Sitting of 28 May 1982

Preamble
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS

  First Deputy Chairman
  9.34 am
  Mr. Speaker: I have a brief statement to make.
  Yesterday, the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine), the First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means, submitted to me his resignation from that office and also, therefore, from the office of Deputy Speaker of the House.
  I am convinced that the House would like to express its deep and sincere gratitude to the hon. Gentleman for the distinguished and honourable way in which he has served our House.
  The hon. Gentleman has the record since the war: as a Deputy Speaker, he has served us for 6 years and 3 months, which is longer than any other Deputy Speaker; he also served for 11 years as a member of the Panel of Chairmen.
  I believe that he has maintained the highest traditions of this Chair. His impartiality, his courtesy and his friendliness have put us all in his debt. On behalf of the Deputy Speakers and myself and, I think, the whole House, I want to place on record our sense of gratitude for the service that he has given.
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): May I associate myself with those words of yours, Mr. Speaker, and say on behalf of the whole House, I am certain, that my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) has discharged his responsibilities as First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means and as Deputy Speaker with dignity and understanding and has earned both the respect and the affection of hon. Members everywhere?
  I beg to move,
  That the right hon. Ernest Armstrong be appointed First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means and that Mr. Paul Dean be appointed Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.
  Question put and agreed to.

  First Deputy Chairman
    BILL PRESENTED
      TRAVEL CONCESSIONS FOR THE UNEMPLOYED
      Mr. Alfred Morris, supported by Mr. Charles R. Morris, Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones, Mr. Andrew Bennett, Mr. Stanley Orme, Mr. Frank White, Mr. Gerald Kaufman, Mr. George Morton, Mr. Tom Pendry, Mr. Robert Litherland, Mr. Ken Eastham, and Mr. John Evans, presented a Bill to provide for the extension of travel concessions to registered unemployed persons and persons working under the Youth Opportunities Programme: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 9th July and to be printed. [Bill 133.]

  Papal Visit
  Mr. Tim Rathbone: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether you feel it appropriate at the commencement of Public Business for the House to take happy note of the safe arrival of the Pope on these shores and to wish him a most warm welcome to this United Kingdom and a successful and peaceful visit here.
  Mr. Speaker: Although it is not strictly a point of order, I know that everyone hopes that the visit will be crowned with blessing.

  Papal Visit

    Ordered,
    That the Duchy of Cornwall Management Bill be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. Boscawen.]

  Unification Church
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Boscawen.]
  9.39 am
  Sir Timothy Kitson: I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise in the House this morning the activities of the Unification Church. For some time now, I and other hon. Members have been pressing for some inquiry into the workings and operation of the Moonies.
  The activities of the Unification Church were first drawn to my attention some three years ago when a young Durham university student, whose parents lived in my constituency, fell into the clutches of the Moonies while travelling in America. He was taken to one of their camps in California. I saw all the distress, anguish and despair of his parents, and I was shocked by the difficulties that they encountered in seeing their son, even though they went to California a number of times.
  As I started to make inquiries, I was amazed at the size of the problem and at the numbers of people involved. In the last three years I have had letters from over 400 families from seven different countries, and I have talked to a small number of ex-Moonies who had experience of living in Moonie camps. I have met those in America who specialise in helping parents to retrieve their children from the Moonie organisation and who try to return them to family life. The size of the problem is much greater and more disturbing than most people realise.
  At Prime Minister's Question Time, I asked the Prime Minister if she would
  "give some thought to the anxieties and sufferings of many families due to the growth of religious sects"
  in this country, and the Moonies in particular, and whether she would consider setting up
  "a Royal Commission or some form of inquiry to investigate their entry, their activities, their fund-raising methods and their charitable status in the United Kingdom."
  In her reply, the Prime Minister said:
  "I note that my hon. Friend is obviously very concerned about the activities of the Moonies, as indeed are many of us. He will be happy to know that the Charity Commissioners are reconsidering charitable status. The Attorney-General has also considered what action might be appropriate to take in relation to trusts. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has asked his officials to examine the evidence as presented, as far as it relates to mental health and family life. These are three very positive things that are already taking place. I shall, of course, consider my right hon. Friend's suggestion with regard to the other matter."—[Official Report, 21 May 1981; Vol. 5, c. 415.]
  It is now a year and a week since that statement was made.
  On 20 January this year, the Prime Minister wrote to me stating that she had been in touch with the Home Secretary, and she continued:
  "I fully appreciate your concern at the length of time this matter is taking. I believe the Chief Charity Commissioner has already said to you that the Charity Commission are equally anxious to see this matter resolved and have worked on it with all possible speed. The current position, as you know, is that the Commission are considering the Attorney-General's formal application for the charitable status of the Unification Church to be reviewed. To help them in this task, the Commission need to have detailed particulars of the evidence which led the Attorney-General to make his application. Those they need will inevitably take some time to provide, since they involve, among other things, re-examining the complete transcripts of the six-month libel trial which finished in April last year. The Attorney-General's Office is giving this as much priority as possible, but it is a major task and you will appreciate the importance that they
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  should get it right, not least because the decision which the Charity Commissioners ultimately take may be subject to an appeal in the High Court. It is for these reasons, arising from the nature of this particular case, that the matter has taken so long and not, I believe, because of any defects in the law or the procedures arising from it."
  On 7 April 1981, a number of us from both sides of the House visited the Charity Commission and met the then Chief Commissioner, Mr. FitzGerald, to express our concern about the charitable status of the Unification Church. The chairman of the Charity Commission wrote to us on 8 April 1981 to say that he had been carefully studying the legal position, and that the Commissioners hoped to meet before Easter—that is, Easter last year—to look at the case again. He went on to say that he would be in touch with the Attorney-General's office and that he hoped that the outcome of the Attorney-General's consideration would help to restore matters one way or the other.
  On 13 October 1981, the Chief Charity Commissioner wrote to me in reply to a letter I had sent to him expressing my great concern at the delays in a decision being taken, saying that he quite understood the views of Members of Parliament but that not a moment had been wasted by the Charity Commissioners since our meeting on 7 April.
  The position now is that the new Chief Charity Commissioner, Mr. Peach, wrote to me on 30 April this year to say that he had been trying to get further information from the Attorney-General's office, and that it had invited him to provide further and better particulars of the grounds for his formal application for the removal from the register of charities of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity and the Sun Myung Moon Foundation. He added that as soon as it received the information requested it would consider the matter as quickly as possible.
  I have quoted those statements and extracts from letters because I think they demonstrate the delay that is taking place in coming to some decision about the activities of the Moonies in this country. For those of us who have had to deal with many of the tragic cases of families who have been split up because of the activities of the Unification Church, the delays are very depressing and frustrating.
  I have not only been concerned by the question of the Moonies enjoying charitable status in this country; it has to be said that they run a number of dubious fund-raising operations. They are generally discreetly hidden under names which are misleading. They have about 40 cover names, such as New Hope Singers, Ocean Fresh Limited, which has two trawlers in the West Country, United Family Enterprises, which raised over £400,000 in 1978, God's Light Infantry, and the Kensington Garden and Art Society.
  The Moonies' fund-raising methods and corporate structure are complicated. People are often approached in the streets by youths selling literature, and it is often not apparent that they are Moonies. The American-based church claims to have millions of followers around the world, and it has had a rapid growth in this country. It has 100 centres in the United Kingdom. It has an impressive headquarters in the former Norwegian consulate in Lancaster Gate. It owns farms in Wiltshire, a former convent in Chislehurst, and a large country house in Dunbar. It claims between 1,400 and 1,500 full-time members.
  It is interesting to note that since 1968, when the two charities—the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification

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  of World Christianity and the Sun Myung Moon Foundation—were registered, their income has soared from £10,000 to more than £1½ million in 1979, and there is little doubt that their income has probably increased substantially since then.
  It is obviously in the best interests of the Unification Church to keep delaying any decisions in regard to its charitable status. I understand from the Attorney-General that, following the Associated Newspapers case, which has been taken to appeal, a hearing has been set down for 15 November this year. This, of course, will mean further delay, and I have little doubt that, if the case were to be lost on appeal, it might very well go to the House of Lords, with even further delays in a decision being taken.
  When Mr. FitzGerald wrote to me on 4 March 1982, he said:
  "I can quite understand your views and those of other Members of Parliament concerned. To say that the case proceeds at a snail's pace would be to insult the snail. However, the responsibility for this does not rest with anybody in this office, not even with myself'.
  He then went on to set out the reasons for delay.
  However, only last week, on the front page of The Times, it was reported that Sun Myung Moon was found guilty by a United States federal court of conspiring to avoid paying income tax on assets that he claimed belonged to the Unification Church, and a chief assistant was also found guilty. At least the American authorities are taking action against the Moonies. I believe that if the Unification Church lost its charitable status, it would have a considered effect on its financial position in this country. The state of Connecticut has disallowed Moonie fund raising.
  When I first raised the point with the Prime Minister and suggested that a Royal Commission should be set up, I recognised that it would take a considerable time but hoped that we might make some progress. I hoped that the Home Affairs Select Committee would look into the activities of religious cults and make recommendations. I recognise all the difficulties that an inquiry would encounter. The organisation's charitable status, fund raising methods and systems of entry into the country should be considered.
  This week I received an irate letter from a parent telling me that two weeks previously her son had telephoned from London and told her that he had married a Japanese Moonie girl on 15 March. The letter states:
  "I asked him why he had not cared to write to me before the marriage. The answer was that they had been in a hurry to get married because if not the girl would have been deported from Britain. She had come on a tourist visa which was overstayed. She had got a prolongation, but now there was no other possibility. I am told that there are other Japanese moonies who did the same thing to escape the law and that British authorities would like to be informed about them. Apparently, there is a surplus of Japanese moonie girls."
  She also enclosed a note about her son and his bride. The letter continued:
  "Another thing he told me on the phone was that his business is called United Carpet Cleaners. He did not tell me the address. He is now giving his address as Lancaster Gate."
  That is the Moonie headquarters. The letter concludes:
  "It is a pity that our children are used in such a way. I am afraid they could be made to break the law in other ways and even much worse."
  I shall send those particulars to the Home Office.
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  The United Carpet Cleaners employs Moonies. It is another front organisation. It cleans businesses, especially pubs, at night. It was set up in the winter of 1980–1981 to raise funds for the Moonie organisation.
  Last year a spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean of Windsor said that they would support an investigation into the activities of the Unification Church. Dr. Donald Coggan, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has said that the Unification Church is not a Christian organisation and is not connected with the ecumenical movement.
  An organisation called FAIR—Family Action, Information and Rescue—includes relatives of Moonies. It has asked the Home Affairs Select Committee to investigate and set up an inquiry.
  The Daily Mail libel case did a great deal to draw to the public eye the activities of religious cults. With so many young people falling into the hands of the Moonie organisation year in and year out, it is tragic that we sit and talk and allow it to continue to operate, enjoying certain respectability through its charitable status
  Some organisations have taken action. I have been impressed by one or two universities that give leaflets to all new undergraduates warning them about the activities of Moonies in university compounds and of the dangers of getting involved. Aberdeen university has an excellent poster warning its new students of such dangers. It finishes by saying:
  Don't be fooled. If in doubt, consult your minister or priest."
  The French Government are highly worried about the Moonies' activities and are likely to take action in the near future. The Americans have undoubtedly started to put pressure on the organisation. Moon recently said that he was thinking of withdrawing the Unification Church from America and taking it to new headquarters in the Pacific. In this successful fund-raising operation large sums of money are made and some of the Moonies in America live in luxury on funds raised by Moonie workers. There is an article in The Times today dealing with the point.
  I am worried about the lack of knowledge and understanding of some of the Moonies' activities. Many local councils are not aware of the cult's activities, although some now check all bookings for civic meetings placed by groups with religious-sounding names. They consult the local FAIR organisation so that they can carry out a policy of not letting premises to Moonie front organisations. There are still many people who do not know what the Moonies are or what they stand for.
  When I started to raise the problem in the House I believe that some of my colleagues thought that the Moonies were a rock group. I say to my right hon. Friend that it is not good enough to let matters drift. Either the Home Office should set up an inquiry or the Home Affairs Select Committee should proceed without further delay to inquire fully into the activities of religious cults in this country. We owe it to the young to alert them and warn them of the dangers that can lie ahead.
  9.57 am
  Mr. Charles Morrison: I should like to add a few words to the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Kitson). In this country we tolerate and are amused by eccentricity. As long as it is within the law we see nothing wrong in one person taking another for a ride. If one person can con another that the earth is flat, so be it. The rest of us can have a quiet life.

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  We have law covering charitable status based on the assumption that certain organisations are for the public good. It provides for privileged tax treatment at the public's expense, in the belief that that is to the public's overall benefit. We have a Charity Commission to decide whether an organisation satisfies the criteria. If an argument arises from that ruling a decision can be made in the High Court. That sounds simple and straightforward.
  We are discussing an organisation about which there has been maximum controversy. It has caused great unhappiness amongst many families. Many of its activities are questionable. One's doubts about it are increased when one reads the report about the leader of the organisation having been found guilty of conspiracy to avoid paying income tax in the United States of America.
  The Court of Appeal has still not considered the libel case that took place over a year ago and the charitable status of the Moonie church. That is not good enough. Given the concern that has been expressed about the Moonies, it is high time that decisions were made about their status.
  There is a great deal of muddle about charity law. Reports and recommendations have been made on that subject. Action is needed by the Government to bring our charity laws up to date.
  In the meantime I hope that my right hon. Friend will put maximum pressure on those involved to ensure that decisions are made at the earliest opportunity about the Moonies' charitable status.
  9.59 am
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Timothy Raison): The House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Kitson) for giving us the opportunity to debate the activities of a body that has caused a great deal of understandable anxiety. He described the situation in graphic terms. My hon. Friend has been to the fore in alerting the public to the need for wariness. The more that the public is sceptical and circumspect in its dealings with that and other fringe sects the fewer people will unwittingly be drawn to them.
  Understandably, the theme of my hon. Friend's speech has been to inquire about action by the Government and others whose responsibilities bear upon the Unification Church. He referred to a number of specific areas and events, on which I shall respond. But I should first set the context of our approach to that and similar bodies. It has traditionally been the view in this country that people should be free to come together and propagate views that others may find misguided, provided that in doing so they do not break the law. Some organisations and views may be thought more questionable than others. But there is no obvious principle, other than whether the law is infringed, on which the Government can distinguish between them.
  It is sometimes alleged that the activities of the Unification Church involve breaches of the criminal law. Where specific points are raised that fall to be investigated, we have taken necessary advice from the police. With only minor exceptions concerning street collections, the police have found little evidence of criminal activities by the sect or its adherents in this country. Were the police to receive further allegations they would investigate them most carefully.
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  I hope that my hon. Friend and others will recognise that to seek to take action on the ground that activities, although not unlawful, may be socially undesirable would raise major questions of liberty in our society. We must be careful that, in responding to anxiety, however understandable, about particular organisations or philosophies, we do not encroach on the freedom of organisation and expression, provided that they are exercised within the law. We must also remember that there is a limit to the measures that the Government can take, or ought to seek to take, to protect adults from themselves.
  It is against these principles that we have considered the calls for an investigation into the activities of the Unification Church and other religious sects. As my hon. Friend reminded us, in May last year he asked my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to consider whether a Royal Commission or some form of inquiry should be set up to investigate the church. As he says, my right hon. Friend explained in reply that she very much shared the worry about the activities of the church and that action was already in hand in respect of it. She said that it would be premature to institute further inquiries. That remains our view, since, as my right hon. Friend noted, we were taking account of each of the areas of anxiety to my hon. Friend. These areas are those of immigration, activities including fund raising and charitable status.
  Immigration legislation is not used to prevent the propagation of religious beliefs provided that the law is not broken. But there is a firm immigration policy towards the Unification Church and other fringe sects. We have decided, and the church has accepted, that its overseas members who are subject to immigration control do not qualify as missionaries or ministers of religion under the immigration rules. They may be admitted as visitors if they satisfy the requirements of the rules. That enables them to come to the United Kingdom for an initial period of six months, provided that their maintenance is assured, and normally limits them to a maximum period of stay of 12 months. It prevents individuals from establishing themselves here permanently.
  As for Mr. Moon himself, he has been advised not to travel to the United Kingdom without first seeking an entry clearance. If he were to apply for an entry clearance, it would be necessary to consider whether leave to enter should be refused on the ground that his exclusion is conducive to the public good. Relevant information, from the United States or elsewhere, would be taken into account.
  My hon. Friend referred to the attitude of other countries to members of the church. The Home Office is not at present aware of specific policy in respect of members of the church undertaken or planned by the French authorities. Any contrast with other countries must in any event take account of the possibility of different principles, as well as arrangements, not least in the matter of immigration. But in considering any suggestion that we are unduly benign, we might take account of reports that the church is in fact transferring its major operations in Western Europe from this country to West Germany.
  As to marriages by members of the church here, I note that my hon. Friend will be sending the particulars of the cases to which he referred to the Home Office. For the present, it may be helpful for me to explain the general position. Any applications to remain here on the basis of marriage to a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies

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  have to be considered in accordance with the immigration rules. These require that a man admitted in a temporary capacity should be allowed to stay only if, among other things, there is no reason to believe that the marriage was entered into primarily to obtain settlement here and the wife is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies who was born here or one of whose parents was born here. In the case of a woman admitted in a temporary capacity who marries a man settled in the United Kingdom, she should, on application, be given indefinite leave to remain.
  As to people who are admitted here, when I began this reply to my hon. Friend I referred to the question of criminal activities by the Unification Church and its adherents in this country. I repeat that the police have found little evidence of such activity, but would carefully investigate further allegations.
  My hon. Friend mentioned also the Prime Minister's reference to action taken by the Secretary of State for Social Services. Following the judgment of the High Court in April 1981 in the libel case brought by Mr. Orme of the Unification Church against the Daily Mail, my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Social Services announced that he had asked officials to examine the evidence as far as it related to mental health and family life. I understand that officials in the Department of Health and Social Security have been examining the evidence. But, following Mr. Orme's appeal against the judgment, the matter is now effectively sub judice. I understand, as my hon. Friend said, that the appeal is to be heard in November. Once the legal position is clear, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will no doubt consider in due course whether further action by him is necessary.
  My hon. Friend devoted much of his speech to describing the consideration which has been given to withdrawing the charitable status of the two organisations linked with the Unification Church since the Daily Mail libel case last year. I am not sure that the former Chief Charity Commissioner is correct in implying that a snail would have progressed quicker. A great deal of work has been done on the case, but no decision has been reached. But that is not a matter of bureaucratic buck-passing.
  The question of an organisation's charitable status is a matter, not of opinion, but of law. It is based on a categorisation formulated at the end of the nineteenth century which has been continuously elaborated and refined in case law and which continues to develop. Charitable trusts are established in perpetuity. To obtain charitable status, a trust must be shown to fall within one of the four heads of charity—the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, the relief of poverty and other purposes beneficial to the community. But once it is on the register of charities, it cannot be removed as a simple administrative action. It would first have to be established, as a matter of law, that the purposes of the trust no longer fell under any one of the four heads of charities.
  Of course a trust may have very bad trustees, in which case the clear duty of the Charity Commission is to remove them and appoint others. To prove that its aims are not what the organisation claims them to be, and that they are not charitable in law, is another matter. It requires, to begin with, detailed evidence about the organisation. I cannot comment in detail on the case of the Unification Church. As I said, it has lodged an appeal against the decision in the Daily Mail case which will be heard in
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  November, and is sub judice. But I do know that a great deal of time has been spent sifting through what is known about it and its activities in order to establish what would be relevant to consideration of its charitable status in this country. I understand my hon. Friend's impatience at this, but I am afraid there has been no alternative. He might like to remember that consideration of the Unification Church trust deeds last year without any additional evidence led the Commission to confirm its charitable status. Its trust deeds are immaculate.
  I can also understand my hon. Friend's annoyance at the further delay caused by the Unification Church's appeal against the libel decision. Whether it is a delaying tactic or not, we cannot deny it that right, and he cannot reasonably expect a decision about its charitable status to be reached while the appeal is pending. For the reasons I have explained, the removal of the two trusts from the register of charities would be an exceptional step and one that would be likely to be challenged in the High Court. If they were to take any further action while this appeal is pending, it is likely that there would be an immediate challenge in the courts. It must be remembered that the trial and verdict of the jury played an important part in he history of the matter.
  I have had to explain the legal complexities, and they are very real. I think hon. Members can, however, take some comfort. In my view the question of charitable status is considerably more important for charity law than it is, at this stage, for the church itself. Of course I understand the sense of public disquiet that the church should enjoy charitable status when more worthy organisations do not, but I feel that the practical benefits which it can give to the church are exaggerated.
  Charitable status confers a number of benefits, of which two are relevant here. In the first place, it gives an organisation a seal of public approval of its aims, which must be of value when it solicits help. I find it difficult to imagine, however, that loss of charitable status will give the Unification Church a worse public image than it has now. Similarly, if it retains its charitable status I fail to see how its credibility will be restored.
  Secondly, charities can enjoy valuable tax exemptions in relation to their income. Again, I would share the general dislike of subsidising an organisation such as the Unification Church from the public purse, but I must stress that charitable status does not guarantee tax exemption. It is only given to trusts that satisfy the condition that they should be established for charitable purposes only and thereafter that the charity's income is applied for exclusively charitable purposes. As hon. Members will, of course, appreciate I cannot comment on the tax affairs of any person or organisation. This information must remain confidential. I also cannot comment on my hon. Friend's question about any implications of the conviction for tax evasion of Mr. Moon in the United States.
  My final reservation about the effects of the loss of charitable status is that I cannot see how it will prevent young people from joining the sect or persuade them to leave it. There is no evidence that it plays a significant role in attracting adherents or that its loss will act as a deterrent.
  I hope it is clear from what I have said that the Government continue to take most seriously the concern about the Unification Church. Our approach is that the sect and its adherents here should be dealt with within the framework of the law and general policies on particular areas of activity. We believe it right for them to be put to

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  those tests, and not to seek to distort the law or policy in ways that would undercut the principles of our society. It is, I believe, in part a measure of the correctness of this approach that the standing of the Unification Church in this country is so low, but that in any attempt to improve its image it cannot point to Government discrimination against it.
  My hon. Friend suggested that the Select Committee on Home Affairs should conduct a full inquiry into the activities of all cults in this country. That, of course, is a matter for the Committee itself, and not one for the Government. My hon. Friend and other hon. Members are, no doubt, aware that the Committee considered this in 1980. It announced in December that year that it had decided not to launch an inquiry, but I imagine that the Committee would take careful account of requests from hon. Members that it might reconsider that decision.
  For the Government's part I can, in conclusion, assure my hon. Friend and the House as a whole that we shall continue to think very hard about developments in respect of the Unification Church here, and are ready to take any action that is appropriate.

  Citizens Advice Bureaux
  10.15 am
  Mr. Alfred Dubs: I welcome this opportunity to say something about the work of citizens advice bureaux and their important contribution to the needs of many people. The debate also gives me a chance to refer to the extra burden facing citizens advice bureaux as a result of economic and social factors mainly arising from the increase in unemployment.
  The structure of the citizens advice bureaux in England, Wales and Northern Ireland—there is a separate set-up for Scotland—is a head office in London, 20 regional offices, and a network of about 720 local bureaux which give advice to people living in the local community.
  The function of the head office is to support the local bureaux, advise them on changes in legislation and advise on how to deal with queries. It also provides support for staff training. In the head office, regional offices and local bureaux there are 334 paid full-time staff and about 900 part-time staff. These help and support the work of more than 10,000 volunteers. Surely that ratio of a fairly small number of full and part-time staff supporting, helping and controlling the work of a large number volunteers is to be welcomed, and encouraged, by the Minister.
  Over the past 10 years there has been a major increase in the number of inquiries to citizens advice bureaux. Ten years ago there were about 1½ million inquiries a year in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. By last year the staggering total was 4½ million inquiries a year. The queries cover a range of problems and anxieties. However, the main headings are inquiries dealing with unemployment, social security, housing, personal inquiries relating to matrimony, divorce and child custody, and consumer queries.
  My principal anxiety relates to the increasing burden on citizens advice bureaux as a result of the first two categories—unemployment and social security. About three years ago the Royal Commission on Legal Services said in its report:
  "We have reached the conclusions that the primary need is for a competent and accessible national network of generalist advice or information to citizens on any problem".
  The report recommended that
  "The CAB should provide the basic generalist advice service"
  and added that
  "CAB should be financed out of public funds".
  The Government clearly welcome the contribution of citizens advice bureaux because there are several Government leaflets on entitlements and services in which people in difficulties are recommended to go to their local citizens advice bureaux for assistance.
  I said that inquiries currently number 4½ million a year. They can be broken down under main headings. There was a 50 per cent. increase in social security inquiries in 1981–82 over the previous year. Employment inquiries rose by 14 per cent. The total number of inquiries increased by 10 per cent.
  In London there were just under 1 million inquiries. Last year social security inquiries increased by 60 per cent. over the previous year. Inquiries on employment increased by 35 per cent. The total number of inquiries increased by 17 per cent. There were more than 13,000 inquiries in Wandsworth last year and, compared with the previous

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  year, those concerning social security increased by 46 per cent., as did the number about employment matters. The total number rose by 23 per cent.
  It is fairly clear that bureaux help the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the community. A survey of CAB clients in London boroughs in November last year and January this year showed that only about one-third of clients had jobs. Of those who were not working, more than half were claiming supplementary benefits.
  Bureaux provide particularly important services to ethnic minority groups. In Wandsworth it is estimated that 40 per cent. of inquiries come from black and Asian people. The figure in Tower Hamlets is 42 per cent. and in Brent the proportion is 65 per cent. Most bureaux clients are on low incomes. It is estimated that in most London boroughs more than 30 per cent. of clients have incomes of less that £50 a week and the vast majority have incomes of less than £100 a week.
  The increased pressures on bureaux stem from four factors—unemployment, recent legislative changes, increased pressure on other public services and the financial difficulties into which people have been falling increasingly in recent years.
  It is obvious that unemployed clients have less money and an increased need for statutory support. The worst affected are those who were low paid, the disabled, single parents and those previously on fixed incomes. The consequence for CABs has been an increase in inquiries. In some inner city and depressed areas the increases have been quite staggering. I should like to quote some figures that are even more dramatic than those that I gave earlier. Last year, compared with the year before, inquiries in the West Midlands about social security increased by 115 per cent. and in Staffordshire they increased by 142 per cent.
  In my borough of Wandsworth social security inquiries increased by 100 per cent. from October 1981 to October 1982, while housing inquiries rose by 53 per cent. and employment inquiries went up by 51 per cent. I appreciate that some of the extra burden in Wandsworth must be a consequence of Wandsworth council's closure of an effective network of law centres. People had to go elsewhere for advice and that imposed extra burdens on the local bureau.
  When people have difficulties with their jobs or become unemployed, it is the function of CABs to give advice on employment protection, entitlement to reduncancy and the range of State benefits that may be available to clients. Let me quote an example from the southern part of the country. A man worked for six and a half years for a small decorating firm before receiving a letter from his employer saying that due to lack of work he was being temporarily laid off.
  That man was refused unemployment benefit because, technically, he was still employed. As he was receiving no wages, he went to a citizens advice bureau for help in claiming supplementary benefit. That was a complicated problem and the man benefited from the advice of the CAB.
  The second main cause of the increased burden on CABs results from recent legislative changes, including employment legislation, changes in sick pay arrangements and the new supplementary benefits scheme. A number of other legislative changes have taken place or are due to take place, such as the change to payment of child benefit monthly instead of weekly, the proposals for a unified housing benefit, the complicated changes brought about by
  1176
  the British Nationality Act and changes resulting from housing legislation. All those have meant that individuals have desperately needed advice and increasing numbers have turned to CABs for help.
  I can give the House an example of the complexity of the problems that need help and advice. An unemployed man in the North of England, who was not receiving unemployment benefit, went to stay temporarily with his mother in law because she was ill. The local DHSS office included his home, which was temporarily empty, as a capital resource and the man's supplementary benefit was withdrawn. He could not sell his home because he intended to move back into it as soon as his mother in law had recovered from her illness or had been moved into hospital. He could not move her into his home because she was too ill. That is typical of the complicated problems with which CABs have been dealing in recent years.
  The third main cause of the additional burden on CABs is the increased pressure on other public services, especially local DHSS offices. There cannot be an hon. Member who is not aware of the enormously increased burden on DHSS offices and the increasing number of complaints about difficulties in getting problems dealt with and clear statements about entitlement to benefits.
  I understand that the Minister for Consumer Affairs, who is to reply to the debate, is not responsible for that matter, but the problem is well known and is causing much anxiety. People go to their local CAB, if not straight to their Member, for help and advice. I do not need to go through all the difficulties that arise from the extra burden laid on local DHSS offices, which have not been given a compensating increase in staff to cope with the problems.
  Cuts and changes in other services have also increased the burden on CABs. Jobcentres, unemployment benefit offices and local authority social service departments have all suffered cuts in the resources available to them and that has resulted in individuals having to go elsewhere for advice.
  I can illustrate the problem by quoting the example of a case in south London that was handled by a citizens advice bureau. It concerned a financial difficulty and was so complicated that the interview with the client lasted between an hour and an hour and a half.
  I have a word of praise for the Minister, because I know that in the current financial year he has increased funding for CABs nationally by 16 per cent. If I did not mention that, the Minister would do so. It is a good thing, it is much appreciated and it is useful. However, it is argued not that funds for CABs have been cut, but that the extra resources, some from the Government and some from local authorities, have not been sufficient to keep pace with the increased demand. That is my main argument.
  About 60 per cent. of CABs receive less than £5,000 a year and 80 per cent. get less than £10,000 a year. The position is a little happier in London, although, of course, the burdens are much greater there. The consequence of inadequate funding is that CABs are open for fewer hours of the day than they ought to be. About half the citizens advice bureaux are not able to open for more than 20 hours a week and fewer than one in five are able to provide a full-time service. I have already mentioned the very small proportion of full-time staff and also the very small proportion of paid staff.
  In some areas, about one in 10 of the local population go to citizens advice bureaux for help. In some parts of the country—the example of Camden has been given to

  1177
  me—the figure can be as high as one in three. This indicates an enormous potential demand. Further evidence of the demand for help is shown by those areas where new local offices have been established in recent years. In Bristol, there was a 30 per cent. increase in two years in the number of inquiries. In Sheffield, there was a 14 per cent. increase in inquiries in a five-year period following the opening of a new office. When a new office was opened in Leeds, the number of inquiries went up from 2,000 to 10,000 in six years. I could quote many similar examples from different parts of the country.
  There has been a 16 per cent. increase in national inquiries to the head office. To forestall the possible comment of the Minister, I accept that in my area of Wandsworth there has been increased funding of local citizens advice bureaux by the local authority but this is partly in the nature of conscience money because of the enormous saving that has been made through cutting law centres. It is compensation for the closing of the law centres rather than any sign of good will on the part of the local authority.
  The present level of funding to citizens advice bureaux nationally from the Government is, I understand, £5¾ million, which includes the increase to which I have already referred. Of this, about £1 million is used by the national organisation to channel money for particular and limited needs to local citizens advice bureaux. The conditions under which this is done are, I understand, the subject of an agreement between the national organisation and the Minister. The main responsibility for supporting the work of local bureaux does not rest with central Government. Nor does it rest with the national organisation which does not possess the resources. It rests with local authorities. The difficulty is that local authorities have been under such intense financial pressure that they have been unable to respond to needs and requests from local citizens advice bureaux.
  I should like the Minister to consider two proposals. The first proposal, the more ambitious, is that the Minister should issue guidance to local authorities to ensure that they give enough resources to their local citizens advice bureaux to meet increasing needs. That is perhaps the more optimistic request that I make. There is also a more modest one. Because of the variable response by local authorities to needs in their areas, and because of the pressure under which they are working, I should like the Minister to consider increasing the funding to the central citizens advice bureaux organisation so that more money is available to be given to local bureaux in circumstances of special needs or particular pressures.
  I am not suggesting that there should be a complete change in the basis of funding from local to national level. Nor would I wish to give local authorities the excuse to cut the money to citizens advice bureaux on the basis that the Government will step in. Far from it. I am suggesting that additional resources should be made available, on carefully worked out criteria agreed with the Minister, when local bureaux face particular pressures and difficulties that might result in a reduction in their opening hours, or in their closure. I want the central organisation to be able to step in and to ensure that the service can be kept going, or to ensure that some additional resources are available to cope with a heavy extra burden.
  1178
  I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic. I think that he will agree that citizens advice bureaux provide a valuable and essential service for many people. It is important that when people go for advice they have some chance of getting it, and that the pressures on local offices are not such that people are turned away or are unable to get the help that they need.
  10.34 pm
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) on raising this topic. All hon. Members are aware of the growing requests and need for advice. Like the citizens advice bureaux, hon. Members have been aware over the years of the increasing number of people who have problems and want someone to share them and, if possible, to give advice or direct them on to the most appropriate service or authority for further action. Occasionally during debates on hon. Members' pay I hear the argument that the nature of the work has altered. Some old-fashioned hon. Members say that it is wrong to support the kind of welfare work that dominates so much of our time. This should give all hon. Members an insight into the attitude of the volunteers and the paid staff of the citizens advice bureaux who are as determined as hon. Members to give the most effective possible help to those in trouble or in need, whether that relates to their financial resources or to advice.
  Hon. Members, especially those who serve on the Standing Committees of social security Bills, will understand the complexity of our social security network—the inter-relating benefits and the various complications in establishing qualification for help. All these matters, with others, are the daily work of the citizens advice bureaux. I do not intend to repeat the statistical information given by the hon. Member for Battersea, South. I pay tribute to the manner in which he and other hon. Members spend much time on individual case work requirements of constituents. I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister to one possible way in which the work of the citizens advice bureaux can be used to the advantage of the Government and of local authorities. Establishing the case for extra financial resources as and when available seems important.
  I should like to believe that local authorities and central Government will monitor the changes and trend of cases brought to citizens advice bureaux. I recognise that the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux issues a good deal of analysis to hon. Members which shows what work is done. I am not, however, convinced that various Government Departments and local authority departments take the remedial steps to enable more people to understand what they can do about their plight without having to go to citizens advice bureaux or other offices.
  Th hon. Member for Battersea, South referred to the large number of poor people and members of ethnic minorities who seek help or advice. That illustrates the need to get more information to those people and illustrates the other side of the coin that people who are better off have improved access to remedial action or advice when they face problems. Everyone faces problems. It is a question of how many of us have the resources of knowledge or money to deal with them.
  I should like to believe that local authority housing departments conduct a six-monthly review with citizens advice bureaux to see what action housing departments can

  1179
  take to alleviate, reduce and avoid the problems on which people seek advice from citizens advice bureaux. That would be a useful way in which citizens advice bureaux could argue for greater funding from local authorities. If it were possible to use the wisdom and experience of citizens advice bureaux to run the housing department more efficiently, the savings would be enormous. It would be possible to tighten up the housing allocation policy so that it became fairer and more effective. More homes would be occupied and there would be fewer voids in terms of property letting. That must save far more than any possible increased allocation to a local citizens advice bureau service.
  The same argument applies to Government. Although I realise that my hon. Friend the Minister is speaking for the Department of Trade, his previous experience at the Department of Health and Social Security may lead him to allude in his reply to the experiments that are going on between citizens advice bureaux and local DHSS offices in using—I hope—computer terminals to see what benefits people are entitled to and how to spread that electronic help to people working in both the volunteer and the departmental sides of social security.
  I should like to spend a moment on the family issues side of the work of the citizens advice bureaux. It is a matter that gets less attention than it should. I declare an interest here as chairman of Family Forum, a family organisation which brings together about 100 national and local voluntary organisations dealing with the various issues of family policies. It is important to use the experience of citizens advice bureaux and other local centres of advice and experience to try to make sure that what help is available in cases of family distress, disadvantage or handicap becomes part of the common culture and knowledge, and to bring to people's attention the fact that they should and can take earlier action to obtain reassurance, guidance or help. I realise that in every locality citizens advice bureaux are making referrals to child guidance clinics, the National Marriage Guidance Council and similar organisations, and to the various specialist bodies and statutory agencies which can provide someone to listen to problems, and often give practical help or advice. I hope that substantial extra recognition of the developing work of the citizens advice bureaux will make it possible for that network of resources to become better known and to be better spread throughout each local community.
  I do not intend to go on as long as perhaps I should in developing this theme, because I understand that other hon. Members wish to speak in this short debate. However, I should like to spend the last few moments on developing the use of volunteers. Citizens advice bureaux have followed the line which was developed at about the same time as, for example, the Pre-School Playgroups Association, which has shown how a small amount of central and local government help has provided enormous benefit. I welcome the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services in c. 389 of the Official Report of yesterday, 27 May, on increasing the opportunities for volunteering among the unemployed. It brings out a point that was implied by the hon. Member for Battersea, South that the more people are involved as volunteers in helping, the more can people who are part of the ordinary community, even outside the citizens advice bureaux office itself, help themselves and others. I feel strongly that the more we can help others, the more
  1180
  we are likely to help ourselves, and the more we can help ourselves, the more we shall be encouraged to provide assistance to others.
  I look on the citizens advice bureaux network as one of the greatest developments in this country in the past 10 or 20 years. In my view, its work load will increase. Even as we become better off, I believe that its work load will increase, just as the work load on the National Health Service has increased as our material standard of living has improved. I welcome the initiation of this debate, and I hope that it will receive a favourable response not only from my hon. Friend the Minister but from local authorities throughout the country.
  10.44 am
  Mr. Edward Lyons: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) on introducing this debate. People outside do rot appreciate that it is limited to 45 minutes, and that I have only one minute to speak before the Minister rises. So may I say, in the briefest possible way, thay we on the Social Democratic Party Benches support the existence and enlarged activities of the citizens advice bureaux. In Yorkshire and Humberside, unemployment has doubled during the past two years. Not surprisingly, the number of unemployment and social security benefits has risen by 94 per cent. in the same period. Bradford has higher than average unemployment. The bureau there does a marvellous job. We want the Government to continue to look but more benevolently than at present at the needs of the citizens advice bureaux.
  I am afraid that that is all that time allows me to say.
  10.45 am
  The Minister for Consumer Affairs (Dr. Gerard Vaughan): First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) on bringing this important issue before the House. We were all interested to hear his extremely constructive comments and also the brief comments of the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), as well as those of my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley). We are well aware of the great amount of work that my hon. Friend has done in this connection and the tremendous activities that he has generated with Family Forum, which is a most important body.
  I listened with great care to the hon. Member for Battersea, South. I am sympathetic to the points that were raised. Some of the impressive figures that were given show how the work has increased. A working group has been set up by the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux working closely with the Departments of Industry and Trade to look into the subject of computers and to consider whether more use could be made of them. It is important that we should have a better idea of where the changes are taking place in the work to see whether, by looking at the information somewhat differently, we could increase the effectiveness and help that are given through the service.
  Our citizens advice bureaux are a major national asset—the envy, indeed, of many other countries without a comparable system. As we have already heard, we have nearly 1,000 bureaux that are serviced by over 10,000 voluntary workers. The hon. Gentleman was right when he said that they are run by a relatively small professional staff. I would accept the views of my hon. Friend about

  1181
  this relationship and the numbers of professionals and volunteers rather than those of the hon. Member for Battersea, South, because citizens advice bureaux are an excellent example of how a small number of professional people, properly trained and deployed, can run a large number of volunteers, who, of course, bring a rather different approach to their work. They do not have to do the work in the way that a professional has to do it. They bring a fresh and valuable approach. I see the citizens advice bureaux as a most desirable example of how the volunteer can work effectively with the professional. Moreover, a large proportion of the money that we provide centrally is spent on seeing that the professionals train the volunteers properly and that there are courses to provide the expertise that they need.
  The dedication, competence and impartiality of the service are known to all who are in contact with it. All hon. Members know, through their own surgeries, how helpful the citizens advice bureaux can be and know of the interchange between the two. The bureaux offer free—that is important—and confidential advice on some 4 million inquiries a year. That is a tremendous contribution to the welfare of our community.
  The hon. Member for Battersea, South rightly emphasised that the demands on the citizens advice bureaux are increasing. It is not only the crude total of inquiries that is increasing. There is also a good deal of evidence that the kinds of inquiries are becoming more complex. For example, financial problems are becoming more complicated and frequent. It is now quite a common experience for bureau workers to discover that what appears to be a straightforward problem, say an unpaid bill, is only the tip of the iceberg and that several other much more fundamental difficulties lie underneath for the family concerned.
  It is the Government's recognition of the mounting burden of work as well as a warm respect for the service that has led us to increase Government grant-in-aid support for the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. The grant in 1979–80, under the previous Government, was £1·85 million. We increased it in the following year to more than £4 million. I was delighted that, shortly after taking up my present appointment, we were able to increase that amount again to £5·757 million for this year. During the whole period from 1979–80 to 1982–83, support for NACAB will have increased by over 100 per cent. in real terms—a remarkable affirmation, in difficult economic circumstances, of the importance that we attach to the service and to the work of NACAB within it.
  The hon. Member for Battersea, South spoke about Wandsworth, of which he has great experience. He will know that there are three citizens advice bureaux under the Wandsworth borough council—one at Wandsworth, one at Battersea and one at Roehampton. The Roehampton branch does about half of the work of the other two, but about 40 per cent. of its inquiries are repeat ones. That is a sign of how complicated some of the issues are. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to say that the money allocated had been increased. It has been increased considerably. For the area that he represents, the figures are nothing like the general ones that he mentioned. In 1980, the contribution from the borough council to the three offices was £120,000. In 1981 it was £154,000 and for 1982–83 it is £185,000. That is quite substantial
  1182
  support from the local council. I sympathise, however, in that I know that the hon. Gentleman will not think that that is sufficient.
  Two fair and proper questions may be put about the way in which bureaux are funded. The first is whether the best possible use is being made of the money that the Government provide. The second is whether the Government could or should do more to support individual grass roots bureaux which, in the last resort, are the raison d'être of the whole programme.
  Part of our grant supports the administrative overheads of NACAB's headquarters organisation and the machinery, elected by the service as a whole, which determines policy and establishes standards on a national basis. But the bulk—over 80 per cent., NACAB estimates—is spent in one way or another on direct support for individual bureaux throughout the country. About one-quarter goes on the basic information and training service that is central to the effective operation of the service. A further one-quarter goes on "field support" for groups of bureaux at area level. Between one-quarter and one-third goes on cash assistance for individual bureaux capital or operating costs.
  It has been suggested that direct cash assistance for bureaux should be substantially increased. NACAB proposed that when it asked us last year to double its grants from £5 million to £10 million. It intended that such additional funding should be spent largely on the operating costs of individual bureaux. As the House is aware, a further increase in grant assistance on the scale which NACAB sought is simply not possible within current constraints on public expenditure. Quite apart from that, any substantial increase in central Government funding for bureaux running costs raises major problems of principle. In saying that, I have every sympathy with those who point out that the combined effect of the levels in local authority spending, and increasing demands on individual bureaux, is putting the service under serious pressure. In the past two or three months I have seen something of the conditions in which some bureaux are working. Some of the conditions are simply not acceptable.
  One of the fundamental aspects is that if someone goes to a bureau to discuss very personal matters, he must be able to discuss them in an atmosphere of privacy, not within the hearing of people who are waiting. I am looking into the matter. I have made a point of visiting as many bureaux as possible even in the short time that I have held my present position. I have recently had discussions with the chairman of NACAB about whether the money that is provided centrally is being used in the most effective way and the dilemma, or principle, of whether more money should go locally or centrally. I have told her that I should be happy, if it would help, to examine that matter and any ideas that NACAB may advance about the more effective use of the money that we provide centrally.
  Effectiveness is only partly a matter of money. Nevertheless, it is crucially important to ensure that taxpayers' money is used as effectively as possible. Effectiveness is also a matter of structure and organisation—both in the generalist advice service, such as the citizens advice bureaux, and also in the more specialised advice from other services.
  Hon. Members touched on an important point. There is too much overlap between the albeit limited number of advice centres in one area. People are still confused about where they should go for particular types of help. As we

  1183
  all know, it is possible to be sent to several centres and not to end up with the advice that one seeks. I am examining that problem urgently. I shall discuss it again with NACAB.
  In the next few days, I hope to visit the headquarters at Drury Lane to examine the work being done there, especially the literature that is distributed and the way in which it is set out. I shall visit more bureaux throughout the country before coming to any conclusions on the matter. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Battersea, South for raising the issue. The House has not had an opportunity to debate it for some time. I shall examine the constructive points that have been raised and discuss with NACAB whether changes are needed.

  Empty Houses (Rates)
  10.58 am
  Mr. Neil Thorne: I welcome the presence of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), to reply to this debate. I know that the other Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw), was to reply but has an important and pressing engagement. It is typical of my hon. Friend the Member for Acton generously to step into the breach.
  The present rating system dates back more than 400 years. Queen Elizabeth I made provision for the poor and a levy was raised from the occupiers of each property in the parish to satisfy what was required by the churchwardens for the relief of the poor. This arose directly from the action taken by her father, King Henry VIII, in dissolving the monasteries which until then had provided for the poor out of their sizeable assets. It is perhaps appropriate that we should be discussing this matter today, on the morning of the first visit of a Pope to this country.
  Over the years, the system has been expanded to provide for many other services. This was particularly so during the last century when local authorities took over from the churches responsibilities in education, welfare and a number of other spheres. Moreover, almost every year this century, Parliament has heaped further duties and responsibilities on local authorities, and thereby considerably escalated the cost of funding those duties.
  Inevitably, the increase in this burden has had two results. First, Governments have found it necessary to provide finances from the Exchequer to help carry the load. Secondly, there have been increasing demands for the abolition of the tax altogether, on the ground that it is a very heavy burden and is no longer equitably applied. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has this very much in mind and is currently examining the results of his public consultation paper "Alternatives To Domestic Rates".
  In the meantime, however, the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 was passed to provide a fairer way of distributing the funds allocated by central Government for this purpose. The biggest spenders among local authorities are now not necessarily those that receive the largest subsidy from Government funds, as previously seemed to be the case when each council had the right to demand subsidies based on its own interpretation of it s needs. As a result of the 1980 Act, grant-related expenditure was brought into being, with the intention of establishing the basic needs of each local authority according to its duties and responsibilities, calculated by reference to a rather complicated formula.
  Clearly local authorities have very different views about their needs—that is why the previous system was unfair—but they certainly do not lose any opportunity to state their case to Government and to request flexibility due to some difficult problem that is not shared by others or at least not to the same extent. They therefore never cease asking the Department for flexibility. It is right and proper that there should be sympathy and understanding for the problems of others, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and his colleagues take those representations most seriously.

  1185
  Until recent years liability to pay rates depended upon beneficial occupation, without which no rates were payable. This was changed by the General Rate Act 1967, which gave local authorities the power to charge empty rates in their area. Incidentally, empty rates are not the same as general rates. They are higher, as they do not benefit from the subsidy applied in relation to domestic general rates.
  Local authorities had previously expressed the wish to exert that power because they believed that property owners were intentionally keeping premises empty purely and simply to benefit from a capital gain. This applied especially to the domestic sector, in which it was then, as now, extremely difficult to effect a letting that truly reflected the value of the property. Authorities adopting the rights provided by the 1967 Act could thus ensure that an owner became liable to pay rates after a period of three months' vacancy.
  Mr. Sydney Chapman: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) on raising this subject in an Adjournment debate. Is he aware that an increasing number of people believe that, whatever the merits or demerits of the 1967 Act, the provisions need clarifying? The provision for a three-month rate exemption period to which my hon. Friend has referred does not state specifically whether it is three months in any one financial year, three months per individual owner or three months only for all time on any one property. The latter is certainly the interpretation given to it by my local authority in a dispute that I have had with it on behalf of a constituent.
  Therefore, whatever case my hon. Friend is advancing, does he agree that schedule 1 and/or section 17 of the General Rate Act 1967 requires amendment?
  Mr. Thorne: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He raises an important point that should be cleared up. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will bear it in mind when he replies. I do not think that the House or Parliament generally ever expects to be able to cover every eventuality, but this is a real and important point that clearly needs further consideration. I am sure that it will be dealt with appropriately at the earliest possible moment.
  The result of the 1967 Act was to concentrate the minds of property owners, who were induced to reconsider very carefully the situation in relation to any empty building, to such an extent that premises were sometimes let without any rent being charged so long as the rates were met.
  Paragraph 1(1) of schedule 1 to the 1967 Act provides:
  "Where, in the case of any rating area in which, by virtue of a resolution under section 17 of this Act, this Schedule is in operation, any relevant hereditament in that area is unoccupied for a continuous period exceeding three months, the owner shall, subject to the provisions of this Schedule, be rated in respect of that hereditament for any relevant period of vacancy; and the provisions of this Act shall apply accordingly as if the hereditament were occupied during that relevant period of vacancy by the owner."
  It was realised, however, that this could be very harsh indeed. Paragraph 2 therefore provides:
  "No rates shall be payable under paragraph 1 of this Schedule in respect of a hereditament for, or for any part of the three months beginning with the day following the end of, any period during which—

  (a) the owner is prohibited by law from occupying the hereditament or allowing it to be occupied;

  1186

  (b) the hereditament is kept vacant by reason of action taken by or on behalf of the Crown or any local or public authority with a view to prohibiting the occupation of the hereditament or to acquiring it;

  (c) the hereditament is the subject of a building preservation order."

  In considering three months Parliament rightly decided that unnecessary hardship could indeed occur. As a result of an amendment, therefore, paragraph 3A now provides:
  "Without prejudice to section 53 of this Act, a rating authority shall have power to reduce or remit the payment of any rates payable in respect of a hereditament by virtue of paragraph 1 of this Schedule if they consider that the payment would cause hardship to the person liable for those rates."
  I understand that it has been made clear by the Department that hardship is not exclusively financial but may also be considered on other grounds.
  Parliament has been anxious to ensure that the law should be fair in its operation and to provide, after 400 years of rating law, that rates could be charged not only on occupation but also when a property is unoccupied. We are still in the early days of this entirely new departure and therefore it is important that those local authorities that are involved should be particularly cautious and careful in their handling of this issue.
  There have been cases where that is not so. I have a constituent who has indeed suffered in this way. He is a Mr. Ducker who lives at 17 Park Avenue, Ilford, who purchased a 999-year leasehold interest in 52 Woodberry Grove, N.4 in 1957. He lived in those premises until 1968 when he moved to his present address. Shortly after Mr. Ducker left that property, he let the premises to a Miss Yvonne Elizabeth Murray who died in tragic circumstances on 16 May 1975, leaving the property vacant. At a later date, Mr. Ducker was informed that squatters had occupied the premises. Subsequently, in 1977, the premises were boarded up by the Greater London Council.
  In July 1978 Mr. Ducker received a demand for unpaid rates, back-dated to August 1975. On 15 August 1978 Mr. Ducker received a summons for non-payment of rates. There has been copious correspondence between Mr. Ducker and the local authority between those dates and subsequently.
  Mr. Ducker paid the rates on 52 Woodberry Grove from 1957 until 1973, in spite of the fact that he let the property to Miss Murray in 1968. The rate demands throughout this period were sent to Mr. Ducker at his address in my constituency, where he still lives. During 1973, Miss Murray began to pay the rates and continued to do so until her death, and the rate demands were no longer sent to 17 Park Avenue.
  When Miss Murray died in 1975 Mr. Ducker informed the local authority that the property was no longer occupied. He did not hear from the local authority in any respect until he received the rate demand in July 1978. That rate demand claimed rates from August 1975—excluding the three-month period—and related to the property as a valuable one, although it had been boarded up since 1977 after being severely vandalised and had been uninhabitable since that date, which was, or should have been, within the local authority's knowledge.
  Mr. Ducker feels that due to the local authority's failure to send a rate demand for those three years he was denied the opportunity to challenge the valuation of the property and the rate assessment. Furthermore, the local authority was at all times aware of Mr. Ducker's address and could have contacted him there at any time. The local authority

  1187
  claims to have had the property inspected every four to six weeks by a rate inspector and should therefore have been aware of the property's condition.
  The important factors in this case are in my opinion that the local authority failed to send a rate demand to Mr. Ducker in respect of the property at 52 Woodberry Grove until July 1978, three years after it had been notified that the property was vacant, although at all times it knew Mr. Ducker's address and had previously corresponded with him there. The local authority failed to inform Mr. Ducker of the property's valuation on which the rate assessment was based.
  By reason of those actions the local authority deprived Mr. Ducker of the opportunity to appeal against the assessed valuation of the property. The local authority failed to inform Mr. Ducker that the property was boarded up in August 1977 as being uninhabitable, and failed to inform him that it was open to him to have the property's value reassessed. The local authority failed until August 1979 to inform Mr. Ducker that it was open to him to have the property's value reassessed, that being two years after the property was boarded up as being uninhabitable and one year after the first rate demand had been sent.
  Therefore, the authority allowed a debt in excess of £1,000 to accumulate. It then took Mr. Ducker to court and there was a complete muddle about that as well. It served a summons on Mr. Ducker for non-payment of rates and the hearing of that summons was moved from one court to another, of which he was not notified. It was purely by accident that he learned where the hearing was subsequently to take place.
  In all the circumstances, I believe the local authority failed in its duty to act fairly and to observe the rules of natural justice.
  Mr. Ducker wondered what he could do about all this. On advice, he decided to take the matter to the local government ombudsman. However, owing to the effluxion of time it was not possible for the case to be heard. Clearly Mr. Ducker is not a man to rush to have his grievances redressed at the first possible moment. In view of the enormous amount of time that had elapsed, he did not realise that he had to make his objection within a set period.
  Councillor Lobenstein, an excellent councillor in the London borough of Hackney, who I am sure is well known to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment for his good works in that part of the world, took up Mr. Ducker's case and did the best that he could on his behalf. Sadly, it was all to no avail because the case was, as I said, ruled out of time and therefore it could not be heard.
  In passing, it may interest my hon. Friend to know that although the parliamentary ombudsman has a duty to report to a Select Committee of the House, I can trace no such requirement for the local government ombudsman. He may wish to establish whether that should be corrected. The House having established such necessary arrangement in the former case, it seems to me that it ought to have done so in the latter case as well and thereby reserved to itself some say in the running of such a department. Perhaps that needs looking into.
  I believe that this case was earlier referred to the local authority's finance committee. It was asked to consider waiving the rates because, clearly, Mr. Ducker had not
  1188
  benefited from the premises being left vacant. The local authority appears only to have replied that it would be prepared to purchase the property from Mr. Ducker.
  That raises another issue. There seems to me to be a grey area between, on the one hand, the local authority's demand for substantial rates and, on the other, its telling him that it would be happy to buy the property from him and settle the rate demand out of the amount that it was prepared to pay him. That offer would appear to be somewhat suspect, because on the one hand it was applying pressure for the settlement of the rate demand and on the other expressing willingness to purchase property in which clearly few people would he interested. There could be a conflict of interests here, and I seriously wonder whether that is a right and proper thing for it to do at one and the same time.
  In view of the hardship that was suffered, it is harder to understand why the finance committee was not prepared to be much more understanding in this case, particularly over the doubt concerning the squatters. Clearly Mr. Ducker would not be responsible if the squatters were in residence. It would be up to the local authority to recover rates from them, although that in itself is a difficult matter. The local authority would not find it easy to recover rates from squatters, particularly after they have left the premises. It is much easier to go for Mr. Ducker, whom I hesitate to call a sitting duck, but nevertheless he is a highly respectable man living in my constituency whose address at all times had been known to the local authority.
  When members of the London borough of Hackney come to my hon. Friend and his colleagues to ask for sympathy and understanding in their own case—they obviously do have considerable problems in Hackney—he should also remind them of the need to be sympathetic and understanding to their own ratepayers.
  It is in my view immoral of a local authority to expect to have a fair and understanding hearing from the Department when it is not prepared to give in like manner to its own ratepayers. I ask my hon. Friend to consider what might be done to ensure that this does not happen again.
  Mr. Ducker has agreed to pay the money. His income is very modest and he has to find £50 a month to settle the local authority's bill. That seems wrong. He is not the type of man to plead poverty or to take advantage of the social security system. He believes in standing on his own feet and I applaud that. It is immoral for the local authority to have used its might in that way when an examination of the facts of the case would have illustrated its own inadequacies.
  11.20 am
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young): It is a pleasure to end the current session in the manner in which I have spent so much of it replying to Adjournment debates initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne). I thank my hon. Friend for raising the topic today. It is important.
  The question of levying rates on empty houses is difficult and affects relatively few people. Nevertheless, it is a topic that needs detailed consideration regularly to ensure that the legislative provisions do not become counter-productive, that they are fully understood and not applied unfairly.
  The concept of empty property rates is, in rating terms, relatively new. My hon. Friend rightly put the subject in

  1189
  the broader context of our proposals for domestic rating reform and our policies for rearranging the rate support grant.
  The powers for local authorities to levy rates on unoccupied property at their discretion were introduced in the mid-1960s with the aim of providing a disincentive to keeping property empty for speculative purposes. That such powers were desirable at the time few, in retrospect, would dispute. We are all aware of Centre Point which was one example of the property speculation then rife. Times change, however, and there was a strong suspicion towards the end of the 1970s that, far from being kept empty for speculative purposes, properties were empty because their owners were unable to find a buyer.
  Therefore, when this Government took office my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State instigated an investigation into the whole question of empty property rates. The investigation was carried out by officials within my Department in consultation with representatives of industry, of local authority associations and other appropriate bodies. The investigation showed that there was little, if any, evidence of the speculation of the 1960s and early 1970s and that empty property rates were exacerbating the problems caused to industry by the recession.
  Many firms were being forced to close factories through lack of sales, but their plight was then made worse by the requirement to pay, in some cases, substantial sums in rates on those non-productive units that they also found that they could not sell. There was a strong case, therefore, for the abolition of those rating provisions.
  One must bear in mind, however, that the abolition of the local authorities' powers to levy empty property rates would deprive local authorities of a substantial source of income in those areas where such rates are levied.
  Without going into the Government's views on local authority expenditure, which are well known and do not need rehearsing in this context, it is fair to say that this loss of income would be recouped, in some areas, by increasing the rate burden on the other ratepayers. This would particularly hit the inner cities and other areas suffering from a declining industrial base.
  The abolition of empty property rates in these areas would increase the rates burden on the remaining industries which would reduce their competitiveness and might lead to those industries being faced with the choice of relocating or going under. There is a genuine risk that the abolition of empty property rates could in some areas promulgate a spiral of industrial decline.
  There is also the question of local authority services. My hon. Friend mentioned the argument that many owners complaining about the rating of empty property use as a justification for their complaint the fact that empty property does not benefit from the services provided by the local authorities. Rates are, of course, a form of tax and the question of degree of direct benefits derived is not perhaps strictly relevant, but I think that the basis for complaint is not quite correct.
  Empty property continues to derive benefit from the protection afforded by the police and fire services. I am sure that it is agreed that any of the local authorities' services and activities which directly or indirectly reduce vandalism is also of benefit. I do not propose to delve further into that approach. Suffice it to say that I am
  1190
  satisfied that it is fair that where local authorities judge it to be appropriate the owners of empty property should be required to make some contribution towards the rates, in recognition of the services from which they continue to derive benefit. That is the background to the current legislative position.
  The position today is that rating authorities may resolve to levy rates on property that has been unoccupied for more than three months, or six months in the case of newly constructed dwellings—the so-called grace period.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) mentioned the need for clarification. His was a somewhat up-market point for me and I do not have the reply at my fingertips. I shall write to my hon. Friends with the Department's interpretation, such as it is, of the present statute. I was not aware that there was any confusion about how it should be interpreted. In response to my hon. Friend's intervention, I shall make inquiries and see whether my Department has a role to play in sorting the matter out.
  When the rating authorities resolve to levy rates on empty property they can levy rates on any class or classes of hereditaments, or they can restrict such levying of rates to certain areas within their district. That is the policy of the borough referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South where there is a slightly lower rate in one part of the borough which the authority is trying to revive industrially.
  Rating authorities can also set the level of empty property rates at anything between nothing and 100 per cent. of the full rate on dwelling houses, and up to 50 per cent. on other hereditaments, including industrial and commercial property.
  As my hon. Friend rightly reminded the House, local authorities have discretion to reduce or remit the empty property rates that they have levied in individual cases, but only on ground of hardship. I shall return later to the specific case to which my hon. Friend referred.
  The Local Government Planning and Land (No. 2) Act 1980 varied the previous legislation in respect of empty property rates. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State now has powers to vary the maximum percentage of the full rate that can be levied as empty property rates either uniformly or in relation to different classes of hereditaments in different areas and to vary the initial grace period. It was the introduction of these powers that enabled a 50 per cent. limit on authorities' discretion to vary commercial and industrial rates for empty property to be introduced with effect from 1 April last year.
  As I have said, the major problems at the time appeared to be in the non-domestic sector and it was not considered appropriate to use the powers to place a ceiling on the amount of rates that local authorities may levy on empty houses. Of course, I am aware that, where rates are required to be paid on unoccupied dwellings, owners who have had to move because of their jobs and who are unable to sell their homes can face severe hardship. But I think that there are also arguments for retaining a level of rating on such properties generally.
  Since this Government came to power, our primary concern in housing has been to see that the best use was made of existing housing stock. In England, some 92,000 local authority dwellings were estimated to be empty on 1 April 1981. This was an improvement on the previous year when the figure stood at 100,000, but there were still a number of authorities with levels of empty housing way

  1191
  above the 2 per cent. of stock recognised in management and maintenance subsidy arrangements as the acceptable level. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction has made vigorous efforts to exhort local authorities, new towns, housing associations and Government Departments to bring back empty housing into productive use.
  In the private sector, the shorthold tenancies provision in the Housing Act 1980 was designed to encourage private landlords to let their dwellings.
  Whilst I do not want to argue that the abolition or limitation of rates on empty houses would, by itself, lead to an increase in the numbers of dwellings left vacant, or to the length of time they remained unoccupied, I believe that the removal of any sanction that has the effect of discouraging such action could be contemplated only after very careful consideration.
  As I mentioned earlier, I accept that empty property rates are causing hardship in some areas where owners who have been forced to move are unable to find buyers for their old homes. But the legislation is flexible enough for local authorities to take account of this. The power to levy empty property rates is discretionary and should be used to reflect the time state of the housing market and not purely for dogmatic reasons. The buoyancy of the housing market is far more dependent on local circumstances than is the market for industrial premises, which would make it difficult to legislate on any basis other than a broad based discretionary power.
  I turn to the specific case put forward by my hon. Friend. I am afraid that at this stage I am not in a position to comment on the detailed case history that he gave. But my hon. Friend made a powerful case on behalf of his constituent, and one cannot but feel sympathy for Mr. Ducker.
  Local authorities have been given wide discretion in the use of their powers to levy rates on empty premises. Without having been able to consider all the facts of the case, however, and, therefore, without making any judgments in the circumstances that my hon. Friend described, I can say that the Government hope that local authorities will use their discretion in a sensible and defensible manner, taking account of all the relevant circumstances and balancing these against the need to encourage the full use of empty properties.
  My hon. Friend made a specific point about the local government ombudsman, and I was pleased to see my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) in his place, because he has a specific interest in these subjects. I am sure that he will take this matter further. But I note that the case was referred to the local government
  1192
  ombudsman, and I was sorry to learn that he was not able to make a full investigation. From the account that my hon. Friend gave the House, it seemed to me that i he London borough of Hackney had not acted with quite the perception and sensitivity that might have been expected.
  My hon. Friend asked whether there was a role for me to play in terms of discussions that I might have with the London borough. I should like to look into that suggestion, and I shall let my hon. Friend know whether there is a role for my Department to play.
  I listened with enormous care to what my hon. Friend said. This is a subject which we have to keep constantly under review. If we consider that there is overwhelming evidence that the provisions for the rating of empty property are not working as intended, clearly we shall have to review them. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept my assurances that we shall not hesitate to use the available powers to amend them if that case is made.
  Mr. Neil Thorne: Before my hon. Friend sits down, may I say that I hope that he will look into the specific point about the residential occupier having to pay rather more than he would if the premises were occupied. There would seem to be an additional burden here. Whereas a commercial ratepayer would be paying much the same rates whether the premises were occupied or not, the residential occupier falls into a different bracket.
  It may have something to do with paragraph 1(2) of schedule 1, which provides:
  "Subject to the provisions of this schedule the amount of any rates payable by an owner in respect of a hereditament by virtue of this paragraph shall be the specified proportion of the amount which would be payable if he were in occupation of the hereditament; and no reduction shall be made under section 48 of this Act in respect of any rates so payable."
  It may be that under section 48 the local authority will make reductions because the property is being residentially occupied. It therefore seems wrong to me that a residential property owner should be penalised at a higher level if the property is unoccupied. If the local authority suspects that it is being kept vacant to be used for some other purpose, it is always open to it to refer the matter to the district valuer for the re-rating of the premises as a whole.
  Sir George Young: My hon. Friend makes a valid technical point that occupied houses attract domestic rate relief which reduces the rate poundage by 18·5p, and he points out, quite rightly, that this does not apply to empty property. That means that empty houses may in some instances be subject to higher rates than they would face if occupied. I shall write to my hon. Friend about this, because he seems to have raised an important issue.

  Insurance Policies (Consumer Protection)
  11.36 am
  Mr. Greville Janner: I appreciate the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment the problems created for consumers by insurance contracts and the steps which I hope that the Government may take to draw to the attention of policy holders the extraordinarily complex and often thoroughly unsatisfactory position in which they stand.
  Each of us in the House has a certain interest to declare because we are all policy holders of one kind or another. There are no policies available to Ministers which guarantee them their offices; nor to hon. Members which ensure them their seats. But for many other purposes we hold policies.
  The criticisms that I make are not directed at those who insure me. For at least three generations the Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Group and its predecessors have treated my family with considerable courtesy and, when my late grandfather came here from Lithuania and insurers were loth to insure Jewish immigrants, the Atlas Assurance Company took on the insurance of the family and, in recognition, we have stayed with it ever since. So I am not attacking my company nor any of the great companies, which often stretch the requirements of the law in order that justice may be done. But even the finest of companies may wobble, and the law is totally unsatisfactory.
  This debate is not one in which we can recommend changes in the law, but it is right to draw attention to the unsatisfactory state of the law as it stands and to ask the Minister to remind the public, within the powers that he has, of these very serious problems.
  When people take out insurance cover, they expect to be buying protection. All too often they do not get it when the grim moment of claim arrives. The reason sometimes is that they have not taken out the protection that they should have done and they have not bought what they should have bought. With insurance, as with most other commodities, the purchaser gets what he pays for. But often it is because of the nature of the contract and of the way that insurance companies administer their contract terms.
  Due largely to the strength and power of the insurance lobby, when the Unfair Contract Terms Act was passed by a Government which I supported, unfortunately the insurance industry was exempted. As a result, that protection which is given to people against exclusion clauses which are unfair or unreasonable is not extended to those who avail themselves of the services of insurers. Every insurance contract contained, as it always is, in a policy document includes exclusion clauses, and these are binding, however unreasonable they may be and however unnoticed they may be. The law is that once anyone has signed a document he is, except in the most remote circumstances, taken to have known what was in it, to have understood what was in it and to be bound by whatever is in it. So people require to be warned of this vast danger. The Minister in his reply may be able to say that the danger is to be removed by some action which he—or perhaps the Director General of Fair
  1194
  Trading—might have in mind. But meanwhile this is a major and vicious trap for all of us who have insurance policies.
  There is an archaic rule which the Law Commission, following the trail of many others, has recommended should go. The rule says that one must make disclosure of material facts which might affect the mind of the insurer, even if one is not asked about them. People who, for example, take out travel insurance and are going on holiday, either over this Whitsun period or later, and who think they have covered themselves against all forms of disaster, are not asked whether they have made previous claims against other companies, although any such claim would be directly material to the responsibility of the insurers. Therefore, insurers are entitled, in many cases, to repudiate liability.
  The fact that most insurers do not take advantage of the position is a tribute to the excellent way in which the industry is frequently administered. But the fact that the power exists and that it is exercised from time to time—there are many reported cases which show the shambles of the protective devices which should be available to people—is an indication that, particularly as we approach this holiday weekend, it is for the Minister, I suggest, to warn holidaymakers to make sure that they are not excluded from the cover they expect to get.
  When any policy holder enters into a contract, he may have to prove that he has a claim and follow some complicated rules laid down in the contract which in practice would cause people very great difficulty. I have been very disturbed at the number of cases which have come to me—through constituents and sometimes from outside—indicating the often wicked way in which people are deprived of their rights, and get them only when a Member of Parliament intervenes.
  The most startling case concerned a very courageous disabled lady called Mrs. Hyatt, who lives on New Parks Estate in my constituency. Her husband went out to see their daughter in Australia and was drowned. A claim was made under travel insurance from the Bishopsgate Insurance Company Limited. The company first made difficulties even about paying for the ashes to be returned to the United Kingdom, and then declined to pay the £2,000 on the accident insurance because, as it said,
  "on a strict legal interpretation of the cover in respect of death from drowning it can be argued—and an opinion was taken in this respect—that this is excluded by the fact that death did not result from the person sustaining bodily injury caused by accidental external violent and visible means".
  When the man concerned went on holiday he took out insurance to cover him in respect of just that risk. He was drowned, without any suggestion that he had a heart attack—so that it could be argued that drowning did not cause the death—yet the company refused to pay. I wrote to the company and suggested that it might like to look into the matter before I took action in this House, and I am delighted to say the that £2,000 was paid at once. Having had correspondence with one of the leading executives of the company, I ventured to hope that it would not do the same again.
  But that is not the only company acting in such a way. I have a great bundle of complaints from people insured by various companies. The latest of the complaints had nothing to do with holidays. It concerned a woman whose wall was knocked down by a lorry. The company refused to pay because it said that the cause was frost and erosion.

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  When I wrote to the company suggesting that that was perhaps not the best point in the insurers' book, it paid like a lamb, but the intervention of Members of Parliament should not he required.
  On the other hand, the public should know that, if they run into such trouble, they should go to their Members of Parliament, so that we can weigh in on their behalf and see that, even when the law is against them—which often it is not—justice and the law are tempered by mercy, compassion and common sense in an industry which performs such good service and which, no doubt, will wish to continue on the same sort of basis.
  I recollect the case of a certain fire insurance company which went into liquidation, leaving many people whistling for their money. As a result of complaints in this House in the very early days of my time here, a fund has been set up, with the creation of an ombudsman, and the company is doing its best to put its house in order, but meanwhile the law is not in order.
  Let us assume that a person has a policy that covers him, that there is no material non-disclosure, that no exclusion clauses apply, and that he can prove his case. That is still not the end of the trail. The assured still has to satisfy the company that he is not over-insured or underinsured, and that his case is appropriate. There is a great deal of haggling to be done before people are paid. The process is much too prolonged and much too unfair. I suggest, with respect, that that is another matter that the Minister should look into.
  If the worse comes to the ultimate worst, we have the sort of insurance disaster that has overtaken the unfortunate Mr. Bernard Saltman. His business premises caught fire and the insurers duly paid the first instalment under the policy. Then, having paid it, they put on to the trail a gentleman called Dr. Keith Gugan, and managed to spark off a prosecution for arson, resulting in Mr. Saltman's conviction. He is still in prison. Many people—including the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir 1. Gilmour) and myself—believe that the conviction was a travesty of justice. Having seen some of the criticisms made of Dr. Gugan's evidence in other cases—including the Flixborough disaster, the case of White Crescent Trust v. Warren, and the Azru case, and even matters arising out of the fire at Notting Hill—we have been deeply concerned at the way in which the insurance company has sought to preserve its interests by initiating and promoting prosecution.
  The matter has been referred to the Home Secretary. Although the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham and I are both hopeful that the Home Secretary will see fit to recommend the exercise of the Royal Prerogative in the case, people ought to realise the vast dangers which can arise when an assured person falls foul of an insurance company. People who hear of this debate and have themselves suffered in a similar way, or who have knowledge of evidence given by Dr. Gugan, may see fit to come to the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham or to me so that we can attempt, perhaps more successfully, to plead with the Home Secretary to achieve the release of Mr. Saltman. Mr. Saltman's case is an example to us all of the ultimate misery which can emerge from trouble with insurers.
  I do not expect the Minister to deal with Mr. Saltman's case—I fully understand that it is not within the scope of his Department—but I am sure that he will note that when the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham and
  1196
  I agree on a matter, there must be something in it, because we hardly ever come together on other issues. It is a measure of the concern, the discontent and the worry of people that Mr. Saltman is still in prison, albeit in an open prison.
  The whole of this area of law requires change and the Law Commission recommends it. In this sort of debate we cannot recommend a change, although we can invite the Minister to say what is in the pipeline between him and the Director General of Fair Trading. If there is nothing, we can ask why. We can say to the Minister that, in view of the clear and justified criticisms of the present system made by the Law Commission—scarcely a militant Left-wing organisation—the Consumers Association, consumer organisations and those who suffer, people should be warned about the problems.
  I have introduced a private Member's Bill on this subject which comes up for its Second Reading in July. Being a Ten-Minute Bill it has precious little prospect of success other than to start a campaign.
  The law is left in the hands of the courts to administer. The final and ultimate injustice for most people is when they find that they cannot exercise their rights because they cannot afford to go to court. Justice is available to those with no money who can get legal aid and to those with plenty of money who do not need legal aid. Most of the population cannot fight the big battalions. One hopes that the principle of strict liability over accidents at work, on the road and elsewhere will be introduced.
  I hope that the Minister will regard my approach as constructive and that the start of the holiday season is the right time to make it and that he will give a constructive and helpful reply such as we have come to expect from him since his transmogrification from the Department of Health and Social Security.
  11.51 am
  The Minister for Consumer Affairs (Dr. Gerard Vaughan): The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) has raised an extremely important subject. I appreciate his interest in the protection of people-taking out insurance cover. He presented the problem clearly and constructively. If I cannot cover all the actions that he would like, I shall look at the matter just as constructively.
  It is important for the policy holder to know where he stands and for customers of all kinds to know what they are paying for and getting. The policy holder should have the peace of mind of knowing that when he has taken out a policy he is properly insured and has covered all the matters that he thinks are covered. Most insurance companies are well run. I frequently hear extremely pleasant and sometimes highly surprised comments about how fully, promptly and fairly insurance claims are dealt with. It is a matter of pride that our insurance industry is not only a great national asset but that it is admired and used internationally. It is an important part of our commercial activities.
  I welcome the recent establishment of the insurance ombudsman bureau which has been set up by the insurance industry to deal with policy holders' complaints. It is a good example of an industry not always turning to the Government for regulation and direction but setting up its own body to see that the industry's codes of practice are

  1197
  carried out effectively. Policy holders who find themselves confused as to their rights can go to the bureau, obtain advice and have the matter sorted out.
  I hope that more information will be given about the bureau so that more people know of its existence. No one would claim that there are no problems and no room for improvement. I am conscious of the complaints that are made. I deal with a few of them mainly in correspondence from hon. Members. The experience of my Department is that many of the complaints arise from misunderstanding. There are certain features about insurance that are liable to lead to a higher level of complaints. Problems arise from under-insurance where policy holders expect full compensation in exchange for paying premiums which only pay for partial cover. There are difficulties in informing people that they must extend their insurance cover that so that they do not find themselves underinsured for their requirements.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman has rightly said that insurance is a complicated subject. It was for that reason that the Law Commission was asked to examine it. I should like to add my appreciation to that already voiced by my predecessor of the work done by the Law Commission in its report "Insurance Law: Non-disclosure and Breach of Warranty". It is a complicated part of a complicated subject. I was interested that the hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the problems over the nondisclosure of information that arise from the requirement to disclose information that is relevant even if one is not asked about it. That leads to confusion and uncertainty.
  The related questions of non-disclosure and breach of warranty are important in the relationship between the insurer and his customer. When issuing a policy it is necessary that the insurer should be aware of all the facts material to the contract. It is equally important that the policy holder should be required only to disclose those matters which he can be reasonably expected to consider relevant. We are all seeking a balance between the interests of the insurer and the policy holder, so that the insurer has the information needed to draw up a proper contract and the policy holder has given the information that will not lead to confusion and misunderstanding later. It is whether that balance is satisfactory and whether it should be improved that has been so controversial.
  I pay a tribute to the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West. He has been active in drawing attention to the problem and the need to do something about it. It was because of some anxiety over the position and the state of the law that the Lord Chancellor of the day asked the Law Commission to look into the matter. It published its findings in October 1980. It is a complicated area legally that affects the fundamental interests of many people.
  It is not surprising that the report has aroused strong feelings and disagreement. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that the insurance companies should not have been excluded from the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. The principal reason for such an exclusion which was advanced when the measure was being considered was that extending the Bill to insurance would handicap the industry in international competition and that it would result in excessive costs being paid by the consumer without any advantages. Insurance contracts are distinctive and the purpose of exemption clauses in insurance contracts is to define the extent of the risk and the
  1198
  circumstances in which the insurer would be obliged to pay. But the arguments advanced in 1977 for the exclusion of insurance should continue to hold good. If the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to bring other aspects to my attention I shall be glad to look into them.
  Mr. Greville Janner: Is the Minister accepting any—if so, what part—of the Law Commission's report?
  Dr. Vaughan: Following the report, my Department issued a consultation document. We stated that we found the arguments for reform of the law convincing, but we have not yet reached final conclusions about what should be done. The replies that we have had are divergent. There are still clear differences of opinion. It is clear from reading the report—it has become even clearer after the consultations—that there are extreme divergences of view. We hesitate to move from a situation that we accept is unsatisfactory without looking carefully into the implications of possible changes.
  There is then the question of timing. A draft EEC directive is before the Council of Ministers. It also deals with insurance contract law. It would be unwise to ignore that. There is a strong case for not hurrying ahead with changes until we have a clearer idea of the trend of recommendations from the European Commission.
  It has been put to us strongly that it would create not only confusion but unacceptable upheaval if we made a change and shortly after found it necessary to make another. Although we want to get on, it would be unwise to go ahead without knowing the outcome of the discussions.
  There is confusion. Consumer organisations and the Law Commission strongly submit that there is an urgent need for change, but the insurers argue that, as in practice they do not take advantage of their full legal rights and have issued statements of practice more favourable to customers than the present law, we should not hurry to legislate before the problems have been properly worked out. I see the merits on both sides. It is important to get reforms right and avoid repeatedly tinkering with the law.
  Those in the industry will be aware that their arguments, relying on statements of practice, can hold good only as long as they honour them. On the other hand, it is not vital to deal with all the problems at once. We must also consider the fact of the European discussions. But we should not wait indefinitely while discussions go on in Europe. If we can reach agreement here over the changes I would sympathetically consider getting on with them, despite the caveat that I gave.
  Another problem area has emerged in the consultations—the scope of the reforms—whether changes should be applied to all insurance contracts or whether a distinction should be made between the different types of policy holder. Should there be a distinction between private consumers and business policy holders or between different types of policy? I should be glad to hear the hon. and learned Gentleman on that.
  Most legal opinion supports my Department's initial view. Reform should apply equally to all contracts, regardless of the nature of the policy holder or the risk covered. I see that the hon. and learned Gentleman supports me. But the insurance industry feels strongly that if there is a need for reform it should be applied only to private consumer contracts. Here again is a difference of view.

  1199
  The Law Commission drew a distinction between types of contract, but that was within the realm of business contracts—for example, between marine, aviation and transport insurance on the one hand and other business risks on the other. Reform of the law on consumer contracts may be much simpler and more easily carried out than one applying more widely.
  That comes back to what I said earlier. We may need to consider implementing some reforms while still discussing other necessary changes. We do not have to hold everything up in order to change everything in one sweep.
  One of the most difficult areas involves warranties. A large part of our discussions has been devoted to that area. Here again the hon. and learned Gentleman will not be surprised that the views expressed are varied and do not point to clear conclusions. Under the law a breach of warranty in a contract of insurance automatically entitles the insurer to repudiate the policy. The Law Commission recommended limiting the extent to which the insurers can so repudiate. The insurers argue that the unambiguous sanctions applicable under the existing law help to make the policy holder aware of the need for strict compliance and to ensure legal continuity. But we need to consult further on those difficult issues.
  The role and legal position of insurance intermediaries, who are a vital link between insurers and policy holders, require further thought. Even in the short time that I have held this responsibility a number of views have been put to me.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman has raised an important subject. Discussions are going on. I congratulate him on his clear and constructive presentation. If he wishes to bring other aspects to our attention, we shall welcome them.
  Mr. Greville Janner: When does the Minister expect the discussions to end and when does he expect to be taking some action on anything? He agrees with almost everything that I say and accepts that the insurers will not like the change much, but there is no sign of movement from his Department. I hope that I am wrong.
  Dr. Vaughan: With so many divergent views being put to us, I cannot at this stage give the hon. and learned Gentleman a clear date.
  I am conscious of the problems and the need to, take action. A good deal of uncertainty has resulted from the Law Commission's report, the consultation paper and the replies. I am aware of the damage that can be caused by drift. We shall not delay.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned the case of Mr. Saltman. He appreciated the fact that the Home Secretary is considering the matter, although I note what he says.

  Heavy Lorries
  12.10 pm
  Mr. Sydney Chapman: I welcome this opportunity of raising a serious subject that I believe will command the attention of a great many of my hon. Friends—the problem of heavy lorries in our urban and rural environments.
  This is, to say the least, a highly emotive political issue and it evokes instant subjective judgments. However, I believe that the time is overdue for a more objective and balanced assessment of the problem. There is an urgent need for a more comprehensive and considered approach by the Government.
  I welcome the presence on the Front Bench of my hon. Friend the Minister. I know from private talks with him that he has been most helpful and sensitive to the problem. From his constituency experiences he will recognise many of the problems that we face. They are no less acute in his constituency of Hall Green—part of that mecca of municipal magnificence, Birmingham, as I used to think it was before a conspiracy between ungrateful electors and unkind Boundary Commissioners unseated me and I looked for pastures new.
  I also welcome the presence of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry). I know that he is particularly worried about a problem we have in our part of that even greater metropolis, London.
  The problems—indeed, the advantages, because we must recognise them—of heavy lorries in towns and in the countryside are not merely confined to the issue of whether we should permit heavier lorries above the existing maximum gross weight of 32½ tonnes. True, there are proposals for a maximum of 38 or even 40 tonnes, but more important is the present impact and effect of existing large and heavy vehicles on our environment.
  The noise, nuisance and disturbance created by heavy lorries have to be set against their commercial and economic advantages. I do not want to underestimate those advantages. I do not believe that any Government in the past 20 or 30 years, of whatever political hue, have begun to tackle the environmental and social problems caused by what we now call the juggernaut. It is interesting to note that when we have a problem we invest it with a foreign name to try to pretend that it does not belong to us.
  Seemingly, Governments have always allowed the practical needs of industry and the development of road transport to have precedence over environmental considerations. But the adverse environmental impact, at least in certain places in our towns and cities, has become so acute and grave that action and a new approach are urgent and essential.
  In this highly emotive political issue I want to dispel two separate myths. First, we are kidding ourselves if we believe that a significant proportion of freight at present carried on our roads could be transferred to rail. To believe that is to fly in the face of economics—in short, to be living in cloud-cuckoo-land. I am told that about 85 Per cent. of freight tonne mileage is carried on the roads as opposed to 15 per cent. by rail. I have not forgotten that a considerable proportion of freight is also carried by coastal shipping, that some—oil and gas—is carried by pipeline, and a fraction is carried by inland waterways. That ratio of 85 per cent. to 15 per cent. must be compared with 30 years ago when more freight was carried by rail

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  than by road. I am relieved to read the remarks of Sir Peter Parker, chairman of British Rail, who recently said that British Rail's freight business is improving despite the strikes earlier this year and the recession. I am sure we are glad to hear that.
  Even if people wanted, or the Government dictated, that more freight should be moved by rail it would still have to be carried by road in most cases for part of the journey—from the nearest rail point, marshalling yard or goods yard to the factory, warehouse, workshop or shop.
  In referring to the second myth that I wish to dispel I must choose my words carefully. The introduction of heavier lorries would not necessarily increase the damage to our environment. I need not rehearse now the arguments against raising the maximum weight limits for heavy lorries. They are obvious, easy to state and even easier for politicians to support. But there are a number of misconceptions. The first is to assume that heavier lorries necessarily mean larger and longer lorries. I am told that a 38 or 40 metric tonner, as opposed to the existing maximum 32½ tonne lorry, would be no higher, no wider and only 20 inches longer. Incidentally, whenever I can I shall use Imperial references, being a good Conservative, and not descend to using metric measurements which, frankly, I do not think in terms of nor, sometimes, understand. However, an increased length of 20 inches on a 40 foot lorry is virtually unnoticeable.
  At the risk of descending into technical juggernaut jargon, 20 inches extra length becomes more acceptable if the new heavier lorries have better manoeuverability, more sound insulation round the engine and a safer design. I understand that would be the case because they would be built to more up-to-date specifications.
  The crucial argument in the debate on heavier vehicles is whether the extra weight is permissible. It is essential to differentiate between the pay load of a lorry and the weight pressure on the road—what we are pleased to call the axle weight. If the axle weight on the road of a five-axle, 38 or 40 tonne lorry is less, or not more, than a four-axle 32½ tonne lorry—I understand that is generally the case—I cannot see the case against heavier lorries being adequately sustained because there is no increased axle weight pressure on the road.
  If that is the case, on most axle configuration, further considerations affecting the environment begin to fall into place. If a virtually same-sized lorry with the same axle weight can take a greater load, fewer lorry journeys are necessary to transport the same amount of goods. To make the point precisely by way of an example, taking 600 tonnes by road from A to B would require 28 journeys by a 32-tonner, but only 23 journeys by a 40-tonner. That suggests to me that there will be environmental advantages. Other arguments can be deployed, some economic—reduced transport costs and increased efficiency—and some environmental—fuel conservation, improved vehicle design and reduced noise and pollution.
  All that I ask is that those who care about our urban and rural environments should judge the issue on the facts and not on prejudice. I wonder how many of my constituents realise that some so-called heavier lorries are already using some of our roads, though those lorries are one-third filled with air.
  The crucial issue is the impact of large and heavy vehicles on our environment as a result of the growth in
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  the movement of freight by road. That was another main term of reference of Sir Arthur Armitage, whose report was published in December 1980. I pay tribute to the competence and comprehensive nature of that report which I believe will stand the test of time.
  The number of lorries—I define a lorry as a goods vehicle of more than 1½ tons unladen weight—has fallen by about 100,000 from the peak of about 650,000 15 years ago. However, there has been an increase in the number of heavier lorries, which I define as those of over 8 tons unladen weight.
  The House does not need me to tell it that the nuisance and disturbance of heavy lorries and other vehicles are caused by their noise, vibration, atmospheric pollution, danger to life and limb and other intrusions of which we are all aware. Those nuisances are becoming increasingly intolerable in far too many areas and if we are to reverse the trend—assuming that we cannot solve the problem—we need comprehensive and co-ordinated policies.
  Three areas must be given special consideration. The first is the new road building and bypass construction programme. That can be only a partial solution, because no massive road building programmes are in the pipeline or likely to go ahead in the foreseeable future. Of course, I appreciate the stepping up of the bypass construction programme, with particular priority being given to historic towns with populations of over 10,000. However, even if we had the resources many areas could not be bypassed, either literally or, as is more probable, without causing increased environmental damage, at too great a cost, to communities elsewhere. My constituency, and particularly High Barnet, is one such area. Therefore, we must accept that the road building and bypass construction programme can merely touch the problem and cannot be a complete solution.
  Secondly, the Government should encourage, and perhaps ultimately insist on, quieter, cleaner and safer vehicles. Paradoxically, the trend to larger and heavier lorries will provide the opportunity for such vehicles to be introduced on to our roads. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, we have to consider lorry control schemes. That is where the greatest progress can and must be made. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) who successfully introduced a private Member's Bill nine years ago, now the Heavy Commercial Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973, which those in the industry understandably refer to as the Dykes Act. That Act, combined with the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967, gives certain powers to local authorities to control the movement of lorries in their areas, through outright lorry bans, particularly in side streets and byways, specified lorry routes and restrictions on the weight and loading and unloading of heavy lorries. Perhaps the best known scheme implemented under those Acts is the Windsor cordon. I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East that about 650 other schemes are in operation throughout the country. Some are small and modest, others more significant, but few are as major as the Windsor cordon.
  One such proposal in my part of the Metropolis was about to be implemented by the GLC about a year ago. It covered 50 square miles of north London, bounded by the M25 to the north, the A10 to the east, the North Circular Road to the south and the Al to the west. Unfortunately, the present GLC has seen fit at least to delay the

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  implementation of this scheme after the particular section of the M25 had been completed. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate is as worried as I am to know why the GLC does not go ahead immediately with the scheme. I recognise that it would be a great benefit to my constituents and to those of my hon. Friend. I also recognise that if one removes lorries from one area of London, one is likely to find more lorries in a different part of London. The point that I make in urging the GLC to have the courage to change its mind is that adequate roads exist and that the scheme could at least be introduced for an experimental period to see what happens.
  I should like to refer the Government to that part of the Armitage report dealing with this problem. I wish to put three particular issues to my hon. Friend. The first is that I hope that the Government are undertaking an urgent review to see that local authorities, whether district councils or county councils, London boroughs or the GLC, have sufficient powers to deal with these problems. Secondly, I should like to see the Government encouraging the local authorities to use such powers. I believe that many local authorities could use these powers more effectively than they are presently even intending. Of course, any schemes have to be introduced after proper consultation, not least with industry and commerce, in the particular area that is under consideration.
  Thirdly, I would like to see the Government continually monitoring and assessing these particular schemes. I have mentioned the north London box, if I may so call it. This would be the classic scheme which, if introduced immediately, could be monitored carefully by the Government. Arising from that, there is obviously the need for more lorry routes to be designated together with the possibility that lorries and heavy vehicles should be given priority on certain roads and private vehicles restricted in using them.
  It is an immensely complicated and comprehensive issue that is under review. What may be right in one part of the country may be inadequate or irrelevant in another part. But there needs to be a sustained effort to try to tackle this growing problem. In the debate on whether or not to permit heavier lorries to use our roads, it would be a mistake if we were deflected from the real problem. The real problem, as I see it, is the increasingly adverse impact of vehicles, mainly but not exclusively heavy lorries, on our towns and rural areas. It is a serious problem which touches almost everyone to some degree and far too many people to an intolerable extent. I believe that the country demands action perhaps along the lines that I have sketchily outlined.
  Mr. Neil Thorne: I know that my hon. Friend has enormous experience in this field. He is the only chartered architect and chartered town planner on the Government Benches. Has he considered the position in France where there are prescribed lorry routes? Has this led him to the belief that lorries exceeding a certain weight should be entirely restricted to certain types of roads and not permitted to use other roads except for that part of the journey from or to their point of origin and destination that is nearest to those roads? What my hon. Friend has been saying affects not only his constituency but also the constituency of almost every hon. Member. The suffering that has been caused over many years has manifested itself in great objections to the heavy lorry. That is rather unfair. I feel that successive Governments have failed to face up
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  to their obligations to provide adequate resources for the type of network that is required. Undoubtedly, when many of these roads were originally designed, they were not designed with heavy vehicles in mind.
  Mr. Chapman: I am happy to respond to the detailed point made by my hon. Friend. I should perhaps explain that I am a non-practising architect and town planning consultant. I have studied the situation in some other countries but not in the detail that I would have liked because of my parliamentary duties. My hon. Friend is right. A classic example of prescribing a lorry route from, say, the South-East of England to the Midlands and the North would come about when we have a better road system around London, to wit, the M25 orbital motorway that I hope will be completed by the end of 1985 and, of course, the box to ban lorries in 50 square miles of north London.
  However, I must caution my hon. Friend on one other aspect. Sometimes it is easy to be impressed by schemes abroad but, because of the different social and economic circumstances or the different topography or demographic layout of our towns and cities, it is not always possible to transplant those schemes successfully to our roads, side streets or byways. With that proviso, I totally accept what he said, and I ask the Minister to take note of it.
  In conclusion, I hope that there will be a considered and comprehensive response from the Government. I hope that my hon. Friend will be fortified by the knowledge that if that happens and if the Government introduce a sensible package of proposals to be implemented they will be the first Government to do so for many years, and the only Government to do so in the time that the problem of heavy lorries in our towns and countryside has reached such an intolerable degree that action needs to be taken.
  12.35 pm
  Mr. Harry Greenway: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) and the Minister for the opportunity of a few moments in which to take part in this debate. I have strong views on the way in which heavy lorries are affecting people's lives, particularly on country roads and residential roads in urban areas.
  As a principle, it is quite intolerable that heavy lorries tear through small country roads, taking up all the road space available, so that it is impossible for cars or other vehicles to pass in the opposite direction. This is a problem that we must face in considering the place of heavy lorries in our country today.
  There is another aspect to the problem, and that is the effect of the heavy lorry on the urban dweller. If lorries are routed through narrow, and even not so narrow, residential areas, the pollution, which is many-sided and which was mentioned by my hon. Friend, is very great and very disturbing to those people who live in the houses that are affected. The noise, pollution, vibration and the mere effect of a structure weighing 32½ tonnes passing through an urban street are considerable. There are effects well beyond those that we can see.
  I want to refer, in particular, to Western Avenue. ft is a specific problem that affects my constituency. However, as Western Avenue is used by many people, the problem affects many people who live outside my constituency. Naturally, the A40 is used extensively by heavy lorries as a direct route into London from Buckinghamshire and areas far beyond that.

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  As far as I can see, there is no comprehensive planning in the roadworks that are now taking place there. I do not say that there is no clear direction behind the roadworks. Nevertheless, large parts of the road between the Target roundabout and Hanger Lane are shut off for long periods, traffic is reduced to a single lane, and the strain on the commuter motorist is extremely great. The public need to know why such large areas of road are taken out of use for such long periods during road construction, such as is now taking place on the A40. Either the matter should be explained to the public so that they can understand it, or the whole process needs to be looked at so that only one lane is shut off at any time. Life would then become tolerable, and people could understand what was happening and could live with it.
  The second problem in the area that I have mentioned relates directly to heavy lorries. East-bound traffic is to be diverted from the Target roundabout at Northolt through a residential area in my constituency—if a suggestion by the Department of Transport is upheld—and will not return to the A40 until Hanger Lane. Therefore, people living in completely residential areas could be faced, for an unspecified time, with thundering lorries passing their front doors. The vibration and sheer hell of it are almost beyond imagination.
  I am not looking for an answer today but will the Minister's Department see whether there is an alternative route to the one that has been proposed? We are examining the principle of rerouting heavy lorries when an area of road must be rebuilt. I wonder whether there can be an alternative route or whether some wholly different plan can be found to accommodate the need to reroute heavy lorries for a short time while the canal bridge in the area is being strengthened. Is there an alternative route whereby a deeply upsetting and terrible problem for my constituents can be removed?
  12.41 pm
  The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Reginald Eyre): I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) for raising this subject today. He made an interesting speech. It is appropriate that he should do so because he has long been recognised and respected in the House for his great interest in and informed concern for the environment, especially the built environment.
  I am especially glad that my hon. Friend chose the effect of heavy lorries as his subject. He was absolutely right to emphasise the importance of the subject in large cities such as Birmingham and London. He was supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway). I noted what he said about Western Avenue and the nearby district. I shall ask my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker), who is the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for that aspect of roads, to write to him on those points. I am glad that there has been emphasis put on the problems of heavy lorries because there is a great deal of confusion and misinformation about it, especially so far as the Government's proposals are concerned. I welcome this opportunity to put the record straight.
  Before I deal with some of the main points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet I should like briefly to fill in the background.
  The essential facts are that our economy and our society are dependent on lorries. The other modes—especially
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  rail—have an important and, I hope, growing part to play in moving freight. My hon. Friend mentioned some relevant statistics in that regard. We shall certainly do all that we can to encourage their use where they have environmental advantages. But we simply cannot get away from the fact that the great majority of our freight goes by road and will continue to go by road.
  People simply have not realised the change—the revolution—that has occurred in our domestic freight system and in our international trade, nor yet come to terms with the implications. There has been a container revolution that has caught the country unawares. Increasingly, our foreign trade goes by lorry. More than 40 per cent. of our trade is with the European Community and more than half of our trade with the Community—£21 billion a year—is carried by road. These are changes of the greatest significance for the freight system.
  Faced with those facts, the Government have two main responsibilities. First, the efficiency of road freight transport matters to our economy. Keeping transport costs in check helps to make British industry more competitive, and so helps maintain jobs and living standards. So the Government have a duty to do all that they reasonably can to help British industry contain its transport costs.
  Secondly, the Government have a responsibility to protect people and the environment. We have a paramount duty in particular to ensure that safety standards are maintained.
  We must also look to people's more general sense of well-being. Nobody loves lorries. People do not want them in the streets and roads where they and their families live and walk. We must do all that we can to ensure that heavy lorries are kept away from people, and that individual heavy lorries are as safe and as inoffensive as we can reasonably make them. The whole tenor of my hon. Friend's argument emphasised the importance of such an approach.
  The second requirement—the need to deal with the effects of lorries on people and the environment—has always been my own and my right hon. Friend's starting point. I cannot say with sufficient emphasis that the environmental effects of heavy lorries have not hitherto been faced squarely. Many people in many places have suffered and are suffering from heavy lorries. Previous Governments have not done enough for them. In some cases, their local authorities have failed them—though the record of other local authorities has been good.
  The haulage industry itself needs to recognise more than it has done so far that it is a part of the community with wider responsibilities, and that we are no longer in an age when lorries can travel anywhere with impunity. We have passed the point where the environment takes second place. The interests of people and the environment are now at the forefront.
  We now have the opportunity to turn these fine sentiments into practical action. This Government set up the Armitage inquiry into "Lorries, People and the Environment". Sir Arthur Armitage produced a very wide range of recommendations, concluding in December 1980 that
  "On the basis of existing policies it seems likely that lorries will have greater adverse effects on people and the environment over the next decade and probably up to the end of the century."
  —this on top of an existing situation which he believed was in many cases already insupportable. Sir Arthur

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  concluded, therefore, that the objective must be a combination of policies to reduce substantially the adverse effects of heavy lorries.
  The Government agree with the analysis and the conclusion. We are "environmentalists" on this issue. The question is how to achieve the objective. Our White Paper in December described a way forward. We are now building on that, strengthening the complete package. There are three main ways in which we can tackle and are tackling the problems caused by lorries: first, taking lorries away from people; secondly, improving the lorries themselves; thirdly, enforcement of safety and other standards.
  The best, most effective way of dealing with the problem is to take lorries away from people. We can influence and control where lorries go in various ways. Where possible, building bypasses is the best method of taking lorries out of local communities. People living in badly affected towns and villages recognise this. So there will be many more bypasses. The transport supplementary grant settlement announced in December will enable 35 more local authority bypass schemes to go ahead. In addition, we announced in February that several major bypasses were being added to the active trunk road programme.
  Taking the national and local programmes together, nearly 100 communities will be bypassed by roads now under construction. In addition, another 120 or more communities will benefit from schemes to be started in the next two to three years. We shall continue to give priority to bypasses in the allocation of funds to local authorities and in reviewing the forward programme for trunk roads.
  Another way of keeping lorries away from people is by lorry control schemes. Controls over lorry routes need to be exercised more vigorously than they are now. Some local authorities could do more to keep lorries away from unsuitable roads. I can confirm to my hon. Friend that they certainly have the powers. We have issued a circular urging local authorities to make more effective use of their wide powers to prohibit or direct lorry traffic by means of soundly based control schemes.
  In considering bids for the transport supplementary grant, the Government will give favourable treatment to counties making good use of their powers to control lorries, and my Department is ready to help those local authorities that want assistance in designing and establishing lorry routes.
  The road haulage licensing authorities will be able to take environmental factors into consideration under powers the Government are seeking in the Transport Bill that is now before the House. This judicious mixture of carrot and stick, plus practical encouragement, is, I am sure, fully justified because lorry control schemes are of great importance in reducing the effects of heavy lorries.
  Another way of getting lorries away from people is to ensure fair competition between modes of transport and further to encourage the use of rail and waterway where there would be environmental benefits in so doing. So we must tax lorries properly to see that they cover their road track costs. Already lorries taken as a whole do. Moreover, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the Budget an increase of 25 per cent. in the tax on the heaviest lorries, about £350 a year. We are introducing a new system of
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  lorry taxation in October, based on gross weights and axle numbers, which will make it easier to relate road damage to taxation.
  We have a thriving system of grants, called section 8 grants, designed to encourage transfer of freight to rail where this would bring environmental benefits. That has been very successful. One hundred and ten grants have been made at a total cost of £35 million. Two grants for rail schemes announced this month in Salford and Dagenham will reduce the number of heavy lorry journeys by some 19,000 a year. We have shown our good offices by extending the section 8 scheme to waterways, as recommended by the Armitage report.
  It is unrealistic to hope that all heavy lorry traffic can travel away from people and sensitive areas or, indeed, away from other traffic. So we must improve the lorries themselves. We must make them safer and enhance environmental standards—that means for all lorries. We shall be introducing sideguards on lorries. Those will help to protect cyclists and pedestrians where they are involved in an accident with a lorry. We shall be introducing mandatory rear under-run guards on lorries to protect motorists when their cars run under the rear of lorries. There will be better braking standards.
  A traffic danger arising from the spray thrown up by lorries in wet road conditions causes concern. We are working towards a regulation for mandatory spray suppression equipment when we have developed an agreed standard. There will be tighter requirements for noise. Those are major advances.
  However, to lay down standards is not enough. They must be enforced. We are making big efforts here. More staff and equipment are being provided for enforcing proper limits on loading and other safety standards. There will be a 50 per cent. increase in expenditure this year on the installation of new, more efficent weighbridges. These will be mainly on sites at or near ports. We are ensuring that foreign as well as British lorries meet those demanding standards.
  Who would believe, given that comprehensive catalogue of major action to reduce the harmful effects of lorries, the public reception given to our proposals? I simply do not believe that some citizens know or understand what we are saying. It is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport who is the environmentalist. It is he who, for the first time, is taking comprehensive action to deal with lorries.
  It is not easy to assess why there should be this failure to understand our purpose or why we should have had this communications break-down. One important reason is that attention has been concentrated on the lorry weight proposals and that induces a knee-jerk reaction based on an understandable emotional feeling against lorries. However, it is not based on a full appreciation of the environmental gains that can be achieved under the Armitage proposals.
  I justify the weight proposals on two grounds, and both of them are essentially environmental. First, if we are to have all the splendid improvements that I have listed, someone has to pay. They do not come free. The taxpayer will not pay. It will have to be the haulier and his customers. The undoubted economic advantages of heavier lorries give us at the very minimum savings in haulage costs of £1·5 billion in the next decade at present

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  day prices, and almost certainly more. Industry itself testifies to the savings. They will help to pay for the environmental improvements that we so desperately need.
  It would be unrealistic—and undermine our competitive position and British jobs—to expect industry to pay those costs without the opportunity of doing so through higher productivity. Higher maximum weights give them that opportunity. It is frankly crazy, particularly in view of the growth in container traffic, for standard size containers to travel through the country and on to our ferries one third full of air. I have no hesitation in repeating the vivid words used by my hon. Friend.
  Secondly, higher maximum weights actually help the environment. At first sight that seems paradoxical. But we are talking about heavier lorries, not bigger ones. In fact, we are introducing a height limit for heavier lorries of 4·2 metres, the first ever in this country.
  The Government will not tolerate bigger containers and trailers on our roads. The lorries will be subject to higher safety and environmental standards than are demanded of existing lorries. Because each lorry will be allowed to carry more we shall need fewer of them to carry the same amount of freight. To those sceptics who say that it will not work out like that in real life I merely point to the facts. In 1970 there were 620,000 lorries over 1½ tons; by 1980 the number was down to 519,000.
  Sainsbury's told my right hon. Friend when he was visiting its Basingstoke distribution depot recently that the average of 10 deliveries that it makes each day to each of the 60 supermarkets served from that depot could be reduced to six if only the vehicles could be loaded more fully. Multiplying that up means fewer vehicles to cause accidents, fewer to damage the environment, and so on. My hon. Friend will realise the importance of that to the urban environment and especially to big cities. So my hon. Friend's speech hits exactly the right note in its insistence that the present position simply will not do. Most people share that view. The Government do.
  But this Government, uniquely, are taking matters further. Not only do we recognise the problem, but we are undertaking a comprehensive programme of action to deal with it. We are not prepared to let matters drift. I believe that slowly but surely people throughout the country and in the House who care in a practical way for environmental improvement will be convinced of the rightness and effectiveness of our approach.

Crime Prevention
12.58 pm
Mr. John Wheeler: I advise the British Security Industry Association and I am a member of the Home Office standing committee on crime prevention.
This Government can claim a number of objectives successfully achieved in their crime strategy programme. The Criminal Justice Bill provides for much-needed flexibility and more powers for dealing with offenders. The Edmund-Davies police pay award was implemented in June 1979, since when the strength of the British police forces has reached the authorised establishment figure everywhere except in London. But even the Metropolitan Police, with over 25,000 officers, is stronger than ever. In the prisons, many of the May Committee's recommendations have been accepted and a major new prison building programme, involving eight new prisons, has been commenced. That is a commendable record.
In spite of all this, the crime figures continue to rise and, for the public, lawlessness remains a major concern. Unfortunately, for many decades, the public have been encouraged to believe that the control of crime is the responsibility of the police and the courts. Consequently, the public have assumed, quite erroneously, that what is called exemplary or deterrent sentencing somehow stopped people offending.
We are now in danger of encouraging the public into believing that the larger police force and more police officers on the streets will also stop crime. Anyone who knows anything about the nature of the crime problem knows that this is not true. More policemen on the streets is certainly a reassurance, but they do not stop much of the crime about which many people are concerned. Most crimes, such as burglary and mugging, are committed out of view of the public or patrolling police officers. The chance of the police stumbling on a crime being committed is extremely low. Most research studies confirm this, and the police only discover about 15 per cent. of crime, and most of that relates to road traffic offences.
As we spend more money on the police, we should ask increasingly if we are getting value for money. We certainly do so in respect of their public order duties. In London, the annual inclusive cost of a police officer is more than £23,000. Yet only 87 officers are employed full-time on crime prevention duties, and perhaps only 500 in the country as a whole.
For too long, crime prevention has been the Cinderella of modern policing. Fast cars to provide for response policing are all very well, but they are accompanied by an increasingly low detection rate for crime. The police have their successes, particularly with serious crimes, but these major investigations leave the bulk of the crime problem, about which the public are most concerned—such as burglary, auto-crime, mugging and vandalism—largely untouched.
Since the early 1970s it has come increasingly to be recognised that much crime occurs because of the ease of opportunity. Thus it is likely that 80 per cent. of burglaries occur in homes which are unoccupied. Understandably, the incidence of burglary increases when doors and windows are left unlocked. It is equally true that the physical layout of a housing estate or mansion block also contributes to the ease with which burglary is committed. Unpleasant crimes such as mugging and assaults are also

1211
facilitated by the nature of modern planning and design which provide public areas away from the streets, with lobbies, walkways and other areas which are not policed or supervised.
Of course, we have for long known that effective measures can be taken to prevent crime, but both the Home Office and the police have confined themselves almost exclusively to campaigns based on the dissemination of information, exhibitions or competitions to find good crime prevention ideas.
The Home Office standing committee on crime prevention, of which I am a member, has recently run a television campaign in some parts of the country designed to encourage the use of window locks. There is some encouraging evidence to show that householders have acted to improve home security, but exhorting people to help themselves is a very slow process. Perhaps I should also tell the House that the British Insurance Association has spent a lot of money on an imaginative "Beat the Burglar" campaign.
These measures are commendable, although often they only encourage the crime victim to do something after the crime has occurred. With rising crime and a failure of conventional police methods to halt this, the time has come for crime prevention to become a major strategy. If the home owners, or industry and commerce, are to be encouraged to be more responsible for their homes and property, there is an obvious need to use incentives aimed at encouraging people to act on police advice.
There are examples of success upon which the Government can build a successful crime prevention strategy. These include steering column locks on cars, metal grilles on the windows of jewellers, and toughened glass in school buildings—all of which make it difficult for the person intent on vandalism or theft.
The introduction of steering column locks on all cars on the road in West Germany in 1963, and afterwards in the United Kingdom, substantially cut auto-crime, and the Post Office virtually eliminated thefts from telephone kiosks by the introduction of the steel coin box. Then there are various forms of surveillance, including the security patrol, burglar alarms and closed-circuit television, which increase the risk of being seen. A less obvious form of surveillance is that provided by ordinary people going about their daily lives. For example, housing estates should he designed so that residents can easily see what is going on outside their dwellings and so that trespassers feel vulnerable.
Another group of opportunity-reducing measures consists of various management techniques—for example, the rapid repair of vandalised property and the quick re-letting of empty flats, so as not to attract additional damage. Other examples would be the location of pay-phones in places such as pubs and launderettes, where they will receive some supervision from staff; the employment of caretakers on housing estates; the provision of living quarters on the premises for school caretakers; the employment of conductors on buses; and the supervision of football fans on trains by club stewards. All of these have a demonstrable crime prevention value.
Once again, I turn to the Home Office crime prevention committee as an illustration of good work. That committee is making a number of detailed but entirely practical recommendations to car manufacturers to improve car security. These proposals are of great importance, if only because of the serious growth in auto-crime.
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In the Metropolitan Police area in 1981 alone, all offences against vehicles—including pedal cycles—came to 198,621, an increase of 12 per cent. over 1980. Within this category, theft from vehicles which had not been moved recorded the greatest increase, at 26 per cent., to 83,145. There were 95,177 offences involving the theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle, sometimes accompanied by theft of the contents, an increase of 4 per cent.
The cost to the public is measured in tens of millions of pounds, and much of this crime could be stopped. If the committee's recommendations are not followed, the compulsion of law should apply.
Most crime is committed by young males. It is casual rather than planned; it is opportunist. The Metropolitan Police arrest figures are an interesting pointer. In 1981, over 48,000 young people under the age of 21 were arrested for serious offences, and half of them were aged between 10 and 16 years. Of those arrested for burglary, 67 per cent. were under 21. Street crime, like mugging and opportunist burglary, is committed quickly, stealthily and without warning. Thus the young mugger strikes when the victim least expects an attack and always when there is no one else in the immediate vicinity. Likewise, the burglar enters the unoccupied home, often when little attempt has been made to keep an intruder out, and it takes but a few moments for him to find cash or property to steal and then make good his escape.
Thus more police officers patrolling the streets will have little impact on the control of these types of crime. These crimes are motivated by the ease of opportunity and the experience that the offender can get away with it and enjoy the proceeds as well.
Therefore, I am suggesting that the resources of the police should increasingly be deployed into developing policies to prevent crime. This is particularly important with mugging and burglary where the detection rate, for understandable reasons, is so low. The police can generally make an arrest only when the victim, or some other person, can give evidence of the offender's identity. In the case of mugging, the police should concentrate more upon the environmental factors that contribute to making the crime a possibility.
Questions to be asked include: what are the common features of a mugging location and is the absence of street lighting a factor or such features as concealed alleyways and gangway walkways on housing estates? For many crimes of mugging, situational prevention, with action directed at changing the design or immediate environment where these crimes occur, could bring rewards in preventing their occurrence in the first place. Of course, this means the police must be more involved at the design stage of housing estates and generally in the work of the local authority planning committees. One important consideration might be to look at entranceways which act as a through route and provide the mugger with a place in which to lurk and from which to make an easy escape.
Much more could be done to stop the distressing crime of burglary. In the cities, the answerphone, installed at the entrance to a block of flats, is essential. In large blocks, with a 24-hour porterage or caretaker service, the provision of closed circuit television to monitor corridors and entrances is the sort of facility that the police should be involved in pressing managements or councils to

1213
provide. To control burglary, the police should be more systematically involved in an analysis to prevent the crime.
No new buildings, especially houses or flats, should be erected without first involving the police in a review of the design, environmental features and nature of the materials to be used. Recommending toughened glass will help defeat not only the burglar but the would-be vandal. Strengthening door frames and doors and providing good quality mortice locks, window locks and metal grilles are all aspects of prevention which should be included in a new building from the beginning.
The job of the police should be to advise that these things are done. A modified use of our police resource could contribute much to the control of crime. For chief officers of police, this strategy will pose a challenge and has important implications for some police training and deployment. I believe that this policy should have a high priority if we are to contain crime.
This suggests that if we are seriously to develop this approach to deterring crime, we shall have to tighten up on the protection of services and property throughout society. Experience suggests that this would be most effectively achieved by using the tax system—offering companies and individuals tax relief on the installation and maintenance of approved crime prevention measures. Of course, it will be said that, in the present economic climate, this would be difficult to achieve, but then the regulating through law of such things as the adequacy of lighting on building sites, the improvement of car security and the design of homes—particularly windows and doors—should be considered.
To achieve this, there should be an expansion of the crime prevention service in all police forces. This service should be made more generally available—perhaps for a realistic fee—to commerce, and perhaps even to individuals. Unless the major challenge of developing new crime control strategies can be accepted, all serious crime will at least double before this decade is out. I suggest that, within existing financial resources, the Home Office should spend more money on developing crime control strategies.
1.14 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Timothy Raison): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) for introducing the debate. The House knows that he is not only extremely expert in the subject of law and order but always constructive in his approach. It is not often that we get a chance to debate the subject, and I welcome the opportunity that we have today.
The Government share the general anxiety about the level of crime. We have made it clear on many occasions that we attach the greatest importance to the maintenance of law and order. Our achievements, to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention, speak for themselves. We have strengthened the police and raised their morale. We have implemented fully the Edmund-Davies recommendations on policy pay. That has dramatically improved police recruitment and stemmed the high level of wastage. As my hon. Friend said, police manpower is up by over 8,000 and most forces are up to strength. The Metropolitan Police strength, long well below establishment, has increased by
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more than 3,200 to over 25,000. The House is well aware, too, of the changes contained in the Criminal Justice Bill particularly to encourage parents to face their responsibilities. Under the Bill courts will be able to make parents, in certain circumstances, pay the fines, costs or compensation imposed on their children under 17.
I take my hon. Friend's point about the difficulties facing the police. There is no doubt that street crimes and burglaries in which stealth plays a major part are the most difficult to prevent and detect, but the police are conscious of the need to adjust their methods to meet the changing pattern of criminal activity, and they are having their successes. In March my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred in the law and order debate in the House to the success that the police are achieving in their operations against highly organised criminals at international, national and local level. Drug importers and distributors, operating on a world-wide scale, have been broken up.
At a local level, the police are also making an impact. The good results being achieved in Surrey against burglars are one example. Successes are also being recorded in some parts of London and the Midlands in combating street crime. In the West Midlands, teams of detectives have been concentrating on small areas in which these offences are prevalent, and have brought about an encouraging reduction. The lessons to be learnt from these initiatives are being studied and they will be disseminated to police forces generally.
The recent increase in police strength has enabled chief officers to deploy more men and women on foot patrols. The Government firmly believe that the presence of more constables on the streets of our towns and cities will deter many individuals from being tempted into crime. Public confidence is improved by the reassuring sight of more police on the beat. There is another important aspect of that. The ready accessibility of more police will encourage people to give them information about crime and criminals. Criminal intelligence is the life-blood of successful policing.
My hon. Friend referred to the work of crime prevention officers. I take the opportunity of paying tribute to the very valuable work that they do. Much of their work involves lecturing on crime prevention to citizens' groups and commercial and business associations. They distribute crime prevention publicity material, carry out crime prevention campaigns and assist in the conduct of regional campaigns organised by the Home Office. A Home Office campaign of that kind has recently been conducted in the North of England to persuade people to fit window locks. That has been highly successful. We are now considering whether it would be possible to conduct a national campaign.
Crime prevention officers are available to carry out surveys of homes and business premises to advise the occupants on suitable crime prevention measures. At the planning level they are often called on to advise local authority planners and architects. My hon. Friend is right in saying that there is a need for the work to be carried out more widely, and I join him in hoping that our debate today will serve to encourage its further development.
My hon. Friend also referred to the number and status of crime prevention officers. In recommending an increase in their numbers he will, I am sure, accept that the deployment of resources is and must remain a matter for chief constables. As for the status of crime prevention, I

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cannot accept that it is the Cinderella of the police service. Whatever the position may have been in the past, I know from discussions that have taken place with chief officers that the importance of crime prevention is now fully recognised. Important though specialist crime prevention officers are, the key to effective crime prevention on the part of the police lies in the recognition of its importance in a force as a whole and the willingness of all policemen to be involved in it. I therefore welcome the move to greater integration, which has occurred in many forces, of crime prevention officers and crime prevention activities into the mainstream of operational policing.
One of the many ways in which the work of crime prevention officers links directly with community efforts to prevent crime is in the activities of crime prevention panels. Most police forces have set up panels which comprise representatives of the local community—for instance, teachers, business men, local authority officials, and crime prevention officers. There are 180 or so panels now. Co-operation with the police takes many forms. Together they have fitted door chains to the houses of pensioners, conducted crime prevention seminars for local shopkeepers and business men, arranged competitions and quizzes on crime prevention themes in schools and assisted with local crime prevention publicity campaigns. Many of them have been helping recently with the "Beat the Burglar" campaign being run by the British Insurance Association, to which my hon. Friend referred. I pay tribute to the valuable work done by panels. Their members give up their spare time and in so doing represent an excellent example of local voluntary action to prevent crime.
The setting up of crime prevention panels arose from the formation in 1966 of the Home Office standing committee on crime prevention. As my hon. Friend said, he is a member of that committee and he attended the most recent meeting on Wednesday. The committee is, in effect, a national crime prevention panel, comprising representatives of commerce and industry together with the police and Home Office officials. The committee is a good example of what can be done by co-operative effort. It was responsible for persuading the motor industry to fit steering column locks to home-produced cars. The setting up of the security liaison office in 1969 by the tobacco industry was prompted by this committee. That office succeeded in its first year of operation in reducing the losses, mainly from vehicle hijacks, to a quarter of their previous figure. I think that was a remarkable achievement.
The committee now has in hand the production of a training package on law and order for use in secondary schools. Other current projects include the preparation of reports on shoplifting and car security. I must also mention the committee's success in persuading the British Standards Institution to prepare a code of practice on the security of dwellings. This gives a guide to architects and planners on what should be borne in mind when planning public housing estates as well as private housing. My hon. Friend's remarks in this respect were particularly pertinent.
In recognition of the importance of the committee, and crime prevention in general, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has decided that its chairman should be a Home Office Minister. My noble Friend Lord Elton will take the chair at the committee's next meeting. In addition,
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membership of the committee is to be expanded to include representatives of other Government Departments and the main local authority associations are to be invited to send representatives to it.
My hon. Friend is aware that the Government have taken a particular interest in the work of the Home Office crime prevention centre. The centre has recently been rehoused in purpose-built accommodation, the staff increased and the equipment improved. The centre trains police officers for crime prevention duties and provides an information and advice service to the police, commerce and industry. Staff of the centre are regularly engaged in lectures at conferences and seminars of commercial and industrial associations.
We have the suggestion that the police might charge for crime prevention services. I wonder whether it would not be counter-productive to the objectives of crime prevention if people were deterred from seeking advice or assistance if charges were levied for it. But this is essentially a matter for chief constables and their police authorities. The other side of this coin is, as my hon. Friend has said, the question of tax relief for crime prevention devices.
The Government certainly wish to encourage everyone to take all sensible precautions to protect his property, but questions of giving any form of special relief, for example from VAT, pose considerable difficulties. Relief could be granted on only the most stringent social and economic grounds. Care would need to be taken to ensure that any relief granted did not open the door to equally justifiable claims for relief in other directions and so lead to a serious erosion of revenue. I understand that, although domestic householders would not be eligible, traders registered for VAT are entitled to recover any VAT that they incur in the course of their business activities. That would include VAT on the installation of crime prevention devices, such as intruder alarms. I do not see any hope at present that the Government could go further than that.
Legislation for the prevention of crime presents special difficulties. The Government, as hon. Members know, are opposed to restrictive legislation except where absolutely necessary. The problems presented by crime prevention are not simple ones, capable of being dealt with by blanket solutions. All the evidence points to the need for solutions to be tailored to meet specific problems. The right course is for all involved in the problems to work together voluntarily for a solution. The examples that I have already given of successful police-community cooperation support that precept.
I have taken the opportunity provided by this useful debate to set before the House examples of crime prevention activities in which the Home Office and the police take the lead, supported in many cases, as I have shown, by members of the public. But crime prevention is the responsibility of us all. It cannot begin and end with the Home Office, police and a few enthusiasts. Every individual and community has a duty to take sensible precautions to prevent crime. Central and local services have an obligation to be crime-conscious when they formulate policies and deliver their services and to be constantly aware of the need to adjust what they are doing to tackle the factors that lead to crime. My hon. Friend will agree that that is an important point. I repeat our gratitude to him for raising the subject.

Tourism
1.27 pm
Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: We have just heard an admirable debate on crime prevention, and the control of crime is essential to the tourist, particularly in London.
We now turn to a Cinderella industry, which I call Mr. 5 Per Cent. If the tourist industry were to have a mere 5 per cent. of the money given to British Leyland and the British Steel Corporation, it would be more than enough to bring great rewards to this country.
I am speaking not merely in an individual capacity, but on behalf of the Conservative Party's tourist sub-committee of which I am chairman. All the matters that I shall advocate have been agreed by that committee after careful consideration and I have given my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade notice of the issues that are predominant in our minds.
Certain measures are urgently required to boost the tourist industry, which currently employs about 1½ million people. At a cost of about £4,000 per annum per head, the industry could provide many more jobs, particularly for young people.
Tourism earns more than £4 billion in foreign currency alone. Foreign cash rose from a mere £432 million in 1970 to just under £3,000 million in 1980. The purpose of the measures that I shall outline is to bring prosperity to hard-hit regions, to create new jobs and to give much-needed co-ordination to the tourist industry.
My first suggestion is that in order to stimulate regular get-togethers of all the parties engaged in tourism, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary should initiate a seminar in the autumn to bring together many of the associations and bodies concerned with the promotion of tourism and involving not only his Department, but the Department of Education and Science and the Treasury. The professionals, those from the British Hotels Restaurants and Caterers Association, the Association of British Travel Agents, the BITOA, the Guild of Business Travel Agents, the Association of Tourist Officers and the British Resorts Association are some that can be helpfully co-ordinated and linked with the British Travel Education Trust bringing in the heritage centres, trails, open air museums and theme parks. In addition, the leading hotels and especially the consortia of hotels through the BRA and the leaders and chief executives of local authorities together with the BTA, the English Tourist Board and its regional areas, can be included. The difficulty with tourism is the issue of co-ordination. So widespread are the interests of tourism, covering the arts, museums, education, the open fields, the countryside and caravans, that this coordination is no easy task. It is, however, co-ordination and joint understanding that may, in the end, persuade the Government of the real needs of the tourist industry and the help that this industry will continue to give our country.
The main theme is to recognise that any grants or loans must be applied to the needs of tourism wherever this can best be done. The grants under section 4 of the Development of Tourism Act 1969 will not in future be given to assisted areas but to areas designated for tourist need. The Government must designate tourist development areas after consultation with the English Tourist Board and its regions and the British Tourist Authority.
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These areas of tourist need will then be eligible not only for such Government funds as may be available but for EEC funds from the investment bank and the social fund.
On Friday 7 May I met Mr. Contogeorgis—I know that the Minister also saw him—the European Commissioner responsible for tourism. He pointed out that, under the present system, European finance cannot be granted anywhere for tourism except to the present assisted areas. There are five of these. All are largely manufacturing areas. None was chosen with the needs of tourism taken into account. Within these areas there are only one or two tourist towns such as Scarborough and Newquay, both of which have received substantial assistance and great benefit. One has only to visit these towns to see evidence of those benefits. In France, however, areas such as the Camargue have received tourist grants of immense value for development. So, likewise, the Government must provide some funds to match those in the future provided by the EEC to tourist designated areas. The hard-hit resort areas would at last receive the benefit to enable them to improve their environment, to provide centres to boost their conference trade and to improve their facilities for handling traffic to cite but three examples.
If that comes about, one will find that the old and, if I may say, Victorian aspect of some of these areas can be brought up to date. One would be able to enjoy the advantages already given to Scarborough and Newquay. I do not intend to argue another difficulty that faces the Department of Trade. I would only say in parenthesis, so to speak, that the Department of Industry appears to have the money and would have been better equipped to achieve what the Department of Trade, bless its heart, cannot do. The first essential is co-ordination. Just as the industry and outside bodies require co-ordination, so there is need for considerably more co-ordination involving the Department of Trade, the Department of the Environment, the Department of Education and Science and the Treasury. I hope that the Minister will consider the suggestion that the chairmanship of a co-ordinated committee for tourism involving the other Departments should come under his umbrella. Historic homes require to be fully promoted. Areas of outstanding scenic beauty need to be planned so the tourists and visitors can use them. It is no good making them so inaccessible and lacking in arrangements that they cannot be effectively used. There are many hollows and cut-off areas of great scenic beauty where one can hide the necessary caravan camps and places for people to stay when people go to enjoy areas of great beauty. We must make suitable provision for caravans with the help of the Department of the Environment.
The Department of Education and Science controls the arts and, more particularly, the Victoria and Albert Museum. Co-ordination with other museums is needed in an effort to promote tourism, so that people who want to enjoy the arts can obtain full information and satisfaction.
Then there is the matchless British Museum, the pride and joy of the Treasury. I would never suggest that we took it away from the Treasury. That would be a terrible mistake. I heard it suggested once, and I have never seen longer faces at the Treasury. It is its pride and joy, and it looks after it very well. However, I am certain that the British Museum would be only too happy to join a committee to co-ordinate the efforts on tourism. I hope that one day we shall persuade it and other museums that

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tourists, whether at home or abroad, should make a substantial contribution when they attend, as in other countries.
The London Tourist Board needs encouragement. After all, its task is to promote the world's greatest tourist city. It needs assistance and encouragement. My committee has tried to help with the theatres. We suggested the ticket office in Leicester Square, whereby tickets are sold regularly. The Society of West End Theatre and the regional theatre organisations are doing a great deal to help.
The licensing laws need to be changed. Anything that can be done by the other Ministries to recognise that changes need to be made in this connection, even if limited, would be a great help.
So it comes to this. We now have to consider the matter of training and employment. As I said, little money has been given—altogether about £4 million this year—on section 4 grants. Not much more is needed. Altogether, it is estimated that about £20 million for the whole industry, in tourist needs, grants, and so on, would be of immeasurable advantage, and would produce a much greater return than the sum invested.
The technical colleges and hotel schools are beginning to win the battle for the minds of the youth of this country. Hitherto, to enter the tourist industry, to become a waiter or something of that nature, was not viewed with favour. I very much hope that the Minister will take the trouble to see the Manpower Services Commission to ensure that every encouragement is given—which does not happen at present—for young people to enter and graduate from this training.
In the technical colleges and hotel schools we have a real growth industry. It is a leisure industry that has a great future, because it can provide satisfactory jobs for young people in an ever-widening range of leisure activities, both in Britain and abroad. It would not matter if we produced too many trained people, because they would be great ambassadors overseas.
I hope, therefore, that these few suggestions that I have made today will bear fruit. I hope that they will be treated as matters of considerable urgency. The Minister will know that there is a widespread feeling throughout the industry that Government action is never taken to help it. After all, it is basically a success industry. But it needs encouragement to promote and co-ordinate its activities. It could then do more to create jobs and continue to improve the financial circumstances of Britain than any other industry. If the industry is given the backing and opportunities that I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will want to give in co-ordination with his colleagues in his own and other Departments, it can and will be the first industry to lead to a major breakthrough. That would be a great reward to tourism.
1.40 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Iain Sproat): My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) is well known for his wide-ranging and detailed knowledge of the tourist industry, its problems and its prospects. I congratulate him on using his success in the ballot to advance the cause of this important industry.
I emphasise immediately and strongly the great importance that I attach to the tourist industry—an importance that has, perhaps, not always been appreciated
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in some quarters in the past. I hope that the course of action that I intend to follow in the coming months, in carrying out a radical review of the workings of tourism in Britain, will leave nobody in any doubt, as to the seriousness and the importance with which I and the Government regard tourism.
In the past, some sections of the tourism industry have thought that they have not the opportunity to put their views to Government directly, and that their views, when they have been put, have not been taken seriously. I want to make certain that that cannot be said any more in this Parliament.
It is especially timely that we should be debating the tourism industry today, with the 1982 season just now getting seriously under way. In practical terms, it means that for many of the 1 million or so people whose jobs are derived directly or indirectly from tourism the months of planning and preparation now begin to take on a real existence. For example, overseas visitors alone spent some £3,000 million last year. If we add to that the equally importance domestic market, we find that in the same year tourism generated a massive £7,600 million. Perhaps even that is an underestimate. Certainly the potential is even greater.
According to the British Tourist Authority's forecasts, Britain could be earning some £6,000 million annually in foreign exchange alone by the mid-1980s at today's prices. It also predicts that there could be 15 million overseas visitors to Britain annually by 1985. Such increases have enormous benefits and implications for the industry. Of course, how far those predictions are transformed into reality is another matter. I hope to say something about that later.
I am conscious that the tourism industry has been going through a difficult time recently, that some areas that are heavily dependent on tourism have been particularly badly hit and are worried about the immediate prospects. I know that that applies to some resorts in, or close to, my hon. and learned Friend's constituency. On the whole, however, thanks to its resilience, the tourism industry generally has held up remarkably well in the face of the worst recession this country has experienced since the 1930s.
Price restraint, coupled with innovatory schemes for developing new kinds of business—for example, the promotion of off-peak bargain breaks by hotels—has done much to help the industry through this difficult time, and, indeed, mark the beginning of an entirely new marketing approach, which I am sure will hold good for the future.
As usual, my hon. and learned Friend has made pertinent points, and I shall try to deal with some of those later. First, however, I return to the claim sometimes made by sections of the industry that the Government do not care about the industry or that we simply pay lip service to it. I know that there is disappointment on a number of issues, and, as I have said, I shall turn to those later, but I am concerned that this disappointment should not obscure the very considerable help that the Government have given and continue to give directly to tourism.
It is noteworthy that, despite the current pressures on spending programmes, we have broadly maintained the level of direct financial support to the tourist boards and other statutory agencies. In the current year, this amounts to some £56 million. About two-thirds of this money is available on a nation-wide basis for promotions, publicity, research and the like. The English Tourist Board is

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spending £1·7 million on advertising campaigns in the current year and is providing another £1·7 million to the regional tourist boards, including £89,000 to the South-East England Tourist Board, which covers my hon. and learned Friend's constituency. The British Tourist Authority is also closely involved with the promotion of the South-East of England. For example, in 1981 it put together joint promotion schemes with the South-East England Tourist Board, the Kent and East Sussex county councils and Eastbourne and Brighton. Although a scheme was negotiated individually with each body, they were so designed that each partner worked on behalf of all the others to give the maximum benefit to the whole region. The BTA is now planning to offer to its partners a similar arrangement for 1982. All of this is tangible evidence that the Government indeed recognise the importance of tourism to this country.
I turn to some of the specific issues that my hon. and learned Friend raised in his speech and about which, as I know from reading his previous speeches on tourism, he feels strongly.
First, with regard to section 4 of the Development of Tourism Act 1969, I am, of course, well seized of the arguments for the extension of the section 4 project assistance scheme. As my hon. and learned Friend is aware, we have been considering the future coverage of this scheme for some time because the assisted areas, which are the basis of the scheme's present coverage, are scheduled to be reduced from 1 August this year.
The Government's consideration is nearing completion, and we shall be making an announcement shortly on what we have decided for the scheme. I repeat the assurances that I have previously given. The views of my hon. and learned Friend and other hon. Members on both sides of the House are being taken fully into account, along with those of the many others outside who have made representations to us on the subject. I should perhaps add that the British Tourist Authority, the English Tourist Board, the Wales Tourist Board and the Scottish Tourist Board have all make it clear to me personally, and in the most unambiguous terms, that they strongly oppose section 4 grants being tied only to assisted areas, and we shall give very proper weight to their views.
Another matter, which considerably and understandably excites those in the tourism industry, is the question of industrial building allowances. My hon. and learned Friend well knows and has often in the past referred to the case for ending what is often thought of as discrimination against hotels in the matter of capital allowances and placing them on the same basis as industrial buildings. Requests have also been made to extend the allowances to smaller hotels—to those, for example, with fewer than 10 bedrooms—and to other types of holiday accommodation such as holiday camps and self-catering accommodation. These, of course, are matters for my Treasury colleagues who have given assurances that the case for hotels, self-catering establishments and so on will be looked at very closely in the current general review of corporation tax which, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, is now the subject of a Green Paper. I shall certainly seek to ensure that their case is very thoroughly examined by the Treasury.
The application of value added tax is another matter that often crops up in debates such as this. My hon. and
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learned Friend has been a doughty champion of those who believe that the industry should have extra relief in this regard. As he will know, this is primarily a matter for my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Treasury and they are well aware of the industry's case. The arguments against preferential treatment for a particular sector have been voiced before and have so far been considered overriding. However, I have no doubt but that the industry will continue to press its point and that my right hon. and learned Friends in the Treasury will consider carefully any new aspects that may be presented to them.
One of the main themes of my hon. and learned Friend's speech was the need for greater co-ordination of the views of those engaged in the tourist industry, not least the views of those in the various Government Departments who have a relationship with different parts of the tourist industry outside the House.
One of the principal duties of the tourist boards is to advise Ministers on the effects of their policies on the tourist industry. For that reason, and because the boards also need to be in touch with the industry's thinking for the carrying out of their day-to-day activities, a consultative machinery is essential. If I may quote one example, the British Tourist Authority has established five major committees dealing with marketing, infrastructure, development, hotels and restaurants, and British heritage.
In addition, it sets up numerous working parties and specialist groups that meet as occasion demands. Participants in those committees and groups are drawn from trade associations, such as the British Hotels Restaurants and Caterers Association, carriers, and other public bodies with interests impinging on tourism. My own and other Government Departments are also represented where appropriate. Those committees report to the BTA's main board so that there is regular monitoring and evaluation of the industry's views from the whole spectrum of tourism interests.
I also consider it important that I should maintain a degree of contact with interested bodies and I am now arranging an important programme of meetings with a wide range of bodies and individuals representing the tourism industry, starting with the regional boards in England. I place great importance on this initiative. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will agree that I am right to do so. Naturally, I am also in close touch with my ministerial colleagues with tourism responsibilities in Scotland and Wales.
My hon. and learned Friend's idea of a tourism seminar that he has ventilated this afternoon is extremely interesting. It presents several difficulties, not least those caused by the variety and size of the industry, but none the less it is a most interesting and original idea. I am grateful for it and I certainly propose to consider seriously, although without commitment, how this might be brought about.
May I now turn to my Department's responsibility for tourism. I hope that it is apparent from my remarks in this debate that my Department has the interests of tourism at heart. I have said that the Department plays a full coordinating role. It works closely with colleagues in Scotland and Wales, and there is a continuous and free exchange with the Department of Industry, among other Departments, on matters of common interest. However, in the light of my hon. and learned Friend's speech, I certainly undertake to look again at whether our processes

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of co-ordination could be improved. I should be interested in any further comments that he may wish to make to me on the subject.
On the question of ministerial responsibility, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already said in a reply to my hon. and learned Friend on 9 March 1982 that she was satisfied that my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales were well able to handle tourism matters within their respective departmental briefs and that those arrangements fully recognised the importance of tourism. For my own part, I shall do all that I can to ensure that the industry's views are fully represented in Government.
I shall read carefully what my hon. and learned Friend has said this afternoon, and will follow up those points that I have been unable to deal with fully in the time available.

Hairdressing (Consumer Protection)
1.55 pm
Mr. Richard Alexander: If I may retain my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State a little longer, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the need for greater consumer protection in the hairdressing industry. I am not normally to be found in the consumer activists' lobby, but I have been a member of the Hairdressing Council for the last year or two. My membership has convinced me of the need for greater protection for the paying public than is sometimes available.
The Hairdressing Council receives an average of 50 complaints a week from the victims of unskilled hairdressers. The complaints are about burning and blistering of the scalp and broken and damaged hair. Psychological harm is done to women who feel unable to venture out in front of the common gaze.
Staff at the Hairdressing Council are often in the front line, dealing with deeply distressed women who have suffered at the hands of untrained and unskilled practitioners. Women are surprised to learn that there is nothing at all to protect them from the activities of such people. They are surprised that there is no statutory control over who may practise for gain as a hairdresser. Britain is one of the few developed countries where anyone, even with only a day's tuition, can practise hairdressing for gain.
Incidents such as I have mentioned are coming more and more to the public's attention, particularly through the media in BBC's "Nationwide-Watchdog", ITV's "Money-go-round" and Radio Four's "You and Yours". In each case the complainant is advised at the end of the programme—"Use only the services of registered hairdressers whose training and skill have been assessed and approved by the Hairdressing Council."
The trouble is that consumers do not usually know who is registered and who is not. There is no obligation under the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964 for a hairdresser to be registered. At one time all sections of the craft were not agreed that registration should be compulsory before one could practise for gain. That is no longer true. There is now complete unanimity within the craft that registration should be mandatory.
The primary objective is not to shut out competition, but to protect the public. The hairdresser is often taking money for his services from people who are unable to make a judgment about his competence. I refer to small children, teenagers, the elderly, the infirm and the handicapped.
The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) tried to introduce a Private Member's Bill in 1978 aimed at compulsory registration. The Bill made no progress because some sections of the industry did not believe registration to be necessary. Today all sections of the industry see the need to protect clients who purchase the industry's services.
No British hairdresser can practise for gain in EEC countries unless he or she has the recognition of that country. He cannot open a salon there, yet anyone from those countries can put the British consumer at risk in this way without so much as a day's training.
This concern for the consumer that I have expressed is shared not just by members of the Hairdressing Council but by the National Hairdressers Federation, the Guild of

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Hairdressers, the Association of Hairdressing Teachers, the Institute of Trichologists, the World Federation of Supreme Hairdressing Schools and other smaller organisations.
My suggestion to my hon. Friend is that mandatory registration would protect the consumer, to the benefit of consumer and craft alike. It would provide no threat to those who were presently engaged in hairdressing yet unregistered, provided they had been trained and were skilled. It would help check the practices of the unskilled and in due time eliminate the unskilled from practising for gain altogether.
But these concerns have been expressed not just within the hairdressing industry. The British Medical Association, dermatologists and the Psoriasis Association also support mandatory registration, as do a number of consumer groups, such as the Consumers Association, women's institutes, townswomen's guilds, and even the women's section of the TUC.
In drawing to my hon. Friend's attention the unfortunate effects of the activities of the unqualified, I must at the same time draw to his attention that we in this country have the finest training facilities anywhere in Europe, and the craft's colleges are the envy of our European neighbours. I do not wish it to be thought from these remarks that we have a vast body of unqualified hairdressers who operate willy-nilly on members of the public. They exist, but the vast majority of hairdressers are highly skilled and highly trained members of their craft.
I am not arguing for a closed shop, where it is necessary to join a union in order to earn a living. I am arguing for the State recognition of skills before anyone can practise on the public, just as the State recognises that the public need to be protected if they put their bodies, their lives and their property in the hands of brain surgeons, dentists, opticians or solicitors.
It is all in the interests of the consumer, and in his interests I commend these thoughts to my hon. Friend's most serious contemplation.
2.4 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Iain Sproat): I gladly respond to my hon. Friend's extremely interesting speech. I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate, albeit briefly, issues concerning the hairdressing trade, which is an important element in the services sector and one that the Government are anxious to see continuing to prosper. Therefore, I welcome my hon. Friend's initiative in bringing this matter before the House.
I am conscious of the efforts of the Hairdressing Council and its constituent members, the National Hairdressing Federation, the Incorporated Guild of
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Hairdressers and other bodies to this end. It is wholly desirable that they should continue to strive for the high reputation of the hairdressing trade and to give encouragement to those engaged in the craft to aim for even higher standards.
It has been a long tradition in Britain that entry to the crafts in general should be free, and it is no part of our philosophy to depart from that general principle without very strong reasons for doing so. The theme of my hon. Friend's speech was, quite rightly, "Consumer protection in the hairdressing industry". He emphasised strongly that he was underlining a consumer interest rather than a vested interest on the part of the hairdressers or barbers. I do not know what is the difference between the two terms; perhaps my hon. Friend will at some time be able to explain that to me.
My hon. Friend's argument presupposes that the general public needs safeguards against inefficient hairdressers, yet there is certainly no shortage of competition, and we should expect that to ensure that good hairdressers drive out the bad. I accept that it could be argued that that is all well and good when we are considering simply a bad haircut—the hair grows again quite quickly and can then be cut elsewhere to a higher standard—but might not be enough in the case of more complicated hair styling if positive injury, such as my hon. Friend mentioned, can be done to people. However, there seems to be little evidence that things are as serious as that.
My hon. Friend suggested, in a recent letter to me, that it would be useful for him to bring some of his colleagues on the council to see me, so that we could go into the point together in more detail. I would welcome such a discussion with my hon. Friend. Therefore, I hope that my hon. Friend will not think it unhelpful of me to limit myself today to saying that, while we do not have closed minds on the matter, we are loth to consider any move from voluntary to compulsory registration in the light of the evidence that has hitherto been available to us. That is not to deny a strong public interest in the capable operation of the craft of hairdressing, but it is an assertion of faith in the free play of competition.
I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and his delegation when they come to see me in a few weeks' time, and I promise to have a decent haircut for him.
Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Hairdressing (Consumer Protection)

  EUROPEAN LEGISLATION, &c.
  Ordered,
  That the Standing Order of 2nd July 1979 relating to the nomination of the Select Committee on European Legislation, &c., be amended, by adding Mr. Alan Haselhurst and Mr. Tim Sainsbury.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]

Allestree, Derby (Road Construction)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]
2.6 pm
Mr. Phillip Whitehead: I am delighted to have this opportunity to address the House at the fag end of what has been for all of us a long and strained session.
I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport not merely for being here to answer my points, which inevitably will be of a local and parochial nature, on problems facing my constituents in the Allestree district of Derby; I should also like to thank her, on behalf of my constituents and the city in general, for the time she took in coming to Derby to honour an obligation given by one of her predecessors to hear some of their problems at first hand. Today the hon. Lady will know what I am talking about and why I have seen fit to raise the matter.
The saga of the Allestree link road is a very long one. It goes back over 13 years. Some of the problems, which have intensified over that time, partly arise from the feeling, which it is only fair to put on the record again today, that we were, under previous Conservative and Labour Administrations, misled about the intentions of the Department of Transport—the Department of the Environment, as it then was. We were misled in the sense that we did not know and could not know, when the original proposals for piecemeal road improvement in Derby took place, that what was intended, when the eventual master plan was brought through, was a trunk road which went through the northern suburbs of my constituency.
There are arguments for and against road improvements. There are certainly strong arguments for the improvement of the route from Leeds to Exeter, from Birmingham to Leeds—the A38, the A61, or whatever we choose to call it. Whether those arguments necessarily should ever have been followed with the decision to drive the road through the centre of a residential area, and to do it by subterfuge, which was what originally happened—because there was no formal announcement that this grand strategy was in the mind of the Department in the late 1960s—will always be open to question. However, it has happened. It was described at one of the many public inquiries there have been about the scheme as "planning by attrition", and I think that is what it was.
I have consistently opposed the scheme. I now accept, as do those of my constituents who live along the road, that it must go through. We have preserved a section of the Markeaton Park and eliminated some of the worst environmental damage that would have been caused at the Ashbourne Road roundabout. The road must be finished as expeditiously as possible consistent with tolerable living conditions for those people living along the line of the road.
Many people's houses were demolished. Other people find the living conditions along the line of the road almost intolerable. As a result, I am dealing with the problems of constituents who have faced difficulties for months as the road construction reached its crescendo. I am talking about people who have lived for a decade with the day-to-day agony of whether the road should be built, what route it should take and what impact it would have on the environment and their lives.
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My constituents have brought me their problems over the link road and its construction for about 10 or 11 years. That is the measure of the difficulties that they have faced. The heaviest blow in the construction of the road and the alteration of the physical environment was always likely to fall on people living at either end, as the road is to be in a deep cutting. When the construction is completed those who live along the middle section, I suspect. will be able to live with the result. They will be shielded from the worst of the noise as the road becomes more intensively used and they will have less visual intrusion because of the cutting.
People at either end of the road face real difficulties. They bear the brunt of the construction and the worst of the demolition of their neighbours' houses and their immediate environment. When the road is completed it is at the ends that the noise and visual intrusion will be at their worst.
I turn to the difficulties that face my constituents. Undertakings have been given to them by the Department of Transport, the road construction unit and, on some occasions, the city council. Their problem is having those undertakings honoured.
The Minister will be familiar with some of the arguments, because she heard them when she came to the area. She met some of my constituents at the Court restaurant at one end of the road. The general picture will be clear to her. There is the issue of the hours worked on the road. We accept that there is a need to finish the road in a reasonable time, to keep it on schedule and to allow the contractor to do all that he can in a drive for completion on time consistent with the undertakings given when the contracts were originally signed and delivered.
I want to discuss those undertakings. Some of my constituents received letters to the effect that, although the conditions would be hard at the time of construction, they would be mitigated by the fact that there would be a limit of five and a half day working.
I quote from a letter received by Mr. Roe, one of ray constituents, on 1 April 1981—All Fools Day, unhappily—from K.F. Watt of the Department of Transport:
"I confirm that the working hours for the contractor's plant will be, except in emergencies, from Monday to Friday inclusive between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm and on Saturday, between the hours of 8 am and 12 noon. An equivalent continuous noise level of 75 dB is permitted, with a maximum noise level of 30 dB at any one time."
That was also the impression given at a public meeting by Midland road construction unit officials and was certainly the impression given to the city council. I checked that with officials in the environmental health officer's department this morning. Throughout, they, Ike me, believed that the working would be limited to five and a half days. That has not been the case.
The contract given to Tarmac does not preclude six and a half day working, which is what has been taken up. For people subjected to such a blitz, who, because of the noise and intrusion feel that they might be living on the East Falklands, the remission is not great. They were sent a letter in February stating that because of the urgent need to finish the road by the autumn of 1983 it was necessary to have six and a half day working. With the conditions there and the weather, and given the other problems to which I shall refer, that is intolerable.
The road working should be limited to five and a half days and there should be stricter restrictions on the

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volume, intensity and accessibility of the contractors' traffic. On 24 March the Minister kindly wrote to me about the problems of Maxwell Avenue at one end of the route stating that steps were being taken to prohibit contractors' traffic. I have had conversations with my constituents overnight to make sure that I am up to date. I have been told by inhabitants of Maxwell Avenue that they are still suffering from the contractors' traffic. They have taken the vehicle numbers and communicated them to local department officials.
Undertakings should be honoured. If the period of construction is extended by days or weeks for the people who are bearing the brunt of the construction at both ends of the road, action should be taken to see that the obligations are carried out.
I believe that when the Minister came to Derby she undertook to my constituents that sound barriers would be in place forthwith. That has not happened. The sound barriers in the vicinity of Maxwell Avenue, where the noise has been the worst, are not in place. I checked with the environmental health office in Derby today. It is constantly told that the barriers will be put up. As long as they are not there most of the other undertakings lose their force. My constituents feel that they are suffering now the worst of the construction. In a My summer the problem is aggravated by the dust generated by intense roadworks without the necessary alterations.
In correspondence with my constituents going back to 1978 it has been clearly stated that sound insulation would be in place in the houses along the route, provided that the decibel level stated in the regulations is reached, before the worst of the construction. The undertaking has force and merit only if a negotiating position is left open to the householder. Mr. and Mrs. Wood at one end of the road and Mr. and Mrs. Lazzari in Maxwell Avenue at the other end have encountered special problems. Their negotiations for sound insulation have been hampered—although both are now almost complete—first, by the fact that there was no permitted margin for separate estimates, or alternative methods of insulation allowed, and, secondly, that the negotiations were so protracted that they overlapped by months the work of the construction.
The house occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Wood is very unusual. It has large bow windows of exceptional design. When we consider buildings in Derby going back to the 1920s and 1930s it is a house that we shall list as having architectural interest. The double glazing and noise insulation offered to Mr. and Mrs. Wood was not suitable for a house of that construction with unusual windows. With a take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards the people concerned, clearly the Department can sit for months or, if necessary, years and say "This is what you can have or you don't have anything." Meanwhile, the noise and disturbance get worse.
The Minister will have seen the state of Mr. and Mrs. Wood's property, although in the last fortnight they have signed an agreement for double glazing. But the point is that when one sets the enormous cost for such a road against the comparatively small cost of proper noise insulation for a few dozen, or even a hundred, householders along the route who have suffered traumas for the past 10 or 11 years, not knowing whether their houses will stand or fall and not knowing the line of the road or the outcome of the various inquiries, surely it
1230
should be possible for the Department to be more generous in the insulation allowed. Such road projects should not go through until an agreement is reached between the householders along the route and the Department of Transport and its local agents so that protection will be guaranteed to the householders before, not during or after, the worst period of construction.
Those are the problems that my constituents along the route are now facing. They have put their feelings strongly to me. The undertakings that they received before and at the commencement of the construction work have not been honoured. Although they accept, as I do, the need for the road to be finished, they believe that their living environment should have been taken into consideration far more than was the case.
They also tell me that although they are extremely grateful to the Minister for looking at the conditions for herself, they hope that she will be able to return to her Department and ensure that the undertaking she gave to a group of the householders during her visit will be carried out, not in a matter of months but in days, or, at the most, weeks.
2.24 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) for giving me the opportunity to tell the House about progress on the construction of the Derby ring road to Allestree improvement scheme. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks about my visit. I found it interesting and extremely useful. No Minister reading papers in an office can understand the situation as fully as when on site in the wind, with the mud, and hearing the contractors at work.
We all accept that urban schemes are the most difficult. This scheme is the last important link in a series of schemes to improve the A38 trunk road between the West Midlands conurbation and the M1 motorway east of Alfreton. When completed it will form a high standard dual carriageway road from Birmingham via Barton and Derby to the M1 near Alfreton.
As the hon. Gentleman said, initial proposals for the scheme were first published as long ago as 1971. Over the years there has been much support for the scheme from people who live along three roads—Queensway, Broadway and Duffield Road, Allestree. That is the line of the A38. Those people suffer greatly from the trunk road traffic that travels daily in large volumes in both directions along those roads. But there was also considerable opposition to the scheme, before the final decisions were taken, from those who live in the area through which the new road will run, and from the city council.
In the 10 years between publication of the proposals and the start of construction the scheme has been the subject of two major public inquiries and the hon. Member appeared at both. He knows that at each the need for the scheme was fully debated. Because of the strength of feeling locally the first orders for the scheme, although made, were withdrawn early in 1975. Fresh proposals, incorporating a number of environmental protection features, were published in July 1976. They were debated at a public inquiry in 1978. As a result of that inquiry, a grade-separated junction at Ashbourne Road was omitted from the scheme on the recommendation of the inspector.

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The statutory procedures relating to the provision of a ground level roundabout there instead have now been completed.
The scheme is clearly needed to remove heavy through traffic from Broadway, Queensway and Duffield Road. Removal of that traffic will greatly improve living conditions and safety for the 200 households fronting the present road. Other people in the vicinity will also benefit. I am thinking of the children attending schools along Duffield Road and the students at the Derby Lonsdale college of higher education. Everyone, especially the old people, who live at the Leylands old people's home, will also find crossing Broadway an easier task.
Despite the benefits that will accrue on the completion of the scheme, there are difficulties in the interim for those living near the site. The construction of new and improved roads brings great benefits to the nation, as well as to local communities, but considerable inconvenience is caused while the works are in progress and we are concerned about that. It is a particular problem when the road is in a residential area, as is the road about which the hon. Gentleman is concerned.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to carry out major civil engineering works on such a scale in an urban area without causing disturbance and inconvenience. I saw something of that when I visited Derby last month. Some of the more unpleasant aspects include noise from construction plant, dust in the summer and mud whenever it rains.
The contractor is using large earth-moving plant and will continue to do so through the summer and into the autumn, for forming embankment, cutting and the creation of the earth mounds. Though their construction is causing a lot of nuisance, the earthworks will mean less noise and visual intrusion for local residents when the road is eventually opened to traffic. We have to move the earth to create the barrier against traffic noise.
One of the ways to reduce the impact on the environment was to put the road in cutting. To construct the 3·5 kilometres of dual two-lane carriageway the contractor has had to strip approximately 36,000 cubic metres of top soil and will excavate about 455,000 cubic metres of material, including rock. The works include the excavation of a deep cutting from the Abbey Hill roundabout through to Kedleston Road at the northern end of the works.
All that is excavated has to be taken from the site, which is a further problem for people living at either end of the route, as the hon. Gentleman has explained. The digging out and removing of large quantities of earth is crucial. With the earthmounds being incorporated in the scheme and landscaping work to be done at Markeaton Park, to reduce the visual impact of the eventual road and to protect residents against noise when the road is finished there is more soil to be disposed of than can possibly be used in the works. That is why we have had to use large lorries to take the material to suitable tipping sites. This has undoubtedly added to local traffic congestion and to the problems faced by residents. We have tried to avoid the worst effects by temporary diversions signs. They have been erected on the northbound carriageway of the A38 at Kingsway and for southbound traffic on the M1 at Alfreton.
It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]
Mrs. Chalker: These signs warn of possible delays on the A38. Earlier this year, it was necessary to operate single-way working on Queensway when a new foul sewer was constructed. This caused considerable traffic delays at the time when temporary traffic lights had to used. The work has now been completed and it is not likely that single-way working will be necessary again for any prolonged period.
Recognising the impact that construction works would have on the area, special access roads for site traffic were agreed in advance with the local highway authority, the Derbyshire county council. Construction traffic is therefore limited to a small number of specific routes most of which are already major traffic routes. I have, however, noted what the hon. Gentleman has said about Maxwell Avenue. I gave instructions when I visited the site, and was assured that construction traffic would not be using Maxwell Avenue except for a short period when the turning junction at the end of Maxwell Avenue had to be constructed. I shall look into the matter again to see why all the intentions of both the Department and the supervising engineers have not been carried through.
I have already remarked that the problems of Maxwell Avenue may not yet be resolved. But we could not, in the first place, ban construction traffic from that road. Some traffic had to be taken along it in order to carry out some specific works. The prohibition notice and the temporary fence are still in position, so far as I know. Certainly that was the case in April. That is why I have said that I will look into the matter again.
There are also the other roads, Ferrers Way and Slack Lane. Ferrers Way has had to be closed for about a year while a bridge across the new road is constructed. Pedestrian action is being maintained by means of a footbridge. It will also be necessary to close Slack Lane in due course and temporary access will be available to the adjacent sports field by the road known as The Crest.
As the hon. Member remarked, he and I have been corresponding about the need for the contractor to work six and a half days a week closing down only on Saturday afternoon. At the time of the public meeting to introduce the contractors, Tarmac Ltd., to the local people, Sunday working had not been considered. However, under normal conditions of highways contracts of this sort, we cannot unreasonably withhold permission for weekend working, particularly when this has considerable advantages for the completion of the road and the shortening of the period during which the residents are to be disturbed. By working on Sundays, the earthworks will be finished much more quickly and the weekday disturbance to schools and the college nearby will extend over a shorter period. Without Sunday working, I am informed that the earthworks would have continued well into next year and might well have delayed the eventual completion of the road itself and thereby the relief of the existing A38 from the current much too heavy load of traffic.
We have already sought to minimise the disturbance, but there should be fewer weekdays over the period of the contract when traffic will suffer delays as a result of the works. I shall look again at the matter for the hon. Gentleman and his constituents who have suffered but I am loth to lose time in bringing relief not only to those who are suffering the construction work at present but to these people living along the existing A38.
Mr. Whitehead: Does the hon. Lady agree, with hindsight, that it was unfortunate that the Department of Transport told my constituents that working would be five and a half days a week—and that only a year ago?
Mrs. Chalker: Indeed. I am sorry that there was not more foresight. The job may have proved to be more extensive, certainly as regards earth moving, than may have been foreseen in the first place. It is an enormous job. In fact, it is one of the largest that the Department is undertaking anywhere in the country. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon us now to complete the work as speedily as possible.
Before we agreed to Sunday working, the environmental health officer was consulted by my Department about the proposals. He, in turn, consulted 200 of the worst affected residents. The environmental health department has powers, under the Control of Pollution Act, to control construction noise, where appropriate, and these are additional to the condition of working already included in my Department's contract with Tarmac Ltd. Already the environmental health department has exercised its powers. For example, it stopped the use of pumps on one occasion until acoustic sheds were provided. One of the worst problems facing local residents is the noise created by the contractors' plant and vehicles. That problem has been the most serious in the Maxwell Avenue area. I arranged last month for Sunday working to cease there until such time as the excessive noise being created can be screened.
I gathered from what the hon. Gentleman said that Sunday working may not have ceased at the site, pending the erection of the screens. If that is so, instructions will be given again, and the site will be inspected by officials of my Department to ensure that the relief that we intended to bring to Maxwell Avenue residents is being effected. Having met Mrs. Lazzari, who lives in Maxwell Avenue, I am well aware of the problems that are faced by her and other residents at the end of the road, as the hon. Gentleman explained.
I want to say a few words about insulation. We have discretionary powers relating to noise from the construction works. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have already offered to insulate 194 properties by means of double glazing, and more are to be insulated in connection with the Ashborne Road roundabout works. Three times as many properties have been insulated against construction noise as are likely to qualify for insulation solely as a result of an increase in traffic noise from the eventual road. We have sought to put in sound insulation, wherever possible, before construction. I know that in some cases that has not been possible.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned Mr. Wood's house, with its beautiful windows which are difficult to insulate. I hope that the work will go ahead quickly. Our intention was to insulate prior to construction, and it has been carried through as quickly as possible. One of the local residents told me that, although there had been initial problems with the siting of the double glazing in some homes, the work that was now being carried out to finalise the double glazing was entirely satisfactory, and other residents agreed with that. There was an unhappy start, but the matter is now being successfully concluded.
Altogether we are spending £½ million on measures to deal with noise—earthmounds, noise fences and insulation of properties. All these measures have been planned for
1234
some time. Long before construction work started, an assessment was made of all those properties that could be expected to experience an equivalent day-time sound level at or above 75 dBA LEQ. The assessment assumed the worst possible conditions, that is, the situation before noise barriers or earth mounds had been constructed. That was in keeping with our intention to reduce the environmental impact of the scheme as much as possible. That is how we identified the properties that should be offered double glazing. We have been trying to keep an eye on the situation ever since the works began. I shall ask for more information after the debate in the light of the hon. Gentleman's comments.
Recently, site staff have regularly checked construction noise levels to ensure that they do not exceed the limits laid down in the contract. On Mondays to Fridays, between 7 am and 7 pm and on Saturdays between 8 am and noon, the limit, at 60 metres or more from the site boundary, is equivalent to a continuous sound level of 75 dBA with a maximum of 80 dBA at any time. That is roughly the level of noise one would experience on a normal weekday on the pavement of a busy urban trunk road, a level still all too familiar to people who live on or regularly walk along Duffield Road in Derby—the existing A38.
As agreed with the environmental health officer, on Sundays the contractor is limited to noise levels that are generally some 5 dBA lower than the weekday levels.
I am satisfied that levels of noise are being kept below the maxima. This is due, in part, to the contractor, wherever possible, using smaller and quieter plant than is usual. Nevertheless, I am aware of how all-pervading the continuous noise must be.
One of the criticisms that I have received concerned the operation of water pumps all night long. Sadly, the pumping is essential to keeping the new works free of water. It is especially important in the Markeaton Park area where the lake and a stream are a particular problem. Now that acoustic sheds have been provided, it should no longer be a serious nuisance. Compressors have also been provided with acoustic covers that are to be kept closed. The contractors have been reminded of the need to use and keep acoustic covers and sheds closed at all times.
I should like to say a little more about the installation of double glazing. We first had properties in the area surveyed to establish those that were eligible for traffic and construction noise insulation. Following widespread publicity about the noise insulation available, some 220 properties eventually qualified to some degree.
Each facade of a property is assessed individually. Generally only the facades facing the works are eligible. Where two or more facades face the works, double glazing has been offered for each. In some cases the whole of a property has been eligible for double glazing of the main rooms of the house. People who were not happy with what was being offered to them were asked to let us know. They were visited and the reasons behind the offer were explained on each occasion. The visits have resulted in some reassessments, and the offer of additional double glazing. I should appreciate the hon. Gentleman letting us know if there are instances where that has not been completed.
Installation of double glazing began in June 1981—three months before the start of construction work—and should have been completed by last September. There were difficulties in obtaining suitable materials and in installation. It has taken longer than

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anticipated and in a few cases it was necessary to replace or repair original installations. All the properties insulated under the contract have been inspected by the Department's agent and no installation has been declared satisfactory until any faults that have been found have been rectified. A further 23 properties in the vicinity of the Ashbourne Road roundabout are currently being insulated against construction noise. Work there is to begin next month.
Last month, I appeared on BBC Radio Derby's "phone-in" programme and talked directly with many people about the way in which construction was proceeding. Many people said that they thought that we were doing well in keeping the disturbance to a minimum, but inevitably there were several distressing cases and I met some of the people involved. My Department is examining those individual cases closely to see what can be done to help the people concerned. I am glad to say that the work of our liaison officer was particularly applauded and I am grateful to him for being the man on the ground who receives the brickbats more often than the praise. He certainly deserves praise for what he has been able to sort out.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the sound barriers. I said in Derby that there had been some criticism because the noise fence at Maxwell Avenue had not yet been erected. I said that we would do all that we could to expedite that. The delay was primarily because the specialised materials to form the sound barrier had not been obtained at that time. I believe that they have now been obtained, even if they are not yet in position. With the hon. Gentleman's most recent knowledge given to me today, however, I shall look into the matter again at the beginning of next week. I well understand that it is now four weeks since I said that I would expedite the work and that that must give cause for alarm.
I have already mentioned the nuisance of mud on the road and of dust during dry spells. The contractor is already required by the terms of his contract to do his best to control nuisances, and I know that mechanical sweepers have been provided to deal with mud and bowlers for damping down the dust. Inevitably, however, when one damps down dust one creates mud, so there is a double problem. Inevitably, too, the recent dry weather has made the situation worse. I am satisfied that the contractor is doing his best, but I have asked that the resident engineer should watch the situation very carefully.
I fully understand why the hon. Gentleman has raised with me the subject of the effects of this road construction work on his constituents at Allestree. I wish to make sure that he realises that I fully share their concern, having seen the situation for myself. I feel particularly for those who may be deprived of the enjoyment of their gardens this summer. Here, regrettably, the noise intrusion cannot be helped in the short term. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, due to weather conditions, the work must be done in a summer period. The sooner that we can get the job done, the better.
Mr. Whitehead: I appreciate all that the Minister has said. On the question of the enjoyment of gardens, she will be aware that some gardens have been devastated by a combination of the dust raised and the drought. Will the Department consider the material damage caused with a view perhaps to compensation in exceptional circumstances?
Mrs. Chalker: I shall certainly ask the resident engineers to look into the matter. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman any firm assurance on that, but we have been very conscious, especially in the fine weather of recent weeks, that a number of people have suffered even more than might have been anticipated. We must bear in mind that we are seeking to alleviate the problems for the long term ahead. Nevertheless, it may be possible to help the short-term disturbance and I shall certainly investigate that.
I have already said that in certain cases, if conditions become intolerable, depending on the circumstances, we can arrange for temporary alternative accommodation to be paid for by the Department during periods in which conditions are particularly bad for people living immediately adjacent to the works. Offers of this kind have already been made to a number of residents, but so far all have preferred to remain in their homes and to put up with the inconvenience. The resident engineer's staff on the site will keep in touch with those worst affected and be as helpful as they possibly can.
Despite the short-term problems for local residents, I believe that the scheme can bring real long-term benefits to the citizens of Derby and to all who need to pass that way. As the hon. Gentleman knows, however, at present I am more concerned about the disturbance caused to local people.
I remain convinced that we are taking the right steps to keep the impact of the scheme as low as possible, but there is no way that we can do a construction job of this enormity without there being disturbance. I think that when the road is open to traffic, not only will all those who have been so severely disturbed be relieved, but it may be seen more in balance than it is possible to see it at present with all the disruption.
Finally, I am well aware that the hours of work, the problems at the ends of the cutting and the question of insulation and the erection of sound barriers all continue to be irritants for the hon. Gentleman's constituents. We shall do our best, through the good offices of the site engineer, to minimise those. As the hon. Gentleman knows, not all the problems can be removed, but I shall see what further steps can be taken as the weeks go by to minimise the real disturbance that all his constituents are suffering. I hope that he will assure them of my intentions.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes to Three o'clock, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 25 May, till Tuesday 8 June.

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