of seals get at you—and they include powerful people in this House as well as elsewhere—then I can assure you that it is very difficult to get the balance across to the public that the conservation of fish—not just salmon—which is important for the livelihood of the particular people concerned, is also at stake. I am grateful for what has been said today so that people might get in balance the need to do something sensible about this matter.
I noticed in the last report by the Secretary of State that he was suggesting that he was looking at the latest scientific evidence before he introduced a new management plan in relation to the cull. Are we any nearer to a decision by the Secretary of State in that respect? I hope we can be given some information in respect of that matter. It is important. It is a valuable fish. I just checked the cost of it to the consumer; it is £3·50 per pound. There are not many of the 3 million unemployed spending much money on that. But at that price it is valuable to those who are getting it. You cannot get a great sense of national feeling about this matter until the price comes down for the ordinary public to enjoy it.

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But who are the people who have the interests? They are not without influence, may I say to Lord Balfour. The riparian owners—many of them sit in this House—have an interest here. They have not been unsuccessful in getting legislation against poachers, and in respect of other matters of protection. There is this lack of agreement by the various interests, the riparian owners, those who let out fishing, and of course the whole thing will disappear if there are no fish there. Therefore, they all have a common interest in conservation, and in ensuring that international action is taken to ensure that the fish come back to the rivers in which they were bred.
There is one other little matter I should like to take up with the Government, and maybe the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, could give me some information about this. Our universities are doing quite a bit of work in respect of aquiculture. I do not know whether the House realises, but in 1980 there were 610 tonnes of salmon produced in our fish farms in Scotland. That figure is growing. It is something to be concerned about.
A lot of work has been done in one university in Scotland, Stirling, in respect of research, nutrition, and the whole hatchery business, the engineering side of it. I should like to know whether or not the Government are aware of the practical importance of this, not just to our own country but to the overseas development administration which has been supporting the work that has been going on there in research, and it has an information service that serves the whole world. I should not like to think that recent events in the university world are going to affect the research work that is going on at Stirling or elsewhere, in other universities.
When there is such demand for fish, and fish stocks are being overfished and people are being foolish about it, then we have not only to look after our own interests so far as the salmon are concerned, getting a national policy, getting an international policy, but to go into the question of research to see how we can increase the stocks on which we can draw for food. It is not going to be easy to get that legislation that was spoken of, but quite a number of ideas were given. Arising out of some aspects of the Hunter Report, I think it was in 1976, we had a Scottish Act. I do not think that it has been all that successful, judging by what I hear in respect of where you can take a river by river approach to it. It may well be that the Government need to look at this. If they look at the wider aspects and bring their influence to bear on the Minister of Agriculture south of the Border to see what can be done about the drift netting off the east coast of England, then that itself would be helpful.
The financing is always the stumbling block. I do not know whether the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, has recently read the Hunter Report. One of the things that went through my mind as I read it was that all the financial burdens fell on the Government. Now it is a profitable industry, and could be even more profitable. The question of finance really must be faced up to by the industry itself, as to how properly it should raise the money for all the new suggestions that the noble Viscount and others have put forward, and that the burden should not be on the taxpayer. If they can be convinced of that we are much more likely to get
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legislation by the Government. I would rather see legislation on this subject from the Government than go along the paths that we traversed last time in respect of legislation that certainly Scotland did not want. It may well be that all those thousands of angling voters would welcome legislation, whereas many millions will not welcome the kind of legislation that we hear might well be coming.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, it falls to me to express on behalf of the whole House the gratitude that I am sure that all of us will feel to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, for asking the Unstarred Question that stands in his name and has covered such a fascinating variety of subjects. Indeed, it has unearthed tremendous amounts of expertise from all round your Lordships' House. As always, I find that on past occasions when we have discussed salmon and salmon fisheries it seems that always the mover of the debate, and indeed any Government spokesman at least in this Government's lifetime, has to declare an interest. The noble Viscount declared his interest. I shall be far briefer and declare my interest in that I am a riparian owner in one of the rivers on the east of Scotland. I am far more a keen than an expert fisherman, to which my noble friend Lord Cullen will bear witness, as the hooks fly around not often in the direction of the fish but quite often in the direction of the humans. Even so, the pleasure I have always felt I am sure will also be felt by your Lordships' House and by everybody who has spoken this evening.
Questions and debates on salmon and salmon fishing are not unusual in this House. Of course, it would be right to commend the noble Viscount on the timing of his Question. I understand—I hope that I am correct—that the Association of Scottish District Salmon Fishery Boards recently asked for a meeting on this subject with my noble friend the Minister. I do not know precisely whether the noble Viscount is using this evening's occasion as a preliminary canter over the course. I hope that I may be able to alleviate some of his fears and indeed some of the fears that have been expressed by my noble friends, by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, and indeed all round the House.
The last time that there was a major substantive debate which included issues that we have been discussing this evening, particularly fisheries and salmon, was on the Motion by the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, on 23rd January 1980. Of course, that particular debate was on a much broader canvas than the Question that has been asked this evening by the noble Viscount. The issue before us this evening is the narrower but certainly important question of the legal and administrative structure for fishing of salmon in our rivers in Scotland. Certainly I, and I am sure the rest of your Lordships, took the opportunity of reading that particular debate. It gave me great amusement to read what the noble Viscount said at that particular time. I must not tease the noble Viscount too much. It certainly fascinated me that at one stage in the debate he said:
"No longer can one leister a fish—
I think I have the word right—
"on the redds to pickle for winter use"—(Col. 501.)

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That, I think, was the noble Viscount referring to some interesting piscatorial activity in or around the Thurso. However, he had some other more general points to make, and it all showed that the noble Viscount is no mean expert in this sphere.
As the House has heard from this evening's debate, the problems of Scottish fish and Scottish salmon are not new. The noble Viscount recognises this in the terms of his Question by referring to the failure of successive Governments to bring forward the proper legislation. Be that as it may, this Administration has not been unmindful of the need to face up to the question of legislation. Progress has not been as rapid as we should have liked, but we could not accept the suggestion that we are open to the criticism of "failure" as contained in the Question.
I shall not recapitulate the recent history of events in fishing legislation; the experts who have been speaking in the House this evening will be well aware of all such recent events. We are largely concerned with a central conclusion of Lord Hunter's committee, which recommended in 1965 that the existing system of administration of salmon fisheries by district salmon fishery boards set up under the 1862 and 1868 Acts should be replaced by larger and more widely-based area boards. Lord Hunter further recommended that these larger boards should have responsibility for freshwater fisheries, and I shall return to this later; it was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Ross. The noble Viscount, in his speech during the debate on 23rd January 1980, went so far as to commend "the caution which legislators showed" in not following the Hunter Committee. I do not want to quote the noble Viscount out of context, but, taken with his earlier remarks in that debate—about making sure you knew where you were going (he quoted "a better 'ole to go to")—we took it that he was advocating making haste slowly and above all getting the legislation right.
The next attempted step forward after Hunter was taken by the previous Conservative Government who, in November 1971, published a White Paper proposing legislation. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy for his attempt to grasp the nettle. Briefly, the White Paper proposed the setting up of 14 area boards appointed by the Secretary of State with responsibility for both salmon fisheries and freshwater fisheries. The boards were to be financed by fishery rates, both on salmon fisheries—at present levied by district boards—and on freshwater fisheries, as well as by rod licences and salmon net licence fees and, initially, by Government grants. The expectation then was that income from rod licences would build up over two or three years to make the boards self-sufficient. For reasons, I suppose, of parliamentary time, those proposals did not attract a Bill before the next change of Government.
I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ross, will forgive me if I make a brief but relevant aside about the Freshwater and Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1976. It is probably fair to say that this Act has few supporters who are wholly committed to its every provision. Nevertheless, it does provide the opportunity to obtain protection for freshwater fisheries as, so to speak, a reward for increased access for anglers. I do not wish to be drawn into the merits of that Act, although the House may wish to be reminded that my right
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honourable friend the Secretary of State has recently asked the chairman of the reconstituted Consultative Committee on Freshwater Fisheries to suggest how procedures under the Act could be made to work more speedily and smoothly. It is, however, the opportunity which now exists to obtain statutory protection for freshwater fisheries that is important in the context of a debate about future legislation, and I shall point out why shortly.
That is the background against which my noble friend put in hand the current review of legislation and administration of salmon and freshwater fisheries. In a sense, he sought to take up these issues where our predecessors in the last Conservative Administration had left them. In December 1979—that was just before the 1980 debate on the noble Duke's Motion—the Government issued a consultation paper which drew very largely on the proposals first made in 1971. There were, of course, some differences; a smaller number of boards was proposed, for example, 10 rather than 14, and there was no reference to the question of Government assistance.
I mentioned earlier that I commended the noble Viscount's timing in asking his Question this evening. My noble friend is hoping shortly to conclude the review he put in hand. He has not, however, yet concluded it and it would seem fair to make some broad comments on how it has gone so far. In some ways it has been disappointing, at least so far as the question of boards with responsibilities for both salmon and freshwater fish are concerned. I hasten to say that the association of which the noble Viscount is president has been most constructive in its approach. While it may be true that that association has most to gain, it is to be commended for the effort it has put into this review. It has prepared its own papers for discussion with Government officials and has held informal discussions with freshwater interests. The association has also sought, much more recently, to gather together the views of the various Scottish salmon interests. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is widespread and robust resistance from the freshwater interests at club, area and national association level to the question of area boards with responsibilities for both salmon and freshwater fish.
That opposition of the freshwater interests is based on several points of principle. First, it is argued that area boards seem to them unlikely to bring obvious benefits to those anglers who do not fish for salmon. It is felt that the restocking of rivers in the circumstances is more obviously a matter for angling clubs, and they point to the success that many such clubs have had in this respect, particularly in recent years. The second main concern of the freshwater fishery interests is the cost of the boards, which will fall in part on the freshwater fishers through rod licences at a time when other costs are going up. Moreover, it is feared that the imposition of what is perceived could be unnecessarily bureaucratic régimes would soak up money which many of the freshwater fishers would prefer to see invested directly in their sport.
A third consideration, which cannot be ignored, although it is often not explicitly stated, is that they fear that salmon interests will prove more powerful in a clash of view on particular issues between freshwater and salmon. Lastly, the very existence of the

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1976 Act means that area boards could have no obvious role in the making of protection orders for freshwater fish. This has been a major consideration and may well have explained the measure of support which the 1971 White Paper appeared to obtain at the time from the freshwater interests. I should like to stress that these arguments are not just from what some may see as politically motivated angling groups, but from a wide range of freshwater angling interests, often speaking from the knowledge and experience of owning and running their own fishings. All these views tend to discount the opportunity that area boards would bring for co-operation between fishing interests, the coordination of management systems, the broadening of the income base of boards, and even the scope that some system of rod licensing might provide on its own account for the better regulation of angling and freshwater fisheries. The Government for their part, while not yet having reached a final conclusion, are bound to ask whether the imposition of what may he seen as an ideal but, for the reasons that I have given, unwelcome structure, would be appropriate or wise.
There is another possibility, and this one has arisen in discussion with the salmon interests. It would be to create a formal permissive right for freshwater interests in district salmon board areas to obtain a seat on the boards in circumstances where the local interests all felt that this would be appropriate. Some areas in Scotland already have what I understand are known as improvement associations, where both salmon and trout interests try to work together. Clearly in these circumstances there would have to be some financial arrangement affecting both freshwater and salmon interests—but mainly the freshwater interests. However, this idea merits very serious consideration.
I am very aware that one consideration which inevitably lies behind the salmon interests' concern to see some improvement in the present arrangements is that of finance. Much comment has been made about the financial difficulties that some district boards are facing, with the associated risk of a decline in the standards of stocking and management of various rivers.
Salmon have a very important role to play in many parts of rural Scotland, and this is well understood by the Government. On that account, we would not rule out the need for some way of widening the base of the income for the boards. But that would need to be considered against the background of our commitment to containing public expenditure and reducing the burdens on local authorities.
The vexed question of the number of district boards is very important, as is their incomplete cover over Scottish rivers as a whole. The noble Viscount earlier mentioned the great gap between, I think, Cape Wrath and the Clyde. We heard earlier today about these administrative gaps, and we would very much agree with the noble Viscount on that particular point. I am not entirely sure that a poll of your Lordships' House would be likely to come up with any single, agreed figure for a new pattern or number of boards—whether such boards were to be for salmon alone, or were to cover both freshwater fish and salmon. Perhaps, therefore, your Lordships might
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consider it unfair to look purely to the Secretary of State to impose a pattern of amalgamations. On the other hand, amalgamations of existing boards in appropriate circumstances could well lead to considerable administrative savings. One possibility might be to encourage voluntary amalgamations, subject to the Secretary of State looking for a rational pattern developing through local discussion. But current legislation rules out complete amalgamations of existing boards, even when each party is willing. Here then is an area where legislation might well he helpful, and it is certainly one of the matters that the Government are actively considering.
There is also the need to consider the question of possible new powers for the district boards. I well understand the wish expressed by some of the boards to see an opportunity to change close times for salmon fishing, amend estuarial limits where these are no longer relevant, remove obstructions by compulsion, and to have other such powers. What must be remembered is that the creation of larger area boards as the Government had envisaged them would have meant the appointment of members representative of a broad range of interests. District boards, even if larger than the present boards, which were representative only of salmon interests, might not be seen by Parliament, or indeed the public, as appropriate recipients of powers which were too widely drawn. That does not mean that the Government see no scope for change, but there is a need for detailed discussion of this aspect in the light of wider decisions which we should have to take on both structure and finance.
The noble Viscount's Question is very relevant. I am sure that he and others will be impatient to see change. The Government, for their part, have an open mind on this, but we would stress that we wish to see any changes receive the broadest possible support. In this context the Government have noted that the real pressure for change is from a number of the main salmon interests, and of course we are bound to take account of this.
I shall try to answer most of the questions that have been raised by all the very expert and distinguished speakers who have taken part in the debate. If I miss any of the points, I am sure that the expertise of your Lordships will reach through to me and I shall have to make amends by answering at a later stage, or possibly in written form.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and I think my noble friend Lord Gisborough, raised the vexed problem of drift netting. The noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, also raised the problem of drift net fishing. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has already indicated that he is to consider making permanent the ban on drift netting in Scottish waters. That that has not yet been done in no way detracts from the existing order, which keeps the present ban in force.
The question of the Northumberland drift netting is a source of constant irritation to those concerned with Scottish salmon, including those who wish to fish them, but, in the light of the document of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the Scottish interests, it is now open to press for changes. The document already suggests that the Government are prepared to look at change in this particular aspect.

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The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and I think other noble Lords, also raised the question of seals. I am sure that the Scottish salmon interests and those who fish for salmon have for a very long time been the main proponents of action by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to manage—and in using that term I shall be quite blunt and say to reduce—the seal population. The House will have been fascinated to hear the figures quoted earlier by the noble Viscount. We think of the world's human population rising sharly, but the seal population around the United Kingdom, and in particular around Scotland, is moving at such a pace that I am sure the House would agree that my right honourable friend should take necessary and, above all, swift action, which I am sure he intends to do.
My right honourable friend has done his best to license people to take seals in order to protect their nets, but the wider question of proper seal management, as well as the whole problem, is under review. The licensed Orkney pup hunt is not necessarily a matter that I should want to go into this afternoon, apart from considering it as part of the wider issue of managing the entire seal population. On that wider issue, my right honourable friend has set up a consultative process and is looking for further research which he hopes will enable progress on an agreed long-term scientific basis towards reducing the population of the seals; but I am afraid that agreement as to the precise levels of seal population have not yet been reached. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, raised a question on research in relation to seals. Certainly research into the population, and indeed the conduct, of seals has been commissioned by the Natural Environment Research Council, but this research is not yet complete and certainly we would estimate that it will take more than a year.
The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, I think mentioned that he would look for a detailed list of the powers of boards. I would not want to go beyond the generalised comments I have made so far in my speech, and I hope the noble Viscount will accept that I would not want to go further this evening. My noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel raised a point which was of interest to, I am sure, the whole House, but especially to the noble Lord, Lord Ross, concerning Greenland fisheries and, indeed, the Faeroe problem. On 29th September this year the European Commission agreed to arrangements for reciprocal fishing rights with the Government of Canada. These included limitations on the salmon fishing around Greenland by way of quotas, on mesh sizes and on the date of starting fishing, as well as on one or two other detailed considerations. The arrangements have not yet been agreed by the Canadians, but this year's salmon fishing around Greenland is being operated as if the agreement was in full force.
In the view of the Government the quota fixed represents a realistic compromise between the needs, certainly of the Greenlanders, who depend on this particular fishery for their livelihood, and of the states of origin, such as Canada and ourselves. I understand that the quota this year around Greenland is 1,270 tonnes—that word is spelt "tonnes", it is metric tonnes—so the noble Lord, Lord Ross, was very accurate in his preliminary strike at a figure in the question he was asking. On the question of the Faeroes, your Lordships will be pleased to learn that next week,
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through the European Commission, the Government will be participating in talks with the Government of the Faeroe Islands with a view to reaching a definite agreement on the limitation of that particular fishing of salmon—and I think the concept of interception fishing is particularly relevant so far as the Faeroes are concerned.
I hope that I have been able to give some reassurance to my noble friend Lord Home, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Ross, as well as to other Members of your Lordships' House, who will see that the Government are confident that an agreement on the limitation of the interception of fish, both around Greenland and around the Faeroes, can be reached.
My noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye raised the question of the need to co-ordinate policy on fishing. We regard it as very useful and very helpful that he made this point at a time when legislation on salmon is being examined in depth both by my noble friend the Minister and, indeed, by other noble friends who are responsible for fisheries south of the Border. I also appreciated very much the comment of my noble friend about the fact that salmon have no votes, and, indeed, the trout that pass not 250 feet from where we stand now. We appreciate his expertise in fishing both south of the Border as well as north.
My noble friend Lord Gisborough raised the problem of dealer licences. Indeed, dealer licences have provided an old chestnut of a problem. Certainly this has been raised off and on for about 100 years. The main purpose of a dealer licence is to obtain a back-up to the existing bans on poaching. Certainly the difficulty has always been one of finding an effective method which is not far too complex administratively or, indeed, too expensive to operate; but I would stress to your Lordships that the possibility is again under active consideration both by Government and by those bodies with an interest in this particular field.
The question of rod licences on their own is a matter of controversy in Scotland, though it may be that licences for salmon anglers would be less controversial than the introduction of rod licences for trout. Salmon catch statistics in Scotland are already returned to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State; these are given in statutory returns already.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross, raised one more point on research into fish farming. The Government are indeed well aware of the very great importance of fish farming, and, indeed, research is going ahead very strongly in universities and in Government laboratories, as well as under the auspices of private enterprise. One of the points made in my right honourable friend's recent consultation paper is the need to ensure that all the results of research are made generally available, but this is certainly something which needs regular contact with both the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland and the scientists. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, spoke about the team at Stirling University. I think it is Dr. Robert's team; I hope he is the right gentleman.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Yes, my Lords, but the point was: Have the Government cut back on the finance available to him? Half of its finance comes from elsewhere. It comes from the ODA, it comes from commerical interests and it comes from the likes of the

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FAO and UNESCO. But I have a fear that there may well be a cut-back in research because of what the Government are doing.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am afraid that at the moment I have not got the breakdown of the financing of research at Stirling or, indeed, over a wider field. Perhaps I could write to the noble Lord with such statistics as I can find and as might be relevant. Perhaps I could cover that point by letter.
My Lords, I would apologise for such a lengthy wind-up speech but I am sure that your Lordships would agree that the Question which has been asked by the noble Viscount is fascinating. Certainly I wondered quite what kind of speeches would be made this evening, and in every case I have been fascinated and have learned something. I am sure your Lordships have been impressed by the expertise in all fields of both salmon and freshwater fisheries that we have witnessed this evening.
The Government fully recognise that the salmon industry is very important, not just to those who are directly concerned as lovers of the sport of angling salmon, or indeed who make their living from the commercial salmon netting industry, but also to all of us who are concerned with the conservation of what is, after all, our national heritage. Some of the existing legislation on salmon is over 100 years old, but some of it is ripe for chance. I would assure your Lordships that the points which have been made so succinctly this evening all round will be considered very carefully by the Government before final decisions are taken about the content of any new legislation.

Cumbria Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee on unopposed provisions with amendments.
British Nationality Bill
Returned from the Commons with certain amendments agreed to and with consequential amendments to the Bill; with certain other amendments agreed to with amendments; with certain other amendments disagreed to but amendments proposed in lieu thereof; and with the remaining amendment disagreed to with a reason for such disagreement; the Commons amendments and reason to be printed.
  BETTING DUTY: 1981–82 RECEIPTS
  BETTING DUTY: 1981–82 RECEIPTS
  WALTON MERE: PROPOSED MARINA
  WALTON MERE: PROPOSED MARINA
  INDIA: SPECIAL VOUCHER APPLICATIONS
  INDIA: SPECIAL VOUCHER APPLICATIONS
  CEREALS: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN SCOTLAND
  CEREALS: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN SCOTLAND
  MoD, TIDWORTH HOUSING: MAINTENANCE COST
  MoD, TIDWORTH HOUSING: MAINTENANCE COST
  US MISSILES IN UK: RELEASE PROCEDURES
  US MISSILES IN UK: RELEASE PROCEDURES