Sitting of 26 April 1983

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

  GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
  LLOYDS BOWMAKER BILL [Lords]
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday.
  MILFORD HAVEN CONSERVANCY BILL (By Order)
  Order for Third Reading read.
  To be read the Third time upon Thursday.

Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

    University Entrants
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of 18-year-olds entered university in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982; and how this compares with the expected figures for 1983 and 1984.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William Waldegrave): Young home entrants to university were 7·5 per cent. of the 18-year-old age group from 1978 to 1980, 7·2 per cent. in 1981 and 6·9 per cent. in 1982. The University Grants Committee's planning targets imply a figure of about 6·6 per cent. by 1984. The comparable participation rate in higher education as a whole has risen from 12·4 per cent. in 1978 to 13·5 per cent. in 1982.
    Mr. Bennett: Does the Minister agree that the cuts in opportunities for young people to go to universities are outstanding acts of vandalism by the Government? As the Government now claim that economic recovery is under way, why do they not expand the opportunities in universities to take advantage of those extra resources this autumn and next year?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The limitation on the numbers in universities as opposed to other institutions of higher education was sought by the UGC to protect the research base. The Government can stand proudly on their record of providing increased opportunities overall in higher education.
    Mrs. Shirley Williams: Is the Minister aware that, compared with most industrial countries, we are cutting back on higher education? Can he justify the savage attacks on the technological universities, which one would think should be at the centre of our industrial recovery?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The right hon. Lady will be interested to know that of the large numbers of overseas Ministers who visit the Department from time to time, almost all are grappling with the problem of having to restrain expenditure on education. As for savage attacks on technological universities, the right hon. Lady should note that at the top of the UGC's list were two former colleges of advanced technology, allowing for the absurd distinction between technological and other universities.
    Mr. Latham: Has my hon. Friend noticed that there has been a warm welcome in many university sectors for the latest decision on fees for overseas students?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Many in the university sector have welcomed this decision.
    Mr. Whitehead: As the Minister has encouraged the public sector to raise numbers over the next two years, why does he not take a similarly hard line with the UGC over the figures for 1984–85? Does he realise that most of us see this as the division of higher education into two sectors across the binary line — an elite sector in universities and an under-provided and under-privileged but larger sector in the public sector.
    Mr. Waldegrave: It must be for the public sector institutions to judge how many students they can take without damaging standards. The hon. Gentleman knows that the greater part of our effort on research is concentrated on the university side. That is why the UGC took the line that it did.

    Teachers
    Sir William van Straubenzeeasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he intends to commence consultations on the proposals in his recent White Paper on teacher training.
    The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): The policies announced in "Teaching Quality" followed extensive consultation. I shall be discussing their implementation with representatives of the local education authorities tomorrow.
    Sir William van Straubenzee: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that one of the most welcome aspects of this remarkable White Paper is the emphasis on associating more fully teachers in active practice with the training of teachers? Will there be further consultations on that aspect, or have there been sufficient?
    Sir Keith Joseph: So far we have had no requests to discuss policies on teaching quality outside the Advisory Committee on the Supply and Education of Teachers forum, but if any are made we shall be ready to consider them.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Will the Secretary of State help me to solve a puzzle? Some hon. Members thought that the right hon. Gentleman was interested in allowing market forces to run. If so, why does he insist in the White Paper on prescribing to local authorities and schools the exact qualifications that teachers must have rather than trusting those at the grass roots to hire the best people?
    Sir Keith Joseph: If the hon. Gentleman had read the White Paper with care he would have found that no precise prescription is laid down. All that I do—I am justified

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    in doing so—is to ask local education authorities to pay attention to teachers' qualifications in matching the needs of the curriculum.

    Education Vouchers
    Mr. Watsonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he can report any further developments from his investigations into the feasibility of education vouchers.
    Sir Keith Joseph: I am still considering various possibilities, including education vouchers, to extend parental choice and responsibility in education.
    Mr. Watson: In view of the widespread opposition and minimal support that has been generated in the recent debate on education vouchers, should not the whole subject be dropped?
    Sir Keith Joseph: It is a little premature to come to a conclusion either way. All concerned would agree that so far the case for vouchers has not been explicitly put. All that I have said is that the idea has some attraction to me. No decision has been made, and it would be premature at this stage to come to one.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Is the Secretary of State still discussing a voucher scheme with the Sefton metropolitan district council? Is he planning any pilot schemes, including one for the Sefton metropolitan district council area? Is he planning to introduce such schemes, and, if so, when?
    Sir Keith Joseph: The answers to those three questions are no, no, and no decision has been made.
    Mr. Brinton: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider whether the best way to persuade and clarify the minds of hon. Members on vouchers might be to introduce pilot schemes?
    Sir Keith Joseph: If any voucher proposal were put forward, it is probable that it would include a pilot element; but for that legislation would be necessary, and no decision has been made by the Government.
    Mr. Dobson: Will the Secretary of State guarantee that he will not come to the House again and complain that no one has made an explicit case for vouchers, when he appears to be the only person who supports them? Is not this another way of indulging his usual penchant for self-criticism?
    Sir Keith Joseph: No, I am making a genuine point. There is a strong case for increasing parental choice, and the Government are considering various ways in which that might be achieved.

    Textbooks (Expenditure)
    Mr. Newensasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is satisfied with trends in expenditure on textbooks in schools; and if he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): We have made it clear that we should like to see the level of spending per pupil on new books and equipment increase. To this end we made an extra allowance for increased expenditure on books and
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    equipment in each of the last two rate support grant settlements. But it is for local authorities to determine how the total resources available to them should be deployed, in the light of local circumstances and other claims on them.
    Mr. Newens: Does the Minister recognise that increasing numbers of pupils in schools are forced to manage without textbooks, unless their parents can afford to buy them, which puts them at a serious disadvantage, particularly when they are tackling homework? Is it not madness to accept that state of affairs while printing and publishing firms are making people redundant, who will then have to be supported at the public expense for producing nothing?
    Dr. Boyson: In the past two years £20 million extra has been spent on books by the Government. That is £5 per pupil— two books at £2.50 each. When I and many other hon. Members were at school, we did not have two new books per pupil per year.
    Mr. Flannery: Is it not significant that Conservative Members are not complaining about the lack of textbooks, because they buy them privately? Her Majesty's inspectors, in their annual report, complain bitterly about the lack of textbooks in schools, as does the Educational Publishers Association. Is it not obvious that the public education system is losing out and that education is going backwards under this wretched Government?
    Dr. Boyson: We all enjoy listening to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] Perhaps I am in a minority on that. However, I like and accept the tribute that the hon. Gentleman paid to the literacy of book-buying Conservatives.
    Primary schools are spending 10 per cent. more in real terms on books than in 1974–75. If some local authorities continue to employ more teachers to achieve lower pupil-teacher ratios, they will not have money for other things.

    Adult Education and Retraining
    Mr. Rentonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how much of the education budget is now being spent on the education of adults and their retraining for new jobs.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William Shelton): In 1982–83, some £750 million of my right hon. Friend's programme was spent by local education authorities, universities and other agencies on the vocational and general education of adults, including retraining.
    Mr. Renton: I am aware of the progress that is being made under the scheme called "Pickup" for those in jobs, but what is being done for unemployed adults? Does my hon. Friend agree that those who are declared redundant in middle age—as Labour Members will be at the next general election—may be most in need of educational help to prepare them for new jobs and vocations?
    Mr. Shelton: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind reference to "Pickup". It is an example of a good programme on a modest budget. It is a pity that the Labour Government did not introduce a similar scheme.
    We commissioned a study on the adult unemployed from the Advisory Council for Adult and Continuing Education, which we are studying. Local education

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    authorities and voluntary organisations have also been helpful. In almost every case the unemployed receive either free courses in adult education or courses at vastly reduced rates.
    Mr. Dormand: When will adult education be put on a legislative basis?
    Mr. Shelton: We are considering that matter and will make an announcement in due course.
    Mr. Squire: Does my hon. Friend accept that it is faintly anachronistic to spend more than 99 per cent. of the education budget on education up to and including university when the greater proportion of the population subsequently have a tiny proportion of the education budget? Will he continue to fight his right hon. and hon. Friends within the Department and the Treasury to obtain a greater share of the resources for that highly cost-effective form of spending?
    Mr. Shelton: My hon. Friend is overstating the difficulty. The figure that I quoted is nearly 7 per cent. of recurrent education expenditure, but when times improve we shall spend more on adult education.
    Mr. John Evans: What is the purpose of spending public money to train an unemployed bricklayer to become an unemployed joiner?
    Mr. Shelton: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. This is a matter for the Manpower Services Commission, not the Department of Education and Science. It has always seemed to me to be the weakest of cases to say that people should not be trained because they may not get a job after training.

    Foreign Language Teachers
    Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received about the decline in the numbers of teachers of Russian, German and Spanish.
    Dr. Boyson: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has received no recent representations on this subject.
    Mr. Foulkes: Will the Minister confirm that the Government's cuts in educational expenditure have meant a slump in the teaching of so-called minority languages, particularly Spanish and Russian? As hundreds of millions of people around the world speak such languages, would it not be better for us to spend just a few hundred thousand pounds teaching our children to speak to those people instead of spending hundreds of millions of pounds on learning how to kill them?
    Dr. Boyson: All hon. Members appreciate the problem of minority languages in British schools. Ninety-two per cent. of pupils who begin learning foreign languages start with French, and only a small number learn other languages. I have good news. During the past 10 years the percentage of 16-year-olds taking O-level German has increased by 52 per cent, and by 22 per cent. for Spanish. Over the same period there has been a drop of 53 per cent. from a small base of those taking O-level Russian, but that may represent the unpopularity of Russia with British parents.
    Mr. Newens: Does the Minister recognise that the enforcement of staffing ratios in response to falling rolls
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    means that many schools are dispensing with teachers of minority subjects? Britain is going backwards in the teaching not only of minority languages, but of all languages at A-level. Unless the Minister does something about it, we shall continue to go backwards.
    Mr. Skinner: What about regional accents as well?
    Dr. Boyson: There are several regional accents in the House, including those of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and myself.
    The fall in the birth rate affects viable groups inside schools. The fall in the number of minority languages being taught arose during the comprehensive reorganisation, when the same subjects were spread throughout more schools. This year Britain has the lowest pupil-teacher ratio ever. The figure is 18·1:1 compared with 18·7:1 in January 1980. Obviously, the Government cannot reduce that figure for ever. Schools and authorities must organise teaching so that they have economic teaching groups.

    Teacher Education and Training (North-East)
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the progress being made in establishing a significant centre of teacher education and training in the north-east of England.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William Waldegrave): I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) on 22 February 1983.
    Mr. Dormand: Can the Minister tell the House why, after the closure of 10 such colleges in the north-east in recent years, the Secretary of State gave a firm promise in November of last year that he would establish what he called a significant centre of teacher education in the area? If he meant that, will he, some six or seven months later, give a date for the establishment of such a centre and its location? There is considerable mistrust in the north-east of the Minister's intentions.
    Mr. Waldegrave: The commitment is firm. When I answered the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed I made it clear that the Government would need to examine the demand for places in existing colleges. The Government must receive the report from ACSET next year. The Government's firm commitment is to build up such a centre in one of the most obvious centres, during the next two or three years.

    Student Grants
    Mr. Altonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he intends to announce the student grant levels for 1983–84.
    Mr. Waldegrave: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 8 November 1982 that the main rates of grant for mandatory awards in 1983–84 would be increased by 4 per cent. He hopes to issue details of the new rates of grant shortly.
    Mr. Alton: Does the Minister accept that the continuing uncertainty is causing great problems to universities and students? Does he further accept that this year there is a need to determine the grant on the basis of a student needs index rather than inflation? Furthermore,

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    does he accept that the inconsistency between one university and another works against some students? Is he aware that at Liverpool university costs in the halls are £100 more than at Hull university?
    Mr. Waldegrave: Grants will be increased by an amount that the country can afford. That has always been the position. However, there is an element of uncertainty. My right hon. Friend has gone out of his way in the past two years to announce the basic rate of increase well in advance, thereby diminishing that uncertainty.
    Mr. McNally: Will the Minister confirm, when reviewing grants, that the student loan scheme is dead?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman must await further news on that subject.
    Sir William van Straubenzee: Can my hon. Friend confirm that the substantially higher increase in the base rate at which parental contributions operate will be implemented in accordance with the welcome announcement?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The 8 per cent. uprating of the threshold will be implemented. My hon. Friend is right in saying that this is a useful and important step.
    Mr. Spriggs: Does the Minister appreciate that an increase of £5 a week is needed if a full-time university student is properly to maintain himself? When the Minister is examining next year's budget, will he consider that?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The Government will examine what the country can afford next year. Britain has more students in higher education than ever before, which shows that the awards are not a disincentive.
    Mr. Eggar: Can my hon. Friend confirm that there may be a place for a loan scheme provided that it does not replace the grant scheme and is in addition to it?
    Mr. Waldegrave: There are various options that have varying degrees of support.
    Mr. Whitehead: As the Department of Education and Science is borrowing a Labour principle, namely that the cost of education should be set against the cost of keeping those students on the dole, will there be a consequent uprating in the level of student grant to alleviate the hardships that students have faced during the past few years?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood a story which itself contains some misunderstanding.

    Education Standards
    Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects to publish the report of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools on the effects of financial policies on educational standards in 1982.
    Sir Keith Joseph: Her Majesty's inspectorate is preparing this report at present. The report will be published, as were those produced by HMI last year and the year before.
    Mr. Dobson: As the report for last year was published as early as 5 April, is the Secretary of State delaying publication this year because it is embarrassing, or is it simply because of incompetence?
    Sir Keith Joseph: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will accept that I do not control the writing of the report or its completion. That is in the hands of HMI. When it is completed, it will be published.
    Mr. Blackburn: Will my right hon. Friend view this report with caution, especially when relating education standards to finance? My local authority is not among the high spenders in education, but it produces excellent results. The problem cannot be solved by throwing money at it.
    Sir Keith Joseph: I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. The report is about the provision of education and not about its outcome.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Will the Secretary of State ensure that the report this year makes public those authorities that have the highest level of provision and those that have the lowest level, rather than having the names of the authorities forced out of the Government after a hearing before the Select Committee?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I do not control the contents of the report.
    Mr. Madel: Is it not a fact that previous reports have recognised the relationship between falling school rolls and education expenditure, and that there is no reason to believe that this report should not do the same?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I am sure that Her Majesty's senior chief inspector will note my hon. Friend's comments.

    Pupil Transfers
    Mr. Sainsburyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many local education authorities choose to transfer pupils to secondary schools at the age of 12 years.
    Dr. Boyson: In January 1982, the latest date for which information is available, there were two local education authorities in England where all pupils were normally transferred from middle deemed primary schools to comprehensive schools at the age of 12 years and a further 22 authorities where some pupils were transferred at the age of 12.
    Mr. Sainsbury: I think that it would be right to conclude from that helpful answer that it is a minority practice to transfer at the age of 12. What guidance does my hon. Friend give local authorities—if any—about the age of transfers? Are any comments made in that guidance on the problems that might arise when the age of transfer is changed and how they can best be tackled?
    Dr. Boyson: If there are different ages for changing between primary and secondary, or middle and thud, schools in different areas of the country, there will be problems, particularly if parents move from one local authority to another. However, unless experiments are made in transferring at different ages, with the curriculum that fits that, the position will remain static and there will be no possibility of improvement. Two inspectors' reports are due shortly. One deals with the middle school and with children up to the age of 12, and the other with the middle school and with children up to the age of 13. They should help my hon. Friend.

    Grammar Schools
    Sir John Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his policy towards local education authority proposals for the reintroduction of grammar schools.
    Dr. Boyson: We believe that the elected local education authority is best placed to form a view about what form of secondary education suits local needs and parental wishes. It is free to publish proposals to reintroduce grammar schools, and such proposals would be considered on their individual merits by my right hon. Friend as they came to him.
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: Does not the respect of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for local and parental choice contrast with the bigoted denial of such choice by the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams) when she was part of a Socialist Administration? Do not falling school rolls argue the necessity for schools to provide for special needs and for gifted children, who are sometimes neglected in the comprehensive system?
    Dr. Boyson: One of this Government's first steps was to repeal the Labour Government's Act, which compelled all local authorities to go comprehensive, thereby respecting the fact that local authorities know what is best for their area. There is a great difference of view on this issue between us and the Opposition. Children with special needs—whether they have more or less ability than the average—may in some instances need to go to special schools. That is why we introduced the assisted places scheme. Nearly 10,000 children—two thirds of them from families with below average incomes — are receiving superb education in schools with excellent sixth forms.
    Mrs. Shirley Williams: Is the Minister aware that grammar schools imply secondary modern schools and that very few parents would choose to send their children to secondary modern schools? Will the hon. Gentleman therefore stop using the term "parental choice", as it is meaningless to four fifths of parents in this country?
    Dr. Boyson: The hon. Lady's question is amazing for an ex-Minister who took away parental choice in many areas of the country. We have always favoured a parental choice over the school—
    Mr. Christopher Price: What about Croxteth comprehensive?
    Dr. Boyson: If the hon. Gentleman keeps quiet for a minute I shall give him an answer that might shock him. That school closed because the exercise of parental choice meant that most of the children had gone elsewhere. That decision was based on parental choice. I shall send the hon. Gentleman the figures, and if he is numerate he will understand them.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does not the Under-Secretary —[Interruption.] I should like to convey the driver's apology for the lateness of my train. I apologise for that. Does the hon. Gentleman not yet understand that by using a selective secondary schooling system he is bound — whatever it may do for the wishes of a minority—to diminish the choice and rights of the majority? If the Under-Secretary of State is in favour of local authorities
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    taking decisions why did he set aside Dorset local education authority's proposition to abolish two grammar schools?
    Dr. Boyson: The number of Labour Members who come to me with requests that local authority decisions should not be carried through shows that the hon. Gentleman's view is in a minority in his party. We have decreased parental choice by establishing, not comprehensive, but neighbourhood schools. The percentage of working-class children going to university has fallen since the move to comprehensive schools and that shows what the Labour Government did to the country.

    Teacher
    Mr. Madelasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when, following his statement on plans to improve the quality of school teachers, Official Report, 21 March, columns 540–46, he expects to receive further advice from the Advisory Committee on the Supply and Education of Teachers on the new criteria to be applied to the new course proposals of training institutions starting in September; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir Keith Joseph: I have asked the advisory committee to aim at submitting recommendations to me by the end of July 1983, so that I can establish criteria to be applied to new course proposals during the academic year which begins in September. It is also my intention to review existing approved courses in the light of the criteria.
    Mr. Madel: Does my right hon. friend agree that when local education authorities select teachers for posts after they have been on the new courses in our training institutes they should pay special regard to whether the teacher has been trained for a primary or secondary school, because of the rapid changes in the curriculum?
    Sir Keith Joseph: Yes, that is a valid point.
    Mr. Jim Callaghan: With regard to the supply and education of teachers, may I ask how many thousands of letters the Secretary of State has received objecting to his decision to close the initial teacher training college courses at the De la Salle college in Middleton in my constituency? How many extra staff has he had to draft in to his Department to answer those letters?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I do not know the answer to that question. If it does not involve too much work I shall send the hon. Gentleman information about the order of magnitude. I believe that the answer to his second question is none.
    Mr. Eggar: What steps does my right hon. Friend propose to take to make it easier for local education authorities to dismiss poor and inefficient teachers'?
    Sir Keith Joseph: It is not in my power to take any steps other than to urge local education authorities to remember that it is their duty, and in the interest of the children, after providing any extra in-service training that is justified, in the ultimate to dismiss a bad teacher.

    Ethnic Minorities
    Mr. Proctorasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what discussions he has had recently with the Commission for Racial Equality concerning education of the ethnic minorities; and if he will make a statement.
    Dr. Boyson: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no recent discussions with the Commission for Racial Equality
    Mr. Proctor: When my hon. Friend next meets representatives of the Commission for Racial Equality, will he make it clear that it is no part of this Government's policy to favour policies or measures of positive discrimination in favour of the ethnic minorities?
    Dr. Boyson: As I have said several times, the Government's policy is to give every opportunity to all children in our schools, regardless of background, so that they can fit easily into British society, both for their good and for that of our society.
    Mr. Kinnock: May I generally endorse that sentiment and ask for the resources implied by it? Will the Under-Secretary of State ask the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor), who asks such questions at every Education Question Time, at least to be direct and open in his frank racism, instead of hiding behind the contortion of words that he uses?
    Dr. Boyson: About £30 million goes into the urban programme and much of that is spent on education. I remind hon. Members of section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 and the weighting of the block grant. Quite a considerable sum is spent on helping schools with the education of minority groups so that they can take full advantage of the education being offered.
    Mr. Forman: I welcome my hon. Friend's earlier answer on the education of ethnic minorities. Does he share my concern about the reported intention of Mrs. Frances Morrell to suggest that the education of such youngsters in ILEA schools should place priority on their language of origin rather than on English? Should it not be the other way round?
    Dr. Boyson: The important point is that all children should leave school numerate, and speaking and writing fluent English. If children come from homes in which no English is spoken, they can be taught at an early age—provided there are enough of them to make it economic —English grammar in parallel with their own language. Tests show that by the age of seven or eight such children do better in English. There is no reason why children should not learn their original language as the second modern language instead of, for example, French.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: I welcome the Minister's statement and his recognition that Britain is a multi-lingual society. I also welcome his comments to the effect that the teaching of a child's mother tongue, particularly in inner cities, can be helpful in the development of his English. However, will he give an assurance that he will make the resources available and that he will respond to the recommendations of the Select Committee—to which he has, as yet, still not responded—and also to the recent statement by the Commission for Racial Equality about ethnic minority community languages?
    Dr. Boyson: In reply to the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) I mentioned three areas to which considerable sums of money are being allocated for this purpose. We are also expecting this year the Swann report —the final report—in which, I am told, there will be a considerable amount of information and advice on the teaching of minority languages.

    Secondary Pupils
    Mr. Flanneryasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many pupils of secondary age are being educated in (a) comprehensive schools, (b) secondary modern schools and (c) private schools, respectively.
    Dr. Boyson: In January 1982 the numbers in round figures of pupils aged 11 years and over in England in comprehensive schools, secondary modern schools and independent schools were 3·3 million, 211,000 and 311,000 respectively.
    Mr. Flannery: Will the Minister pay tribute to the reorganisation of education, which abolished the 11-plus? Is he aware that vast numbers of children hated it and parents suspected it from the very beginning? Will he pay a tribute to those teachers who brought the reorganisation to fruition, with the result that children are now passing more examinations than ever before? Will he reconsider his and the Government's plans to disrupt this step by such nonsense as the introduction of voucher schemes, assisted places schemes and other such elitist schemes, which are all destined to give a better education to fewer children than ever before?
    Dr. Boyson: If the hon. Gentleman judges educational results by examinations at 16 and 18, the most rapid improvement in Britain took place between 1958 and 1968. The improvement since then has been marginal. With regard to his second point, where local authorities have reorganised at their wish, at the wish of parents and at the wish of teachers, we will by all means congratulate them, but where schools are reorganised at the direction of the Government against the wishes of parents and teachers of the area, no congratulations will be given.
    Mr. Latham: Has my hon. Friend noticed that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) is so bigoted that he could not even manage to mention in his question the grammar schools of this country?
    Dr. Boyson: I note what my hon. Friend says. If the hon. Gentleman had asked how many children were going to those schools, I could have told him. The number is 123,822.
    Mr. Ioan Evans: Will the Minister take the opportunity to compliment the comprehensive schools on their tremendous achievements since their inception? Will he resist any attempt to bring back a 10-plus education system which, in the past, denied great education opportunities to youngsters?
    Dr. Boyson: I am sure that everyone will congratulate any school—comprehensive, grammar or independent—that does well. The test should be the value of the school, not the label put on it outside. With regard to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, we do not change things. Changes come about now only at the wish of local authorities. The direction operated under the Labour Government no longer applies.

    Microcomputers
    Mr. McCrindleasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is satisfied with the number of schools that are equipped with microcomputers.
    Mr. William Shelton: Yes, Sir. Virtually all secondary schools are now equipped with at least one microputer and the majority of primary schools are expected to have at least one by December 1984.
    Mr. McCrindle: Schools and education authorities have, perhaps understandably, standardised on the Acorn computer in conjunction with the BBC micro, using the corporation's name as a marketing tool, but will my hon. Friend confirm that there remains every opportunity for smaller computer companies to take advantage of the expanding market that still remains for selling these items to schools?
    Mr. Shelton: There are two British-made computers in secondary schools—the BBC micro, to which my hon. Friend referred, and the research machine, the 48 CZ. Primary schools have both those computers and the Sinclair Spectrum. I hope that there will be room for additional computers. I should like to add that the scheme is going extraordinarily well. It is a great success and it is a great tragedy that it was introduced seven or eight years ago by the Labour Government.
    Mr. Dobson: In view of his enthusiasm, does the Minister agree that there is a great need for in-service training of teachers to help them teach computer studies? If he does agree, what is he doing about it?
    Mr. Shelton: The hon. Gentleman should know that in-service training has been taking place, is adequate and is doing well. More than 10,000 teachers have been trained within the microelectronics programme. The hon. Gentleman should also know that no school is permitted to buy a computer at half price unless two teachers have been trained in that school. That applies to primary and secondary schools.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Is the Minister satisfied with the supply of software for the computers that are being supplied to schools?
    Mr. Shelton: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are far more problems with software than with the provision of machines, or, indeed, the training of teachers. About 350 software programmes on a wide range of subjects have now been prepared. In certain areas however, such as special schools, work still needs to be done and we are working hard on this.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Ministerial Broadcasts
    Mr. Freudasked the Prime Minister what are her criteria for making a ministerial broadcast.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): There has been no change in the criteria, which are set out in the aide memoire published in April 1969, a copy of which is in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Freud: Will the Prime Minister include in her next ministerial broadcast a summary of how her 1979 election promises have been kept, so that when her diaries are published they will be considered authentic when she leaves office?
    The Prime Minister: I would not need a ministerial broadcast to do that, but I shall be delighted in the speeches to respond to the hon. Gentleman's invitation.
    Mr. Stokes: When my right hon. Friend next makes a ministerial broadcast, will she please make it clear that it is she, and she alone, who will decide the date of the next general election, not the newspapers?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

    Engagements
    Mr. Cunliffeasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 26 April.
    The Prime Minister: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Cunliffe: If the right hon. Lady really wants the "Buy British' campaign to succeed, why does she not publicly back the British-made ALARM system—the air-launched anti-radar missile—which is far superior to its competitors and is understandably the best, as it is British technology and British made? Is she aware that it will save or create 1,600 jobs? Does she agree that it would be an act of criminal folly and a gross betrayal of British interests if the contract were to go to the American HARM missile company, which, we believe, is favoured by the Ministry of Defence? Will she give instructions to the Secretary of State for Defence to consider this matter carefully?
    The Prime Minister: In defence, we buy British whenever possible, whenever it is most suitable for the job required and when it is best value. We shall continue to do that, but each contract must be considered individually.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: Will the Prime Minister—
    Mr. Skinner: Here is the Prime Minister-designate.
    Mr. Jenkins: —take lime today to tell the Minister for Consumer Affairs to stop undermining the invaluable work of the citizens advice bureaux, by announcing that the grant for this year will be paid in full?
    The Prime Minister: No grant has so far been withheld. The citizens advice bureaux have received a grant for half the year. A review is to be set up, but it is doubtful whether the review could report before the next half-year's grant is due. It is, therefore, highly likely that the next half-year's grant will come along in the ordinary way.
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: Does my right hon. Friend know that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) is after her job? Is not a Prime Minister-designate unknown to the constitution since we are a constitutional monarchy, not a presidential republic? Therefore, is not the right hon. Member for Hillhead a constitutional enormity?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot excel the genius in my hon. Friend's question.
    Mr. Newensasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 26 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Newens: In view of the growing wave of concern in the United States over the determination of President Reagan to press ahead with nuclear escalation, is the right

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    hon. Lady still content to allow cruise missiles to be deployed in Britain, especially when there is no effective British veto on their use? Will she recognise that the smokescreen of smears put out by the Secretary of State for Defence will not conceal a bankruptcy of argument?
    The Prime Minister: I would have said that the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question was a smear on President Reagan. He has, after all, made proposals substantially to reduce the number of intercontinental ballistic missies. He is the only Head of Government who, supported by the rest of us, has put forward a zero option for INF. The President has put forward those two bold measures of disarmament, but the weakness is that the Soviet Union has taken up neither.
    Mr. Hannamasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 26 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hannam: Has my right hon. Friend seen the commitment in the Labour party's policy document to abolish the right of council tenants to buy their own homes? Does she agree that the number of council tenants who have purchased their own homes since 1979, and of those in the process of buying their own homes, show that most council tenants would prefer to own their own homes rather than be tenants?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. About 500,000 tenants have purchased their houses either from councils or other parts of the public sector, such as new towns. Those 500,000 would never have had the opportunity to do so under a Labour Government. It seems that the Labour party does not want them to have the dignity of owning their own homes by purchasing from local authorities. Another 200,000 applications are in the pipeline. I hope that in our next period of Government there will be many more.
    Mr. Foot: If the right hon. Lady would like to comment accurately on the policy document, I shall send her a copy and she can study it. Has she had an opportunity to read the answer given recently to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price), which shows that capital spending on housing in England has sunk to no more than one sixth of the level achieved under the Labour Government? How many fewer houses has that meant, and how many building workers has that policy thrown out of a job?
    The Prime Minister: Is the right hon. Gentleman denying that the Labour party manifesto states that a Labour Government will terminate the right to buy — [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]
    Mr. Heffer: What about the right to work?
    The Prime Minister: The Leader of the Opposition will be delighted to know that the construction of new housing is considerably up on a year ago, and that improvement grants are running nearly as high as they were in 1973.
    Mr. Foot: Obviously I should like to give the right hon. Lady the opportunity to read the entire document instead of only parts of it. When she talks about restoring the rate of building as an excuse for having cut it to one sixth of the level that was achieved under the Labour
    728
    Government, does she agree that even with the higher figures to which she referred, and the much-vaunted improvement of the past two months, construction is at half the level that prevailed under a Labour Government? Will she also consider what she has done to council house tenants? Why has she more than doubled their rents over the past four years?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman knows that there was a period when the Labour Government were in office when council house rents were about 40 per cent. of council house costs. That could not continue. The difference had to be borne by the ratepayer. Of course, rates are at their worst under local authorities. The Labour Government never reached the levels of home improvement grants that we have reached and which were reached under previous Conservative Governments.
    Mr. Foot: The right hon. Lady is really saying that we tried to keep council house rents down and that she has succeeded in pushing them up.
    The Prime Minister: No. The right hon. Gentleman was always prepared to put the burden of council house rents on the ratepayer.
    Mr. Robert Atkinsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 26 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Robert Atkins: Has my right hon. Friend seen the CBI's quarterly survey, which was published today, which shows that both output and demand have risen over the past four months and are expected to rise over the next four months? Does she think that that is encouraging evidence in support of the policy that she and my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer have been pursuing over the past four years?
    The Prime Minister: I saw the CBI survey earlier today. It shows improved business optimism, improved order books, output expectations, investment intentions, export orders and deliveries. All these things are very good news and, added to other signs in the economy, give grounds for cautious optimism about recovery.
    Mr. Barry Jones: Will the right hon. Lady please tell the House how many people are out of work this month in Britain?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the precise number unless he waits just a moment. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we were left with nearly 1½ million unemployed — [Interruption.]—which was well over double what the Labour Government inherited. The latest figure is 3,172,390.
    Mr. Trippierasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements on 26 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Trippier: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in August 1981 the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) stated that the refusal to allow America to base its nuclear weapons in Britain would make war more likely, not less likely? Does she find that a strange comment to make when it appears that the right hon. Gentleman is supporting a document which proposes a policy which, to use his own words, would make war more likely?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), to whom my hon. Friend refers, previously supported NATO, including its nuclear deterrent. He supported, therefore, a nuclear deterrent, which is an inherent part of the balance of NATO forces. Without that inherent balance and deterrent, war would be more likely. I find it difficult to understand how the right hon. Gentleman can support the Labour party's document, which rejects all nuclear bases and nuclear weapons in Britain.
    Mr. Tom Clarkeasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 26 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Clarke: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the young trainees invited to join the "Lads Army", under the scheme is being introduced by the Secretary of State for Defence will be paid £19 a week less than ordinary soldiers and yet be subject to military discipline? Is this not the
    730
    most crass exploitation of young people? When will the Prime Minister and the Government provide the real jobs that she promised during the 1979 election campaign?
    The Prime Minster: I expect that there will be many more applicants to receive a very good training in the army than there are places. It is, of course, totally voluntary and so far we are able to provide only some 5,000 places. Except to the Labour party, the scheme has proved and will prove to be very popular indeed.
    Mr. Marlowasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 26 April.
    The Prime Minsiter: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Marlow: Is my right hon. Friend aware that two-headed lambs seldom survive for long? Will she give a prognosis on what is likely to happen to the rather sickly creature that is trying to struggle to its feet in our political pastures?

Radar Equipment (South Africa)
3.31 pm
Mr. Clinton Davis(by private notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if, in view of the United Nations arms embargo against South Africa, he will now take immediate steps to ensure that an initial consignment of radar equipment with military capability from Marconi in Britain to South Africa is not delivered.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hurd): No, Sir. The United Kingdom complies fully with its obligations under Security Council resolution 418. The export of this equipment was approved on the understanding that it is for use in air traffic control in southern Africa and involves no infringement of the United Nations arms embargo. We have no doubt that the system in question has a genuine civil application.
Mr. Davis: Is the Minister aware that that is a disgraceful response, which evades all the essential issues? Is he not aware that this equipment is capable of being used for military purposes? What sort of Government are they who accept such a guarantee from a Government of South Africa who have involved themselves in avoiding their obligations in respect of Namibia and many other United Nations resolutions? How does the Minister reconcile this contract for the sale of a high-powered static radar system which is used, and is capable of being used, for defence purposes—to quote from "Jane's Weapon Systems" — with mandatory United Nations Security Council resolution 418, which relates to the supply of arms and related materials of all types?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the ultimate purchaser in this case is the South African air space control authority and that the South Africans have themselves asserted that this improved radar system is a valuable arm of their military capability, which is clearly capable of being used against Mozambique and Angola? Is it not clear that this evasion of the embargo, which the right hon. Gentleman justifies only by semantics, is but one of many breaches of the embargo committed by this Government since 1979? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the protestations of the Government, and in particular the Prime Minister, over a long period about abhorring apartheid are to be seen as pure cant when the Government can be seen to be actively assisting in the maintenance of the rotten, diseased, corrupt system of apartheid?
Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman is free with his adjectives because he has such a poor case. This is a
732
contract for a civil organisation—he correctly gave the name of that organisation — predominantly for civil purposes. [HON. MEMBERS: "Predominantly".] The hon. Gentleman is on poor ground on the merits of the case and on even poorer ground when one recalls that he was a member of a Government who authorised a very similar contract by Plessey not long ago.
Mr. Churchill: Is it not the sheerest humbug and hypocrisy for the Opposition to be taking the line they are taking in regard to a civil radar installation, bearing in mind that a Socialist Government signed a contract with the Government of France under which for many years Puma helicopters, largely made by Westlands in this country, have been sold to South Africa, and remembering that those helicopters represent the finest counter-insurgency weapons available? Two successive Labour Governments approved the sale of those weapons to South Africa.
Mr. Hurd: It is for hon. Gentlemen opposite to answer that compelling point. I rest on the facts of the case: this is a good contract for Britain, it is predominantly for civil purposes, it is supplied to a civil organisation and it is comparable to a similar deal authorised by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. A private notice question is an extension of Question Time. I shall call one more hon. Member from each side and then move on.
Mr. Frank Allaun: Will the Minister first ascertain whether this equipment is to be fitted into the existing radar system on the north-west and north-east borders of South Africa? If it is, is it not clearly intended primarily for military use against Angola and Mozambique?
Mr. Hurd: No, Sir. It is intended primarily for use by a civilian organisation for the control of civil air traffic in southern Africa.
Mr. Anthony Nelson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the last few days the Foreign Minister of Angola has been on a shopping trip to Hungary and Czechoslovakia seeking to buy military and air defence equipment and that Mozambique has recently deployed a wide range of ground-to-air missiles? Why do the Opposition consistently bleat about the sale and export of British technology equipment, even if it is to be used only for civil purposes, whereas they turn a blind eye to Soviet provocation in other parts of the world?
Mr. Hurd: I imagine it is because they read the Sunday newspapers without checking the facts or recalling their experiences.

Airports (Press Release)
Mr. George Foulkes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your help and guidance about the action taken by the Under-Secretary of State for Trade, announced in a Department of Trade press release on 28 March. That revealed that the Under-Secretary had started procedures for the privatisation of eight Highlands and Islands airports without any authority from this House. As the subsidy for those airports comes from the Scottish Office and not from the Department of Trade, is his action not doubly inappropriate? Will you, Mr. Speaker, look into the matter and ensure that the rights of this House are properly protected?
Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that the matter has nothing to do with me. I could look at it for a fortnight and it would still have nothing to do with me.
Mr. Foulkes: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have answered the hon. Gentleman's point of order. If he has another point of order I shall listen to it, but that one is not for me to rule on.
Mr. Foulkes: Perhaps you can help me, Mr. Speaker. Is it not for you to rule that action has been taken without the proper authority of this House? May I ask you to protect the rights of the House of Commons?
Mr. Speaker: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman follows the matter up through the usual channels which are available to him.

BILL PRESENTED
  PROHIBITION OF FEMALE CIRCUMCISION (No. 2)
  Mr. Clement Freud, supported by Mr. John Roper, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Sir Edward Gardner, Miss Joan Lestor, Mr. Robert Rhodes James, Dr. Oonagh McDonald and Mr. Frank Field, presented a Bill to prohibit female circumcision: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 6 May and to be printed. [Bill 132.]

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
  3.38 pm
  Mr. Speaker: By leave of the House, I shall put together the Questions on the two motions relating to statutory instruments.
  Ordered,
  That the draft Hovercraft (Application of Enactments) (Amendment) Order 1983 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
  That the draft Merchant Shipping (Distress Signals and Prevention of Collisions) Regulations 1983 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c. — [Mr. Major.]

Domestic Content
3.38 pm
Mr. Les Huckfield: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for a minimum domestic content or certain specified components to be included in motor vehicles made or imported into the United Kingdom.
The Bill emanates from a shop stewards' conference which I attended in Coventry on 6 February, which was convened by the Ford Transport and General Workers Union branch at Dagenham. I speak as a sponsored member of that union and I seek to introduce a Bill which is in line with my trade union's policy. This is a subject on which all car shop stewards' organisations are united throughout the motor industry.
Various stories have appeared in the press recently about allegedly British made cars' success stories. If we take the examples of the Maestro, Ford Sierra and Vauxhall Cavalier, the difficulty is that all of the success stories about so-called British cars conceal the fact that gradually the whole British car industry is turning itself into an assembly-only operation.
Throughout the motor industry, whether it be British Leyland, Ford, Vauxhall or Talbot, there is a tendency for the higher-technology, higher-engineered components to come from abroad. Unfortunately, the Department of Trade's interpretation of EC regulation 802/68, article 5, is not sufficient to ensure that more than assembly is done here. One could cite the difficulties with the Honda Acclaim project in verification of that.
If this country is left only with the assembly part of car manufacture, we will be left with the least skilled and easily robotised process and the part of the car manufacturing process that is most easily switched abroad. The heart of our car industry would be gone and we would end up literally importing other countries' cars in boxes and sticking them together like Lego. The estimate by British Leyland's Longbridge shop stewards underlines their fear that if some of the press reports about future linkups are true, British Leyland could ultimately cease engine and transmission manufacture, which could mean the loss of another 50,000 jobs, most of which, unfortunately, would be in the west midlands. At Longbridge there has been a job loss of some 50 per cent. over the past two years to last December, and there has been a similar rundown at Rover in Solihull. That hits very much the component industries such as Dunlop, Hardy Spicer, Wilmott Breden and other firms in Birmingham and the west midlands.
The difficulty was underlined by a reply that. I received from the Minister for Trade yesterday to a question about the overall balance of trade in motor vehicles. The figures that I was given showed that the surplus on the component side of the industry is no longer sufficient to offset the deficit in the complete motor vehicle side of the balance of trade. Ultimately, giant car plants such as Longbridge and Cowley could end up as assembly-only operation. Evidence of that is the recent application for the NissanDatsun project to be sited in this country, because that would have been mainly an assembly-only operation. Even the most effective application of selective import controls or tariffs will not deal with the problem. Even with the successful application of tariffs and import controls or quotas, we could still end up with the problem that I have just described.

735
In my Bill, clause 1 would establish the percentage of domestic content requirement on all vehicles, whether British or foreign-made. Clause 2 would give the Secretary of State power to establish that all foreign motor vehicles should contain a United Kingdom domestic content percentage, which would be based on the number of final sales. Clause 3 would outline the way in which the domestic content could be met—in other words, through labour, parts or assembly. Clause 4 would give the Secretary of State, with regard to British motor car companies, the power to specify that certain major car component parts are wholly manufactured and assembled in this country—for example, gear boxes, transmissions, engines, cylinder heads or electrics. Clause 5 would introduce penalties on foreign companies that violate the domestic content requirement by reducing their allowable import quotas of vehicles and parts by the percentage by which the company falls short of the prescribed content ratio. In other words, in the Bill I am proposing that if the companies concerned failed to meet the specifications, their imports or sales in this country would have to be reduced by a corresponding percentage.
The Bill is similar to House of Representatives Bill No. 5133, which was introduced into the American House of Representatives by Congressman Richard Ottinger from New York and which was carried in the House of Representatives on 15 December last year. Although the Bill was ultimately watered down and at the end of the congressional session made no further progress, my information is that it will be reintroduced in this session of Congress. Congressman Ottinger estimated that his Bill could create or preserve about 800,000 jobs in the United States of America. I am not saying that the total would be exactly the same in this country, but that is the proportion that I am talking about.
No other country allows such penetration of its domestic market in one of its biggest manufacturing and exporting industries. For example, in February this year foreign cars penetrated about 56 per cent. of our domestic market. European Community-made cars penetrated about
736
41 per cent. of our domestic market. Our country is hit harder than that when one considers that last year our exports to other countries were a mere 300,000, while Japanese exports were nearly 4 million, German exports were more than 2 million and French exports were 1·5 million. We are hit not only because we have no protection for our domestic car and commercial vehicle industry but because we export fewer vehicles than the countries that I have listed.
Unfortunately, this situation is rapidly beginning to apply to the commercial vehicle industry as well. Unfortunately, there, too, the percentage of imported components, particularly higher technology and higher engineered components, is going in the same direction.
Retaliation is bound to come up in the discussion of such provisions. Australia already has a 57 per cent. tariff against our cars. Spain has a 36·7 per cent. tariff—that is without the concessions that have been made—and Japan and other countries have a host of other rules and regulations that make it difficult for us to export our cars to them. I am suggesting a mechanism not to start a trade war but to give us at least some negotiating leverage in negotiations on trade imbalances against other countries.
I am afraid that without such a Bill or a mechanism similar to it, and even with the implementation of selective import controls and a much more successfully applied tariffs or quotas policy, we would still end up with the same problem. Such a mechanism is necessary to save the British car industry. Unless we make a move soon, it could be too late.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Les Huckfield, Mr. Robert Parry, Miss Jo Richardson, Mr. Gwilym Roberts, Mr. Roy Hughes and Mr. David Marshall.

Domestic Content
  DOMESTIC CONTENT
  Mr. Les Huckfield accordingly presented a Bill to make provision for a minimum domestic content or certain specified components to be included in motor vehicles made or imported into the United Kingdom: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 6 May and to be printed. [Bill 139.]

Orders of the Day
Opposition Day
[11th allotted day]

Local Government and Community Services
Mr. Speaker: I have to inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
3.47 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I beg to move,
That this House condemns Her Majesty's Government for the massive reductions in grants and subsidies which, together with the repressive imposition of unrealistic spending ceilings and penalties, have led to a damaging deterioration in the standard, range and availability of local and community services and have had such an effect on the lives of the British people.
In recent days there has been much discussion of the sensational discovery of a document that has been lost for years, the authenticity of which is in serious doubt. I refer of course to the Conservative election manifesto of 1979. Those who believe that it is not simply a clever forgery contend that the leader, in the dying days of the regime, handed it over to a trusted pilot for safe keeping. That pilot is still alive and now lives in well-merited obscurity as Secretary of State for Employment. Other experts have carefully examined its contents, with its promises to reduce unemployment, cut taxation, abolish the rates and so on, and say that it cannot possibly be genuine because no one charged with governing a great country could have penned such material and expected to be taken seriously.
After the passage of the years, no section of that manifesto seems more preposterous than the passage lamenting the fate of the old, the sick, the handicapped and the deprived. Those are the sections of the community that have suffered most severely since 1979, and one of the main causes of their suffering has been the Government's attack on the local authorities.
The Government have taken away massive sums of money from our local councils. The cumulative cuts in rate support grant add up to more than £6 billion. Reductions in housing subsidies total a further £2·9 billion. All told, local authorities in England alone have lost £9 billion that they would have received if Labour had continued in office.
Last Thursday, the Prime Minister asserted in this House that local authorities' expenditure is under their own control and not that of the Government. She implied that it was nothing to do with the Government, and that it is the local authorities' fault alone if rates go up. The right hon. Lady should ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to show her the rate demand that he must recently have received from Surrey county council. An accompanying explanatory document lists all the spending cuts that have been made by that Conservative-controlled council. The document states:
"In the coming financial year, the County Council is asking you to pay 13·7% more for your services. Why? As you may know, the cost of County services—like education, roads, fire brigade, libraries, social services and police—is met partly from the rates and partly by grants from the government. This
738
year the Government have reduced by £16 million the amount of grant support to Surrey's ratepayers. Almost 8% of the rate increase is directly due to grant loss."
Those are the problems afflicting a bad council with poor services, such as Surrey, but the impact of the Government's policies on good councils that try to maintain satisfactory services is much worse. Those councils are handicapped not only by reductions in grant but also by the absurd expenditure ceilings set by the Government. Last year, some of them managed to escape the worst constraints of those ceilings because they were permitted, without penalty, to spend up to their grant-related expenditure assessments if those were higher than the ceilings. The Government justified that relaxation—which, in the main, assisted Tory councils—by pointing out that the grant-related expenditure assessments laid down a standard level of service for each local authority. The implication was that a local authority was justified in spending above its ceiling in order to provide the level of service that the Government expected of it.
That amnesty has been withdrawn this year. Mr. John Horrell, the chairman of the Conservative-controlled Association of County Councils, has said:
"The public will find it difficult to understand why their services should be reduced to meet a target below the DOE's own assessment of need … The alternative"—
of keeping services at the higher level—
"will result in financial penalties on the local ratepayer which will be even more unfair."
It is true that what Mr. Horrell complains of has led to the most extraordinary contradictions. Gillingham, for example, has been allotted a spending ceiling of £2,484,000 and a grant-related expenditure assessment of £5,030,000. The puzzled residents of that Medway borough have been watching its councillors wrestle with an insoluble dilemma. If they spend no more than the ceiling imposed by the Government, they will be spending 49·4 per cent. of what the Government tell them that they ought to spend. On the other hand, if they are foolhardy enough to heed the Government and spend what the Government say they ought to spend, they will suffer a grant penalty for spending 102·5 per cent. more than the ceiling above which they are forbidden to spend.
Moreover, if they are improvident enough to provide some services which they get grant to provide, they will defraud their ratepayers, who would benefit financially if the service was not provided at all. Grant for nursery education, for example, is not paid in recompense for nursery education being provided. That would be too simple.
Mr. David Ennals: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Kaufman: When I have made this point, I shall gladly give way to my right hon. Friend.
Grant for nursery education is paid according to the number of children who would benefit if the service was provided. Camden, therefore, which provides the best nursery education service in the country, with 77·1 places per 1,000 under-fives, receives no grant of any kind for nursery education or anything else. Kent, on the other hand, provides 0·4 places per 1,000. It gets far more grant than Camden would get, if Camden were getting any grant, even though Camden's nursery education service is nearly 200 times better than Kent's.
Mr. Ennals: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, although they are

739
very low spenders, are considered by the Secretary of State to be high spenders, which are to be penalised—to the extent that if their spending was in line with the national average they would receive no Government grant at all. That has meant a switch to the rates of 19·3p in the pound. Is that not ludicrous?
Mr. Kaufman: The whole system is demented. My right hon. Friend will be glad to hear that Norfolk provides a nursery education service that is two and a half times better than that of Kent. However, it is still only one-seventy-seventh as good as that of Camden, yet Norfolk gets grant, while Camden gets no grant at all.
Local authorities are being squeezed painfully between the Government's harmful withdrawal of finance and their restrictions on spending. The result is that roads are unmended, the sick untended and children neglected, and opportunities for both work and recreation are being savagely reduced.
The Government have now divided local government expenditure into two distinct categories. Capital spending —as we are insistently told—is virtuous, and every council should do as much capital spending as possible. Current expenditure, however, is wicked, and only the most depraved councils will indulge in that forbidden vice. Such a crude categorisation is as unthinking and therefore as totalitarian as Snowball's slogan in "Animal Farm":
"Four legs good, two legs bad."
The Government have discovered the virtues of capital spending very late in the day. Within three months of coming to office, in the middle of the financial year, they cut the housing investment allocation programme left by the Labour Government. They have gone on cutting it. At the same time, they upbraid local authorities for not spending enough on capital account, and in particular for not spending their capital receipts from selling council houses. However, despite the Prime Minister's answer today to one of the questions to which she could find the answer in her brief, it would make much better financial sense for a council not to sell council houses and not to have capital receipts to spend. A council has to sell 10 houses to get the money to build one new one. Every time a council builds a house on the basis of the capital receipts, it acknowledges the loss of nine houses from its stock.
Last week, the Prime Minister said that Britain was enjoying a house-building boom. She repeated that statement today. We cannot afford many such booms. They would result in the complete elimination of our rented housing stock. Of course the Prime Minister was speaking at the CBI dinner, which must have been the most glutinous orgy of mutual congratulation since the first board meeting of TV-am.
At that dinner, the Prime Minister told her audience that house building was now increasing by 30 per cent. She was perfectly right, but she omitted to say that it was 30 per cent. more than the lowest level known for 70 years. She was enunciating the Government's new doctrine of economic recovery—knock the patient unconscious and then proclaim any flicker of life that returns as a miracle cure.
Unfortunately, the Prime Minister still does not realise that most capital expenditure has current expenditure consequences, and current expenditure by local authorities is liable to attract Government penalties. If she cannot
740
understand that simple fact, Preseli district council in South Wales will explain it. That council is Tory-controlled, with 49 independents and one Labour member. It was naive enough to take the Government at their word and to plan a £540,000 sports centre—badly needed in an area of massive youth unemployment.
The council then discovered to its shock and surprise that the centre had not only to be built, it had to be used as well, and that running costs would be £68,000 per year. On Saturday, therefore, the council will be asked to approve the following recommendation:
"That the current Milford Haven sports centre proposals be deferred pending a review of the whole basis of the scheme with a view to revised proposals being considered for a less ambitious project appropriate to the needs of the area but bearing in mind the overall financial constraints suffered by the council through economic circumstances and Government expenditure restrictions".
That was Milford Haven sports centre that was.
Government expenditure restrictions have inflicted grievous damage throughout the country. In the first two years of this Government, the number of residential places for the elderly fell from 118,783 to 117,517. The number of home helps per thousand elderly fell by 8 per cent., meals by 5·3 per cent. and day care by 2·6 per cent.
In Birmingham—apple of the Government's eye—housing repairs, subject to the Government's latest paltry stunt, were cut by £750,000 last year and the cut is being maintained this year. In Kent, the Tory-controlled county council has wiped out its £500,000 contribution to sheltered housing provided by district authorities. Bus services in the Isle of Sheppey are in serious danger because the county council has broken its promise to pay a subsidy. In Berkshire, highway maintenance expenditure per head of population is the lowest in the country. The Conservatives have decided to cut provision by £1·6 million, so the resurfacing programme in Berkshire has been reduced to a cycle of once every hundred years.
Wokingham district council operates a concessionary travel scheme for the elderly limited to those with incomes not exceeding £49 per week. Plastic tokens are provided to the value of £13·75 per year. Not surprisingly, the tokens are known locally as tiddlywinks. Yet Wokingham receives as much grant as a council providing an acceptable concessionary fares scheme.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Sefton metropolitan district council has a similarly iniquitous scheme. The elderly receive an insulting handful of tokens instead of bus passes. Sefton is the only local authority in the northwest to use such a scheme. Now, however, to the enormous gratitude of the elderly in Sefton, the Labour-controlled Merseyside county council is taking over the scheme and providing bus passes in default.
Mr. Kaufman: I trust that the electors of Sefton will take that into account on 5 May.
Oxfordshire scrapped its school museum service, closed children's homes and shut down homes for pensioners in which the average age of residents was 86. East Sussex hit the elderly by reducing the home help service and harmed the young by reducing cleaning standards in schools.
Dyfed has had no new school furniture for the past five years and parent-teacher association funds are being used to provide books. A particularly imaginative cut affected a mentally handicapped youth living in a village. He was

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gaining confidence by attending an adult training centre in Tenby, but the Government cut off transport to Tenby, so he now has to get a lift in an ice cream van.
Cuts of that kind do not merely mean worse services or no services at all for the old, the sick, the handicapped and the deprived, who are mentioned with such compassion in the Conservative manifesto. The cuts also wipe out jobs and add to unemployment. The community must then pay for the unemployment instead of using the money to provide jobs and services.
Local authority employment in construction has fallen by 11·8 per cent. in the past three years. Employment in public libraries and museums has fallen by 2·8 per cent., in recreation, parks and baths by 2·3 per cent., in environmental health by 4·4 per cent. and in refuse collection and disposal by 12 per cent. Employment in social services has risen by 1·9 per cent., but when measured on the accepted criteria of service levels—demand and need by those relying on the services—it, too, has fallen.
All this means shoddier, needier, more tawdry and neglected cities, towns and villages throughout the land.
Some jobs, of course, remain. The local council in Milton Haven advertised one a few weeks ago, for which there were 14 applications. One came from a girl who had done particularly well at school. Dyfed is the Prime Minister's paradise county, as it has no comprehensive education system. The girl had won four CSEs at her secondary modern school and went on to grammar school where she obtained two A-levels — clearly the embodiment of the Victorian virtues that the Prime Minister extols. With the aid of those qualifications, the girl defeated her 13 competitors and got the job. She is now a road sweeper.
The Prime Minister, in her famous interview with Brian Walden, said this:
"Winston put it best. You want a ladder, upwards, anyone, no matter what their background, can climb, but a fundamental safety net below which no-one can fall. That's the British character."
As Winston might have put it: some ladder—some safety net!
Mr. Dennis Skinner: How would my right hon. Friend compare the efforts of people who scramble all their lives to get on to the first rung of the ladder with a person who starts fairly high in the first place and then, like the Prime Minister—despite her attacks on tenants living in what she claims are still subsidised council houses — has had the audacity since 1975 to have the tenancy of a National Trust flat in Scotney castle, Kent, which has been subsidised to the hilt during that period?
Mr. Kaufman: One of the most demeaning aspects of the Prime Minister's statements on house purchase today was the implication that there is something inferior about being a tenant, and certainly a council house tenant. It was also clear that she had no idea of the way in which rents have risen. For her, Victorian values mean a return to the poor law and to poverty of every kind.
The Prime Minister's latest little stunt is to appoint a Minister with responsibility for putting children to play. It is about time that she appointed a Minister with responsibility for putting adults to work.
No doubt the Secretary of State will talk about alleged profligacy by Labour councils which, in his view, spend too much on their services. It is certainly true that in some
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respects Labour-controlled authorities spend much more than their Conservative counterparts. Expenditure per head on personal social services last year was £65 in Tory London boroughs and £115 in Labour London boroughs. It was £45 in Tory metropolitan districts and £59 in Labour metropolitan districts, £37 in Tory shire counties and £44 in Labour shire counties. There were 5·7 home helps per 1,000 of population aged over 65 in Tory London boroughs and 10·8 in Labour London boroughs, 7·4 in Tory metropolitan districts and 9·5 in Labour metropolitan districts, 5·3 in Tory shire counties and 7·5 in Labour shire counties. If the Secretary of State calls that overspending, the Opposition plead guilty with pride.
Mr. John Townend rose—
Mr. Kaufman: Perhaps the Secretary of State will recommend instead that such services should be privatised — an ugly word for an ugly practice. Happily, privatisation is not quite the success that the Government would like it to be. So far, 16 local authorities out of 480 have gone in for it. One is Tory Gillingham which, last year, privatised the cleaning of Gillingham precinct. Such a bad job was done that the contract was put out to tender again and the direct labour organisation won it back.
In the Sedgemoor district, which is in the Secretary of State's constituency, the Conservative group was not at all convinced of the merits of privatisation and decided last year not to proceed with a proposal to privatise housing repairs and maintenance. Since then, the Sedgemoor direct labour organisation has won all the contracts for which it has tendered. The Secretary of State will be glad to know that his local direct labour organisation has grown from strength to strength.
Mr. Townend rose—
Mr. Kaufman: One ardent advocate of privatisation is the Prime Minister. At the Tory conference last year she declared, in that endearing way of hers, that there was increasing evidence of the savings that could be made:
"As Dr. Johnson nearly said"—
as usual, the Prime Minister nearly gets it right—
"Depend upon it—When you know you are going to be privatised in a fortnight, it concentrates the mind wonderfully."
The Prime Minister's borough of Barnet was an obedient disciple. It spent £100 on the book of its experiences which Southend council is touting around. I should not mind having Lord Dacre's opinion on that one—or perhaps not. Barnet seriously considered the privatisation of refuse collection—
Mr. Townend rose—
Mr. Kaufman: —but its mayor persuaded it that it was more cost-effective to retain the council service.
The Opposition have never had to be persuaded that the public need is better served by public service and that cuts in help for the needy and the afflicted are not a matter for pride but a source of shame. Nor have we ever had to be persuaded that compassionate care and useful employment will go hand in hand.
Mr. Townend rose—
Mr. Kaufman: That is why a Labour Government will remove the spending constraints that the chairman of the Surrey county council's policy committee, Mr. Douglas Robertson, said put his county
"in an extremely grave situation".

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That is why we shall restore grants and subsidies to enable councils to carry out those responsibilities to their citizens. Millions of people in England and Wales can strike their blow for better services and better job opportunities when they vote on Thursday next week. Meanwhile, we can play our part by voting for this motion.
4.13 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tom King): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
"congratulates Her Majesty's Government on its efforts to promote economy and efficiency in local government; notes that the average rate increase in 1983–84 is the lowest for five years; urges Her Majesty's Government to continue to discourage excessive levels of current expenditure of local authorities to the benefit of ratepayers and taxpayers alike; and welcomes Her Majesty's Government's measures for improving standards of education."
I had not expected to get to my feet at this stage. I find it incomprehensible that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) should have finished his speech already when a major attack on the Government and a major statement of Labour policy on local government and education was trailed. I understood that two distinguished Opposition spokesmen would deploy all their skills to demolish the Government's stance. Now, at 4.14 pm, have we heard the last of the right hon. Member for Ardwick? Has he nothing else to say?
I had intended to say that the right hon. Gentleman's speech followed a fairly predictable pattern. The House will have noticed a few quite elegantly tailored jokes which are, no doubt, preparatory to inclusion in that well-known column which appears from time to time in the top people's newspaper. The House will also have noticed one or two rather more tawdry cracks which also crept in. After that part of the presentation, we have usually come down to some rather more serious meat.
I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend). I am stupefied that we have heard the sum of the right hon. Gentleman's contribution to the debate. This is perhaps the fifth time in four years that the Opposition have launched such a debate. It is always a major occasion, with a full day's debate on these major issues. The right hon. Gentleman's speech demeaned all of those who are interested in local government and the cause of those people whom it is its duty to serve. We had virtually nothing except, if I heard correctly, in the last line of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, when he merely promised a lot more grant and a lot more money so that there would be a lot more services. Before anyone listened too carefully, the right hon. Gentleman quickly sat down. That appears to be the sum of the Opposition's policies.
Although the right hon. Gentleman carefully omitted to mention it, we must consider another document which is equally obscure. It is called "The New Hope for Britain". If I had had any association with that Labour party plan, I should not have used the phrase which the right hon. Gentleman employed at the beginning of his speech. He said:
"no one … governing a great country could have penned such material and expected to be taken seriously."
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I could not have thought of a more appropriate description of "The New Hope for Britain". The right hon. Gentleman penned that well. If I was thinking of a title for that document, "Some Hope for Britain" might be more appropriate.
We have today the opportunity to examine what the Government have tried to achieve and what might be the alternative, as offered at various stages by the right hon. Gentleman and his party. We can see what they say. I was interested to note that "The New Hope for Britain" says:
"We will give local authorities freedom to implement comprehensive local plans, covering economic, social and environmental policies."
We can find out what that comprehensive freedom means from an interview which the right hon. Gentleman gave to the Municipal Journal as recently as 22 April. The comprehensive freedom is an important new Labour policy. The right hon. Gentleman said:
"Local authorities have the best gardeners in the country. Why should they not use that expertise to set up their own garden centres? Local authorities through their involvement in provision of school meals have great experience in public catering. Why should they not use that experience to cater for weddings and other private celebrations? Why should they not open restaurants, cheerful, efficient and modestly priced?"
That is the great new Labour freedom. That is the policy which has not been completely revealed in all its glory today but awaits Britain in "The New Hope for Britain". I have a feeling, as a result of my acquaintance with local government, that the electorate does not want a great new expansion of municipal horticulture, still less a great expansion of municipal wedding cakes. The electorate wants its local authority to provide the services that the local authority is best fitted to supply. It does not want its rates to be spent on things that have nothing to do with the proper functions of a local council.
These debates follow a traditional pattern and it is an early task of anyone who has the privilege of responding to the right hon. Gentleman, whose selective recall is notorious, to give him a few facts. He deployed—pretty briefly—the customary attack that every service in the country has been slashed to ribbons. That must be set against the background of the Government's seeking to achieve a reduction in local government expenditure of 5·6 per cent. over three years—less than 2 per cent. a year —when the number of school pupils has fallen by 8 per cent. and when, as every hon. Member knows, education represents substantially more than half of current local government spending. The vast majority of local authorities have achieved those modest reductions, and have behaved responsibly. For the current year, 350 out of 413 authorities have budgeted to spend within 2 per cent. of the Government's target—that is 80 per cent. of all authorities. Local authorities may overspend in the current financial year by £770 million, which is 4 per cent. above the expenditure target, but more than half of that overspend—hon. Members must listen carefully to this — is caused by two Labour-controlled authorities, the Greater London council and the Inner London education authority.
An interesting picture emerges from the pattern of rate increases. The average rate increase for the whole of England this year will be 6·5 per cent., which is the lowest increase for five years. However, if the GLC, ILEA and the West Midlands county council had hit their targets, the average rate increase for England would have fallen to 2·7 per cent. If from 413 authorities we deduct the top 18

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spenders which are those authorities where Labour is in control or is overwhelmingly the largest party, the average rate increase throughout England would have been zero.
The overwhelming majority of responsible authorities recognise that high rates destroy jobs, destroy businesses, fuel inflation, strain the family budget and do tremendous damage. It is a tragedy that the right hon. Member for Ardwick said nothing about the authorities that support his party and continue to impose intolerable burdens throughout the country.
Mr. Neil Kinnock: I shall set aside the distortions in which the Secretary of State is currently, engaged, but does he recall that—inadvertently, I am sure — he gave the impression that education cuts in local authorities were only 5·6 per cent.? If he did not make such a mistake and believes that, will he explain why it is now two years since Her Majesty's inspectorate said that if the present rate of cuts continued, standards in schools would be seriously jeopardised?
Mr. King: The figures that I gave were the Government's targets, which have not altered, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science knows. I am interested that they come as a surprise to the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), who may have been taken in by his own party's propaganda. We sought to achieve those targets, which are necessary to make modest reductions in local government expenditure.
Mr. Douglas Jay rose—
Mr. King: I shall complete my comments, which will be of interest to the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). In London—the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate this—the average rate poundage in a Labour borough is 50 per cent. higher than in a Conservative borough. In the metropolitan districts the Labour figure is 25 per cent. higher than the Conservative one, as it is throughout the shire counties. The message to the right hon. Gentleman and to everyone who is listening is that to keep one's rates down one should vote Conservative on 5 May.
Mr. Robert C. Brown: The Secretary of State says that high rates destroy jobs, which must mean that zero rates will improve job prospects. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that an independent report published today states that, in its first full year of operation, the Tyneside enterprise zone has suffered a net decrease in jobs?
Mr. King: I am aware of the report, because I published it and issued a press release with my comments on it. The hon. Gentleman may think that that was a clever point, but we know that with the present state of industry and the problems of the world recession, no one measure can be guaranteed to be a bulwark against all the pressures that Britain and other countries face. I said in the press release that this was just the first progress report, and that it is too early to judge the position. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in believing that the enterprise zone can make a contribution—in some areas there are signs that it can—to Tyneside.
The new Vickers factory was developed quickly because of the enterprise zone—[Interruption.] Instead of heckling me from a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West (Mr. Brown)
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might wish to get his information direct from the management, as I did. The company said that there was every likelihood that, without the enterprise zone, jobs would have been lost. As it is, the company now has the largest open-span, purpose-built factory in Europe. It has been an extremely valuable major construction project, because the company was working in uncompetitive conditions, as anyone who saw the old factory will know, and it did not believe that it would be possible to reinvest. I am hopeful for the future of the enterprise zone.
Mr. Jay: In order to tell the truth to the House, perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us that the reason why the GLC has had to increase its rates is that he has withdrawn the entire Government grant from London education for the first time. He is responsible for the increase in rates.
Mr. King: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the facts about ILEA. I always thought that he came to the House well informed about such matters. I am not talking about grants or rates, but about ILEA expenditure. Its overall expenditure has increased consistently and significantly above the rate of inflation. Would the right hon. Gentleman care to tell the House about the fall in pupil numbers in ILEA during the past four years? To save him making a further intervention —he obviously has the figures very much in mind—I will tell him that during the period of this Government pupil numbers are likely to fall by more than 20 per cent. If he can explain to the House why, with pupil numbers falling to such an extent, expenditure has increased as though the population was expanding and not contracting, the House will be interested to hear him.
Mr. Jay: As the right hon. Gentleman is talking about facts, does he deny that ILEA now receives no Government grant?
Mr. King: If that authority's expenditure showed even the sightest recognition of the circumstances, or achieved some economies, there would be a substantial improvement in its grant. Every hon. Member knows that it is not a question of increasing the grant purely for the sake of ILEA, because any extra grant for that authority must come from other authorities that are trying to moderate expenditure. It would be monstrous to rob prudent authorities to fuel higher-spending authorities such as ILEA.
After four years of effort, many local authorities have made sensible economies. Manpower has been reduced by 5 per cent. since we took office, and we have halted and reversed a trend that was rising steadily for 30 years. We are on a promising path, and we intend to build on it. We firmly believe that economies can be made without unacceptable consequences to the provision of services.
In some cases local authorities have been their own worst enemies. A few authorities have done a great disservice to local government as a whole. That is clearly seen in some authorities' use of ratepayers' money for sectional party political purposes: sending out blatant political propaganda, like the GLC with The Londoner; the notorious activities of the London borough of Islington; or aiding a host of political activities, like the Sheffield council. Until recently no ruling group of whatever party would have used public money in this way. Local councillors recognised that their duty was to the community as a whole and they had a sense of responsibility.

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I deeply regret that some statutory discretions given to local authorities are being abused. The Government would be very reluctant to reduce areas of local authority discretion, but the spirit in which this is used has clearly changed and we are watching this carefully.
I believe that our prime concern should be with the consumers of local government services and with the quality of provision they receive. There is no immutable law that the more one spends the more one gets. A high quality of provision does not automatically require massive additional expenditure. Economic and efficient use of resources is consistent with the best traditions of service and is compatible with justice and compassion.
There are enormous savings available for those authorities which take a value-for-money approach, a businesslike approach that reduces costs. It is also true that services often become more secure if the efficiency of their delivery is improved. There is now abundant evidence — often produced by local government itself — about value-for-money initiatives. I look to the Audit Commission—which the House will know is now in operation—to make a most valuable contribution. I said that we would be commenting from time to time on Labour party policy. It is interesting to note that the sole contribution that Labour appears to make in this field in its policy document is a savage and vicious attack upon the auditor.
Comparative statistics have a major role to play as well. Why is it that the net cost of providing all services in Manchester—this will interest the right hon. Member for Ardwick—was over £547 a head, when in Liverpool the figure was £466 and in Birmingham it was £390? I am arranging for every council leader to receive a statistical analysis of his authority's performance compared with other similar authorities and I hope that they will study it to good effect.
The most dramatic examples of the scope for reducing costs come from councils which contract out services. In the Wirral, contractors will now be delivering savings worth £1·4 million a year on refuse and cleaning services. In Wandsworth there will be a saving of £7·5 million on refuse collection over the contract period, a further £1·5 million on street cleaning and £1 million on the maintenance of gardens and open spaces. The same story can be told of Bromley, Merton, Kensington and Chelsea, Eastbourne, Southend, Milton Keynes, South Oxfordshire, Bath and the many other authorities that have made striking savings by operating their services using private sector contractors.
The spur of competition has also led to a dramatic productivity improvement in other authorities — Sedgemoor, for one, and Birmingham, a bit larger, for another. When the members of the work force were faced with private competition they offered productivity improvements of 40 per cent., worth £3·5 million a year and over £15 million in five years.
Our policies do not pose a threat to local services. What we seek to do is to protect important local services by exposing the scope for economies which exists in local authorities and suggesting that work forces should no longer be insulated from the discipline of competition. The threat is to inefficiency, the wasting of ratepayers' money, low productivity, historic working agreements, outdated
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bonus schemes and short working weeks. Those are the things that we threaten in the interests of all those whom a local authority has a duty to serve.
In many areas we have also brought about a much more effective partnership between the public and the private sectors. We have, especially in housing, opened up opportunities, widened choice and improved standards for tenants and home owners alike. We came to office with a firm commitment to give council tenants the chance to buy their homes. The right-to-buy policies have been a resounding success. In the last four years roughly half a million tenants in Great Britain have bought their homes —more than in the whole of the previous 25 years—and the applications are still coming in. These were at the rate of about 40,000 a quarter in 1982.
The wider benefits of the right to buy are indisputable. We have extended the opportunity for home ownership to many who could not previously have dreamt of it. They now enjoy the satisfaction of home ownership, which most of us take for granted but which for many seemed out of reach, and of course the sale of council houses is producing significant capital receipts for local authorities. The House will know that last year alone the figure was no less than £1·7 billion, and that is of enormous benefit to local authority finances.
We have also encouraged local authorities, developers and financial institutions to co-operate in a range of initiatives to widen choice in housing. There is a five-point low-cost home ownership programme: the sale of land by local authorities to builders for starter homes; partnership arrangements to build low-cost homes for sale; shared ownership — one of the most exciting initiatives for many a year in housing—which is part buying and part renting, with an option to purchase the whole later; homesteading, by which unimproved houses are sold to individuals or small groups for improvement with the help of grants; and local authorities and housing associations improving houses themselves for subsequent sale.
This shows what can be done through co-operation between local authorities and the private sector. This is not an attack on local government; it is providing more people with the kind of housing they really want.
We have also, of course, tackled the problem of more freedoms and better standards for tenants. We have given public sector tenants a range of statutory rights, providing them with greater control over their homes and a bigger say in the decisions taken by housing management. We have promoted initiatives to improve the quality of management, especially in the most difficult and rundown estates. We are now taking powers to introduce a right-to-repair scheme to enable tenants to do certain repairs themselves and to be reimbursed.
In Lambeth, Bolton and Hackney, the priority estates projects have shown how improved security, locally based management and repair services, local letting policies and tenant consultation and involvement can turn estates round and produce a remarkable improvement in the quality of life for the residents. On Merseyside, our community refurbishment schemes use the skills of local unemployed residents to carry out at a modest cost repairs and improvements to the houses and the environment of a number of the poorer quality estates.
We are combining the services of the Manpower Services Commission, the urban programme and local authorities to produce satisfactory results for the tenants and a sensible use of materials and people. Almost the

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most radical initiative of the lot, taken in partnership with the Labour authority at Knowsley, was the launching—my hon. Friend was there to inaugurate this—of the Stockbridge village trust. This was a former council estate in a deplorable condition, from which people were trying to get out as fast as they could. It is now offered real hope for the future, with a combination of private and public sector investment and new management.
It does take a little time—I apologise to the House for this—to list the vast range of initiatives which this Government have sought to take in housing, particularly under the leadership of my hon. Friend. Having done so very quickly, it is interesting to read this tawdry Labour document.
In this area above all, the abject poverty of Labour's housing policy is most starkly revealed. Its twin planks of repealing the right to buy—taking from many people possibly the most exciting new opportunity that they have had—and building more council houses show that the Labour party knows nothing about what people really seek in housing, and, what is more, it does not want to know.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will explain the difference between the rate levels per head of population in Manchester and Liverpool by the fact that Liverpool has a housing waiting list of 30,000—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense".] It is not nonsense. I have the facts and figures from Liverpool council in front of me. That council has a waiting list of 30,000 and is building no council houses and families are incarcerated in tenement blocks. In addition, rents have doubled since 1979. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain those figures in relation to the rate levels in Liverpool?
Mr. King: Any honest attempt to make any assessment of local government expenditure has been bedevilled by just that sort of intervention from the hon. Gentleman. That is what it is all about. That is his reason for explaining the differences. His attitude is "Do not inquire any further, there is the reason." It is a superficial excuse. He hopes that no one will get into the detail and examine service by service what is happening.
I recall a delegation of Labour Members coming to see me when Birmingham was under Labour control. They said that the council was £1 million over target and that there was no possible way in which that could be prevented because, for all sorts of reasons, that was the situation facing Birmingham. They said that nothing could be done. One thing was done. The electorate elected a Conservative authority, which immediately put its refuse collection out to competition. Within six months it had saved £3½ million a year. Up to then, nothing could be done because of the difficulties that Birmingham faced.
Mr. Anthony Steen: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the statements just made by the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) are scurrilously incorrect? The figure given to me only two weeks ago by the chairman of Liverpool's housing committee was that there were 13,000 people on the waiting list, not 30,000, and that 5,000 council houses and flats were empty. In other words, the list could be reduced to 8,000 if those 5,000 empty houses and flats were filled tomorrow.
Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for shining the light of facts and accurate information into the fog that Labour Members like to spread.
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We are now also seeing the first results of the Government's important policy on the use of partnership between the public and private sectors. The classic illustration is our urban development grant scheme in which we have used public: money, not as an end in itself but to prime the pump for private sector investment.
I have already announced my approval of the first 57 projects for different schemes in different parts of the country — housing, small factories, land reclamation, sports facilities and a wide range of different items. So far, there has been £16 million of grant to attract £80 million of total new investment. I can announce today a further group of larger schemes, including the largest project yet approved. I approved it this morning. These projects include Gateshead, Wandsworth, Rotherham and Wolverhampton. I can announce a scheme in Hull for a major hotel, housing and marina project. The largest scheme of all is the Paradise circus scheme in Birmingham involving offices, a hotel, a multi-storey car park and civic and shopping facilities. As a result of this scheme, just over £4·5 million of urban development grant could stimulate about £5 million of expenditure by the city of Birmingham, leading to £24 million of private investment on a site close to the heart of the city which has been an eyesore for a decade. It will lead to total public and private investment of about £34 million.
I have now, therefore, approved 65 projects where about £30 million of public funds should lead to about £150 million of new investment in construction, jobs and real improvements in our cities.
Mr. Nick Budgen: Will my right hon. Friend give further details of the project that he has approved for Wolverhampton? How much taxpayers' money and private funds will be put into it?
Mr. King: I shall have to write to my hon. Friend, because I do not have the details with me.
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: The Secretary of State will recall that I wrote to him about the second list that he has just announced. I asked what consideration he was giving to Sheffield. Will there be a further list and will Sheffield be considered?
Mr. King: Further lists will be coming forward. These projects are being appraised as fast as possible. Anyone who has seen one knows that they need careful appraisal. We shall make further announcements as soon as possible.
Mr. Jay: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Wandsworth. Is he referring to the British Land scheme on which we have been waiting for six months for a decision from him and about which I have written to him three times?
Mr. King: As I recall, that is not the scheme, but I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman to confirm that.
Our approach to urban policy—not mentioned by the right hon. Member for Ardwick but important in this context — is that we hope that we are dealing more effectively with problems on the ground, be they housing estates, schools, derelict sites or neighbourhoods where all too often shops and factories are boarded up. Resources are in limited supply and always will be. For that reason, we seek to generate the maximum private sector investment.
That is not an apology for not making a substantial public contribution as well. This year, 48 authorities with

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special status under the Inner Urban Areas Act will receive nearly £300 million under the urban programme, including urban development grant. That is a record figure. That, allied to our efforts in the traditional urban programme and the work in the local enterprise agencies, the enterprise zones and the urban development corporations in London docklands and Liverpool docks, is a substantial attack on the problems of urban deprivation.
For four years we have co-operated with local government whenever we could in a whole range of new initiatives. I welcome the fact that a vast majority of authorities have responded. In "The New Hope For Britain" I looked for the Labour party's attitude. It says that it will
"take action to encourage councils to make their services more responsive to the needs and wishes of their clients and the local community".
Does that mean that Labour councillors will actually listen to the long-suffering ratepayers in their areas? Will they keep spending within reasonable limits? Does it mean a sensible response to criticism? Does it mean looking for efficiency and value for money for the ratepayer? On the other hand, is it much closer to the contempt succinctly expressed by Mr. McGeer of the London borough of Islington, who as a Labour councillor says:
"No one can have any views about the performance of council staff except ourselves".
Is that the new voice of the Labour party? Is that its attitude?
Does that attitude mean taking any notice of the Sheffield industrialists, when a number of steel firms in Sheffield, facing all the problems that they are, are now paying more than £1,000 per employee per year in rates? That is the burden that they are carrying as they try to face the challenge of international competition. No wonder that in a recent survey in Sheffield, 34 per cent. of the firms said that they were seeking ways to move out.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: In the London borough of Greenwich, many firms have a rate burden of £1,000 or more per head per year. What is more, the rates have gone up by 27 per cent., which means that all the money for expansion or pay increases has been absorbed. The major criticism from my constituents is that local authorities apparently still have the power to go through the penalty box on spending targets and to put rates up by 25 per cent., 30 per cent. and 25 per cent. again, and that local authorities can still find clever ways to spend ratepayers' money on what most people regard as an abuse — political promotion of their own party, using ratepayers' money. My right hon. Friend would do well, not only today but on other occasions, to express his concern about the level of rates increases and the political propaganda, and to find ways to stop local authorities getting away with what they are doing at the moment.
Mr. King: As I said earlier, there is a delicate balance between the responsibilities and the powers of local government. It has been respected by leaders and councillors of all parties in the past, who realised that they needed to work within the spirit as well as the letter of the law. There are those in senior positions and positions of power in local authorities who support the Labour party and who are putting at risk the continuance of freedom and
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independence. I say that in as moderate and restrained a voice as I can, but I know that I am summarising some intolerable abuses in certain places.
It is interesting to note—it may not be a coincidence that we are having this debate today—that today marks the launch of the NALGO campaign against alleged cuts in services and privatisation; £1 million of its members' funds is to be spent on the campaign. All the advertising tricks of the trade, including hot air balloons to proclaim to the nation the dire straits of its members, are to be used. There is a rather endearing passage in its document about the value of hot air. The right hon. Member for Ardwick will understand the abilities and the attraction of hot air in drawing attention to oneself and the fact that sometimes it enables one to rise above one's fellows.
To prepare for the campaign, NALGO commissioned a research report to establish the attitudes of the public. I have here a copy of that report. Far from reinforcing the NALGO ambitions of opposition to the Government, a different picture emerged. This research is concentrated on Labour and alliance voters, what it describes as the "broad Left" who were thought most likely to be sympathetic.
It is interesting to note that the report describes the people of the Left wing in the broadest sense, that is, from Labour voters to wet Conservatives. However, I noticed that in the survey the word "Conservative" is not used again and we have C2D women, those who are 39 to 54 and voted Labour in the last election, and BC1 men, those who are 25 to 39 and intend to vote for Liberal/SDP at the next election. I believe that the latter made a useful contribution to the research in the last category. These people were chosen because they were thought to be those who were most likely to be sympathetic to the case that NALGO wished to deploy.
This is what the survey discovered:
"Local rates were very important in high spending areas … particularly to those who were owner-occupiers … they felt that money was deliberately being wasted, quite apart from being inherently mis-managed, in an attempt by local councils to defy the Government… People were still able to cope with the present standard of services … several people felt it was about time that public services were cut—because they were seen to be inefficient and mismanaged and that if cutting back involved depleting an over-manned workforce and a top-heavy administration that was to be welcomed. The attitudes to public services were similar to those towards nationalized industries — i.e. they were sloppily run and operated. Consequently, therefore, it was felt that the cuts could be afforded—larger budgets were only necessary because the money was mismanaged and wasted … Generally the opinion was held that private industry operated more efficiently than nationalized, because the profit motive and competition were good incentives to work harder and more effectively."
It may come as a shock to my right hon. and hon. Friends to know that I am quoting the views of the broad Left in the survey. There may be one or two right hon. and hon. Labour Members who feel that they are becoming slightly out of touch with what some of their supporters are thinking.
Talking about the way private services operate brings to me to privatisation. The conclusion that the report reached was that
"Not only cuts, but to varying degrees privatisation could be also welcomed in this context, because that implied increased efficiency and effectiveness. The most frequently mentioned example of this was the privatisation of the refuse collection."
The good sense of the British public is shown in the next conclusion:

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"There was a general feeling that cuts had to be made because we were living through a recession and we could no longer afford the large public spending budgets we were used to."
The report went on to test the attitude to its proposed advertisements. Another unpleasant shock awaited NALGO. The reaction was that NALGO was being dishonest and hiding behind a political issue to protect its skin. That was the view of the broad Left respondents to the survey, commissioned by NALGO, and the advertisements in the campaign that it launches today to fight the Government. The research team concluded—I can understand its conclusion—that the results were, in the main, very depressing.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours rose—
Mr. King: The House will understand that I hold the view that the contrary is true.
The report shows that the vast majority of people, including those who do not support the Government, recognise that in spite of all the political propaganda there is scope for economy and greater efficiency, that there are better ways in which many of the services can be provided, and that in a serious world recession those economies must be made. All those things can be done without serious deterioration of the services. In some cases, services can often be improved. That is the approach that Conservative authorities have followed in the best interests of their ratepayers and all those in their areas. That is the approach that our amendment, which I am proud to move, encapsulates. That example illustrates the vacuity of the Labour motion and the inadequacy of the speech of the right hon. Member for Ardwick. Our approach is the right approach and it is the one that we shall continue to pursue.
5 pm
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: The debate has dwelt for the most part on the south of Britain but when I look at the motion and see references to
"the massive reductions in grants and subsidies … the repressive imposition of unrealistic spending ceilings and penalties … a damaging deterioration in the standard, range and availability of local and community services"
I am reminded overwhelmingly of the experience of my city of Sheffield under this Government, in particular its east end and my constituency of Attercliffe.
The motion fairly reflects the enormous cutback in Government grants that Sheffield has suffered over recent years and the millions of pounds in penalty that the Government propose to inflict on its people in the coming year for not carrying out Tory policy. To a considerable extent, what the Secretary of State's case amounts to is that there are authorities in Britain, mostly in the north, which are utterly resistant to his Government's policies and therefore they will be penalised or, as has happened briefly this afternoon in the Minister's speech, insulted.
On top of that, the Government have redistributed what remains of grants and subsidies to local government away from the major cities to Tory strongholds in the rural areas. Through the grant-related expenditure for 1983–84, the Government have cut Sheffield's spending and placed the city 29th in the league table of 36 metropolitan districts. In addition, the Government are punishing Sheffield through the grant penalty system, which will cost Sheffield's ratepayers over £14 million in 1983–84, despite its unemployment, industrial wasteland and tremendous inner city problems.
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When Sheffield's grant is compared with that going to other major cities with comparable inner city problems, it is conclusively seen how badly the Government have treated the people of Sheffield. If Sheffield had had the same grant as Liberal-controlled Liverpool in the last year, the same expenditure and services could have been provided with a rate freeze rather than an increase. Thousands of people in Sheffield's inner city are suffering from bad conditions, including high unemployment, overcrowding and bad housing, according to the report published by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys just before Christmas.
There was not a reference to that in the Secretary of State's speech. Around one tenth of Sheffield's inner city population is in the five worst categories of areas listed. Those categories also include a high number of one-parent families and people living in institutions.
In his speech the Secretary of State claimed on behalf of his Department that its housing policy opened up opportunities and widened choice. Let me remind him of a recent letter dated 15 February 1983 from the chairman of the housing committee in Sheffield, Councillor Clive Betts. In that letter the Minister for Housing and Construction—who is no longer with us—was told that
"Although a small number of new homes will be started (present estimate around 300 instead of the 1000 designed for and needed) they will be mainly pensioners' bungalows and will all be on redevelopment sites in inner-city and priority areas."
They will be mostly in a ward in my constituency. I know how inadequate that provision will be alongside the need, of which I am reminded at my surgery every Saturday morning and of which I shall be reminded again this Saturday.
In his letter, Councillor Betts goes on to say:
"The rest of the allocation will be spent on the enormous task of maintaining and improving our existing housing stock, and on maintaining our Housing Action Area programme and the provision of improvement grants."
The Secretary of State's claims on behalf of the Government's housing policy are unrealistic and irrelevant to Sheffield's needs.
The official report from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys says that Sheffield is the least badly affected of the four large cities in Yorkshire and Humberside. Thus, there are severe problems in the region which are not relieved in the slightest by the growing bias in favour of the south. It was interesting not only to me but to my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) that, as we listened to the debate, again and again it focused on the south of Britain. Those who come from the northern constituencies are anxious to see a more active attempt on the part of all hon. Members to correct this obvious bias in favour of the south —a bias that has been reflected so far in the debate.
The Yorkshire and Humberside County Councils Association is well placed to take the initiative in promoting the region's interests democratically. The four county councils of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Humberside and North Yorkshire are the strategic planning authorities and have recently published a regional strategy review in consultation with a large number of other bodies that are concerned with life in the region.
In recent years trends have moved strongly against Yorkshire and there has been a rapid decline in some of its basic industries. At the same time, the problems of the inner cities and the remote rural parts of the region have increased. Unemployment is above the national average

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and is still rising rapidly. Household incomes are the lowest in Britain and there are serious problems arising from the industrial environment, dereliction, a deteriorating housing stock, and rural isolation.
The Yorkshire and Humberside County Councils Association must have extra help to reverse those trends and to tackle the worst of its problems. It must have assistance from the Government and the EC if it is to realise its considerable potential to create new jobs and improve the quality of life. Yorkshire has a large and experienced labour force; attractive, serviced industrial land and buildings; assured energy supplies; an established commercial base; a location in the centre of Britain; good living environment; a range of inexpensive housing; and a strong cultural and sporting tradition. But it badly needs a stimulus to replace the regional aid that the Government have progressively withdrawn from Yorkshire and Humberside.
As well as maintaining the quality of life in Sheffield, the city council is also anxious to keep people in work and to provide work for industries and to service employers in the area. Sheffield is the first local authority in the United Kingdom—perhaps the first in Europe—to create an employment committee and an employment department. Its aims, among others, are to prevent job loss in the city and to alleviate the worst effects of unemployment and to stimulate new investment.
Mr. John Wheeler: If the aim of that employment committee is to stimulate jobs in Sheffield, how does Sheffield justify the cost of £1,000 per employee on the rates? That must surely work to the disadvantage of employment in Sheffield rather than to its advantage.
Mr. Duffy: Yes, I have made a note of that information from the Secretary of State. However, he said nothing about the services that are provided to those industries mostly located within my constituency. I meet all the firms and employers in my constituency regularly and keep in close touch with them. I am well aware that what I am saying is going on the record and will be read by most, if not all, of them. Therefore, I shall have to defend what I am saying, which is in the light of my experience and in an attempt to provide a balancing factor.
It may be—I am trying to be fair—that what the city council is doing in support of local industry is not as clear as the facts that the Secretary of State has given the House. Nevertheless, I am confident that Sheffield city council is properly, honestly and genuinely motivated. It has set up this department, which is the first of its type in the country and it is in its early months. I am watching its progress with the closest interest as I am the Member of Parliament who will be most affected. I shall be looking for results as earnestly as the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler).
Although these are early days the department's aims, among others, are to prevent job losses in the city, to alleviate the worst effects of unemployment and to stimulate new investment. Any normal Government in the present position would welcome and assist local initiative and enterprise and encourage such imaginative and probably historic developments. Not this Government. Why has not the Secretary of State made a gesture in the direction of the Sheffield city council and its employment department? Instead, the Government have given the
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impression they are making every effort to suppress municipal enterprise, but the Conservative party is supposed to be the great believer in local democracy and delegated authority.
It is interesting to compare rate increases with central Government tax increases in the light of election promises made in 1979. The House has heard much about Labour authority rate increases in the debate, but what about tax increases by this Tory Government? Let us consider an average family—a man, wife and two children living in a semi-detached three-bedroom house with as near as possible average rateable value. For purposes of comparison, let us consider the three major areas of deductions from earnings — rates, national insurance payments and the standard rate of income tax. A family in Sheffield has had to find an extra £193 since April 1979 in domestic rate payments. My findings are that the same family has incurred a central Government levy of a further £870 over and above the payments being made when the Government took office. The staggering fact is that in Sheffield the average family will have paid four times as much in national taxation between 1979 and 1983 than it incurred in local rate increases. Meanwhile, the Conservatives proclaim their belief in tax reductions but point the finger at Labour authorities such as Sheffield.
Nothing illustrates better the Conservative Government's four years of embarrassing failures than their increasingly vindictive attitude towards innovative and dedicated Labour councillors such as those who lead and man the Sheffield city council. Nothing typifies and characterises the Conservative Government's approach more than privatisation, because it serves to harden the face of municipal Toryism.
5.13 pm
Mr. John Townend: I am rather disappointed that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) is leaving the Chamber, as he most ungraciously refused to give way to me during his opening speech. Whether that was because he was aware that I have experience at the sharp end of local government as the leader of a county council at a time when, so I am told, he was writing the scripts of "That Was the Week that Was", I do not know. He seemed to be putting forward the view that the higher the level of spending the higher the quality of service. That statement needs challenging and does not stand up to examination. To be fair to the right hon. Gentleman, who has now left the Chamber, I shall not be biased by considering two Conservative-controlled authorities, but it is interesting to examine two Labour-controlled authorities. If we examine the figures for the Labour-controlled Leeds council on education and compare them with the figures for the Labour controlled Inner London education authority, some interesting facts result.
Leeds spends £829 per secondary school pupil whereas ILEA spends no less than £1,427 per pupil. According to the point of view put forward by the right hon. Member for Ardwick, hon. Members would expect that the standard and quality of education for ILEA pupils would be higher than for pupils in Leeds. When considering the results of O and A-level examinations in Leeds and ILEA — I am the first to admit that examination results are only one factor in judging the quality of education in schools, but they are an important factor and cannot be ignored — surpisingly, ILEA does not lead by a

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substantial amount, as would be expected if expenditure were the sole criterion. The record of Leeds is substantially better.
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): It is 50 per cent. better.
Mr. Townend: My right hon. Friend tells me it is 50 per cent. better. I knew the level of exam passes was about that figure, and I am grateful for that confirmation. It is significant that Leeds has 50 per cent. better examination results with nearly 50 per cent. less expenditure. The right hon. Member for Ardwick ought to consider that point.
Mr. Ted Graham: Are there not other variables in the comparison, such as the ethnic mix, the cost of teaching and the great range of costs that bears on ILEA in comparison to Leeds? Will the hon. Gentleman be fair when giving statistics?
Mr. Townend: As a northerner, I feel at times that the north's position is not fully appreciated in the south of England. I wonder if the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) has been to Leeds when he talks of ethnic minorities. There are substantial ethnic minorities in Leeds. Leeds is considerably smaller than London and it might well have a not dissimilar percentage of ethnic minorities. Bradford has an even greater ethnic minority. If ILEA operated its expenditure within Government guidelines, additional grants would have been available for it to deal with its social problems.
Mr. Wheeler: Before my hon. Friend leaves the topic of ethnic minorities in London and other cities, does he agree that this Government have greatly increased the special allowance under the section 11 funding that goes to the local education authorities, such as ILEA, to provide extra teaching staff to help deal with those special problems? 'That figure is now £90 million a year.
Mr. Graham: That is the expenditure.
Mr. Townend: I accept those figures.
Without doubt most people will agree that there is a great need for promoting economy and efficiency in local goverment services. The Government's effort to encourage local authorities to take a reasonable and responsible attitude towards expenditure by means of penalties have met with varying success throughout the country. Some Labour-controlled authorities have defied the Government and have lost substantial amounts of grant. Many members of the general public have difficulty in understanding the Government's policy. Unfortunately, the people who have to pay for the irresponsibility of Labour-controlled authorities are the ratepayers. They have to pick up the bill. I am afraid that my constituency is in the Humberside county council area, which is one such authority. In 1981, the Socialists took control of the county council. Their first act, virtually within days of taking power, was to embark on a spending spree. They increased the current year's expenditure by no less than £6 million and levied a supplementary rate of 12p. That expenditure was one of the main reasons why the council overspent on the Government's limits and it resulted in a loss to the ratepayers of £7 million in grant.
That was only the beginning. At the end of the first year, the Labour party levied a rate that was 58p higher than the Conservative party's rate in the previous year. In one year, there was an increase of 61 per cent. Admittedly, the situation this year has not been quite so bad because
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of the public outcry, but the rate has still increased by another 6p and we have suffered a penalty of £9·3 million in lost grant.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the hon. Gentleman give the figures for the reduction in rate support grant from the Government in the same period?
Mr. Townend: I just said that there was a reduction of £9·3 million as a result of the council's irresponsibility.
Our area has high unemployment. One in four men — 25 per cent. — are unemployed in Bridlington. The situation is nearly as bad in other parts of my constituency. Surely such policies are mad. The largest plant in Bridlington, the BP chemical works, is just within my constituency's boundaries. The works general manager sent a letter to the county council after the 61 per cent. increase in the rates. He wrote:
"The unprecedented increase in county council rates in 1982 places a considerable strain on the works' financial stability. The increase in our rates bill of approximately £250,000 comes when we are already making serious losses, which because of fierce competition in the market place cannot be passed onto our customers. We are left … with no alternative but to reduce our fixed costs, of which by far the highest proportion is wages, and already this year we have had to reduce our number of people employed even further than anticipated due directly to this increase."
Another major international firm, Reckitts, announced that its plans to find 100 new jobs for school leavers had to be dropped because of the 61 per cent. increase in the rates. Three weeks ago there was an announcement in the local newspaper that a firm in Hull's shopping centre was closing. Part of my constituency, which consists of Hull's commuter belt, will be affected. The company had previously employed 50 or 60 people but was closing because of the high rates. 'The rates affect everyone, and both large and small businesses. The proprietors of small businesses, in particular, have only two options: either to go out of business, or to cut their costs and reduce the number of jobs available.
Mr. Christopher Murphy: Does my hon. Friend agree that if local authorities, particularly those that are Labour-controlled, took more notice of the value of privatisation they could create more job opportunities for local people? Does my hon. Friend also agree that people would prefer their local authorities to consider privatisation instead of spending ratepayers' money on political propaganda?
Mr. Townend: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that point; I was going to mention privatisation later. Ratepayers are now sick and tired of the burdens that they have to bear. Although many of us—particularly those who have spent years in local government—have a high regard for the desirability of local government autonomy, there is growing public demand for the Government to provide some protection against the profligate and rapacious Labour-controlled county councils.
Many people feel that we should fix a ceiling to rate increases, particularly when industry and commerce, which provide the jobs and carry a significant proportion of the burden, have no vote.
Mr. Allen McKay: Why are Labour councillors re-elected year after year if there is so much public demand for protection? Does not that demand then come from the minority? How can the hon. Gentleman

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explain the fact that the collective figure for the rates in Yorkshire and Humberside is one of the lowest, although the unemployment rate there is one of the highest?
Mr. Townend: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is living in a little bit of a fool's paradise. It is false to say that control of the council does not change hands. At the time of the first election, the Labour party controlled Humber county council. The Tories gained control at the second election and during their period of office they kept rate increases below the rate of inflation. If the Labour party's manifesto for the last county council elections had stated that it intended, in its first year, to increase rates by 61 per cent., it would never have been elected. If the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. McKay) was a betting man, I would have a straight fiver on the proposition that the Labour party will not be re-elected.
I should like to contrast the irresponsibility of the Socialist county council with the responsible attitude of many of the non-Socialist district councils. The little district council of Holderness has a majority not of Conservatives but of Independents. Without too much difficulty it came within the Government's guidelines. It had to work at it, but it got there in the end. East Yorkshire district council, which has a Conservative majority, made a substantial saving by putting out the job of refuse collection to private tender. The work force then came up with quite considerable savings. One wonders how it had been possible to make such savings overnight. The council decided to accept the substantial savings from improvements in productivity offered by the work force and continued to do its own refuse collection.
One of the principal problems is manpower. Many councils have not made any significant effort to reduce manpower. One of the main causes of the massive rate increases in Humberside was that manpower was increased immediately after the Labour party gained power. According to the manpower watch figures for March 1981 to March 1982 — the Labour party started to take on people in May—the number employed increased by no fewer than 1,267. Many cleaners were included in that figure. The county council was formed from several authorities, such as the county borough of Hull, the borough of Grimsby, parts of east, north and west Riding, and parts of north Lincolnshire. Hull had a Labour-controlled council that was dominated by the unions and it was found that as a result of low productivity and high manning levels the cost per square foot for school cleaning was considerably higher than for schools in any other part of the county council area. Hull was thus brought into line, much to the annoyance of those with vested interests. As soon as the Labour party returned to power, it increased manning levels to the previous level and they are now much higher than anywhere else in the county.
Things did not stop there. The following year, in 1982–83, the council took on another 532 staff. Although the number of pupils was falling and was down by 2·9 per cent., the Labour party increased the number of school meals staff by 46 and the number of ancillary workers, including cleaners, by 132. The Labour party always claims that any increase in staff is to improve services to the public. It is interesting to note in the budget statement that other departmental administrative staff were increased by 61. In the current year that party proposes to take on
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yet another 103 people. It is a question not of cutting the work force but of not expanding it. The county council now employs 3,500 more people full-time and part-time than previously.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mr. Murphy) pointed out, there is plenty of scope for making savings without affecting services. Privatisation can provide healthy savings. There isrenttremendous scope for privatisation in Humberside and I am convinced that, when a Conservative majority is returned after the next county council elections, we shall have no difficulty in getting back within Government guidelines. We shall then receive millions of pounds of extra grant which will enable us to make substantial reductions in the rates to benefit large industry and small businesses, and help increase the employment prospects of our people. I totally support the efforts that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made throughout the country. My only sadness is that my poor constituency is in an irresponsible Socialist county council area and not in a responsible Conservative one.
5.30 pm
Mr. Stephen Ross: During the debate we shall hear speech after speech pleading for constituency interests. I do not suppose that my speech will be different, although I wish it were because I hate being dragged down to that level. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) made his usual witty contribution. I trust that he will publish his speeches at some time in the future. We then had the usual robust response from the Secretary of State. But it is always the same old tune. The sooner we get away from this perennial ding-dong, the healthier it will be for local government in Britain.
We have heard no tributes to the quality of local government officers, who continue to maintain high standards despite provocation either from the daftness of the militant Left or the zealots of the Right. We have just heard from the hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend) who believes that privatisation is the only way forward. Why destroy good public services, of which authorities are justly proud, on the altar of privatisation?
The hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) will be interested to know that I recently had a visit from two doyens of the Cowes scene, one of whom was Sir Maurice Laing, who pressed on me the need to do something about what I believe is known as the world's premier yachting port, which is badly in need of new investment. They said to me, "Look, Ross, you must do something about the lack of provision for yachtsmen in Cowes". Sir Maurice Laing drew to my attention the facilities on the coast of France. He told me that he takes his boat down the coast of France and uses the marvellous facilities of the marinas there, which are all provided by the local authorities. I said that, if only the Government would allow it, we would like to do the same thing, but this Government believe that local authorities should not be involved in the provision of such public services. Local authorities are able to do so in France. The French are able to run good public companies, such as the Renault car company, which has been nationalised since 1946. Why cannot we get it into our heads that it is not always right to run public services down?
The Seceretary of State has not given us any guidance on what he will do about rating reform. Presumably, there

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will be no change. There should at the very least be a revaluation, which should be carried out on the basis recommended by Layfield. A revaluation is now 10 years overdue and local authorities are suffering because of that. It is also regrettable that good finance officers are leaving local government because they are being tempted into the private sector by accountants who themselves will shortly be carrying out the audit of local government. Good people are being lost in that way.
We have had no reference to Liberal authorities apart from Liverpool, where Labour and Tory groups continue in an unholy alliance. Labour refuses to take office despite being the largest party. The same has happened in Cannock Chase. Liberals have control, or are in charge of affairs, in eight authorities. I should like to put it on record that the Isle of Wight county council, which I led until today, has increased rates by only 5·5 per cent. The rate is 134p, which is almost the same as Hampshire's. The Medina council has cut its rate by 0·5 per cent.; Adur has made no rate increase at all; Pendle has made no rate increase; Hereford has made no rate increase; Cannock Chase has made no rate increase; Wyre Forest has cut its rate by 2 per cent.; and Liverpool's rate has increasd by 7·7 per cent.
My local authority has avoided a penalty but it will be very difficult during the year to stay on course. On the whole, the new formula does not treat us too badly. It is certainly better than the old one, but there must be something drastically wrong with it when the highest percentage rises in the counties of England are to be found in Cornwall, which is not an overspending authority, where the rate has increased by 14 per cent.
Mr. Allen McKay: Nor a Socialist one.
Mr. Ross: In Surrey, which can hardly claim to be a Socialist authority, the rate has increased by 13·7 per cent. In Buckinghamshire, where, I am told, the leader of the council walked out of a meeting with the former Secretary of State for the Environment, the county council is poised to exceed the target by more than 2 per cent.
The sooner local government is given much greater freedom to raise its own finance, the healthier and better it will be for all concerned. I believe that central Government funding should not exceed 30 per cent. in total. If we could implement Layfield without further prevarication we might get somewhere.
On the whole, local government tries its best to implement central Government diktats, whichever party is in power. Although I accept that a growing number of Labour-controlled councils have behaved irresponsibly, that does not have to be cured by penalties. If one third of an authority is elected annually — this might be the answer to the problem of the hon. Member for Bridlington —the public will do the rest. In 1984 a review is to be carried out. The election of one third of an authority annually is one of the changes that could be introduced. Another change — the sooner it is made the better —should be the return to the all-purpose unitary authority as was originally intended by Redcliffe-Maud, but please deal with the Isle of Wight first, because having three authorities there is driving us all mad. That would save money.
If anyone doubts that the vast majority of local councils have kept within Government guidelines one has only to study the Solace fact sheet, which, unfortunately, runs
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only to 1981. No doubt the record will be even more impressive today. It shows specifically how local government has managed to keep control of spending. At a time when total Government spending increased by more than 100 per cent., local government spending increased by only 75 per cent. The answers are in that fact sheet and I draw the attention of hon. Members to it.
Unexpected problems can push many authorities into severe penalty. In my constituency we have experienced road subsidence. We have had difficulty with the coastline, which is eroding in several places. Although coastal protection is a second tier authority job, roads come under the county council. The expenditure involved in carrying out that work tends to push us over the edge into penalty. We also have packaged chemicals washed ashore. We receive no help from central Government, nothing from insurance and nothing from the Department of Trade to help us with the problem. It is just another charge on the rates.
This year we introduced industrial de-rating for one year, which has cost the county council about £30,000. That may not be big money for some authorities but it is big enough for us. Because we are not an assisted area we must from time to time find industrial incentives to keep firms within the boundaries of the Isle of Wight. I have had to agree to such a scheme with the new owner of Ronson Products. He received a glittering offer to take his production line to the north-east. We have had to offer to reimburse rent and rate payments for three years to maintain production in the constituency. We have also had to meet other charges. Had we not done so, the factory would have closed with the loss of 75 jobs.
We are put in that position because of the unfairness of Government policies. For example, although unemployment in the area stood at 16·3 per cent. a month or so ago, we do not qualify as an assisted area. There is also the unfairness of urban development grants, about which we heard today. I do not begrudge the urban areas their money but if a hotel and a marina were offered to us we would grab them with both hands.
There is also the unfair effect of development agency activities. The Welsh Development Agency is spending a fortune on television advertising night after night. In addition, there is the effect of enterprise zones. In an area of high male unemployment, and high unemployment overall, it is difficult to fight against the incentives that are on offer.
I listened anxiously to the list of cuts presented by the right hon. Member for Ardwick in case he had discovered a chink in my authority's armour. We were spared, and rightly so, because we can fairly claim to have maintained services in spite of all the difficulties. However, I readily accept that the concessionary fare scheme is miserly and that the education budget is inadequate. My greatest concern lies with social services, where I fear that we are failing to keep up with demand. I understand that each year an additional 1,000 people reach retirement in the constituency.
The problems that lie ahead are immense. Surely it would be justifiable to employ more teachers, reduce class sizes and to train more social workers. Too often head teachers find themselves spending time, both in and out of school, dealing with parents' social problems. There are

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many children who come from broken homes or single-parent families. Very often the parents turn to the teachers for help and guidance, and much time is being spent in dealing with these problems.
I hope that we shall have the revenue to staff our new day centre at Ryde. There will be an enormous problem if the present regulations are maintained.
On the other side of the coin, we have the daft way in which the Government introduced much greater housing improvement grants. The money was suddenly thrown at the authorities and provision was made for 90 per cent. roofing grants. I was in hospital when the programme was announced. I learned from watching television that I could qualify for a 90 per cent. roofing grant. When I left hospital I returned to my constituency and told the authority that I wanted such a grant. I explained that I had an old house with a peg-tile roof, that there was no felt under it and that each year a lot of snow came through the roof. The roof was probably put on the house in about 1860. I was told that the grants were discretionary and that the authority was not implementing them as they would cease at the end of the year.
I thought about the grant and bore in mind that it would be described as a put-up job if a Liberal Member in a Liberal-controlled authority were given a 90 per cent. re-roofing grant. I did not apply for a grant and I spent £2,800 on a new roof. I hope that the hon. Member for Woolwich, West will tell his dear wife about that.
The re-roofing scheme has now been extended to March 1984 and queues are forming. Money is being thrown at people. Those who went ahead and re-roofed their properties themselves, including myself, feel a bit done out of what should have been theirs. However, that is how the money has been spent. The Government threw the money at the local authorities, which were not ready to take on the task. They did not have the staff to deal with it. There are now appalling queues of applicants —anything between 400 and 500 — and the authorities cannot deal with them.
When Liberals have been in power they have implemented some desirable reforms. However, they have all too often found themselves balked by the dogma of the traditional parties. A good example is the Liverpool dustmen.
Mr. Budgen: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that eventually he would have put another roof on his house irrespective of the roofing grant? Probably the money would have been wasted on him.
Mr. Ross: I think that anyone is a bit of a fool to look a gift horse in the mouth. I should probably say that about anyone who did not take up the grant. I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's political viewpoint. I think that a 90 per cent. roofing grant is probably too generous. On the other hand, I am not against the Government encouraging people to re-roof their houses. I should have preferred the Government to introduce a lesser grant. I did not want to go through another winter with snow in the roof. In fact, I could have got through because we had no snow this year.
Mr. Budgen: The hon. Gentleman would have paid for the re-roofing himself.
Mr. Ross: I was about to give the example of the Liverpool dustmen. It is one that shows the stupidity of our Tory and Labour opponents. In Liverpool the authority is seeking to privatise cleaning services. The dustmen wanted to submit a tender as a co-operative. They engaged the services of a well-known firm to help them, and they were encouraged to do so by the Liberals. However, the Tory and Labour parties in Liverpool got together and ensured that they would not be allowed to tender. I gather that the National Freight Corporation is likely to have submitted the winning tender. That is an example that should concern the electors on 5 May. Under a Liberal administration electorates have the chance to express their views under a charter of public participation at annual public meetings.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman has spent some time stressing the record of the Liberal authority on the Isle of Wight. I understand that the Liberals have not increased rates on the Isle of Wight this year. However, they raised them by 19 per cent. in 1980 and by 22½ per cent. in 1981. The same authority on the Isle of Wight raised rents in 1980 by 26 per cent. They were increased in 1981 by 41 per cent. Is it not rather misleading the House to suggest that Liberal local authorities are especially careful about the use of resources? The bill for the cuts that are taking place fell on ratepayers in previous years, and it has fallen on council tenants in the past three years.
Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman has not said to which authority he is referring.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Medina borough council.
Mr. Ross: I know that rents have increased by 95p this year. The hon. Gentleman knows that most local authorities have been obliged to increase their rents because of the Government's demands. That is not really within the authority's remit. I have some doubt about the figures that he has quoted but I am willing to give him an exact answer in writing when I have studied them in the Official Report.
I think that a clear answer will be given on 5 May, when the Liberals will again win control on the Isle of Wight. At least we give the electorate the chance to attend annual public meetings. Individuals can attend meetings and speak to petitions when they want to present them.
We are not dogmatic about services. For example, there is the joint provision of sports facilities. In some instances we are prepared to lease out the facilities to private operators — I think that they probably run them much better than the local authority. We have an especially efficient waste collection system, which is still within the public sector. Great savings have been made and the number of vehicles has been reduced from 13 to eight by the effective use of performance reviews. That approach was greatly recommended by Lord Redcliffe-Maud, but for some reason it seems not to have been pursued by many authorities other than those which are Liberal-controlled. We have overhauled the housing repair and maintenance services.
These are all matters of common sense, and clearly problems must be considered on their merits. I remind the House that it was Liverpool that pioneered the joint council/private-builder-for-sale-scheme.
Local government is in an appalling dilemma over Sunday trading. A guideline from the Association of

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District Councils states that it should not take action, but local authorities are being obliged to do so. They are being required by shopkeepers who do not open their premises on Sundays to deal with those who do. A firm in my constituency that trades in garden furniture and other similar supplies is demanding that action be taken to prevent other garden centres opening on Sundays. Some garden centres come under the Medina borough council and others come under South Wight.
The South Wight borough council has about 12 centres within the area that it controls, and it has no intention of taking action to prevent them opening. The Medina borough council finds that it is under a legal obligation, if pressed to do so, to take action against one of the centres that remains open on Sundays. This is absolutely daft, but I am sure that similar instances can be found throughout the country. Home Office guidelines are needed desperately. The Government should say what action they will take on Sunday trading. It is perfectly sensible for garden centres to trade on Sunday afternoons and I think that they should be allowed to stay open. It would be crazy to mount a series of prosecutions of those who do 30 per cent. of their trading on Sundays.
5.49 pm
Mr. John Wheeler: I hope that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) will forgive me if I do not take up the theme of his speech. I shall instead take up the excellent address of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, because I wish to draw attention to the Government's considerable success in widening the scope of housing opportunities during the lifetime of this Parliament.
This morning I was present in Charlotte mews in the north of my constituency with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, otherwise known as the chairman of the Conservative party. We attended the opening of some shared ownership houses, which have provided young married couples in the district with their first opportunity of home ownership within the community in which they were born and in which they have lived for many years. The housing is of a quality that they could not have hoped for previously. The shared ownership scheme has been one of the most successful and attractive propositions to have been encouraged by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. It is also value for money.
Three or four homes are obtained under the shared ownership scheme for the same money as one home under the traditional fair renting procedure. It means that the community as a whole is enriched. Shared ownership—home ownership in the council sector — means that people have a stake in their environment. They belong to it, they and their children contribute to it, they are concerned with the quality of life and the preservation of law and order, with good relationships with their neighbours and a host of things that build up a satisfied and contented society. My right hon. Friend properly drew the attention of the House to those achievements, which the electors in the local government elections outside the Greater London area will be considering on 5 May.
It is often said that proper democratic control over local government spending is best achieved by ensuring that those spending the money are directly accountable through the ballot box to those being taxed. It may be said that the United States was born out of the ideal that there should
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be no taxation without representation. The trouble with the rating system in Britain is that it fails to do that. About 57 per cent. of local authority money arrives at the door of the town hall via the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who raises it by direct taxation, and 24 per cent. of local government finance comes from commercial and industrial ratepayes, including the gas and electricity authorities, the Health Service and the retail food industry.
It is of significance that London Electricity is paying £30 million a year in rates. That cost goes on to the standing charge and into the accounts of commercial and domestic users alike. For the domestic user of gas and electricity, it probably means an extra £12 a year on the standing charge, and that is directly related to the rates. Yet the commercial and industrial ratepayers—the gas, electricity and other big providers of rating sums, the 24 per cent. to which I referred — have no part in the election of local authorities. They have no say in the way the money is raised or how much is raised and no say in the manner of its spending. It is not true, therefore, that local government is democratic. It is not.
Another problem with the rating system is that the impact of inflation in recent times has been such that, combined with the increase in wage inflation, it has driven up the rates to an extremely high, if not unacceptable, level. The Conservative Government have succeeded in containing inflation, now down to 4·6 per cent., and it is hoped that it will go even lower in the months ahead, and that is making a contribution to the control of rates. The mystery is how it is possible for local authorities to put up the rates excessively above the average rate of inflation. Why they should need to do so is a question to which the electors in England and Wales should address themselves in the days ahead.
Mr. Murphy: My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the way in which local authorities, in the view of many people, misspend the ratepayers' money. Does he agree that that is more than a misfortune for firms which move out of the Greater London area because of the high level of rates, only to find themselves in areas which, because they are Labour controlled, are misspending the rates and increasing rather than decreasing the numbers of local authority employees? If they were decreasing those numbers, they would help not only to keep the rates down but to keep the firms there.
Mr. Wheeler: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Large businesses in the city of Westminster are deciding to move out of central London because of the high level of rates. The prudent ones look to areas where Conservatives are traditionally in control. They move their offices and businesses to those areas because they know that they can look for stability and fairness in projected levels of rate increases in the years ahead. That is important to them, because they must remain competitive with overseas companies, and they have a duty to their employees to maintain their businesses and ensure that their employees have a future.
When we further consider the concept of democracy in local government it is necessary to look at the abomination of the precepting authorities. It is of great significance that in this debate we have heard that the three precepting authorities which cause so many difficulties are the Greater London council; its committee, the Inner London education authority; and West Midlands county council.

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The truth is that those authorities are not democratic. Their councillors do not go to the hustings and account directly for the money that they spend. They are able to collect the rates money through the other local authorities, and the councillors of those other authorities — in London, the 32 London boroughs — are responsible directly to the electors for raising that money. It is a profoundly unsatisfactory state of affairs. It is now urgent for the Government to reconsider the role of the precepting authorities. If local government is to be maintained, it should be local in character, democratic and accountable to local people. It should be organised on the basis that local people can have a direct say in the running of their affairs. That is not the case now.
Mr. Allan Roberts: The hon. Gentleman has made a good case for democratising the Health Service and water authorities. Is he advocating that those bodies should also be run by democratically elected councillors?
Mr. Wheeler: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Health Service receives its finance from central Government, that it is not funded locally through the rating system, and that this House is responsible for the high and increasing standards of service in and increasing expenditure on the NHS. It is not a matter for local government control.
Mr. Roberts: What about the water authorities?
Mr. Wheeler: If we consider the precepting authorities, we see that the electors do not find much favour with those bodies and do not take part in local government elections. In the May 1981 GLC elections about 43 per cent. of the eligible electorate in the Greater London area turned out to vote. Sadly, 41 per cent. of the votes cast were for the Labour party and just under 40 per cent. were for the Conservatives. The electors of London believed then that the leadership of a Labour GLC would be under the control of Mr. McIntosh, who is now translated to the other place, and they were surprised to find after a few hours that the leadership had been seized by the Left wing of the Labour party and Mr. Livingstone, and they have subsequently inflicted on the people of London one of the worst kinds of local government institutions that has been known in the history of this country.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman was making a case for ending the precept arrangements that the GLC currently enjoys. Is he advocating the hiring of more bureaucrats by the GLC to send out additional rate demands over and above those sent out by the boroughs?
Mr. Wheeler: Far from advocating an increase in the bureaucracy of the GLC, I am suggesting to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that there should be no GLC at all. It no longer has a function. Since it was created in 1963—in those days the Labour party was opposed to its creation — it has increasingly lost the services that were given to it. The ambulance service was passed to the National Heath Service, water is now part of the Thames water authority and housing is now with the 32 London boroughs. The "doing" functions of the GLC are London Transport, where it has failed miserably to provide an efficient and cost-effective service, and education in the inner London boroughs. What is needed is an abolition of
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the giant precepting county councils, such as the GLC, the West Yorkshire and Merseyside county councils. They are remote, and they are not democratic. They do not serve the best interests of local people.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: I thought that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) was going to draw a parallel between Andrew McIntosh and Ken Livingstone, who now leads the London Labour party, and the present leadership of the national Labour party.I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that, win or lose, the Labour party is most likely to change its leader. It might be led either by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) or by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman). I am sure that if the choice were put to the electorate, there would be the same effect at the national election as there would have been if Mr. Livingstone had led the London Labour party at the last GLC election.
Mr. Wheeler: I am indebted to my hon. Friend for his intervention. In the unlikely event of the electorate favouring the Labour party in the general election, it could not know who would be the leader of that party, and presumably the Prime Minister. Would it be a case of Mr. McIntosh and Mr. Livingstone again? One might go further. If Mr. Livingstone succeeds in his ambition to obtain the nomination for the constituency of Brent, East, it could be Mr. Livingstone. Those are matters where I feel that speculation, however entertaining, is not part of the debate.
Some hon. Members have already referred to the Inner London education authority. It is the most expensive education authority in the country. I know from my experience of looking at other education authorities, such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, that those great cities have a similar range of problems to those in inner London. The difference is that in inner London the authority spends upwards of £1,500 per pupil, whereas authorities in other great cities spend between £700 and £800 per pupil, generally for a better standard of education. What is going on in inner London to justify that increased expenditure? It is clear from an examination of the ILEA's records that proportionally more is being spent on bureaucracy and administration than on the provision of teachers teaching in schools. I am told that there are now more bureaucrats in the ILEA area than school teachers. I am further told that no fewer than 500 of the ILEA teachers never actually teach in schools but are away at courses, conferences and other gatherings.
The ILEA is not directly accountable to the parents and the people of inner London. It is too large and remote. The Westminster city council provides most of the money for the ILEA, but there is only one councillor representative on that authority to speak for the whole of the city of Westminster, the principal funder of the ILEA. That is profoundly unsatisfactory.
One question that should concern the House and, I hope, the Government is whether such an authority can be justified in future and whether it would be better to do as many of the Conservative inner London boroughs request — to be their own education committees. Certain matters would need to be resolved if that were to be approved. I can think of two immediately. The first relates to special schools and the second to higher education establishments. Both those important questions could be

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resolved if the councillors of the inner London boroughs were allowed to consider their future and how those special situations could best be dealt with in the interests not only of the children and young people who attend those special schools and education establishments but of the staff who work in them and those who foot the bills — the ratepayers.
Mr. Kinnock: Is the hon. Gentleman aware — he must be—that on three occasions in recent years reports inspired or carried out by Conservatives have offered much the same critique of the ILEA as he has and that on every occasion their recommendations have been turned down, even by the hon. Gentleman's Government? Secondly, is he aware that in the ILEA area the authority and staff have to deal with a greater diversity of cultural backgrounds among the children than in any city in the world, not just in Britain? The teachers out of the classrooms who are undertaking courses are nearing—not meeting—the recommendations of the James report for the whole country, and that report was made in the 1970s. If the ILEA were to spend what the Government say that it should spend, it would break the law, in the view of a responsible authority, Mr. Peter Newsam, the former chief executive.
Mr. Wheeler: I shall pursue the hon. Gentleman's points as best I can. None of the studies that have been undertaken by members of the Conservative party into the ILEA and its future has been ruled out of court permanently. All those options, in a free society looking for what is in the best interests of all the people, must remain under consideration. In the past year or so, even after some of the reports had been made, some of the inner London boroughs have requested a review of the matter. The request has come from the very people who are dissatisfied with the services that the ILEA provides. If local government is to be local, it should be accountable to the man in the street. Large authorities, such as ILEA, are not accountable to the man in the street. One councillor has to represent the whole city of Westminster on the ILEA. How can it be acceptable for one person to have to speak for a great city, such as the city of Westminster?
The hon. Gentleman's second point was about the nature and diversity of the community in central London. I need no lessons from the hon. Gentleman on that. I serve the House as Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. I have visited the big cities of this country and of other parts of the western world, such as New York, Chicago, New Orleans and Atlanta. I have seen how the people of similar communities — often immigrant communities—are brought into society, even though they may not have a command of the English language. I have seen other educational systems and authorities at work. It is not true to say that ILEA has to grapple with a situation which is unique either in the United Kingdom or in the western world.
The Government recognise the problem and have strengthened and improved the special grant arrangements under the Local Government Act. Section 11 provides for funding for extra teaching staff for education authorities such as ILEA which have particular problems. The funding has been increased, and the scope of section 11 extended. The ILEA cannot get off the hook on that basis. The figures show that an excessive proportion of money goes into bureaucracy and administration — far more than in any similar education authority in the country.
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I am concerned about the impact of rates on those who live in London. In the city of Westminster the average domestic ratepayer will pay £821·99 in 1983–84. The Government's rate relief will reduce that by £139·12. That leaves a net payment of £682·87. Of that, the overall cost of providing the services of the city council is a mere £99, although the city council is the doing authority, concerned with housing, street cleaning, refuse, environmental services and all the services that the people enjoy. Where does the rest of the money go? The GLC grabs £211 of it and the Inner London education authority snatches £408. The Metropolitan police take £61, but no one in my constituency would begrudge them that money. Because the city of Westminster is in the inner London equalisation pool, it has to pay £41 to other inner London boroughs.
The problem is that three quarters of the rates that my constituents pay go to the precepting authorities — the GLC aand ILEA. I wish that I could report to the House that the GLC spends that money in an acceptable way, but it does not. Under the Local Government Act, about £57 million is available to the GLC for expenditure on grants.
I shall tell the House about some of those grants and the anger that has been aroused in central London as a consequence of that expenditure. Some hon. Members will find the experience unpalatable, but the truth deserves to be heard. How is it justifiable to spend £35,000 to celebrate the Karl Marx centenary? As I understand it, Karl Marx produced a political theory which, unhappily, has been adopted by some nations with the consequence that millions of people have been done to death. It would have been just as sensible for the GLC to spend £50,000 on celebrating the birthday of Hitler, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
The GLC is to spend £630,000 on the Waltham Forest Police Monitoring Group, which is opposed to the local police, although I understand that the people of Waltham Forest are in favour of the prevention of crime and welcome the appearance of more police officers on the beat in their neighbourhood in an attempt to stop crime. A mere fleabite in GLC terms—£800—goes to Babies Against the Bomb. No less than £16,000 goes to the Irish Women's Group. Why cannot the Irish women be part of British society without special funding? For some reason, Women in Greenwich receives £21,000. Why? The List is endless.
It is worse than that. One of the most undesirable developments in local government in recent times has been the desire and commitment of the GLC to spending ratepayers' money — the money that ordinary people have to work for — on straightforward political propaganda. Hundreds of thousands of pounds is being spent on a political propaganda sheet—The Londoner—which contains naked and unashamed political propaganda of the worst and most shoddy kind.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds is spent on propaganda against the police service in London and against the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. The House is responsible for considering the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. That is not a matter of concern to any of the 600 councils in England and Wales, least of all the GLC, which has no responsibility at all for the police service in London. It is for this House to decide whether the Bill is what the country wants, and to approve or amend it.
It is intolerable that the money of my constituents and of businesses in inner London should be stolen from them

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under this precepting rating system to be spent in such a way. That is one of the ugliest of political developments of modern times. It is profoundly unsatisfactory that a council should set itself up to be in opposition to the elected Government and Parliament. That state of affairs should be roundly condemned by everyone, including Opposition Members.
Local government should be what it was intended to be in 1888, when county councils were first established. Councillors in those days saw themselves as acting independently — often not as members of a political party — as representatives and servants of the local community, discharging services passed down from this House to the local authority as part of the process of delegation. Those councillors saw themselves not as squanderers of ratepayers' money but as servants of the local community.
Local government these days has become remote, too large and bureaucratic. Sadly, some local authorities—notably the precepting authorities — have abandoned ideals, such as fairness, in the straightforward pursuit of narrow political dogma and interests. That is against the interests of the people of this country, and, above all, of the ratepayers who have to provide the money.
6.20 pm
Mr. Allan Roberts: I follow the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) only to say that in my view it is the duty of an elected authority to act according to the manifesto on which it is elected. Whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not, in this day and age local elections are determined on political lines. People vote for Labour or Conservative candidates, and in some strange areas of the country they vote for SDP or Liberal candidates.
Nothing is worse than councillors being elected on a manifesto and then ignoring it, and nothing is more unwise for politicians here than to suggest that local government should not be political and that local elections should not be conducted on political lines. At national and local level, that is what our democracy is about—a polarisation of issues and principles which I believe is adequately exemplified in the two-party system. If the electors want independent councillors who, in my view, act in a Right-wing way but who are independent of any political party, they have to opportunity to vote for them in local elections. In many parts of the country a large number of candidates calling themselves independents stand for election and are defeated.
The manifesto now being implemented by the Labour group on the GLC is that which was placed before the electorate in the GLC elections and had nothing to do with the identity of the leader of the Labour group at that time.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: When I read the Labour manifesto for the last GLC election, I saw no reference to money being given to the Karl Marx centenary or Babies Against the Bomb and even in my own borough I saw no reference to money being given to Women in Greenwich. I should be grateful to know whether the hon. Gentleman read the manifesto more carefully or whether these were new proposals hidden from the electorate.
Mr. Roberts: Specific organisations were not listed, but the manifesto stated that there would be an entirely
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new approach to the giving of grants. The same is true of political parties fighting national elections. The Conservative manifesto at the last general election nowhere mentioned purchasing Trident, but anyone reading the manifesto would realise that that was the kind of activity that the Conservatives would get up to if they were elected. Exactly the same applies to the GLC.
Mr. Wheeler: The hon. Gentleman represents a division of the city of Liverpool. Why is no Labour Member from a London constituency present to explain the excesses of the GLC?
Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. I do not represent any part of the city of Liverpool, although I intend to refer to it. I represent Bootle, in the area of Sefton metropolitan district council, a Conservative-controlled authority to which I shall also refer. I think that I am entitled to say something about London, however, as I pay rates to the borough of Tower Hamlets and thus to the precepting authorities, the GLC and ILEA. Indeed, I paid my bill just this week.
The hon. Member for Paddington said that the present system of local government was too remote, too large and not accountable. I agree with some of his comments. It was a Conservative Government who established the present two-tier system of local government. This led to conflict, unnecessary complication and bureaucracy not just in the metropolitan areas, selected by the hon. Gentleman beacause those county councils are Labour controlled, but throughout the country wherever the two-tier system exists.
I favour getting rid of two-tier local government, but in so doing we must ensure that all the services now controlled by any tier of local government—as well as many local government services that have been hived off by successive Governments, especially Conservative Governments, to non-elected undemocratic bodies such as area health authorities and water authorities — are democratically controlled and accountable. The hon. Gentleman carefully ignored my point about water authorities. Water rates are paid locally, but the people running the boards are elected by no one. Indeed, legislation has recently been pushed through to make those boards still more undemocratic and to remove local authority representation from them.
The main theme of the debate has been the juxtaposition of the need for local authorities to provide decent services —education, health, social services, housing, construction and improvement work to help people in need—and the attempt to levy reasonable rates to provide those services. Traditionally, until the Government's local government legislation, in local councils and at local elections there was a sensible debate between Labour and Conservative parties about the level of services required to meet the needs of the area and the rate levels to be set. Local elections were about the balance to be struck between the level of rates and the level of services and the electors made up their minds on that basis. In general, Labour-controlled councils had better services to meet the needs of those dependent on them—of whom there are now far more than there used to be—but higher rates, whereas Tory-controlled authorities had worse services but lower rates. The arguments in local government elections were about issues of that kind. Generally

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speaking, too, successive Labour and Conservative Governments provided about 60 per cent. of local government expenditure through rate support grant.
Mr. John Heddle: The hon. Gentleman is talking arrant nonsense about local democracy in council elections. Most of the rate revenue of local authorities comes from industrial and commercial ratepayers who have no voice and no vote, no say and no sanction in the way in which profligate councils spend the money.
Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman is certainly wrong to say that most of the revenue is from that source, but if he and his party feel so strongly about the way in which the rating system operates we may look forward to publication of the long-heralded reforms that the Prime Minister has been promising for 10 or 15 years but which are still no nearer.
Until recently, the people who can vote in local elections would decide through the ballot box what type of council and therefore what level of services and what level of rates they wanted. We also have the system of rate support grant which used to take account of the needs of different areas. There was a needs element in rate support grant for local authorities such as the Inner London education authority, Manchester council, Liverpool council and areas with more children needing school meals, one-parent families and elderly people who depend on services. The rate support grant system used to provide extra grant to relieve the burden on industry and others.
Most of the time, rate support grant amounted to about 60 per cent. of local government expenditure. It seemed that if we were to have a rating system at all, that was a reasonably fair one. Under this Government, that system has been completely altered. It ill becomes Conservative Members to talk about democracy and accountability in local government when the very nature of local government elections has been destroyed.
It is no longer possible to go to the ballot box and determine the level of rates and what services should be provided for one's children, the elderly or people in housing need. Everything is now determined by central Government, computer civil servants and politically motivated Ministers in the Department of the Environment. They dictate what rate increases will be allowed and what levels of rates can be levied by each authority. They also control the level of services in each local authority.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) said, the Government invented the ideal imaginary local authority. My right hon. Friend called it Heseltinia. I suppose that it is just a Kingdom now as we have a new Secretary of State. They invented a model local authority which could be fed into the Department of the Environment's computer. It has just the right number of elderly, just the right number of children and just the right number of one-parent families. Out of that model comes a pattern for every local authority in the country, no matter how different they may be. The instructions then go out and central Government grant is cut. The instructions dictate the level of rate and rent increases and cuts in services. Any democratically elected local authority that fails to conform with those instructions is penalised dramatically.
The consequences of cutting public expenditure by reducing Government grant to local authorities and forcing
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them to cut services are dramatic for the people who receive local authority services. Today's debate is not simply about local government cuts; it is about the consequences of the cuts in the services which are provided for the communities.
The Secretary of State said that if people want to keep the rates down they should vote Conservative on 5 May. Does that mean that if the Conservatives are returned at the local elections the Government will increase block grant and rate support grant allocations? The largest contributing factor to rate increases is the cut in Government grant. If inflation increases, every local authority must increase the rates to maintain the same level of services. If inflation increases by 10 per cent., local authorities must increase rates to maintain the same level of services in the following year unless rate support grant is increased to keep pace with that inflation.
Rate support grant has not kept pace with inflation—it has been cut during the past three years when inflation has been pretty high. As a result, local authorities have faced two options. They can either cut services or increase rates. Most have tried to do a balancing act and saved or cut where they can — they do not want to and the decisions have been painful—and increased rates to save some of the services. However, they have increased rates at their peril because the Government tell them that if they increase their rates to save services the Government will take even more grant away.
The metropolitan borough of Sefton is the lowest-rated metropolitan council in the country. It is Conservative controlled and should be a model for the Government. In its budget report, it said:
"The Government has issued expenditure guidance to local authorities for 1983/1984 and a forecast of individual expenditure targets for each authority. The purpose of these targets is to make clear to each authority the contribution it is being asked to make to achieve the overall reduction in the real level of local authority expenditure which the Government are seeking as part of the general plan for reducing public expenditure. Sefton's target is £87·884 million at out-turn prices. Sefton's expenditure in 1983/84 at out-turn prices i.e. including contingency is estimated to be £88·912 million. This means that Sefton will be exceeding the Government's target by about £1 million."
That is Tory Sefton, the lowest-rated metropolitan borough in the country. It spends £168·98 per head of population on education. The average is £212. Sefton spends only £37 per head of population on social services whereas the average is £47. Even Liberal-Tory Liverpool spends £60·79. Sefton has Southport, which is a holiday resort, in its area, yet it spends a mere £3 per head of population on pools, sports and recreation centres. The average is £5·70. Knowsley, which is not exactly a holiday area, spends £8·53 and Newcastle spends £12·76. On housing, other than the housing revenue account, Sefton spends £7·27 per head of population, whereas the average is £12·08. Sefton is one of the meanest councils in the world but it will exceed Government targets by about £1 million. The council's report continues:
"The Government are 'proposing to reinforce targets by harsher penalties. Even authorities such 'as Sefton who are spending below the GREA level could suffer penalties if they exceed the Government target."
Sefton is getting round the problem. The local authority, with which the Secretary of State for Education and Science has discussed voucher schemes and which is so Right wing that it makes the Prime Minister look like a Communist, is proposing to get round the Government's legislation.

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The report continues:
"In order to protect the best interests of the Council and to promote a more flexible approach towards recording expenditure in response to Government targets and Block Grant penalties, it may be helpful to create a 'Reserve and Repair Fund' which would be operated with full regard to proper accounting principles."
That is a method to get round its own Government's proposals to penalise it.
Mr. R. B. Cant: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in the trade, that is now known as cosmetic accountancy?
Mr. Roberts: Yes. It happens in several local authorities because it is difficult for a totalitarian Government to control democratically elected local authorities that happen to be responsive to the people in their areas, even when they are Conservative authorities that wield the axe with as much relish as the Secretary of State for the Environment.
The report also points out that the Government have reduced the grant of non-spendthrift Conservative Sefton from 56·1 per cent. to 52·8 per cent. In 1979, under a Labour Government, it was 62 per cent. It should be remembered that Sefton includes inner city areas such as Bootle, which needs massive amounts of public expenditure. When one considers that, in my area, 30 per cent. of active males are unemployed and 48 per cent. of properties in the inner city are still owned by private landlords, lack basic amenities and are unrepaired, one can see the need for more public expenditure.
The consequences of Sefton metropolitan district council's policies on the community will be extensive. Charges for amenities such as parks and open spaces will increase, car parking charges will be introduced, and charges at the municipal golf course will rise. It has closed a swimming pool, shortened the season of Bootle stadium, reduced maintenance provision for swimming baths and increased charges for them. It has closed down swimming pools at primary schools, in an area where children drown in the Leeds-Liverpool canal. It intends to amalgamate 12 infant and 12 junior schools, and to reduce provision for cleaners at schools and colleges, which will affect 50 part-time staff. It will cease to provide transport to take children to swimming lessons, and cease to employ two full-time and six part-time swimming instructors. It has closed a special school for the handicapped in Bootle, and the pupils have been transferred to a school 20 miles away. It has reduced some courses and abandoned others at colleges of further education in Bootle, and has increased fees for adult education centres, while closing some. It will no longer provide school milk except for medical cases. School meal charges will be increased, and the style of catering will be changed, which means that children will get less for the same money, and the services of two youth advisers are to be withdrawn.
Part-time libraries will be closed, mobile library services reduced by nearly 50 per cent., fines increased, newspapers and periodicals cancelled, record library charges increased and the hours of opening for libraries reduced.
Cuts in social services will affect people in need, for whom Conservative Members claim to care. The council will delete six trainee posts in the social services department, reduce food provision in children's homes,
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increase charges for day nurseries, increase meal charges at day centres and adult training centres, and introduce a £1 per person a week minimum charge for domestic help for the elderly and handicapped and an adjustment of the maximum charge. It will increase charges for meals on wheels and luncheon club meals, reduce provision for aids and adaptations for the handicapped, increase the rental charge for telephones, and reduce the provision of new telephones for community services and holidays.
Those are just some of the cuts that the Tory-controlled council has imposed on the people of Bootle because of its policy of keeping down rates and because of the massive cuts in the rate support grant imposed, even on that authority, by central Government. It is said that local authorities squander money, but if they spent money on those services, not a penny of it would be squandered.
The Secretary of State seemed to praise Liverpool in his opening speech. That is not surprising, because there is a mutual admiration society between the Liverpool Liberals and the Conservative party. Sir Trevor Jones asked the Prime Minister not to remove_ the previous Secretary of State for the Environment as Minister for Merseyside, and the present Secretary of State holds Liverpool up as a paragon of virtue compared with Manchester, which surprises me. The Secretary of State may not know about Manchester, but he should know Liverpool because he has visited it frequently. At one time Liverpool was to twin with Hanoi. Both cities look as though they have been bombed, but the difference is that Hanoi has been bombed whereas Liverpool has been set about by the Conservative-Liberal coalition that runs the local authority.
Last year the Liberal slogan in Liverpool was, "Marxists out, Liberal in," and the party lost seats. This year the approach is softer and the slogan is, "Love Liverpool, vote Liberal". Anyone who loves Liverpool will not vote Liberal, if he considers what the Liberals have done to the city. The Labour party is receiving a good response on the doorsteps in Bootle with our slogan, which is, "Do you want Bootle to be run like Liverpool? Vote for the SDP-Liberal alliance if you do." No one wants his area run like Liverpool.
The figures that I quoted earlier were accurate—there is a massive housing waiting list—and were provided by the chief executive of the council. The figures quoted by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) were provided by the Liberal chairman of housing, and are sure to be wrong. The hon. Gentleman must be careful about praising the Liberal party now that he has left Liverpool, because I believe that it is strong in the area to which he has moved.
The consequences of the Liberal-Conservative alliance in Liverpool have been devastating. It was the so-called home of community politics, but the Liberal council has stopped community politics, and all expenditure on community workers and community projects in which the council was involved. An organisation that becomes involved in community politics and that criticises the council will no longer be supported by the council.
The council also closed Croxteth comprehensive. If ever a community rose up against cuts, demanded that its school should continue, and fought on the basis of parental choice, it has been Croxteth, where the Liberal-Tory council, with the approval of the Secretary of State for Education and Science, closed a much-needed community school. The parents and children have kept open that school, supported by the trade union movement in the

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area, and dedicated teachers are now teaching children who will sit 0-levels, but who were told before the council threatened to close the school that they were not fit to sit or to pass exams. It is a wonderful example of a community showing a council that it wants a decent education service and that it will not put up with cuts imposed by a Conservative Government or a Liberal council.
The council, with Liberals and Conservatives voting together, has decided to close the welfare rights centre in Liverpool, but such a centre is badly needed in Liverpool, with its high unemployment. A campaign has been started to keep open the centre. The city council has also waged a campaign against the Merseyside county council unemployment centre, which is helping the unemployed in many ways. However, it is a community activity and is opposed by the Liverpool Liberals.
Closures of community facilities in Toxteth were going ahead apace just before the riots there. However, in the inner part of Liverpool 50 per cent. of the population is unemployed. During the past three years the number of people claiming supplementary benefit on Merseyside has increased by 31 per cent., and the number of those claiming unemployment benefit has increased by 91 per cent. The area needs public expenditure. It depends upon the services provided by local authorities, and the local authorities need Government backing to provide those services. However, all that they have received are palliatives. Money has been provided for urban aid, for inner city partnerships, and for a flower festival, but those are drops in the ocean compared with the massive amount of rate support grant that has been taken away from Merseyside during the past three years.
I conclude by giving some figures that show how much rate support grant Merseyside has lost. In 1981–82, Knowsley received £38 million in rate support grant, but in 1983–84 it will receive only £33 million. In 1981–82, Liverpool received £115·4 million, but in 1983–84 it will receive £103 million. In 1981–82, St. Helens received £33 million, but in 1983–84 it will receive £32 million. In 1981–82, Sefton—the famous authority about which I have told the House—received £47 million, but in 1983–84 it will receive £40 million, which is a cut of £7 million by the Conservative Government whom it supports. The grant for Wirral will be reduced from £55 million to £50 million. Those figures are at 1981–82 prices, and they show how those who depend on local government services, such as the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and children, are being starved by the Government of the money that they need to live decent lives and to rebuild their communities.
6.50 pm
Mr. John Cartwright: Like other Members who have served in local government and who look back with some nostalgia to their time in town and county halls, I always feel sad when I see that local authority debates have the power to empty this Chamber to the extent that they do. Looking round the Chamber, one would hardly imagine that local elections are to take place in most of the country next week.
This lack of interest reflects the fact that the institution of local government is losing public confidence. It is under pressure from two directions. First, it is under pressure from the growing centralisation of control by national Government. That inevitably reduces the ability to
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introduce local initiatives and local enterprise, which in my view are the heart-blood of local government. Secondly, local government is threatened by the activities of some Labour councillors who seem to act as though the local authority is merely the extension of their Labour party apparatus. I believe that both those trends are undermining public trust and faith in local government.
Three things bother me about central Government's approach to local government as we have seen it develop over the past few years. First, we have seen a deliberate switch in paying the costs of local services from central taxation to local rates. The proportion of relevant local council expenditure met by the rate support grant in 1980–81 was 61 per cent. It fell to 59 per cent. in the following year. In 1982–83 it was 56 per cent. In the current year we are told it will be 52·8 per cent., but many of us believe that penalties will reduce it below 50 per cent.
I want to see less dependence by local government on central Government grants. I think that we ought to try to wean local government from its dependence on the great cash register in the sky, but that can be done only by providing a sensible viable and alternative source of local government finance. Cutting grants and not providing an alternative source of finance merely adds to the strain on the rating system, and many of us recognise that ratepayers are now being asked to do too much in terms of meeting the burden of council spending.
Secondly, we have seen a switch in the allocation of Government resources away from the hard-pressed inner urban areas. For example, in the current year's rate support grant settlement we are using the revised population figures based on the 1981 census. That means that in many of the inner urban areas the population has fallen. As a result, the rateable value spread over a smaller population produces a higher figure of rateable value per head of population, and that, magically, suggests that the area has become richer, and as a result it loses grant. Everyone with experience of inner city areas knows that as the population decreases problems tend to increase. The people who leave the inner city tend to be the young, the skilled, the articulate, the physically strong. Those who are left behind tend to be disproportionately the elderly, the unskilled, the disabled and families with problems. Unemployment, which is always much worse in the inner urban area, accentuates and aggravates these social problems. So the need is to spend more, not less, in that inner urban situation.
I very much welcome what the Secretary of State has done in an attempt to attract more private investment into the inner cities. It is a step in the right direction, but it does not reduce the need for social service spending to attack the real hard-core problems of the inner city areas. I think that most experts would agree that in inner London, for example, the social service grant-related expenditure assessments woefully understate the social needs of inner London.
I do not want to intervene in the somewhat detailed debate we have had about ILEA's performance. It is not for me, as an inner London parent or Member of Parliament, to defend everything that ILEA does, but it does seem extremely odd that for three years in succession ILEA has not got a penny piece of central Government grant. That means that taxes paid by my constituents help to educate children in other parts of this country, but not

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one penny piece goes towards the cost of educating their own children. That strange situation is the result of the Government's approach to local authority spending.
The third thing that I resent about the Government's approach is this complex spider's web of financial control that they built as a means of controlling local council spending. Each piece of legislation, each successive rate support grant settlement, has tightened the screw, and we now have a complicated system of targets and penalties which is quite incomprehensible to the public and, I think, even to many in local government. They certainly do not act as though they understand how it operates.
I believe that that is bad for local democracy. I believe that, if we go on with a system of imposed targets calculated on the basis of complicated mathematical formulae, instead of local judgment about local needs and priorities, the whole purpose of local government will eventually be called into question.
I also quarrel with the idea of the penalty system, because I think that makes local government less accountable. When every pound of spending costs the ratepayers £l·60, because of the loss of Government grant, it is impossible for the average citizen to compare the cost of the service with the benefits that flow from it. Furthermore, Government interference provides a perfect excuse for inefficient or wasteful councils to increase rates and simply say, "It is not our fault. The wicked Government cut our grant. We are not responsible."
As has already been pointed out, it is all very well for the Government to talk about penalties being applied to local authorities, but the penalties fall not on the local authorities; they fall on the luckless ratepayers. The Government's response is that ratepayers are voters, too; but many voters are not direct ratepayers, and that simply confuses the whole situation. Many people who are benefiting from the services or whose rates are paid by supplementary benefit are simply not involved in the business of paying the bill at the end of the day.
One of the most frightening statistics that I have seen lately in connection with this argument is that showing the steady fall in the percentage of rate income coming from those who actually vote in local elections. The most recent figures put it as low as 8 per cent. of rate income paid by people who actually vote in elections. That is something that we ought to be concerned about if we want to increase the accountability of local authorities.
I would also point out — as have other London Members who have spoken in this debate—that it is not much good saying to us that ratepayers have votes, because in London we have votes only once every four years. We had our vote last year and we are paying for it this year, and we will pay for it, I suspect, the year after and the year after that. Magically, in the fourth year, when the electors have the opportunity to vote—I would put my money on this —rate demands in London will be much lower than in the preceding period. That is a fact of life which applies whoever is in control, but I think that it undermines the force of the Government's argument that those who have to pay rates have the opportunity of changing the composition of their council.
The London borough of Greenwich—my own local authority—has not in the past been noted for massive rate rises, and it has always provided sensible government whichever party has been in control. We have this year a
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rate rise of 29·8 per cent. We have achieved the doubtful distinction of tying with the London borough of Islington in having the highest rate rise in the whole of Greater London. Our council says, "It is not our fault. It is the fault of the wicked Government," Every problem that comes to it, whether it be window frames that do not fit or the lack of transport for the disabled, the response is the same—"It is not us, guy, it is all down to the Government." That is the sort of excuse that we get every time.
I do not dispute that the Government have set spending targets in Greenwich which are too low to meet the problems, but I think that the Labour-controlled council has made a difficult situation worse by the whole range of low priority spending with which we in London have become familiar. For example, there is the council newspaper. There is nothing new about council newspapers—we have all had them in the past—but they have been produced by council staff and have provided a reasonable view of what is going on in the town hall. Our council newspaper is produced not by council staff but by journalists from Tribune, who are moonlighting on a very well paid basis at the ratepayers' expense.
We have had all the nonsense of contributions to the London Labour leaders' organisation, political propaganda on the dustcarts, and all the rest of it, and now we are beginning to see what this means in terms of employees of the local authority.
We are now told that there will have to be a 10 per cent. increase in the borough council's work force to carry through the Labour party's manifesto. An officers' report published this week says:
"The precise scale of manpower growth is still being calculated as service committees consider their plans but is certain to exceed 500."
Apparently they will be white collar local government jobs. In passing, I noticed that Mr. Ken Livingstone made some trenchant comments to NALGO against increasing white collar jobs in local government, but apparently that is what we shall see in Greenwich.
The council's community affairs committee is considering a package of 29 new jobs, costing £173,000. It includes a health worker, education workers, 12 workers to cater for the needs of ethnic minorities, three information assistants, a grants officer — that sounds ominous—a police adviser, a women's adviser and five administrative posts. We are warned that the extra staff will need more office accommodation and additional car parking space.
That is a strange sense of priorities in an inner London borough. My constituents point regularly to the problems that they think ought to be tackled. There is the problem of lengthy delays in council house repairs. Pavements are left broken and dangerous for weeks. Council houses and flats are left empty month after month awaiting repairs. Children's play areas have been shut because there are no staff or no equipment. Those are the bread and butter problems that local government ought to be tackling, rather than the trendy Left-wing projects so beloved of the new leadership in the London Labour party.
Mr. Allan Roberts: One of the trendy proposals mentioned by the hon. Gentleman was the employment of workers to deal with the ethnic communities and the problems of racialism in Greenwich. Is the hon.

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Gentleman opposed to that or to the scale of the council's proposal? Does he believe that there is a need for such essential work in his constituency?
Mr. Carthwright: I am a vice-president of the Greenwich Council for Racial Equality. I have worked with and supported that body for a long time. I shall watch with interest to see what the 12 additional workers to cater for the needs of ethnic communities do. If there is a problem, I am in favour of tackling it, but no one has yet demonstrated to me what these workers will do or even that there is a job for them to tackle. That is not how we should approach these important proposals.
Experience such as that underlines the need for a new approach to local government finance. I believe that we must have a closer link between voting and paying for services. We must make local councillors more directly accountable for their spending decisions.
Three things can be done to achieve that desirable end. First, we must reduce local government dependence on central Government grant. Secondly, we should transfer the non-domestic rate to central Government. It is a matter of accident whether local authorities have a large or small level of non-domestic rate. Many councils which increase their rates simply to get more money are pushing out much needed employment from the hard-pressed inner urban areas. By taking that tax into central coffers, Government would be able to decide where it was sensible to have a lower rather than a higher level of non-domestic rate.
Thirdly, we should introduce a system of local income tax which would more fairly share out the burden of paying for local services. Were the tax deduction clearly shown on one's pay slip, it would concentrate the mind wonderfully and make people more interested in what went on in their town halls.
We should not be surprised at the current state of local government finance. The Layfield report in 1976 predicted that we would have creeping centralisation by default. It stated:
"We believe that there is bound to be an increasing shift of power to the centre, but in circumstances in which responsibility for expenditure and local taxation will continue to be confused".
That is just what we have. We cannot continue debating local government finance for decade after decade. We must grasp the nettle. By reforming local government finance, we could breathe new life into local government and make it responsive and accountable to local people.
7.5 pm
Mr. Nick Budgen: The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Cartwright) for his thoughtful and non-partisan speech—I do not mean that to be insulting—in which he dealt with a number of grave but intractable problems in a modest way without suggesting that he had the ultimate solution that has evaded many Governments for so long.
In a short and oblique passage the Secretary of State talked about the delicate balance between the power of the local authority and the power of central Government, but he did not say what the balance should be. He merely left it alone.
When we go back to the hustings, one of the perfectly reasonable criticisms that will be levelled against Conservative candidates is that we promised to do something unspecified about local government and that we
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have done nothing effective. I shall no doubt recollect the arguments that I put forward about the need to preserve the independence of local authorities.
I put forward those arguments on the basis of considerable ignorance. I have never been a member of a local authority, and my concept of one was similar to the historical position stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington (Mr Wheeler), who recollected how local government had been in the 1880s when it was first set up.
I am beginning to think that the proper but stuffy arguments that I put forward in 1979 have been much overtaken by events. I am supported in that argument by the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts). He rightly said that local elections are no longer decided on the level of the rate or the amount of the services. This year, like last year, there will no doubt be much talk on the doorsteps about whether candidates did or did not support the Falklands expedition. There will be much talk about whether they are in favour of capital or corporal punishment, our membership of the European Community or proportional representation. As the hon. Member for Bootle clearly showed, the electors are thus demonstrating their lack of interest in specifically local issues and their desire to concentrate their attention on central authority.
There are perfectly good reasons for that. After all, potential ratepayers can be divided into three groups. I say "potential" because in Wolverhampton, with 25,000 unemployed—17 per cent. or 18 per cent. of the work force—a high proportion of the population enjoys rate and rent support. Frankly, those people are indifferent to the level of rates. There are areas in Wolverhampton where, if one asks, "Do you wish to pay a bit more on the rates and have an extra person to help your children across the road?", people would reply, "Sorry, we are not interested in the rates. We would rather have another person to help our kids across the road." There is no relationship whatever between spending and taxation.
The second category, which has been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle), is that of the industrial ratepayers, who have been disfranchised. It would be difficult now to enfranchise them. We in the black country find that this part of the problem is exacerbated by the changes in ownership that have occurred over the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The owner of a small to medium sized industrial business, who lives in the area where he manages his business, has been overtaken. The arguments about economies of scale have meant that these organisations, if they have not shut down, are part of much larger organisations. The managers who come to live in Wolverhampton come as temporary whizz-kids, people who wish to demonstrate the expertise that they have learned from some business school—I do not say this in any denigratory sense. They do not become involved in the politics or life of the community in the way that an old-style owner-manager would. Their view about the level of rates and services is not expressed in the way that the old-style owner-manager expressed his view.
The third group consists of the householders who, in the west midlands, bear the heavy brunt of the burden as well. As the hon. Member for Woolwich, East pointed out, this lack of relationship between spending and taxation is made yet worse by the system of rate support grant. I go further than that in that I believe that it is made even worse by the process of direct Government grant, under which, as the

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councillors so often express it, they are spending not their money but Government money, and Government money must be spent.
It is difficult to see how this state of affairs can be rectified. Shall we withdraw rate support grant in our democracy? Shall we take away rate and rent subsidies? What would the consequences be for those who have organised their incomes in the expectation of the continuance of that form of subsidy? I regret to say that I have come to the reluctant conclusion that when my constituents at the next general election say to me, "What have you done about the balance between central and local government?", I shall be far less inclined to support the argument for local autonomy, and will say that I believe that local independence is of declining importance, and a future Conservative Government must act with views informed by that prejudice.
One hears a great deal about how dreadfully restrictive the last Secretary of State and previous legislation were. The present Secretary of State is meant to be an authoritarian monster, but all these highly questionable elements of expenditure continue. The ratepayer in London is not protected from Mr. Livingstone's political activities. For instance, I may write to the Secretary of State for the Environment and say that many of my constituents do not like the idea of an Afro-Caribbean centre in Wolverhampton, or that a large number of my constituents, thank you very much indeed, would not like a welfare rights movement or that some of them do not think that these grants would be adequately balanced by giving large grants to Anglican churches as well. There would be no question of the Secretary of State saying, "Oh well, we shall not provide any of the money."
The principle of local autonomy means that central Government funding may be given to a highly debatable activity, whatever it may be, but some small part of the excess is borne on the rates. I am coming to the conclusion that a future Conservative Administration will have to be rather less sympathetic to the pleas for local independence. The constitutional balance should change as a consequence of the technical irresponsibility of both local authorities and local electorates.
As I said earlier, I do not have any direct experience of sitting on a local authority, but in Wolverhampton we have an organisation called the Wolverhampton economic development sub-committee, to which I and the hon. Members for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) and for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Edwards) are invited. I am not quite sure on what basis we are invited but we are allowed to contribute to discussions. I do not have great experience of the provision of social services, for the sake of argument, through a local authority, but I have for some years taken some interest in the shelling out of taxpayers' money to industry.
I do not come to these deliberations entirely ignorant. I have never heard any such sentiment like that in the motion expressed on the Wolverhampton economic development sub-committee. I have never heard a word about it being short of money and not being able to afford this, that or the other. Instead, I have often heard of subtle ways by which the town extracts more Government money, and of ways in which the goodwill of the council can be expressed by one form or another of industrial
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intervention. I have not heard a word about the necessity to save the ratepayers' money or — even more extraordinary—anything about saving taxpayers' money.
When the Secretary of State talked about the urban development grant to Wolverhampton, he turned to me, plainly expecting that I should be delighted at the idea of the taxpayers' money being spent in Wolverhampton, as though it would be self-evident to me that spending Government money in Wolverhampton would cure our problems, and that I should be the first to rush up, take his hand, pull my forelock and say, "Thanks very much for the bit of corruption—that should bring me back into the next Parliament."
The money to be granted is £54,000 towards a total investment of £340,000 for what appears to be a repair workshop in Wolverhampton. The Secretary of State does not explain whether in his opinion £54,000 is making the crucial difference between that investment going forward or not. He does not explain what other taxpayers will feel about the subsidy to that workshop, which is not enjoyed by other industrial activities. He does not explain what the legitimate attitude of, for instance, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) will be when he sees his constituents not enjoying such a handout.
We have an extraordinary multiplicity of aids to industry. There is the urban development grant proposal; within local authorities there are enterprise boards and grants and subsidies through those. We have county council grants and subsidies as well. We have the west midlands development organisation which is, using the phraseology of an American management consultant, "headed up" by Mr. Geoff Edge, who may be remembered in the House as having great panache and expertise. We also have the multifarious activities of the Department of Industry.
None of those activities takes account of the various tax reliefs, such as those given to the development of small industrial estates. The council is not so hard-hearted as to take any notice of what is happening in the market place. Industrial premises continue to be provided at a time when roofs are continually being taken off empty industrial premises but, to show the council's compassion, it is necessary to provide yet more industrial premises at the expense of the ratepayer and the taxpayer.
I confess that when I hear the Secretary of State say that he believes that the enterprise organisations will help to improve industrial and economic conditions in the west midlands, and that he is delighted to be able to tell us about an urban development grant for Wolverhampton, I am unrelenting in my belief that the country wants lower public expenditure, both nationally and locally. Above all, the west midlands entrepreneur wants the universal benefits of lower rates, not the selective benefits of grants. If he can get that, he has the energy, the vigour and the compassion to exploit whatever advantages the market may open to him.
When I next knock on doors, plenty of people will tell me that, for example, they have run a small foundry business in Wolverhampton in recent months and have had to sack many people. They will say that not with pride or pleasure but with profound distaste and misery, because they have deep concern for their people. They will also be deeply resentful when they recount that, for instance, the Wolverhampton council has a no-redundancy policy for its

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ever-growing work force, although they know that it is for ever contemplating bigger and better ways of spending the ratepayers' and taxpayers' money.
The west midlands does not want a euphoric suggestion that the expenditure of public money is the way to get us out of our difficulties. We want to be able to rely upon our independent activity because that is the way in which we, not the Government, will resuscitate our hard-hit area.
7.23 pm
Mr. R. B. Cant: I should love to knock on the doors with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) before the election on 23 June when he tries to explain to his electorate why he has failed in his major mission to shift the balance of local and central power in our democracy. I do not know what their reply will be.
If, reading the comments of the hon. Gentleman and any others who may be in the same disaffected mood, the Secretary of State decides to withdraw the substantial grants that he is handing out, I hope that he will look benignly on the delegation that is coming to see him within the next fortnight to seek more funds for the Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent garden centre project. It will be willing to accept money for a worthy cause. We are grateful for the millions of pounds that have been given to Stoke-on-Trent to reclaim the area where the Shelton steelworks used to be. None of the estimates of the ultimate cost of such projects is ever accurate and the £1·2 million that the Government have put into the scheme will prove to be inadequate. I hope that the Secretary of State will respond favourably when the delegation asks for a rather higher sum.
I do not want to discuss major principles such as what has happened to local government finance or the delicate balance between local and central Government. I am speaking as a rather punch-drunk chairman of an education committee in Staffordshire who has reluctantly come to the conclusion that nobody will ever cause the Government to change their mind fundamentally. All that we can hope to do is influence them at the margins and suggest an odd change here and there.
I want to talk about education, not about cuts because the Government cannot be persuaded to change that policy, and to ask the Government whether they appreciate some of the fundamental difficulties that arise in practice. I want to talk about some examples of the small timescale in which the Government require massive changes and the need for synchronisation in their decisions, which is fundamental to the carrying out of their policies.
Let us consider the problem of falling rolls. I do not know who invented that poetic phrase but I shall accept and use it. Minister after Minister at the Dispatch Box and in speeches throughout the country say that local education authorities' expenditure must fall in proportion to the fall in rolls of an area. That sounds very nice indeed. It may be possible for the Government to say that the number of children in the schools have fallen by a certain amount and that therefore the region's education expenditure must fall by a similar amount or some close approximation. Schools must close.
We in Staffordshire are not as stupid as the Liverpool Liberal and Conservative-controlled local authority. Anyone who read the article in this morning's education section of The Guardian, which states that Liverpool has a secondary school with 1,700 places and only 320 pupils,
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would not consider that to be sensible. If a policy of school closures is embarked upon and 40 per cent. of places are to be lost, certain allowances must be made, because it is impossible for children to travel 10 miles in a country area to satisfy an arithmetical or statistical formula. There are bound to be difficulties and dangers in travelling which make the equation impossible.
Equally, if local authorities are asked to close schools, the Secretary of State for Education and Science must assist in closing them. It is very difficult to obtain a decision to close a school. I tabled a parliamentary question in July last year asking if the unit could cope with the number of schools that it would have to deal with. I was informed that the unit would be expanded if necessary. As at least a term's notice is required before it is possible to act upon a decision of the Secretary of State, there is no point in creating a panic because the Secretary of State for Education and Science has not produced the decision as quickly as he should have done. Now that the summer term has commenced, outstanding decisions remain to be taken that were placed before the Secretary of State in July 1982. No doubt we shall survive. My local authority tries to save money but it does not always get cooperation.
A more difficult problem is the redeployment of teachers. If a local education authority has falling rolls, it is expected to cut its expenditure by redeploying teachers, which is a euphemism for getting rid of them. It is a method of reducing the establishment by a given number. In the past three years, Staffordshire has redeployed or reduced the teacher establishment by 800. This task is becoming increasingly difficult. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West referred in his usual contemptuous tone—which he no doubt uses in the law courts — to local authorities having a no-redundancy policy. I am not ashamed of that. Staffordshire has redeployed or reduced the number of teachers by 800, but none has been sacked. Staffordshire's earnest endeavour is to carry out future redeployment policies without any redundancies.
Local education authorities are in difficulties because they are run financially by the Department of the Environment which is no doubt run by the Treasury. They are also caught on one flank by the Department of Industry and on another by the Manpower Services Commission.
The morale of the teaching profession is very low. It is important also to consider the emerging age structure of teachers. It will not be long before all teachers are aged between 30 and 50. There will be no young teachers, because hardly any young people are going into the teaching profession. There will not be anybody over 50, because teachers over 50 are now securing early retirement. The lack of those skills that teachers must have to provide the necessary courses at the high school stage is becoming a serious problem. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), will agree that a specific sum of money should be invested to provide some new blood, not only in the universities but in the teaching profession generally. Otherwise in two or three years' time there will be serious problems.
Mr. Kinnock: I wish to respond to what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) has said, with all his experience. He will be aware that, far from getting the new and retrained blood that is needed, the Government are saying to Britain's 400,000 teachers,

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"You can keep your jobs only if you take enormous cuts in your standard of living or if you accept a cut in the standard of provision for teachers in schools. If you try to get better conditions in your schools or a decent standard of living, we will sack you en masse." That is no way to get new blood, as I trust my hon. Friend agrees.
Mr. Cant: I would not have made that suggestion, but I agree that those are the implications of much of the Tory policy. I assume that the only way to change the policy is for my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty to become Secretary of State for Education and Science.
The grant-related expenditure assessment for education was the bright and new idea that was to restore the rate support grant and the affections of not only Ministers but local authorities. It has been a disastrous flop. Most people would agree with that. I do not say that we should hold out our hands and say, "Come back, old rate support grant. All is forgiven." The way in which the grant-related expenditure assessment is arrived at is unfortunate, because it can work in a discriminatory way, as it does in Staffordshire. In the grant-related expenditure or education in Staffordshire, no allowance is made for the existing pattern. Civil Servants have merely decreed, for example, that Staffordshire should spend £2,750,000 on non-statutory education for children under the age of five. That is worked out in accordance with a sort of national criterion.
Because of Staffordshire's development and the ideas that those in control of education have had for many decades, Staffordshire spent about £9,750,000 on nursery education a year or so ago. The difference may appear to be only £7 million but the issue is not as simple as that. The penalty and the 1:2:5 formula has led to the horrendous result that the overspend on nursery education accounts for almost the whole of the penalty attracted by Staffordshire's education authority. The authority may be level on every other component of the estimated assessment, but as a result of the rather maverick figure of £9,750,000 it has to pay not only £1 for £1, or £2 for £1, but £5 for £1 by way of penalty.
There are two points that I find very disturbing. We are told that revenue expenditure is the villain of the piece and that local authorities tend to underspend on capital expenditure. That may be true for various reasons. However, let us consider the position in the first three months of this year. I am sure that the very interested and intelligent hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has considered it, as it is linked to the public sector borrowing requirement, which he takes to bed with him. There was an underspend in the central budget. As a result, local authorities that had continually been told to cut expenditure were told to spend as much as they liked on capital account, provided that the expenditure was made by 31 March 1983. People might have thought that there was a new light on the horizon, that the Government had changed their mind and that things would improve. However, when Staffordshire education committee then put forward its prescribed capital expenditure bid, thinking that the Government wanted everyone to spend more and more on capital account, it found that the amount had been cut from £12 million to £7 or £8 million. Thus we are back where we started.
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What is the Government's message? Are we to spend on capital account or not? The Secretary of State for the Environment should restore the £4 million cut that he imposed on us. We would then show him how that money should be spent. There is a terrible problem that affects both the Department of the Environment and the Department of Education and Science. I refer to the emergence and gathering momentum of the Manpower Services Commission. These days, it is difficult to know where the money comes from, but there are clearly masses of money available to the MSC. Whatever the complications, I do not object to that, because I am prepared to accept large or even small amounts from almost any source. However, one must accept that a serious dichotomy is developing in education. It is difficult to know where it will lead.
On, I believe, 21 December, the Prime Minister made an announcement at the Dispatch Box when most hon. Members had gone home. She said that there was to be a new technical and vocational initiative. We know that that took the Secretary of State for Education and Science by surprise, but is it true that it took the MSC's director by surprise? He is upstairs, talking at a meeting that I was going to attend before I was persuaded to contribute to the debate because of the shortage of hon. Members in the Chamber. It would be interesting to know the answer to that question, but I commend the thrust of that announcement. The Department of Education and Science has been sitting on its hands for far too long and has not tried, despite the press releases from the Secretary of State. Incidentally, have I spoken for too long?
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Yes.
Mr. Cant: I shall draw to a conclusion, although my instructions were to speak as long as I liked.
The MSC is involved in its ramifications with the new technical initiative and with the sixth forms in our schools —those delightful things "of proven worth", to steal a phrase from the Secretary of State for Education and Science. What will happen? Every education authority will approach September 1983 with some alarm, wanting to know how many 16-year-olds will go into further education and into sixth forms and how many will opt for £25 per week and the youth training scheme.
7.49 pm
Mr. John Heddle: I hope that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) will forgive me if I do not dwell for too long on education, the subject to which he devoted the majority of his speech. The hon. Gentleman was honest, as all hon. Members know him to be, when, in a little aside a moment ago, he informed the House that he had been invited to speak for as long as he liked, the reason no doubt being that few Opposition Members have anything positive to contribute to the debate. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman's aside highlighted the fact that few Opposition Members are present. Apart from the contribution made earlier today by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), no Liberal Member has been present during the debate. I find that extraordinary when we are told that the Liberal party is the party of the grass roots and local government.
Mr. Cartwright: If I heard the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle) correctly, he made the extraordinary allegation that no Liberal Member had

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been present during the debate. That shows that the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth has not been present throughout the debate because the hon. Member for Isle of Wight spoke earlier and has been present since on several occasions.
Mr. Heddle: I ant grateful for the opportunity to explain to the hon. Member that I prefaced my remarks by saying that, apart from the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, no other Liberal Member has been present. On a point of explanation, I regret to say that I had to leave the Chamber at five o'clock to attend Standing Committee D to move a new clause to the Dentists Bill. I did so with the permission of Mr. Deputy Speaker, who was then occupying the Chair. I returned to the Chamber before the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) an hour or so ago.
The contribution of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central invites me to make a point about the management of the Staffordshire education authority. I believe the hon. Member to be an honourable man but sadly within the ranks of the Staffordshire education authority are members much further to the Left than he, who have no sympathy or understanding of the rural vote and no sympathy or understanding of the rural community or rural life. I deplore the way in which the Staffordshire education authority, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central, has closed the Thomas Barnes primary school at Hamstall Ridware, the Fairlea school at Chorly and the St. Mary's Church of England primary school at Weeford in my constituency, without giving the parents, the governors and the staff statistical, mathematical and financial data to enable them to launch an appeal to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.
Mr. Cant: The Secretary of State has approved those closures.
Mr. Heddle: The hon. Gentleman is right. I regret to say that my right hon. Friend has approved the closures, for the simple reason that the hon. Gentleman's committee has not given my constituents the statistical and financial information to enable them to launch an appeal to which my right hon. Friend would have regard.
Mr. Kinnock: As the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter and as it will be of interest to all hon. Members whose constituencies face school closures, it might be appropriate to inquire percisely what the hon. Gentleman was doing when his constituents were starved, as he alleges, of the necessary information. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that, as a Member of Parliament for the area, he has made inquiries of that local education authority and has been refused information? Has he not the imagination or the skill to be able to obtain it? If he is saying that, his reputation in the House will go down.
Mr. Heddle: I welcome that intervention from the hon. Gentleman. I have tried time and again, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central will know, to obtain from him and from the director of education of the Staffordshire education authority the very information to which the hon. Member has referred. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should direct his remarks not to me but to his hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central.
The debate is timely and welcome. It is timely because it enables the House to pick at random two major local
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authorities, Birmingham and Manchester, which will be subject to polls on Thursday, 5 May. The House will know, because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in an excellent speech earlier today reminded it, that Birmingham, when it came under Conservative control a year ago, immediately put out its refuse collection services to the private sector to obtain an independent tender. It was found by the direct labour organisation of the city corporation, under pressure of competition from the private sector, that the work could be done with a saving of £3·5 million. This enabled the Conservative-controlled city council to reduce the rates by 12 per cent., while maintaining services at the same level. Simultaneously, it was able to remove from the shoulders of the industrial and commercial ratepayers the burden of paying rates on empty commercial premises. A comparison of that record with that of the Manchester city corporation, which this year has levied a rate increase double the rate of inflation, speaks for itself.
The debate enables the House to consider local government in the round. Local government is big business. Local government accounts for 25 per cent. of GNP; one in ten people in this country are employed directly or indirectly by local government; £22 billion was spent last year by local government on services and salaries, £11·8 billion of which came from central Government, representing a 5 per cent. increase — a £300 million increase—on the previous year. Yet the words of the Labour party's motion suggest that there have been cuts.
Mr. Graham: Yes, and unemployment.
Mr. Heddle: The Labour party is fond of castigating my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for her Victorian values, but some of the more admirable Victorian values were to live within one's income, an emphasis on saving rather than spending, an emphasis on spending on those in genuine need to encourage those who are able to help themselves and to spend for those unable to help themselves. There is now a genuine understanding that local government must keep current spending within levels that the nation can afford. I pay tribute and give credit to the Lichfield district council which has managed to keep its rate increase well below the rate of inflation for the past five years. There is also a growing realisation of the strains that uncontrolled spending impose on the householder or the ratepayer, in particular on business and commerce—that sector which is charged with the creation of real wealth from which real jobs will come. That is in no small measure due to the Government's steadfast approach to the management of the economy. They have managed so far in this Parliament to reduce inflation to the lowest level for 15 years.
Local government is now trimmer, slimmer, and fitter but still provides the same level of services as before.
Mr. Kinnock: That is absolute rubbish and the hon. Gentleman knows it.
Mr. Heddle: The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham), who referred to unemployment, will surely agree that employment in local government does not necessarily have a direct relationship with the services provided by local government. Many functions and services that local authorities have traditionally provided could equally well be provided by the private sector. There

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is a genuine and growing realisation that the town hall does not always know best. There is a growing realisation that the private sector may be able to carry out some of those services hitherto carried out by the local authority. Another tenet of our Victorian forefathers was "Waste not, want not".
Let us consider one or two areas of local government waste. In 1982 the London borough of Lambeth employed a poet at the cost of £3,000 a year to advise electors on how to write poetry. In 1981, three gas lamplighters plus a mate were employed in Liverpool although the last gas lamp had been extinguished eight years before. That cost the Liverpool ratepayers about £250,000.
Let us consider briefly some of the actions of Manchester city council. No. 15 Ladybarn lane, Manchester is an end-of-terrace house. It was bought by the city council's highway department in 1968 and was bricked up in 1969. It seems that later it disappeared entirely from the council's housing records. The ownership of the house passed to the Greater Manchester council after local government reorganisation in 1972. It seems that the record of ownership was not transferred. A report to the city housing committee in 1975 stated that the house should be improved, but two years later it was still idle, derelict and unoccupied.
A review of properties in 1980 led to the recommendation that No. 15 Ladybarn lane should be pulled down. Manchester city council reached that decision because of the bad condition of No. 15. The site will probably become a garden for the house next door but the house has still not been pulled down. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) knows that it is still standing, because it is in the heart of his constituency.
Another property in the heart of the right hon. Member's constituency is No. 13 Hulme Hall lane, Manchester. The house has a similar history. It was bought by the city council in 1969 for proposed road widening. It had a sitting tenant, but in 1972 the tenant left and the house was bricked up. It remained empty and was demolished in 1981. Why did that happen? It seems that there is no road widening programme now. That house, which was in the heart of the right hon. Gentleman's constituency, was left empty, unwanted and unlived in, for about nine years, although it was desperately needed by families on the Manchester housing waiting list.
The saga continues. No. 15 Elbow street, Manchester 19 remained empty for eight years. Nos. 4 and 5 Prince Albert avenue, Manchester 19 were empty for six years. All these properties were in the heart of the right hon. Gentleman's constituency.
A little nearer home are Nos. 94 and 96 King George street, Greenwich, London SE10. The two houses were bought in advance of tentative proposals to expand a school, but they were not passed to the GLC for housing use because they were bought originally by the Inner London education authority. The expansion proposals were never firm and they have now been abandoned. No. 94 King George street has remained empty for 19 years while No. 96 has been empty for eight years. They are now entirely derelict.
Manchester city council's housing department officials are crying out for more money to build more council houses for those on the waiting list, when under their very
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noses, in their files which pass from in-tray to out-tray to teatray and back again, there are houses that are ready and able to be occupied. These houses and others remain idle because some council employees have no commitment. These properties remain idle, wasted, wanted and needed.
I suggest that we embark upon a save-it operation and upon a war of cuts. I shall suggest five ways in which we can save ratepayers' money, and in so doing provide them with the services that they rightly need. Let us save money by bringing forward the land that has now been revealed, with some reluctance, by some local authorities in land registers. Let us pass that land out of the councils' ownership, out the ownership of the dead hand of bureaucracy, to the hands of private builders, who can build for sale, for let or for partnership on an equity share or half-and-half scheme with the local authority, which has probably sat on the land for years on end.
Let us save homes and families by expanding still further our right-to-buy legislation. That legislation should not be confined to those who qualify by virtue of three years' tenancy of a council house. We should move on under the provisions of the Housing and Building Control Bill, which is now being considered in another place, to the concept of shared purchase, which will enable young people to get on the first rung or two of the home ownership ladder by buying a proportion of their house for the time being. This is the real way to distribute wealth throughout the country.
Let us save money, delay and frustration by encouraging local authorities, when they process right-to-buy applications, to ensure that legal and valuation services do not necessarily have to be dealt with by the men in the town hall. Let the processing work be put out to solicitors and chartered surveyors, thereby transferring properties from the councils to the people more quickly, more effectively, more efficiently and in a less costly manner.
The third point in the "operation save it" plan is to reduce homelessness by bringing back to life the properties to which I have referred in Manchester and in Greenwich, by ensuring that all local authorities have a mandatory duty to report to the Department once every six months any property in its ownership that has been empty for more than six months. If the reasons for the house having been left empty for more than six months are not valid or do not stand my right hon. Friend's scrutiny, the property, in its present condition, should be let on a homesteading basis to eager tenants on the council's housing waiting list. If my constituency experience is anything to go by, at least eight out of 10 of those who desperately need homes are do-it-yourself specialists. They can probably improve, renovate, and refurbish properties at least as effectively as, and certainly much more quickly than, local authorities' direct labour organisations.
Let us save salaries, too, by putting out to the private sector the architectural work that is currently undertaken by local authorities. Let us extend that approach to maintenance work, building work, cleaning work and refuse collection.
Let us save jobs, too, by taking the burden of heavy rates off the shoulders of industrial and commercial ratepayers. I suggest that central Government should peg the amount which authorities can levy each year on industrial and commercial ratepayers. As I said when I intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for Bootle

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(Mr. Roberts), local government is not accountable. Locally elected councillors are not really responsive to their electorates' wishes.
Mr. Michael Brown: My hon. Friend has given five excellent examples of how to save money, jobs and industry, but does he realise what he is up against? I have a quote from a Scunthorpe Labour councillor which the leader of the Conservative group is drawing to the attention of those living in Scunthorpe in his election address. The Socialist councillor said:
"We are not a bank. We are elected to spend ratepayers' money, not to save it."
Labour councillors condemn themselves with their own words.
Mr. Heddle: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In agreeing with everything that he has said, I remind the House that the opinion of the majority of industrial and commercial ratepayers in the part of the west midlands that I represent is that they are not getting value for money because they have no vote, no voice and no sanction in the way in which their councils spend their money. In many instances they feel that they are served badly—this view has been expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and it is voiced in other parts of the west midlands—by town halls that are currently under Labour domination. Local councillors of all party political persuasions should be dedicated to giving ratepayers and taxpayers value for money and to ensuring that money goes to those within their electorates, as it does to ours within our constituencies, who are in genuine need.
8.10 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse: Having sat here since 2.30 this afternoon and having listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant), I may be forgiven for feeling unwanted. I shall attempt to stick to the subject of the motion, because little of that has occurred during the debate. The Secretary of State, using all his powers of oratory and relying on his brief, tended to distort the truth or, to be kind to him, tried to blur the vision of hon. Members. He emphasised mostly the problems of local government in London—certainly the problems of the south—and I got the impression that the debate would be about local government in London. Indeed, by the time the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) had completed his speech, I felt convinced of that. Apart from the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts), there has been little said about the situation beyond the boundaries of London.
I assure the House that there is good and responsible local government outside London. I cannot help but think that Tory Members are allowing their judgment to be blurred by what is reported as happening in London. That is regrettable. Our main task today should be to ascertain whether there have been reductions in local government services throughout the country. If we should find, through honest and truthful argument, that those reductions have occurred as a result of Government policy, we should say so and condemn that.
Some hon. Members use parliamentary language, others use intellectual argument and yet others use public school jargon. I am not a student of any of those. Those who use such tactics tend to do so—today has been no exception — to blur the truth. At the end of the day,
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dressing the position up in any clothes one wants, the people on the receiving end know what the real facts are. I shall attempt— briefly because other hon. Members have been waiting all day to speak—to show that there have been reductions in local government services arising out of Government policy.
Unemployment in the construction industry has increased by 2½ per cent. while the Conservatives have been in office. There has been tremendous unemployment in the construction industry, from 156,000 in 1979 to 366,000 today. Whatever language is used to try to dress it up, that is a fact. The industry is being stripped of its skill and assets. Apprentice training has declined rapidly and skilled workers are leaving the industry and will not be replaced. Building firms are going into liquidation or are being forced to sell off their capital assets. The present state of affairs in the industry will make things more difficult for any incoming Government, whatever their political persuasion.
The house building side of local government in Britain is in an equally sorry state Completions of new dwellings have fallen from 280,000 in 1978 to 170,000 in 1982. In the public sector the decline has been even more dramatic, down from 107,000 to 52,000 over the same period, making it now the lowest since the 1920s. We have been told that in this financial year starts are higher than in previous years. But even with the additional starts about which the Government are bragging, we are below the figures for the 1920s. Again, whatever language is used to dress it up, that is a fact.
In the older housing sphere there is an equally dismal picture. Slum clearance is at such a low level that every house must last 800 years. According to a survey of the condition of English houses, the number of unfit homes is increasing and the amount of disrepair is rising by 22 per cent. for houses estimated to have cost less than £7,000 and by 45 per cent. for those costing over £7,000. Improvement grants have dealt with amenity problems such as baths, WCs and sink units, but we have not been dealing with the disrepair and unfitness of the exteriors of dwellings. In other words, while we have been improving the internal structures, we have ignored the outsides of properties.
In 1979–80, £1,720 million in subsidies was paid for public sector houses, but it is likely to be only £824 million in 1983–84. By comparison, mortgage interest tax relief to private owners has risen from £1,450 million in 1979–80 to an estimated £2,150 million in 1983–84. All these figures are in real terms. Consequently, many more tenants are having to rely on means-tested rate rebates.
The Government's legislative response is to produce housing Acts that are irrelevant to the main issues. In accordance with the 1978 Act, houses are being sold off to privileged tenants at large discounts. The Government are obsessed with forcing owner-occupation on everyone, but they have done precious little to improve the old housing stock to cater for families in need.
Even the unified housing benefit system was a device to cut Government costs at the expense of many unfortunate claimants and the local authorities which were expected to administer the scheme. The director of SHAC recently said that 2·5 million people were worse off under that system. The whole situation surrounding the sale of council houses is undoubtedly the price the country has had to pay for what was an election gimmick. In fact, the Government's main, if not only, housing policy as been

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to sell council houses. Not content with that, in the new Housing and Building Control Bill they are proposing to sell properties belonging to charitable housing associations.
Mr. Kinnock: I should like to give my hon. Friend some good news. The other place threw out the clause on that subject by a majority of two to one.
Mr. Lofthouse: As I have been here since half past two, my hon. Friend would not expect me to know that, but I am pleased to hear it.
Why are the Government so obsessed with council house sales? The answer is obvious. The Secretary of State said that 500,000 council houses have been purchased. That may be so. If that figure is right, it means that we have sold off £1,700 million worth of the nation's assets. I am not arguing about the merits of selling council houses. I readily concede that many of my constituents have purchased their council houses, have been glad to do so, and support the policy. I would be less than truthful if I did not say that. That is a fact. However, at the same time we must ask what the expenses are to the nation. They are public assets. As far as I understand, the sales are worth the equivalent of 50,000 new homes. If the Government sold every council home, which, according to their policies they would gladly do, that staggering sale of 15·3 million council dwellings would be a sale of public assets worth £32,000 million. That is what we should tell the people. That is a hell of a price to pay for electoral popularity.
There has been great emphasis on the situation in London. I have referred to events in London blurring the judgment of the Secretary of State and his colleagues. I have also referred to other responsible authorities outside London. My local authority is responsible and responsibly led. No accusations can be made about that authority, as about others. However, it is experiencing problems arising from the reduction in services, brought about by the Government's policies. In real terms, Wakefield's HIP allocation for 1983–84 is less than a third of the value of the allocation in 1979–80. It is the lowest initial allocation in cash terms since HIP was introduced. It is accepted that we can top up by the use of capital receipts, but they are governed largely by the number of council house sales. The number of applications to buy council houses is now dramatically falling. There is no doubt about that. The Government want to increase the discount from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. The deterioration in council housing stock because of the lack of finance is quite marked. If more finance were available, the council could get the necessary work done.
Difficulties in the Wakefield metropolitan district council area in social services are basic. Capital is made available and the council is encouraged to spend, but it needs more finance to meet the revenue consequences. An example is a special care unit for severely mentally handicapped people, which should be ready for occupation at the end of the year. It is in Hemsworth, which is represented by one of my hon. Friends. There is no special care unit in the district at the moment. However, there could be great difficulties in opening the centre because of lack of revenue for staffing costs. That is a crazy system. We can use capital to provide facilities, but then
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have difficulties in finding the revenue with which to run them. The district is desperately short of accommodation for the mentally handicapped.
There are joint funding projects between the health authority and Wakefield metropolitan district council. Joint finance is extrememly limited and, in any event, tapers off after a few years. The district will have difficulty in picking up the tab after that time.
A growing number of elderly, especially the frail elderly, usually aged over 75, require greater care and more intensive staffing in the various old people's homes. Unfortunately, the district cannot afford the additional staffing costs required. An example of this is an old people's home in my own town of Pontefract, where the staff have threatened industrial action because of the pressure of work and the difficulty that the social services department has had in appointing additional help.
I can give further examples of cuts in revenue programmes. Repair and maintenance programmes have had to be severely cut back. The result will be longer-term deterioration and, ultimately, greater costs. In-service training of teachers has had to be reduced. Charges for school meals have had to be increased, and there is a real fear that children who need school meals are unable to afford them and that their nutrition is suffering as a result. The library service has had to be reduced. Vacant posts have been left unfilled, even for essential categories of staff. The purchase of books and school equipment has had to be cut back, and so children's education has suffered. Contributions to parish councils under sections 136 and 137 of the Local Government Act 1972 have had to be reduced. Wakefield has been forced to charge for home helps and meals on wheels, and, again, those in need have consequently missed out on the provision.
Local government has been obliged to provide additional services without being given further resources. Under the Education Act 1980 the local education authority is expected to make sure that detailed education information is available, and to give details of school policy. As a result of a case known locally as the Coventry case, the costs of lunchtime supervision have increased and more help has had to be appointed. The administration of the sale of council houses has had to be financed. The full costs of the joint financing schemes with the area health authority, which have come to an end, have been transferred to the local authority, resulting in an extra £500,000 having to be absorbed. The urban aid schemes have tapered off and have been transferred to the local authority after five years. As a result, a further £250,000 has been imposed upon the local authority. The commendable policy of transferring the aged, the infirm and handicapped from hospitals into local authority homes and ordinary houses has also resulted in additional costs to local authorities.
Recently, the Pontefract area health authority, in an attempt to provide hospital care for its severely mentally handicapped aged people, has had to consider closing down some of the facilities for other aspects of medicine to try to find the money. There are currently only 22 beds available in the area for such patients.
The Government have continued to reduce the percentage of local government expenditure that they are prepared to fund. The rate support grant stood at 59·1 per cent. in 1981–82. It was reduced to 56 per cent. in 1982–83 and further reduced to 52·8 per cent. in 1983–84. Current expenditure relevant for RSG was said by the Government

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to be rising by 1 per cent. in 1984–85 and 2·5 per cent. in 1985–86. However, taking inflation into account, that represents a cut of between 4 and 5 per cent. Could anyone honestly say that that does not represent a cut in local government services?
I have provided ample evidence from a council that is responsibly led and responsibly run to show that cuts are having to be made and that the House should support the motion.
8.28 pm
Mr. Peter Bottomley: The hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) will not be surprised to hear that I disagree with him. I believe that the amendment is preferable to the motion.
An interesting feature of the debate is the fact that there is a three-line Whip for the Opposition and thus, presumably, for the Conservative side as well. The reason is presumably that the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) performs best with plenty of support behind him. No doubt we may expect to see many more of his colleagues arrive for the Division than have been present for the debate. It is a disgraceful sign of disinterest that local government debates attract so few Members. I suspect that many people stay away because such debates seem to provide an excuse for people to speak for 15 to 30 minutes rather than making practical points. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle) and the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Cartwright), however, actually suggested ways in which the rating system could be improved and listed ways in which local government could save money and provide more effectively the services that it is duty-bound to provide.
If my father's grandfather—Richard Robinson, who was leader of the London county council at the turn of the century — or my wife's grandfather's grandfather —George Garnett, who was responsible for education in the borough of Ryde 100 years ago—were here today, they would wonder what had happened to the Labour party, which would be new to them in any case, as a result of whose policies Labour authorities seem to be spending more and more ratepayers' money without any regard to Government expenditure targets or to the propriety of their politically partisan expenditure.
In Committee this morning I made the distinction between disagreements with Government about, for example, building Waterloo bridge, and the propaganda spending that is now bringing local politics into disrepute. It can be stopped if Government take effective control over such spending or if the present leaders of the Labour party in the House are prepared publicly to condemn the actions taken by people who claim to be their political colleagues in, for instance, County Hall in London and the town halls of Greenwich and Islington. The standard of leadership in the Labour party has sunk abysmally. It would earn far more respect throughout the country if it would sing the same tune in opposition as in government and tell aberrant members of the party to stop what they are doing because it is bringing local politics into disrepute and forcing local ratepayers and residents to put far more pressure on the Government to take direct control.
Central Government have moved towards greater control because of the activities of some local authorities —at present mainly Labour-controlled authorities—and the House should expect the hon. Member for Bedwellty
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to join in the condemnation of those activities when he winds up the debate. It is too much to hope that he will spend more time on Labour plans than on the previous Conservative manifesto which he seems to have been reading avidly during the debate. No doubt it is also too much to expect that when he talks about ILEA, as I am sure that he will, he will tell us the extent to which the number of children in ILEA schools has dropped in the past four years and the extent to which the authority's spending has decreased or increased. I am sure that he does not intend to give those figures, but I hope that I will provoke him into doing so before he launches into his usual tirade.
On local government and rates, it is important to follow up the suggestion of the hon. Member for Woolwich, East that local government elections should take place every year, or almost every year. Too often politicians get way out of touch with the views of their constituents. I should not mind if one fifth of the House of Commons were elected each year. That would be a perfectly reasonable way to set about this. One needs constant contact with the electorate. Visiting the three major estates in my constituency in the past week or so, I have found that tenants are far more interested in obtaining entryphones for their blocks of flats and ensuring that access to underground garages is restricted to tenants so that vandals cannot bring in cars or blow up the cars already there.
Local government could respond to the interests of tenants far more adequately if authorities dropped their pale imitation of national politics, stopped campaigning for CND from Greenwich town hall or going on marathon walks to raise funds and issuing press releases from focal authority press offices about activities of that kind. They could then spend more time listening to ordinary people who are concerned about their ordinary lives.
One reason why ILEA is so out of touch is that its main elections take place at the same time as the GLC elections, which cover a different area and are often dominated by different issues. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) is one of the few hon. Members who has mentioned education today. Similarly, the GLC elections have hardly mentioned education. We then discover that ILEA goes off on a course that is not supported by most people.
Several pensioners with whom I talked on Friday at the Ivy Club in Southwood road said that they live in Bexley, which is just outside the ILEA area and the borough of Greenwich, but do not understand why they do not get the cheap holidays that Greenwich council provides. I asked them whether they would like their rates to increase by 30 per cent. as has been the case in Greenwich in the past month. That increase probably represents £200 a year for most pensioners in my constituency. I asked them whether by paying that extra £200 they would like to have a chance of getting a subsidised holiday every so often or whether they would prefer to keep the £200 a year in their pockets year after year to provide for their own holiday. They said that, put like that, they would much prefer to pay for their own holidays. People should be able to make their own choices.
Mr. Kinnock: Is the hon. Gentleman trying to assert that all people get for an additional margin of rates in the other borough is a subsidised holiday for old age pensioners, or could there be some other subscriptions to public welfare? What facilities are there in his borough for

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pensioners to claim rate rebates, thereby reducing the burden, albeit with a means test, of higher rates which lead to better services?
Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the rates do not go simply on cheap holidays. However, to answer the question which those pensioners raised, the immediate comparison must be with the change of rates in each of those boroughs. I have already given the increase in Greenwich.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty knows as well as any other hon. Member that the rate rebate system is roughly the same throughout the country. He does not seem to pay much attention to many people such as the widow who came to see me on Friday — I use only last week's experience but I could use experiences from the past year. She asked how long she was supposed to go on managing without appealing for help. She said that both she and her husband thought that she would be able to manage, but in the past five years her rates have increased from £178 a year to £610 a year. There have been increases of 10 per cent., 25 per cent., 52 per cent., 26 per cent., and 30 per cent. Worst of all, those increases are cumulative, as they are added to the amount of rates that must be paid the preceding year rather than the initial base figure.
Mr. Kinnock rose—
Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman will have his opportunity to speak. No doubt he will start to flail around. I suggest that he does what Opposition spokesmen are supposed to do—answer the debate.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether Greenwich council spends money only on holidays. No. Greenwich council is one of those which propose to contribute ratepayers' money to the Labour leaders' committee. Because that issue has hit the light of day, it is no longer to be called the Labour leaders' committee or association. It will be a slightly odd association of local authorities, all of which have got their councils to approve certain objectives which would only be approved by Labour authorities, and only some Labour authorities at that.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty would do well to consider the matter. Perhaps he would like some advice from his hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham), who is an expert on the matter as he has shared the experience of the debate with me. The hon. Member for Edmonton might brief his hon. Friend. We shall hear what the hon. Member for Bedwellty has to say about it all at 9 pm. He might say whether he supported the 6 per cent. cut in local government spending in 1976. I suspect that he will say he was against it.
We should draw the historic lesson that, almost every time a new generation of Labour leaders comes to that Front Bench, they criticise and disapprove of everything that the previous Labour Government did. That has been true for the Labour Government of 1945–50 and the Labour Government of 1964–70 and precisely the same is now true of the Labour Government of 1974–79. All that we see is the Left-wing ratchet of the Labour party. That is one reason why I believe that inner city areas need Tory central and local government much more than country areas. Many of the richer areas could even afford local government that is run by the alliance or the Labour party but inner city areas have suffered far too much for that.
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In my constituency I hope that the sale of council houses, which affects local government finance and people's decisions, will continue until its profile of owner-occupation is the same as, or better than, that of the rest of Britain. I sympathise with many of the aims of the Labour party, but its approach is misguided. The Labour party believes that a professional—someone paid by a local authority — will make correct decisions, which as an individual he cannot. In my constituency the local authority employs people to decide whether two couples can exchange homes, but the Labour leaders in Greenwich do not wish them to buy their homes and to make the decision without involving people like themselves in making decisions at the ratepayers' expense. I do not want to hear more elderly people saying that, because they stayed and looked after their parents in their old age, someone like them, but paid by the local authority, can tell them to move home after living 50 years in the same house. They want to make the decision themselves. The reason for the spread of home ownership is not only to provide mobility, but to put people in a position similar to that of the friends of the right hon. Member for Ardwick in local authority housing departments, who take decisions that ordinary people can, and want to, take for themselves.
Mr. Graham: The hon. Gentleman is less than fair to council officials and councillors. He presented the problem of the individual who has lived in a house all his life and who wishes to continue living there although the property may be under-occupied. At the same time, officials and councillors must take into account the fact that some people who live in one or two rooms desperately need three rooms. The hon. Gentleman normally advances his case fairly, but he has not done so tonight by denigrating the genuine efforts of council officials and councillors to solve difficult problems.
Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman misunderstood my argument. If people in authority, such as councillors and council officials, in their professional or political capacity can make those decisions, so can the ordinary individual. A person who is recruited by a housing office or elected as a councillor should be able to make the same decisions in a private capacity as he would be paid, or elected, to make in a political or official capacity.
The hon. Member for Isle of Wight asked me to pass a message to my wife, perhaps because he believes that she is his natural successor, or perhaps because the matter is of general interest. As a ratepayer in the Medina borough council area, and to the Isle of Wight county council, I noted from my rate notice — I congratulate my hon. Friends on ensuring that such information reaches all ratepayers — that the rate reduction comes from withdrawals from balances. That is an unfair way of achieving a ½p reduction in the rate. I also noted that the county council rate would have been higher had it not made substantial withdrawals from balances. However, I shall not abuse my position as a Member of Parliament by doing anything to improve or to worsen the hon. Gentleman's electoral prospects.
8.43 pm
Mr. Frank Haynes: I am surprised by some Conservative Members' comments that there are no cuts, and that local authority services should be cut to save money. Will we ever get it through the thick skulls of

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Ministers and other Conservative Members that the 8 per cent. cut in the rate support grant since 1979 and the varying rates of inflation mean a cut in the services provided to the community by councils? They all say there have been no cuts. The Secretary of State himself is no exception. He preached from the Dispatch Box, as the Secretary of State for Education and Science will when he winds up the debate for the Government tonight. There have been definite financial cuts for all local authorities, so that means a cut in services. It must mean that. Hon. Members on the Government Benches nod their heads. I do not believe that they know what they are talking about. They should come to the north and see what cuts imposed by central Government on local government mean.
I will give right hon. and hon. Members, including the Secretary of State for Education and Science, some examples. The cuts in adult education are shocking. We should be providing a lot more, but we cannot, because the rate support grant is cut every year and has been ever since the Government took office in 1979.
Not long ago the Secretary of State for Education and Science visited my constituency. He went to a school for the disabled called Fountaindale — a beautiful school which has everything it needs. Not far down the road, however, we enter the Victorian era of which the Prime Minister talks so often. There are schools there that were built in the Victorian era and that we have to go on using. The toilets are at the other end of the playground, not in the building itself. We are not in a position to provide the finance to do anything about that problem. The Secretary of State should have gone down the road from Fountaindale when he visited my constituency and looked at some of the provision for the education of youngsters. We are not providing a proper service for them, and they are the adults of tomorrow. It is all very well for hon. Members on the Government Benches to brag about what they are doing, but they are not doing what they say, and we are not providing the things that we should be providing.
All this argument about overspending stems from 1974, when the right hon. Gentleman implemented the reorganisation of local government. That is where all the problems started. He was responsible; it was his baby and he foisted it upon this nation.
Cutbacks are a very serious matter. I am proud of my county council in Nottinghamshire. Even though the Government have cut the rate support grant, since 1979 my local authority, including my district council, has lived up to its responsibilities, but in order to do this it has had to put the rates up. If the Government cut the rate support grant and there is inflation, rates have to be increased in order to stand still, to provide the services that are already being provided, never mind expanding the services.
Mr. Kinnock: Could I just provide an illustration from my hon. Friend's own county? Some might think it frivolous, but I do not and he certainly will not. It concerns the subject of cricket teaching in schools. The newly appointed Minister with responsibilities for children's play was much exercised by what he called "the deplorable standard of cricket achievement" in the schools of Britain. Then a host of evidence arrived from those interested in cricket—as my hon. Friend is and as I am—that it was because of the collapse of expenditure that the wickets were not being maintained, which was due entirely to Government cuts. The exception was—
Mr. Michael Shersby: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I cannot hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying because he does not appear to be addressing the House.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Yes. The hon. Gentleman should address the House.
Mr. Kinnock: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The exception was the county of Nottinghamshire, which has just provided 150 practice cricket wickets in its schools. I am sure, therefore, that you will join me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in congratulating the youth of Nottingham on the future success they will probably achieve, while other youths will be denied that success because of Government cuts.
Mr. Haynes: I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. Nottinghamshire now has the opportunity to provide a proper cricket service, and we shall have more Derek Randalls as a result.
The county council is also responsible for social services. I served for many years on the county council and know what the provision of proper services means. The council is nowhere near providing enough meals on wheels. On one occasion when I accompanied the supervisor around my constituency, we asked an elderly gentleman, "What would you do if we did not bring this meal to you?" He replied, "I would be eating bread and cheese." But because of the cuts in rate support grant, Nottinghamshire is unable to provide the required number of meals for the elderly.
It should not be forgotten that today's elderly have made their contribution to society and it is our responsibility to look after them. We do not look after them by imposing cuts in their services—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Sir A. Costain) can nod his head. He is in that age group, but he is living well.
Sir Albert Costain rose—
Mr. Haynes: Many of my constituents in the hon. Gentleman's age group are not living well.
Sir Albert Costain rose—
Mr. Haynes: I shall make my point even though the hon. Gentleman does not like it. The truth really hurts. The hon. Gentleman is living quite well, thank you—[HON. MEMBERS: "Give way".] There is not enough time.
The home help service must also be financed from the social services department budget. Not long ago, an elderly constituent told me that her twice-weekly home help had been cut to once a week so that the service could be eked out. That cut in social services is reflected in the cut in rate support grant.
Conservative Members do not know what is happening in their constituencies. The hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) talked about knowing one's constituents. I know mine, because I live and work in the constituency, but many hon. Members, particularly Conserative Members, have outside interests. As a result, they cannot get involved at grass roots level with the people they represent, yet they draw parliamentary salaries. Perhaps they should think about that and stick rigidly to the job that they have been elected to do.
Like other hon. Members, constituents have told me, "I am buying my council house, but last week I lost my job and cannot keep up with the mortgage repayments."

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I should like to know, whether from the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, the Secretary of State for the Environment or anyone else, how many people have been given the opportunity to buy their council house but have had to back out because they have lost their jobs and cannot meet the mortgage repayments. Local contact is purely in the hands of the Member for Parliament. If he does not have such local contact, the electorate should toss him out and put someone in who is prepared to do the job. It is one thing to be able to buy a council house, but it is another to have a job to be able to pay the mortgage repayments.
The rate support grant has been cut back by the Government, but I hope that they will change their minds in the future. I hope even more that we shall have an early election and get rid of the lot of them. We must have a Government that will really help the people and not help the people who line the pockets of the Conservative party. That is what is happening, despite the shaking of heads on the Conservative Benches.
One only has to look at Budgets going back to 1979 to see how the rich have been helped and the poor have been hit. The lower-paid workers, those on fixed incomes, and even the pensioners, have been robbed. It is no good arguing that it is not happening because these people are being robbed and will continue to be robbed while we have this lot in power. I hope that at the next general election we shall toss them out and put in a Government that are prepared to work for all the people.
8.56 pm
Mr. Michael Shersby: The motion is headed
"Government attack on local government and community services".
I am a Londoner and represent a London constituency, and should like to talk about the attack on the ratepayers by local government, which is far more important. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) spoke of cuts, but if he had the misfortune to live in Greater London he would find that his county authoritiy was spraying money around as if there were no tomorrow.
The Government were elected to control wasteful public expenditure. A couple of years later, when the present Greater London council was elected, the Labour party was led by Mr. Andrew McIntosh. Presumably, those who voted Labour believed in Mr. McIntosh and his policies, and he and his colleagues were expected to run the council. We all know what happened. Within 24 hours Mr. McIntosh had disappeared from the scene and was replaced by Mr. Ken Livingstone and his colleagues. They now control the county authority in Greater London, which has mounted a massive attack on the ratepayers of Greater London and is causing great distress to individual ratepayers and businesses.
I have been looking at the grants that the GLC made during March. Some of them are to organisations of which we should all approve, but there are some interesting entries in this long list which do not give me the impression that the GLC is suffering any financial hardship. I see that £16,000 is to go to "Brilliance Books, gay literature". Some £35,000 is to go to the Karl Marx centenary. This was mentioned upstairs in Committee. I do not think that the ratepayers of Uxbridge or even some
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of those in Ardwick would think that £35,000 celebrating 100 years since Karl Marx's death is a good way to spend ratepayers' money. In the past few days, we have been hearing much about the misdeeds of Islington. Not content with spendng £35,000 on the Karl Marx centenary, I see that the Marx Memorial library in Islington is to receive £4,600 from the GLC. There are other interesting items in the list, such as the £7,283 going to Chile Democratico-GB. So it goes on, down this long list. Flipping through it as I have done, one sees on almost every page one or two items that make one wonder whether those who control the GLC are concerned with what happens to London ratepayers.
Why are we spending £14,773 on the Gay London police monitoring group? Why are we spending £35,216 on "Police Accountability for Community Enlightenment", or £250 on "Families Against the Bomb", and so on? Last week we were treated to another little item of expenditure which should command some attention—£11,585 of ratepayers' money on a service provided by the Greater London council called "Lesbian Line". Do the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues really think that the Labour party in London is exercising financial prudence or has any regard whatever—
Mr. Kaufman rose—
Mr. Shersby: I shall not give way —for the ratepayers who bear the burden which leads to the present inflated GLC rate?
When I mentioned some of those interesting items in Committee I was challenged by a Labour Member. I said that such items do not commend themselves to normal people and I was asked who are normal people. I should say that normal people are those who expect local government to act responsibly in spending their money and who are normal decent family people. That is surely what we all believe, so why are we spending money on "Lesbian Line", on the Gay London police monitoring group, and similar nonsense so beloved of the GLC?
I regard that as an attack on the ratepayers. It costs a firm in my constituency, to which I was talking last week, £400 for every employee and a large slice of that £400 goes to the GLC. It certainly does not pay a large slice to the London borough of Hillingdon because its rate rise this year was only 4·9 per cent.—spot on the rate of inflation—and a good council it is too.
When Labour Members talk about the attack on local government they should begin to look at some of the weirdos in local government in Britain who belong to their party and who are making substantial grants to organisations that most sensible people would think were questionable. I shall vote against the motion tonight because it is a lot of nonsense and we know it is.
9.1 pm
Mr. Neil Kinnock: The speech of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) was—
Mr. Richard Page: Super.
Mr. Kinnock: It was a fitting end to the contributions from Conservative Members, which have been hallmarked by statistical superficiality and deep-rooted prejudice. I shall take second place to no man or woman in this House, nor would I expect you to, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in my observation of and support for what the hon. Member for

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Uxbridge calls family decencies. Included among those decencies is a spirit of tolerance and understanding for people who have an enormous assortment of problems in this great sprawling city and who need and deserve the odd £2,000—it never amounts to more than that—to relieve and protect themselves from what must be the dreadful agony of being in those minorities. It is an utter disgrace that the hon. Gentleman should indulge in saloon bar prejudice as he has done and still try to call himself a decent family man with civilised standards.
We could draw attention to the fact that typical of the order of affairs that the hon. Gentleman represents are people who go to race meetings and show their backsides in public. Indeed, the offspring of some of his colleagues will go into a restaurant in Oxford and smash it up just for a jape. We do not think that they are typical of the class that the hon. Gentleman represents, or of Conservative Members. Nor do we think that they are typical of their standards.
The hon. Gentleman might do us, the people that he represents and the people of London the justice and the decency of understanding that there are those in our society who require help. Any civilised local authority or Parliament will seek to assist them. Even the Prime Minister in her most recent homilies on Victorian values said that the necessity taught to her by her grandmother was to give a hand to her neighbour. I ask Conservative Members who, in the context of this debate, is their neighbour and how much does it really mean to give them a hand? Is it just another instance of sickly Tory sentimentality in place of a real policy of assistance?
I would like to think that this debate is taking place with the glorious prospect of a forthcoming general election, although, as hon. Members heard this afternoon, only the Prime Minister can tell the House the date. It is not altogether distant from the minds of hon. Members. We have heard that "Maggie May" or Maggie may not. The House was reminded of the Liverpool song. I would not dream of infringing upon the rules of order by reciting part of that song, even though the debate is of an educational nature. My recollection of the song is that Maggie May —it is a long time since I heard it—was a good-time girl with a golden heart. The Prime Minister fails on both counts.
Against that background, my right hon. and hon. Friends have proferred some grave charges against the Government, which appear in the Opposition's motion. We have accused the Government of causing and fostering repression, regression, decay, depression and demoralisation in the community and in the local government services that are essential to a decent life in this country.
From the Government Back Benches there has been studied complacency about the consequences of Government cuts and their changes in legislation which, in some cases, have amounted to cruelty. I hope that Conservative Members will be able to defend that attitude before their constituents in the next few months. The hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) claimed that people living in the inner cities would be better off if they elected Tories to represent them. That extraordinary claim is contradicted by all the evidence.
Published Government figures show that in the boroughs and district councils, which are the subject of elections next Thursday, the average in Tory-controlled authorities as a percentage of three and four-year-olds in
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pre-school education is 45 per cent. whereas in the Labour-controlled boroughs the average is 64 per cent. In the Tory boroughs the average pupil-teacher ratio is 18·8 but in the Labour boroughs it is 18. As to the cost of private education, which includes special residential education —for which all hon. Members acknowledge the need and will continue to support—the average expenditure on private place-buying in the Tory boroughs is £3·2 million, but in the Labour boroughs it is £1·4 million, all of which is allocated to place-buying for children with special needs as a consequence of their handicaps. The average council house rent in the Tory boroughs is £13·52 a week whereas in the Labour boroughs it is £11·86. It is possible to produce a host of statistics. The Tory average on pounds spent on social services per head of the population is £45 a year compared with the Labour average of £59 a year. The Tory figure for home helps per thousand of the population aged over 65 is 7·4 compared with a Labour average of 9·5.
Mr. Peter Bottomley rose—
Mr. Kinnock: If the hon. Member for Woolwich, West is concerned, as a compassionate man, with protecting the interests of those in the inner cities, those figures conclusively demonstrate that where Labour has control, even with the Government restrictions, higher priority is given to the provision of home helps, to the reduction of class sizes, to the support of the education service and to the support of the social services. The figure is 40 or 50 per cent. more than Tory councils, which by and large are in more prosperous areas.
Mr. Bottomley: Will the hon. Gentleman give the figures for the number of children in school in the Inner London education authority and nationally, and those for the amount of spending per head in real terms, as they have changed in the past four years? The hon. Gentleman apparently wants to deal with the balance between the cost and provision of services, so will he pay some attention to the effect of the rate increases that I mentioned on those living in inner city areas? I suspect that the hon. Gentleman will not deal adequately with my questions, either because he has not got the figures or because giving them would not help his case.
Mr. Kinnock: I am delighted to respond to the hon. Gentleman. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman took the bait. I am concerned about rate increases for those who find difficulty in paying. Indeed, we were promised that the abolition of rates would be considered. However, I shall deal with the hon. Gentleman's question much more adequately than he dealt with mine. I am aware not only of rate increases, but of their basic cause, which is the monstrous erosion—and in some cases eradication—of the rate support grant. That, in turn, has thrust the greater burden of the provision of local and social services on to the backs of the people.
It is hideously dishonest of the hon. Member for Woolwich, West to give one set of figures without giving the causes behind them. — [Interruption.] I do not dispute the figures; they are a matter of public record. Earlier, I said that, given this massive city's diversity of cultures and the obligation to meet educational provision, especially in post-school and higher education, the Inner London education authority could be expected to spend much more than other authorities that appear to have

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similar problems. One more thing must be said, in case the hon. Gentleman continues to distort the facts and to mislead his constituents and others—[Interruption.] I do not have the figures with me, but they are a matter of public record. I am more than prepared to publish them, because they are well known. Indeed, I am always glad to debate them because that at least saves us from the distortions and dishonesties of Conservative Members.
In many ways the Government's response to the challenges that have been made is even worse than that of their Back Benchers. There is a claim to be interested in economy and efficiency. However, we have been given figures that relate only to the alleged savings that can be made on garbage collection in about a dozen boroughs. We have been asked to applaud low rate rises, but the Government have not had the honesty to admit the awful consequences for local, social, housing and education services.
The Government assert that reduced current expenditure benefits "ratepayers and taxpayers"—to quote their amendment—without admitting that millions of ratepayers and taxpayers are severely disadvantaged and impoverished as a result of the cuts in the financial regime. For the Government plaintively to ask us in their amendment to congratulate them on improving standards in education is pure bunkum. That is the truth about the alleged improvement in education standards, but we would not expect anything much better from a Government of frauds—[Interruption.] Even in the light—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that no hon. Member is a fraud, and that is official. The hon. Gentleman should withdraw his remark.
Mr. Kinnock: Is it permissible, Mr. Speaker, in the interest of accuracy—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw"]—to replace the word "frauds" with "fraudulent claims"?
Mr. Speaker: In replacing the word the hon. Gentleman is withdrawing it. Over the years the charge of fraudulent claims has been levelled many times at parties in this House.
Mr. Kinnock: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. The term "fraudulent claims" will do for the moment but I hope that the House and the country will notice the great sensitivity with which Conservative Members have responded. I suspect that that has nothing to do with parliamentary decorum but everything to do with the accuracy of my statement. Nevertheless, I will let the matter rest. The Conservatives give forgery a bad name, even in the light of recent experience.
The greatest deceit practised against the people of this country since 1979 is the Prime Minister's claim in her own constituency that "taxes must be cut and taxes will be cut." Recent figures from the Government demonstrate that that was an absolute deceit but there are other deceits. There were promises to strengthen local democracy, but all we have had is "Big Sister" centralisation. There were promises to save on bureaucracy. What has been imposed is a new autocracy of cash limits and means tests. The Conservatives' promise to raise educational standards has been atomised by cuts in provision which threaten even numeracy and literacy in primary schools. [Interruption.] I shall give the figures in a moment if Conservative
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Members have the patience to wait for them. The Government's local government financing system, exposed brilliantly yet again by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), achieves the unique result of simultaneous under-provision of housing and many other local services and underspending in those services, including housing. They have managed to combine miserliness with waste, which is an achievement. Indeed, it is the quack economics that we expect from the Conservatives—the recommendation of a starvation diet to someone suffering from anorexia nervosa.
We see the same consequences in every service. As a result of Government policies there has been a 58·1 per cent. cut in expenditure on housing in real terms since 1979. Indeed, 75 per cent. of all public expenditure cuts have come from housing. That is from a party that has the gall to present itself as the one that emphasises the interests of the family. No party that is demolishing the possibility of millions of young families having a house in the foreseeable future can describe itself as the party that defends the family.
In 1982, the number of public housing completions was the lowest since 1918. In 1982 the number of private sector completions was the lowest since 1954. There has been no great downward slump in the number of our people who require public housing. By taking away resources, the Government have squeezed the life out of the construction industry and have deprived people of that basic requirement of a satisfactory, happy and civilised existence—a secure home.
My message to voters in the local elections who have been on a housing waiting list for two years is that it is the Tory Government's fault. That is where the fault deserves to lie. A further message is that, if people do manage to get a council house now, they will pay a higher rent in real terms than at any time in the past 20 years. The services to council tenants are worse than ever before. The only reason that the position is not even more disastrous is that the Labour Government kept council house rents at a civilised level, thereby mitigating the consequences of the Government's action.
Under this "family party", the party of Victorian values, not only have services been cut back but local authorities, especially Tory local authorities, have developed new ways to offset what expenditure they are prepared to undertake on services such as home helps. Old-age pensioners will pay a pound or two or suffer the loss of a home help and the isolation and loneliness that go with it. As my hon. Friends have said during the debate, that is an example of the Victorian approach.
In the past three to four years we have seen attendance charges for those attending mentally handicapped centres. Charges have increased for adult education classes, and consequently there has been a reduction in the number of classes on offer, especially for the sections of the population that are probably the poorest and in greatest need of a continuation of their education and the opportunities for socialising that go with evening and adult classes.
Bus fares are increasing and consequently isolating still further those in inner cities, suburbs and rural areas. Comforts have been withdrawn from old people's homes. These withdrawals have not had enormous financial consequences but the effect on the morale of old people has been great. Her Majesty's inspectors have twice

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reported an increasing and worrying increase in dependence upon parental contributions to buy things as basic to proper education as essential textbooks.
We used to worry that we would see these rises in charges as a consequence of the tax cuts that the Government promised. We used to say, "Tax cuts will be welcome but they will have to be paid for." But we have not had the tax cuts. We have had all the extra charges but we have not had the cuts. There is something missing, and the people should be reminded of the missing element.
A married couple with two children would need a family income of £29,567 to benefit from income tax cuts. If Conservative Members are on £40,000 a year—I use the Government's figures—they can expect an income tax cut of £24 a week. Those on average earnings, double average earnings, three times average earnings or four times average earnings have not had tax cuts. In real terms they have had tax increases.
We did not expect that to occur, but it has happened. The terrible tale is that slump increases social mobility in a variety of ways, especially family break-up. The local rescue and support services are cut to below sensible levels and, in some instances, to below the statutory level. There is isolation and neglect for those who are afflicted, and to these problems are added poverty for the old, the young, the disabled and for those who are socially inadequate in various ways.
Mr. Budgen rose—
Mr. Kinnock: On top of all that, we have smug sermons from self-righteous rich Tory ladies about Victorian values. That is a disgrace.
The Government say that they welcome measures to improve education standards. That is a travesty. Conservative Members probably remember as well as I do the promises that were set out in the Conservative party's manifesto, although I am sure that they do not want the document quoted at them. However, they will get it.
Mr. Budgen rose—
Mr. John Maxton: Sit down, you little bore.
Mr. Kinnock: The manifesto stated:
"We shall promote higher standards of achievement in basic skills."
The previous paragraph stated:
"We must restore to every child, regardless of background, the chance to progress as far as his or her abilities allow."
What do Her Majesty's inspectors have to say about that? They are an authoritative and independent source of information. They reported last year on the impact of public expenditure cuts on local authority education services, and stated:
"Unless the level and pattern of staffing and the provision of other resources for primary schools can be maintained in such a way that they allow broad coverage of the curriculum and both expertise and time for teachers to deal with the range of learning needs identified, it is unlikely that existing standards, particularly in numeracy and literacy, will be maintained."
For the secondary schools they listed ways in which the cuts had sorely afflicted the curriculum and, taken together, they said in paragraph 69:
"these characteristics add up to a serious threat to the maintenance of standards and desirable improvements."
They put it in a nutshell in paragraph 72 when they said:
"many LEAs and schools are surviving financially by doing less; but they are often obliged to take the less in the form that comes easily to hand rather than shaping it to match educational priorities".
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That, they said, meant a general retrenchment, the loss of specialist subjects and less acceptable standards of provision for children with special educational needs. That was Her Majesty's inspectorate's response to the Tory promise that higher standards would be achieved. As for restoring standards of opportunity, one cannot restore or achieve such standards when the Government's programme for higher education consists entirely of taking away 27,000 university places for qualified young people and a further 14,000 to 16,000 places in public sector higher education for qualified young people. Those promises have proved to be nonsense. We have had Californian scale fund-cutting in education and we are in danger of getting Mexican levels of provision in education.
There is a principle behind all those plans. None of them is unconscious or regretted or is an accidental byproduct of the Government's policies. They are central to the economic policy and social philosophy of the Government; the economic policy of monetarism and the social philosophy of privilege. We heard it in the Prime Minister's speech to the Women's Royal Voluntary Service in 1981, we saw it in the leak from the Think Tank last autumn and we witnessed it in the family policy group leaks of February of this year. Running like an infected vein throughout the policies of the Government is the deliberate purpose of the destruction of the welfare state. Indeed, for the welfare state there is an equivalent of privatisation. It is called domestication.
It sounds superficially as if it is a cosy, intimate, soft and attractive idea—that of putting people who need assistance and support back into the bosoms of their families—but it does not work like that. I am sure we would all be in favour of it if it were a practicable objective in a modern society. But the individual respect which the family policy group said that it wanted to nurture is being destroyed as individual dignity is being destroyed by mass unemployment. Individual respect will not be enhanced with cuts in benefits so that people are turned into supplicants, or cuts in services so that they are deprived of all forms of support.
As for the individual responsibility which the family policy group said it wanted to reinforce, that is a mockery, certainly when people are burdened with the worry, insecurity and fear of poverty, of being jobless or ill or of having no decent home. Nothing destroys families—the family policy group and everybody else should know this —more quickly than those strains and worries, and their running mate, unemployment.
That has shattered families and driven youngsters from their homes in Wales, Scotland, the north-east and the north-west. The people from those areas could lecture us from bitter experience about what family policies should be, and in none of those lectures would we get a hint that it should be any part of a modern, caring, democratic Government's purpose so to cut back on essential services as to deny people necessary care, to wipe out opportunities, to cripple them socially and isolate and deprive them so that we are observing not just a fall in standards of living but a collapse of standards of civilised conduct in Britain.
Have the speeches today keen on that line of thinking? We have heard about economic efficiency, bashing Labour councils and garbage collection, but no one has stood up for Victorian values or for the family policy group's definition of what we should seek to achieve. It

811
is not as if we have heard all wets. We have not had saturated soldiers, but quite a few dries. We have had old sticks like the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) and fossils like the hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend). There has been hardly a wet in the place, but the hon. Members who spoke did not stand up for any of those values. Are they embarrassed? I suspect that they are. When they hear the Prime Minister lecturing people in the way that she does and contrast it with the consequences of her policies, they know that the people of Britain were deceived in 1979. Further deceit is planned for the people of Britain if, by some dreadful accident, we have Victorian values governing us again under the Prime Minister, with all the antique policies that go with them.
However, the people could go for the other choice. They could choose Labour policies from the 1980s for the 1980s. There is a choice for the people of Britain between old rope and new hope. I think that they will vote for Socialism when they get the first chance next Thursday, and for homes, education, services, liberties and civilisation. The call will be—and it will be responded to—"Vote Labour".
9.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): The Chamber has been surprisingly empty, particularly the Opposition Benches, for what was heralded as a great attack on the Government. The opening speech by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) and the wind-up by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) were both strong in criticism, but they were totally lacking in suggestions about how we might tackle things better. Moreover, the Labour Government did not do so well in this area that they could rest on their laurels. When they came in, there was a great rise in all the expenditure that lay to hand, but shortly afterwards, when they had to call in the International Monetary Fund, they retreated fast and started reducing expenditure sharply. Therefore, the Labour party in government did not achieve what it aspired to achieve. It cannot rest entirely on rhetoric when it attacks the Government, as it has tried to do today.
I regret that I have not heard every speech, particularly that I did not hear what I am told was the thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant). However, I heard thoughtful and constructive speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Bridlington (Mr. Townend) and for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler). I emphasise that they both rightly stressed the destruction of jobs that comes from no doubt well-intentioned but thoroughly uncomprehending high rates. Opposition Members regret that destruction of jobs, but they do not analyse the cause.
I enjoyed very much, for its penetration, the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) and that by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). I am told that I must read with care the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen)—with some of which I suspect I shall agree—and for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle).
I shall talk first about education, which, after all, accounts for over half the spending by local government;
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then I shall come to the general theme of the debate. The Government's prime commitment in education is to maintain and improve standards of education. Opposition Members habitually speak as if the only thing that affects the achievement of that aim is the level of public spending, but that is not so, and I think that they know it. Parents rightly look for schools where their efforts to help their children are welcomed, where high standards of behaviour are encouraged, where teachers succeed in motivating their pupils, whatever their background, and where examination results are good.
Those things are easy to say. They are far less easy to quantify, and even less easy to achieve. However, every parent knows—as every hon. Member must know—that some schools do much better for their pupils in those respects than others, and that the difference is not just one of money. For secondary schools, comparisons are often based on examination results because they are more readily quantified than other measures of quality. I recognise their inadequacy as a measure. What we need is some means of assessing the "value added" by the school for each pupil. Examination results are, nevertheless, of great importance. If any hon. Member doubts it, I can assure the House that there are local authorities where expenditure on secondary schools is relatively modest but where the pupils—not necessarily from advantaged backgrounds—achieve relatively good results. For an example of the opposite, we need look no further than County Hall.
The difference is not just money, but money is certainly a factor. Here as elsewhere, the Government are happy to be judged on their record, and I shall set it out. First of all, however, I should like to compare the non-financial achievements of Labour and Tory Governments.
I pay tribute to the Labour Government for some of the things that they did for education. In particular, I respect their achievement in requiring that all new teachers should have at least O-level in English and mathematics. The fact that it was necessary for a Government to intervene to achieve that may make us gasp, but we should give credit to the Labour Government for doing it. The Labour Government also set up three committees—the Taylor committee, the Cockroft committee and the Rampton committee. They established the assessment of performance unit. They initiated discussion of the curriculum. They cut places in teacher training by 50 per cent.—that should be remembered before there is any criticism of the present Government. They abolished direct grant schools—shame on them for doing so. They imposed comprehensivisation, and they were wrong in doing so.
I have tried honourably to set out what the Labour party might boast of as its achievements. What, on the non-financial side, can we set against them?
Mr. Clinton Davis: Sheer prejudice.
Sir Keith Joseph: Let the hon. Gentleman hear the catalogue. First, we restored the freedom to local education authorities which had been taken away by the 1976 Act. We made local authorities once again free to decide for their own residents what sort of education they should provide—whether it should be selective or comprehensive. We restored autonomy in education to local government.
Mr. Clinton Davis: Rubbish.
Sir Keith Joseph: The hon. Gentleman says, "Rubbish," but the first thing that we did on coming to office was to repeal the 1976 Act.
Secondly, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) introduced the 1980 Act, which provided for an increase in parental choice coupled with the first appeal system and a requirement on all schools to supply information so that parents were better equipped to choose. We also passed the 1981 Act, stemming from the Prime Minister's initiative in establishing the Warnock committee. That Act initiated the integration into ordinary schools of children who might otherwise have gone into special schools, so far as that made sense in the interests of the children concerned.
We followed up the Cockcroft committee on mathematics set up by the Labour Government. We introduced and are still spreading a pervasive scheme of microelectronic education in secondary and primary schools. We are systematically following up the criteria for examinations flowing from the Labour Government's initiative on the curriculum. We have set up the secondary examinations council. We have also introduced something that the Labour Government failed to achieve, despite the efforts of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams)—an in-service training grant to increase training for teachers in post.
I hope that Opposition Members who jeered when I said that I would give a catalogue of achievements realise that I am not yet half way. We have announced that we propose to initiate a national development centre for the training of head teachers and heads of department. In September we are introducing a 17-plus examination. We have produced a White Paper on teacher training quality—no doubt some of my hon. Friends will say, "About time too" —with proposals to improve the curriculum.
Mr. Kinnock: There is nothing in it.
Sir Keith Joseph: The hon. Gentleman cannot have read it. We believe that successful classroom teachers should join in the selection of teacher training candidates, that trainers of teachers should have had recent successful classroom experience, that the curriculum should be approved by the holder of my office and that qualifications for teachers in schools should be taken very seriously by local education authorities to match more nearly the needs of the curriculum. By no stretch of the imagination can that be called nothing.
We have also announced that we propose to ask the House for power to provide education support grants at a cost of one third to one half of 1 per cent. of the total education budget. That does not mean that we shall reduce the autonomy of local authorities, but for the first time the holder of my office will have a marginal influence on the way in which local authorities choose to deploy public money. This again is an aspiration on which the right hon. Member for Crosby tried to persuade the Labour Government but failed.
We have taken or are taking five further initiatives even more central to the interests of the children of this country than those that I have already outlined. It must surely be common ground that a substantial and worrying minority of young people seem to leave school after 11 years of compulsory education with far less benefit in behaviour, self-discipline, academic success and even, alas, in some
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cases in literacy and numeracy than Members on both sides would wish. So far, Governments have recognised this but have not tried to do something about it.
For the first time, having correctly—or perhaps not correctly—identified the cause, we have suggested that the curriculum may not be suited to those who are not especially academic. We have therefore found funds from the taxpayer to give a number of local education authorities—many bid for the opportunity—enough money to develop a curriculum more suited to children whom we describe as low attainers. I have suggested—I have not been corrected—that perhaps 40 per cent. of our school children are low attainers. I should say at once that there is some double counting as that includes the 18 per cent. who, according to the Warnock committee, at the extreme are in special schools but taper off into limited disability.
Mr. Kinnock: The Secretary of State says that the technical and vocational education initiative —[Interruption.] My misunderstanding might he more attributable to the way in which the Secretary of State is addressing the House than to my hearing. In advance then, when the Secretary of State deals with the technical and vocational initiative, will he say whether it will apply to children of all abilities?
Sir Keith Joseph: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the technical and vocational education initiative will apply specifically and explicitly to children of all abilities. The Government have identified another gap in our education provision in that regard. We all agree that some children are better suited to a technical emphasis in a curriculum but not a dominantly technical curriculum. The Prime Minister has initiated a pilot scheme, which local authorities bid in great abundance to take part in, by which 14 projects in 14 different local education authorities provide a technical element in the curriculum. It starts this September.
There are two other initiatives of which the Government are legitimately proud. First, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) was the first Minister to publish the annual report by Her Majesty's inspectorate on the provision of education by local education authorities. Some of the criticism which comes so glibly from Opposition Members would be less offensive if they had initiated that publication when Her Majesty's inspectorate first reported during a Labour Government.
The publication of the full inspection reports of HMI is an achievement which the Government can honourably record. It seems obvious now that it has been done. I believe that the country accepts that that is a positive step forward. HMI is regarded with great respect and what it writes about schools can be read by all those who are interested. The Government intend not merely to publish those reports but to follow them up systematically with local education authorities.
Mr. Cant rose—
Sir Keith Joseph: The Government are aware that all those initiatives will be more effective the more that we can increase parental choice. That is why we make no apology for trying by one means or another, including open enrolment, to widen parental choice and parental influence on schools.

815
The Government are as content to be judged on our financial record as on our non-financial achievements. In 1978–79, the last full year of the Labour Government, £7·5 billion was spent on education in England and the universities of Great Britain. In 1983–84, that will have increased to more than £12 billion. I accept that that reflects some years of inflation, but it also reflects a real increase. One tenth of public spending, third only to social security and defence, goes on education.
As I shall produce a fairly large number of comparisons which show that in real terms the financial circumstances of schools are in every way better than they were under Labour, it behoves me to ask why schools are so full of teachers who feel hard done by. There is no doubt that schools, parents, teachers and local education authorities feel that, despite the figures which I shall give to show that more than ever before in real terms is being given to education spending, they are under great financial pressure. Dis-economies of scale as the school population declines present real difficulties for administrators, head teachers and teachers in managing and deploying the teaching staff to cover the curriculum, which it is widely agreed should be more extensive.
Although all those involved in education feel under pressure—I recognise their difficulties—the Government are spending more in real terms per school child than ever before. Between 1975–76, the Labour Government's peak year for spending on education and for numbers at school, and 1978–79 — the three last years of the Labour Government—spending on education fell by 2·6 per cent. in real terms, an average fall of nearly 1 per cent. a year. I draw the House's attention to that sanctimonious party's record. During the four years of this Government, spending has decreased by 2·9 per cent.—an average of 0·75 per cent. a year. In other words, the Government have slowed the rate of decline, although the school population has fallen during that period seven times as fast as it fell under the Labour Government. We are spending at least 5 per cent. more in real terms per child than did the Labour Government in 1978–79. In 1976–77 the Labour Government cut spending on education slightly in real terms while school rolls were increasing. Therefore, their case for sanctimony is small.
I hope that the House will note the reductions in spending on education by the Labour Government. Expenditure on primary schools decreased by 3 per cent., on the youth service by 3 per cent., on school milk by 16 per cent., and on school building by 40 per cent., although secondary school numbers were increasing. The Labour party cannot claim that it continued to spend. When the Labour Government were in office, expenditure on books and adult education, and capital expenditure, fell, just as it has fallen under this Government, although expenditure on maintenance decreased by less than it has under this Government. One genuine achievement that the Labour party has to its credit is that the participation rate in nursery education for the under-fives increased by 1 per cent., which is marginally more than the increase under this Government. The Government have made savings, some of which were painful — notably the rationalisation of the school meals service, which was long overdue. However, more is being spent per pupil in real terms than ever before.
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A similar picture emerges from the pupil-teacher ratio, which has fallen to the record low level of 18·1 compared with 18·9 when the Labour Government left office. We have achieved a reduction in teachers which is less than the reduction in pupils, so that the pupil-teacher ratio is better than ever before. We reject as humbug any criticism of the reduction in teachers, because the Labour Government's last public expenditure White Paper declared their intention to cut teacher numbers by 4 per cent.
Access to higher education, contrary to what the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) said, languished under the Labour Government, with 450,000 students at universities and polytechnics. It has risen under this Government to 500,000. Despite a record level of 18-yearolds, we have a higher age participation rate by 1 per cent. than when Labour left office. It is now at a record level of 13·5 per cent.
I turn now to the general subject of the debate.
Mr. Kinnock: What about university numbers?
Sir Keith Joseph: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that muniversity numbers have fallen, but polytechnic numbers have rocketed.
The Opposition have totally failed to show that the Government have asked for savage and unreasonable service cuts. The vast majority of local authorities are proving that the Government's targets are reasonable. Eighty per cent. of the local authorities are budgeting this year to spend below, at or within 2 per cent. above target.
I want to turn in the last minutes of this debate to something that hon. Members who were not present at the beginning of the debate may not have seen. They did not witness the extraordinary silence of the right hon. Member for Ardwick and the hon. Member for Bedwellty—not two of the least articulate hon. Members of the House—when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment disclosed to the House the report that had been made to NALGO by its public relations advisers. It appears, my right hon. Friend told us, that NALGO is spending £1 million on advertising in order to mobilise support for its own view that the Government should not seek to cut in any way the numbers of people engaged in NALGO services.
It so happens that somehow or other a copy of the advice given by its public relations firm to NALGO has become available. I will read to the House a few passages from that report:
"Local rates were very important in high-spending areas … particularly to those who were owner-occupiers … they felt that money was deliberately being wasted, quite apart from being inherently mismanaged, in an attempt by local councils to defy the Government … People were still able to cope with the present standard of services … several people felt that it was about time that public services were cut—because they were seen to be inefficient and mismanaged and that if cutting back involved depleting an over-manned work force and a top-heavy administration that was to be welcomed. The attitudes to public services were similar to those towards nationalised industries —i.e. they were sloppily run and operated. Consequently, therefore, it was felt that the cuts could be afforded—larger budgets were only necessary because the money was mismanaged and wasted … There was a general feeling that cuts had to be made because we were living through a recession and we could no longer afford the large public spending budgets we were used to."

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Finally, I quote from this publication the views reported by the public relations advisers that the advertising proposed by NALGO was dishonest and that it was hiding behind a political issue to protect its own skin.
The NALGO survey's findings show that the vast majority of people, including many who do not support this Government, recognise, in spite of all the political propaganda, that there is scope for economy and greater efficiency, that there are better ways in which at least some of the services can be provided and that in a serious world recession these economies must remain.
The message is clear. The people want an economic, efficient and effective local authority service. Those who want it should vote Conservative on 5 May. I hope that the House will reject this motion and vote for the amendment.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 199, Noes 270.

Division No. 131]

[10 pm

AYES

Abse, Leo

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Adams, Allen

Eadie, Alex

Allaun, Frank

Ellis, R. (NE D'bysh're)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

English, Michael

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Ennals, Rt Hon David

Ashton, Joe

Evans, loan (Aberdare)

Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)

Evans, John (Newton)

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Field, Frank

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Flannery, Martin

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (H'wd)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Ford, Ben

Bennett, Andrewf(St'kp't N)

Forrester, John

Bidwell, Sydney

Foster, Derek

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Foulkes, George

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Fraser, J. (Lamb'th, N'w'd)

Bottomley, Rt Hon A.(M'b'ro)

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

George, Bruce

Brown, R. C. (N'castle W)

Ginsburg, David

Brown, Ronald W, (H'ckn'y S)

Golding, John

Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

Graham, Ted

Buchan, Norman

Grant, John (Islington C)

Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

Grimond, Rt Hon J.

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

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Campbell, Ian

Hamilton, W. W. (C'tral Fife)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Harman, Harriet (Peckham)

Canavan, Dennis

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Cant, R. B.

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Carmichael, Neil

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Haynes, Frank

Cartwright, John

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Heffer, Eric S.

Clarke, Thomas (C'b'dge, A'rie)

Holland, S. (L'b'th, Vauxh'll)

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)

Home Robertson, John

Cohen, Stanley

Homewood, William

Coleman, Donald

Hooley, Frank

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Hoyle, Douglas

Cook, Robin F.

Huckfield, Les

Cowans, Harry

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, M'hill)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Crowther, Stan

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Janner, Hon Greville

Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Cunningham, Dr J. (W'h'n)

John, Brynmor

Dalyell, Tam

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Davidson, Arthur

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

Kinnock, Neil

Davis, Terry (B'ham, Stechf'd)

Lambie, David

Deakins, Eric

Lamond, James

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Leadbitter, Ted

Dixon, Donald

Litherland, Robert

Dormand, Jack

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Duffy, A. E. P.

Lyons, Edward (Bradf'd W)

Dunnett, Jack

McCartney, Hugh

818

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Silkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)

McKelvey, William

Silverman, Julius

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Skinner, Dennis

McTaggart, Robert

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Marshall, D(G'gow S'ton)

Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Snape, Peter

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Soley, Clive

Maxton, John

Spearing, Nigel

Meacher, Michael

Spriggs, Leslie

Mikardo, Ian

Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Stoddart, David

Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

Stott, Roger

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

Strang, Gavin

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Straw, Jack

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

Morton, George

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Newens, Stanley

Thomas, Dr R.(Carmarthen)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

O'Brien, Oswald (Darlington)

Tilley, John

Ogden, Eric

Tinn, James

O'Halloran, Michael

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

O'Neill, Martin

Wainwright, E.(Dearne V)

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Walker, Rt Hon H.(D'caster)

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Wardell, Gareth

Park, George

Watkins, David

Parker, John

Weetch, Ken

Parry, Robert

Wellbeloved, James

Penhaligon, David

Welsh, Michael

Price, C. (Lewisham W)

White, Frank R.

Race, Reg

Whitehead, Phillip

Radice, Giles

Whitlock, William

Rees, Rt Hon M (Leeds S)

Wigley, Dafydd

Richardson, Jo

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Williams, Rt Hon A.(S'sea W)

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

Wilson, Rt Hon Sir H.(H'ton)

Robertson, George

Wilson, William (C'try SE)

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Winnick, David

Rooker, J. W.

Woodall, Alec

Roper, John

Wright, Sheila

Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

Young, David (Bolton E)

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Rowlands, Ted

Tellers for the Ayes:

Ryman, John

Mr. Ron Leighton and

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Mr. Allen McKay.

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

NOES

Aitken, Jonathan

Brittan, Rt. Hon. Leon

Alexander, Richard

Brooke, Hon Peter

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Brotherton, Michael

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'n)

Ancram, Michael

Browne, John (Winchester)

Arnold, Tom

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Aspinwall, Jack

Bryan, Sir Paul

Atkins, Rt Hon H.(S'thorne)

Buchanan-Smith, Rt. Hon. A.

Atkins, Robert (Preston N)

Buck, Antony

Baker, Kenneth (St.M'bone)

Budgen, Nick

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Bulmer, Esmond

Banks, Robert

Burden, Sir Frederick

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Butcher, John

Bendall, Vivian

Butler, Hon Adam

Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

Carlisle, John (Luton West)

Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Berry, Hon Anthony

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Best, Keith

Chapman, Sydney

Bevan, David Gilroy

Churchill, W. S.

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th, S'n)

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Blackburn, John

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Blaker, Peter

Cockeram, Eric

Body, Richard

Cope, John

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Cormack, Patrick

Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

Corrie, John

Bowden, Andrew

Costain, Sir Albert

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Cranborne, Viscount

Braine, Sir Bernard

Crouch, David

Bright, Graham

Dorrell, Stephen

Brinton, Tim

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

819

Dover, Denshore

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Lee, John

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Le Merchant, Spencer

Durant, Tony

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Dykes, Hugh

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Rutland)

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Eggar, Tim

Loveridge, John

Elliott, Sir William

Luce, Richard

Emery, Sir Peter

Lyell, Nicholas

Eyre, Reginald

McCrindle, Robert

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Macfarlane, Neil

Faith, Mrs Sheila

MacGregor, John

Farr, John

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Fell, Sir Anthony

Macmillan, Rt Hon M.

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Finsberg, Geoffrey

McNair-Wilson, P. (New F'st)

Fisher, Sir Nigel

McQuarrie, Albert

Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)

Madel, David

Fletcher-Cooke, Sir Charles

Major, John

Fookes, Miss Janet

Marland, Paul

Forman, Nigel

Marlow, Antony

Fox, Marcus

Marten, Rt Hon Neil

Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Mawby, Ray

Fry, Peter

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Gardner, Sir Edward

Mayhew, Patrick

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Mills, Iain (Meriden)

Glyn, Dr Alan

Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Miscampbell, Norman

Goodhew, Sir Victor

Moate, Roger

Goodlad, Alastair

Monro, Sir Hector

Gorst, John

Montgomery, Fergus

Gow, Ian

Moore, John

Gower, Sir Raymond

Morgan, Geraint

Gray, Rt Hon Hamish

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Griffiths, E.(B'y St. Edm'ds)

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Mudd, David

Grist, Ian

Murphy, Christopher

Grylls, Michael

Myles, David

Gummer, John Selwyn

Neale, Gerrard

Hamilton, Hon A.

Needham, Richard

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Nelson, Anthony

Hampson, Dr Keith

Neubert, Michael

Hannam, John

Newton, Tony

Haselhurst, Alan

Nott, Rt Hon Sir John

Hastings, Stephen

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Hawksley, Warren

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

Hayhoe, Barney

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Parris, Matthew

Heddle, John

Patten, John (Oxford)

Henderson, Barry

Pawsey, James

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Percival, Sir Ian

Hicks, Robert

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Pink, R. Bonner

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Pollock, Alexander

Holland, Philip (Carlton)

Porter, Barry

Hordern, Peter

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Proctor, K. Harvey

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldf'd)

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Rathbone, Tim

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

Irvine, RtHon Bryant Godman

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

Renton, Tim

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Rhodes James, Robert

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Kershaw, Sir Anthony

Rossi, Hugh

Kimball, Sir Marcus

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

King, Rt Hon Tom

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Knox, David

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Lamont, Norman

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Lang, Ian

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Latham, Michael

Shepherd, Richard

Lawrence, Ivan

Shersby, Michael

820

Silvester, Fred

Trippier, David

Sims, Roger

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Skeet, T. H. H.

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Viggers, Peter

Speed, Keith

Waddington, David

Speller, Tony

Wakeham, John

Spence, John

Waldegrave, Hon William

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)

Sproat, Iain

Walker, B. (Perth)

Squire, Robin

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir D.

Stanbrook, Ivor

Walters, Dennis

Stanley, John

Warren, Kenneth

Steen, Anthony

Watson, John

Stevens, Martin

Wells, Bowen

Stewart, A.(E Renfrewshire)

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

Wheeler, John

Stokes, John

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Stradling Thomas, J.

Whitney, Raymond

Tapsell, Peter

Wiggin, Jerry

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Williams, D.(Montgomery)

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Thompson, Donald

Younger, Rt Hon George

Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

Thornton, Malcolm

Tellers for the Noes:

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Mr. Robert Boscawen and

Townsend, Cyril D, (B'heath)

Mr. Carol Mather.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 33 (Questions on Amendments):—
The House divided: Ayes 262, Noes 198.

Division No. 132]

[10.12 pm

AYES

Aitken, Jonathan

Butcher, John

Alexander, Richard

Butler, Hon Adam

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Carlisle, John (Luton West)

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Ancram, Michael

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Arnold, Tom

Chapman, Sydney

Aspinwall, Jack

Churchill, W. S.

Atkins, Rt Hon H.(S'thorne)

Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th, S'n)

Atkins, Robert (Preston N)

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Baker, Kenneth(St.M'bone)

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Cockeram, Eric

Banks, Robert

Cope, John

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Cormack, Patrick

Bendall, Vivian

Corrie, John

Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

Costain, Sir Albert

Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

Cranborne, Viscount

Berry, Hon Anthony

Crouch, David

Best, Keith

Dorrell, Stephen

Bevan, David Gilroy

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Dover, Denshore

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Blackburn, John

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Blaker, Peter

Durant, Tony

Body, Richard

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

Eggar, Tim

Bowden, Andrew

Elliott, Sir William

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Emery, Sir Peter

Braine, Sir Bernard

Eyre, Reginald

Bright, Graham

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Brinton, Tim

Faith, Mrs Sheila

Brittan, Rt. Hon. Leon

Farr, John

Brooke, Hon Peter

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Brotherton, Michael

Finsberg, Geoffrey

Brown, Michael(Brigg & Sc'n)

Fisher, Sir Nigel

Browne, John (Winchester)

Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Fletcher-Cooke, Sir Charles

Bryan, Sir Paul

Fookes, Miss Janet

Buchanan-Smith, Rt. Hon. A.

Forman, Nigel

Buck, Antony

Fox, Marcus

Budgen, Nick

Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

Bulmer, Esmond

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Burden, Sir Frederick

Fry, Peter

821

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Moate, Roger

Gardner, Sir Edward

Monro, Sir Hector

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Montgomery, Fergus

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Moore, John

Glyn, Dr Alan

Morgan, Geraint

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Goodhew, Sir Victor

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Goodlad, Alastair

Mudd, David

Gorst, John

Murphy, Christopher

Gow, Ian

Myles, David

Gower, Sir Raymond

Neale, Gerrard

Griffiths, E(B'y St. Edm'ds)

Needham, Richard

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Nelson, Anthony

Grist, Ian

Neubert, Michael

Grylls, Michael

Newton, Tony

Gummer, John Selwyn

Nott, Rt Hon Sir John

Hamilton, Hon A.

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Haselhurst, Alan

Parris, Matthew

Hastings, Stephen

Patten, John (Oxford)

Hawksley, Warren

Pawsey, James

Hayhoe, Barney

Percival, Sir Ian

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Heddle, John

Pink, R. Bonner

Henderson, Barry

Pollock, Alexander

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Porter, Barry

Hicks, Robert

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Proctor, K. Harvey

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Holland, Philip (Carlton)

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Hordern, Peter

Rathbone, Tim

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Rees, Rt Hon M (Leeds S)

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldfd)

Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Renton, Tim

Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

Rhodes James, Robert

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Rossi, Hugh

Kimball, Sir Marcus

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

King, Rt Hon Tom

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Knox, David

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Lamont, Norman

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Lang, Ian

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Latham, Michael

Shepherd, Richard

Lawrence, Ivan

Shersby, Michael

Lee, John

Silvester, Fred

Le Marchant, Spencer

Sims, Roger

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Skeet, T. H. H.

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Rutland)

Speed, Keith

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Speller, Tony

Loveridge, John

Spence, John

Luce, Richard

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Lyell, Nicholas

Sproat, Iain

McCrindle, Robert

Squire, Robin

Macfarlane, Neil

Stanbrook, Ivor

MacGregor, John

Stanley, John

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Steen, Anthony

Macmillan, Rt Hon M.

Stevens, Martin

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Stewart, A.(E Renfrewshire)

McNair-Wilson, P. (New F'st)

Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

McQuarrie, Albert

Stradling Thomas, J.

Madel, David

Tapsell, Peter

Major, John

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Marland, Paul

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Marlow, Antony

Thompson, Donald

Marten, Rt Hon Neil

Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

Thornton, Malcolm

Mawby, Ray

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Townsend, Cyril D, (B'heath)

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Trippier, David

Mayhew, Patrick

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

Mills, Iain (Meriden)

Viggers, Peter

Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

Waddington, David

Miscampbell, Norman

Wakeham,John

822

Waldegrave, Hon William

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Walker, Rt Hon P.(Wcester)

Whitney, Raymond

Walker, B. (Perth)

Wiggin, Jerry

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir D.

Williams, D.(Montgomery)

Walters, Dennis

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Warren, Kenneth

Younger, Rt Hon George

Watson, John

Wells, Bowen

Tellers for the Ayes:

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Mr. Carol Mather and

Wheeler, John

Mr. Robert Boscawen.

NOES

Abse, Leo

Fraser, J. (Lamb'th, N'w'd)

Adams, Allen

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Allaun, Frank

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

George, Bruce

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Ginsburg, David

Ashton, Joe

Golding, John

Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)

Graham, Ted

Bagier, Gordon A.T.

Grant, John (Islington C)

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Grimond, Rt Hon J.

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (H'wd)

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Hamilton, W. W. (C'tral Fife)

Bennett, Andrew (St'kp't N)

Harman, Harriet (Peckham)

Bidwell, Sydney

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Bottomley, Rt Hon A.(M'b'ro)

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Heffer, Eric S.

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Holland, S. (L'b'th, Vauxh'll)

Brown, R. C. (N'castle W)

Home Robertson, John

Brown, Ronald W. (H'ckn'y S)

Homewood, William

Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

Hooley, Frank

Buchan, Norman

Hoyle, Douglas

Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

Huckfield, Les

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

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Campbell, Ian

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Canavan, Dennis

Hughes, Simon (Bermondsey)

Cant, R. B.

Janner, Hon Greville

Carmichael, Neil

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Carter-Jones, Lewis

John, Brynmor

Cartwright, John

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Clarke,Thomas (C'b'dge, A'rie)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)

Kinnock, Neil

Cohen, Stanley

Lambie, David

Coleman, Donald

Lamond, James

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Leadbitter, Ted

Cook, Robin F.

Leighton, Ronald

Cowans, Harry

Litherland, Robert

Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, M'hill)

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Crowther, Stan

Lyons, Edward (Bradf'd W)

Cunliffe, Lawrence

McCartney, Hugh

Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Cunningham, Dr J. (W'h'n)

McKelvey, William

Dalyell, Tam

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Davidson, Arthur

McTaggart, Robert

Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

Marshall, D(G'gow S'ton)

Davis, Terry (B'ham, Stechf'd)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Deakins, Eric

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Maxton, John

Dixon, Donald

Meacher, Michael

Dormand, Jack

Mikardo, Ian

Duffy, A. E. P.

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce _

Dunnett, Jack

Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

Eadie, Alex

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Ellis, R. (NE D'bysh're)

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

English, Michael

Morton, George

Ennals, Rt Hon David

Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

Evans, loan (Aberdare)

Newens, Stanley

Evans, John (Newton)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Field, Frank

O'Brien, Oswald (Darlington)

Flannery, Martin

Ogden, Eric

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

O'Halloran, Michael

Ford, Ben

O'Neill, Martin

Forrester, John

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Foster, Derek

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Foulkes, George

Park, George

823

Parker, John

Strang, Gavin

Parry, Robert

Straw, Jack

Penhaligon, David

Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

Price, C. (Lewisham W)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Race, Reg

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Radice, Giles

Thomas, Dr R.(Carmarthen)

Rees, Rt Hon M (Leeds S)

Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

Richardson, Jo

Tilley, John

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Tinn, James

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

Wainwright, E.(Dearne V)

Robertson, George

Walker, Rt Hon H.(D'caster)

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Wardell Gareth

Rooker, J. W.

Watkins, David

Roper, John

Weetch, Ken

Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

Welsh, Michael

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

White, Frank R.

Rowlands, Ted

Whitehead, Phillip

Ryman, John

Whitlock, William

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Wigley, Dafydd

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

Silkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)

Williams, Rt Hon A. (S'sea W)

Silverman, Julius

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

Skinner, Dennis

Wilson, Rt Hon Sir H.(H'ton)

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Wilson, William (C'try SE)

Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

Winnick, David

Snape, Peter

Woodall, Alec

Soley, Clive

Wright, Sheila

Spearing, Nigel

Young, David (Bolton E)

Spriggs, Leslie

Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

Tellers for the Noes:

Stoddart, David

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Stott, Roger

Mr. Allen McKay.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Government on its efforts to promote economy and efficiency in local government; notes that the average rate increase in 1983–84 is the lowest for five years; urges Her Majesty's Government to continue to discourage excessive levels of current expenditure of local authorities to the benefit of ratepayers and taxpayers alike; and welcomes Her Majesty's Government's measures for improving standards of education.

National Health Service
10.23 pm
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Amendment Regulations 1983 (S.I., 1983, No. 302), dated 3rd March 1983, a copy of which was laid before this House on 11th March, be annulled.
Mr. Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the second motion:
That an humble address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1983 (S.I., 1983, No. 362), dated 8th March 1983, a copy of which was laid before this House on 11th March, be annulled.
Mrs. Dunwoody: When someone creates an enormous machine to crack a tiny nut, one is entitled to inquire as to what is behind the reasoning of the politicians concerned. Only a short time ago we debated the issue of charges to overseas visitors for National Health Service treatment. When Her Majesty's Opposition pointed out that such charges were unacceptable, we were told that the Opposition were not prepared to look for ways to raise cash for the National Health Service and that we had misinterpreted the intentions of Her Majesty's Government on what was, after all, only a good housekeeping measure. The Opposition might sometimes be mildly unfair to the Government. Is it true that the Government put forward a punitive measure against overseas visitors because they are prejudiced or because they suffer from latent racialism? Are they trying to demonstrate some obvious abuse of the National Health Service? I think not. We are told that the Government have seen in this measure a means of raising £6 million for the National Health Service and that it should be widely welcomed.
In the debate on National Health charges to overseas visitors, the Minister for Health said:
"We suspect that £6 million is, therefore, a reasonable expectation … If we get £6 million or anything like it, that will be a welcome addition to NHS funds … I therefore cannot understand why foreign visitors … should not make a modest contribution to their own care when they are taken into hospital and are able to pay."—[Official Report, 7 February 1983; Vol. 36, c. 725.]
The scheme is manifestly unworkable. It is clear that that £6 million is disappearing further and further over the horizon. Are we really discussing a welcome addition to National Health Service funds, or are we discussing a £6 million con, what might be called the disappearing case of the suitable finance? If we accept that the Government do not seek to cause difficulty with non-whites who will be deeply offended by the questions asked of them when they go to National Health Service hospitals, we must accept the Government's suggestion that the charges are a means of raising cash. If that is so, it is about time they demonstrated that they are capable of raising cash through this absurd measure.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will the Minister tell us precisely how much the Government have received as a result of the measure? In evidence to the Select Committee on Social Services, the Minister's civil servants made it clear that the sum was only 25 per cent. of the estimates and they had grave doubts whether the measure would bring in very much more money over the next 12 months.
Mrs. Dunwoody: The Government are proud of their good housekeeping, and so, of course, they must be able to tell us how much they had raised. They tell us that they introduced the charges not through sheer bigotry or because of a narrow political point but because they believed it was a method of raising money for the National Health Service.
Overseas students are strongly affected by the measure. The debate should involve not only the Department of Health and Social Security but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. What will the Foreign and Commonwealth Office do about those students who are funded by the British taxpayer? I tabled questions to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office asking what would happen when it was required to pay insurance for those students visiting Britain to receive tuition either as guests of the British Council or as straightforward students. I was told that the Government do not take out commercial insurance but bear the risk directly. I was told that there was no need to deviate from normal practice in this case.
On the issue of paying the hospitals directly for any cost incurred, the then Minister for Overseas Development replied:
"It is difficult to make a firm estimate of the costs of such treatment. Experience indicates that aid-funded students, who are medically examined before coming to Britain, normally have a good health record whilst in this country and I should not expect the annual cost of hospital treatment to exceed £100,000."—[Official Report, 14 December 1982; Vol. 34, c. 81.]
If we are talking about overseas students and a book-keeping exercise that takes money from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to give to the NHS, how much are we talking about? The FCO says that the sum is less than £100,000. It has said that it will not take out insurance for the students and that it will pay the costs direct. The estimated total is £100,000.
Let us be generous. Let us assume that the FCO is not very good at arithmetic — it has one or two minor problems—and that the total will be £200,000. That is not a viable sum and it comes nowhere near £6 million.
From what sources will the money be raised? The list of exempted countries includes EC countries, and there is a growing list of other nations that have reciprocal agreements with the United Kingdom. One of the countries on the list that we are discussing is Finland. It is obvious that fewer and fewer people will have to pay these charges when they come to Britain. Nevertheless, there will be costs to the NHS.
The Minister says that he will not keep the revenue statistics centrally as that seems an unnecessary extra burden to place on the machinery. In the debate to which I have referred, he made a number of statements on the keeping of statistics. He said:
"I have no intention of organising a massive statistical collecting operation, which would merely impose a higher administrative cost. I cannot imagine that most regional health authorities have the spare management time to indulge in a close scrutiny of the monthly revenue returns". —[Official Report, 7 February 1983; Vol. 36, c. 725.]
It is obvious that he does not know how much is being raised by the charges, and he is making no effort to monitor the results. It might be embarrassing for him to do so.
It is not only Select Committees that are taking evidence that suggests that the regulations, far from raising money, may be costing money. In The Observer of 27 March 1983, under the heading
"NHS hit by failure of foreign fees",
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we are told that hospital administrators who have been charging overseas visitors since last October have found only a handful of patients to be ineligible for free treatment. The Royal Free hospital — it is an 840-bed hospital in north London—raised only £167 by making these charges. The Royal Liverpool hospital — a teaching hospital—has managed to raise £71. The Royal Free hospital found only eight of 8,000 new patients to be ineligible for free treatment. The Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, which has 618 beds, has raised £449.
The Ministry is not prepared to produce accurate statistics, and so we have to use the evidence that is available. However, it appears that vast sums are not being produced for the NHS. If the measure is not meant to fill the NHS's coffers, what does the Minister intend to use it for? Is he convinced that every NHS hospital is operating correctly the extraordinarily top-heavy machinery? Is he convinced that all the patients who might be caught by the measure are being informed at an early enough stage of what is likely to happen to them? Unless they are suffering from the plague, anthrax or other interesting diseases, it is obvious that they are at considerable risk of suddenly finding themselves landed with a large bill.
Patients arrive at our hospitals and they are not always clearly informed of their rights. If they have been admitted following an accident or emergency, they are not always aware of the likelihood that they will be charged for their treatment. They then find themselves in the frightening position of being asked for an incredible extra sum. It is clear from some of the cases taken up by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants that a number of people have already had uncomfortable experiences, to put it no higher than that.
Occasionally, patients have been admitted having been told that they are eligible for free treatment, only to discover when about to go in for an operation that they will be required to pay. One patient was not asked to pay until she returned to the hospital for a second course of treatment, when she was asked to pay about £1,000 for the first course of treatment. A number of people w ho have disputed charges have been convinced that they have been illegally charged.
Why has the Minister not so far sent out a new set of regulations following the House of Lords decision which changed the definition of people "ordinarily resident" in this country? Will guidance be given following the moves that have been made, for example, by the Department of Education which have made it clear that students will not be caught by much of this legislation and that if they find themselves faced with bills which they are unable to pay they will probably not be liable for the sums for which they are being asked?
These measures are not providing but costing the NHS money. All staff who are likely to need to interview patients at any point must be trained in what is called the stage one procedure. No hospital administration can run the risk of having a member of staff who does not understand the implications of the new procedure and does not pose the necessary question. If administrations are overwhelmed, they will need to employ additional staff; and there seems to be no regulation to cover that. It is clear that there will be differences in charges in NHS hospitals in which there are private wards. At present, private patients are being charged at one rate, but NHS charged patients—who will be a totally different category—will

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be charged in a different way, sometimes having to pay more than private patients in the same hospital. That is not only bizarre but is totally unacceptable.
Consider the time it must take to implement all this machinery. One Sheffield hospital interviewed vast numbers of people and in the end raised from 30 patients £4,000. The comment from that hospital was that no particular problems had been encountered with stage one interviews—which take perhaps 45 seconds per patient —and that there had been no disruption to clinics. It was added, however, that there was occasional adverse reaction from patients. I wonder who those patients were —those with white skins? It was further added that stage two interviews could take up to 30 minutes, and other hospitals have agreed that it is a larger and more complicated interview at stage two.
What will happen when we reach that complicated interviewing stage? It is clear that the staff concerned will not only have to record every stage of the interview but will have to keep separately any complaints, at the request of the Minister, and that that will add considerably to the time taken administratively in dealing with disputes between patient and hospital. After all, the Minister has made it clear that the DHSS has no intention of acting as adjudicator in any argument where a patient feels that a wrong charge has been made; he has spelt that out in considerable detail. So, in addition to the extra expense and training, there will be additional printing costs and other overheads.
Most hospitals now, irrespective of the number of foreign visitors that they are likely to receive, not only print full guidance notes for their patients but have translated them into a number of different languages. Immediately, we get considerable anomalies within the system.
What about the recovery of bad debts? Within the NHS there does not seem to be an obvious way in which those who do not pay the considerable amounts of money that they might be asked to pay are submitted to any recovery procedure if they do not have the money on them on that occasion. There is no system of recovery of debts.
We now know that we are not talking about a means of making money or simply about an administrative change. We may not even be talking about the prejudices of the Conservative party. What we are talking about is the setting up of a very large, very bureaucratic and very considerable charging procedure within the NHS. I think that I and my hon. Friends who have been so worried about the effect upon individual patients when at the hospital they might be subjected to considerable inconvenience by embarrassing questions have perhaps missed the real reason why the Government are pushing so hard for the extension of the charging procedure. What the Government want to do but are not prepared to make public before the general election is to create a charging procedure that could be used throughout the NHS after a general election, if by some dreadful mischance the Government are returned to power, to charge ordinary patients for straightforward services.
It does not matter whether we are talking about X-rays or maternity services. No matter what the service, until the charges were introduced there was no easy way of hiving off particular services. Now it will be simple for any Conservative Government to say to people, "Of course,
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we are terribly sorry. We know that you wanted an NHS that was funded out of taxation, but in the difficult economic situation that we face we think that it is much better that we should have a system of charging for individual services." That will be possible under this enormous bureaucratic machinery.
After all, let us ask ourselves why a Government who are calling in a member of the Sainsbury group to do a management exercise on a service that has had so many management surveys that they are coming out of its ears suddenly decide that they want on the one hand to have the administration simplified and to see whether it is working efficiently and on the other hand to create an enormous charging procedure that they say is to be used only against overseas visitors.
Never since the debate began has the Minister come to the House and said, "We can demonstrate an enormous abuse of the NHS." We heard a lot about it at the last general election, but there have never been any statistics or proper figures. It has never been clear that the NHS was being abused by those who came from abroad. Even the working party that is being used as an excuse for all this found out that under 1 per cent. of the patients that it looked at were in any way likely not to be eligible for free treatment. If that is so, there has to be a different political reasoning behind the regulations.
Nothing escapes. I am glad that we are including in the regulations a charge for a barium enema. That is a sensible way to describe the entire regulations. It is not anything to do with economics, it is not anything to do with raising cash for the NHS and it is not really anything to do with improving the facilities for those who come here, who might be taken ill and who might need to use the NHS. The regulations for England and Wales and those for Scotland are a demonstration of the most appalling prejudice, spawned in bigotry and unacceptable. I ask the House to reject them.
10.44 pm
The Minister for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The speech of the hon. Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) had only a very tenuous relationship with the narrow terms of the regulations. For reasons which I quite understand, she took the opportunity to restate her well-known opposition in principle to a policy which was approved by the House last summer and which we began to introduce in the autumn.
As I understand that the Opposition are contemplating voting against the regulations, I shall begin by pointing out what they are about. First, they introduce the consequences of a very welcome reciprocal agreement that we have with Finland. Finland is now added to the list of countries whose visitors are not charged, because British visitors will not be charged in Finland in similar circumstances.
Secondly, the regulations also put up the rates by which we charge overseas visitors who are not eligible for free treatment. Contrary to the hon. Lady's assertion, there is no magic about the figures. The increase in rates of charges for overseas visitors is exactly in line with the increases that we have made in the charges for British private patients in National Health Service hospitals. We charge overseas visitors slightly more for outpatient treatment, because, where there is an outpatient consultation with a British patient who is paying privately for the services, it is expected that the consultant will make

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a private charge, and the hospital does not benefit. In the case of overseas visitors, it is thought right that the hospital should make a charge for the medical services as well. Other than that, the charges are in most cases absolutely identical to the charges made for British patients who have private hospital treatment. I hope that no hon. Member would claim—when carried away with zeal for opposing the whole principle of charging tourists for their treatment —that we should charge Americans, Arabs and other overseas visitors less than we charge British people who choose to go into private wards.
The hon. Lady drew from the increase in charges the general point that this is some secret way by which we are preparing to launch charges on all British subjects for NHS treatment. The hon. Lady has put forward that argument before and keeps returning to it, but it is nonsense. It is unbelievably far-fetched. If she thinks that we need this policy in order to draw up the scale of charges, I can merely repeat that we already have a scale of charges—the charges that are imposed on British people who exercise their undoubted right to pay for private treatment in NHS hospitals. To believe that this minor measure has any connection with any threat to the NHS is to take the conspiracy theory to extreme lengths.
I will restate the policy in simple terms. It seems entirely fair and sensible that we should charge overseas visitors who come to this country for health care that they require here, except in the case of visitors from EC countries or other countries with which we have reciprocal agreements. We will, of course, always give anyone emergency treatment or treatment for various kinds of infectious diseases. However, when people come from countries with which we have no reciprocal agreements—countries in which British visitors would expect to have to insure themselves or to pay for treatment—it is not right that British taxpayers should meet the full cost of their treatment. It is only sensible that they should be expected to insure here and make some appropriate contribution towards covering the costs of the NHS treatment that they receive.
I was not quite sure what tack the hon. Lady was on this time. In previous debates, she has opposed the whole principle of charging, root and branch, and purported to see appalling issues of principle within it. Today she seemed at times to be complaining that we were not getting enough money out of the policy —that we should withdraw it because it was not producing the sums of money that we had suggested, when we debated the regulations last July, might possibly be raised.
Mrs. Dunwoody: If the Minister is in doubt, I will put it in simple terms. The Government's only justification for all these provisions has been that they will raise money. That is not the case. The Minister cannot prove that money will be raised, and that is not his intention, so why does he not come clean?
Mr. Clarke: The purpose of the policy was to charge overseas visitors to this country in circumstances in which British visitors to their countries would expect to have to pay for health treatment. Of course we expect it to raise money, and we made some estimates last summer as to how much might be raised.
As the hon. Lady knows, however, it is far too soon to have the slightest idea as to how much will be raised. The policy did not become effective until October last year.
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That was when the charges became collectable, but for understandable reasons, due to the strike, the management of many hospitals was not ready to implement the policy fully. The hon. Lady mentioned the Royal Free hospital. The policy was not introduced there until mid-December, so it has been in operation for only three months or so, at a time when we have the fewest overseas visitors. We all work in London and it should be within the knowledge of us all that the number of overseas visitors on the streets of London rises markedly in the summer compared with the number here in the middle of an English winter.
It is far too early to start collecting full and accurate statistics, but we shall have them by the end of the year. It remains our hope that substantial sums will be raised. I trust that the Opposition will not be disappointed if that is the case, because any money collected will be spent in one way only—to cover the cost of the care given to the overseas visitor and thus to release resources for the improvement of patient care in the National Health Service. I hope that a substanital sum will be raised.
When we discussed this last summer, we gave broad estimates and explained the basis of those estimates. The working party sample showed that, as the hon. Lady has said, fewer than 1 per cent. of overseas visitors would be liable to be found ineligible for free treatment. We always knew that. It was estimates of that kind that produced the figure of £6 million if we were lucky. There are 5 million visitors to this country in the tourist season. If the working party sample was correct arid those visitors make the same use of the hospital services as the indigenous population under the age of 65, and if 0·8 per cent. of them are found to be ineligible for free treatment—
Mr. Terry Davis: We have told the Minister that that is wrong.
Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman cannot show that it is wrong. The Opposition may have a point later in the year, but at present they are racing to make a case that they are incapable of proving.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Clarke: I will give way in a moment. I cannot give way while I am being constantly barracked from a sedentary position by another Opposition Member. I will give way to those who stand up rather than to those who remain seated, but I will deal first with the last sedentary interruption.
The estimates of revenue to be raised were based on the very calculations used by the hon. Member for Crewe. If the 0·8 per cent. of visitors found to be ineligible for free treatment make the kind of use of the hospital service that one would expect people of that age to make, up to £6 million might be raised. We do not know. We shall find out. We think that the basis for charging overseas visitors is fair. The more money that we can raise in a fair and proper way, the more will be available to improve patient services in this country.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: How many of the 5 million visitors come from countries with reciprocal agreements?
Mr. Frank Hooley: The Minister does not know. He has not the foggiest idea.
Mr. Clarke: Of course I know. The hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) has attended these debates

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before, but he does not have all the figures in his head any more than I do. There is an entire working party report on the subject.
My recollection is that the 5 million excludes EC visitors. I do not remember how many visitors from countries with reciprocal agreements are excluded. We set out in the clearest terms the way in which the estimates were made when we debated the matter last year. Of course we are not charging EC visitors or visitors from countries with which there are reciprocal agreements. We are charging Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Arabs and others who were often surprised to hear in the old days that they did not need to take out medical insurance when they visited this country. Those people expect to have to take out such insurance when they visit a country which does not have a reciprocal agreement with their own and they have perfectly good money to pay towards the cost of their treatment here.
We hope that we shall raise a reasonable amount of money. When I am pressed about why I am not able to give figures, my response is that, first, I shall not waste a great deal of time and effort in the Health Service collecting monthly figures to try to support the Opposition's case. Secondly, the scheme only started in the autumn. We have only had the experience of a few months when there are not many overseas visitors here and nobody has had time to put in proper returns. Later in the year, when we have a had a full summer, we shall have the full year's figures. We shall then see to what extent we have managed to raise some useful cash—it will not be a great amount—with which the Health Service could well do.
Mr. Terry Davis: The Minister has fairly said that he is speaking from memory. As he will want to be fair to the working party which the Government established, will he confirm that the £6 million was calculated not by the working party but by the Government? The working party only estimated the number of people who might be liable to charges. We told the Government at the time that the Minister was using faulty assumptions when calculating how much money would come from this new procedure.
Mr. Clarke: We used the proportion of the sample that the working party took who turned out to be ineligible for payment. We assumed that that might prove to be the proportion. I could not care less what the eventual sum is. As usual, the hon. Lady went miles over the top when making her point. It does not matter how much we raise. The more we raise, as long as it is raised fairly and properly from people who expect to pay and can insure to pay, the better. We hope that we raise the right proportion from overseas visitors who are not entitled to free treatment. It is no good the Opposition hoping that we do not raise much in the hope of scoring some rather peculiar point from last year. We shall raise as much as we can, but we shall only know how much when we have the tourist season and a full year's operation behind us. I hope that we raise a reasonable sum of money.
Mr. Terry Davis: Is the Minister seriously telling the House that he does not care whether it costs more to collect the money than is received in revenue?
Mr. Clarke: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would know that I said nothing of the kind.
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I said that how much we raise does not affect the principle. I hope that we raise a reasonable sum of money. If we raise £6 million, I shall be satisfied. I have never said, and I cannot understand how on earth the hon. Lady or the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Davis) can argue, that the cost of collecting this money will exceed the revenue. I simply do not believe that and she has no basis for saying it. No costs are being inflicted on the NHS. The idea that the modest sums that we shall raise will be outweighed by the cost of raising them is preposterous and I challenge the hon. Lady to produce any evidence to support it.
It is said by those who criticise the policy that we have introduced a new system of questioning which involves a great deal of additional work. We have introduced one extra question into the routine questioning of all overseas visitors who are admitted to hospitals. When one produces figures and tries to use them to show, for example, that a hospital has asked thousands of questions in a few weeks, that only means that each patient is asked questions such as his or her name, address, where he comes from and the other routine questions that are asked on admission. We have added a question,
"Have you been living in the United Kingdom for the past 12 months?"
It is absurd for the hon. Lady to say that that is causing vast additional expense and difficulty. All of our staff are perfectly capable of asking that one question without the difficulty or expense that the hon. Lady claims will exist. She said that few people have to go to the second stage. Of course, we always said that. We thought that less than 1 per cent. would turn out to be ineligible. Therefore, very few people must be asked the slightly more difficult questions in the second stage. The hon. Lady's arguments about how few people are found to be ineligible can be turned against her when she argues about the cost of the policy. She said that the results at the Royal Free hospital were disappointing. The hospital has had to ask the second-stage questions of only eight people during three months. [Interruption.]
Mr. John Maxton: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Clarke: I shall not give way, because the hon. Lady is pleading with me to answer her question. How can she claim that the fact of those eight people being asked the second-stage questions produces enormous and insupportable costs for the Health Service that outweigh the value of the charges that it may recover? I know that the hon. Lady is fond of being rude to third parties, but she is larking about to such an extent that she is cutting out from the debate other hon. Members who have a constituency interest.
Mrs. Dunwoody: The Minister must add up the cost of the first-stage questioning in the additional training and wages of administrators. The Government are so frightened of overheads in the National Health Service that they have brought in yet another of their tame investigators, but the Minister says that this does not matter.
Mr. Clarke: If I am prepared to wait for the evidence of how much money we shall raise —I shall reserve judgment on that —the hon. Lady must accept the evidence that disproves some of the points that she made last summer about much more work being caused.

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The report of the Royal Free hospital expresses disappointment at the very small sum that has been raised, but it also states:
"The considerable additional work originally envisaged has not materialised."
I know of no hospital that is claiming that the enormous difficulties that were feared, largely because of the Opposition's campaign last summer, have materialised. They are asking this additional question of many entrants—
Mrs. Dunwoody: I thought that it was asked of all patients.
Mr. Clarke: Yes, it is asked of all patients, comparatively few of whom were overseas visitors ineligible for free treatment. But the idea that the additional question that we have asked to be put to all patients admitted to hospital costs a vast sum of money, and outweighs the revenue raised, is preposterous and is not borne out by evidence.
I am glad that the hon. Lady did not pursue the stronger and more worrying complaints that some of her hon. Friends made last year. They envisaged racism, discrimination between patients and hospitals turning away people who needed serious treatment. She knows that there is no evidence of that happening, although, unfortunately, some of her hon. Friends—who belong to organisations such as the one with the unlikely and rather alarming title "No Pass Laws to Health Campaign"—continue to insist, with no evidence to support it, that racism is implied in the policy. We gave advice to ensure that the risk of racial discrimination, which existed previously, was eliminated. We also asked all authorities to note seriously any complaints, and we shall receive reports of complaints. Although I know of no such evidence, I assure the House that if there is evidence that people are asked discriminatory questions, we shall step in to stop it.
There has been a problem with students, because, as the hon. Lady said, since we introduced the policy last year a case in the House of Lords has altered the previously understood definition—or the one followed by many Government Departments—of those who are ordinarily resident in this country. Such people are entitled to free hospital treatment regardless of other circumstances. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has already made a statement to the House about the way in which his Department is considering the implications of that judgment for overseas student grants. We are considering its implications for this policy, and we shall issue fresh guidance to authorities, making it clear that we must adopt the ruling of the House of Lords on who is ordinarily resident here. It may well ease the effect of the policy on patients.
Apart from those matters, the policy is working reasonably well. There have been some complaints, but none of them shows that the policy is basically wrong. All have been investigated, and the origin of the complaints shows no racial bias. The money raised by the policy has not been great, but the reason is that we are still in winter and the policy has just started. I hope that we shall raise a reasonable sum of money, but only by making proper charges to those who expect to pay, or who insure against such an eventuality, when they come to Britain.
The House should unite and say that it hopes that, in this reasonable way, a decent sum of money is raised for
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the Health Service. Attempts to found on this routine order a case that we are, in a sinister way, trying to prepare the ground for abolishing the National Health Service and that we shall discriminate against people of the wrong colour, show xenophobia, or impose intolerable burdens on the Health Service are ridiculous. I hope that the House will pass these routine regulations without a vote.
11.5 pm
Mr. Edward Lyons: If someone from this country goes on holiday to America, he can easily obtain holiday health insurance, but. as the Government ought to know, such insurance is virtually unknown in the Third world. Accordingly, someone coming from the Indian subcontinent or one of the developing countries cannot obtain such insurance, assuming—in the absence of publicity—that he knows of the change of law in Britain.
In Britain there is no facility for obtaining health insurance for overseas visitors. The one Indian and one Pakistani company that operate here do not provide health insurance for holidaymakers, nor do their offices in the subcontinent. Therefore, the Government have not legislated for the fact that in practical terms it is not possible to obtain health insurance.
Consequently, on suffering an accident, a person from such a country—incapable of being insured—suddenly faces enormous bills. People from the Third world seldom have the money to pay £86 or £90 a day for a hospital bed, and the Government know that. As a result, the host or a relative or friend of the visitor signs a document before the person is admitted to hospital stating that he will be responsible for the bill.
The visitor cannot pay the bill because there is no way he can and there is no way he can be insured. Instead, British citizens who act as hosts, or feel an obligation to ensure that a friend gets proper medical treatment, must pay.
Such friends living in Britain have no insurable interest in law for visitors and, therefore, cannot obtain insurance. Section 7 of the rules that were passed last year states that the person liable to pay the charges
"should be the overseas visitor who is the recipient of the medical services".
Yet, with regard to many of the people who come here, that is absolute nonsense because our hospital charges are totally beyond their ability to pay, especially if they remain in hospital for any length of time.
Effectively, in the context of the developing countries and the Indian subcontinent, these regulations are virtually totally ignored. Instead of getting the money from the patient, the hospital asks someone else to be responsible. Those people, many of whom scarcely understand English, do not know what they are letting themselves in for, and in any event do not have the resources to pay when suddenly confronted with a colossal bill. The area health authority must then sue, but by doing so it could push such people—say, a bus driver and his wife whose visitor sustained a bill for £5,000—into bankruptcy.
In that sense, the purpose of the regulations is to get money not from the visitor but from British citizens, if necessary by pushing them into bankruptcy.
I can give an example of what I mean. In Bradford, before the rules came in on 1 October last year, a man called Sharma came from India to visit his sister Mrs. Joshi, who was married to a bus driver in Bradford and

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lived in Hampden street. There was no insurance because in any event the rules were not in operation when he came into the country. He then fell on black ice, broke his thigh and was in hospital for 53 days. The bill was £4,628.
One might have thought that the Government would have said at once that as the man was here before the new rules came into operation, they would not press for payment. The health authority said at first that it would look for payment to the patient, who had no possibility of being able to pay. It then turned out that the health authority had taken the precaution of getting his sister, the host, to sign an agreement saying that she would be responsible.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Disgraceful. A Tory trick.
Mr. Lyons: In due course the bill was presented. On 7 February I wrote to the Secretary of State telling him of what had happened, and waited for a reply. Eventually, I sent a reminder, and now, late in April, over two months have gone by and my letter has not merited any reply.
If one were to pursue a visitor back to his country of origin in a poor country, a developing country or one in the Third world, there would be problems. Usually, the patient will not have the money. Even if he has, court proceedings there are far longer even than in Britain. Although health authorities are encouraged to follow the debtor patient back to the country of origin, the cost to the British Treasury of seeking to recover that money will be far greater than any possible amount recovered.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The case that the hon. and leaned Gentleman gives is a worrying one, but I can answer his questions. The Government have given no advice to any hospitals to look to anybody other than the patient for charges. The only exceptions are in the cases of people working here from aeroplanes or ships, where the ship owner or the airline company may be liable. Otherwise, the only person liable is the patient. No advice has been given to health authorities to seek undertakings from relatives. The health authority in this case says that the sister volunteered the undertaking. The hon. and learned Gentleman kept saying the the Government had said this or that, but the Government have told nobody to collect money from relatives, and will not do so. We have told the health authority not to pursue the lady in question for the money.
Mr. Lyons: I am delighted to hear this, although I feel that it would have been rather more gracious, and therefore better received, if I had not had to wait for two months for a reply. To get the reply I have had to make a speech.
The structure of the regulations is absurd. The Government know that many visitors who come here are coming to visit members of the ethnic minority population settled here. They know that there is no insurance structure by which such people can come within the law. When I appreciated what the Government were doing, the first thing that occurred to me was that if the Government were to insist on charging, they would conduct an advertising campaign, or at least have notices in British posts abroad, and would notify foreign airlines and embassies, so that everybody could be warned of what would face them if
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they had an accident in Britain. However, in the Third world and the Indian subcontinent, one cannot obtain insurance, so what would be the good of that?
That means that anybody of limited means who invites a guest here and is faced with that problem with his guest must consider one thing. The guest might have an accident or fall ill. The hospital, whether under instructions from the DHSS or not, will ask, "Will you sign this?" What is the host to do? Is he to say no? Such people are not aware what instructions pass between the DHSS and the hospital administrator. They will do anything that is required to get that person proper treatment. They often have no idea how long it will take the person to recover. He may be there for months. They do not know how much the costs will be. Obviously, they will elect to sign on the dotted line. If there were no intention to recover the costs from the relative, why did the Bradford hospital ask the relative to sign? They were asking not a business man but a housewife—an Asian housewife—to sign. That is not a very even contest.
I appreciate that the Government want to get as much money as possible for treatment, but they will either have to create some kind of insurance scheme or encourage some insurance company to create an insurance scheme whereby people from the Third world can get properly insured. Otherwise they will have to say that people from the Third world who cannot pay will have to be treated anyway, or they will die in the streets.
What will happen if a man is assaulted, perhaps because of his colour, when he is walking in the street? He will not be responsible. He might be left lying on the ground having been injured by a British citizen. What would such a person do about his hospital bill? According to the Government, and there is no exemption in the rules, he has to start paying about £90 a day for staying in hospital. He might have come to Britain only for a couple of weeks' holiday. Even general health insurance in Britain usually has a clause exempting the company from liability for treatment in the first three months and most holidaymakers are not away for three months. If the Government are to pursue the policy, they must bend their mind to what they will do with people from the Indian subcontinent, the Third world and poorer countries. The fact that for more than two months the Government did not answer the letter in which I raised some of these points shows that the Government do not have a clue what to do. That is why they could not answer the letter. For a large number of visitors to Britain, because the Government's scheme cannot work, it is completely absurd.
11.17 pm
Mr. Bill Walker: The publicity that the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) will receive will alert United Kingdom residents, certainly those in his constituency, to the problems that their relatives may face if they come to the United Kingdom in the circumstances which the hon. and learned Gentleman has outlined. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman has done his homework and he will realise that there are insurance policies available if one wants to go to the trouble of finding them. If the cost of insurance is compared with the fare that is paid for a trip to Britain, one sees that the cost of insurance is relatively small. Individuals are prepared to pay a massive bill for air or sea travel compared with the small charge that would be made for insurance.

837
I welcome the presence in the debate tonight of at least three Scottish Labour Members. It seems that the events of the other evening when we debated another routine order in the absence of Labour Members have had results. However, it is rather interesting that there are no Scottish National, Liberal or Social Democratic Members from Scotland, although one of the orders that we are debating relates to Scotland. It just shows that they do not have much interest in what is happening to the Health Service in Scotland.
As my hon. and learned Friend the Minister said, this is a routine statutory instrument to increase the charges for visitors from countries with which we have no reciprocal agreement. It is only fair and just that such visitors should pay for their treatment and that they should normally do so by insurance. To suggest that insurance is not available in a country that leads the world in insurance is nonsense. The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West will get plenty of advice from insurance brokers who, when reading his speech, will realise that opportunities exist for him to distribute information to the people who come to his constituency.
If British people embark on a journey to countries that do not have reciprocal arrangements, they must expect to take out an insurance policy. I am delighted to see that with almost 21 minutes to go in the debate the Scottish National party has decided to put in an appearance. When the ordinary British citizen visits the United States, he expects and is required to pay for any hospital or other treatment which he may unfortunately require. Why should not the British taxpayer expect visitors from the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, or rich Arabs—who can well afford to pay—to take out insurance policies?
Mr. John Home Robertson: Oh, get on with it, you silly man.
Mr. Walker: For the benefit of the hon. Member for Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody), may I say that in the days before package air travel was readily available to the masses—such as those who came from the Indian subcontinent—the number of overseas people involved in using our National Health Service was tiny, but that number is increasing year by year. I am talking about many hundreds of thousands of visitors from countries which do not have reciprocal arrangements. Those countries—such as Finland—may deem it advantageous to enter into reciprocal arrangements because of the publicity that is given to visitors to this country. Why should British taxpayers be expected to foot the bill for individuals who can afford to pay the cost of air travel to the United Kingdom?
If a Scot visits the United States on a skiing, climbing, sailing or gliding holiday and is unfortunate enough to require hospital treatment, he is expected to have taken out a policy to cover such an eventuality. If an American citizen visits Scotland for climbing, sailing and gliding —I do not think that many visitors come for the skiing, other than for competitions — I would expect him, rightly and properly, to take out an insurance policy, as I and my family must do if we go abroad.
As to the charges in Scotland, I do not believe that a charge of £26.90 for one day—
Mr. John Maxton: It is £126 per day
Mr. Walker: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the base of column 40, he will see the figure of £26·90 The cost ranges from £26·90 to £127·90, depending on the room, for one day. I do not consider, at whatever end of the scale we look, that these charges are unreasonable because that is what should be charged. To suggest that to answer one additional question is an encumbrance upon the National Health Service is wrong. Anyone who has ever been involved in an admittance to a National Health Service hospital knows that the patient is asked no end of questions even if he is severely injured. However ill the patient is, all sorts of questions are asked. To ask one additional question does not seem to add considerably to the cost. I welcome the regulations.
11.23 pm
Mr. John Maxton: I am happy to speak after the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Walker). Despite what he says, I know that the hon. Gentleman would like a system of complete medical insurance to be introduced, because I remember him saying that recently in a Committee that debated these regulations. The Minister may not believe in that, but the hon. Gentleman certainly does.
Mr. Bill Walker rose—
Mr. Maxton: There is only a little time left, and I do not intend to give way.
Mr. Walker rose—
Mr. Maxton: The hon, Gentleman believes that there should be American-style insurance schemes in this country. I have heard him say that, and he believes it.
Mr. Walker: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) has made a charge that I completely refute. I never made such a statement.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): It is up to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) to decide whether to give way.
Mr. Maxton: I did not intend to give way to the hon. Gentleman because there is only a little time left.
The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) made some good points, but he limited them to those from the Indian subcontinent and the Third world. Nevertheless, what he said is, to some extent, true of others. Many people have emigrated from Britain and married Americans, Australians and New Zealanders. Sometimes their young children return to stay with grandparents. During their visit, they may contract an illness. They may be covered by limited insurance. Indeed, all insurance schemes have limited sums attached to them. It is impossible to buy open-ended insurance. Therefore, there is always a cash limit.
One of my constituents, an elderly lady, took out health insurance for about £3,000 when she went to visit her son in the United States of America. Most people would think that an adequate sum to cover their health on a short holiday. However, while in the United States she suffered a stroke and was in hospital for 10 or 11 weeks. She had a major operation during that time and faced a hospital bill of about £60,000. Her son had been guarantor for her. He ran a small plumbing business in America, but he went bankrupt as a result.

839
That is the position in the United States of America, but the same thing could arise in Britain. It is all very well for the Minister to say that payment will not be demanded from relatives and friends, but that is not clear in the regulations. Where do the regulations say that they cannot go elsewhere? [Interruption.] I have read them, and a health board in Scotland could interpret them to mean that it could look for the money from someone other than the person involved.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: In the documents that the hon. Gentleman is clutching, what is there that could lead a health board to that conclusion? Contrary to the assertions of the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), there are no instructions to anybody to look to relatives for charges. In the case in which a mistake was made in Bradford, the Government have stepped in to ensure that it is not pursued and is stopped.
Mr. Maxton: If the Minister had listened he would know that I said not that there was an instruction to pursue but that certain boards, such as that in Bradford, could interpret it that way. In some cases, that has obviously happened.
The Government have set up this expensive rigmarole to get a few people to pay. It is a burden to those who have to pay, and it is unnecessary. It is all very well forthe Ministerto say that the system is not expensive, but a series of questions is asked. The Minister made great play of the fact that the Royal Free had interviewed only eight people. How many extra staff and how much training was carried out for that? What is the cost to the NHS of such nonsense?
We are witnessing high costs for a minimum return. Indeed, £500,000 is expected in Scotland as a result of the regulations. Will not that money be taken up by the cost of administration? Even when the health boards have that £500,000, there is no guarantee that it will not be taken away from them in other ways. This is and always was a petty measure. We should be saying to visitors that we have a free National Health Service and that, when they come to Britain, it will be free to them, too. That is the principle of the Health Service and it should apply to tourists as well.
11.29 pm
Mr. Teddy Taylor: It is outrageous for the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) to spread bogus scare stories about what is said to be a complex scheme.
In the one minute that is left to me, which has now gone—
It being half-past Eleven o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No.4 (Prayers against Statutory Instruments, &c. (negative procedure)).
The House divided: Ayes 53, Noes 114.

Division No. 133]

[11.30 pm

AYES

Alton, David

Dalyell, Tarn

Bennett, Andrew (St'kp't N)

Davis, Terry (B'ham, Stechf'd)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Deakins, Eric

Canavan, Dennis

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)

Dixon, Donald

Cook, Robin F.

Dormand, Jack

Cowans, Harry

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Evans, John (Newton)

840

Foulkes, George

Rodgers, Rt Hon William

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Roper, John

Haynes, Frank

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Holland, S. (L'b'th, Vauxh'll)

Rowlands, Ted

Hooley, Frank

Skinner, Dennis

Hughes, Simon (Bermondsey)

Snape, Peter

Lyons, Edward (Bradf'd W)

Soley, Clive

McCartney, Hugh

Spearing, Nigel

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Steel, Rt Hon David

MacGregor, John

Strang, Gavin

Marshall, D. (G'gow S'ton)

Wainwright, E. (Dearne V)

Maxton, John

Watkins, David

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Welsh, Michael

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

Williams, Rt Hon Mrs(Crosby)

O'Brien, Oswald (Darlington)

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

O'Neill, Martin

Winnick, David

Parry, Robert

Penhaligon, David

Tellers for the Ayes:

Pitt, William Henry

Mr. Allen McKay and

Robertson, George

Mr. John Home Robertson.

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Lyell, Nicholas

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Macfarlane, Neil

Ancram, Michael

MacGregor, John

Arnold, Tom

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Aspinwall, Jack

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Atkins, Rt Hon H.(S'thorne)

Major, John

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Marlow, Antony

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Mather, Carol

Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Berry, Hon Anthony

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Bevan, David Gilroy

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Mills, Iain (Meriden)

Blackburn, John

Moate, Roger

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Morgan, Geraint

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Bright, Graham

Murphy, Christopher

Brinton, Tim

Myles, David

Brittan, Rt. Hon. Leon

Neale, Gerrard

Brooke, Hon Peter

Needham, Richard

Brotherton, Michael

Nelson, Anthony

Brown, Michael(Brigg & Sc'n)

Neubert, Michael

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Newton, Tony

Buck, Antony

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

Bulmer, Esmond

Percival, Sir Ian

Butcher, John

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Carlisle, John (Luton West)

Proctor, K. Harvey

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Renton, Tim

Cope, John

Rhodes James, Robert

Cranborne, Viscount

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Dorrell, Stephen

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Dover, Denshore

Rossi, Hugh

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Dykes, Hugh

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Sims, Roger

Fisher, Sir Nigel

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)

Speed, Keith

Fletcher-Cooke, Sir Charles

Speller, Tony

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Stanbrook, Ivor

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Stevens, Martin

Goodlad, Alastair

Stewart, A. (E Renfrewshire)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Stradling Thomas, J.

Grist, Ian

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Gummer, John Selwyn

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Hamilton, Hon A.

Thompson, Donald

Hampson, Dr Keith

Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

Hannam, John

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Hawksley, Warren

Trippier, David

Henderson, Barry

Waddington, David

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Waldegrave, Hon William

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Walker, B. (Perth)

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Warren, Kenneth

Lamont, Norman

Watson, John

Lawrence, Ivan

Wells, Bowen

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Wells, John (Maidstone)

841

Wheeler, John

Tellers for the Noes:

Wiggin, Jerry

Mr. David Hunt and

Mr. Ian Lang.

Question accordingly negatived.

Industrial Injuries Advisory Council
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Douglas Hogg.]
11.42 pm
Mr. Michael Welsh: The debate which I am initiating is about the implementation of the recommendations of the industrial injuries advisory council. It has nothing to do with any cases of deafness that may be before the courts. That is not the issue under review. The issue in question is industrial deafness and a report which was presented to Parliament on the subject in November 1982.
A number of important recommendations were made in that detailed report. They would, if implemented, enable justice to be done where in the past, for various reasons, it has seemed to many people suffering from industrial deafness that justice has not been done. It is my belief that anyone who can be proved medically to be suffering from noise-induced deafness due to his or her work should be able to obtain compensation from the state for that condition. Clearly such a situation cannot be achieved at present, but the report's recommendations moved in that direction and, while much remains to be done, I hope that we can agree to move in that direction.
I refer briefly to some of the recommendations that were made in this detailed report. The first was that the phrase "the immediate vicinity" should be used in place of
"supervision of or assistance in the use"
of prescribed tools. That change is fair and will help towards the smooth running of the scheme. It must be welcomed. Before, when the words were "supervision of or assistance", the man who was made deaf could be just a few feet away from the person who used the tools but could not claim under the present system. The foreman who supervised the work could be at the other end of the factory, but the simple fact that he was supervising when he became deaf meant that he could claim. That anomaly is now taken away by the recommendation about "immediate vicinity". That is fair. The work of the NHS will be increased a little, but it has the capacity to do it. Therefore, we should welcome the first recommendation.
Many of the recommendations are good and are worthy of being implemented, as think the Minister will agree. Some work has been needed on the fourth recommendation for many years. It concerns the 20-year rule. The recommendation brings the period down to 10 years. It will allow more individuals suffering from industrial deafness to claim. It seems strange that a person could be proved to be suffering from industrial deafness but, because he had not worked for 20 years in his prescribed place of work, could not claim. He could have worked 19 years or 18½ years, but he still could not claim. To claim, he had to work there 20 solid years. That was wrong. However, I realise that when the rules were brought in, this was a new field in Britain, so there had to be experiments. I am pleased that the council has now recommended that the period should be decreased to 10 years.
That may put a little strain on the system, but, for justice to be done, it is worth it. One of the witnesses told the council that it would be better to be allowed a place in the queue than not be able to join it at all.

843
Therefore, once a person has worked somewhere for 10 years, he will be able to make a claim. It may take a long time for decisions to be reached, but at least the person will be in the queue, when before he could not come under starter's orders. That was the bad thing. Now he will be able to come under starter's orders, although it may take a little time for the case to come up, but that is a minor detail. That is a good recommendation.
The fifth recommendation is tied to the fourth. It concerns the 12-month rule, which was terrible. If one had left the industry or one's place of work for 12 months and it was proved that one had industrial deafness through working at that place, it made no difference. After 12 months' absence, one could not claim. Of course, that was wrong. We have now got over the stumbling block. The recommendation making the time five years is a good move. It is fair and there can be no criticism against it. Probably it will help people who have been made redundant. Many years ago, there were not as many redundancies as at present. That is another reason why the recommendation is acceptable.
There are other recommendations about audiological testing and the staffing for that. They are most welcome. It appears that we are approaching industrial deafness in a more professional way than before. We seem to be approaching the issue of industrial deafness in a more professional and understanding way than we have in the past. That must be due to the council, and also to the NHS people who are prepared to take that attitude and to realise that trained technicians are needed to carry out the work.
I hope that the Minister will find it possible to accept all the recommendations, because they would do no more than make the system work efficiently.
Recommendation 17 suggests that a working group should be set up to collect evidence from noisy occupations not at present prescribed. That is very good. The working group will be able to collect the evidence, and we shall then know whether any other industries should be prescribed. We may have to wait for a while, but the data will be there. The Minister will have information on which to make decisions, and the council will be able to make reports. With the working party we shall draw closer to the situation that most people in the industries hope to see—one in which occupational cover is defined by reference to level of noise exposure rather than to specific occupations. I realise why we cannot have that system at present, but that is what we all want, and the recommendation would help us to achieve it.
There is also recommendation 20. The council accepts that it may be possible to allow the aurological technicians to make decisions on deafness and on the standard, instead of a consultant engaged later on. I think that that is fair. The technicians will be specialists trained to use the equipment, and their findings ought to be accepted. However, the council recommends that the matter should be considered again at the next review, and that is fair, too. The new technicians are now coming into position. By the time the next review is carried out there will be reports on how things are going—and I expect that the technicians will be found to be very efficient.
I should like to make some personal comments about Mr. Lowe, the chairman, and about his council. Mr. Lowe must be congratulated, not only on having produced a very good and detailed technical report but also on having
844
produced a report that a layman such as myself can read. The subject is a very technical one, but Mr. Lowe has described it in words that a layman can understand. I hope that the Minister will pass on my remarks to Mr. Lowe, because he and his council richly deserve them.
I do not want to keep hon. Members up too late, but I know that this subject is as important to the Minister as it is to me. When I first spoke in an Adjournment debate on deafness, the Minister stated:
"I assure the hon. Gentleman that the recommendations that the council makes when its review is completed will be looked at with care and sympathy by the Government"— [Official Report, 14 December 1981; Vol. 15, c. 136.]
I hope that the Minister will come forward with care and sympathy and inform the House that the recommendations will be implemented forthwith.
The Minister may say that, after the answer he has given today, I am pushing at an open door. If I am fetching cases up, I am always very grateful if the door that I am pushing at is open. Even if someone is pushing at an open door, it does no harm for things to be explained to him a little better or in a little more detail. If the door is open, I am very grateful.
I make one request to the Minister. If he agrees to lay regulations before Parliament, can he give us some idea of when they will be laid? I realise that he cannot give a specific date because the House does not work like that, but perhaps he will give us an idea of the time scale so that those who will benefit from the new regulations may do so as soon as possible.
11.55 pm
The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Rossi): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Welsh) for raising this subject today. He has already referred to the reply that I gave yesterday to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) announcing that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had accepted the recommendations of the industrial injuries advisory council for the extension of the scheme relating to occupational deafness. So the hon. Gentleman is not just pushing at an open door—the door is wide open and we have already passed through it. Nevertheless, I am glad to have this opportunity to give the House more details of the action that we propose.
As the hon. Gentleman has already explained, the existing scheme is rather limited and is governed by strictly enforced rules. These constraints were necessarily placed on the scheme on the recommendation of the industrial injuries advisory council when occupational deafness was first added to the schedule of prescribed diseases in 1974. The diagnosis and assessment of deafness is a complex process, requiring special medical and technical skills. If a scheme had been introduced that aimed straight away to compensate all those whose hearing had been seriously affected by their work, the pressure that this would have put on the NHS audiological services would have seriously interfered with their main task of diagnosing and treating deafness in the population as a whole. Consequently, it had to be accepted at that time that if an occupational deafness scheme was to get off the ground at all there would have to be some built-in constraints to ensure that the number of claims stayed within the capacity of the audiological services.
Since the introduction of the scheme, some 30,000 claims have been made. Almost half of these have been

845
disallowed because the claimant did not fulfil the occupational requirements. There will be others who, knowing of the strict rules, did not bother to submit a claim that they realised was unlikely to succeed. Undoubtedly, too, there are people suffering from deafness as a result of work in a noisy job who are not eligible for benefit under the present rules.
It was accepted from the beginning that such a limited scheme was not perfect. For this reason the industrial injuries advisory council was asked to keep it under review. The aim was that the restrictions should gradually be relaxed as and when this became possible. As a result of the council's first review, the scheme was extended in 1979 to include some additional very noisy occupations.
In October last year the council completed a further review. It found that there appeared to be scope for further expansion and it made a number of important recommendations aimed at bringing more people into the scheme. It recommended that two additional areas of work should be covered — work with certain high-speed woodworking machines and work with chain saws. It also recommended that cover should extend not only to people who are or were themselves engaged in the prescribed processes but to those working in the immediate vicinity of most of them. The hon. Gentleman stressed that point. The council has also proposed a relaxation in the much-criticised 20-year and 12-month rules.
Now that the Government have accepted those recommendations, steps are being taken to implement them. To answer the hon. Gentleman's last question directly, we are planning to lay regulations later this year to extend the range of occupations as recommended and to increase the period within which claims must be made from 12 months to five years. A substantial relaxation will also be made to the rule requiring 20 years' employment in a prescribed occupation. This limit is to be reduced to 10 years, as recommended by the council.
Those measures should ensure that many more people will be eligible to receive benefit for occupational deafness. They should remove some of the anomalies and difficulties caused by the present rules. Nevertheless, I would not want to give the impression that I am in any way complacent.
Even when the present recommendations are fully implemented, I know that there will be people outside the scope of the scheme who suffer from substantial loss of hearing as a result of working in a noisy occupation. In the long term, our aim must be for all of them to be considered for benefit. The industrial injuries advisory council will continue to keep the operation of the scheme under review and will recommend further extensions whenever the opportunity arises.
I should now like to mention briefly some of the other recommendations that the industrial advisory council has made for extending and improving the schedule of diseases for which benefit is payable. This schedule has been built up over a long time, and it began as early as 1906 with the six industrial diseases that were listed in the Workmen's Compensation Act. Since then, new diseases have gradually been added. Today's schedule includes 53 widely varying conditions which are listed in the random order in which they were added over the years.
The council has recommended that its schedule be completely restructured in a simpler and more logical way by grouping the diseases together according to their causes. At the same time, the council has looked in detail
846
at the diseases in the schedule to see whether any changes were called for in the terms under which they are prescribed. It has recommended some minor changes, which are aimed at mainly relaxing unnecessary limitations or making clearer precisely what the terms of prescription were intended to cover. I am pleased to say that these recommendations have been accepted, and we intend to introduce a revised schedule on these lines later this year.
We also propose to take the opportunity presented by the revision to make some of the other small changers that the council has recommended. At present, the disease prescribed as No. 43 in the schedule covers only one form of the condition—farmer's lung. Following the council's recommendation last October, we propose to extend this to include other forms of the disease that can arise from, for example, working with malt, mushrooms and other fungi and bird-handling. Cover for byssinosis is to be increased to cover those engaged in weaving cotton or flax. Streptococcus suis, a rare disease that can be caught from pigs or pigmeat, is to be added to the schedule.
Modifications to clarify and extend the terms under which neoplasm of the bladder is prescribed are also being included in the revised schedule. The council's report on this subject was submitted to my right hon. Friend earlier this year and I am arranging for it to be laid before the House and published as a Command Paper.
Each of those changes, small though they are, will be of great significance to the unfortunate people who suffer from the diseases in question. With the expansion of the occupational deafness provisions that I have already mentioned, and to which the hon. Gentleman drew the attention of the House, they mark a considerable step forward in improving and extending the industrial injuries scheme and increasing the range of people who are eligible for benefit.
Time does not permit me to do more than mention briefly one of the other recommendations before us—the proposal that people suffering from severe forms of vibration white finger should be eligible for benefit. We have already accepted it in principle but, so far, we have not been able to find the resources to enable us to implement it. Deciding on priorities when money is short is not easy. If we introduce an improvement for one section of the community, measures to benefit others cannot go ahead so quickly. However, I should like to assure those who suffer from vibration white finger that their problem has not been overlooked. We still intend to introduce measures to bring them within the industrial injuries scheme as soon as funds permit.
In conclusion, I join the hon. Member for Don Valley in paying tribute to the industrial injuries advisory council, and I shall ensure that his remarks are passed on to it. I am constantly impressed by the way its members work constructively together to perform a difficult and sometimes thankless task I wish them well in their work and look forward to receiving further reports from them in due course. I thank the hon. Gentleman once again for raising this important subject, and I fully share his concern about those unfortunate people who have become disabled as a result of their employment. I hope that he will be satisfied by my positive response.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at five minutes past Twelve o' clock.

SCOTLAND
  Foxes
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  John Smart and Co. Ltd.
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  Leaderfoot Viaduct
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  Graduates (Unemployment Statistics)
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CIVIL SERVICE
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  Multi-departmental Review
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PRIME MINISTER
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EMPLOYMENT
  "The Grocer" (Report)
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ENERGY
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  Public Limited Companies
  Public Limited Companies
  Consumer Credit Advertisement and Quotations Regulations
  Consumer Credit Advertisement and Quotations Regulations
  Street Traders
  Street Traders
  Merchant Shipping (Medical Examinations) Regulations 1983
  Merchant Shipping (Medical Examinations) Regulations 1983
  Buyers and Sellers (Trading Relationships)
  Buyers and Sellers (Trading Relationships)
  Investment Insurance Scheme
  Investment Insurance Scheme
  Steel Coils (Dumping)
  Steel Coils (Dumping)
  Securities (Licensed Dealers)
  Securities (Licensed Dealers)
  Imports (Safety Measures)
  Imports (Safety Measures)
  Exclusive Distribution Arrangements
  Exclusive Distribution Arrangements
  Pleasurama Ltd.
  Pleasurama Ltd.
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Drug Smuggling (Leith)
  Drug Smuggling (Leith)
  National Income and Money Supply
  National Income and Money Supply
  Catering Facilities
  Catering Facilities
  Departmental Responsibility
  Departmental Responsibility
  Bank for International Settlements
  Bank for International Settlements
  Prices
  Prices
  Contingencies Fund
  Contingencies Fund
  Public Capital Assets (Sale)
  Public Capital Assets (Sale)
  Industrial Employees (Trade Union Activities)
  Industrial Employees (Trade Union Activities)
  Interest Rates
  Interest Rates
  Public Expenditure
  Public Expenditure
  £1 Coin
  £1 Coin
TRANSPORT
  Bypasses
  Bypasses
  Transport Act 1982
  Transport Act 1982
ENVIRONMENT
  Non-traditional Houses
  Non-traditional Houses
  Law Centres
  Law Centres
  Citizens Advice Bureaux
  Citizens Advice Bureaux
  Toxic Waste (Seveso)
  Toxic Waste (Seveso)
  Inner Cities Directorate
  Inner Cities Directorate
  Home Improvements and Repair Grants
  Home Improvements and Repair Grants
  Departmental Statistics
  Departmental Statistics
  European Community (Architectural Qualifications Directive)
  European Community (Architectural Qualifications Directive)
  Disabled People (Access)
  Disabled People (Access)
  Kraft Foods, Merseyside
  Kraft Foods, Merseyside
  Council House Sales (Communal Broadcasting Systems)
  Council House Sales (Communal Broadcasting Systems)
  Alexandra Palace and Park (Report)
  Alexandra Palace and Park (Report)
  Rate Support Grant
  Rate Support Grant
  Enterprise Zones (Report)
  Enterprise Zones (Report)
  Exclusive Brethren (Rates Liability)
  Exclusive Brethren (Rates Liability)
  Urban Programme Expenditure
  Urban Programme Expenditure
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Departmental Responsibility
  Departmental Responsibility
  British Missions (Bank of England Officials)
  British Missions (Bank of England Officials)
  Intermediate Nuclear Force Negotiations
  Intermediate Nuclear Force Negotiations
  Mr. Ronald Taylor
  Mr. Ronald Taylor
WALES
  Housing (Repair and Improvement Grants)
  Housing (Repair and Improvement Grants)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  School Population (Educational Provision)
  School Population (Educational Provision)
  Village Schools
  Village Schools
  Liverpool
  Liverpool
  Education Vouchers
  Education Vouchers
  Further Education (Girls)
  Further Education (Girls)
  Modern Languages
  Modern Languages
  Home Students (Fee Status)
  Home Students (Fee Status)
  Hall Fees
  Hall Fees
  Ryles Park County High School, Macclesfield
  Ryles Park County High School, Macclesfield
  York (Secondary Reorganisation)
  York (Secondary Reorganisation)
  Universities (Science Students)
  Universities (Science Students)
  Schoolchildren (Travel)
  Schoolchildren (Travel)
  Truancy Officers
  Truancy Officers
  Travelling People
  Travelling People
  Pupil-Teacher Ratios
  Pupil-Teacher Ratios
  Research Councils
  Research Councils
  School Curriculum (Representations)
  School Curriculum (Representations)
  Core Curriculum (Maintained Schools)
  Core Curriculum (Maintained Schools)
  Student Unions
  Student Unions
  Public Libraries (Book Reservations)
  Public Libraries (Book Reservations)
  North-East London Polytechnic
  North-East London Polytechnic
  Secondary School Places
  Secondary School Places
  Agricultural Research
  Agricultural Research
  Medical Students (Supplementary Maintenance Award)
  Medical Students (Supplementary Maintenance Award)
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Ophthalmic Services (Review)
  Ophthalmic Services (Review)
  Nurses (Pay)
  Nurses (Pay)
  Overseas Visitors (Health Charges)
  Overseas Visitors (Health Charges)
  Supplementary Benefit
  Supplementary Benefit
  "Asbestos Related Diseases Without Asbestosis"
  "Asbestos Related Diseases Without Asbestosis"
  Hospitals (Violent Patients)
  Hospitals (Violent Patients)
  Ford Workers, Halewood (Benefits)
  Ford Workers, Halewood (Benefits)
  Elderly and Disabled Persons
  Elderly and Disabled Persons
  Departmental Staff, Archway
  Departmental Staff, Archway
  Ms. L. Turvey
  Ms. L. Turvey
DEFENCE
  Gibraltar Dockyard
  Gibraltar Dockyard
  Defence Expenditure
  Defence Expenditure
  Nuclear Radiation (Compensation)
  Nuclear Radiation (Compensation)
  Devonport Dockyard
  Devonport Dockyard
  Royal Navy Ships (Nagasaki Visit)
  Royal Navy Ships (Nagasaki Visit)
  HMS Swiftsure
  HMS Swiftsure
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Shipbuilding Industry
  Shipbuilding Industry
  Schools Rationalisation (Proceeds)
  Schools Rationalisation (Proceeds)
  Local Authorities (Capital Expenditure)
  Local Authorities (Capital Expenditure)
  Education Expenditure
  Education Expenditure
  Armagh Prison (Strip Searches)
  Armagh Prison (Strip Searches)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Cereal Prices
  Cereal Prices
  Foxes
  Foxes
  Farm Animals (Deaths)
  Farm Animals (Deaths)
  Medicated Feeding Stuffs
  Medicated Feeding Stuffs
  Unfit Meat and Offal
  Unfit Meat and Offal

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

Government Papers: Unauthorised Disclosure
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what success has been achieved in the investigations into the responsibility for recent leakages to the press of confidential Government papers.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Young): My Lords, it would not be in the public interest to disclose details of inquiries into the unauthorised disclosure of information or the degree of success which these have achieved.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, can the Minister kindly say what success has been achieved in the case of the last two examples, one of which was rebuked by the head of the Treasury and the other was rebuked by the Prime Minister, who said that it was deplorable?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I cannot add anything to what I have said in my original Answer, and I do not believe that it would be right for me to add any further comment on leak inquiries.

Government Papers: Security
2.37 p.m.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that present methods of safeguarding secrecy for Government papers available to Ministers and departmental officials are adequate or whether they require review with a view to achieving some improvement.
Baroness Young: My Lords, every effort is made to keep classified information secure. The arrangements are kept under review and changed as necessary.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, does the Minister consider that the present procedures are adequate, in the light of the results hitherto achieved?
Baroness Young: My Lords, as I have indicated, the arrangements are kept under review, and it has to be remembered that in a free society a balance has to be
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struck between efficiency and security. The fact of the matter is that no system, however draconian, can ever be regarded as infallible.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the House would, no doubt, agree with what she has said on that point? Could she say, following the substantial leak of Government information on family policy to The Guardian newspaper in February, what action was taken at the time? Was there an inquiry and, if so, what kind of inquiry? What was the result of the inquiry and were there any reports which will be made public?
Baroness Young: My Lords, on the point which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, has raised, inquiries were made and the investigators' reports are being studied. But it is not the practice to disclose any of the information or the result of the investigation.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for that information. Could she perhaps go a step further and say what will be the results of the study, who is making the study, how long it will take before the study is completed and whether any action is proposed at the end of that, if anyone is found culpable?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I do not wish to sound unhelpful on this matter, but I think it would be right for me to say that it is not the practice to disclose any information about leak investigations. But I should like to say on the second part of the noble Lord's question, that the unauthorised disclosure of official information is regarded as a very serious breach of the Civil Service code of conduct. An offender would normally be dealt with under the Civil Service disciplinary procedures, the penalties under which include dismissal. My right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General, or my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, as appropriate, would also consider whether to institute criminal proceedings.
Lord Balfour of Inchrye: My Lords, while I quite accept that the results of the investigation cannot be revealed, would it not be reassuring to the public if they were told, in the broadest terms, whether the investigation resulted in something positive?
Baroness Young: My Lords, something positive comes out of any investigation, if only an opportunity to review the procedures and to draw the attention of those involved to the importance of confidentiality and of the procedures which are adopted in the Civil Service. But I really do not think it would be right for any results of inquiries to be published in this way. As your Lordships will know, some of the serious matters—for example, the results of positive vetting—are, in fact, being looked at now by the Security Commission, which is a rather different issue, in regard to the cases which have been referred to it.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in giving consideration to this matter, will the Government also investigate how it is that a couple of days before the Budget the details always seem to be in either the Observer or the Sunday Times? Would the noble

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Baroness agree that the coincidence of the particulars being practically identical points to a leakage or guidance from very high places?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I do not think it would be for me to decide at this stage what was, or was not, said before the Budget. I think that the Question which is down on the Order Paper refers to other matters, and I answered it as I believe was appropriate in the circumstances.

Real Net Income: Comparisons
2.42 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what changes have taken place since 1979 in the real take-home pay of a person earning £45,000 a year and of an unemployed person.
The Minister of State for Trade (Lord Cockfield): My Lords, for a married man with two children, with constant real gross earnings equivalent to £45,000 a year at 1983–84 prices, real take-home pay will be about 18 per cent. higher in the current tax year than in 1978–79, and about 2 per cent. lower than in 1979–80. The changes in real net income for unemployed people will depend upon their precise circumstances, but for the married man with two young children on supplementary benefit the real value of net income is about 8 per cent. higher than in November 1979.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, but I wonder whether his attention has been drawn to the study made by an independent organisation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in which they found that in real terms the income of an average man with £45,000 a year has risen by £120 a week since 1979, which is a rise of 25 per cent., whereas an average unemployed man is now taking home, in real terms, £15.30 per week less than in 1979, a decrease of 21.3 per cent.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, the figures are as I have in fact given them. The unemployed person who is receiving supplementary benefit and who has two young children is now better off, in real terms, than either in November 1978 or in November 1979. So far as the person with a substantial income is concerned, the position is that during the lifetime of the previous Administration the rates of tax charged went up to 98 per cent. on investment income and 83 per cent. on earned income. These rates were not sustainable and were bad from the point of view of the economic health of the country.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, as I understand the noble Lord's Answer to the Question, he admits that there is a disparity between a person who earns £45,000 a year and a person on unemployment benefit. If he admits that, would the noble Lord the Minister be kind enough to tell us how he is going to correct it?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, as I have said, the difference arises from the changes which were made in 1979. Those changes were to put right what in effect were excessive and insupportable levels of taxation. The important point which emerges from the noble Lord's Question is that the position of an unemployed person who has young children and is on supplementary benefit has actually improved since 1979.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that these figures represent a differential of approximately 20 times by way of spending money? Does my noble friend find it interesting that after 60 years of socialism in the egalitarian state of Russia the differential is approximately 40, if one excludes conscript soldiers, where the differential is 256, and that in the egalitarian state of China, where there are millions of unemployed, the differential is infinity because there is no unemployment pay at all?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for that most interesting information.
Baroness Gaitskell: My Lords, would it not be true to say that the Minister's reply has absolutely no meaning for people who are out of work and in this position—no meaning whatsoever?
Lord Cockfield: No, my Lords; I am afraid I cannot accept what the noble Baroness says. I was asked specifically for certain information. That information I have given. I drew attention to the most interesting fact, upon which I have commented; namely, that the position of the unemployed person with young children, on supplementary benefit, is actually better now than it was in 1979.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the encouraging aspect of the taxation position which has been given by the noble Lord consistent with the Government's abandonment of the taxation and prices index, which they issued with such a fanfare of trumpets on 29th August 1979, when, of course, they promised the electorate that they would lower the burden of taxation? Is the noble Lord further aware, or need he be reminded, that only last week his right honourable friend in another place admitted in an Answer that in order to restore taxation to the position which existed in 1979 there would have to be a 7p deduction from the current rate of income tax?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I was under the impression that I was being criticised from the Benches opposite for the size of the reductions made in taxation. I am therefore most encouraged by the support given to me by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, who is advocating further substantial reductions in taxation.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, I wonder if the noble Lord could make it absolutely clear, so that we may follow these matters more fairly, whether the improvement in the take-home pay, as he puts it, of the unemployed man is due to a change in the taxation rate or whether it is due to the fact that the unemployed man gets rather more unemployment pay now as a result of the higher contributions?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, there seemed to be some innuendo in the noble Lord's question, which I hope he will forgive me if I ignore. So far as the figures are concerned, the position of the unemployed man, as I have given it, is not affected by taxation.
Lord Beswick: No, my Lords, but is not the question relevant to taxation? Would the noble Lord make it absolutely clear that as a result of the taxation policy of the present Government a man taking home that kind of pay was worse off from 1979 to 1982 because of the changes in taxation, and the only reason why the noble Lord can point to this increase of £8 a week is because unemployment pay and supplementary benefits are higher?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, if the noble Lord would care to read the Question, it related to the position of a person on £45,000 a year income and the position of a person who is unemployed. I gave the figures relating to those two circumstances. If there are any further or more detailed figures which the noble Lord would like, I shall be only too pleased to send them to him, if he will specify precisely what he requires.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister please clarify one point? Is not inflation itself a form of taxation? Is it not the form of taxation that occurs when we do not have the political power to tax ourselves properly? Is it not an extremely unfair form of taxation, because it hits the poorest people worst of all?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Viscount. This is why we have set the reduction of inflation as one of our top priorities. We have made very significant progress in that direction.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, aware that he has not answered my original supplementary question? If he cannot do so this afternoon, will he be so kind as to write to me, comparing the figures given by the Intitute of Fiscal Studies with the selective figures he has given? Further, will he tell the House whether it is correct that his defence of the reduction of taxation on the high income groups was that it was to give an opportunity for an increase in investment and in production? But has this not been followed by a drastic decrease in investment and an even more catastrophic fall in production?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, the noble Lord is committing the common fallacy of post hoc propter hoc. The fact of the matter is that the long-term health of the economy demands a lower level of taxation than that which existed during the lifetime of the previous Administration. That was the reason for the reductions which were made in 1979 and which have been debated on many occasions both in your Lordships' House and elsewhere. I shall always be happy to write to the noble Lord on this or on any other question.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister accept that, whatever may be the increase or decrease in other rates, his own rate of cynicism
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increases month by month? Will he also agree that the whole purpose of this Question is the concern of the House—certainly on this side—with the misery of 4 million unemployed? That was the whole basis of the Question, and is the Minister not equally concerned?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, the noble Lord's attempts at levity in the first part of his supplementary question belied the nature of the attack that he was endeavouring to launch upon me. So far as the point of substance is concerned, I drew attention to the fact—and I thought it was a matter for some satisfaction—that the position of the unemployed person, with the circumstances I have mentioned, is in fact better than it was in 1979. I would have thought that the noble Lord would have taken some satisfaction from that fact, as I and the other members of my party do.

House Building
2.54 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the total of new house building started in the last period for which figures are available.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, provisional estimates show that 48,000 dwellings were started in Great Britain in the three months from December 1982 to February 1983. House building starts in the 12 months March 1982 to February 1983 were 201,000 which is a 28 per cent. increase on the previous 12 months.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for that very satisfactory reply, may I ask whether he can say if the latest figures for February continue this encouraging trend?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my figures included February, but my understanding is that the powers-that-be expect a 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. increase over and above the figures I have given in the next 12 months.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, accepting that any increase in house building is to be desired, will the noble Lord give the figures for the year before that which he quoted, which I believe were the lowest on record for quite a number of years?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, in 1980 the figures were 130,000 houses; in 1981, 131,000 houses; in 1982, 166,000 houses—hardly the lowest on record.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I was asking the noble Lord whether he will compare those figures with the figures for the previous year, because the general comment on house building figures is that they were the lowest for some 10 or 12 years.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my figures do not go back as far as 10 or 12 years ago. What I can say is that the trend under the last Government in respect of new house building starts was down between 1975 and 1979, and that from 1979 to 1983, as I have shown, the trend has been up. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, may draw his own conclusions from that statement.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether the trend in respect of new house building for the disabled is equally good? Also, can he find a way of speeding up social services departments, who sometimes hold up the adaption of ordinary houses which have to be converted to accommodate disabled people?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, so far as housing for the disabled is concerned, we have to consider two points; not only house building but also house conversion. It is not, therefore, a matter of providing new, specially designed accommodation. More and more local authorities have been making provision for the needs of the disabled by adaptations to their own housing stock. Authorities are also increasingly making improvement grants available to disabled people wishing to adapt their houses. I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships that nearly five times as many adaptations and improvements were carried out last year as were made in 1978.
With regard to the problem of getting grants, where the local social services organisations have to approve particular types of adaptations, I realise that this is causing a problem and the Government intend to look at this.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, can the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, say whether we are now making the much needed progress in improving the proportion of houses in the starter home range, at the bottom of the market? That is where we really need more homes, particularly with the ending of public sector house building. Is it not the case that at the bottom end, the position is getting better now thanks partly to the equity sharing system which many of us strongly support?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am afraid that I do not have the breakdown which the noble Lord requests. With permission, I shall write to the noble Lord on this aspect, but I take the point he has made.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister say whether the volume of housing starts varies greatly in different areas of the country?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords; housing starts are bound to vary greatly in different areas of the country. This is because different areas of the country have different needs—one has only to look at the rural as compared with the metropolitan areas—and also because there is a political reason in particular places. I am not trying to cast aspersions in any particular direction, but I regret that that is a fact.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell the House how many of these new houses are
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attributable to local authority development, and how many are for sale or for rent?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I do not have the annual figures but I do have the percentages. The public sector starts were up 29 per cent. and the private sector starts were up 41 per cent.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that dinner will be available at the usual time of 7.30 this evening. The Committee stage of the Housing and Building Control Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7.30 p.m. for approximately one hour, and during this adjournment the Dogs (Northern Ireland) Order 1983 will be taken.
Car Tax Bill [H.L.]
Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.
Value Added Tax Bill [H.L.]
Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Housing and Building Control Bill
3 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on the Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Bellwin.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Extension to cases where landlord does not own freehold]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I would ask for clarification from the Minister as to whether this clause would cover the people of Dulwich who are so keen to buy their homes—there are 2,000 there whose freehold is owned by a charity—or whether they would come under Clause 2. To clarify the position, the property is owned by Southwark Council, and these people would have a right to buy under the 1980 Housing Act but for the fact that the ground is owned by a charity. I understand that the charity would have been willing to negotiate but Southwark Council does not wish people to have the right. I wonder whether their position would be covered by Clause 1 or Clause 2.
Lord Bellwin: As we shall see when we come to Clause 2, if the land is owned by a charity and was acquired by that charity with its own funds, then that will exclude them from the right to buy. To be able to answer my noble friend one would need to know the circumstances of the particular dwellings to which she refers.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I thank my noble friend.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Extension of right to buy to cases where landlord does not own freehold.]:
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 47, line 23, at end insert—
("(2A) Where the landlord's interest in the dwelling-house is a lease, a certificate under subsection (1)(b) above shall also state particulars of that lease and, with respect to each superior title, the following particulars, namely—

(a) where it is registered, the title number;

(b) where it is not registered, whether it was investigated in the usual way on the grant of the landlord's lease.").

The noble Lord said: With this amendment I would also, with permission, wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 82. These four amendments are all technical amendments to Schedule 1 to the Bill, which lays down the terms on which tenants of leasehold property will be able to buy long leases of their homes under Clause 1. I do not think these amendments need detain your Lordships for long; I will try to be as brief as I can in explaining their effect.
The first amendment deals with a point about land registration. Where the landlord's interest is leasehold and his title is not registered at Her Majesty's Land Registry, the new Section 20(1)(b) of the 1980 Act (introduced by paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Bill) will require the landlord to give the tenant a certificate of title in respect of the sub-lease he will acquire by exercising the right to buy. This follows the simplified proof of title procedure by way of certificates of title adopted for the right to buy in Section 20(2) of the 1980 Act. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the certificate of title in leasehold cases gives particulars of all superior titles, including the title out of which the landlord's own leasehold interest was created. The particulars relate to whether the title is registered, and, if not, whether it was investigated in the usual way. The amendment will help to enable the Land Registry to register a purchase with absolute title wherever possible.
The second amendment deals with two points which have recently come to our notice about the possibility of conflict between the terms of a landlord's head-lease and the terms of a right to buy sub-lease. Where a tenant of leasehold property exercises the right to buy, he will get a sub-lease, which must conform with Schedule 2 to the 1980 Act as amended by Schedule 1 to this Bill. Schedule 2 already provides that certain of the landlord's rights and obligations under his head-lease must be reflected in the tenant's sub-lease. However, we have concluded that there are one or two areas in which there could be uncertainty about the relationship between head-lease and sub-lease.
First, a breach by the landlord of covenants in his head-lease coud lead to forfeiture of the lease. In those circumstances, the right to buy sub-lease would generally fall as well (subject to the important protection for the sub-lease contained in Section 146(4) of the Law of Property Act 1925 enabling him to apply for relief from forfeiture). We therefore think that the Bill should provide that, in all cases, there is an implied covenant on the part of the landlord to observe the terms of his head-lease unless these fall to be discharged by the tenant. This is provided for in sub-paragraph (2) of the new paragraph 13A.
Secondly, there may possibly be cases where a landlord will not be able to discharge his normal responsibilities to the right to buy purchaser for repairs because of the terms of the landlord's own head-lease. The head-lease may, for instance, provide that the landlord shall not undertake any work on the structure or exterior of the building, to ensure that such work is wholly within the freeholder's or a superior landlord's control. In these circumstances we think that the landlord should be relieved from those obligations which he is precluded from carrying out, and sub-paragraph (3) of the new paragraph 13A so provides. We have also concluded that it is necessary to provide that where the right to buy landlord is not himself in a position to carry out repairs, he is under an obligation to enforce any covenants in the head-lease which place an obligation on the superior landlord to carry out repairs or remedy structural defects. This is provided for in sub-paragraph (4) of paragraph 13A.
As for Amendment No. 3 on the Marshalled List this simply applies to the new provisions which I have just described—the existing provisions governing payment for repairs in respect of flats which are already embodied in paragraphs 15 and 16 of Schedule 2 to the 1980 Act. Their effect, broadly, is that the sub-lessee can be required to bear only a reasonable part of the costs of carrying out repairs, and that special rules apply to the costs of making-good structural defects. I will gladly explain these provisions in more detail if your Lordships so wish. But, as I say, this amendment is really no more than a technical change to an existing provision, to take account of the second group of amendments I described just now.
Finally, I come to Amendment No. 82. As your Lordships will recognise, this is merely a consequential amendment to Amendment No. 3, which requires no explanation from me. I trust that your Lordships will agree these four technical amendments to Schedule 1 to the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Leatherland: While I fully understand every word the noble Lord has said, I wonder whether the ordinary tenant will understand quite so clearly. As this measure is from start to finish a fairly complicated one, will the Government, when ultimately this measure is passed, arrange for a simple guide to be available to tenants through their council offices?
Lord Bellwin: First of all, we are talking here not specifically of local authority housing as such, so it really does not apply. On the other hand, I entirely take the point the noble Lord makes, that these are complex technical matters. I could have moved the amendments by saying less about them, but I think it

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is important that we have on the record not just what the proposals are but the reasons for them, so that those interested and concerned will have a chance to read them in Hansard. If the noble Lord would like more explanation he knows I would be glad to give it, although, as he says, he personally has fully followed the details.
Lord Gisborough: I feel concerned with regard to the justice of this provision. I wonder whether my noble friend could at this stage give some reassurance with regard to values from the point of view of the head lessor of the ground lease. The ground lessor originally let the land to the person who built, the lessee, at a low rate because he would have his value back at the end of 100 years, or whatever. Having entered into a perfectly reasonable agreement from all sides, then halfway through this period, just like in the Leasehold Reform Act, the Government say "You have given this land cheap but we are now going to remove it from you with inadequate value." If this is to happen I am not happy that the original lessor will get his proper value for the land.
Lord Bellwin: I understand the point that my noble friend makes, but the actual amount that the original head lease owner will obtain is surely a matter for negotiation when the time applies. I would not have thought that the legislation now being proposed would in any way disadvantage him. Perhaps my noble friend would like to take this up with me and discuss it in more detail. I shall be glad to arrange for him to do so; but I think that his concern need not be as bad as he thinks.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 48, leave out lines 46 to 48 and insert—
("(3) In paragraph 13 of that Schedule (convenants by landlord)—

(a) sub-paragraph (1) shall be renumbered as sub-paragraph (1A) of that paragraph;

(b) at the beginning of that provision as so renumbered there shall be inserted the words "Subject to paragraph 13A(3) below";

(c) immediately before that provision as so renumbered there shall be inserted the following sub-paragraph—

"(1) This paragraph applies where the dwelling-house is a fiat."; and

(d) in sub-paragraph (2) for the words "sub-paragraph (1) (a)" there shall be substituted the words "sub-paragragh (1A)(a)".

(3A) After paragraph 13 of that Schedule there shall be inserted the following paragraph—
"13A.—(1) This paragraph applies where the landlord's interest in the dwelling-house is leasehold.
(2) There shall be implied, by virtue of this Schedule, a covenant by the landlord to pay the rent reserved by the landlord's lease and, except in so far as they fall to be dischared by the tenant, to discharge its obligations under the covenants contained in that lease.
(3) There shall not be implied by virtue of paragraph 13(1A) above any covenant the obligations under which the landlord is precluded from discharging by a provision contained in the landlord's lease or a superior lease.
(4) Where the landlord's lease or a superior lease contains a covenant by a superior landlord to the like effect as a covenant which, but for sub-paragraph (3) above, would be implied by virtue of paragraph 13(1A) above, there shall be implied, by virtue of this Schedule, a covenant by the landlord to use its best endeavours to secure that the superior landlord's obligations under the first mentioned covenant are discharged.")
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 49, line 7, at end insert—
("(5) Paragraph 15 of that Schedule (avoidance of certain agreements) shall be renumbered as sub-paragraph (1) of that paragraph, in that provision as so renumbered paragraph (b) and the words "and paragraph 16 below" shall be omitted and after that provision as so renumbered there shall be inserted the following sub-paragraph—
"(2) Where the dwelling-house is a flat, any provision of the lease or of any agreement collateral to it shall be void in so far as it purports to enable the landlord or a superior landlord to recover from the tenant any part of—

(a) any costs incurred by the landlord in discharging or insuring against its obligations under a covenant implied by virtue of paragraph 13(1A)(a) or (b) above; or

(b) any costs incurred by a superior landlord in discharging or insuring against his obligations under a covenant to the like effect as a covenant which, but for paragraph 13A(3) above, would be so implied;

but subject to paragraph 16 below.")
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Extension to cases where landlord is a charity]:
3.12 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, leave out lines 18 to 32 and insert—
("2.—(1) After paragraph 2 of Part I of schedule 1 to the 1980 Act (circumstances in which right to buy does not arise) there shall be inserted the following paragraph—
"2A.—(1) The landlord is a housing association or housing trust which (in either case) is a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1960 and—

(a) a grant under section 29 of the 1974 Act has not been paid in respect of a housing project which consisted of or included—

(i) the acquisition of the dwelling-house;

(ii) the acquisition of a building and the provision of the dwelling-house by means of the conversion of that building; or

(iii) the acquisition of land and the construction of the dwelling-house on that land; or

(b) where such a grant has been so paid, the grant or, as the case may require, so much of it as was attributable to the acquisition, provision or construction of the dwelling-house has been repaid (in whole or in part) under subsection (3) or, as the case may be, subsection (5) of section 30 of that Act.

(2) A certificate given by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this paragraph shall be evidence of the matters stated in it".
(1A) For subsections (1) and (2) of section 2 of the 1980 Act (exceptions to right to buy) there shall be substituted the following subsections—
"(1) The right to buy does not arise if the landlord is—

(a) a housing trust which is a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1960; or

(b) a housing association,

which (in either case) has at no time received a grant under section 119(3) of the 1957 Act, section 29, 31, 32 or 33 of the 1974 Act or any enactment mentioned in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 to that Act.
(2) The right to buy does not arise if the landlord is a housing association which falls within paragraph (d) of section 15(3) of the 1977 Act (certain societies registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965).".
(1B) In sections 1(1)(c), 12(1), 19(1) and (4) and 22(3) of the 1980 Act after the words "housing association" there shall be inserted the words "or housing trust" and in the said section 22(3) after the word "association", in the second and third places where it occurs, there shall be inserted the words "or trust".").
The noble Lord said: With this amendment I propose to speak also to Amendments Nos. 16, 23 and 79 which are all relevant to, or consequential on, Amendment No. 4. This group of amendments is not as daunting as it may look. The aim is largely to improve the drafting of Clause 2(1) and there is only one substantive change which noble Lords will, I am sure, find acceptable. I shall describe this first and then describe briefly the drafting changes which we wish to make with these amendments.
As Clause 2 stands, a dwelling owned by a charitable housing association or housing trust which had originally been provided with housing association grant would attract the right to buy even if the grant had been repaid. It is unlikely that these circumstances would arise, but it is possible. Therefore, we have thought it right to remove this potential anomaly from the Bill. This is achieved by the new subparagraph 2A(1)(b) of Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act. It is not our policy that tenants of charitable housing associations living in dwellings which are no longer publicly funded should have the right to buy. I hope that noble Lords will agree that this is a reasonable and welcome change.
The incorporation of the repaid grant condition in Clause 2(1) would have made Section 2 of the 1980 Act, which Clause 2(1) amends, rather unwieldy. We are therefore proposing in Amendment No. 4 to recast Clause 2(1). The changes are purely drafting changes. Unless your Lordships wish me to go into further detail I will resist the temptation to do so. I beg to move.
Baroness Birk: I thank the Minister for explaining this amendment. As he says, it makes very little difference to the Bill, and even the point which he says was a more substantial one is not the aspect that is worrying us all. There are a number of amendments which follow which seek, with the best possible intentions, to modify this clause. Personally—and this is no discourtesy to the movers of these amendments—I shall not be speaking to them and I believe that some of my noble friends may take the same view. We feel—and this view is shared by many across the Committee —that the whole clause is really the problem in this Bill. At this stage of the proceedings there does not seem to be a great deal of point in trying to prune the branches of what is an extremely unhealthy tree.
Lord Evans of Claughton: May I briefly say that in dealing with this amendment one must, I suppose, be thankful for small mercies. This is an extremely small mercy. I shall be glad if the noble Lord the Minister will speculate as to how much housing association land or how many buildings this provision will apply to. I should think it would be very small indeed. Having said that, I follow the noble Baroness in that we on these Benches—and, I believe, those of my friends in the Social Democratic Party—take the view that the whole nub of the Bill lies in Clause 2 and that is where the main debate should take place.
Lord Bellwin: I should not like to speculate on the number of dwellings affected although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, that it is likely to be small. Nevertheless, if something is right then it is right. This is the theme of what we will be discussing. May I say to my noble friends who will be speaking on the next amendments—and not in any way to preempt what they will say—that the Government are not without sympathy to the points that they make. However, I shall reserve my observations on those matters until we come to those amendments.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: May I return to the point that I raised on Clause 1 and ask the Minister whether anything in this amendment or this clause helps these people? I return to this point because there are over 2,000 people involved. I refer to where the charity which owns the land is willing to enter into negotiations but the council which owns the lease—not, I emphasise, the charity or housing association—refuses to negotiate deliberately to thwart those who wish to buy their own council homes. Is there anything in this clause that will help those people? I am not speaking about a case where a charity is unwilling but about a case where it is willing to part with the land and where the intervening landlord, the council, refuses to honour the wishes of the people.
Lord Bellwin: Again, it is very difficult without knowing the specific circumstances in detail to answer; but in principle, so far as the councils are concerned, under the 1980 Act the tenants have a right to buy. If there is the difficulty that my noble friend mentions and she would like me to look at it in detail, I shall be happy to do so. It is very hard to say specifically and categorically, without knowing the details, why there is the problem to which she refers when the 1980 Act is so clear. However, I shall gladly look into it.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I thank the Minister for that reply.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 32, at end insert—
("Provided that those parts of buildings or groups of buildings occupied by able bodied persons in a development having features which are substantially different from those of ordinary dwelling-houses and which are designed to make it suitable for occupation by physically or mentally handicapped persons or the elderly infirm are excluded from the right to buy provisions of this section.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is an attempt to ameliorate some of the provisions of Clause 2 giving the right to buy to tenants of charitable housing associations. In particular, it deals with rather special and relatively new methods of looking after people who are physically or mentally handicapped, or the aged or infirm. It is an attempt to make certain that they are not confined to ghettoes on their own, but live in a normal community with younger, more able-bodied people around them who are in a position to help.
In a number of these groups of dwellings those able-bodied people who live in perfectly ordinary dwellings, whether flats or bungalows, are not necessarily employed by the housing association but often are employed by the disabled people themselves. So it is

813
essential that accommodation close at hand be provided for them.
The position may alter as the type of disability in these specially designed dwellings changes. There may be a person who at the moment needs two people to look after him during any one week on a shared hours basis who, for one reason or another, moves away from the complex and the dwelling is taken over by someone who needs a greater number of people to care for him.
In my view it is essential that the accommodation for the able-bodied helpers be available. It is also necessary that the charitable housing association should have the ability to alter the balance between those who are handicapped for one reason or another and the able-bodied people who are there to look after them. To sell off those dwellings which are reserved at this stage for the able-bodied helpers, and in some instances end up with no help available for those people who are handicapped, would be like removing an artificial limb and saying, "There you are. It does not matter. Your limb is more useful to someone else. Carry on with only one leg". I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: As I indicated a few moments ago, we are not unsympathetic at all to this amendment. My noble friend Lord Swinfen has indicated that he has connections with a charitable housing association which has a scheme, or schemes, where arrangements of the kind that he described exist. I think that he might be prepared to agree that they are not common by any means. We for our part know of only a few schemes where they operate. However, I can understand that disabled tenants who are dependent on help from their co-tenants and who might not otherwise be able to manage to live in self-contained accommodation, might be concerned at the possibility of the withdrawal of that help.
The amendment before us is not acceptable in its present form for a number of reasons on which I shall not elaborate unless my noble friend presses me to do so. I think that what he really wants to know is what the Government's feelings are about this. We are sympathetic to the point that he makes. If he is prepared to withdraw his amendment, we shall certainly undertake to consider the issue that he has raised to see what we can bring back to dispense with the matter.
Lord Swinfen: I thank my noble friend for that reply which gives me much encouragement. I do not know what will happen to this clause in the course of this evening, but if it remains in the Bill it certainly needs to be amended. I hope that between now and the next stage I can discuss the matter further with my noble friend or with his officials with a view to coming back, if necessary, at a later stage with an amendment that is very much more suitably drafted. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.23 p.m.
Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 32, at end insert—
("( ) In part 1 of Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act there shall be inserted after paragraph 5 the following paragraph—
"6. The landlord is a housing trust which is a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1960 or the landlord is a housing association which either—

(a) is such a charity; or

(b) falls within paragraph (d) of section 15(3) of the 1977 Act (certain societies regulated under the Industrial and Provident Societies act 1975)

and the dwelling-house is one which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by persons who have special needs or is one of a group of dwelling-houses in which more than half of the dwelling-houses comprised in that group is let to persons of special needs.
For the purposes of this paragraph "special needs" shall be taken to mean persons whose circumstances (other than merely financial circumstances) make it especially difficult for them to satisfy their need for housing.".").
The noble Lord said: This is by way of being what I might describe as a damage limitation amendment. If the Government are determined to press ahead with Clause 2, then this amendment seeks to exempt some of the areas where many of us believe that it would do the most harm. The amendment is designed to protect those in special needs dwellings, which may be let as secure tenancies, but which are as vital to the rehabilitative process as the hostels and shared accommodation which are an early part of the process. The Government's exemptions which cover just the elderly and the disabled, we believe, do not go far enough; nor does the exemption for hostels and shared housing. I think it is equally impractical to expect charities to be able to go to court to evict tenants seeking to exercise the right to buy on the basis that they no longer fall within the objectives of the charity. When I say that it is impractical, to put it mildly, it would go against the grain of those who are running these charities.
I am well aware that many noble Lords are going to get down to the real in-fighting on Clause 2 itself as a whole. I think that it would be fair to say that Clause 2 has not so far flushed out very many friends in this House. Even supporters of the concept of the right to buy, like myself, feel that perhaps more harm than good is being done by this attempt at what I might describe as shifting the frontiers of the anomaly which has been created by the right to buy. Indeed, it seems to me that this is the only advantage which has been claimed for the clause. On the other hand, the clause has been much criticised, and I do not doubt that it will be more criticised—and rightly. I do not intend to go into all the objections in principle. I have no doubt that later on many noble Lords, both more eloquent and better versed in the problems than I, will express these matters much more effectively than I can.
What I am concerned about in this amendment is the practical effects. Let me at the outset admit that opinions differ on this as well. There are those who claim that the critics of Clause 2 exaggerate the potential damage. What I think I can say to the House without fear of contradiction is that, from all that I can discover and from all the letters that I have received—and I have received a good few—it is the almost unanimous feeling of those who work in the small charitable associations that they believe passionately that the provisions in Clause 2 will irreparably damage their activities and, indeed, will undermine the whole concept of voluntary involvement in the relief of housing stress. I believe

815
that that is an unchallengeable statement at the present time.
Lord Bellwin: No. That is not so.
Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal: Voluntary participation is very dear to the hearts of many of us in this country. Perhaps it is best exemplified by that charming but nevertheless cost-effective anomaly, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Nobody could begin to justify an organisation of that kind but it does happen to work.
What we believe is needed is a clear exemption for flats or dwelling-houses which form part of meeting a particular need or a particular philosophy. In the amendment we have used the definition of "special needs" that has already been used in the Housing Act 1980 because it gives a measure of flexibility in defining special needs, which a list of today's problems with people such as drug abusers, alcoholics and ex-offenders would not. Where charitable associations are providing special needs projects, it is important not to overlook the fact that this is an area where voluntary effort by community members and volunteers is most evident and most valuable. If this clause were to go through as it stands, we believe that it would have a devastating effect on this voluntary commitment.
I hope that other noble Lords who are involved in this field—and it is some years since I was—will be able to flesh out the bones of the case I am making, but I think that I should just very briefly mention some of the reasons which lie behind this feeling that is so passionately felt by the voluntary workers. There is the additional administrative complication of trying to manage a block of flats or a group of houses where the ownership is split. In particular, in cases where special needs are being met, there will be a breaching of the protective wall which some of the societies place around those who occupy their housing. It is difficult not to sound over-patronising when speaking about some of these issues, but we must be realistic and recognise that some of the people who occupy the houses, and about whom we are speaking, are not the most adequate when it comes to managing their own lives. One of the worries that one has is that such people may succumb to the temptation to make a quick profit by buying their house. Possibly they will be put up to it by somebody whose motives may not be wholly as admirable as the people who run the society, or indeed the person who occupies the house. The possibility of the wrong kind of outsider intruding into some of the sheltered housing organisations is regarded with great seriousness by those who run the organisations.
There is a further plain nuts and bolts issue: that it will be difficult and expensive for those who administer houses of this kind to organise the right to buy, with all the valuations, the agents' fees, and all the obvious complications which that will entail.
I think that I have already spoken about the simple exacerbation of the inevitable management problems which housing associations of the kind that we are considering experience. I have said that there is the more general danger that what is being proposed will switch off the flow of volunteer effort. It may also—and I have many letters to indicate this—have
816
the effect of turning off the tap of donations to charitable societies or associations of this kind. Within the last few days we have had a letter from a housing association which opened only on Saturday, and the chairman said quite simply,
"If Clause 2 goes through in its present form, I shall resign".
I do not believe that that is an isolated instance.
So I am saying to the Government that I hope that they will look sympathetically at an amendment of this kind. If the particular amendment is not acceptable, I shall of course be happy to talk with my noble friend, whose sagacity on the whole matter I do not question for one moment; indeed, I respect it enormously. Nevertheless, I hope that the Government will be able to say that they are at least sympathetic to an amendment on these lines, and I hope, too, that in saying so they will make it rather easier for some of us who would wish to support them possibly later in the evening, when otherwise I think they will have a fairly rough time. I beg to move.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: I wish briefly to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. I do not know what is going to happen to the Bill, but the amendment at least meets some of the points that have been put to me and to many other people. Since for many years I was chairman of a housing committee and was connected with both charitable housing and local authority housing, I would say that it is most important that in a housing community there should be not only those people for whom special housing is provided—such as the elderly and the crippled—but also ordinary people, too. We do not want a community that is divided. After all, we live in a world in which there are people who are well, as well as others who are ill, or disabled. We do not segregate them; we try to bring them into the community, so that as much as possible of their lives can be led in normal conditions.
If the amendment is accepted, it will be a step towards trying to make housing more of a community effort, and no one will be able to come along and say, "My house belongs to the local authority, but I am in it, and I want to buy it", probably only to sell it a few years later at a very much higher price. I think that such a situation would wreck the whole community idea relating to house building. I entirely support what the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, has said. I think that it represents the views of a great many charitable organisations and housing authorities, too.
Lord Bellwin: My noble friend said that one of the statements that he made was unchallengeable. I know that he will appreciate that I shall want to challenge it later, but I should not wish at this stage to enter the Clause 2 stand part debate. I shall reserve until later what I want to say about that. But I assure the noble Lord that faced though I am with opposition, I nevertheless believe that the Government's case is a very powerful one. Certainly I know that my noble friend of all people will listen to it very carefully and judge it on its merits.
However, so far as the present amendment is concerned, the Government are not unsympathetic to the points that have been made. We think that there

817
are problems with the amendment in the way that it is drafted, but the whole question of groups of this kind is one that we should want to look at where there are special needs and so on. I gladly give my noble friend the assurance that if he will withdraw the amendment, we shall want to look into the matter very carefully. My noble friend knows that I cannot tell him what will be the outcome, and I think that he also knows what I mean when I say that we are not unsympathetic and we shall see what we can do with it. I think that there is a point here and we want to take care of it.
However, in case your Lordships wish to return to the charge when we consider Clause 2 in general, on the split management point I would remind your Lordships' Committee that non-charitable housing associations have had no problem with this in the last two-and-three-quarter years, nor have local authorities had problems with it in regard to the accommodation of that kind with which they deal. However, at the moment we are talking about the amendment, and I hope that in the light of the assurance that I have given my noble friend, he will feel able to withdraw it.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: The noble Lord looked around to gain some more support, and I should like to say that I support his amendment, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. It is terribly difficult for the movers of the amendments to know what to do until we know what is to happen to the whole clause. That is why I think that it is perhaps better to wait.
Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal: In face of the soft answer from the Minister which turneth away wrath, clearly I have no alternative but to withdraw the amendment; he is being so helpful. However, I must say that what slightly surprises me is the timing of this kind of a reaction. It is not as though this is a wholly new concept, and the noble Lord the Minister knows very well that he is in for a big battle on the whole question of the clause. He leaves us in a slightly unsatisfactory state of affairs. He says, "I am going to do something to try to help those of you who feel as you do", and I suspect that there are many other noble Lords, who have more experience of the matter than I do, who would wish to be satisfied on it. I believe that the Minister is now going to place them in an extremely awkward situation where they will have to rely on something that he is to bring forward at Report stage, on the assumption that Clause 2 is still in the Bill.
I think that in constitutional terms I have no alternative but to thank the noble Lord for what he has said to me, but I must say that I am not terribly happy about the way in which the argument is developing. I am sorry to be less than totally grateful to him for what he has done. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.40 p.m.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 3, line 10, at end insert—
("(4) Where a secure tenant gives notice of intention of exercising the right to buy under the terms of subsection (1) above and the landlord considers that such action could lead to a situation contrary to the underlying purpose of the charitable trust
818
or association, the landlord shall have the right of appeal to the Secretary of State.
(5) In considering appeals under subsection (4) above, the Secretary of State shall give due consideration to the long term effect of population balance in the County and District concerned as well as to the underlying purpose of the charitable trust or association of the appellant.").
The noble Lord said: I gave the main background to this amendment at Second Reading on 11th April, at cols. 53 and 54. I do not propose to repeat all that, because I gave my reasons rather fully. The point at issue is that, unlike some noble Lords who have spoken and unlike, I am sure, many noble Lords when we come to discuss Clause 2 generally, I welcome the clause in general terms and accept the various points that the Government have made in saying that it is nothing like so ferocious a clause as might be expected. However, there is no doubt that circumstances can arise in which the charities, if called upon to comply with the clause as it stands, when all the safeguards about the sick, the ailing and that sort of thing have been swept away, will find that the purpose for which the charity was set up is undermined.
The purpose of my amendment is to give the landlords, who are the charity trust people, the chance to appeal to the Secretary of State in what will inevitably be a grey area, and to explain that in their opinion not only is the sale of the house against the purpose for which the charity was set up but also that in certain parts of the country—your Lordships will know that I am speaking of the Isle of Wight—it could have an adverse effect on the population balance in the long term. This is an important point in a relatively small and cohesive community such as the Isle of Wight.
I have taken a good look at the 1980 Act and at this Bill to see whether there is already in existence any means for the Secretary of State to listen to appeals from the landlord. I find that the situation is really the other way round. Clause 23 of the 1980 Act, which looked hopeful to me, deals with the power of the Secretary of State to intervene. That is true, but he is only really intervening on behalf of the prospective buyer. That is, of course, absolutely fair. The prospective buyer needs to know that the Secretary of State is capable of intervening on his behalf in doubtful areas or in circumstances where the landlord is not complying with what will ultimately be the law.
I do not, however, believe that it is unreasonable to say to the Government, for the reasons that I have given, that there will be occasions when it is only right that the charitable landlord himself should be able to appeal, in roughly the terms of my amendment. I accept, as always, that the amendment itself may not be perfect and that it could be improved. I hope, however, that, in the same way that my noble friend the Minister has made encouraging remarks in response to my noble friend Lord Swinfen and to my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, he will be able to make them to me, too. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: I do not know whether my noble friend will find my remarks encouraging, although I hope he will. As he says, the purpose of the amendment is that charitable housing associations and housing trusts whose tenants claim the right to buy under Clause 2 should have, in certain circumstances, a right of appeal to the Secretary of State. The right of

819
appeal would be exercisable where the charity took the view that the sale of the dwelling would be contrary to the underlying purpose of the charity. By this, my noble friend Lord Mottistone presumably means that the sale would conflict with the primary objects of the charity.
The Secretary of State, in considering an appeal, is to take into account,
"the long term effect of population balance in the County and District concerned".
I presume that by this wording my noble friend means that the Secretary of State must consider the supply of rented accommodation in the area, and the demand for it. My noble friend is, I know, concerned about the availability of rented accommodation in rural areas, and, as he has stated, not for the first time, particularly in the Isle of Wight. The people of the Isle of Wight are fortunate to have such an assiduous advocate of all their affairs.
It is clear that my noble friend has some sympathy with the aim of Clause 2—thankfully. His amendment would place the decision whether the right to buy would arise in any given case in the hands of the Secretary of State rather than those of the trustees of the charity, which would have been the effect of a number of amendments to the clause tabled in another place. I am afraid, however, that the amendment is not acceptable. As your Lordships are aware, we take the view that tenants of charitable housing associations living in dwellings provided by public money in the form of housing association grants, should have the right to buy in the same way as tenants of non-charitable associations. Our main justification for this extension of the right to buy is that these tenants deserve equality of treatment. Since the purpose of most, if not all, charitable housing associations is to provide rented accommodation, it is likely that many associations would lodge appeals. The effect could be largely to undermine the aim of Clause 2.
As to the requirement for the Secretary of State to take account of local circumstances, this seems to me an illogical condition to attach to Clause 2. If the tenants of local authority and non-charitable housing associations have the right to buy regardless of the supply of rented accommodation in their locality, why should the tenants of charitable associations be treated differently? I understand the reasons why my noble friend has put down the amendment. I doubt, however, that Clause 2 will have the adverse effect that he fears. All the evidence from the way in which the 1980 Act has worked suggests that the number of sales will be greatly exceeded by the number of new dwellings provided.
So far as the Isle of Wight is concerned, I would point out to my noble friend that a large proportion of the island—I think that this is really the answer to his particular fear—is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty. The effect of this is that the housing association, when selling a property, may impose a covenant under Section 19 of the Housing Act 1980 limiting its resale without consent to someone who has lived or worked in the area in question for three years or, subject to the Housing Corporation's consent, a ten-year right of pre-emption requiring an offer of resale to the former landlord. These restrictions on
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resale are designed to protect the availability of accommodation for local people in rural areas where there are particular problems of supply. I hope that this point, in so far as the Isle of Wight is concerned, will satisfy my noble friend, at least sufficiently to enable him to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Mottistone: I thank my noble friend for a lot of what he said. I take note of what he said about an area of outstanding natural beauty, which, of course, the Isle of Wight is. I am not, however, entirely happy. I shall not press the amendment at this stage. I shall seek to find another means of producing a circumstance which provides some way of appealing without all the expense of going to court. It will always be possible to go to court in doubtful situations. As my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal has already stated, that is all very well, but the people who run these organisations do not like to do that sort of thing to tenants. Nor do voluntarily-run charitable organisations wish to risk the great expenditure that is always involved in taking a matter to court. It is always a dilemma that there is nothing to which one can appeal where there are grey areas.
All the Bills that we carefully produce have grey areas within them. It is a shame that these small people do not have the chance to get things put right without going to court. I hope that my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, who I saw scratching his head, is not hurt by the thought that the lawyers always seem to win out on these occasions, and that the small organisations suffer. With those remarks, at this stage I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Coleraine Lord Coleraine moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 3, line 10, at end insert—
("(4) Where a housing association or housing trust which (in either case) is a charity within the meaning of the Charities Act 1960 has granted a secure tenancy of a dwelling-house and the tenancy is not for the time being such a tenancy as the association or trust might lawfully have granted when the tenancy was granted, then and for so long as the tenancy shall not be such a tenancy the dwelling-house shall be deemed to be held by the association or trust as an investment of charitable funds.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move amendment No. 8. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will accept that the amendment I am moving is not in the strictest and purest sense a mere pruning of the branches of the tree of Clause 2. I seek by this amendment to clarify the law as it applies to charitable housing associations or trusts in cases where tenants have prospered and ought, it may be said, either to become purchasers or to move into non-charitable housing. The view of the housing associations, supported by the Charity Commission, is that although it would be lawful for charities to evict such tenants, it is really not practicable for them to do so.
On the other hand, the Government's view expressed on 18th January this year by the Minister in Standing Committee F in another place at cols. 306 and 307 was that:
"the test of necessity is one which I am advised that in law should be applied not only on initial letting but in relation to continued occupation. Charities therefore need to keep the circumstances of their tenants under review so as to verify that they remain in need and therefore proper beneficiaries of the charity."
The Minister went on to temper his advice to charities by adding that it does not mean that an eviction action

821
is necessary whenever a tenant's condition changes. But he implied that a charity must seriously consider action whenever:
"any substantial changes with long-term effects take place."
I ask the Committee to take the view that a charity should not be under a legal compulsion of any sort to evict its tenants if they prosper. That is what the amendment seeks to accomplish. It does so by declaring the law to be that where a charitable tenant prospers, the charity may treat his house or flat as an investment rather than as a home to be kept occupied by a person in necessitous circumstances.
On Second Reading I referred to the curious situation that a charity might be obliged, on the Government's view of the law, to evict its tenant but might nevertheless be in no position to do so because it cannot show, as it would be required to show, that suitable accommodation will be available for the tenant when the court order is made. After I had tabled my amendment I heard from my noble friend about the point that I had made, and I heard in terms which suggested to me that in practice Section 34 of the 1980 Act has driven a coach and horses through the Government's view of the law as I have described it.
I would ask my noble friend one question—namely: would he agree that no charity need be concerned about a possible requirement to dispossess its tenants when they cease to be in necessitous circumstances unless the charity is able, or ought to be able, to demonstrate to a court that suitable alternative accommodation is available for the tenant in question? An assurance to that effect would be a relief to officers of charities and to any tenants who might have been worried about their standing in their homes. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: My noble friend's objective in bringing forward this amendment is to absolve the trustees of charitable housing associations and housing trusts of the need to try to obtain possession of dwellings let to secure tenants who were not in necessitous circumstances, and whose continued occupation of the dwelling might therefore be held to be in conflict with the objects of the charity. The amendment deems that such dwellings should be held as an investment by the charity, rather than as part of its operational land, for so long as the tenant remains in occupation and is not in necessitous circumstances. My noble friend has based the amendment on some advice given some years ago by the Charity Commission to the National Federation of Housing Associations. I think that it is open to doubt whether an amendment of this kind would in fact achieve my noble friend's objective. However, I will confine my remarks to the issue of principle raised by the amendment which is, I am afraid, not acceptable to the Government.
Your Lordships will know that the Government take the view that some charitable housing associations have not conducted their letting activities in accordance with their object of providing relief for those in necessitous circumstances and may therefore have been acting in breach of trust. My honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Construction
822
explained this matter fully in a statement which he made in Standing Committee F in another place on 18th January, as my noble friend Lord Coleraine has just said. Because these breaches of trust have been inadvertent, the Government have decided that it would be right to protect the position both of the charities and of their tenants by giving a form of "amnesty" which is effected by Clause 2(2) of the Bill. However, this amnesty applies only to tenancies which were granted before the publication date of the Bill—that is 5th November 1982. We have made it clear that as regards future lettings, charities will be expected to let in accordance with their charitable objects.
My noble friend Lord Coleraine is concerned about the difficulties which charitable housing associations might have in ensuring that in the future they do not act in breach of trust. He first raised this issue at Second Reading and, as he has said, I have written to him about it. We take the view that charities should not in practice have difficulty in complying with the requirements of charitable law: the fact that the majority of them have been able to do so in the past is evidence of that.
Furthermore we do not share the concern of my noble friend Lord Coleraine that charities would find it difficult to obtain possession of dwellings under Ground 9 of Schedule 4 to the 1980 Act. The court must be satisfied that the ground has been made out and that suitable alternative accommodation is available to the tenant. If the court refuses to grant possession it will either be because it does not consider the tenant's continued occupation of the dwelling to be in conflict with the charity's objects, in which case the charity is not acting in breach of trust, or becauase alternative accommodation is not available. In the latter case, provided that the charity could show that it has used its best endeavours to obtain possession, its officers would not be at risk. As for the association's charitable status this is primarily a matter for the Charity Commission. Tax relief is given by Inland Revenue to the extent that a charity's income or gains are applied for charitable purposes only and in granting relief the Inland Revenue would take all relevant factors into account.
I should like to refer my noble friend to Section 34 of the 1980 Act, a copy of which I have and which I will gladly make available to him. It applies to charities as it does to any other landlord. It may well be that what we have to do here is to continue the discussions which my noble friend and I have been having both in writing and in person, to clarify this point further. We will gladly do so for the benefit of those who are concerned and indeed for any other of your Lordships who may be equally concerned about this particular point.
Lord Coleraine: I have listened very carefully to what my noble friend has said and I must obviously apologise if the wording of my amendment has not made the type of change in the law that I was trying to achieve as clear as I would have liked. I appear to have left the impression with my noble friend that this is a rival clause to the amnesty provided by the Government in Clause 2(2) of the Bill. I have not wished to produce an amendment which would absolve housing

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associations, charitable or otherwise, or charitable housing trusts who grant tenancies wrongly in the first instance by giving them to people who cannot be said to be in necessitous circumstances. My intention was purely to cover the case where the circumstances of tenants change and what was a lawful tenancy becomes, under any reading of the Government's view of the matter, an unlawful tenancy. However, my noble friend has said a great deal to me and I should like to read what he has said. Therefore, for the time being I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
4.3 p.m.
The Earl of Selkirk: I beg to move that Clause 2 be omitted from the Bill.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): The Motion has to be: that Clause 2, as amended, stand part of the Bill?
The Earl of Selkirk: I beg to move that Clause 2 be omitted. I think it is fairly widely known that Lord Boyd of Merton was extremely anxious to speak on this clause. His very sudden death has robbed us of his long wisdom and experience in high office both at home and abroad. I can only express my most profound sympathy with Lady Boyd.
We have had a fair discussion on this and I think I can be reasonably short. I believe that there is a major issue of principle behind what is included in this clause. It has a long-range influence, and I believe that the methods of the Government in approaching this clause are anything but straightforward, and I think that the ends to be achieved may have an evil effect on both the social and the economic development which may take place. Perhaps I may simply give an example. The Government have been involved in breaking their word in what they gave to the charities. But I notice that recently the Government said that commercial contracts were very sacrosanct, no matter where the products of those contracts might be sent. Could not something similar be extended to charities in dealing with them?
Retrospective legislation is never very popular, but now it goes back a period of 10 years or so, to the 1974 Act, on which a great deal of this is based. This means that people who have been planning for the future over those 10 years have to a large extent had to disrupt what they are doing. There has been a good deal of talk as to whether or not the principles of charities have been invaded by this Bill. I am bound to say that the Solicitor-General's letter on this subject has not been received with universal conviction, and I think that it is rather a pity that he concluded his letter by saying that he might well prosecute quite a number of these charities. It was not what might be called a very friendly welcome.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman—and I regret that he is not able to be with us today—is very conscious of the view that charities are not being very well treated. He said that in his experience there was a hostility to voluntary work somewhere deep down in the bowels of the Government machinery. That is interesting and
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very important because, to some extent, it reiterates what I remember the late Lord Beveridge saying a good many years ago. He was concerned that people would not think that the new welfare state made voluntary work unnecessary. He said that voluntary action for social progress had been an outstanding feature of this country. I do not think that it has been treated very well in this instance. Indeed, we have been the progenitor of much of this work, which has been extended to many places overseas.
My noble friend Lord Strathcona said that there has been much opposition. A unanimity of opposition has been very strongly expressed by a large number of people. I have received many letters, but I shall read one from the National Council of Women of Great Britain. It says:
"Charities providing accommodation should not be compelled to sell properties for substantial discounts to the benefit of the fortunate occupiers today and to the disadvantage of those needing homes to rent for the future. The Council is deeply concerned about the very serious problems with which these charities will be faced".
Once a house leaves the rented market, it will never return. I sought as best I could to understand the amendments of my noble friend Lord Bellwin. As he more or less said himself, they were largely drafting amendments and did not make a very great deal of difference.
I should like to look at the other side of this. If the methods of approach of the Government are regret-table, are they justified by the ends? In other words, do the ends justify the means by which they are obtained? Here I would look to the 1974 Act to see what people said then and what their intentions were at that time. This was an interesting and very unusual Act. There had just been a general election and the Labour Government took up the Bill which had been started by the Conservative Government. Mr. Rossi, speaking for the Opposition, said that that was virtually identical to the Tory Bill. Mr. Crosland explained on Second Reading what the Bill was for. He said on 6th May 1974, at col. 43:
"We felt that far too little was being done to cushion the adverse side effects of the decline in the privately rented sector".
Mrs. Thatcher, leading for the Opposition, said that she hoped that the Bill would give the housing association movement a much bigger role. There was one other comment that Mr. Crosland made, to which I should like to draw noble Lords' attention. He said that it would be intolerable to have the choice between owner-occupier or a tenant of a local authority.
I should just like to tell your Lordships what the housing trend has been over the last decade. Local authority houses have increased by 830,000 and they now number about 6½ million. Owner occupation has increased by 2½ million. That is, of course, largely due to the work of building societies, supported by the banks. It is going extremely well. Your Lordships may take it for granted that this day 2,000 people are entering owner occupation. Private rented houses fell by 1 million in 10 years. What does that mean? It means that before the end of this century there will be no private houses at all. That is the problem and that, I believe, was the basis of what Mr. Crosland was saying.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My noble friend means private leases.
The Earl of Selkirk: I beg your pardon, yes. I do not want to carry this much further, but I want to ask: do we want to see a case where there is no option between owner-occupation or a council house? If you think that this is wise for this country and that we shall benefit by it, then I ask you to vote against the Motion which I have moved. If you think it is a very dangerous situation, both for the social and for the economic evolution of this country, then I ask you to vote with me against the clause.
Baroness Birk: We could, in fact, have approached this debate on clause stand part by deleting the first part of Clause 2(1)(1), but we felt that it was only fair to the movers of the other amendments that they should have a fair hearing. Here I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine. I did not quite understand his amendment when I saw it in print; I had a slight idea what it was about, but if he would like to separate his amendment from the other amendments, that is fine. To debate this on clause stand part enables the movers of other amendments to have a fair hearing. It also enables the Minister to give, if I may put it this way, a few winks out of the back of his head about what he might be prepared to accept in the future if this clause stands. But it does not alter the anxiety and disquiet we all feel about the clause.
This clause has caused more anxiety and concern in this House, in another place and outside than almost any issue I can remember during my time in this House. I suppose one could compare it with the debate we had on school transport. It has a universality that transcends party lines; it transcends attitudes on a variety of closely held convictions, on a number of subjects where those joined together on this issue would in fact otherwise be political poles apart. Although I hope we have a mutual affection and respect for one another, I think that there are many issues on which the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and I, would not be in agreement, but we are certainly in total agreement today.
More than 1,000 charities have opposed this clause. Before Second Reading I think we were all deluged with papers and phone calls about this matter, but it is interesting that, after Second Reading, there have been further representations, more urgent, more passionate and more worried. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, read out the emergency resolution of the National Council of Women, which I also received. The Country Landowners' Association was another organisation from which I received a letter today, and I would not say I am in constant correspondence with them. The British Property Federation is also against this clause, and there are really no barriers in relation to attitudes of thought on this. We dissenters are a very mixed bag, and all the better and all the more telling for that.
This is really a compulsion to sell. I believe the Minister objected when this phrase was used by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on Second Reading; nevertheless, it is. For instance, if somebody has the right to buy my ring, of which I am very fond, despite the fact that I do not want to sell it, and for that reason I had to sell it, I should certainly feel I had been compelled to sell it and should not feel that I was doing so of my own free will. If we really look at the other side of the coin, as we have to on this, the housing
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associations are being put into a situation of being compelled to sell. Those which are covered by the terms of this Bill are not being given the chance of any option.
This affects somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 houses. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, was absolutely correct when he spoke of the decline of the rented sector in this country. There are 2,700 housing associations, nearly all of which are manned by voluntary workers, and the effect on these is going to be shattering. The effect on the people who live in these houses at present is also going to be very bad. It may be all right for those who have the opportunity, and are able and willing, to buy their houses.
Another point which I will not develop now for it has been mentioned before, and was mentioned on Second Reading, is that there are a tremendous number of opportunities, unfortunately, to exploit and abuse this. I am afraid those opportunities will be taken because, where there is an inch, many people are going to extend it into a mile. So a mechanism is triggered by which the Government will recover the loans and grants originally paid to the charity. I would remind noble Lords that, in an amendment which we shall discuss later and which was put down by the Government, the discount now goes up to 60 per cent. when previously, in the 1980 Act, it was 50 per cent. This means that the associations will be further impoverished and the charity concerned will in most cases have no capital receipts from the sale of the properties. In short, its assets in that property will be entirely, or almost entirely, wiped out.
I am sure that, like other noble Lords, I could read out many really heartbreaking examples of associations, particularly some of the small ones, which have written saying what their plight is going to be, and there have been similar letters even from the non-charitable bodies, the voluntary associations. On Second Reading, the Minister said that these would find things were all right. That certainly does not apply to one in Buckinghamshire, where, because they had had a local govenment loan at a low rate of interest and are also having to sell, the position was such that the secretary wrote saying at the end of the day, "It makes me wonder why after 40 years we bother at all".
We are facing a declining stock in the rented sector which is going to be very difficult or impossible to replenish. On the other side, other factors are involved. There are the trustees themselves. There is also the whole issue of voluntary work and voluntary service in this country. We have always believed and practised that, whatever the Government or the state takes over, there must be, and should always be, ample opportunity for voluntary work and service. This is a devastating attack upon that principle. It means that people who have given not only money but their service will be unable to do so in the future. They will lose heart. They will despair. This is something which has even wider implications. It really makes one wonder why the Government—and here I echo what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk—for something which in governmental terms is really small fry, want to upset so many people over such a large area when all they need to say, as one can so easily say in a democracy, is that they are convinced by the arguments which have been put up not only in this

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House but in the representations which have been made to them, and the other arguments which will be put this afternoon, and will withdraw what is, after all, only one clause of this Bill. What we would all hope—though I have not much hope at present, otherwise the Government themselves would have put down an amendment—is for the Minister to say at some point during the debate that the Government have had a change of heart and are not going forward on this matter. This would please all of us from every side of the House; but I think that it is too much to expect.
If the Government do not do that, neither I nor my noble friends feel that this is really the type of issue upon which one can add small improvements trying to improve or ameliorate the proposal in some small way or other. It really must be got rid of. We hope that, at the end of the day, noble Lords who are perhaps seeing several sides of the question—and it may be a difficult decision to make—will accept that this clause ought not to be in the Bill and that the only way to deal with it is to throw it out altogether.
Viscount Hanworth: I spoke at length on Second Reading and covered most if not all of the points that I should like to make tonight. I believe, and my party believes, that this clause is so wrong that what matters now is to put the question to a Division while so many noble Lords are still present. Therefore, I will say no more.
4.18 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I shall attempt to approach this amendment with a high degree of sensitivity, in deference to the views that have been so ably expressed by my noble friend Lord Selkirk and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. They contend that the effect of Clause 2 of this Bill as substituted by the amendment today, albeit taking into account the spirit of the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and that of my noble friend Lord Strathcona, will hamper the invaluable work of the voluntary associations, the housing associations and the housing trusts in the provision of cheap rented accommodation. If I truly believed that such were the case I should not oppose this amendment, which is a root and branch excision of Clause 2.
There are two views on this. Surely, one must proceed with a measure of caution. Surely, one must seek to retain some objectivity. As I see it—and I accept that there are two views—the effect of the clause will be to assist these associations and trusts in the provision of cheap rented accommodation. This need, as your Lordships know, often arises as a spin-off from the waiting lists for council accommodation. It is often directly related to the mobility of labour—an important factor in our industrial and economic recovery. This need can only be met by new building, largely financed out of Government funds. The past record of this Administration in that particular regard surely is not too bad.
The importance of these associations and trusts in the administration of these funds cannot be over-emphasised. How it can be said that the Government engender animus or hostility I do not understand. Surely it is plain beyond peradventure that they are
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part and parcel of the requisite administrative process of the Government funds. I do not understand the charge that has been made.
Of course there have been errors in past letting policy. So be it. No system is perfect. My noble friend Lord Bellwin has already today adverted to this problem and to the question of the amnesty under Clause 2(2), whether the breach of trust be original or continuous. In the light of contemporary housing conditions, letting to persons who cannot secure appropriate council accommodation or afford to buy their own homes is within the test of necessitous circumstance under the objects rule of any charitable housing association. Here it makes my personal approach so much easier if I take into account the spirit put forward by my noble friend Lord Strathcona in the "special needs" exclusion amendment, Amendment No. 6.
In this context is it not relevant to observe that the right to buy only arises in the case of housing projects built since 1974 when both the land and building have been financed by the Government out of Government funds, and that the right to buy may not be exercised as against privately funded charitable trusts which use their own funds for charitable purposes, often making grants in aid to a housing association or a housing trust? These privately funded charities are, as your Lordships know, outside the ambit of Clause 2.
Having regard to the nature of any grant under Section 29 of the Act of 1974, to which my noble friend Lord Selkirk referred, the amount of settled trust moneys, or the amount of housing trust moneys, involved in any particular housing project is unlikely to be substantial. The amount involved will always be small in relation to the percentage of total value. Furthermore, the distinction between these privately settled funds and the funds provided from public sources must be made. Indeed—if I may say so with respect—Lady Birk's beautiful ring was, one assumes, not publicly funded.
Privately settled funds for the provision of housing are not subject to the right to buy. In the case of funds provided from public sources, the Government intend, where necessary, to abate recovery of the housing association grant after right to buy sales by charities, and to ensure that the charity does not make a loss, and to ensure that the charity recovers from the sale the modern value of the investment of charitable funds in the dwelling. In every case the discount will be funded either from the housing association grant or from an appreciation in value of an asset created with the grant.
In the circumstances (I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for using my notes, but it is rather a complex situation) that I have sought to explain, it is not understood how any compulsory reduction in charitable assets arises. Although it might well have been preferable—and certainly easier for me personally—if the intentions of my right honourable friend in this regard had been apparent on the face of the Bill, I, for one, wholly accept the sincerity of his statements to this effect at their face value.
It is contended as an objection to Clause 2—and it was so contended on Second Reading—that capital receipts from sales will be insufficient to replace housing stocks of cheap rented accommodation.

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Again, if I truly believed that such were the case, I would not oppose this amendment. Here one has to take full account of the exclusions—the elderly, disabled, alms-houses, the spirit of the amendments proposed by my noble friends Lord Swinfen and indeed Lord Strathcona—and of the fact that long-term needs can only be met by new building with new funds supplied by the Government on a massive scale.
In fact, if the letting is on a secure basis then the question of the replacement of stocks is assisted by the right to buy and the injection of new funds for new building. But if the letting is on a temporary, non-secure basis, then the question of replacement of stocks does not arise. This also includes accommodation which is not self-contained and accommodation let on licence. So, in submission, if one seeks as I have sought—whether I convince any of your Lordships or not is entirely a matter for the Committee—to approach these criticisms in a logical way and to meet them, do they stand up?
We now come to the retrospective issue. As the right to buy relates back to grants since 1974, it is said that this is retrospective legislation. But this is not the sort of retrospective legislation as ordinarily understood, having particular regard to the fact that there is no question whatever of forfeiture of trust moneys. Indeed, these are to be repaid at current values, taking, as I understand it—I shall be corrected if I am wrong—full account of inflation. It is true civil rights under the grant are affected retrospectively, but they are affected retrospectively as regards publicly-funded dwellings, and when the Act of 1980 was passed (again I am open to correction from your Lordships) I do not think a single voice of dissent was heard either in your Lordships' House or in another place on this self-same score. On the assumption that trust monies are repaid at current value, it is not understood why charitable status, as such and no more, should afford any valid ground of objection.
I come to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, at Second Reading. As a matter of law, the obligation upon trustees of all charitable trusts, whether privately or publicly funded, is the same, although its incidence may vary according to the facts of the case. Again, it is simply not understood how Clause 2 can be said to give rise to fundamental breaches of, or changes in, charity law. On Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, deployed no submission or argument to support what he said was a possible view. But the noble Lord said—and in this I wholly join him—that he would be content to accept the assurances of my right honourable friend the Solicitor-General that no breaches of charity law were involved.
The last question which arises—it was a point of objection taken on Second Reading by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester—is that some tenants of the Polygon area of the Stonham Housing Association will be able to buy, but others in the Derby Road area will not be able to buy because they cannot afford to buy. If one accepts that disparity of means exists and shall always exist—and in this sense, of course, this is no perfect world—is it not idle to seek to remedy such imperfections by denying all the right to buy? There are no problems arising out of disparity of tenure. The evidence is totally to the
830
contrary. A general excision of the right to buy in the limited area of the application of Clause 2 would, for the reasons I have submitted, only operate to the detriment of the disadvantaged.
In conclusion, may I seek to answer the sort of omnibus contention—that is, in the way in which it has been put, not today in your Lordships' Committee but on Second Reading and on so much paper—that Clause 2 helps the fortunate tenant of today at the expense of the homeless and the disadvantaged of tomorrow. In my submission, this is a somewhat emotive peg on which some seek to hang an assortment of misconceived objections which I have sought to deal with today. Surely the answer is—and I seek to answer, I hope objectively, every ground of objection—that unless we give to this relatively few number of fortunate tenants (whose secure accommodation is otherwise kept in cold storage for the immediate future) the right to buy, the provision of new building with new grounds to provide cheap rented accommodation for the homeless and disadvantaged of tomorrow surely will be impeded.
The existing regime is inadequate to cope with the needs of tomorrow. The new regime proposed by Clause 2 is wholly appropriate. I heard my noble friend Lord Bellwin observe that sales would be greatly exceeded by new projects. I am content to accept that assurance. For these reasons, I shall oppose the proposal to leave out Clause 2.
Lord Evans of Claughton: I suspect that neither I nor the charitable bodies, nor the voluntary bodies, nor the housing associations, will have been convinced by the honeyed and brave words of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. I find that the reasons he gives, although he puts them forward courageously, are not convincing, certainly to me. I should like to say that the reason why Lord Goodman is not here today is not because his conviction and his views expressed on Second Reading are any less, but because he is ill in bed.
Neither I nor members of my party are opposed to the right to buy; and I think that throughout the country the right to buy is accepted as being healthy and appropriate. My concern is that, while everyone is advocating the right to buy at every level, practically, except, possibly, some extremely Left-wing Labour-controlled councils in certain parts of the country, very few Members of your Lordships' Committee, anyway, appear to be considering the most serious problem of the very little accommodation that is now available to those people who cannot afford to buy but can afford only to rent. It is that which is really my first concern about this clause.
My second concern is its retrospective nature. My third concern is that individuals and organisations that have given money to help necessitous people in the belief that their charitable intention was going to last indefinitely are now finding—or their successors are finding, or their great-grandchildren are finding—that such desire is being frustrated by retrospective legislation which, surely, is contrary to all the best practice of the British legal system.
The other thing, which, I think, goes to the very root of British life, is the desire of people to give voluntary

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help in a variety of ways. There is no doubt that at very many levels—in the Conservative Party, in very close adherents to that party; in the Labour Party; in the Social Democratic Party; in the Liberal Party, and in people with no party at all—this desire to do charitable, eleemosynary work of this nature is being frustrated by the proposals in this clause. There can be no doubt of this, from the evidence all of us have had—those of us who have had the correspondence and who have heard the concern of people who have given a lifetime of voluntary work to helping necessitous people, people who cannot afford their own accommodation, find rented accommodation. Those who have given a lifetime to that service, quite voluntarily, are now finding that that service is likely to be frustrated. It seems to me that the whole intention and purpose of Clause 2 goes against some of the very best qualities of British life. I strongly oppose the clause.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: I regret that I was unable to be present at Second Reading, but I have read the account of it very carefully and have read twice over both speeches of the noble Lord the Minister. I have been trying to compare what he said with my own experience in relation to the two housing associations connected with my diocese and also in relation to the Brighton Housing Trust, of which I am a patron.
It seems to me that the fundamental point on which the Minister is standing was when he said—these are his own words—
"Tenants of charitable housing associations deserve equality of treatment with tenants of non-charitable housing associations."
That seems to me utterly to ignore the difference between the two types of association. The non-charitable associations can sell at below market value, and they have no particular obligation to consider their long-term duties towards the people who may need their accommodation in the future. The charitable associations are formed basically to meet the needs of those who are socially disadvantaged, and they have an obligation to preserve their assets for the benefit of those who, in the future, may need them.
The tenants who are in charitable housing association premises have gone into those premises knowing them to be charitably provided for social need, and that is a broad category. Why should it be right, therefore, that they should convert these premises, at no cost to themselves, into a private possession of considerable market value, taking them out of the stock of what is available to meet social needs? That is what will happen if this clause goes through.
It is all very well for the Minister to say that other property will be provided out of the money, but I am afraid that this will not happen in many areas. It seems to me to discount entirely the fact that there are many areas in which it is extremely difficult to find property. If I may give an example, there is the so-called Brunswick Town area of Hove, which, in spite of its grand, Regency appearance, is a very run-down neighbourhood with a lot of poor, elderly people in it, where there is an urgent and great need for rehousing in decent circumstances. Our diocesan housing associ-
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ation has been trying for the last two years, with the help of the Hove Borough Council, to find property which we can convert and improve.
I suspect that this is true of the circumstances of a good many of our large towns. There is a lack of money—it may be that grants have been given by the Government, but they just do not seem to come through, in many cases—and there is a lack of property. This undermines the noble Lord's argument about the many dwellings which he says have been provided as a result of the 1980 Act.
Then the Government speak as if the money that they have put in is the only thing that matters. Over the years, they will get it back, anyway. But what about the work that has been put into the projects by those who are doing so precisely because they are charitable? In all this, there has been and is a partnership. I shall not argue about retrospective legislation. But what I see is one of the partners trying to alter the terms in the middle of the operation. In plain terms, that is what it really comes down to.
Then the Minister says again and again that the evidence of the non-charitable housing associations constitutes hard facts which disprove the fears expressed that this clause will be detrimental to effort. Again, I would say that he makes a false equation. We have already had instances quoted in this debate this afternoon. Only this morning, I received a letter from the director of the Church Army Housing Association, in which he referred to this matter and to his own investigations. He said:
"Only a few days ago, I talked to a member of a small association which has set up one scheme of 14 family units in their local village. He was quite adamant that if the Bill went through his committee would give up, lose interest and resign en masse, simply because, having put years of effort into mounting the scheme, securing finance and seeing the building works through, they would feel absolutely betrayed".
I am sure that there are many others like that.
I am afraid that the objections to Clause 2 are not met by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, much as I liked it in many ways, nor by the other amendments, because the category of "social need" is broader than the definitions set out in those amendments. For example, why, in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, should financial need be excluded? Are the poor not socially needy? That is a major element in relation to this whole housing question of providing cheap accommodation which people can afford. Though it may not be the intention of the Government in relation to this clause—and I do not suggest that it is—it is, nevertheless, a fact that it strikes at the poor, the elderly, the disadvantaged and the inadequate, and I believe that that is a consideration of very great weight to be put in the balance against any loyalty that noble Lords may feel to follow the Government.
4.47 p.m.
The Earl of Perth: First, let me say, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, with whom I spent an hour this morning, that he much regrets that he cannot be here this afternoon. I am happy to say that he is not in bed, but, as he put it to me, he is a smouldering volcano, but immobile. Before I go any further, I should like to take up one point which the noble Lord,

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Lord Campbell of Alloway, made. I see that he is not here, which is very unfortunate, because I think that he totally misrepresented—and I am sure that he would not want to misrepresent—the remarks made on Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, about the charitable status of the Bill. I have looked most carefully at his speech and what he said was this:
"However, it would be wrong for me to express a legal opinion in the face of a view apparently expressed by the Law Officers, but I can only say that it is not the view of the Charity Commissioners; and it is certainly not my view". [Official Report, 11/4/83; cols. 40–41.]
So it is very important for the record—and, as I said, I am very sorry that the noble Lord is not here—that that mis-statement, because it is a mis-statement, should not be left unchallenged. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, is now here, but I do not think I need to repeat what I have said. He can read in Hansard that his statement about the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was incorrect.
Let me go on to say that, with many others, I ordinarily agree with the right to buy, but also, like the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, and many of your Lordships, I have been inundated with letters against this Bill as it stands now. Never have I had so many. This is far more representative of opinion, and of informed opinion, than the words put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. Your Lordships may ask: what are my qualifications for speaking? I have no particular qualifications, unless it be, as the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said, that I want to carry on a fight which my close friend, my chief in the Colonial Office for so long, Lord Boyd of Merton, was himself going to fight if he had not been killed. It is very significant that he saw the injustice, the wrongness, of this.
Before I make two points myself, may I quote from a long letter which I have had from the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. I know that it would not be in order, and it would take too long, for me to read the whole of the letter, but there are one or two points which it would be of entertainment or advantage for your Lordships to know. He said in his letter to me:
"The present proposal will create virtual chaos. Estates will be split down the middle when associations are despoiled of particular houses. Many of the estates have been organised on the basis of an estimate of the revenue for repair, maintenance and so forth. This will now be totally disrupted".
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman—I am taking only one or two of the points which he made and probably not the ones which he would have chosen had he been here—makes the point which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester has just made:
"Weeks and months were spent on these negotiations, but apparently the only thing that is to count is the money actually spent, and the effort invested goes for nothing in the minds of the pathetic materialists who have thought up this Bill".
On the charity law point the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, (who is not here to answer what, I am afraid, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, misunderstood) said:
"It is suggested that the Bill conforms with charity law. At best this is an arguable point. Under this new procedure houses can be sold and will be sold at up to 60 per cent. discount. The effect of this is that charities will be making a gift of 60 per cent. of the price of a house …".
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, continued:
"Finally, the Government have introduced a menacing note in the suggestion … that housing associations must look more carefully at
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their tenancies for fear of granting tenancies to people who are not 'necessitous'. They"—
that is, the Government—
"are construing necessitous as people on or below the social security level, but this would mean that the discretion exercised by housing associations—and nearly always a wise discretion—… would all be excluded. The effect will be to arouse the deepest anxiety in a great number of tenants in housing estates about the security of their position".
That, if I may interpose, is I believe a very serious and important point. Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, says:
"It will be an undoubted catastrophe for the voluntary housing movement and in the end redound to the discredit of a highly successful Government and deprive the House of Lords of the opportunity of claiming that it has done something of real social benefit if this clause passes in its present form or in any form that continues the mischief".
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, ends:
"Strength to your elbow".
Let me add one more point of my own.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: None of this appears in the speech which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, at Second Reading.
The Earl of Perth: I know that. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, was not here. He misrepresented what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. I quoted exactly what Lord Goodman said at Second Reading. If he had been here he would have heard it. He can read it tomorrow in Hansard. So far as I am concerned, we must remember, first, that charitable housing associations are frequently very different from ordinary housing associations. They choose very rundown areas of city centres. They believe that they have the know-how and everything else which voluntary effort can provide in order to rebuild city centres. They have frequently succeeded in making city centres attractive places where people want to live. This is to the general benefit of the cities concerned. Local councils—this is no criticism of them—have almost always gone to the outskirts. Therefore, one of the risks is that a large number of people will be in a position to buy their houses at a considerable advantage. Although one may say that they cannot afford it, at Second Reading I said that people will knock on the door and say, "We will help you". I was quoted yesterday in the newspapers as saying that this will be a spivs' charter. Perhaps this is what it could represent.
Secondly, turning to retrospection, the charitable housing associations made a bargain with the Government in 1974. It was written in legal terms. Until now those terms have been and will continue to be scrupulously observed. Nowhere, however, was it said that in 10 years' time a new clause would be introduced insisting that if anybody wanted to buy the houses which were then being provided they should be made available. That is very different from the kind of retrospection which has been talked about. I end by saying that two wrongs do not make a right.
Lord Somers: I should like to oppose this clause with all the strength that I have. I do so because I feel it to be totally unjust. The Government seem to have a habit of taking a principle which they feel is desirable in some cases—and in many cases it is—and then

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assuming that it is desirable in all cases. They have done so with the right to buy, or owner occupation. In many cases this is, no doubt, very desirable but in certain cases it is not desirable. This peculiarity is indulged in not only by this Conservative Government. It is common to all Governments which act according to party policy.
Owner occupation is not all honey and nectar. As one who has owned his own house for most of his life I can say that owner-occupation involves a great deal of anxiety about maintenance and so on. A great deal of expense is involved. This is not always realised by those who are anxious to buy their own homes. But in the case which we are considering it would be absolutely wrong to give to the tenants of charitable organisations the right to buy their own homes. During the Second Reading of the Bill I believe that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark—I hope he will forgive me if I misquote him—said that the charities have worked hard and do not want their work to be whittled away. That is very true. This is exactly what would happen. Small charities, similar to one quite near to Epsom where I live which has only 12 flats, will find themselves getting smaller and smaller. In the end it will not be possible for them to continue their work. That is not what they are there for. That is not what we want. Those who recognise the importance of the work that these charities are doing will, I am sure, oppose this clause with all their might.
Lord Sandford: I rise to support the Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand Part of the Bill? I apologise to your Lordships for not being present when the Bill was discussed at Second Reading. At that time I was somewhat preoccupied by the Water Bill. Your Lordships will know from those proceedings that I am not reluctant to cast my vote against the Government when I think they are wrong. Equally, I am not reluctant to vote for them when I am sure they are right, as I believe they are in this case.
All of your Lordships are used to being lobbied. Those of us who have been here for some years can categorise the kind of lobbying which we receive. Sometimes it takes the form of a specific letter from a particular body to a selection of noble Lords who are interested in a particular field, making precise proposals for changes to a piece of legislation at Committee stage. I suppose the National Farmers' Union are one of the best at that. During the passage of the Wildlife and Countryside Bill we received messages from all sorts of bodies, like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, about the nocturnal habits of the bartailed godwit—all very precise and precisely directed.
There are other forms of lobbying, which take the nature of an orchestrated campaign of some size directed not at specific points but at general issues which are firmly and strongly held. I do not believe there can be any doubt in your Lordships' mind that this is the kind of lobbying to which we have been subjected. The considerable number of letters I have received from general charities such as the Youth Hostels Association and the National Council for Women, which are not specifically concerned with housing, have been brim-full with misconceptions,
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false fears and misunderstandings through a very understandable lack of knowledge of the detailed proposals which there are in this Bill and in Clause 2 in particular.
Many of your Lordships will know that I am president of the Association of District Councils. There are 333 of them—all housing authorities. They are all concerned with housing; housing is one of their main commitments. There is not a single council or district council that is not involved in housing to some degree. The district councils went right through this whole business two years ago when their tenants were given the right to buy. They raised then all sorts of fears of the kind which are being aired now. Many of those fears have proved groundless, but I will return to that point in a moment.
The point I want to make is that throughout this whole lobbying campaign, hardly any of the very large number not only of district councils which are housing authorities but also of other bodies concerned with housing from which I receive a continual post-bag asking me to deal with this, that or the other aspect of legislation—or who write to my noble friend the Minister about housing matters—have written objecting to this clause. That arises from their understanding of what the Government are doing. It also arises from two or three years' experience of operating the right to buy. I must say to my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal that fears about it being difficult to administer a block of flats or an estate when some people have exercised the right to buy and some have not are completely groundless. The more people who exercise the right to buy, who stand on their own feet and who are responsible for their own properties, the easier it is to manage the estate for the rest of the tenants.
Those letters in my post-bag which have objected to Clause 2 have done so on the basis of misconceptions. I am not alleging that the campaign has deliberately gone out to deceive; far from it, for I have no evidence of that at all. The fact of the matter is that because this is a complicated issue, and because it is a large campaign orchestrated through a whole range of charities—many of which have nothing to do with housing—an equally huge range of misconceptions has built up. I implore your Lordships to give weight to that.
It is not for me to rehearse the exclusions and the case which my noble friend the Minister has made more than once, to do with precedents in retrospection. The point I now wish to make is in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and her privately-funded ring. I cannot remember whether the noble Baroness was a Member of this House 16 years ago, but it was then that the party opposite were passing leasehold reform legislation. In that role, they were in their more customary position of being in defence of the tenants against the landlords. Their role is reversed on this occasion, but on that previous occasion the right to buy for tenants holding leaseholds from their landlords was being introduced for the first time.
On that occasion, there were no exclusions for charities or for the charitable status of the landlord, no exclusions for national parks, and no exclusions for the elderly. It diminishes somewhat the case which the noble Baroness made very cogently and persuasively

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when one recalls that it was the party opposite who introduced the right to buy. We are united, at any rate, in seeking a property-owning democracy, but we are not united in the way of achieving it. When the party opposite introduced the right to buy, there was no concern shown for charitable status, for buildings specifically designed for the elderly, for special rural areas, and so on.
All those exclusions are in this clause. Many of them were in the 1980 clause which introduced the right to buy to council tenants. They are all there now, and there are further exclusions to make quite sure that no tenant has the right to buy if the exercise of that right will take land that belongs to charity or money that has been raised for or belongs to charity. It will apply only in the case of publicly-funded properties on publicly-funded land. The case for that is absolutely 100 per cent.
5.6 p.m.
Lord Jacques: I should like to accept the challenge extended by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, and state a logical case against this clause. I will also, in part, reply to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford.
Since 1974, charitable housing associations have come to be in possession of assets partly with the aid of Government loans and grants. The Government are now saying, through this Bill, that there is a capital profit involved in those assets because of the rising costs of the past nine years, and that the tenant ought to be given the right to buy the property and take the capital profit. In effect, the Bill recognises that there is a capital profit and wishes to pass this on to the tenant. Obviously, this profit will go only to the better-off tenants, because they are the only tenants who can afford to buy.
The housing associations, on the other hand, say, "This is inconsistent with our objectives. Our objectives are to provide low rent property for the least advantaged of the community. If we have to sell existing properties at these huge discounts and then replace them with new properties at present-day costs, then our costs will rise and our rents will rise. Consequently, this clause of the Bill is entirely inconsistent with our objectives."
Furthermore, these associations are quite different from local authorities, both in law and in practice. A local authority is part of the complex of government. It has obligations to the community as a whole. It is inhibited by the housing waiting list. The charitable housing association is in a different situation altogether. It is a private body, set up specifically for the purpose of giving housing aid to the least advantaged of the community. It does not have the pressures which a local authority has. It is not part of the complex of government but is a private body with which the Government have made a contract, dating back to 1974.
The Government, in effect, are now saying, "We want to put a new term into that contract". None of us can do that. None of us can go back and put new terms into old contracts. This Government, or any other Government, can only do that by using the power of Parliament in a statute. That is what is happening
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here. I submit to the Committee that this instance is an abuse of parliamentary power. I have always understood that one of the functions of this House was to act as a long stop against abuses. I would have thought that this was one abuse which this House ought to stop. As I said at Second Reading, if this clause goes through, as a Member of this House I shall be thoroughly disillusioned.
Baroness Lane-Fox: I wish to oppose this amendment. Does the Committee really want charitable housing associations not to have the benefit already enjoyed by non-charitable associations? After all, they would then become the depressed relative. The non-charitable associations have sold 2,500 houses since 1980, and in the lifetime of this Government they have provided 120,000 more dwellings in flats and houses. Some of that success must appeal to the charitable housing associations. After all, the appeals come in from the charitable housing associations for funds to develop; they are received by many of us.
Surely if there were the selling process somehow, this would plug these difficulties, and there would also be the huge Government grants that are ready and waiting to be used. This money must be used and used quickly to increase the amount of rented housing that is wanted by so many of us, for the homeless and for those in real need. But unless the charitable housing associations are encouraged, as in the Bill, I do not see how that end is going to be encouraged in the present context of grants, et cetera.
Of course, there is always the wish to be paternalistic to the people who are more disadvantaged, but that is something, I believe, that most of us are growing away from. When people suggest that this Bill would mean that there would be a reduction in voluntary work, I cannot agree with that at all; I think the need for voluntary work is greater than ever, but is in a slightly different scene from where it has been in the past. I believe that to pass this amendment would mean we were going to remain stuck in the mud on this; instead of helping people to be independent, it does not encourage them to spread their wings and become self-supporting.
It is really an absurd anomaly that houses similarly funded, funded in exactly the same way through Government grants, shall on the one hand be available for buying, and on the other not. After all, those grants are paid for the good of the people living in the houses, not necessarily for the charitable associations. If this is carried, it is discrimination against those living in charitable housing, and for these reasons I oppose the amendment.
Lady Saltoun: I have no qualifications for speaking about this, or anything else for that matter, but I do not like to see dangerous precedents being created. To legislate retrospectively is to create a dangerous precedent, besides being dishonest. For that reason, as well as for many others which have been mentioned, I am entirely opposed to this clause. It is like rotten meat; a lot of spicy verbal sauce has been poured over it to hide the nasty smell, but it still stinks, because retrospective legislation stinks. For that reason, if for no other—and many other good reasons have been

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given this afternoon for opposing this clause—if the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, feels obliged to divide the Committee I shall gladly support him.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: On the point of retrospective legislation, in fact the Socialist Government brought in retrospective legislation—about 15 or 16 years ago, I think—in the case of Rooke v.Barnard, a trade union case, and there have been other instances of retrospective legislation.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: I rise to support the opposition to this clause. It has given rise to great issues of social importance, and, as the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said, to major issues of principle. The public concern that has resulted and that has manifested itself in communications to us was, I thought, somewhat scornfully taken down by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, in describing it as orchestrated. What is wrong, in a democracy, in a campaign of indignation being orchestrated by a mass of communication from different sources, I know not. I do not know who is supposed to have led this orchestra. What is surprising, from what we have heard, is the vast number of sources of different social interest, different commitment, religious, political and purely social, that has come to us in the course of the last few weeks.
The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, stressed the social significance of what we are about; the need of people who require rented accommodation continues to grow and it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet. That need is, I submit, far greater than that of people who have resources to buy their own homes. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford said, those who will suffer from this legislation will be the most needy if housing associations presently looking after them are deprived of resources that they need.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, referred to the Leasehold Reform Act, as, presumably, a debating point, and I had better dispose of it, as I was partly responsible for it. It was, incidentally, strongly opposed by the Conservative Party. That, I submit, is not a comparable precedent to what, we are dealing with in this Bill. That had impact only on the property of charities held for investment purposes. This Bill affects property held by charities specifically to fulfil their primary objective of meeting housing need.
Secondly, the leasehold provisions in that Act affected all landlords equally, including private landlords. This clause, in contrast, relates exclusively to housing associations and charities, giving their tenants special privileges which tenants of private landlords, who may pay the same rents, will not obtain. Therefore, there is no comparison, in my submission, between the contexts and the impact of the two pieces of legislation.
During the Second Reading debate the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, made what I thought was, in the context, a remarkable statement. His opinions we normally, of course, respect, but this one did surprise me. He said:
"in framing Clause 2 we have attached fundamental importance to the safeguarding of charitable funds. That is a cornerstone of our policy."—[Official Report, 1/4/83; col. 12.]
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So far from safeguarding the property of the charitable funds of the housing associations created and provided to assist in providing housing for those in need, it is those associations who will, if this takes effect, suffer actual loss as a result of the right to buy which is provided by the clause. It will compel—I do not see how we can escape that language—the trustees of those associations to sell many of their trust assets below market value; because of the discount which tenants exercising the right to buy pursuant to Clause 2 will be able to obtain under Section 7 of the Housing Act 1980, the charity will get only a part of the full value of the asset.
The proposition that this departure from centuries-old rules can be justified because we are dealing with houses for which associations have received Government funds to build or acquire is, I submit, unsustainable. Surely, when those Government funds have been received by the housing associations and the houses have been built with those resources, those houses become part of the property of the charity. The houses acquired with those funds are charitable assets, just as if the houses had been acquired with money from any other source. The trustees, the housing associations, have a duty, legal and moral, I submit, to preserve the assets for the benefit of beneficiaries present and future. A trust is a trust is a trust.
Is it not well settled that if a charity must sell assets entrusted to it, it must do so on the best possible terms and not at a discount? That is quite fundamental to the law of trusts and charities. Without the protection that Clause 2 is intended to provide, the trustees, by selling below the market value the class of houses that we are discussing, would, I submit, be guilty of a breach of trust.
As was said on Second Reading by more than one noble Lord, this clause is an ominous development for all charitable foundations —and we have heard of many in the course of this debate—which have been, or may be, in receipt of grants from central or local government. It raises serious issues for all of us who are concerned with these charitable foundations.
This is not a debate on party lines and I shall conclude in the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, concluded lest there should be doubt as to what his views were. I confess that discussing this matter without Lord Goodman is like discussing Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The noble Lord said:
"I shall conclude simply by saying that if for once this House has a useful function to exercise—and in the past it has many times exercised a useful function—your Lordships will have no hesitation at all in seeing the end of this appalling Clause 2."—[Official Report, 11/4/83; col. 41.]
With that I agree.
Baroness Faithfull: This debate is drawing to a close and I shall be brief. During the whole of the debate we have heard of the enormous number of letters from north, south, east and west that we have all received. We have the greatest admiration for the charitable housing trusts and for the work which they do. The one set of people that have not made representations to us are the tenants themselves. It is the tenants' point of view that I wish to put.

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The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester mentioned the point of view of tenants but I put a different point of view. I have dealt with very many of the vulnerable in housing charitable trust houses and accommodation. They are not all vulnerable, but many of them are. As the years go by, some of them manage to get themselves into a better financial position and they wish to own their own property. They are in a dilemma because, although they can put their names down on the local authority housing list, they get very few points because they are already in accommodation. If they are not to be able to buy their accommodation in the charitable housing trust property they are in a cleft stick and will not be able to make any progress in life.
I give two examples. A charitable housing trust might give accommodation to an unmarried mother and her child. She then, very happily, manages to marry and the charitable housing trust then moves her into two rooms so that she can live happily with her husband. Her husband then does well and they wish to buy. Noble Lords might then say that she can go into the private sector or, alternatively, put her name down on the housing list. However, she does not receive any points of substance if she is already in accommodation.
The second type of case concerns the elderly. An old lady would go into a charitable housing trust near her relatives. In this day and age with unemployment as it is people lose their jobs and move miles away. The old lady wishes to move to accommodation near her relatives where there may not be a charitable housing trust, but because she has nothing to sell she cannot make the move.
There is a point of view that the vulnerable may not always remain vulnerable and they should be given the opportunity to buy their properties if they so wish. Is it so extraordinary to have a mixture in the community? I should have thought that with care and understanding this would be profitable in terms of both relationships and responsibility in our community. I therefore support the clause.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I shall be extremely brief because I want to make only one point which I believe has not yet been made in this debate. The clause affects not only individual properties but also the viability of some whole housing associations. I quote from a letter to me from the Haringey Educational Housing Association. This was established, says my correspondent,
"in 1973 as a means of providing housing for teachers coming into the borough at a time when we had a turnover of more than 30 per cent. For the past three years, however, the Association has been denied finance for further development both by Haringey and by the Housing Corporation: we are simply managing the hundred units we have and hoping for better times. But if the Housing and Building Regulations Bill at present with the House of Lords becomes law without amendment we … shall be forced to shut up shop. The Bill in its present form extends the 'right to buy' to tenants of charitable housing associations. An Association such as ours simply could not sell any of our flats at discount and still have sufficient income to service the mortgages and maintain the remaining properties in good condition".
The noble Lord, Lord Somers, referred to the clause as whittling away the private rented sector, the housing association sector. I suggest that for some housing
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associations this is not whittling away; it is chopping away at the base of the tree.
The Earl of Onslow: I have one small point to make in reply to what my noble friend Lady Faithfull said. If a charitable housing association gives accommodation to an unmarried mother, who then proceeds to marry and her husband does well, why on earth should the charitable association subsidise her husband? I have a second point to make which is in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who said that this is an orchestrated campaign. I received only one letter on this subject, which was from the chairman of one of the big clearing banks whose family have run a small housing association in the village where they live for old people in that village. I do not see that particular gentleman being orchestrated by anybody, least of all by a collection of Left-wing trendy do-gooders.
Baroness Denington: I speak from this Bench because I normally sit on this side of the House, but I am really speaking because I am presently a member of three housing associations. Two of them are what I call ordinary housing associations, which house people in the same way as local authorities. However, I have spent many years as a member of two charitable housing associations. One is the Sutton Housing Trust, which I believe is the largest charitable housing association of them all. The other is the St. Pancras Charitable Housing Association, which was founded in 1924 and builds and has its property holdings east of Euston Station, behind St. Pancras Station and just into Finsbury. It is, therefore, a city centre housing association.
I speak because I think it may be helpful to your Lordships. As I have experience of both sorts of housing associations (the charitable and the non-charitable), I am able to say that, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, and his friends say, there is a difference between the two types. They are different. Therefore, there is a reason why what is good for one section and has been given to one section is not good for and should not be given to the other, I hope sincerely that we shall not leave this Chamber with Clause 2 still in existence.
It is quite understandable that the 1974 Act gave a great impetus to the charities to build housing, It was a wonderful opportunity. Of course, they never dreamt for a single second that some Government, least of all a Tory Government, would have retrospection and say, "Sell". The fact is that this great impetus was given. The result is that there was such a lot of building that the number of charitable houses built since 1974 is vastly greater than their holdings prior to 1974. So your Lordships will see that we are talking about a very substantial portion of the charitable housing movement's properties.
The Government keep on representing that the number of sales will be small—minimal; not to worry about it—and that the number of properties that are being built in addition is much larger, and therefore, what should anybody worry about? That may be true and the number of tenants who are able to buy may be limited. It will not be vast at this moment. But the housing associations have to take a long view. They are not interested in today and just what happens now.

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Over time, and probably as people become better off, the sales will increase very greatly.
Now we come to the point that has been raised by several Members this afternoon in your Lordships' Committee: the importance of a great pool—we do not have enough—of rented housing. What we are going to see is a diminution over time, gaining impetus as it goes along, of the rented housing stock of the charitable housing associations. This is most important. We have been given figures. What a fantastic figure for the rented housing stock the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, gave us! The rented housing stock has fallen by 1 million, I think he said, since the 1974 Act was implemented. The situation is exceedingly serious. I say that neither the charitable housing associations nor the nation as a nation can stand the loss of more rented housing association property.
I fully supported the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, on staircasing—shared ownership. If people want to buy, I would recommend that. Here is an excellent way modestly to start to buy and achieve ownership. Let that be aided on all sides. A number of charitable housing associations have already set up non-charitable daughter associations in order to build just in this field. What an excellent thing. Why should they not do it? The ordinary housing associations (the ones I am concerned with) are wholeheartedly involved in building this staircasing. This seems to me a way forward to help ownership, which neither I, nor I think anybody else on this side of the Chamber or anywhere else in the Chamber, can possibly oppose. We do not.
I make the point that the two types of housing association are different. I have been involved for well over 30 years with local authority housing. I have been involved, as I told your Lordships, with ordinary housing associations. They house from the waiting list the families who want accommodation, who want to move from here to there, who want to exchange dwellings, and so on. They are all involved in the same field; not so the charitable housing associations. They keep strictly to the charitable rules. Their concern is to house the necessitous: the poor, the single-parent family, the elderly and the handicapped. They do what they are supposed to do, and that is the criterion for most housing associations. They really are different. They deal with a different strata of society, if I can put it that way, and they work in accordance with charity law.
I admit that some charitable associations are a little different. They house people where there is social need, like the housing in the village that we have all heard about, where six lettings were provided for young married people. If those houses are sold, that village again will only have accommodation that is snapped up by weekenders and there will be nothing for the young marrieds of the place. We had a deputation here from South Wales. To my astonishment, they told me that they had to build ordinary housing for social reasons, because in those valleys there is 85 per cent. owner-occupation, and therefore there is hardly any rented accommodation. So they were doing that social job as a charitable housing association. It may be slightly outside the rules, but it is a very necessary job. Then there is the
844
St. Pancras Housing Association, and others, which have charitable houses to rent in inner city areas where such accommodation is desperately short. If that property is sold, the property spivs will get in by repurchase and it will go to people who have nothing to do with the community and be used as a piéd-à-terre. The whole thing will disintegrate. Goodness knows where the lower paid workers, the night-workers of London, and so on will ever find somewhere to live.
The noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said that the people who were housed in this accommodation deserved the right to buy. That was his expression. I think that those who are in the charitable houses are the lucky ones. They are the ones who have been housed from among all the homeless, the people on the waiting list, and so on. I cannot see that those people who are lucky necessarily deserve this. I wonder whether the Government realise that there is bitter resentment against this clause in this Bill and that they will offend far more people than they please. It is not moral to raid the assets of charities.
I end by saying that this House has a reputation for being able to take a view that transcends party politics or party loyalties. Let us see this, as it surely is, as a moral issue, and let us all go through the Lobby in the next few minutes to see that Clause 2 does not exist any more.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: Let me say at once that I am under no illusions as to the degree of your Lordships' concern to ensure that charitable housing associations can continue to carry out their long-standing and immensely valuable role. Let me therefore state right at the outset that the Government attach the greatest importance to the contribution which charitable housing associations have made, and will continue to make, in the field of housing for rent.
The boost which we have given this year and last to housing association investment demonstrates beyond any doubt our commitment to the housing association movement. I must restate for the record that the Housing Corporation's gross provision for 1983–84 is £690 million. I think that that figure speaks for itself and Clause 2 should be seen in this context.
Clause 2 of the Bill has given rise not only to a very large amount of correspondence and some vigorous lobbying—there is nothing wrong with that, if one so wishes—but also to a great deal of emotive argument. It is some of those emotive issues on which I shall concentrate, for they are the issues of fairness and equity. However, before I come to those points, let me remind your Lordships' Committee of the justification for these proposals, and of the main features of the clause.
The Government believe that it is manifestly unfair that those secure tenants of charitable housing associations and housing trusts living in dwellings which have been provided wholly or overwhelmingly with public funds, in the form of housing association grant, should continue to be denied the right to buy. This second-class treatment for these charitable housing association tenants does not rest upon their circumstances; nor is it based on the way that their

845
dwellings were funded, nor on the status of the tenants under the Housing Acts; nor does it bear any direct relationship to the rents payable by the tenants. It rests solely and simply upon the status of the landlord.
In many cases it is a matter of pure chance whether, on being offered a public sector tenancy appropriate to his or her needs, a person ends up in a dwelling owned by a local authority, a non-charitable housing association, or a charitable housing association. In each case he or she will become a secure tenant; but only as a charitable housing association tenant is he or she denied the home.
Were it the case that these houses of the charitable associations had been funded in a way quite different from the others, then a rationale for distinctly different treatment of tenants could be advanced. But this is simply not so. Since 1974 charitable housing associations have funded the provision of the vast majority of their houses, in exactly the same way as their non-charitable brethren, by claiming housing association grant from the Government. This grant is payable at a very high percentage of the cost of the dwelling-85 per cent. or more—and the balance of the cost is also met by a public sector long-term loan from the Housing Corporation or a local authority, serviced by the rental income from letting. These are to all intents and purposes public sector houses, built with public sector money, just like those of local authorities, new towns, and non-charitable housing associations, whose tenants all enjoy the right to buy.
It is beyond dispute that the present situation is anomalous and results in inequitable treatment of one group of secure tenants as compared with all others in virtually identical circumstances. Your Lordships' House is rightly proud of its reputation for guarding the rights of the individual, and it seems to me inescapable that we must accept the case for change to remove this anomaly.
What of the position of the landlords? Here we need to ask ourselves some questions. First, are the arrangements so devised that in responding to the legitimate aspirations of individual tenants, they nevertheless have proper regard for the interests of charitable housing associations as landlords? I believe that they do. Secondly, is the dividing line drawn correctly between what the Government may properly and legitimately propose for the use and disposal of publicly created assets, and the rights of the private sector to have its investments protected? Again, I submit that the answer is, Yes.
As our deliberations have clearly brought out, almost three-quarters of the existing stock of charitable housing associations will be exempt from the provisions of Clause 2(1). Only dwellings provided with housing association grant will attract the right to buy. The list of exemptions is worth repeating—it needs, repeating. This clause, this Bill, does not—I repeat, does not—apply to all dwellings provided before 1974, under the subsidy systems which preceded the introduction of HAG. It does not apply to all dwellings built on land bought with charitable money, or on land donated to the charity. It does not apply to all dwellings bought with charitable money or donated to the charity. It does not apply to all dwellings falling within the exemptions for special
846
accommodation for the elderly and disabled in Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act. It does not apply to all almshouses.
Not only would a high proportion of charitable dwellings be excluded from Clause 2; but all the evidence from the operation of the existing right to buy provisions of the 1980 Act suggests that only a limited number of tenants would actually exercise that right. What that means in practice, therefore, is that the charities will continue to have at their disposal the vast majority of their existing stock, to manage in the way that they have always managed it. To the extent that they sell under right to buy, any reductions in stock available for renting will be replaced many times over by new or rehabilitated dwellings, which they will be able to provide, with full access to housing association grant. May I quote again the telling figures which I gave your Lordships at Second Reading. Under the present Government the rented stock of registered housing associations in England and Wales has increased by over 120,000 dwellings, and for each one dwelling sold under the right to buy, almost 50 dwellings have been added.
To say that the proposals in Clause 2 will reduce the availability of accommodation to rent is to stand logic on its head. The argument is discredited by the facts, by the sheer numbers that have actually been involved; it is discredited not by theology, not by ideas, but by the facts of what really happens.
The right to buy has not undermined the effectiveness of non-charitable housing associations since 1980. The fact is that they have gone from strength to strength. Nor would it undermine the work of charitable housing associations. Their future is bright, and Clause 2 casts no shadow over it.
The effect of the exclusions from Clause 2(1), which I have listed, is that the right to buy will apply only to dwellings which have been provided at the taxpayer's expense. Any material input of charitable funds produces exemption. In short, assets provided with charitable funds, even if they have had substantial sums of public money spent on them by way of repair or improvement, are excluded by this clause. We have gone further. We have undertaken to return to charities the modern value of any marginal investment that they may have made, by way of a small topping-up contribution to HAG-funded dwellings. My honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Construction gave a categoric undertaking to that effect in another place on 14th December. This surely represents a fair and reasonable approach, which takes full account of the rights of the charitable associations.
I should now like to turn to some of the main criticisms which have been levelled against Clause 2. First, there is the question of the allegedly "retrospective" nature of the clause. In fact I do not believe that Clause 2(1) is retrospective, in the proper sense of that word, and in the sense that is normally meant, when Governments are accused of legislating retrospectively. Had the debate not gone on for so long, I should certainly have wanted to quote the many examples which there are of legislation brought about by all parties, and to do not only with housing, but with many other matters as well. I should certainly have wanted to talk about the Leasehold Reform Act and all that flows from that. But for the moment let me

847
acknowledge that the charge of retrospection has come not only from noble Lords opposite, but also from some of my noble friends. I gently remind them that the 1980 Housing Act granted the right to buy to tenants of non-charitable housing associations which have received public subsidies. So they must tell me how this clause is different. The dwellings affected by Clause 2 were also provided with public money. If the extension of the right to buy to tenants of existing grant aided dwellings was all right in 1980, why is it so wrong in 1983? If any noble Lord on this side can provide a convincing answer to that question, I would be pleased to hear it.
Finally on this issue, I should like to remind the House of the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark who said on Second Reading that retrospective legislation,
"cannot be defended unless it is to remedy an injustice". [Official Report, 11/4/83; col. 33.]
Beyond all doubt, this Bill does, indeed, remedy an injustice.
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Bellwin: This is precisely what it is about. I listened carefully to all that was said by noble Lords opposite. I am sure that they will afford me the same courtesy. The fact is that this Bill is precisely about that. In that single phrase, the right reverend Prelate makes our whole case for us.
The second argument which has been made and on which I should like to comment is the claim that if charitable housing associations had known, when they took housing association grant, that the dwellings they were providing would be subject to right to buy, they would not have accepted the grant. That was stated on Second Reading. Are we seriously to believe that charitable housing associations which, in the last decade, using public money, have more than doubled their rented housing stock to its present total of more than 300,000 dwellings and, as a result, have given decent homes to many thousands of people in need, would have turned down these opportunities because of the prospect of the sale of a few thousand dwellings? I do not believe that. It does them less than justice to say that.
What about the impact of Clause 2 on those voluntary workers, committee members and trustees, on whom charitable housing associations depend so heavily? The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Claughton, were very strong on this point, as were other noble Lords. The noble Baroness said that it would have a devastating effect on voluntary service. No one values more than we do the tremendous contribution that these people make to the housing association movement. To them must go much of the credit for the rapid and successful expansion of housing associations since 1974. I do not share the gloomy view of noble Lords that, if Clause 2 is enacted, these people will become disaffected. Why should they? The opportunities for future expansion are there to be seized. Clause 2 will not change that, any more than it would vitiate the achievements of the last decade. Most telling of all, surely, is the point that non-charitable housing associations have realised that
848
the right to buy does not inhibit the contribution that they can make to the provision of rented housing for those in need. They are as dynamic as ever, and here we are coming up to three years later. Are we therefore to believe that those who work for charitable associations are any less committed? I do not believe it. Not at all.
There was some suggestion on Second Reading that Clause 2 was defective in that it did not deal fully with the complex provisions of charity law which govern sales of assets by charities, and that charity trustees might as a consequence be placed in an impossible position. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, seemed to suggest that the attitude of the Charity Commissioners to the proposals bore out this criticism. As I have explained to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in a letter, a copy of which has been placed in the Library, before the publication of the Bill, my department consulted the Charity Commission about the provisions of Clause 2. The commission said that it was opposed to the policy of extending the right to buy to certain of the secure tenants of charitable housing associations and trusts. However, the commission has never claimed that the Bill is legally defective. I suspect that this is an area about which the Committee would want to talk at much greater length. We shall possibly do so on a later occasion. I am willing even today to expand on the matter if pressed, but it is quite complex.
A further issue raised especially by my noble friend Lord Selkirk on Second Reading is whether the Government, having made grants to charities in order to enable them to provide housing, have the right to compel the charities to sell their assets and to repay the grant. It is claimed that this cuts across the fiduciary duty of trustees to manage their assets in the interests of the charity and that it constitutes a fundamental change in the law relating to charities. The Solicitor-General has dealt with this issue at some length in a further letter dated 25th April to the chairman of the National Federation of Housing Associations, a copy of which has been placed in the Library. For today, I will leave it at that, unless pressed. I think that is probably what your Lordships would wish.
Regrettably, I think that our debate on Clause 2 at Second Reading and here in Committee has been in one important respect very one-sided. Many speakers have approached the issue as if the only interests that need to be considered are those of the associations. My noble friend Lady Faithfull made the point very validly. I do not suggest that the landlords' interests are not deserving of the fullest consideration. I hope that I have shown that our proposals pay proper regard to the interests of the charities. This issue is about ensuring that we must not overlook the interests of the tenants. It is not good enough, it will not do, to brush cavalierly aside the legitimate and understandable aspirations of those people who long to own a home of their own but who have little chance of doing so unless the clause is enacted.
I know that many noble Lords have had letters from charities making their case. I have had the same ones. Seemingly, I, too, am on the mailing list. But my department has also had numerous letters and inquiries from tenants who hope and aspire to buy their homes under Clause 2. It is these people, the

849
tenants, that we must not shrug off. These are the people for whom the Government are arguing. They are the ones who are affected by our decision today. I ask your Lordships to have ears not only for the views of the associations which can express their case so articulately and which have a voice in the Chamber through many noble Lords who have links with them.
It has been stated by noble Lords opposite that this House has a long and honourable tradition of protecting the rights of the individual and of upholding those rights against injustice, inequality and against all interests, whether of private or public bodies. Now is the time to show that we care about the individual. It does not matter one whit that a comparatively small proportion of charitable tenants can be expected to take advantage of the right to buy under Clause 2. The quintessential point is that these tenants, living in publicly-funded dwellings, should have the right to buy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked why the Government have pressed ahead with these proposals despite the clamour of opposition from the charities' lobby and the criticisms that have been voiced in your Lordships' House. Why have we persisted despite the possibility that Clause 2 may prove not to command sufficient support in this Chamber? There has been no shortage of plain speaking today. Let me join in and say that the answer is no more and no less: it is purely and only our deep concern, our care about the rights of individuals. The whole situation is ironical in the extreme. Leaving aside the Leasehold Reform Act, the fact is that noble Lords opposite will surely concede—it is not to their discredit, it is their belief—that they have always fought tooth and nail, as they did during the passage of the 1980 Act, against the right to buy. Now, seemingly, on this Bill, they intend to do the same. That is fair enough. It is a matter of political theology to which I have no objection. I do not agree, but I have no objection. There should be no doubt that this is what weighs heavily with them.
As for noble friends on this side and, above all, noble Lords on the Cross-Benches, I hope that they will take into account what has been said about the rights of individuals. I am afraid that some appear to have accepted in full only the views of the charities' lobby. I ask those who contemplate voting against the Government on this matter whether they fully accept that in so doing they are representing interests that seek to deny the right to buy to people who are arguably among the most disadvantaged in our society and, I say again, people who may never again have the chance to buy their own home.
Noble Lords are aware that I always try to pick up points made in debates. I fear that today this would take too long. I shall therefore not do so. There are however two comments that I should like to make about what was stated by two of your Lordships, because they are wrong. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques—for whom I have the greatest personal regard and respect—talked about having to replace a dwelling sold under the right to buy at greater cost. That is exactly the same argument put at the time of right to buy. It is fallacious. It would only be valid if you had to build one dwelling to replace one dwelling. But the fact is that people who live in the particular dwelling
850
after it has been bought continue to occupy it, only now as an owner whereas previously they occupied it as a tenant. But it makes the dwelling neither more nor less available than it was previously. I ask noble Lords to let me finish my remarks because I listened and did not interrupt one of your Lordships, tempted though I was to do so. I ask your Lordships to allow me the same courtesy.
The fact is that if we were to build to replace then the noble Lord's point has some validity; but in practice it is not so. Anyway, what about the £690 million that the Government are putting into the housing associations to build great numbers more? Is not that replacement? So I do not take the noble Lord's point. Finally, I must tell him—
Lord Jacques: Will the Minister give way, because he has named me? What I said was quite clear and concise. I said that if the housing associations had to sell and they replaced with other assets at the present day costs, then their costs and their rents would be greater. Nothing that the Minister has said contradicts that.
Lord Bellwin: Let me just point out that the key word there is "replaced". But the fact that the noble Lord said that in this way rents would be pushed up shows, with great respect, that he does not understand the point. The rents are in no way connected with the cost of the dwelling. The rents are fair rents based upon the valuation placed by the rent assessment committee and the rent officer. So the rents fixed have nothing to do with it at all and the noble Lord must certainly acknowledge that.
I come to the conclusion of my remarks. One can talk on the matter at length; it is very emotive. Let me remind your Lordships that in another place the Bill received a Second Reading by a majority of 117 votes, and on Third Reading by a majority of 91 votes. So let me finish by summing up very briefly the main points.
First, Clause 2 extends the right to buy only to tenants living in dwellings provided at public expense. Secondly, almost three-quarters of the dwellings of charitable housing associations are excluded. Thirdly, the number of dwellings sold would, beyond doubt, be vastly exceeded by the number of additional dwellings which charitable associations will provide with public funds. Fourthly, charitable funds are fully protected. Fifthly, there is no factual basis for the claim that this clause will undermine the work of charitable housing associations. The non-charitable experience cannot be denied. Finally, may I say in view of all the years I have spent particularly in public housing, that I put forward my concern for the people in it with as deep a conviction as anyone who has spoken today. I believe equally passionately that what this Bill is proposing and what this clause proposes will not have a disadvantageous effect upon anyone. It will give a right which people are entitled to have and they will not be second class citizens. I look to this House of Lords, to this Committee today, for justice. That, and only that, is the issue before us.
The Earl of Selkirk: I should like to thank noble Lords who have supported the amendment which we have put down. I should like to say only two things to my noble friend. I dare say that much of his speech was

851
prepared before he came into the Committee. He talked about unfairness. No tenant who is in a housing association house can complain of unfairness compared with the 2 million or 2½ million who are living in substandard houses.
He has missed the second point completely. Every house that is sold leaves the rented market and never comes back. It is only in the rented market that the people with a low standard of living can get proper accommodation. They are therefore taking away from the people who are at the bottom of the ladder the first step towards getting into decent accommodation. It is for that reason that I think that the basis of this clause is totally wrong and I very much hope that the Committee will reject it.
6.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 96; Not-Contents, 182.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Ingrow, L.

Allerton, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Astor of Hever, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Avon, E.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Bellwin, L.

Long, V.

Beloff, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Belstead, L.

Lyell, L.

Bessborough, E.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Boardman, L.

McFadzean, L.

Bolton, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Mancroft, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mansfield, E.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Marley, L.

Cathcart, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Cayzer, L.

Merrivale, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Mersey, V.

Cockfield, L.

Milne, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Mottistone, L.

Colwyn, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Northchurch, B.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Onslow, E.

Daventry, V.

Orkney, E.

De Freyne, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

De La Warr, E.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Dilhorne, V.

Portland, D.

Drumalbyn, L.

Quinton, L.

Eccles, V.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Rochdale, V.

Elton, L.

Rotherwick, L.

Faithfull, B.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Ferrers, E.

Sandford, L.

Forte, L.

Sharples, B.

Fortescue, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Gainford, L.

Soames, L.

Gisborough, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Glanusk, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Sudeley, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Gowrie, E.

Teynham, L.

Gridley, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Vivian, L.

Hemphill, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Wise, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Young, B.

852

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Hooson, L.

Airedale, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B

Howie of Troon, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Hylton, L.

Amherst, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Ampthill, L.

Ilchester, E.

Amulree, L.

Ingleby, V.

Ardwick, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Auckland, L.

Jacobson, L.

Avebury, L.

Jacques, L.

Aylestone, L.

Jeger, B.

Balogh, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Bancroft, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Banks, L.

Kearton, L.

Barrington, V.

Kennet, L.

Bathurst, E.

Kilbracken, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Beswick, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Birk, B.

Kintore, E.

Bishopston, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Blease, L.

Kitchener, E.

Blyton, L.

Lawrence, L.

Bowden, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Listowel, E.

Brockway, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Brookes, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Lockwood, B.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Longford, E.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Loudoun, C.

Byers, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Caradon, L.

McCarthy, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Chichester, Bp.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Chitnis, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Clancarty, E.

Margadale, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Mayhew, L.

Coleraine, L.

Melchett, L.

Collison, L.

Meston, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Minto, E.

Cottesloe, L.

Mishcon, L.

Craigavon, L.

Molloy, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Monson, L.

Crathorne, L.

Moyne, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Newall, L.

Croft, L.

Northbourne, L.

Darwen, L.

Ogmore, L.

Davidson, V.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Oram, L.

Peart, L.

Denington, B.

Pender, L.

Diamond, L.

Perth, E. [Teller.]

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Dormer, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Eldon, E.

Prys-Davies, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Radnor, E.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Raglan, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Richardson, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Ezra, L.

Rochester, Bp.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Rochester, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Freyberg, L.

Rugby, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Sainsbury, L.

Gallacher, L.

St. Davids, V.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Saltoun, Ly.

Garner, L.

Seear, B.

George-Brown, L.

Seebohm, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Selborne, E.

Grantchester, L.

Selkirk, E. [Teller.]

Greenhill of Harrow, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Haig, E.

Shackleton, L.

Hale, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Hampton, L.

Shinwell, L.

Hanworth, V.

Sligo, M.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Somers, L.

Hayter, L.

Spens, L.

Hill of Luton, L.

Stamp, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Stedman, B.

853

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Underhill, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Stone, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Walston, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Westbury, L.

Swinfen, L.

Whaddon, L.

Tanlaw, L.

White, B.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Wigoder, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Tordoff, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Tryon, L.

Young of Dartington, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Clause 2, as amended, disagreed to accordingly.
6.17 p.m.
Baroness Seear Baroness Seear moved Amendment No. 9:
After Clause 2 insert the following new clause
("Protection for elderly orphans and others
. In section 34 of the Housing Act 1980 at the end shall be added—
"(5) In considering subsection 3(a) above the court must take account of:

(a) the age of the tenant; and

(b) the length of residence of the tenant in the dwelling-house; and

(c) the financial, physical or other support given by the tenant to the previous tenant; and

(d) where the landlord claims possession on the ground of under-occupation evidence of the efforts of the landlord to encourage other owner-occupiers to transfer to smaller dwelling-houses; and

(e) the social and financial consequences of making the order on other carers for elderly dependants who may be discouraged from continuing to reside with and care for elderly dependants." ")

The noble Baroness said: I am painfully aware that it will be extremely difficult to command your Lordships' attention after the exciting debate that we have had and the exciting vote that has just been taken. I shall attempt to be very brief, and I shall ask noble Lords to divert their minds to a far more mundane matter than the one which we have just been discussing.
We are not talking about housing associations, and we are not talking about the right to buy; so let us put those two matters behind us for the moment. Despite the sidelining by those who prepared the Marshalled List, we are not even talking about a species that has suddenly been called "elderly orphans". In fact, I assume from looking round your Lordships' Committee—and this certainly applies to me—that most of your Lordships are elderly orphans; but my amendment is not being moved on your behalf.
I am referring to a particular kind of elderly orphan, if we have to use that strange expression. I am referring to those people, men or women—and it is usually, but by no means always, women—who continue to live in the parental home (and I am speaking about council tenants) in order to look after elderly and infirm parents, which is a duty which often continues for a number of years. But the elderly and infirm parents, however unable to cope they become as the years go by, nonetheless are the legal tenants, and those who care for them have no status in relation to the tenancy of the house in which they live. Although they may have lived in the house for 50 years and may well be paying the rent—because in many cases it is those who care who also find the money for the rent—the legal tenant is in fact the parent for whom they are caring.
Then, when the parent for whom they have been caring dies, it happens not infrequently that those who have been caring are unable to continue in full-time work, and therefore their income is greatly reduced. Many of them will have drawn on the savings which they have made in earlier years in the hope that they would have something put by for their own old age. But when the parents who are the dependants die, those who have been caring for them have no legal status in relation to taking over the tenancy.
It is true that, today, many councils are considerate and do not claim occupation of the house and do not remove the carers, those who have been doing the caring, from the tenancy; but some councils still do, as was shown in a case which was brought up in another place when a very similar amendment was moved there. The purpose of this amendment is to give protection to those who have done the caring but have no rights as tenants, so that they cannot be displaced arbitrarily by the local authority in order that it may obtain possession of the house to put other people in it. It is to give an opportunity: not to give an absolute right, but to lay down in legislation that the courts must take into account the factors which have been listed in this amendment, which would make it far more unlikely that a local authority would be able to force an ex-carer out of the house in which he or she has lived and in which that person has done the caring—by doing which, incidentally, they have probably saved the public purse a very considerable amount of money, because had they not continued to care, the old parents would have had to be put into publicly-supported accommodation at a very high price.
It may be said that there is a general responsibility here to consider the circumstances of the person who is left in the house, but I submit that a general responsibility is not sufficient protection—and it has been proved that there is not sufficient protection for those whose interests I have described. It may also be said that by listing the factors to be taken into account some people may be excluded because particular factors have not been included; but it does not say that these are the only factors to be taken into account. There remains a general responsibility as well; but by putting these particular elements into the legislation it makes it far more likely than if this clause were not included that people in the position I have described will be able to continue in the family home and will not be evicted on the death of parents. It is for this reason that I beg to move.
Baroness Birk: From these Benches I support the amendment moved, despite the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, having referred to us as "elderly orphans". Unfortunately, an orphan I now am, but I try to pretend that I am not all that elderly. Nevertheless, I feel that this is something that should be in the Bill and should be spelled out in this way. As the noble Baroness said in moving the amendment, it could be argued, and probably will be, that there is a general responsibility in the 1980 Act in the reference to conditions under which a court could consider it reasonable to make an order, but that is really rather a large generalisation.

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In moving the amendment the noble Baroness referred to the situation where there is a daughter who is left alone, to whom the noble Baroness wanted the tenancy assigned. I take it that the same would apply whether it is a man or a woman. We should make this quite clear.
Baroness Seear: I believe I did refer to a man or a woman, but more usually it is a woman.
Baroness Birk: I am sorry if I misunderstood, but I was sure that that was what the noble Baroness meant. Although it is true that very often when this happens local authorities make sure that a person is not rendered homeless in this way, or put into rather inferior accommodation, I feel that unless the Government can come up with a very good reason to the contrary this provision should be put in the Bill and should be clearly in the statute.
There could be a problem where the house is a large one, with three or four bedrooms, and with perhaps one person living in it on their own. I should like the person concerned to have a choice. In some circumstances the person left, man or woman, may be quite willing to move to smaller accommodation. In other circumstances the person concerned may feel that, as they have lived in the house for a very long time—and we would all understand and have sympathy with that feeling—they may not want to be moved from what is his or her own home. One would hope that this situation could be resolved by the sensitivity of the local authority and by co-operation and agreement on both sides. Therefore, we on these Benches would certainly support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I have a good deal of sympathy with the object of this amendment, but I must confess that I am very much puzzled by paragraph (d). I cannot but feel that to introduce that into the provisions would undoubtedly give rise to a great deal of acrimony in the pursuit of other, probably quite irrelevant cases which could tend, if anything, to confuse rather than help the court. I do not know whether there is any explanation of this, but these words strike me as rather harsh.
Baroness Faithfull: I support the amendment, and would ask my noble friend the Minister for some information. Under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1969 I have very often had to visit elderly parents who are handicapped, sometimes mentally, sometimes physically, being cared for by a daughter, or in some cases by a son, living in the home; and I have tried to persuade the parents to alter the tenancy in favour of the daughter or son. But such is the strange pattern of human relationships that very often parents feel that the last bastion of independence that they have is to hold the tenancy. They may not be paying the rent, but they feel that to give up the tenancy in favour of their daughter or son is almost to give up life; and it has been impossible to persuade them to alter the tenancy, placing it in the name of the daughter or son.
Very often I have found that local authorities have been extremely sensitive and understanding, and
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housing committees have acceded to the wishes of the remaining daughter or son and have allowed that person to have the tenancy without moving out of the house; but, sadly, some local authorities do not do this. They subscribe to the rule in their authority that if the person in whose name the tenancy stands should die, anyone else in the house must move out. Therefore, I would ask my noble friend the Minister whether he is aware of which authorities in England and Wales do this, and whether he is satisfied that all is well. I suspect that most is well, but not all.
I would make one other point following the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Very often a daughter, after looking after her elderly parents, is unable to get a job on the employment market. Coming, as I do, from Oxford, I know that lodgings are very much in need, and I well recall at least three occasions on which daughters have come to me and said: "I have lived in the house for 50 years and have cared for my parents. The only thing I can do now is to let out lodgings and have people in the house".
The point of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, about her staying in a bigger house when in fact the bigger house is needed for families, is a valid one. I regret to have to say that in two authorities I know this has been forbidden for the daughter. Therefore, I think that the community lost some good lodgings for young people and deprived the single married daughter of a living. Therefore, I would support this amendment, but at the same time ask my noble friend the Minister whether he is aware of what is the general attitude of local authorities in this country.
6.31 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I should like to support the general principle behind the question of caring for the carer. That is important. But I am not entirely happy with this amendment in the form that it takes. If a local authority has a long waiting list they are often desperately in need of this accommodation. My own experience on a local authority has been of single people surviving parents in, usually, a flat—as the area I was associated with had virtually no houses—and occupying a flat for which thousands of families must have been waiting. In these circumstances the local authority must have the right to rehouse such people in a much smaller unit, a one-person unit, if they are on their own.
The point about lodgers raised by my noble friend Lady Faithfull is an interesting one. I know that lodgers are now permitted in any accommodation in that authority area, and I thought that it was universal throughout the country. In the days when lodgers were not permitted, much greater hardship existed and much more property was under-used. It must be appreciated that if you have a large waiting list with a number of families in very substandard accommodation it is unfair to create a tenancy more or less in perpetuity, because after all the person given the tenancy could then have someone else come in to care for them when they get elderly, and so this under-occupation could go on for a long time.
I would also emphasise, as did the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that I find subsection (d) quite extraordinary and out of character. I certainly would

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not wish to support that part of the amendment. However, the principle of caring for the carers and making it necessary to take into account the length of time they have been there and the care they have been giving to the parents or elderly relative is valid, and I would support that part of the amendment.
Baroness Masham of Ilion: This is an important amendment. Anyone who works for the health service knows that one of the growing problems is the care of the elderly. These people whom the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, seeks to help do a tremendous service to their parents and to the community, very often at a great sacrifice to themselves. I strongly support the spirit of the amendment.
Lord Evans of Claughton: Hardly surprisingly, I suppose, I support my noble friend's amendment. In fact, my name appeared by mistake as initiating it originally. That was not our mistake but a mistake somewhere in the machinery. I should like to follow up the points made by previous speakers. The noble Baroness. Lady Faithfull, makes a good point that the elderly parent, widow or widower, often quite rightly feels that this is the last bastion and they would not pass the tenancy on even with the agreement of the local authority. Indeed, in some cases—and I can think of quite a number in my own experience—when the parent gets very much older, in spite of the considerable care that the daughter or son has given they become neurotically suspicious that the child living with them is involved in some deep and dark laid plot to have them removed from the house so that they can enjoy it alone. Therefore, I do not think that, in many cases that is likely to work.
I share the concern about the problem when a surviving child is left in a family house. This should be dealt with not by evicting them, which does happen on occasion, but by treating that kind of person with the same kind of friendly persuasion that local authorities have to use in persuading a widow living on her own to give up a large family house and go somewhere smaller. Speaking generally as someone who has been involved in local government, I do not think that this happens very often. Most local authorities are sympathetic, but there is the odd case where a great deal of hardship is done.
This Government have been extremely kind to the tenants in the public sector, as the noble Lord the Minister has told us on a number of occasions. This is an example where the local authority tenant does not have the same protection as the tenant of the private landlord. In his case, in controlled tenancies of course, the tenancy can pass twice. While the tenants in the private sector have not fared as well because they do not have the right to buy, they are, in the sense that they have more continuity of the right to possess the property, better protected than the tenant in the public sector. I hope that the Govenment will take a favourable view of this amendment.
Lord Skelmersdale: The anti-climactic feeling referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in moving this amendment does not, by the number of speeches we have had on it, seem to have carried through. The Government are not out of sympathy
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with the intention behind this amendment. I can assure the noble Baroness that I wholly agree with the view that councils should adopt a sensitive and compassionate approach on a case by case basis when deciding whether or not a successor tenant should continue to remain in the family home in which the parent has died.
Perhaps at this point I ought to clear out of the way exactly who the successor tenant is. I can tell my noble friend Lady Gardner that under Section 35 of the 1980 Act a secure tenant has a right to take in lodgers, but of course the security does not then pass to the lodger. I should perhaps tell my noble friend Lady Faithfull of the succession rights of tenants of local authorities, new towns, and housing associations. On the death of a secure tenant the tenancy will pass to the surviving spouse living in the house, or to a close relative who has been living there for the 12 months prior to the secure tenant's death, providing that the deceased tenant was not himself, or herself, a successor under the Housing Act 1980. In other words, it only goes on for one generation.
In the case of a joint tenancy when one person dies the tenancy passes to the other person, who becomes the sole tenant, but there will be no further right of succession. Thus, one succession happens automatically under the 1980 Act, but a landlord may agree to let a further member of the family take over the tenancy after that.
The intention of the amendment is to set out certain factors which the court—this amendment is totally about courts, as I understand it—should have regard to when considering the reasonableness of making a possession order. The amendment would make the factors for the test of reasonableness applicable not only to orders served under Ground 13 but also, among others, to the five grounds in Schedule 4 to the 1980 Housing Act under which the landlord alleges misconduct by the tenant. The factors, in our view, should not be relevant to consideration on misconduct grounds.
Ground 13 of Schedule 4 gives landlords a ground to repossess only where, under the succession rules set out in Section 30(2)(b)—which I have just read out—of the 1980 Act, a member of the family, other than the spouse, of the previous tenant has taken over the tenancy and the dwelling is thereby under-occupied. To be valid, notices of possession have to be served under Section 33 of that Act more than six months but less than 12 months after the previous tenant's death. The court has to consider whether it would be reasonable to make the order, and be satisfied that suitable alternative accommodation will be provided when the order takes effect.
The Act does not specify the factors which the court should have regard to when considering reasonableness. A court, in applying the test of reasonableness, is expected to take account of all the relevant factors whether they relate to the personal circumstancs of the tenant, the particulars of the home, or of alternative accommodation, or the pressures on the council to provide homes of that type for people on its waiting lists in urgent housing need. Setting out these factors in legislation is, I am advised, unnecessary. In any case, evidence of the landlord's efforts to encourage other under-occupiers to transfer and possible

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financial and social consequences on other people caring for elederly dependants would introduce considerations which had nothing to do with the case before the court and the instruction to the court which the noble Baroness's amendment gives.
In the light of a considerable body of case law in repossession cases as to what courts can and do take into account in assessing reasonableness, I am not at all convinced that the arguments that I have heard so far suggest that the sort of factors specified in the amendment—and various of my noble friends have referred to heading (d)—are likely to be ignored at present by a court. It does not therefore seem that the amendment is necessary. Furthermore, as a usual line of Governments, I must point out that the amendment is defective in embracing grounds other than the one which appears to be the subject of concern.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I must say how disappointed I am from this side of the Committee with that reply. It bothers me when any local authority wants to repossess under the succession rule, especially in cases such as we have heard enumerated today by the noble Baroness; because more often than not they have been daughters or sons who have been in that home all their lives. If it is the father who dies, they may remain, but if it is the mother who dies that is the end of it. When local authorities take that line I think it a very harsh line and one that we ought not to encourage.
If a mother aged, say, 75 or 76 is living in a council house which she has purchased, then on her death, obviously, her daughter may remain in possession. Nobody then expresses the view that the house is too big for a single person. Nobody says to a young married couple: "You can't buy a four-bedroomed house because it is too large for your needs". If you are renting a property, somebody may say, "Oh, that house is too big for you now that you are alone". Apparently, it is not too big for you, however, if you have taken the opportunity to buy it. So there is an iniquity about the matter of repossession. I always feel that children who, for whatever reason, have spent all their lives with their parents should not have to lose their home for this reason of repossession—and there are many people in this category.
When I was chairman of what was perhaps the largest local housing authority in the country, we had joint representations from all kinds of individuals in this category. Many of them were widows who had given up a bedroom to take a male lodger, perhaps, a university student or a worker from British Leyland at Longbridge. The man settled in the house and often almost became a son to the tenant of the house. We found this difficulty of repossession so we decided—since Birmingham has always had a joint tenancy policy—to overcome the repossession difficulty by having a joint tenancy. When a tenant who was perhaps 55 and 60 was getting terribly worried because a "son" or "daughter" of this kind, who was not really a son or daughter but perhaps a lodger who had come to be regarded as a son or daughter, might be evicted, we went into it in great
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detail and included that person as a secure tenant eventually. I would have thought that this might have been one of the ways in which the Government would encourage other local authorities to deal with the matter. I want to stress that it would be quite wrong of any Government to have this iniquitious situation in the cases of people who purchase and people who rent.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: I should like briefly to support this amendment. It is generally felt that children who stay with their parents until the end and look after them, who thus show their loyalty to their parents and also take away this responsibility from the state, deserve the recognition of society that they have done so. I think that in many cases such children on the death of the parents might well wish to change houses. I should therefore like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has said. In many cases, it surely would be possible for this to be arranged between the authority and remaining sons and daughters quite amicably. I think that for society to say: "You have carried out your task of looking after your parents. Now you must get out", is something very hard to accept.
Lord Skelmersdale: I have no doubt that there are local authorities up and down the country who make the sort of arrangements with their tenants that the noble Baroness has referred to. But I must point out that it is for the local authority to manage its housing stock in its own way. They are the funders, the builders and the landlords. The landlord and tenant argument applies to them just as much as, in other circumstances, it might apply to the private sector tenant and the private sector landlord. The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, spoke about the right to buy as such, comparing the right to buy and the circumstances surrounding that with the, in a sense, right to tenancy and the circumstances surrounding that. I should have thought that the inquiry was not so much the right to buy as in the disablement of people not to have the right to buy.
Baroness Seear: The only two objections raised to this amendment are to head (d) which, although not a vital part of the amendment, is worth keeping in simply because there has been a tendency—and I would not put it stronger than that—to feel that the single woman left on her own is someone who can be not so much taken advantage of as perhaps treated as of very little importance. If pressure is being put on her to get out of occupation on the grounds that the house is under-occupied, that it is too big for her, then it is at least reasonable to be assured that that kind of pressure is being put on other categories of tenant. Although I do not regard that as the most important point, I think it is worthwhile keeping it in.
I must say that I was amazed at the last remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, when he said that this, after all, was entirely a matter to leave to the local authorities. One would really think that there had never been any national housing legislation governing the way in which local authorities conducted their housing affairs; whereas, as your Lordships well know, the statute book is cluttered up with legislation determining how local authorities should or should not conduct their affairs. As an argument against my

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amendment, I must say I do not think that that holds water. We are getting on this evening and we have had a very heavy day. I am not going to say any more, but I am going to put this Motion to the Committee.
6.50 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 101; Not-Contents, 95.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Amherst, E.

Kirkhill, L.

Ardwick, L.

Lawrence, L.

Auckland, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Avebury, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Aylestone, L.

Lockwood, B.

Balogh, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Banks, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Birk, B. [Teller.]

Masham of Ilton, B.

Bishopston, L.

Mayhew, L.

Blease, L.

Melchett, L.

Bowden, L.

Merrivale, L.

Brockway, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Molloy, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Caradon, L.

Mountevans, L.

Chichester, Bp.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Ogmore, L.

Collison, L.

Oram, L.

Darwen, L.

Peart, L.

Diamond, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Ezra, L.

Rochester, Bp.

Faithfull, B.

Rochester, L.

Fisher of Rednall, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Sainsbury, L.

Gallacher, L.

Saltoun, Ly.

Gladwyn, L.

Seear, B. [Teller.]

Hale, L.

Segal, L.

Hampton, L.

Stedman, B.

Hanworth, V.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stone, L.

Hayter, L.

Swinfen, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Hooson, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Tordoff, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Underhill, L.

Hylton, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Jacobson, L.

Whaddon, L.

Jacques, L.

White, B.

Jeger, B.

Wigoder, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Winstanley, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Kennet, L.

Young of Darlington, L.

Kilbracken, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Beloff, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Belstead, L.

Allerton, L.

Bessborough, E.

Avon, E.

Boardman, L.

Bathurst, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Brookes, L.

Bellwin, L.

Burton, L.

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Campbell of Alloway, L.

Long, V.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Cathcart, E.

Lyell, L.

Cockfield, L.

McFadzean, L.

Coleraine, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Colwyn, L.

Mansfield, E.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Margadale, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Cottesloe, L.

Mersey, V.

Craigmyle, L.

Molson, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Monson, L.

Croft, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Davidson, V.

Newall, L.

De La Warr, E.

Norfolk, D.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Dormer, L.

Onslow, E.

Eccles, V.

Orkney, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Elton, L.

Pender, L.

Ferrier, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Forte, L.

Fortescue, E.

Radnor, E.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Rochdale, V.

Gisborough, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Glanusk, L.

St. Davids, V.

Glenarthur, L.

Saint Oswald, L.

Gowrie, E.

Sandford, L.

Grantchester, L.

Selkirk, E.

Gridley, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Soames, L.

Haig, E.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Teynham, L.

Hemphill, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Ingrow, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Killearn, L.

Tryon, L.

Kintore, E.

Vivian, L.

Kitchener, E.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Wise, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Young, B.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
6.59 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox Baroness Lane-Fox moved Amendment No. 10:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("Physically disabled persons
.—(1) In Part I of Schedule Ito the 1980 Act (Exceptions to the Right to Buy) paragraph 3 shall be omitted.
(2) Paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act shall be renumbered as sub-paragraph (1) of that paragraph and after that provision as so renumbered there shall be inserted the following sub-paragraph—
"(2) Where a dwelling-house is one of a group which has been provided with facilities (including a call system and the services of a warden) specially designed or adapted for the needs of disabled persons.".").
The noble Baroness said: As your Lordships will see, Amendment No. 10 is in two parts. The first part deals with owning your own home. At present, if tenants are disabled, they are not allowed to buy their council houses in many areas, and in housing associations, whereas able-bodied tenants are allowed to do so. Why should this be? Is it because society feels that there is a need to be paternalistic towards them; that they cannot manage their own affairs, even though their peers are living independently elsewhere and getting on splendidly; or is it because it is thought that they are generally short of cash and should not be asked to buy?
There are now disabled tenants who rightly think that they are ill-used by not being allowed to buy their own home. Some have endeavoured to save in their remunerated employment and, like many of us, have decided to put their nest-egg or their mortgage into

863
their home. Others may belong to the luckier section of the disabled, who have received large compensation or perhaps some windfall. Why should their disability debar them from buying their house?
Linked to the core of this amendment is an appeal to all organisations working for disabled people—including RADAR of which I am a vice-president—to press housing authorities to use the money available to them to build more houses to rent; helped, of course, by grants through the very substantial housing improvement programme—all ready and waiting to be used. With the local authorities, £800 million of accumulated capital receipts under-spent since 1980, plus HIP money, is available for building new houses. If this can be mobilised quickly, it disposes of the old need to keep an adapted house in the belief that it will do for another of this strange breed called disabled people.
There are three reasons why new building is better. First, it is not likely that adaptations suitable for one will be right for another. Second, it is most important that local authorities should be pressed to use all the hundreds of thousands of pounds available to them to build more houses and to include a proportion of mobility housing: houses with wide doors and flat or ramped entrances, to which tailor-made adaptations can, if necessary, be made later. Third, in this way one could create more homes to rent for all the disabled people who cannot afford to buy—something we all want to have, especially with improved medical science and the threat of more disabled people to be housed in the future. If possible, let those houses be built with flattened kerbs and convenient approaches. Meanwhile, let those who can afford it buy, if they want to, shouldering responsibility for their own housing, free from the stigma of exclusion through disability. We do not want insult to be added to injury.
The second part of the amendment is self-explanatory. Why these groups are different is because they provide accommodation which is half-way between residential accommodation and the community. There are those of us who cannot pretend to be able to live independently, who must have backup support. To give an example of the kind of carers I am talking about, the John Grooms Housing Association, with its care schemes, aims to provide positive caring within the housing complex. Care staff are recruited from the immediate locality, either paid or unpaid, but with a helpful attitude. It is necessary, they find, to tenant able-bodied dwellings in the same vicinity as the integrated wheelchair schemes. In these special schemes for severely disabled people it is important to retain control over the tenancies. Now that there is a welcome move towards getting more people out of residential accommodation, it is essential that planning for their care in the community is not forgotten. Among many important Government schemes for information technology are plans for data bases linking disabled people wanting suitable places to live with available provision. For these reasons, I beg to move this amendment.
Lord Swinfen: The noble Baroness mentioned in her speech the John Grooms Housing Association. I ought to declare an interest. I work for the John Grooms
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Association for the Disabled, which provides most of the charitable funds for that particular housing association. I am not sure that I agree entirely with my noble friend's amendment, for a number of reasons. The basic reason is that specially designed accommodation can cost as much as another £10,000. One has to bear in mind that much wider corridors and doors than normal are needed; also, larger lavatories. Therefore, a much bigger floor area for the dwelling as a whole is needed. This increases the cost of any one dwelling in a scheme. Therefore, one tends to end up with fewer dwellings for the scheme as a whole than one would have if the accommodation were not specially designed.
The final part of my noble friend's amendment relates to dwelling-houses which include a call system and the services of a warden. Does the warden have to be employed 24 hours a day? In a number of schemes the warden is on duty only from, say, 10 o'clock at night until 7 o'clock in the morning. Does that count as full wardening, or would that take it out of the scheme? There may also be dwellings where no particularly special design for disabled persons is needed; but there are other dwellings, containing very expensive and extensive equipment which is specially designed for disabled people, where there is no special call system—very often because the tenant does not want it and feels he can do without it.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I should like to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox. It is wrong that disabled people should be discriminated against when it comes to the right to buy. It should also be appreciated that not all disabled people live in buildings which were originally designed for the disabled. Very large numbers of people live in adapted dwellings. The adaptations make those dwellings easily usable by anybody. If there have been highly specialised adaptations and a dwelling is purchased by the person living in it, the next person to buy that dwelling would take into account those special adaptations. It is logical that the dwelling would be sold to someone with a similar disability.
It is not fair that only one section of the community should be excluded in this way. The point made by my noble friend about the extra cost involved in building larger dwellings would be reflected in the purchase price. The price of every dwelling which is sold is based upon the amount of space in it and the amenities provided with it. It may be that such dwellings for the disabled would be so much more expensive to purchase that people would not wish to exercise their right to buy. But that, to me, is not important. What is important is that they should have the right to buy.
The point made by my noble friend in the second part of her amendment about the call system and the services of a warden is too specific. It would be better if those words were not included. They have probably been included by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox to indicate a type of group dwelling which is designed entirely for people who require sheltered housing. Such accommodation should not, I believe, be included in the amendment. It also has to be remembered that after people have moved into their homes they may become disabled, and that many of them may have exercised their right to buy before the

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adaptations were made. That kind of dwelling could certainly be sold to a similar purchaser. I support the amendment.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: I, too, support the amendment. As chairman of a housing committee, I have had a certain amount of experience of this type of accommodation. I used to insist that in small groups of houses one house was built which could be used by somebody who was in a wheelchair or had some kind of disability. It always worked very well. The expensive way is to build houses without making any provision for someone who is disabled.
The important point about providing houses for the disabled is not to put them all together but to mix them up with the ordinary community so that they are part of the community housing scheme. It is quite true that there should, perhaps, be a number of homes specially for severely handicapped people, in which case they must be given the care and other facilities which have been mentioned. Whether these should include a call system and the services of a warden is doubtful, but there are cases where these may be needed. The important point is that all housing authorities ought to make provision for disabled people as part of their schemes. If this were put into the Bill, it would encourage those local authorities who do not do this to do so in future.
Lord Auckland: I live in an area of Surrey in which there are a number of organisations for the disabled, some of which are—to say the least—quite unsuitable for housing those who are residing there. I mean no disrespect to the organisations themselves, which are doing their very best. My noble friend's amendment could go a long way to offsetting this. I can quote one example, which is admittedly of a sheltered housing scheme in Leatherhead, which concerns a girl of 17 who suffers paralysis and is in a wheelchair. Through having a home suitably adapted, she is now able to carry on a full-time job and thus save the local ratepayers' and the taxpayers' money. She has some pride in her work and works for herself. The amendment of my noble friend will aid those who are disabled to the extent that they are still capable of contributing something to the community.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: I believe I am right in saying that the law of the land lays down that if one has lived in a council house for more than three years, one has the right to buy the house if one so wishes. If a member of the family is disabled and the house has been adapted in some way, the family is denied the right to buy their house. If a house is adapted for a disabled person, there can be a 90 per cent. improvement grant for even private housing adaptions.
I support this amendment on the grounds of discrimination. If there is a street of council houses, and one of those houses has been adapted, the tenants of all those houses will have the right to buy with the exception of that one family. Is that good integration? Is it not piling on the agonies of disability and making that particular family stick out like a sore thumb? If the disabled person is the breadwinner of the family, he will become very aggrieved. The discount on his
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council house will most likely be more than the cost of the adaptations.
There is a need for more specially built houses and adapted houses as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, has already said. But if the Government say, as they do, that they have quite a pile of money, then this is an excellent way in which to spend some of that money, and I hope that the Government will do so. Equipment can be removed, so that is not a problem which the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, said it might be. Some people do need special housing which has warden assisted help and this should be protected and not for sale, otherwise it might disrupt the organisation of the councils which run it.
7.16 p.m.
Viscount Ingleby: I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, not on her amendment—with which I disagree—but on the tremendous courage she shows in overcoming all the difficulties—not least, being in this Chamber for nearly five hours without a break.
My noble friend Lady Darcy (de Knayth), who unfortunately is sick, and I have agonised over this amendment for the past fortnight. We both started off by welcoming it because we felt that the amendment provided an opportunity to right an unfair discrimination. Since then, quite independently, we have both come to the conclusion that we are totally opposed to this amendment so long as there is a shortage of suitable accommodation for disabled people.
This amendment may benefit one class of disabled persons—those who are lucky enough to be living in suitable accommodation—but it goes completely against the interests of the many others who would like to have suitable accommodation but who do not have it, and also against the interests of future generations of disabled people. If this amendment is adopted, it will remove specialist housing from the disableds' rented pool. Such housing would be sold and would then come on to the open market and be resold to the highest bidder. Once it is sold, it is gone forever. It is probably true that the great majority of disabled people will never be in a position to buy.
What is the extent of the demand by disabled people, who are council house tenants, for the right to buy? The information from which I am about to quote comes from RADAR. Noble Lords may like to be reminded that RADAR has nothing to do with the Royal Air Force but stands for the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation. RADAR tell me that so far as purpose-built housing is concerned, they have received only two or three inquiries from council house tenants interested in buying, and those people quite understood when the reasons why they could not buy their houses were explained to them.
In respect of specially adapted housing, RADAR have received between 10 and 20 inquiries. The majority of those were not challenging the exclusion of houses which are substantially different, but merely claiming that in their particular cases there were a number of minor adaptations to the house which should not have taken the houses out of the right to buy. So, as far as RADAR know, only a handful of disabled tenants of council houses want the right to buy.

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There is still a very serious shortage of suitable accommodation for disabled tenants; I am sure I can say that without fear of contradiction from any part of your Lordships' Committee.
Let us now look for a moment at the performance in this field over the past three years. In the case of purpose-built housing for the disabled, only 270 new units were built last year, compared with about 500 units two years ago. We are still a tremendously long way short of the 20,000 units estimated to be needed. This was the estimate given by Judith Buckle in 1971 in a DHSS publication entitled Work and Housing for Impaired People in Great Britain.
Since that publication was written, a large number of young disabled people, who previously would probably have spent their lives in institutions, now want to live independent lives and to have their own housing, possibly with some assistance from able bodied people. So one then has to add them to the figure of 20,000 that Judith Buckle quoted.
So far as specially adapted housing is concerned the record is better, and I congratulate the Minister; last year 4,500 new units were provided, which is nearly double the figure for three years ago. But the demand for specially adapted housing is still much greater than the supply, so there is still clearly a very serious shortage of suitable accommodation.
The real question therefore is not one of unfair discrimination but of the best use of precious resources. Is it better to sell them for the benefit of particular individuals, or is it better to keep them for those who are still without suitable accommodation, and for future generations? I venture to suggest that if you asked disabled people now living in specially adapted or purpose-built accommodation, provided by the council, "When you no longer need this accommodation what do you think ought to happen to it?", the great majority would say that it ought to be kept for another disabled person.
I urge your Lordships to resist this amendment. At the same time I thank the Minister, who I know is very keen to provide more housing for disabled people and wants to encourage local authorities, housing associations and charitable housing associations—freed from the distraction, we hope, of the right to buy—to provide many more suitable housing units for disabled people.
Lord Hylton: I had some initial sympathy with this amendment on the ground of non-discrimination, but I hope the Minister will not be tempted to accept it for that reason. I should like to support very strongly what my noble friend Lord Ingleby has just been saying. For many years we have had a shortage—and it still goes on—of even ground floor local authority flats. In addition to that, there is a shortage of adapted ones and of purpose-built ones. Therefore, I feel that this amendment is premature and ought to be resisted.
Lord Bellwin: The effect of this amendment, as my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox has explained, would be to narrow the range of disabled persons' dwellings excluded from the right to buy. The existing provision, in paragraph 3 of Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act, excludes
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all dwellings which have features which are "substantially different" from those of ordinary dwelling houses and are designed to make the dwelling suitable for occupation by the physically disabled. This amendment would restrict the exemption to dwellings which are grouped together and have special facilities, including a warden service.
I have sympathy with the views my noble friend has expressed. The present position is not satisfactory. There is some evidence that different landlords give different interpretations to the phrase "substantially different" in paragraph 3, and that the right to buy is being denied in some cases on what I would frankly regard as inadequate grounds. While it is true that tenants have recourse to the courts if they consider they are being unjustly denied the right to buy, and some tenants have exercised that right, we all know that going to the courts is not a realistic option for most tenants.
Moreover, even where paragraph 3 is correctly applied, it is clear that there is a sense of injustice among many disabled tenants that they should be denied the right to buy because they, or a member of their family, are disabled. This injustice is felt particularly keenly where what is at issue is a number of adaptations to an otherwise normal council house. We receive a steady trickle of letters from tenants in these circumstances, who say, "Why should the fact that I or my wife is disabled mean that I should suffer the further misfortune of being denied the right to buy?" I think that argument should be further considered. It is particularly hard where the tenants concerned are prepared to pay a fair price for the house and for the adaptations that have been made. There is also, of course, a risk that tenants in that position will refuse to have adaptions done to their homes rather than risk losing the right to buy.
I listened carefully to what my noble friend Lord Ingleby said. Really we are back to the basic arguments, the basic belief in it all. I happen to believe very deeply that the answer is that if we have a shortage of accommodation for the disabled—and we have—we ought to be building more such accommodation. It is not right to say that you have to make a choice; it should not be right. As I said years ago, I would want to see the emphasis on building more and more single-person, one-bedroom or two-bedroom accommodation, which was needed and I think still is; and I think in this case there ought to be much more emphasis on building accommodation for the disabled. It is not a question of money. I said in the earlier debates that resources are made available to housing associations; local authorities have great sums of money in the coffers by way of capital receipts which they could apply. This should be a priority. I think that really is the answer to the very real concern which I know my noble friend Lord Ingleby and my noble friend Lady Darcy (de Knayth) must have agonised over before they came to the conclusion to which they did.
The Government will, therefore, give further consideration to the issues raised by the amendment which my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox has moved. In particular, we would want to consider whether only conventional housing which has been adapted for the

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disabled should be brought within the right to buy, or whether, alternatively, both adapted and purpose-built accommodation for the disabled should come within the right to buy, only excluding, as in Scotland, disabled accommodation with a warden facility. We want to give further consideration to these points before Report stage. I wonder whether, in the light of what I have said, my noble friend would feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Birk: I waited to hear what the Minister had to say about this amendment. While I appreciate very much how the two noble Baronesses feel about it, I must confess that tonight my tribute is to the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, who, also speaking from a very strong personal experience of being disabled, yet took an entirely contrary line—a line which we certainly support.
The Minister of course remembers—he referred to them—all the discussions that took place on Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act. In the context of the acceptance of the right to buy, it seemed then that to make that exception was something which was generally agreed. The importance of having a pool of houses for the disabled to rent was recognised; and also the expense involved in local authorities having to build or adapt houses, and that it was absolutely right to do it that way. I know the Minister always says that there is plenty of money around for local authorities to build houses. Of course, when you talk to local authorities it is a different story. Although there is a certain amount of capital—the Government suddenly made that available, but the authorities had to make decisions within an impossibly short time—there is not enough on their revenue accounts or from Government allocations for them to be able to pay the debt charges and all the other things involved. But we will not go into that; that is a side issue.
I feel strongly that because of the demand, and because of the necessity of adaptation—we are talking here, on the whole, of people who are gravely disabled—it also involves the question of extra land, which many authorities have not got. The type of housing, with adapted ramps, fitments at wheel chair level and so on, means ground floor accommodation, and this involves land. There is also an urgent need for more specialised accommodation, particularly in the inner city areas, where disabled residents often have to live several floors up in unsuitable private rented sector, or even local authority accommodation. Therefore, it really does seem that, with the demand as it is at the moment and with the supply not being able to keep up with it, as the noble Viscount said, to take a great deal more out of the pool for the disabled, which is what would happen if there were the right to buy in these categories, would be a great mistake.
Although I know the Minister said that he would take this back and look at it, I beg him not to alter the present situation until the existing housing situation has very considerably altered, and until we know very much more and have more detailed figures before us about housing for the disabled in all parts of the country. I certainly hope that it is in that spirit that the Minister will look at this.
Baroness Lane-Fox: Having heard the Minister's reply and the comments by the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, I should like to say that I am very grateful to the Minister for what he has said. I would be delighted if he would take the matter away and consider it. Before concluding, may I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that to my mind it would be a very great shame if we were to look a gift horse in the mouth. Housing for the disabled will definitely be at a disadvantage if we do not take what we are offered now in the way of grants and make the most of it. I beg leve to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Denham: In moving that the House do now resume, I think it might be for the convenience of your Lordships who are interested in this Bill if I say that we shall not resume the Committee stage before half-past eight o'clock.
I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved, accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Dogs (Northern Ireland) Order 1983
7.31 p.m.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Gowrie)The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (The Earl of Gowrie) rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 17th March be approved.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the Dogs Order is designed exclusively to meet the special needs of Northern Ireland in relation to dog control. In Northern Ireland the problems caused by uncontrolled dogs are separate and much more serious than in the rest of the United Kingdom and were recognised as being so by the United Kingdom Working Party on Dogs in 1976. The extent of these problems makes it necessary to seek separate solutions in Northern Ireland. The order amends and restates the legislation governing the licensing and control of dogs in Northern Ireland and in certain instances brings Northern Ireland law into line with law in Great Britain.
In the Province there has been a great increase in the number of stray dogs aggravated by civil unrest and resultant movements of population as well as by the more usual phenomenon of urban redevelopment. Attacks on people and livestock are all too frequent with some 600 attacks on people and 820 on livestock being reported to the police in 1980 and, of course, many more go unreported. The magnitude of the problem is such that in Belfast hospitals alone last year nearly 2,000 people were treated for injuries caused by dogs. Old people and children are particularly vulnerable.
Attacks on livestock cause not only terrible suffering to animals (often ewes heavy in lamb) but cost the farming community an estimated £350,000 a year. Some farmers, especially those on the edge of large towns, have been forced to abandon sheep farming and others have been discouraged from expanding flocks. This is undermining a potentially very

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profitable sector of Northern Ireland agriculture. In addition stray dogs frequently cause traffic hazards, foul pavements and are a general nuisance. Perhaps more ominously, they can get in the way of the security forces while these are engaged on operations.
In recent years the police have been fully engaged in combating serious crime and terrorism in the Province and this has prevented the chief constable from giving as high a priority as he would wish to enforcing existing legislation on licensing. For example, the number of dogs licensed have fallen from 120,000 in the 1950s to only 45,000 in 1981. We believe that less than one-third of dogs owned in Northern Ireland are licensed.
The proposals in the order would relieve the police of the burden of dog control functions by transferring that responsibility to district councils. It is hoped that this, together with the other new measures proposed, will reduce the number of stray dogs and ensure the licensing and effective control of all other dogs throughout the Province.
The proposals are based largely on the recommendations of the United Kingdom Working Party Report on Dogs—I notice an admirable slip in my brief which describes that distinguished body as the "United Kingdom Worming Party". The proposals are based on the United Kingdom Working Party Report on Dogs, taking due account of the points made in the extensive and wide ranging consultations with the many interests involved. The Northern Ireland Committee of Members of Parliament also debated the order and their views are reflected in the version before your Lordships this evening.
I will now deal with some of the main proposals in the order. In relation to licensing it was originally proposed that licences would be issued through post offices with all revenue being channelled into a central dog fund operated by the Department of Agriculture and subsequently reallocated to district councils. Following the Northern Ireland Committee debate it was decided to transfer direct responsibility for licensing to district councils. Under this new arrangement, which has been warmly welcomed by the Association of Local Authorities of Northern Ireland, district councils would be responsible for arranging the issue of licences and the collection of licence revenue either directly from their own offices or, if they so wish, through other agencies such as the Post Office. In addition, councils will be responsible for operating the enforcement of licensing and collection of stray dogs.
The order provides for an increased licence fee of £5 which would cover part of the cost of the scheme with the remainder being met initially from the district rates. It is intended that the rates contribution will eventually be phased out and the scheme become self-supporting. The order also provides that a licence must be obtained before a person takes possession of a dog and it is hoped that this will make prospective dog owners think carefully about taking on the responsibility of dog ownership and discourage the acquisition of dogs on impulse.
Provision has been made for a half-rate licence fee for those people over 65 living alone, since in many
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instances such people rely on a dog for companionship. The case for any extension beyond this was carefully considered but it was concluded that there was no justification for extending the concession. The traditional exemption in relation to guide dogs for the blind will continue.
We have also considered those who have good reasons for keeping a number of dogs on their premises. We provide for a block licence in Article 8 to cover this group. That will be available at a cost of £12·50 to breeders who keep on the same premises three or more unsterilised bitches any of which is used for breeding, and to owners who keep on the same premises three or more dogs of either sex which are registered with the Kennel Club or other prescribed registering organisations covering, say, sporting dogs or greyhounds.
The block licence will also be available to operators of registered guard dog kennels who keep not less that three dogs which are used as guard dogs elsewhere. District councils will be responsible for registration of guard dog kennels and breeding establishments. These provisions are similar to those in Great Britain in the Guard Dogs Act 1975 and the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973. However, given the present security situation in Northern Ireland, it is not proposed to introduce immediately that main provision of the Great Britain Guard Dogs Act that a handler should be on premises where a guard dog is used. In the case of breeding establishments, the order would close certain loopholes in the Great Britain Breeding of Dogs Act which were highlighted by the Working Party Report in 1976.
The order also provides powers whereby dogs must be kept on a lead in designated pedestrian precincts and on land where livestock are present. This power may be extended in the future if the need for it becomes apparent. It also provides a penalty for a dog attacking a person, in addition to the penalty for worrying livestock. The order would bring Northern Ireland law into line with that in Great Britain in so far as shooting a dog which is worrying, about to worry or has been worrying livestock is concerned. Provision is also included for a fixed penalty procedure for certain offences under the order, for offences under the Control of Greyhounds Act (Northern Ireland) 1950 and for fouling offences where by-laws have been made under the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972.
There has been a sustained campaign from many interests over the years seeking more effective dog control legislation in Northern Ireland. We hope that this new response, which is designed to encourage responsible dog ownerships, will provide a solution for the serious dog control problems in the Province. I must reiterate that the dogs order is tailored to a specific local situation in Northern Ireland and the Government have no plans to introduce similar dog control legislation into Great Britain. The Northern Ireland Dogs Order should not therefore be seen as a precedent. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 17th March be approved.—(The Earl of Gowrie.)
7.43 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, for explaining this order; but I am certain that he will appreciate that a number of points arise, both as clarification and as comment on the various articles. We recognise right at the outset that there are special circumstances in Northern Ireland in this matter but that does not mean that we should automatically let orders go through without seeking views and clarification on a number of points. It is recognised, as the Minister has said, that the problem of stray dogs in Northern Ireland is more serious than that in Great Britain. But the problem still exists in Great Britain; it is a serious problem here also. It is also recognised that the Northern Ireland legislation need not always be the same as that for the rest of the United Kingdom, but any differences must be justified, and there are a few points on which I believe there is a need for justification. I shall elaborate on these in due course.
It has been emphasised that many of the proposals are based on the recommendations of the working party which reported in 1976. I, and I am sure other noble Lords, will await with interest the comments which I feel certain my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby will be making, as he was so closely associated with that review. I also appreciate that the matter was fully discussed in the Northern Ireland Committee, the report of which I read with considerable interest, but the order consists of 56 articles, some of which are, in effect, introducing primary legislation. This is only made possible in the order because of the situation that we have of direct rule with regard to Northern Ireland.
Although the Minister has emphasised that parts of the order will bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the United Kingdom, some of the measures in the order could well be adapted to Great Britain as well. Why have the Government not decided to introduce a Bill with some of these points which are not at present in Great Britain legislation to cover the whole of the United Kingdom, albeit with some sections primarily devoted to Northern Ireland, where that is necessary? This would have enabled various clauses to be considered in detail and amendments could have been made, as the House might desire. As it is, we have an order of 56 articles which we have to accept as it stands. The practice so far as these Benches are concerned is that we do not oppose an order which has been approved by the other place.
Generally, we support many of the provisions to meet the serious problem in Northern Ireland; but some of the other points in the order are questionable, and others need clarification. We first of all welcome the proposal that the responsibility for dog control shall be passed from the RUC to the district councils. I must assume that, although the district councils are to be encouraged to appoint dog wardens, the RUC will still have a part to play as part of its normal law enforcement duty.
I am certain that noble Lords will have noted what the Minister said with regard to the substantial drop in the number of licences taken out in recent years. I do not have any figures, but I am certain that the number of dogs unlicensed in Great Britain would also be seen
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to be a serious problem if we looked at the registration and licensing of dogs. Why is there such under-licensing of dogs at present? It is not because of the fee, which is 30p in Northern Ireland and 37½p in Great Britain. We all know that the licence fee in no way covers even the cost of collection. That is generally recognised throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. As the noble Lord indicated, the order proposes an important change in the cost of the dog licence: an increase to £5. The Government argument is that this will lead to there being fewer stray dogs about. But will it? It may well be that an increased fee will cause some people to think very seriously about having a dog, but bitches will have litters. One has to decide whether an increased fee will at the end of the day lead to fewer or more strays.
We also know that, generally speaking, living standards are lower in Northern Ireland than in other parts of the United Kingdom, for various reasons. A £5 fee will hit many poorer people. I am certain that there are poor families in Northern Ireland, as there are in England, Wales and Scotland, who have a dog as a loyal companion and sometimes it is their only joy. I am certain that this will apply to many families in Northern Ireland. The Minister of State, Mr. Adam Butler, in the other place, stressed that the licence fee will be only 10p per week. We so often hear that when a sum is calculated as a weekly charge it is only a small amount. That is argued for one increase after another. But one has to consider the aggregate. Article 31, paragraph (1), also provides that regulations may prescribe and regulate the wearing of collars with the name and address of the owner, which may in addition be another method of identification of the dog. That may be desirable, but this will be an additional cost over and above the £5 fee. It will be quite a burden on many of the poorer people in Northern Ireland society.
Admittedly, as the Minister has outlined, the order recognises that the increase will cause some hardship, and persons aged 65 and over who are living at home will get a rebate and pay at only half the rate. But the £5 will be a hardship to many poorer families, to the unemployed and to those on supplementary benefit. I hope that it will not be said—I am certain that the Minister will not say this—that such persons should not have a dog, because in many cases it is a great friend and a comfort to them.
The order provides that these persons who want a rebate will have to apply to the district council for the concession. It is not clear from the order whether a personal visit will be necessary. At the Committee stage in the other place the Minister said, in justification for the department giving this power to the district councils—which I welcome—if application had to be made to the department, that would mean that people might have to make long journeys, perhaps to Belfast, and would have to produce identification so that their eligibility could be established.
It is not certain whether or not the applications that will have to be made to the district councils will have to include the identification of the applicants. It is said that giving the matter to the district councils to handle will mean that registers will be available whereby a simple check can be made on whether a person is living alone and so comes within the category for a rebate. I assume that the reference there is to the

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electoral registers. I understand that in Northern Ireland, electoral registers are kept in post offices, as is the case in other parts of the United Kingdom.
I should like to ask why cannot application be made either by post, on a prescribed form, or at post offices? I would say that preferably application ought to be made at post offices, which would avoid people having to undertake journeys, and it would be easy for a local post office to check the identity of an applicant. Since I am sure that a post office will keep a register of electors, there should be no problem at all in checking whether the applicant lives alone. I make the suggestion in order to avoid inconvenience, since we are considering here persons who must be at least 65 years of age, and who live alone.
The point leads me to the method of payment of the licence fee. As the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, has said, the original intention was that payment could be made through any of the 380 local post offices. He has now indicated that district councils have welcomed the fact that they will be able to decide whether applications for licences should be made direct to their offices, or through some other agency, which might be the post offices. I should like to query the position in this respect. If a district council insists that an application for a licence must be made at its office, there will be considerable inconvenience. There could be a delay through the post—and I shall come to this very important matter in a moment—or people could spend a lot of time travelling; and we must bear in mind that many of the applicants will be older people.
Another article in the order provides that a person shall not acquire a dog without first obtaining a licence; and yet another article provides that a person shall not sell or give a dog unless a licence is produced. Those provisions seem to me to be eminently sensible. But what is their practical effect when considered together with the question of obtaining a licence? Let us assume that a person visits a pet shop, a dog pound, or even a friend, and sees a dog that he likes. He cannot take it away because he does not have a licence. Either there will be some days' delay while the licence application is dealt with through the post, or the person has to make a journey, perhaps of some miles, to a district council office. It would be much better if the licence application could be made at the local post office. The applicant could get there and back very quickly.
I am certain that people in Northern Ireland are no different from my own sons and daughters who normally acquire dogs through dog pounds. At a dog pound you can see the dog which you like, and see, too, whether the dog likes you. But a person will not be able to take a dog away from a pound because he must produce a licence. Therefore the method of payment of the licence fee is a very important question, and perhaps the noble Earl will comment upon it.
Article 8 provides that there shall be a block licence costing £12·50 where there are three or more animals. I should like to ask how is the figure justified. I assume that I am reading the order correctly. If I am not, no doubt the noble Earl will put me right. Let us suppose that an establishment has 25 dogs. How can a licence fee which works out at only 50p for each of the dogs be justified? There may be kennels with hounds, or guard
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dog establishments. Such places will have to have a licence; but, presumably, on the basis of Article 8, the cost per dog would be much lower than it would be for a person who might have only two dogs at home.
One argument put forward for the amount of the fee is that it should cover the cost of collection, but that could be achieved by perhaps a doubling of the present fee. Until now the costs of administration in the issue of licences have been met by the Exchequer throughout the United Kingdom; that is, by the taxpayers. Now Northern Ireland is to be treated entirely differently from the rest of the United Kingdom.
The argument is also advanced that the cost of the dog control schemes, including the appointment of wardens, should eventually be met from the amount of the licence fee. I would ask, why? In effect, this is a tax on dog owners. Is it fair that those people who treat their dogs properly and keep them under proper control, and whose dogs are in no way a nuisance, should have to contribute towards the cost of controlling those dogs which might be committing a nuisance? Surely, the control of dogs benefits the whole of the community; and, as is the case with other nuisances, the whole of the community should accept full responsibility for the cost. What is being proposed will mean in effect assigning a particular tax to a particular purpose. As noble Lords know, I deal very much with transport matters, and I have always strongly opposed the idea that taxation of cars and petrol should be assigned to a particular purpose. In this case—admittedly a minor one—it would be a tax for a particular purpose.
During a debate in the other place the question was asked whether a person who takes a dog from the Irish Republic or Great Britain to Northern Ireland as a temporary visitor will be covered. I cannot see that a real answer was given to the question, except that when the matter was raised again on another occasion in the other place the Minister said:
"I hope that my hon. Friend will visit Belfast and, by all means, he may bring his dog".—[Official Report, Commons, 21/4/83; col. 473.]
I should like to ask a question arising from that. Article 6(1) refers to licences being issued to residents in the area of the particular district council. What is meant by the word "resident"? Will it include a person who is visiting Northern Ireland from Great Britain for a period of months, and who takes his dog with him, as the Minister said he hoped might happen? If a person moves from one local authority area to another, will he have to re-register the licence in order to cover the new area in which he is resident?
Article 40 makes it mandatory on a district council to establish dog pounds and appoint officers to carry out enforcement. What will be the situation if a district council receives a fairly substantial revenue—far in excess of the cost of collection—and does nothing, or very little, with regard to the appointment of officers or wardens, or in the way of enforcement? Is that a matter which will be dealt with by the Ministers concerned?
There are a few other specific questions which I should like to ask of the noble Earl, mainly for the purpose of clarification. Article 5 lists exemptions from licences. Under Article 5(e) the exemptions include any dog used for police purposes. There is no reference to any dogs which may be used by the armed

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services in Northern Ireland—and I presume that they do use dogs. Should such dogs also be exempted, or has that matter been overlooked?
Article 6(3) does not lay down the period of the licence. It will be for a period which will subsequently be prescribed. The Minister has said in another place that the intention is that it should be an annual licence. Why is that not mentioned in the order? There must have been a departmental reason for not stating the actual period. If the period were to be three years, or five years, then life would be far different in terms of my criticism of the fee of £5. It looks as though it is intended that the fee should be £5, but that is not prescribed in the order.
Article 7(3) makes provisions for exemptions from payment of the £5 fee. Will these exemptions be additional to those listed in Article 5, and is there any particular reason for this further provision for other possible exemptions?
Article 21(1) provides that an officer may require the production of a dog licence. Under the order the officer is defined as an officer of the district council. Will an officer of the RUC be covered by general police powers, or should a police officer also be included in the order as being empowered to require the production of a dog licence? I have a particular reason for asking this question because under Article 15(2) it is considered necessary that an officer of the RUC be listed among those who may inspect the district council register of licences. So, in one place, that is laid down. In the other place, it is not mentioned.
I am pleased to see in Article 25(1) that the roads where a dog must be under control—this was emphasised by the noble Earl—are confined to pedestrian precincts and that any extension to other roads will be done by affirmative resolution. I find, on the other hand, that any additional exclusions from keeping a dog under control will be done by negative order. I fail to see why one should be affirmative and the other the negative procedure.
Articles 35 to 39 make provision for certain offences to come within the fixed penalty procedure. I see no objection to this. It may be an advantage in many ways. However, it means that apart from the substantial change of the licence fee, additional law is being introduced by an order and not by a Bill. A new fixed penalty offence is introduced by order and not by primary legislation. If there had been a Bill for the United Kingdom relating to this and other matters, the issue could have been dealt with, and, if necessary, amendments made.
I do not know whether guidance will be given to the district councils that will be setting up the dogpounds. I presume that the shelters operated by the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals can continue to be used by agreement with the district council as agents for the council. How far will councils be encouraged to find homes for stray dogs? The Department will determine the minimum price at which dogs will be sold. I hope that the emphasis so far as possible will be placed on trying to find decent homes for dogs that are controllable.
I am sorry to be quoting a number of these points. However, the order consists of 56 articles, and a number of issues arise. Articles 28 and 29 are
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concerned with attacks on persons and livestock. It is made clear that both shall not apply to a dog while it is being used for police purposes. Should this not also be the position while a dog is being used for guard work? Again, under Article 33, the power to order the destruction of dogs shall not apply when there is an attack by a dog being used as a guarddog or on police duties. In one place, it is emphasised. In the other place, there is no reference at all.
When is it intended that the various provisions shall be brought into force? There are limited provisions that, according to the order, will apparently be brought into force two months after the order is made. There is also the intention, according to the Minister, to monitor the provisions that may require a definition of what is an attack upon a person. This point was stressed in some detail in the Northern Ireland Committee of another place. I was surprised to note that the Minister in the other place was not prepared to make a commitment to come back to Parliament in a year's time. He suggested that there were means available to question Ministers or to raise matters on the floor of the House. I would have thought that, as the order introduces a number of new features, an undertaking would be given that the Minister will report on the monitoring of the entire order—not just the points to which I have referred—if not in one year's time, in two years' time, to see what have been the effects.
While, in general, we support the proposals for control, there are points of criticism that I have emphasised. There is some clarification needed. Above all, it is vital that any control measures should be enforceable. It would be a tragedy if the order was passed and then found at the end of the day to be unenforceable in some parts. It is for that reason that clarification on various points is needed.
8.5 p.m.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, I was glad to hear my noble friend the Minister of State say that the order would not be regarded as a precedent for bringing in legislation for the rest of the United Kingdom. I hope that his prognostication is right. It is often the case that where we have a precedent in one part of the United Kingdom, we eventually find that a Bill is introduced that covers the rest of the United Kingdom.
I do not know how many dogs there are in Northern Ireland. We have been told that only 45,000 licences are issued. I understand that the dog population is falling drastically throughout the United Kingdom. It rose to its height in 1973 when the figure was 5·83 million but it is now considerably reduced. This follows the education of many owners of dogs and bitches who are having their animals neutered. I understand that, at the beginning of this year, 21 per cent. of the dog population was neutered compared with a figure of 2 per cent. in 1962.
What worries me is how dog wardens—I suppose that is the right name—will be chosen. Have they any qualifications? It is surely a reversal of British law to appoint so-called officers to fine people on the spot. We might as well say that traffic wardens should be able to fine people on the spot. Why should dog

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wardens be able to do this? It seems to me that dog owners will regard this as high-handed.
I agree with much of what is contained in the order, especially the licensing of dogs. However, the effect of the order for old-age pensioners seems to me absurd. It is correct that they have to pay only half the licence fee. But it would save much form filling and administration if they were charged only £2·50 when they buy the licence. Why should they have to pay £5 for a licence and then ask for a rebate? That seems an unnecessary waste of paper and unnecessary form filling. No doubt civil servants like that, but, apart from anything else, it means that the old-age pensioner is wasting a stamp and his time.
I have not read the entire order but I understand that dog owners will be allowed only five days to find a lost dog. In this country the statutory period is seven days. I regard five days as too short a time for someone to find his lost dog.
I agree with much that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has said about Part IV dealing with a court order for destruction of a dog if the dog attacks a person. That is not qualified. What does an attack on a person mean? Some people, especially those brought up in urban areas, are frightened of dogs, almost to the extent that if a dog came up and sniffed them they would say that they had been attacked. There appears to be no qualification of "attack". There must presumably be a fair amount of physical damage to the person. I should like to have the situation clarified a little more.
A dog may be defending his master or his mistress from a criminal. The dog may perhaps be defending his mistress from a rapist. Because a dog attacks a criminal, is it to be destroyed? I know that in this country the law favours criminals to a very great degree, but surely not in this case. As we know, there are a great number of people who dislike dogs, and I am sure they would make every excuse to have a dog destroyed and to say that a dog attacked them.
I do not want to say a great deal more because much of what I was going to say has already been said. However, I quite agree that in urban areas too many dogs do cause a problem, especially large dogs. As regards dogs in public places, I would like the expression "public places" defined. For example, a park in a big city is a public place, but will dogs be debarred from that? I should like to know the answer. If the owner of a dog in an urban area has only a flat or a small house—which will be the situation in the majority of cases—and he does not have a garden, how will he exercise his dog? He dare not take it out on the pavement because it might foul the pavement. If he takes it on to the main road he and the dog might be knocked over. There are two or three matters like that which I would like to have defined.
As regards old-age pensioners, I understand—and this applies not to Northern Ireland only but to the whole of the United Kingdom—that there are now 10 million OAPs, which is a very big lobby when it comes to the electorate. If this order is followed in the United Kingdom it will encounter a lot of snags. It will be very unpopular legislation. I agree that one has to be very firm when it comes to the killing of sheep and the
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chasing of livestock. But we must remember that dog owners overall throughout the United Kingdom contribute a great deal to the economy. I understand that the Inland Revenue collects £3 million in VAT alone from dog owners. So I would advise the Government that, if they introduce this legislation for the whole of the United Kingdom—as no doubt they will—they should tread warily regarding dog owners, who comprise quite a considerable section of the population.
I understand that Professor Ketcher has said that dogs are very good for the health of human beings, especially for old people. I understand that he has carried out some experiments and found that if somebody is stroking or patting a dog his blood pressure goes down—though, of course, if the dog bites him it would go up! But it is good for people to have a dog, especially if they are old people who have no relatives and are all alone. In such cases a dog is essential and a great companion. Having said that, I only hope that if this legislation ever comes to the rest of the United Kingdom it will not follow letter for letter the statutory order now before us.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, the two noble Lords who have spoken have produced a veritable washing list of points to be raised on this draft order, and matters which in other circumstances would occupy the Committee stage of a Bill. I want first to make some comments on procedure. This order really emerges out of the twilight of parliamentary democracy in relation to Northern Ireland. If it applied to any other part of the country it would require an Act of Parliament because this order contains substantive new law, and, as my noble friend Lord Underhill pointed out, there are 56 articles covering 29 pages. This shows the problem of the governance of Northern Ireland by this instrument.
This is a draft order of the Privy Council. It is true, of course, that extensive consultation has taken place between the Secretary of State and Ministers and various interests in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. The caravan has gone around. It went to the Northern Ireland Committee of another place; it went to the Assembly at Stormont; it came back to the Floor of the House of Commons; and it has come here, its final destination. Nowhere along the route has it been possible for this order to be amended in a single particular by vote and decision of the respective instruments of government.
The Government have had experience only this afternoon of what votes may mean in your Lordships' House, in Parliament, where a principle of considerable importance, especially one which has an emotional content, has aroused widespread interest. Similar matters can be raised on this order. This order contains new law which is not at present in the primary law of the realm. It invents new offences, new forms of collecting fines and new punishments in relation to the treatment of dogs. For that reason alone it is very undesirable that matters of this complexity and importance should be dealt with in relation to one part of the United Kingdom not requiring legislation, instead of bringing a Bill before Parliament in the normal way.

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This order is treated as delegated legislation, subordinate legislation. It is also relegated legislation, because it is the Cinderella of our parliamentary procedure. In another place the Standing Orders give this order one and a half hours after ten o'clock: that is its normal place in the parliamentary day. In your Lordships' House it is brought in during the supper interval, as if we were engaged to drown the clatter of feeding time. I hope noble Lords who are having their supper will get a message from us now that they need not hurry over their meal because the Committee stage of the Housing and Building Control Bill cannot be resumed at 8.30. I am glad to be assured by the Government Chief Whip that I need not feel harassed by the clock. Therefore, while, in another place, instead of an hour and a half they managed, by the fluke of business, to have three hours, in your Lordships' House, by representations to a reasonable Chief Whip for the Government, we are going to have what time we need on this draft order. So we can all sit back and relax, and send the message to the supper house to tell their Lordships that they can take time over their coffee.
The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, has been at pains to say that this, of course, is an order specially for the conditions in Northern Ireland, which I am sure is true, and that it is not intended to introduce anything like this in the rest of the United Kingdom. But for that judgment to some extent he relies upon what the working party said in 1976 about differences in Northern Ireland. I think that if something is to be introduced for Northern Ireland alone, containing the important provisions of this draft order, some justification for doing that specially for Northern Ireland, as distinct from the rest of the United Kingdom, has to be advanced for our consideration.
I believe that the conditions in Northern Ireland are certainly different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom. It would be very surprising were it not so. But are the differences of degree, not of principle? The question is whether some of the contents of this order are justified to deal with differences in degree.
The Government have been very obstinate in saying that they do not intend to apply the recommendations of the working party to the rest of the United Kingdom. Their record over the last 12 or 18 months has been quite deplorable in this regard. They allowed a Private Member's Bill in another place, introduced by Mr. Aspinwall, to be the victim of a procedural ploy. The Government resisted the attempt in your Lordships' House to introduce on a voluntary basis into the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill some provisions for better dog control. But no, the Government were so keen on sex shops that they had no time and no room to deal with dogs. I believe that the Government should have introduced a substantive law into the United Kingdom as a whole and should then have introduced the marginal differences to meet the special circumstances of Northern Ireland.
The Minister has said that the working party of 1976 drew attention to the differences in Northern Ireland. What did they say? In paragraph 2.7 they said:
"Sheep worrying is a serious problem and we accept that special measures might be necessary there".
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That was a reference to Northern Ireland. Then in paragraph 17.4 they said:
"Sheep worrying in Northern Ireland has reached such proportions that the Northern Ireland authority might wish to strengthen its own laws on livestock worrying… beyond the existing limits which the working party find acceptable for England and Wales".
So their approach to this was that they had recommendations to make for England and Wales, but they believed that Northern Ireland would need to go further into dog control than they were recommending for the rest of the country.
What the Government have done is to go against the context of the report of the working party and to do it the other way round. They have introduced a substantive law into Northern Ireland, with the declaration that they do not intend to introduce the substantive law anywhere else. I think that that is part of the mischief of the way in which we are having to govern Northern Ireland at the present time.
References have been made to the voluntary schemes which have been introduced by a number of local authorities in England and Wales. But these voluntary schemes have neither teeth nor the capacity for service, because the law has to be changed in England and Wales before they can match up to the recommendations of the working party. No local authority in England and Wales can increase the dog licence fee to pay for anything. Under the 1906 Act no local authority in England and Wales can transfer the control of dogs to local authorities without a change in the law. In fact, it is quite misleading to suggest that the situation has been met in England and Wales by local authorities adopting voluntary schemes. Therefore, my judgment on this is that the procedure is wrong; the approach is mistaken because the working party wanted the substantive law for the rest of the country first, with marginal differences for Northern Ireland.
Now let us look at what the order contains. My noble friend Lord Underhill and the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, have both raised a number of points, but curiously enough neither of them referred to the fact that a new offence is being created in Northern Ireland—the offence of the stray dog. Under Article 22 of the order it is now an offence—which, on summary conviction, can be punished by a fine of up to £200—if a dog is found straying and not accompanied by its owner or keeper. That is a new crime. At the present time a stray dog can be seized, can be detained, and can be disposed of if it is not claimed within the stiuplated period. The working party never recommended that a straying dog should expose its owner to a fine of up to £200 on summary conviction. Many people can inadvertently become separated from their dogs, to their great distress, and if their straying dog is picked up and taken to the authorities, that can be followed by a prosecution for the dog being allowed to stray.
Another point about the stray dog is that elsewhere the stray dog is one which is straying unaccompanied on a highway or a place of public resort. But under this order the area upon which a dog can be regarded as a stray is extended to cover land which is not that of the owner-occupier who owns the dog or its keeper; in fact, if it is on any land that does not belong to it, so

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to speak, the dog can be regarded as a stray. There is provision in the order for the area of catchment of stray dogs to be extended by further orders under Article 24.
Another provision of the order is that any person who finds a stray dog which is unaccompanied can detain it. Any person can act as a detainer of a dog. He is under no obligation to find the owner; he is under no obligation to get in touch with the owner, even if he knows who it is. He is required to report it to the police or other authority within 24 hours, when it will be collected. The dog can then be dealt with as a stray and the owner, if found, can be fined on summary conviction up to £200.
I will not dwell on the possibilities for mischief and hostility between neighbours to which those conditions could give rise. There is no obligation on the police or other authorities to contact the owner even if they know his name, whereas in the 1906 Act the police cannot destroy a dog without notifying the owner if they find his name on the dog's collar. There seems to be no provision in this order that the police have to do so. I believe that Articles 22, 23 and 24 are more heartless than any previous legislation on this subject, and certainly more harsh than the working party of 1976 recommended.
To make matters worse, the period of detention of the dog is reduced from seven to five days, a point already referred to by the noble Viscount. It is true that this was a recommendation of the working party but there was widespread opposition to this recommendation when it was made. I should have thought that in Northern Ireland with all the social disruption and the possibility of dogs being scattered around, losing their homes and owners, there was a case for the longer rather than the shorter period. I should have thought that in Northern Ireland there was a much stronger case for seven days being allowed before a dog could be destroyed or disposed of, rather than the five days recommended by the working party, which is included in the draft order.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has given me some details of its own experience of the length of time taken by owners of lost dogs to claim them. These are the particulars for the year 1981 for Birmingham, Chobham in Surrey, Bradford and York. The proportion of owners who claimed their dogs on the fifth, sixth, seventh or even the eighth day was 9 per cent. in York, 20 per cent. in Chobham and 16 per cent. in Birmingham. That is a very high proportion of claimants of lost dogs in the period after the fifth day. A point I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, is that Battersea Dogs' Home does not keep statistics on the same basis as the RSPCA, and I can only tell your Lordships that there the average time for collecting dogs is three and a half days. That might suggest that dogs are claimed more easily after only a few days in the London area than elsewhere.
I want now to refer to Article 25. Reference has been made to the fact that a dog owner must keep his dog on the lead when taking the dog on any land where livestock are and have the right to be. This was described by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, as meaning that a dog owner would have to take his dog for a walk on the lead. It is very difficult to know whether on land
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where there are public footpaths it would be necessary to keep a dog on the lead even though there were no cattle in the field. I certainly feel that some of these provisions in relation to Northern Ireland need to be carefully monitored to bring out how they are going to work, especially in the unsympathetic atmosphere which appears to be created by this draft order.
When we come to the destruction of dogs the provisions of Article 33(1) are quite monstrous:
"Where it appears to a court that a dog has—

(a) attacked any person; or

(b) attacked or killed livestock"

the court shall impose a mandatory penalty of destruction. There is no provision in Article 33(1) for an order to be made by the court in those circumstances for the dog to be kept under proper control. The court must give an order for destruction. Then, the question is: what is an attack? The noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, mentioned this a few moments ago. The word "attack" in relation to a person is covered by Article 2(2)(b) and may mean:
"behaving in such a manner so as to cause a person apprehension of being attacked".
That is what may be an attack; and if the court are satisfied that the dog behaved in such a manner as to cause a person apprehension of being attacked, the court must order its destruction. There is a right of appeal in paragraph (7) of Article 33 but that applies only if there is an owner to make an appeal on behalf of the dog. Otherwise, when the court are satisfied there is no more to be said and down that dog will go. That is much too harsh.
The 1871 Act which is repealed by this order makes provision for an order to be made for proper control in all cases but in Northern Ireland they are going to distinguish between a mandatory order for destruction in the case of an attack on persons or animals; and in Article 2(2)(a) there is provision for what is to happen to a dog that chases livestock.
I will quote now from Article 33(1):
"Where it appears to a court that a dog has chased livestock in such a way as might reasonably have been expected to cause injury or suffering to the livestock or to result in financial loss to the owner of the livestock the court shall—

(a) make an order directing the dog to be destroyed; or

(b) make an order directing the dog to be kept confined in a building, shed, yard or other enclosure from which it cannot escape".

So there is a less harsh punishment for the dog that is chasing livestock than for the dog which makes as if it is attacking a human being. These are important matters of substantive law and it is quite undesirable that some of these things should be introduced in an order relating to Northern Ireland.
I finish by saying that, taking the draft order as a whole, its foundations were laid in the report of the working party and in my own report in the same year, but happily our recommendations coincided. Both committees came to similar conclusions and were for discipline developed by a helpful and sympathetic dog warden system under which dog owners could feel that their companions had a respected place in society and would be protected as well as disciplined by the new and enlightened form of dog control. There is nothing at all like that in this order. Dog owners in Northern Ireland are being asked to pay £5, not for any service to the dog owners. There may be service to the

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community and to the authority but the £5 is not for service to dog owners. There is little or nothing in this order which is a service to the dog owners.
Personally, I feel that the order contains features which I, for one, would have strongly to oppose if they were being applied to this country. I am very sorry that the framework of a scheme of discipline of dogs which I described with a proper warden system, has been distorted and turned into the harsh set of proposals for Northern Ireland, a number of which I find extremely distasteful.
8.40 p.m.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, with his very great experience, not only of the working party but also of the whole issue of legislation affecting animals in this country, has made a powerful case with which the Government can agree: the case being that legislation of this kind in respect of Northern Ireland would be inappropriate in the rest of the United Kingdom. In fact, there is no substantive difference between the noble Lord and myself on that.
He mentioned at the beginning of his speech, in a sharp phrase which I noted down—and I am quoting him—"the mischief of the way in which we are having to govern Northern Ireland at the present time". There, again, I do not find myself very much at odds with the noble Lord, in spite of his criticisms of the way we are proceeding in respect of this order. I would refer him to our White Paper which is called Northern Ireland—A Framework for Devolution, in which we acknowledge that the special interests and circumstances in Northern Ireland would be best catered for by elected representatives within Northern Ireland itself.
It is also important to recognise that legislation of this kind is very much responsive legislation. It is responsive to a particular set of difficulties and a particular set of requests by people in Northern Ireland that the Government should tackle them. We are proceeding by direct rule, as we regret, and, as I say each year as we renew it, which we do, that is the only method available to us. Therefore, I do not think that it is fair for the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, to suggest that the Govenment are, as it were, somehow legislating in a high-handed, unresponsive or undemocratic way, because this matter is governed by the limitations of the direct rule system which they are trying so hard to change in other aspects of policy.
There is another point I should like to make before coming to some of the substantive questions asked me. I would address it, as well as of course to the whole House, specifically to the noble Lords, Lord Houghton and Lord Underhill, who I think gave some suggestion that Northern Ireland should not be setting what they might see as a pattern and precedent for the rest of the United Kingdom in this regard. With respect to him, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, was a little more ambivalent here than the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, because he acknowledged that there might be differences in Northern Ireland, and as a spokesman on Northern Ireland affairs he is of course in a good position to judge that.
What perhaps both noble Lords are leaving out is the immense problem faced by the police in Northern
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Ireland. This is not the time to go into it, but we all know the kind of activities in which the police are engaged in Northern Ireland. No one regrets that more than I do as their sponsoring Minister at the present time. Nevertheless, it seems to me only responsible to try to relieve them, if we can, of a severe problem, though a problem which is less severe in kind than many of the problems that they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
We are not putting the police out of the picture altogether. Obviously in disputed issues, or where questions of criminal law are involved, the police will still be in play; but we believe that in this way we can perform something of the same function as the traffic warden system in Britain, when, as your Lordships remember, problems of traffic control were not taken out of the hands of the police but an extra body was added in order to try to relieve them for other important tasks.
Those are the sort of philosophical or Second Reading points about the order that I should like to make. May I now turn to some of the specific questions which have been put to me. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked about district councils in respect of the exemption for the elderly. The councils have to satisfy themselves that the person is over 65 and is living alone; and it will also be for them to decide whether or not to use the Post Office as an agent for collection here. If I might again revert to the more general political point, many people in Northern Ireland have asked that we should give back more powers and more responsibilities to district councils, and they have very much welcomed this move.
On the question of the review of the order, of course the position will be monitored. But, as was indicated in another place, we cannot give assurances to bring it before Parliament after any given period of time. Northern Ireland is not noted for reticence on matters which are important to it, and I would think it unlikely that either Northern Ireland MPs in another place or Northern Ireland Peers in your Lordships' House, or members of the Assembly or the district councils themselves, would not be monitoring these proposals in the light of how they turned out in practice.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked me why dog breeders and multi-dog owners should pay less. It was felt desirable to introduce the block licence system for those who had a good reason for keeping a number of dogs. Wherever the line is drawn in relation to multi-dog owners there will be some anomaly. We decided that the block licence should be available for three or more bitches any of which is used for breeding, or three or more dogs registered with a prescribed organisation.
The noble Lord also asked why the draft order does not state that licences should be valid for one year. An annual licence is proposed initially in all cases, but it may be that, as things evolve in the future, licences could be issued for longer periods so as to cut down on administrative costs. Therefore, in the interests of flexibility the duration of the licence will be prescribed in subordinate regulations. I can say to the noble Lord who asked how we could ensure that district councils would use their income under the order for proper purposes that the department will monitor income and expenditure on a countrywide basis through financial

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returns from individual district councils; and over a period of time the department will decide in conjunction with the councils and other interested organisations if adjustments are necessary.
On the issue of the licence fees, I think that licence fee costs should be borne by dog owners to encourage responsible dog ownership. There is always criticism with any increase of fee, but it is an article of conventional wisdom that the dog licence, like other licences, has become wholly uneconomic and, as a result, is something of a problem child where licensing generally is concerned. I do not think that the cost we are proposing is exorbitant even in relation to the economic difficulties faced by the Province, which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, mentioned.
He asked me when the proposed order would come into operation. The provisions in Articles 28 to 30, which would give farmers greater protection against livestock worrying, will come into operation automatically two months after the order is made. The remaining provisions will be brought into operation by commencement orders. The timing of the implementation will be the subject of further consultations with the Association of Local Authorities of Northern Ireland. Since they are going to have these powers, obviously we want to be closely in touch with them about when the powers are to start being used.
There was the question put to me by the noble Lord about visitors bringing dogs into Northern Ireland. Article 6(1) provides that licences shall be issued by district councils for dogs kept by persons resident in their areas. As the draft order now stands, a short-term visitor to the Province is not exempt from the requirement either to take out a licence for the dog or to pay a licence fee, but there are powers in Article 5(f) to make orders to exempt from the licensing requirement dogs kept by prescribed persons. There are also powers in Article 7(3) to exempt from the payment of licence fees specified persons in specified circumstances. These regulation powers provide the necessary flexibility to deal with dogs belonging to visitors as the need arises. All parts of Northern Ireland are very keen on tourism, which is a major economic factor in the Province and which we wish to see increase as things, we hope, improve. I think that we must rely on the common sense of district councils to apply those provisions reasonably.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked about exemptions from payment of licence and whether the exemptions in Article 7(3) were in addition to the exemption from the requirement in Article 5(f). This is an additional exemption and it is needed to cover the situation where it is desirable to have a dog registered but, at the same time, to exempt the keeper from payment of licence fee. This provision could cover dogs currently licensed in the rest of the United Kingdom and brought into Northern Ireland for short periods only. So, again, it is a flexible provision. The noble Lord asked me if service dogs were exempt from licensing. Dogs kept by the Army, the Royal Air Force or the prison service would be automatically excluded from licensing by Crown exemption. It is necessary to include a specific exemption—and that is in Article 5(e)—for dogs used for police purposes by the
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Northern Ireland police authority because these may not be covered by the Crown exemption.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked if the powers of officers under Article 21 to require the production of licences include RUC officers. The straight answer to that is, No. "Officer" in this context means an officer of the district council authorised in writing by the council. As I have said earlier, the RUC have overriding powers in other legislation to enforce the law in relation to criminal offences. This could cover the production of licences if an offence was suspected. On the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, about offence provisions relating to attacks from dogs, guard dogs are not exempted directly in Articles 28 and 29 of the draft order but there is power to exempt dogs used for such other purposes as the department may by order specify and these orders would include guard dogs used by the forces and by the prison service. They could also exempt guard dogs used by private individuals and registered guard-dog kennels. I must tell the House that no decision has yet been taken on the latter aspect. I shall of course attend to the argument that the noble Lord made.
My noble friend Lord Massereene wondered how many dogs there were in Northern Ireland. We have not done a census but the varous interests with whom we discussed the legislation believe the figure to be in the region of 170,000. He asked, too, about the fixed-penalty system. This was also criticised by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. It is our judgment that the fixed-penalty system will not, per se, antagonise the public, who will be given an opportunity to avoid the inconvenience of a court appearance by the payment of a penalty. Therefore, the fixed-penalty system has advantages in reducing the burden on the rather overworked court service. We do not envisage that the dog control officers' main function will be the handing out of fixed-penalty tickets. We hope that he or she will also be playing a more positive role in advising and educating dog owners. My noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard asked about the selection of dog wardens. The district councils, I am sure, will take great care in the selection of wardens and the powers which are laid down are, on our judgment, the minimum necessary to deal with the specially serious problems in Northern Ireland which I outlined at the beginning.
Coming to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, I tried at the beginning to deal with some of the points of principle to which he objected. But, on specific issues, he questioned the sharp increase in fines in relation to straying offences and the maximum figure of £200. So many of our discussions over the last 10 years have been dealing with inflation that I would remind your Lordships that £200 is only a little over £40 in 1970 terms; although that may not be much of a consolation if you are fined it.
I would also point out that this is a maximum figure. There would be discretion in the penalties up to that figure. I am reminded that straying is an offence subject to the fixed-penalty procedure and, therefore, it is likely that the majority of offending dog owners would opt to pay the £10 fixed penalty to avoid the inconvenience of a court appearance and the possible risk of a £200 fine. Straying between sunset and sunrise is presently an offence; and there is a fine of £20. In

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Northern Ireland, between sunset and sunrise a dog must be confined in a building or shed and so on or effectively secured or accompanied by and under the control of the owner or other person. Straying, under existing legislation in Northern Ireland, is not restricted to a place of public resort.
Both my noble friend Lord Massereene and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, asked whether five days were long enough to keep a dog in the pound to be claimed by its owner. It would seem to me that any caring, conscientious and responsible dog owner of the kind that we are anxious to encourage would make inquiries about a missing dog long before five days had passed. It may console both noble Lords if I say that the five-day period is a minimum period. It can be extended at the discretion of the councils and it is expected that maximum publicity will be given in each area to the location of pounds so that the conscientious dog owner will be able to trace his dog within that period.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, commented that in Article 33(1) the dog, as opposed to the owner, is put on trial and punished. That is true. But it is likely that in the case of attacks by dogs, the sanctions in Article 29 would also be invoked against the owner and he could be subject to a £200 maximum fine in addition to the deprivation of the dog if a destruction order were imposed. The powers to penalise dogs are not new, as I think the noble Lord acknowledged. Under the 1971 Dogs Act, courts could direct destruction or control orders against dogs which were proven to be dangerous. What is new in the Northern Ireland order is that, in the case of a dog attacking a person, the owner is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine. As the noble Lord acknowledged, there is an appeal if there is an owner. The court of appeal will also have the normal powers to confirm or quash the decisions of the original court or refer them back to that court; and there are no greater powers of discretion for the court of appeal between paragraphs 1 and 2.
Finally, both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, questioned the mandatory powers of courts in Paragraph (1) of Article 33 to order the destruction of a dog which has attacked any person or behaved in such a manner as to cause a person apprehension of being attacked or who had attacked or killed livestock. There are mandatory powers in existing legislation to order the destruction of dogs where sheep are injured and it is simply proposed that under the order other livestock and, indeed, human beings should enjoy the same protection. It would seem to me that in the case of human beings, an attack might reasonably be avoided by the ingenuity of the person.
It is necessary to include the concept of putting in "fear" in the definition of "attack" but the courts will have to be satisfied that, in the circumstances, the dog had behaved in such a manner as to put a person in fear of actual attack. For example, the courts would have to be confident that the person was indeed fortunate to have escaped injury. I do not think that that would cover a nervous townsman or townswoman having his or her ankles sniffed at. The wording obviously allows the court considerable discretion and, as in all this legislation, we must trust the common sense and flexibility and also (I might close
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by saying) the well-known affection for dogs in Northern Ireland which we are liable to find in the courts as elsewhere there. I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Housing and Building Control Bill
9 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 3 [Further periods to count for qualification and discount]:
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 11:
Page, line 20, at end insert—
("(1A) In subsection (1) of section 7 of the 1980 Act (discounts) for the words "50 per cent.") there shall be substituted the words "60 per cent.".")
The noble Lord said: In speaking to this amendment, I also want to speak to Amendments Nos. 11, 13, 14 and 15. As your Lordships will know, tenants who buy their homes under the right to buy are entitled to a discount off the open market valuation. The discount is 33 per cent. for those with the basic three-year qualification entitling them to buy; it rises by increments of 1 per cent. for each year of tenancy in excess of three, to a maximum of 50 per cent. in respect of 20 or more years' tenancy. We have concluded that this discount scheme does not adequately recognise the position of one particular group of tenants. These are tenants whose period of tenancy stretches over more than 20 years. At present they get no discount in respect of their periods of tenancy over and above the 20–year mark.
In the nature of the case, we are talking here about tenants who will generally be well on in their working lives—often approaching retirement, if not indeed already retired. For such tenants, the amount of their discount entitlement may be crucial to their decision whether to buy. Tenants in this position are, of course, entitled to a mortgage under the right to buy provision. But the amount of their entitlement is related to their income; and the multiplier which is applied for this purpose reduces for tenants over the age of 60. This reflects normal building society practice. Consequently, tenants in this age bracket may well not be able to raise a mortgage for the full amount of the purchase price, even with a 50 per cent. discount.
We have concluded that the discount scale should be extended to make the right to buy more of a reality for tenants in this position. The amendment will extend the discount scale from a maximum of 50 per cent. after 20 years' to a maximum of 60 per cent. after 30 years' tenancy. Parliament has already accepted the principle of discount increasing by 1 per cent. a year between three and 20 years' tenancy. There is no reason in equity or logic why years 20 to 30 as a tenant should not be treated in exactly the same way for discount purposes as years three to 20.
Discounts will still be subject to the restrictions which apply at present. The most important of these is the "cost floor" rule, which provides, in broad terms, that discount cannot reduce the selling price below costs of construction, improvement or repair incurred since 1st April 1974. This rule will ensure that the extension of the discount scale to 60 per cent. will not

891
require authorities to sell houses at prices below the historic cost of provision.
The new discount scale, if approved, will apply to fresh right to buy applications made after the Bill comes into force, and to current applications where the tenant has not yet, at the time the Bill comes into force, received his "offer notice" under Section 10 of the 1980 Act. That is the effect of the second, third and fourth of this group of amendments.
Tenants of more than 20 years' standing, who are currently buying their homes and who receive a Section 10 offer notice before the new provision comes into force, may wish at that time to consider whether to withdraw their present applications and reapply, in order to qualify for the increased discount. However, they will need to bear in mind that, if they do so, their homes will be revalued as at the date of their fresh application; and their mortgage entitlement may be affected if their personal circumstances have changed; for instance, as a result of retirement.
I believe this extension of the right to buy discount scheme to be entirely justifiable. Tenants who have been tenants for more than 20 years, and have been paying rent over such a period, have already made a very substantial contribution to their housing costs: in some cases, they will actually have paid more than it cost to provide their homes. Their counterparts in the private sector, who have been making mortgage repayments over a similar period, will now have paid off the mortgage and will be able to look forward to reduced housing costs as their income perhaps declines in later life. This amendment will enable more tenants of long standing to buy at a price which takes fair account of their tenancy record and of the resources likely to be available to them. I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
9.5 p.m.
Baroness Birk: Words almost fail me on this amendment. I suppose the next step will be that the Government will be giving houses away with a pound of tea or coffee. It is quite amazing! When the 1980 Act was going through this House, we had a tremendous battle over the discounts, and over the figure of 33 per cent. going up to 50 per cent. Then, suddenly, this Bill is produced, there is no talk in the Bill itself of any increase in the discount and, after going through the Commons, it comes here and on Wednesday of last week an amendment was tabled by the Government, which increased the discount from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent.
If I wanted to be mischievous—and I really do not—my mind might wander to the local elections next week and the possibility of a general election in June. But, no, let us forget that. It cannot possibly have anything to do with that. Nevertheless, here we are with an increase which will, again, reduce the stock and the value of the assets of local authorities. It must also result in a certain amount of inequity. What happens to the person who has already paid a deposit on a house, who will now get a 60 per cent. discount, whereas before this Bill he or his neighbours had 50 per cent? The whole thing is so wrong, from the point of view not only of the tenants who will be treated
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differently, but also of the landlords who are the local authorities.
One would have thought that a 50 per cent., discount after 20 years was enough and could stay for the rest of people's working lives, although the Minister gave us a sob story about people being entitled to more after 30 years. If the Government think that, why did they not think of it before? Nothing else has changed. I do not suppose that we shall get a complete answer, but it would be intriguing to know why, between 24th March and 20th April, there has been an increase of 10 per cent. in the discount.
We opposed the whole principle of the discount when we debated the 1980 Act. To increase the discount is quite outrageous. It means that local authorities will be getting less and less back with which to replenish stock. It is a form of asset stripping which affects the housing stock of local authorities. The Minister might prefer to use a different phrase, but that is exactly what is happening. Instead of receiving what the property is worth, one takes the market price and then gives an enormous discount of 60 per cent. It is absolutely outrageous and quite unacceptable. That is all I need to say at this stage about the amendment. I resist it completely.
Lord Hylton: The noble Lord the Minister and the Committee may recall that in 1980 I thought that the size of the discounts being offered was too large. In those days I sat on the Government Benches. Today I sit on other Benches. I think so even more strongly today. This is a kind of give-away of public assets. What is more, it is not even a fair, or an equal, or a proportional give-away. It is what I would describe as a lottery. Let me take the position of somebody who has been the tenant of a private landlord, or even an owner-occupier, who at some point along the line becomes the tenant of a local authority. All his time as a private tenant does not count, or all his time as an owner-occupier does not count for the purposes of discount. This is pure speculation, favouring those who have been the longest tenants of local authorities or even housing associations. To have this from a Government which proclaim their faith in Victorian values seems to me to be absolutely astounding. I hope the Committtee will resist the amendment.
Lord Bellwin: Clearly there is a wide gulf between us. Just as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, feel that they must resist the amendment, I feel just as passionately that it ought to be accepted. Nobody cares tuppence about the people who occupy these homes.
Several noble Lords: No!
Lord Bellwin: Noble Lords always protest whenever I say this, but the fact is that we have been fought every inch of the way. The noble Baroness will go on fighting every inch of the way against the right to buy. The fact is that over half a million people have now exercised their right to buy. People have paid rent for up to 30 years and have nothing at all. We are suggesting that we should give them the right to buy. Again the gulf is wider than ever.
Baroness Birk: The noble Lord said that they have nothing. However, we are discussing an amendment which increases the discount from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. It is quite ridiculous for the Minister to say that they have nothing. They will have the 50 per cent. discount, anyhow. What we are discussing and arguing about at the moment is that the 50 per cent. should be increased to 60 per cent. That can only be for purely political reasons. Otherwise, let the Minister tell me why this was not in the Bill originally and explained at Second Reading.
Lord Bellwin: The last thing which the noble Baroness should do is to talk about political reasons. Her political theology is totally against the right to buy—all the way down the line. We are 100 miles apart on this. It is a matter of opinion about helping another batch of people, about whom the noble Lords and Baronesses opposite and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, simply do not want to know. I agree with the noble Baroness about one thing: that there is not much point in saying any more about it.
The Earl of Perth: I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, can say why he has chosen 60 per cent? Why not 100 per cent?
Lord Bellwin: In order to continue exactly the same ratio of 1 per cent. per year, following on from the 20 to the 30 as goes from the 3 to the 20 at the moment.
The Earl of Perth: If you live for 40 years or more in your home will you get an 80 per cent. discount?
Lord Bellwin: I hear what the noble Earl says.
Lord Evans of Claughton: Although I was out of the Chamber when the discussion started, I want to underline from these Benches that we and, I understand, others are not against the concept of the right to buy. We are concerned about the fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, rightly suggested, that the granting of discounts is going far too far. It is the level at which the noble Lord is suggesting that discounts should be taken, and the particular time at which this proposal is being made, which we find unacceptable.
9.13 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 11) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 69; Not-Contents, 44.

DIVISION NO. 3

CONTENTS

Airey Of Abingdon, B.

Cockfield, L.

Auckland, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Avon, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Bathurst, E.

Craigavon, V.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Crathorne, L.

Bellwin, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Beloff, L.

Davidson, V.

Belstead, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Boardman, L.

Dormer, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Eccles, V.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Elton, L.

Cathcart, E.

Faithfull, B.

894

Ferrier, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Fortescue, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Mersey, V.

Gisborough, L.

Minto, E.

Glanusk, L.

Molson, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Grantchester, L.

Norfolk, D.

Gridley, L.

Radnor, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Rochdale, V.

Haig, E.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Saint Oswald, L.

Sandford, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Sharples, B.

Lawrence, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Long, V.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Lyell, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

McFadzean, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Mansfield, E.

Wise, L.

Margadale, L,

Young, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Balogh, L.

John-Mackay, L.

Birk, B.

Kirkhill, L.

Bishopston, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Blease, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Brockway, L.

Melchett, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Chitnis, L.

Perth, E.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Collison, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Denington, B.

Eldon, E.

Prys-Davies, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Raglan, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Shackleton, L.

Hanworth, V.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stone, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Hylton, L.

Tordoff, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Underhill, L.

Jeger, B.

White, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
9.21 p.m.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 3, line 20, at end insert—
("(1B) In subsection (2) of that section after the words "31st March 974" there shall be inserted the words "(or such later date as may be specified in an order made by the Secretary of State)".").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to give the Secretary of State the power to substitute for 31st March 1974 a later date as the cut-off date for the cost floor. The cost floor is a limit on a purchaser's discount entitlement under the right to buy. It is imposed by Section 7(2) of the 1980 Act, which provides that a tenant should not receive discount to which he would otherwise be entitled if that discount would reduce the purchase price below the costs incurred in relation to the dwellinghouse which the Secretary of State has determined as relevant for this purpose. The current determination includes the relevant historic cost of acquiring, constructing or improving the dwellinghouse. Only costs incurred after 31st March 1974 count towards the cost floor, and this cut-off date of 31st March 1974 is written into Section 7(2). Primary legislation would

895
be required to change it. This amendment will give the Secretary of State the power to change the cut-off date by order to such later date as he may specify.
The cost floor provision was included in the Act in order to protect the public purse and to ensure that, in selling, a landlord was not obliged to incur an immediate capital loss as a result of the discount provisions. The cut-off date of 31st March 1974 was chosen for two reasons: first, to help local authorities by removing the need to search records pre-dating local government reorganisation; and, secondly, because movements in costs and prices since that date made it unlikely that costs incurred before then would bite on a tenant's discount entitlement in 1980. In principle, therefore, there is a case for bringing the cut-off date forward from time to time, to reflect continuing movements in costs and prices, thus saving unnecessary work for local authorities in calculating cost floors which will not affect the purchase price.
This amendment will not itself change the cost floor cut-off date; my right honourable friend has not yet reached a decision on the matter. It will merely give him the power to do so by order. This will introduce greater flexibility into the provision, and avoid the delays which might occur if a change of date had to await primary legislation. I therefore ask your Lordships to accept this amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I listened to what the noble Lord said, and, with all due respect to the noble Lord, I think that if one did not know anything about housing at all one would still not know anything when he sat down. The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that, previously, housing authorities would not sell off their properties at any discount lower than the cost of building them. In listening to the noble Lord I was not entirely sure whether that is the fundamental change; that they will be able to sell properties at less than it cost to build them. I am not sure what is meant by the "cost floor date". That is a new one to me. If the noble Lord could help me on that, I would be grateful.
In talking about the help that it will give to local authorities, I am not sure that the noble Lord understands that there will be a difficulty if we keep on changing the rules as we go along. I know from past experience that what upsets tenants in council properties is if someone next door pays a lower rent than they do. That is always a source of conflict in council properties. If we are reaching the stage where someone is having a different kind of discount or help, it will not only cause discontent among people who are purchasing properties but also make it difficult for the local authorities who will constantly have to charge what one might call their sales technique to their clients. I am not sugggesting that local authorities do not want to do their best to sell properties. Most local authorities are now already in full swing selling as many houses as they can. But they are confronted with all manner of difficulties when they have potential buyers who are grumbling about the constant changes.
It might be that because I do not understand about the cost floor date the noble Lord will explain and tell me I am completely wrong. However, as so many local authorities are now spending their housing money and
896
considerably increasing their plans for building more and more houses to let, does it therefore mean these houses that are being built at the higher price will come down to the average discount of what was 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. or will they go into the 60 per cent. range as well? The noble Lord has brought out all sorts of problems and the way he explained the amendment was, in a way, to let us know that it was something simple, but I read between the lines that it is very much more sinister than he says.
Lord Bellwin: Not in the slightest. It is quite straightforward. The point about the percentage discount has nothing whatever to do with it. It is another matter entirely. As I said before, the purpose and effect of the amendment is to give the Secretary of State the power to change the cut-off date to any later date that he may specify without having to change the primary legislation. It may be right that the cut-off date should be changed from time to time to reflect the impact of inflation. As I said earlier, it will save unnecessary work for local authorities in determining cost floors, which will not often bite on discounts. We are currently considering the arguments for such a change.
The amendment will not change the cut-off date but merely give the Secretary of State the power to do so. As the noble Baroness knows, I too am not without a little experience of housing. I do not think that what appears to concern the noble Baroness is a fact. The noble Baroness will need to study carefully what has been said and she knows that if she wishes to raise any questions with me verbally, or in writing, I shall be glad to give greater clarification. But I can assure her that there is nothing sinister in this amendment.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: Can the noble Lord tell us what he means by the cost floor date? That is a completely new one to me. I have tried to follow what the noble Lord said. I think that I understand what he means by the cut-off date. I am not quite sure whether what I think is what he thinks, but I shall not argue on that. But I am not sure what he means by the cost floor date.
Lord Bellwin: The cost floor date is the date on which the calculation is made as to what is the cost floor. Clearly I shall be happy to write a detailed explanatory note showing how the calculation is arrived at and anything else that I think would help the noble Baroness.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 3, line 21, leave out from first ("of") to ("there") in line 22 and insert ("that section").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 3, line 36, leave out from ("apply") to ("for") in line 37 and insert ("(a)").
On Question, amendment agreed to,
Lord Bellwin Lord Bellwin moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 3, line 41, leave out from ("(b)") to ("for") in line 42.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Schedule inserted after Schedule 1 to 1980 Act]:
[Amendment No. 16 not moved.]
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clauses 4 to 6 agreed to.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Clauses 7 and 8 agreed to.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 17:
After Clause 8, insert the following new clause:
(Costs
.—(1) For section 21 of the 1980 Act (costs) there shall be substituted the following section—
"Costs.
21.—(1) Any agreement between—

(a) a tenant claiming to exercise the right to buy and the landlord; or

(b) a tenant claiming to exercise the right to a mortgage and the landlord or, as the case may be, the Housing Corporation,

shall be void in so far as it purports to oblige the tenant to bear any part of the costs incurred by the landlord or Housing Corporation in connection with the tenant's exercise of that right.
(2) Where a tenant exercises the right to a mortgage, the landlord or, as the case may be, the Housing Corporation may charge to him the costs incurred by it in connection with the tenant's exercise of that right, but only on the execution of the deed by which the mortgage is effected and to the extent that those costs do not exceed such amount as the Secretary of State may by order specify."
(2) In section 10(3), 11(6) and 13(2) of the 1980 Act for the word "exercising" there shall be substituted the words "claiming to exercise".").
The noble Lord said: The principal objective of this new clause is to clarify an existing provision in the 1980 Act, which applies where a tenant exercising his right to buy also exercises his right to a mortgage. Section 21(2) of the 1980 Act permits a landlord or the housing corporation, as the case may be, to charge to a tenant the costs incurred by the landlord in connection with the tenant's exercise of his right to a mortgage. This is subject to a maximum sum specified by order—which is currently £50 (prescribed by the Housing (Right to Buy) (Mortgage Costs) Order 1980. The Government have taken the view that Section 21(2) does not allow such costs to be charged where the mortgage is in the event not entered into. In policy terms I am sure this is right: tenants should not have to pay where—perhaps for reasons beyond their control—the mortgage transaction falls through. However, some landlords have interpreted Section 21(2) in such a manner as to allow costs to be charged even where the mortgage is not completed. The Government regard this as manifestly unfair. This is to correct that anomaly. I beg to move.
Baroness Birk: I am not entirely clear about this. Is this a form of a further subsidy to the tenants? Putting further costs on to the local authority seems to be an additional burden on them. The end of the new subsection (2) states:
"to the extent that those costs do not exceed such amount as the Secretary of State may by order specify".
I should like a further explanation of that. Does it mean that it all goes back to the Secretary of State each time? I wonder whether the noble Lord could clarify this a little more.
Lord Skelmersdale: At the moment, as I said just now, where the tenant exercises or seeks to exercise his right to a mortgage, he pays a fee of £50. Where the mortgage agreement is subsequently entered into, that £50 of course counts as part of the mortgage, but this amendment applies to where it does not and ensures that the tenant has the mortgage option money refunded, which I think the noble Baroness will agree is the right course to pursue.
Baroness Birk: It is getting a little late, and we have all been dealing with the Bill for some hours. I should like to reserve our position on this particular amendment and read, when I am probably clearer-headed, what the noble Lord has said. If necessary, I shall return to the matter on Report.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Clause 9 agreed to.
9.35 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 18:
After Clause 9, insert the following new clause:
(Costs of intervention.
. In subsection (9) of section 23 of the 1980 Act (Secretary of State's power to intervene) for the words from "on demand" onwards there shall be substituted the words "on a date specified in the certificate, together with interest from that date at a rate so specified".").
The noble Lord said: This is a very minor amendment to overcome an administrative difficulty, and I hope that it need not concern your Lordships for long. Section 23 of the 1980 Act gives the Secretary of State the power to intervene and take over the sale of council houses where it appears to him that tenants have, or may have, difficulty in exercising their right to buy "effectively and expeditiously"—and that is a quote from the Act. Where that power is used—and it has been used on two occasions—Section 23(9) enables the Secretary of State to recover from the landlord any costs incurred as a result of his intervention. He has to certify what those costs are. The difficulty which has arisen is that as soon as these costs are certified, interest is payable by the landlord as from the date of certification. Unless special arrangements are made, this will almost certainly be before the landlord gets his bill. This is absurd.
The purpose of the new clause is to ovecome these difficulties by amending Section 23(9) of the 1980 Act, so that the costs are payable by the authority on, and the interest will run from, such date as may be specified in the certificate, rather than from the date of the certificate, as at present. That will enable the Secretary of State to specify in advance the date on which the payment should be made, thus avoiding the complication of having to calculate interest from the date of certification itself.
The new clause will make the whole procedure much simpler to operate from an administrative point of view for both the department and the local authority, and I hope that your Lordships will agree to it. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 10 [Secretary of State's power to give directions as to covenants and conditions]:
Baroness Birk Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 9, line 5, leave out lines 5 to 14.
The noble Baroness said: This amendment seeks to remove the power of the Secretary of State in the new Section 24B(1) to change retrospectively covenants and conditions of sale for dwellings which have already been sold under the right to buy. The AMA, in particular, and individual local authorities, have had protracted discussions with the Government over the types of conditions and requirements which can be included when the house is sold. The argument, which has been pursued on an all-party basis—I repeat that it has been on an all-party basis—is that conditions attached to sales in the public sector should be no more nor less than those which can be applied in the private sector. Therefore, representations have been made that it is reasonable to require purchasers to remain connected to district heating schemes where removal would affect the viability of such schemes. In order to help the case, evidence was provided of similar requirements in the private sector. First of all, the Government would not accept these arguments and threatened to intervene under the right to buy, but after meetings with Ministers it was agreed that the conditions would be reasonable in many circumstances.
Similarly, in the view of the AMA it is reasonable to include estate-based services, such as grass-cutting and maintenance of private estate roads, for purchasing households who enjoy these benefits, and once again evidence was made available to the Government of similar charges in the private sector. It is true to say that in the end many of these requirements were acceded to.
The existing powers in the 1980 Act already allow for either action in the county court or intervention by the Secretary of State should the conditions be considered unreasonable. In our view the whole of Clause 10 is quite unnecessary, since existing powers are more than adequate. It gives the Secretary of State the opportunity to set conditions for sale considerably more favourable to a purchaser of a property in the public sector than would be the case in the private sector. No such powers of redress exist for private sector purchasers who must use the courts.
What is particularly unsatisfactory is the retrospective power in Section 24B(1), which allows for changes to be made in the conditions of sale for properties already sold. At minimum, this power should be removed. If people who have bought their dwellings under the right to buy are dissatisfied with the conditions of sale, they should pursue their difficulties either with the landlord or through the courts in the same way as the private sector purchaser. Solicitors acting under the right to buy would in any case have advised them of the conditions and reasonableness of any lease or covenant. I beg to move.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): As the noble baroness has explained, the effect of the amendment would be to remove the first subsection of the proposed Section 24B and hence to disapply the Secretary of State's proposed power of direction in so
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far as it may be applied to modify the terms of completed sales. The proposed Section 24B is in the Government's view an important and necessary part of the provision. I hope that your Lordships will reject the amendment. Indeed, I hope that the noble Baroness, after I have sought to explain our position, may feel able to withdraw it.
The purpose of Section 24B is to restore to former tenants their right to buy on the terms laid down by Parliament. I should emphasise first that the proposed power of direction is in fact only narrowly drawn. Under Section 24A the Secretary of State will be in a position to direct that certain covenants are not included in right to buy conveyances or leases only if it appears to him that conveyances or leases containing such covenants would not conform with the requirements in Schedule 2 of the 1980 Act. The Secretary of State will thus be in a position to make directions only in respect of covenants and conditions that are not in conformity with the 1980 Act.
In these circumstances, we believe that it is important that any changes imposed in connection with future sales should be capable of being applied also in connection with sales already completed. If a completed conveyance or lease includes covenants or conditions that do not conform with the requirements of the 1980 Act, it is in our view clearly right that the relevant covenants or conditions should be removed or modified appropriately. In our view, this is in no way to modify existing rights. It is simply to give proper effect to existing rights. I hope that your Lordships will share that view and that the noble Baroness will feel able, as I have said, to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Birk: Is it not true that when this comes into effect it could result in higher rates? Is it not the case that financially this could be one of the results?
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: That situation could only arise if the existing rates are low by reason of provisions that should not have been put in the covenants or leases in question. This is giving to the tenants who have acquired their properties what they were entitled to under the 1980 Act. It is an effctive means of doing that.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: I think that my noble friend mentioned district heating schemes. Is it not the case that, if half a dozen of the 18 pulled out of the district heating scheme, the cost of the scheme would have to be covered by those people still left in it? Who pays for that? The total installation is there and the cost of running it will be there. If there are 24 people participating and six of them buy, this means that 18 are left to pay. Who will cover that cost? Bearing in mind that of the 18, more often than not, 50 per cent. will be on housing benefit and social security schemes, who will cover that amount? Will it have to come out of the housing revenue account? That would be most unfortunate, as it would come out of rented property. Or will an extra Government grant be given? The cost has to be found somewhere if people are allowed to withdraw from a district heating scheme as mentioned by my noble friend.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: Of course, precisely what the appropriate covenants or terms of conveyances should be is a matter of circumstances. But all that the Government's proposal does is to give the people who bought what the 1980 Act entitled them to get. Therefore, anything that the noble Baroness is saying about the impact of these matters is not a complaint against these powers; it is a comment upon what Parliament laid down in 1980. All that this is intended to do is to give effect to what Parliament then provided.
Baroness Birk: I think that I shall have to read what the Minister has said. This is a complicated matter. I am not satisfied either with the reply to myself or with the reply to my noble friend Lady Fisher. But I will have the opportunity possibly of coming back on Report. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10 agreed to.
9.47 p.m.
Clause 11 [Secretary of State's power to obtain information etc.]:
Baroness Birk Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 10, line 26, leave out ("without instructions from the landlord").
The noble Baroness said: This whole clause is extremely worrying. It extends the Secretary of State's power which is embodied in Section 23 of the main 1980 Act and thrusts it that much more forward, which we find dangerous. I was in two minds at first to try and delete the whole of the clause, but I thought that that might be unacceptable to the Government. So for the moment we have tabled an amendment to leave out the words:
"without instructions from the landlord".
Under the powers proposed it means that the Secretary of State can at any time he thinks it necessary or expedient instruct local authorities to produce any document or copy of a document related to the right to buy. To exercise the existing powers in the 1980 Act, the Secretary of State must first be satisfied that delays are being experienced or that tenants are having difficulty in exercising the right to buy. Clause 11 is, therefore, much wider in its powers for the Secretary of State. I want to make it quite clear that the Secretary of State has already taken unto himself under the 1980 Act extremely wide powers which he has in some cases already used.
Under this clause, which I find very unpleasant, the local authority officers must comply with this provision regardless of instructions received from their employing elected members. In other words, they have an almost schizophrenic situation with their employers—on the one hand, the local authority which is their direct employer; and on the other hand, the Secretary of State who has taken unto himself in this Bill the right to intervene or interfere. This means that the Secretary of State can instruct any officer designated by the local authority as having control of the documents sought.
If one does not delete the clause which, as I have said, is one's first instinct, then we feel that the clause simply must be modified. What it does—and this must be wrong—is set local authority officers against their employers. By saying,
"without instructions from the landlord"
it means that the officers involved—and they need not be the chief officers—are responsible to their employers, the council, and are generally charged with carrying out their wishes and instructions. Should they receive notice under Clause 11, they may be required to act in a manner directly contrary to instructions received from their own employers. This may well affect their career prospects and certainly will not make for good relations between employer and employee. Local authority officers should not be made party to disputes on the right to buy in this matter. It really is very unfortunate, and in some ways quite monstrous, to ask people without instructions from the landlord, which as I understand it from the way in which this clause is drafted, means that the Secretary of State goes over the head of the local authority, which is the employer of these people, and demands a
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document or information. What kind of industrial relations is that? It is quite wrong both in philosophy and in practice and, in any event, the Secretary of State already has ample powers, which he has used. We are also well aware of the figures, which have gone up considerably, of the sale of council houses. At the moment there does not seem to be very much wrong with the numbers which are being sold. I beg to move.
Lord Prys-Davies: This particular clause has also given me some difficulty. As I understand it, by virtue of the 1980 Act the Secretary of State already enjoys the power to intervene when he considers that a tenant is having difficulty in exercising his right to buy effectively and expeditiously. Those are considerable powers, and I can assure your Lordships that many owners of leasehold dwellinghouses, who are qualified to purchase the freehold reversions of their homes under the 1967 Act, would wish that the Secretary of State had a similar power to intervene on their behalf when they are having difficulty in purchasing the freehold reversion expeditiously and effectively.
I could quote from South Wales and give instances of tenants who are finding it extremely difficult to proceed expeditiously with the purchase of their freehold reversion. So if the Secretary of State is concerned about the rights of tenants, why does he not in the first instant extend the right which he already enjoys, so that it is available to the lessees of dwellinghouses? That is point number one.
As I understand the 1980 Act—and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—the Secretary of State also enjoys the power to demand that officers produce documents and information without the landlord's instructions. He already enjoys that right. I am very much against extending that right. He has that right if he wants to intervene, but it seems to me that he now requires this right in order to decide whether or not he will intervene. I should have thought that we should regard the right which he has been given in the 1980 Act to demand the production of documents and information as being exceptional. It should not be extended. If it is to be extended, then the onus is on the Secretary of State to show that he requires this additional power.
My Leader has made it quite clear why we are opposed to the extension of this right.
Lord Murton of Lindisfarne: Who is your Leader?
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My noble friend meant to say his noble friend.
Lord Prys-Davies: Yes, my noble friend. We consider it an unreasonable demand. The position of the staff will be intolerable if they are bound to comply with the notice from the Secretary of State in breach of their instructions from their employers. Therefore, we have a real conflict between their loyalty to their employers whom they serve and their loyalty to the requirements of the State and it would be unreasonable to put officers in such a position. We are also concerned about the electorate and their elected representatives who seem to be having their job taken from them. Therefore, the tendency enshrined in this proviso drives a wedge between officers and councils

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and could be damaging for democracy. It is for the Secretary of State to make out a case for the extension of the right given to him in 1980 to the present circumstances.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has explained that the purpose of this amendment to Clause 11 is to avoid a situation in which a local government officer would be presented with conflicting obligations between the wishes of his employer—the local authority—and the wishes of the Secretary of State. Before speaking to the amendment itself, however, perhaps it would be useful if I sought to clarify the purpose of Clause 11 as a whole. That clause builds upon a provision already contained in the 1980 Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, has correctly said, giving the Secretary of State a power to require landlords to supply information.
Section 23 of the 1980 Act provides the Secretary of State with the power to intervene where it appears to him that a tenant or tenants of a particular landlord are experiencing difficulty in exercising their right to buy effectively and expeditiously. Where the Secretary of State has intervened he may use his powers under Section 23(5) to require a landlord to provide him with documents or information when he considers it necessary or expedient for the exercise of his powers of intervention. Section 23(5) already provides that any officer of the landlord shall without instructions from the landlord take all reasonable steps to supply the information requested; so the basic phrase is already in the Act of 1980.
The provisions of Section 23(5) do not give the Secretary of State express power to require the landlord to supply information prior to intervention. One purpose of Clause 11 is to put beyond doubt the Secretary of State's power to require information in the right-to-buy context prior to intervention. It gives the Secretrary of State a power to serve a notice on landlords—not just local authorities—requiring them to furnish him with any information he may need to decide whether tenants are having difficulty in exercising their statutory right to buy their homes, and whether he should exercise his powers of intervention.
Clause 10 of the Bill provides the Secretary of State with the power to give directions as to covenants and conditions contained in conveyances or leases by inserting two new sections, 24A and 24B into the 1980 Act. It is essential that the Secretary of State should also be able to obtain from landlords full information concerning any such covenants and conditions, in order to decide both whether or not to exercise his power to give directions and also how it should operate; this is the second purpose of this clause. The purpose of the clause is to enable the Secretary of State to obtain information so that he can decide whether or not these powers, which are essentially reserve powers, are exercisable. It is a power which is essential to enable the Secretary of State to ensure that tenants are able to exercise their statutory rights without hindrance or penalty.
I come now to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness. It seeks to remove the words "without instructions from the landlord" from the new section. The purpose is to prevent the local government officer being presented with conflicting obligations or
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becoming, in the words of the noble Baroness, schizophrenic. If landlord authorities are prepared to place obstacles in the way of tenants seeking to exercise their statutory rights then I ask your Lordships, who is responsible? To my mind there is only one obligation for both employer and employee alike. That is, to accept the decision of Parliament. No criticism should be attached to this provision of Clause 11. Any criticism should be directed at the landlord authorities which make the provision necessary.
The purpose of the provision is to avoid the possibility of a landlord forcing a confrontation with the Secretary of State by directing staff not to comply with a notice served under this section. The effect of the amendment moved by the noble Baroness would be to make such confrontations all the more likely. Removing the words "without instructions from the landlord" will do nothing to help the local government officer. In fact, arguably it would make his position rather worse. He would still be under the statutory obligation to take all reasonable steps that the notice is complied with. What, then, if his employers instruct him not to do so? His will be the invidious choice of deciding whether a court would consider it reasonable for him to disregard the instructions of his employers.
In my view the amendment moved by the noble Baroness is based on groundless fears. It is unnecessary and is a recipe for confrontation. It would disadvantage those whom it is claimed to help. I hope that in the light of that explanation the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment, and I hope that in any event your Lordships would not feel able to support it.
Lord Prys-Davies: I asked specifically that the Secretary of State should establish that he has a case to demand this additional power. The Minister has not replied to that question. As I understand from the comments of the Minister when he spoke to an earlier amendment, the Secretary of State has been asked to intervene on only two occasions. We have heard of thousands of houses which have been sold since 1980, but he has had to intervene on only two occasions. Are those the grounds upon which he requires the additional powers—because he has had to intervene on two occasions in the matter of the sales of some thousands of houses?
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: I of course noticed the noble Lord's question, and I endeavoured to answer it. I said there were two grounds on which the Secretary of State considered it necessary to have this power. The first is that he requires express power to require information prior to intervention, in order that he may be able to decide on a better basis whether or not he should intervene. The second ground is in order to enable him to understand the position with regard to covenants and conditions which have been imposed in conveyances or leases, so that he may see whether these conform with the 1980 Act. That is the basis on which these powers are sought. With all respect to the noble Lord, I venture to think that I answered his question.
Baroness Birk: All my noble friend said is absolutely right, and I quite agree with him. What is now happening is that, as both he and I pointed out and the

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Minister agreed, we have in Section 23 of the 1980 Act more than ample powers—I seem to remember that we argued about that a great deal in the passage of that Bill—for the Secretary of State to intervene. It is quite insidious and creeping, this power of the Secretary of State. If it were not such a thin Committee as it is at the moment, there would have been many noble Lords concerned with local government who would have said something and remonstrated about this.
It appears that it is never enough. We get the very interventionary section in the 1980 Act, and now, again, in this Bill we have even more. I do not know whether the Secretary of State wants to emulate what the management appears to have been doing recently at BL. This way of conducting what I can only call industrial relations seems most extraordinary and damaging all round—to say that you can go over the authority's head to the employees! If the object is to do away with local government entirely and have everything run by the Secretary of State, and just have a puppet force there locally, this is one way of doing it. It is both undignified and unfair to the elected members. It also puts the people who are asked to produce the documents and information, at whatever levels they are working within the authority, at a difficult disadvantage.
This is late at night. As we can see there are very few of us in the Committee, and it is obviously not the moment to divide on this; but it is totally unsatisfactory. For the moment I shall withdraw the amendment and take an opportunity to read what the Minister has said. I cannot think that it will alter my mind. It was clear; there was nothing wrong with the clarity of his explanation. It was just completely unacceptable. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 agreed to.
10.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 13 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Skelmersdale: I think that it would be useful if we could now consider Amendments Nos. 24, 34, 35, 36 and 80. It will then become clear why the Government wish to delete the existing Clause 13. The first new clause, in Amendment No. 34, provides a limited but useful extension of the powers of local authorities and the housing corporations to guarantee repayment of mortgage loans. The present powers in Section 111 of the 1980 Act permit these authorities to idemnify only building societies. Since that provision was enacted, a greater share of mortgage lending has been provided by other financial bodies, particularly the banks.
There have been representations from both local authorities and financial institutions for an extension of the indemnity arrangements to other major mortgage lenders which will enable them to support the local authorities' home ownership initiatives at the lower end of the market, particularly in the inner cities, in shared ownership and council house sales. We agree that an extension of the provision will be helpful
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and this present opportunity is being used to extend the availability of indemnities as far as is possible within what is relevant to the Bill.
The second new clause (Amendment No. 35) to be inserted after Clause 23 essentially replaces the existing Clause 13. It has been redrafted for consistency with the first new clause which I have explained. The purpose of the second clause is to enable authorities to assist tenants with costs incurred in obtaining a private sector mortgage. Where a council tenant exercises the right to buy, he has a right to a mortgage from the local authority. Where he exercises that right, the local authority may charge him the costs incurred by them in granting a mortgage up to a maximum amount prescribed by the Secretary of State.
As I told your Lordships a little earlier, this limit is currently set at £50. Where the tenant seeks a mortgage from the private sector source, there is no limit on the transaction costs which he may be liable to pay; and often those costs can be rather higher than the maximum £50 payable in the right to buy a mortgage. The difference is generally small but we have had representations from a number of authorities that this extra charge is enough to deter some tenants who could obtain a private sector mortgage from doing so, with the consequent loss to the local authority of the capital receipt that they might otherwise have obtained from the property.
This new clause provides the local authority with express power to contribute towards mortgage costs. It covers both the case where the tenant seeks a private sector mortgage in initially exercising his right to buy and also the case where the tenant initially exercises his right to a mortgage from the local authority but subsequently agrees to pay that off and obtain a private mortgage instead. In both situations the authority will be able to assist with one of the incidental costs of survey fees, administration charges, and so on, as it thinks fit. It will be for the local authority to decide in what circumstances such contributions are justified.
The clause enables my right honourable friend to prescribe a maximum contribution by order. The precise sum is still for consideration but, obviously, it will be related to the typical charges which a householder may face in taking out a mortgage. This is a useful and sensible clarification of local authorities' discretion which will be of benefit both to the authorities and to the tenant purchasers concerned.
The remaining three amendments in this group are purely technical and consequential amendments to those I have already described.
Clause 13 disagreed to.
Lord Swinfen: I do not know whether it is in order for me to say so, but my noble friend Lady Parkes was trying to speak before the Question was put. I do not know what the position is. The Question has now been put; but she appeared to be trying to make a point on the amendment.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I was interested in Amendment No. 35.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am not sure whether I am in order, but I shall of course respond to any questions on

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Amendment No. 35 when we get to it. I shall move it formally and my noble friend will have an opportunity to question me at that point, if she so wishes.
Baroness Birk Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 21:
After Clause 13, insert the following new clause:
(Elderly Persons Accommodation.
. In Schedule Ito the 1980 Act (Exceptions to right to buy) leave out paragraph 5 and insert—
"5. The dwelling-house is designed or specially adapted to make it suitable for occupation by persons of pensionable age, and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by persons of pensionable age.".").
The noble Baroness said: Because of the lateness of the hour, I shall be quite brief. This is an extremely important amendment and I am quite sure that we shall probably have to come back to it. Noble Lords—and, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin—will remember that during the passage of the 1980 Act we had a lot of debates about the exclusion of elderly persons' accommodation from the right to buy. At that time, an amendment which I moved in this House was accepted. The amendment stated:
"The accommodation is designed or specially adapted to make it suitable for occupation by persons of pensionable age, and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by persons of pensionable age.".
It was passed with a considerable majority and with the support of a number of noble Lords from the Minister's own Benches, as well as from all around the House.
When the other place considered the Lords' amendments, it was, unfortunately—and very unfortunately, as it has turned out—modified to give the Secretary of State the final say in decisions to exclude elderly persons' accommodation from sale. That is in Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act, under which appeals go to the Secretary of State. This exclusion has worked out in a very one-sided way. The latest figures show that over 90 per cent. of applications from authorities of all political persuasions have been rejected by the Secretary of State.
Without wearying the House with an analysis of figures, I understand that the majority of appeals have come from Conservative authorities, which have been trying to operate the right to buy provisions as well as they can, and have been very concerned about the lack of rented accommodation for elderly people. This is particularly true in rural areas. It is our view that the exclusion of elderly persons' accommodation needs to be more tightly defined, in order that properties which are designed or specially adapted for the elderly are properly excluded from the right to buy arrangement.
This amendment is exactly the same as the one of 1980, but if there was some help and co-operation from the Government I should be quite prepared to change the drafting, if necessary, so that it could be discussed at the next stage. Without going into more detail—and I assure noble Lords that I have pages of detail—that is the nub of the case. There is no doubt that the intention and the spirit of the amendment which was passed in this House have worked out completely differently in practice, and this is causing a great many problems, anxiety and heartache. This is the first opportunity in this Bill to try to get it right again, and I hope that we shall be able to do so. My noble friend Lady Denington, who supported the
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amendment to the 1980 Act, has her name down to this amendment and we hope that something will come of it. I beg to move.
Baroness Denington: There is great disquiet about this matter. My noble friend Lady Birk has told your Lordships why we shall have to come back to it. In view of the hour I shall say no more, other than that I shall say what has to be said on the next occasion.
Lord Bellwin: That, if I may say so, is a pretty bit of shadow boxing. I, too, have copious notes on the matter. It is a question of how far one deals with it now. All I would say is that the main effect of the amendment would be to transfer from the Secretary of State to the landlord the responsibility for deciding whether to exclude elderly persons' dwellings from the right to buy. Its effect would be to withdraw the right to buy from some tenants who have it already, as agreed by Parliament. In the Government's view, it would be quite unacceptable to withdraw important and valuable legal rights from those who have them already. The fact is that the provision of what is now paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 to the 1980 Act represents a carefully balanced compromise, worked out, after much debate in both Houses, in 1980.
Although I do not wish at this late hour to inject an unduly contentious note into the proceedings, since we have had a good share of that today, I am sorry that yet again the Labour Party are reopening these issues and are trying to discriminate against elderly people who wish to buy their homes. I am not going to go into all that has happened in practice. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, is right when she says that it does no harm to bring out what has been the experience. The noble Baroness referred to the 90 per cent. of rejections. A careful analysis of these is very revealing and makes the Government's case for not proceeding, rather than the noble Baroness's case. However, I gather that the debate is not for tonight. Therefore, at this stage I shall do no more than restate the Government's general attitude.
Baroness Denington: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, for making his position quite clear. Now we know that we have to do battle with him.
Lord Bellwin: Not for the first time.
Baroness Birk: I agree that it is shadow boxing. I think the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, agrees with me that there is not much point at this stage in prolonging the debate. He intends to bring forward examples. I, too, have examples which seem to me to be rather unfair. Parliament decided quite specifically, by a considerable majority in this House, that the dwellinghouse should be suitable
"for occupation by persons of pensionable age and which it is the practice of the landlord to let for occupation by persons of pensionable age".
Therefore, it defines the age group and the practice of the authority. This is the narrowing down which many people wanted. I am quite sure that the noble Lord would not welcome it now, but I could read out to him everything that was said to him in the debate on that amendment. I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 [Right to be granted a shared ownership lease]:
10.20 p.m.
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 13, line 42, leave out ("landlord") and insert ("landlord's agent").
The noble Lord said: This is purely a probing amendment to find out what is the position with any interest earned on the deposit of £100, bearing in mind that completion, after a notice to complete, must be within a reasonable period but not less than 56 days under Clause 19(3), which can be further delayed, as I understand the Bill, under the provisions of Clause 19(6) and (7) for another 56 days. If I am right, it can be delayed under the terms of Section 16(3)(c) of the 1980 Act for up to two years. So with interest at, say, 10 per cent., some 20 per cent. of the total deposit could be earned within that period. I should be interested to learn from my noble friend what the position will be. I beg to move.
Lord Bellwin: Clause 14(2)(c) repeats the provisions of Section 16(4)(c) of the 1980 Act. This requires a tenant, when he exercises his right to defer completion, to pay a deposit of £100 to the landlord. This deferment of completion is, of course, the necessary preliminary to the exercise of the right to shared ownership, which we are introducing in Clauses 14 to 21.
However, deferred completion is not itself new. Since the 1980 Act was introduced, over 2½ years ago, some 8,700 tenants have exercised the right to defer completion, and have duly paid the deposit of £100 to their landlord. I know of not a single case in which the present arrangements have given rise to any difficulty. Nor can I see that any difficulties are likely to arise from the fact that we are in this Bill extending the right to buy to certain new types of property.
My noble friend may have in mind the normal arrangement in the private sector, where someone who intends to buy a house will pay a deposit to an estate agent or solicitor acting as stakeholder, rather than direct to the vendor. However, in the case of the right to defer completion this is unnecessary, since the legislation specifically states what is to happen to the £100. If the tenant decides not to proceed with purchase, the £100 is to be returned to him; if he decides to proceed, either with outright purchase or with purchase on shared ownership terms, the £100 is to be counted towards the purchase price. This is all clearly laid down in Section 16 of the 1980 Act and Clause 19(2) of the Bill.
This amendment could not stand alone. If it were accepted, other amendments would be necessary to Section 16 and Clause 19. I do not think there are any considerations here which justify another batch of amendments, and as my noble friend said that this was in the nature of a probing amendment I wonder whether he feels that he has the information he requires and will withdraw. I hardly need say that if my noble friend would like further information or detail, I shall be glad to make this available to him.
Lord Swinfen: With the greatest respect to my noble friend Lord Bellwin, he has not answered my question as to what might be the position in regard to interest. He has told me what would happen to the deposit, and that I understand. But, surely, with a deposit being held by a landlord, in some instances for a considerable length of time, it can earn interest; and should not this interest go towards the purchase price? If the sale does not proceed and the deposit is returned, should it not be returned together with the interest?
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the common practice in Australia in these circumstances. If the purchase proceeds to completion, the benefit of the interest is given to the purchaser. If, however, the purchaser withdraws from his wish to buy, then the interest is given to the person who has lost the sale. If this matter is to be considered, perhaps an arrangement of that kind might be appropriate.
Lord Prys-Davies: I should like to support this probing amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. It seems to me that we need an explanation as to whether the landlord is holding the deposit as a stakeholder and whether, if the transaction does not proceed, the deposit plus the interest will be repayable to the tenant; or, if the transfer is completed, whether the interest which would have been earned over two years will be applied in part reduction of the purchase price. That is the question that has been put, and I shall be interested to hear the answer.
Lord Bellwin: The position currently is that there is no provision for interest. It is an interesting point that my noble friend makes. We will certainly think about this. I believe the one point my noble friend would concede is that of great moment this matter is not. However, we shall certainly think about this, and I will drop a note to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies.
Lord Swinfen: I think it is important to think of it at any time of year. If my noble friend had put a deposit on a property he would expect some benefit from the interest. I do not see why the tenant of a local authority should not have the same benefit from the interest one way or the other. But, under the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Clause 15 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 23 not moved.]
Clauses 16 to 20 agreed to.
Clause 21 [Application of certain provisions of 1980 Act]:
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 19, leave out lines 32 and 33.
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Birk: I am sorry, but I have become confused. When did the noble Lord the Minister speak to this? On what amendment was it?
Lord Skelmersdale: It was with the long and rather complicated speech on the Question to leave out Clause 13.
Baroness Birk: Is not that tied up with Amendment No. 35?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, it is.
Baroness Birk: I am sorry, but I do not follow. Would the noble Lord mind explaining how lines 32 and 33, being left out, fit in with the other amendments? I am sorry if he has to say it again. I would be grateful if I could be clear about this point.
Lord Skelmersdale: The lines we are leaving out apply to the revamping of Clause 13 under Amendment No. 35. Those lines become unnecessary.
Baroness Birk: Are they unnecessary because they are incorporated in the other amendment? The power of local authorities to contribute towards certain mortgage costs goes out, and it has been placed with the other amendment regarding the tenants. Is that so?
Lord Skelmersdale: That is correct.
Baroness Birk: What about the statutory declarations? Does that provision disappear entirely?
Lord Skelmersdale: The noble Baroness has got me totally at sea. Perhaps I could have a word with her afterwards, if that is agreeable to the Committee.
Baroness Birk: I think the noble Lord the Minister probably has the answer to it in his notes. This is leaving out statutory declarations. Is that included somewhere else in Amendment No. 35, or does it disappear altogether? We have the answer to the first point, the power of local authorities to contribute towards certain mortgage costs. It is now the statutory declarations. If we could get that out of the way, I think it would help us to go faster.
Lord Skelmersdale: I understand that it is also covered by Amendment No. 35.
Baroness Birk: I thank the noble Lord very much.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 21, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Denham: I think this is probably as far as we can reasonable go tonight. I therefore beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at twenty-nine minutes before eleven o'clock.

  FISH: MARKETING STRATEGY
  FISH: MARKETING STRATEGY
  SHOP HOURS: PROSECUTIONS
  SHOP HOURS: PROSECUTIONS
  LAND DRAINAGE: CONSULTATION WITH ADAS AND THE NCC
  LAND DRAINAGE: CONSULTATION WITH ADAS AND THE NCC
  CHIEF CONSTABLES: FITNESS FOR DUTY
  CHIEF CONSTABLES: FITNESS FOR DUTY
  EX-SERVICEMEN: CLAIMS UNDER THE CROWN PROCEEDINGS ACT
  EX-SERVICEMEN: CLAIMS UNDER THE CROWN PROCEEDINGS ACT
  NON-NUCLEAR DEFENCE
  NON-NUCLEAR DEFENCE
  CIVIL SERVICE RUNNING COSTS: CONTROL
  CIVIL SERVICE RUNNING COSTS: CONTROL
  ENERGY CONSERVATION: THE RAYNER SCRUTINY
  ENERGY CONSERVATION: THE RAYNER SCRUTINY