Sitting of 8 November 1984

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

Business of the House
2.34 pm
Mr. Neil Kinnock: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): Yes, Sir. As the House is aware, the debate on the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech will be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 13 November. At the end on Tuesday, motion on the Local Government (Supplementary Grants for Transport Purposes Specified Descriptions) Order.
WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER—Opposition Day (1st Allotted Day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion on schools and further education.
THURSDAY 15 NOVEMBER—SeCOnd Reading of the Elections (Northern Ireland) Bill.
FRIDAY 16 NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the New Towns and Urban Development Bill and of the Mineral Workings Bill.
MONDAY 19 NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Films Bill.
Mr. Kinnock: We shall today be tabling amendments to the Queen's Speech for debate on Monday and Tuesday. We shall be hotly contesting the motion on the transport order on Tuesday night because it will deprive substantial sections of the public of essential support for the bus services on which they depend.
May we have a firm assurance that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will come to the House on Monday to inform us of the contents of the Government's autumn statement? Will the Leader of the House further assure us that the debate on the Opposition's amendment to the Queen's Speech on Tuesday will not supersede the usual full day's debate on the statement and that the debate on the statement will take place before the end of the month?
Mr. Biffen: I have noted that there are to be amendments to the Queen's Speech on Monday and Tuesday and that the order that is postulated for Tuesday will be contested. Thus we shall start in that atmosphere of good-natured controversy which I imagine will characterise the weeks and months ahead.
I can confirm that the Chancellor's autumn statement will be made on Monday and that the debate on Tuesday will not supersede the debate that is customarily held on the statement. Perhaps the timing of that can be a matter for consideration through the usual channels.
Mr. Terence Higgins: I agree with the Leader of the Opposition and with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that it would not be appropriate
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to treat the debate on the Queen's Speech as a substitute for a debate on the Chancellor's autumn statement, which certainly deserves a full day. May I bring to my right: hon. Friend's attention the unsatisfactory arrangement in previous years, when there has not been adequate time for the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee to take evidence on the subject from Treasury Ministers and others? Will he ensure that the timing allows for that so that the House may be fully informed before it debates the matter?
Mr. Biffen: I am a little distressed at the ready denigration of the significance of Tuesday's debate, because I shall be winding it up. I am aware that the House requires the normal conventions to be observed in those matters. I can make no promises to my right hon. Friend on the other point that he raises, but I shall take it: into account.
Mr. A. J. Beith: Having announced that the first Opposition day is to be taken by the Labour party, has the Leader of the House yet formed a view as to which party will take the second Opposition day? Is he under a great deal of pressure from his hon. Friends to ensure that that day is available to the Labour party rather than risking placing it in the hands of the alliance?
Mr. Biffen: The answer to both parts of the question is no, Sir.
Mr. Michael Latham (Rutland and Mellon): Following my similar question two weeks ago, has my right hon. Friend yet allocated a day for the House to debate the report of the Committee of Public Accounts on the scandal of the De Lorean company and the Government's response to it?
Mr. Biffen: No. I have nothing further to add to the answer that I then gave to my hon. Friend, but I shall certainly look at the matter again.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: Does the Leader of the House recall that, just before the general election, we had to debate and pass the Boundary Commission's reports? Much concern was then expressed not about the independence of the Boundary Commission but about some of the rather foolish things that it had done. There was criticism of the rules and of the rather silly names that have been given to many constituencies. The Minister of State, Home Office, now the Solicitor-General, gave a handsome reply saying that he thought that there ought to be an inquiry. I have inquired once or twice since at business questions and have been told that something is happening. Will something happen before the next Boundary Commission starts its work?
Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to give me notice of his question. I agree at once that the so-called reforms of constituency names are a downright offence to many hon. Members. I shall, of course, take up the point that the right hon. Gentleman has raised.
Mr. Michael Marshall: When will the House have an opportunity to debate the agreement between this country and the People's Republic of China in respect of Hong Kong? I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware that many hon. Members have a close interest in that matter, and it would be helpful to have preliminary advice.
Mr. Biffen: I am sure that my hon. Friend will appreciate that that topic falls well within the order for tomorrow's debate, which relates substantially to foreign affairs. However, I realise that my hon. Friend has an interest in the matter and that it should be debated in its own right.
Mr. David Winnick: Although I appreciate that tomorrow's debate will concentrate mainly on foreign affairs, will the right hon. Gentleman give a firm commitment that, if the United States intervenes in Nicaragua next week in pursuance of hostile action against a Government who have recently been re-elected, the Foreign Secretary will make a statement to the House?
Mr. Biffen: I shall of course draw the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary to the anxiety that the hon. Gentleman has expressed.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the distress felt in all parts of the House over the 50 per cent. reduction in the amount of time allocated for Church questions this Session? Does he agree that, given the recent utterances by one or two bishops, the guidance of our own personal bishop in this House will be very much missed?
Mr. Biffen: The purpose of my hon. Friend's questions goes wider than the persecution of bishops. However, I realise that the change has caused some anxiety, and I shall certainly take account of what has been said.
Mr. Alfred Morris: Will the right hon. Gentleman urgently draw to the attention of the Secretary of State for Social Services the importance of early-day motion 40 and at the same time ask him to give the House an early and helpful response?
[That this House is deeply concerned that, notwithstanding strict economy measures, the South Manchester Health Authority has insufficient money to maintain its hospital services and is proposing to close up to eight wards at Withington and Wythenshawe Hospitals; notes that the proposals affect wards for children, maternity, geriatric patients, chest medicine and general surgery; congratulates the South Manchester Community Health Council on its campaign to prevent the closures; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government urgently to ensure that adequate funds are now made available for the protection of patient care in South Manchester.]
Mr. Biffen: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State sits at my left elbow and will have heard the right hon. Gentleman's question.
Sir Bernard Braine: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the other place has already discussed the highly controversial Warnock report, with all its medical, social and legal difficulties. Does he not agree that a matter of such supreme importance to the people of this country should be discussed by the elected Members of Parliament? Can he give us some intimation—if not next week, then fairly soon—that such an opportunity will be given?
Mr. Biffen: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that a debate can be arranged shortly.
Mr. Max Madden: Is the Leader of the House aware of the widespread public concern about the crisis of management within the NCB and the Government's unwillingness to seek an honourable and
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acceptable settlement of the miners' dispute? When will the Prime Minister come to the House to tell hon. Members and the country what the Government are doing to secure a settlement of the dispute?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman has raised general points that could be included in Tuesday's debate, which will range widely across the economic issues that are at the centre of our present political disputes. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have a chance then to make his points.
Mr. John Butterfill: Will my right hon. Friend find time next week to discuss a matter relating to the tabling of early-day motions? On Tuesday I queued for about an hour and a half waiting for the Table Office to open. I was fourth in the queue. I was therefore surprised to see in yesterday's Order Paper that my motion appeared as No. 36 and that there were no fewer than 14 motions standing in the name of the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock), six in the name of the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel), one in the name of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) and others, none of whom do I recollect seeing in the queue. I appreciate that they may well have asked one of their colleagues to table a motion for them, but to do it on that scale and to table so many motions reflecting their respective party policies may be considered by hon. Members to be a breach of the system. Perhaps hon. Members could have time to debate this subject.
Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend has had an experience which is characteristic of the lack of natural justice in politics. I cannot say why that seeming preference should have been given to the Leader of the Opposition. I think that the matter comes within the ambit of the Table Office, which is within your responsibility, Mr. Speaker, not within mine. I can offer no prospect of an early debate, but I imagine that a letter to the Procedure Committee would not come amiss.
Mr. James Wallace: Yet again this Session Welsh questions will come up every three weeks while Scottish questions will come up every four weeks. I appreciate that Welsh Question Time does not last for the full hour, but over a period Welsh Members representing only 36 constituencies will have a greater opportunity to question Welsh Office Ministers than Scottish Members representing 72 constituencies will have to question Scottish Office Ministers. Does the Leader of the House propose to do anything to correct the anomaly?
Mr. Biffen: These matters were discussed through the usual channels, although I know that that will not be entirely reassuring to the hon. Gentleman. On the whole, the Scots do not have an inequitable deal in the amount of time that they have in the House. If the number of occasions that Minister answer questions is adjusted to the amount of time allotted, the situation is not that intolerable.
Mr. Sydney Chapman: Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm that the House will have time to consider, and to make known to the Government its views on, the report issued recently by the Select Committee on the Environment on what is colloquially known as acid rain? Will that debate be sooner rather than later in view of the serious findings of that Committee?
Mr. Biffen: It would be to the advantage of the House if the Department of the Environment's comments on the report were available before the debate so that we might have time to consider it. With that proviso, I agree with my hon. Friend.
Mr. Greg Knight: In view of the disturbing allegation by the Home Office pathologist, Dr. Donald Wayte, that the majority of babies who suffer cot deaths are probably smothered by their parents, may we have an early statement to allay understandable public concern?
Mr. Biffen: That is a serious matter which I shall draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
Mr. Nicholas Soames: Does my right hon. Friend think it likely, now that the business for next week has been announced and does not seem to be too onerous, that the Leader of the Opposition will be able to attend Mr. Scargill's rallies?
Mr. Biffen: I have been educated in a very hard school over a period of years, if not months, to ignore totally that kind of negative question.
Mr. Kinnock: May I suggest that, if the diary of the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) is clear, perhaps he would like to go to one or two of the rallies?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we agree with the view expressed by the right hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) that the timing of the debate on the autumn statement should be such as to allow the House to be fully informed? Does he agree that there should not be undue delay in that consideration? We value the procedure of consideration by the Select Committee because it enhances our debates, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we should be hostile to the idea that such procedure should impede consideration of the statement by the House at a time when it is fresh in everyone's memory and fresh in the public's mind?
Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Gentleman mentions a range of considerations which make the usual channels so invaluable. On the right hon. Gentleman's first point, I might be available to make my diary clear if I could have his express authority to go to one of the meetings and explain exactly what he meant by his references to Gallipoli.

Business of the House
  BILLS PRESENTED
    NATIONAL HERITAGE (SCOTLAND)
    Mr. Secretary Younger, supported by the Solicitor-General for Scotland, Mr. Allan Stewart, Mr. John MacKay and Mr. John Moore, presented a Bill to transfer responsibility for the Royal Scottish Museum and the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland to a new Board of Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland, to establish a Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, to make provision as to the status, functions and powers of the new Boards, and as to the property to be held by them, to make further provision as to the Boards of Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland, to confer on the Secretary of State power to make grants for cultural and scientific purposes, to amend the Public Records (Scotland) Act 1937 and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 5].
    FRIENDLY SOCIETIES
    Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Mr. Peter Rees, Mr. John Moore, Mr. Barney Hayhoe, Mr. Ian Stewart, Mr. Norman Lamont and Mr. Alexander Fletcher, presented a Bill to validate certain contracts of insurance entered into by registered friendly societies before 1st June 1984 and to modify, with both retrospective and prospective effect, provisions relating to the financial limits in section 64 of the Friendly Societies Act 1974 and section 332 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1970: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 7].
    FILMS
    Mr. Secretary Tebbit, supported by Mr. Secretary Brittan, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Kenneth Baker and Mr. Norman Lamont, presented a Bill to repeal the Films Acts 1960 to 1980; to make further provision with respect to the financing of films; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 6].

Hon. Member for Tiverton (Comments)
2.49 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the comments yesterday of the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) were drawn to my attention, I notified him that I would raise the matter today. I do not know whether he received my message. On the hon. Gentleman's tortuous route, he claimed that the Select Committee on Procedure had
"arranged its day of sitting to suit the convenience of the leader of the Liberal party who scarcely ever bothered to turn up"—[Official Report, 7 November 1984; Vol. 67, c. 113.]
[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] My right hon. Friend is, perhaps, discussing the matter with the hon. Member for Tiverton, who also is not present. However, I must confess that my right hon. Friend is visiting the right hon. Member for Colchester, South and Maldon (Mr. Wakeham), the Government Chief Whip, in hospital in Brighton.
As my right hon. Friend was not a member of the Committee, he would not have been able to take part in its meetings had he turned up, and the Committee did not arrange its meetings to suit my right hon. Friend's convenience. The hon. Member for Tiverton said that I had requested a meeting on a particular afternoon but had not turned up. On checking the record, I discovered that I had attended eight of the 10 Committee meetings—exactly the same number as those attended by the hon. Member for Tiverton.
In referring to the record of which hon. Members attended which meetings, the hon. Gentleman also referred to those parts of the Committee's proceedings that had not been reported to the House. Conversely, and for our assistance if this matter is raised again, as no doubt it will be, is it not true that the aspect of the Committee's proceedings referred to yesterday—the report made by the Committee, in the same document as its report on short speeches, of the meeting that took place on Tuesday 17 July 1984—was reported to the House?
The report contains the words
"Motion made and Question proposed, That the Committee do inquire into Public Bill Procedure."
It then reports that an amendment was proposed to the Question, to add the words
"and simultaneously into Opposition Time."
The Division on that Question was recorded, with my vote cast in favour and six votes, including that of the hon. Member for Tiverton, cast against.
The hon. Member for Tiverton was not only inaccurate and grossly misleading in what he said but out of order. However, it was in order to refer to that part of the report of the Committee that stated that its decision at this stage was not to inquire into the subject of Opposition time.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman makes his point. I said yesterday that we should not refer in the Chamber to reports of Select Committees that had not been put before the House. In this case, it was put before the House.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) will read in Hansard what the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has said.

Orders of the Day

  Debate on the Address
  [THIRD DAY]
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [6 November]
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament—[Sir Paul Bryan.]
  Question again proposed.

  Health, Social Security and Education
  2.53 pm
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Norman Fowler): I very much welcome the opportunity of this debate. It gives me an opportunity to deal with the issues of health and social security and the reform of pensions that are central to this Government's concerns. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science will deal with issues in his area of concern.
  I am bound to say that I am reminded of the debate on the Health Service we had 12 months ago. That debate took place in the context of the manpower policy introduced a short time previously—the first time any Government had asked for a manpower policy from health authorities , over 70 percent. of whose spending is taken up by staff costs.
  During that debate the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) talked of
  "the intensification of the attack on the NHS by the Government"
  and of
  "an unmitigated crime against the British people"—[Official Report, 27 October 1983; Vol. 47, c. 441–49]
  The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) spoke of decisions being
  "Kafka-like in their nightmare quality."—[Official Report, 27 October 1983; Vol. 47, c. 504.]
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) in a speech in London a few days later, said:
  "The gloves are off, the pace of attack is accelerating for the kill".
  Yet what have been the results over the past 12 months? Over the past 12 months there have been 300,000 more inpatients treated in English hospitals. There have been 100,000 more day cases treated in English hospitals and there have been 850,000 more outpatient attendances at English hospitals. What is the significance of these figures? Far from showing that there has been a deterioration in health care, they show that the Health Service is providing more care, more services and more help for patients than at any stage since the inception of the NHS. They show also that, compared with 1978, the last year in office of the Labour Government, our hospitals provided treatment for 3½ million more cases. There were 650,000 more inpatient cases, 2½ million more outpatient attendances and ¼ million more day cases.
  The reason for quoting these figures is simple. We can argue over the number of staff employed—in fact, we

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  are employing 12 per cent. more doctors and 13 per cent. more nurses than when we came to office. We can argue over the amount of money spent—in fact, expenditure has increased by 17 per cent. against inflation since 1978–79. However, those are not the crucial tests.
  One of the crucial tests is not how much is spent but the results that are obtained from the resources. That is the test in any service, any industry and any business. The message of the figures is unmistakable. If we compare the rate of improvement in patient services over the five years of the Labour Government, from 1974 to 1978, with the five years of Conservative Government that followed, we find that between 1973 and 1978 the number of inpatient cases treated per year rose by 4½ per cent. whereas over the past five years it has risen by over 12 per cent.—almost three times as fast. The increase in inpatient cases treated last year was considerably more than was achieved under the five years of the Labour Government.
  Mr. Laurie Pavitt: How does the 17 per cent. that the right hon. Gentleman claims compare with the 7 per cent. that is declared in the report published only last week by his Department? I can refer the right hon. Gentleman to the relevant page if he wishes.
  Mr. Fowler: I am well aware of that, because I wrote the report myself. The increase in economic cost terms was 17 per cent. We made it clear that expenditure has increased by 17 per cent. against the retail price index. The hon. Gentleman is referring to the volume estimate of 7 per cent. The two percentages are not incompatible with each other, but I ask him to take note of the figures that I have drawn to the attention of the House. What matters in the end—I suggest that it matters to him as much as to me, given his long connection with the NHS—is what we are doing with the resources and how we are putting them to use.
  Over the past four or five years the Health Service has been putting resources to extremely good use. The hon. Gentleman may agree with me that the figures are, first and foremost, a tribute to the staff of the NHS at whatever level and whatever occupation. The figures do not mean that all the problems of health care have been magically solved overnight. I would never claim that and one of my criticisms of Opposition Front Bench spokesmen is that they tend to go in for that sort of promise. Like every health service in Europe, we are facing increasing demands from the rising number of elderly and from medical advance itself.
  Mr. George Park: The Secretary of State has given the statistics for one side of the picture, but I ask him to give the House the statistics for the other side by giving details of the waiting lists.
  Mr. Fowler: The waiting lists are set out in the annual report. When the Conservative Government took office they had an inherited waiting list of about 750,000. That list was reduced by about 100,000 until the health dispute of 1982. One of the results of that dispute was that the list lengthened again. I am glad to say that it is now reducing. The lesson and the logic of that is that it was the industrial action, backed by the Labour Opposition which sent up the waiting list. If the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Park) feels so strongly about the waiting lists, I wish that some Opposition Members had had the courage to condemn the industrial action that had that inevitable result.
  Mr. Pavitt rose—
  Mr. Fowler: I shall not give way. Compared with the position that has been described, the figures show a picture of developing care. Compared with five years ago, the rate of perinatal mortality is down by nearly a third. There has been a rise of more than 50 per cent. in the number of new renal patients accepted for treatment. We have more than doubled the numbers of coronary artery bypass grants. Those are the health care figures. They show the Government's real commitment to an expanding and improving Health Service. They are the figures that give the lie to the Opposition Front Bench charges.
  I am bound to say that we are not prepared to take lectures on patient care from the Opposition Front Bench. It is not simply that they do not have a monopoly on social concern; it is that their social record when in office simply does not stand up. Never can that which achieved so little have claimed so much. It was the Labour party when in Government that made the biggest cuts in the capital building programme in the history of the Health Service. It was the party that backed industrial action in 1982 and the party which unleashed record inflation of 110 per cent. over five years, which had devastating effects on the elderly, the poor and the sick and affected virtually every social programme.
  The fact is that the Labour party's claims to protect the Health Service are as bogus as its charges that we have damaged it. The fact is that there is a range of challenges on health care that we must face with realism. There are, for example, the challenges of replacing old and outdated hospitals, of providing for the growing needs of our aging population, of making new forms of treatment available to patients throughout the Health Service, of providing care for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped, of treating patients and the public as individuals, and of being more sensitive to their human needs and problems.
  If we are to face those and the other challenges successfully, we need to ensure the best possible value for the money that we spend—the best possible use of resources. Lord Ennals, who was Secretary of State for Social Services, in his report on the Health Service for 1976 said:
  "We must renew our efforts to get, and to give, full value for money…People have the light to be assured that the rnoney they pay in taxes and contributions is used to the best advantage."
  I agree with the noble Lord, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Oldham, West does also, although I am bound to say that he has never brought himself to say just that.
  This is not the occasion to underline every one of the measures that we have taken to achieve better value for money in the Health Service, but let me take two. The Rayner scrutinies have revealed major opportunities for savings. The study of transport showed potential for savings of at least £15 million a year. Our survey of residential accommodation found that the Health Service owned property worth more than £1 billion—a fifth of which stood empty at any one stage. The potential to release resources for patient care should be clear. We are seeking also to dispose of surplus land in NHS ownership. Last year, we sold land worth more than £30 million. New opportunities have now been opened up. This August we implemented legislation to permit health authorities to maximise the value of land by obtaining planning permission before a sale. Taken together, the resources

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  locked up in surplus residential accommodation and land can surely be released and ploughed back into developments for patients.
  The other example of the measures that we have taken to achieve better value for money is in the process of competitive tendering, which is already producing major savings inside the Health Service. The latest figures that I have show that, so far, 34 Health Service contracts let to private contractors will be producing total savings of more than £18 million during the next three years. Three individual hospitals have each saved more than £500,000 on cleaning contracts—in one case, a reduction of two thirds on previous costs. One health authority will save £1·4 million a year.
  That is not all. There is another advantage from the programme of competitive tendering that we are following. As a result of the competition, there have been considerable reductions in the cost of contracts that have stayed in-house—savings of more than £100,000 a year in the case of one domestic contract and £100,000 a year in the case of a laundry contract. All that money is now available for patient care, and all that money would be lost to patients if Labour could ever carry out its conference resolution to end all competition and to ban private contractors.
  Value for money is, therefore, a central objective—value for the taxpayer and, above all, for the patient.
  Mr. Peter Rost: My right hon. Friend referred to the privatisation of cleaning services. We also know that some privatisation has taken place in catering. Is he aware that south Derbyshire health authority has privatised its energy and boiler services for its central laundry in Derby at a saving of more than £120,000 a year? What is he doing to draw to the attention of health authorities the savings that can be achieved by more efficient privatised energy services?
  Mr. Fowler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that example. I also believe that Wakefield has done something further in that area. We shall clearly do our utmost to stress the benefits to the Health Service that flow from these policies. My central point is that the savings made can then be ploughed back into the Health Service and into patient care. That is what the policy is all about, and that is the policy that Labour Members are determined to try to defeat.
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: The right hon. Gentleman talked about ploughing money back into patient care. Will he also reflect about the other side of the equation—those in the ancillary services who are at present contributing towards patient care? Will he comment on the view expressed by the Hospital Caterers Association, that the abolition of the fair wages resolution has, on average, led to a 20 per cent. reduction in the conditions of service for those in the ancillary sector?
  Mr. Fowler: I do not accept that. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern for those working in the ancillary services, but it would be quite absurd for the Government to try to lay down from the centre all the terms and conditions of every outside contractor seeking a contract inside the Health Service. That would be an absurd position for the Government to get in.
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  The concept of value for money applies to all areas of the Health Service. As I said at Brighton four weeks ago, I do not exempt the drugs bill from that process. At present there are two proper causes of concern. First, there is the cost to the NHS of the drugs bill, which now totals nearly £1,400 million a year, compared with about £250 million 10 years ago. Secondly, there is concern over the fact that the public are demanding more drugs each year, the result being that doctors are now issuing 100 million more prescriptions each year than 25 years ago. Those prescriptions cover more than 17,000 different products, double the range used 25 years previously.
  It is, of course, true that many of the increases are fully justified and reflect the enormous medical and pharmaceutical advances made in the last quarter of a century. But that is not true of all drugs that are now being prescribed under the NHS.
  The clearest example is the wide range of branded medicines prescribed for minor conditions such as coughs and colds. In most cases those conditions will remedy themselves without medical intervention, and the medicines are prescribed for relieving the symptoms. By any standards they are the less important drugs. In fact, most can be bought over the counter from the local chemist without the need to consult a doctor or to obtain a prescription. Many people already buy them in that way. Nevertheless, these branded medicines—tonics, cold and cough remedies, indigestion and headache tablets and low dose vitamin pills—are currently costing the Health Service £120 million a year.
  A second group are the tranquillisers and sedatives. Some of the branded sleeping pills come into that category. The use of those drugs has expanded dramatically in recent years—many doctors would say too far. Many different brand name products have been introduced which have essentially similar properties, and the cost to the NHS is now £40 million a year.
  We have already made it clear that we do not intend to move over to a policy of indiscriminate generic substitution, which would both limit the freedom of the medical profession and have a serious effect on the research-based pharmaceutical industry in Britain. I see no reason, however, why in the two groups that I have set out the NHS should not limit itself to providing only the cheaper generic alternatives which are available. In other words, the patient can still obtain those kinds of medicines on prescription from his doctor under the Health Service, but they will be the cheaper generic alternatives. If the patient still wishes to go for a particular brand name, he will have the alternative of buying it over the counter from his local chemist or else asking his doctor to prescribe it privately. This is the kind of system that applies in many other countries already.
  Clearly, I shall need to consult the professions and the industry to ensure that we do not accidentally exclude from NHS use a drug that is essential to the treatment of a particular condition. But I thought it right to tell the House in advance of the outline of those proposals. I shall be issuing a consultation letter later today, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health will be taking the consultation process forward. He will also be opening discussions with the pharmaceutical industry on the implications of the report of the review board on Government contracts for the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme. Again, our aim will be to contain the costs falling on the NHS.
  Mrs. Jill Knight: Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether any advance has been achieved in dealing with the problem that arises from the fact that many doctors issue repeat prescriptions of drugs such as valium, often continuing to do so for one, two and even three years? That problem, as I am sure my hon. Friend will accept, has worried many people.
  Is it not the case that care has to be taken in the use of generic alternatives? A label or brand name gives some protection to the person who is taking the drug.
  Mr. Fowler: I agree with what my hon. Friend said about repeat prescriptions, and I think that many doctors would also agree with her. Clearly, however, there are issues of professional freedom in that regard. We make advice available to doctors and we shall continue to do so.
  With regard to reliability, I have no doubt whatever that, in the case of the drugs concerned—some of which one would describe as home remedies—the generic alternatives present no difficulties.
  Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: I welcome the partial step that the Secretary of State has mentioned. I think that it will assist in dealing with the question of generic alternatives. He particularly mentioned the effect of generic substitution on research in the pharmaceutical industry. Has he investigated with the pharmaceutical companies the possibility of extending the patent life of products to, say, 30 years? I understand that the industry would be prepared to negotiate in that respect. It would enable us to move towards a system of generic substitution without harming research.
  Mr. Fowler: We are talking to the industry about that matter. It is a point that is uppermost in the minds of those in the industry.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) has also put his finger on the real concern about the pharmaceutical industry. None of us wants to damage the research-based British pharmaceutical industry, both because of the contribution that it makes to research and because of the employment consequences and the industry's contribution to the balance of payments. I have those issues very much in mind, and no one who reads what I have said could conclude that the drugs in question will damage anyone's research-based industry. They are not the most important drugs or the life-saving ones. I hope that both sides of the House will accept that this is a sensible step forward.
  Mr. Michael Meacher: Bearing in mind that the Secretary of State has said that expenditure on drugs in the current year will amount to some £1,400 million, and as he always tells us that the Health Service budget amounts to some £17 billion a year, how much will be saved each year by the proposed change?
  Mr. Fowler: It is difficult to give the hon. Gentleman an exact figure before the negotiations and discussions are held, but I believe that there may be a saving of the order of £100 million. Savings of that size are extremely valuable in an area where costs have risen considerably over the past few years.
  We have already introduced new arrangements to ensure that parallel-imported drugs meet proper safety standards. I shall shortly announce further action to make sure that the Health Service does not lose out when exceptionally large discounts are offered to pharmacies by
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  the wholesalers from whom they buy their drugs. That would be a further step towards achieving better value for money in the NHS drugs bill.
  Mr. Tony Favell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people both inside and outside the medical profession are concerned about the treating of doctors by drug firms to encourage the prescribing of brand names.
  Mr. Fowler: I understand that my hon. Friend is referring to hospitality offered by drug firms. We have given clear guidance to the medical profession about what is expected and required in this area. If there are any questions of abuse, I shall gladly look into them.
  Mr. Gordon Brown: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Fowler: The Queen's Speech rightly underlined the importance of employment policies. The House will consider that question specifically on Monday, but it would be wrong to ring-fence consideration of the topic. For example, it is clear that policies on both pensions and social security can be central. In the case of pensions, it must be an aim of policy to remove artificial barriers that hinder people from moving jobs. We should extend freedom of choice, not only to enable people to fulfil their ambitions for themselves and their families but to encourage the generation of new wealth and new jobs. It is against that background that we shall present legislative proposals which, taken together, will represent the first major reform of occupational pension schemes for a decade. They will advance and develop the freedoms and rights of over 11 million people who are now members of occupational schemes, and remove injustices which still inhibit mobility and flexibility in the labour market.
  There will be three main strands in the proposals. First, we shall be implementing reforms to protect the pension rights of people who leave an occupational pension scheme before pension age—the so-called early leavers. For far too long they have been treated by some—although not all—schemes as second-class citizens, with their residual pension rights frozen and depreciating in real terms. This is unfair to them and ultimately bad for the economy. The Bill that I shall shortly introduce will mean that in future employees who change jobs will have their pensions protected against inflation.
  We shall require schemes to revalue preserved pension rights for those leaving schemes in line with the rise in prices, up to 5 per cent. a year. This solution represents the right balance between giving proper protection to members of occupational pension schemes, removing restrictions on job mobility and maintaining the essential role and interests of the schemes themselves.
  Secondly, we have been consulting about our proposal to give people leaving an occupational pension scheme the right to a transfer value. This means that an employee who leaves an employer will be able to take with him the fair value of his pension rights. The transfer value could be used to obtain benefit rights in a new employer's scheme, or to buy the annuity of his own choice, or to invest in a personal pension. The proposal has been generally welcomed and I can now tell the House that we shall be implementing it in the Bill. It will help to make sure that all early leavers get a fair deal and more choice.
  Thirdly, we shall be taking new steps to ensure that all members of pension schemes have more information about

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  those schemes. For many people, their occupational pension is the biggest asset they have—worth more even than their home. The Bill will give a right of access to a wide range of information about schemes and a full account of their entitlement.
  I believe that these proposals will be widely supported. Certainly the response to our consultative documents confirmed that these reforms would be especially welcomed by individual scheme members. For too long people who change jobs have paid a pensions penalty. These are the proposals on which we are taking action now but, as the House will know, we have published proposals for a major new pension option—the personal pension. The proposals have aroused unprecedented interest. More than 32,000 copies of the consultative document have been distributed. The consultation does not finish until the end of this month and that is set out in the document. Although I understand the enthusiasm of some for immediate action, we must allow time to consider the comments that we have received. It is clear that people want to be free to choose their own pension arrangements. I assure the House that we intend to give them that freedom.
  The occupational pensions measures that I have described concern only part of social security provision. They are important measures in their own right and are designed to improve the pension structure but we want to achieve much more than that. However, our examination goes much further than pensions. The approach that the Government adopted is to look rationally and carefully at virtually the whole of the social security system to see how it should be developed to serve the needs we face in the last years of the 20th century because the situation we face now and the needs we shall face in the future are very different. The social security budget is now more than £37 billion a year—some 30 per cent. of all public spending. That is a sixty-fold increase in cash spending since the inception of the welfare state and a doubling of the proportion of the GDP devoted to social security. Part of that growth has been due to increases in demand. There are, for example, 16·5 per cent. more people getting retirement pension than 10 years ago. Most of the increase, however has been accounted for by increases in the real value of benefits and the range of circumstances in which benefits are payable.
  After this month's uprating, national insurance retirement pensions will have risen by nearly 84 per cent. since November 1978. That is more than enough to protect them against the likely rise in prices—76 or 77 per cent.—over the same period. From this month, supplementary pensioners aged over 65 will receive additional help with heating costs, and there will be extra help for those over 85. We have increased the real value of mobility allowance and made it tax-free. The Government therefore cannot be accused of making cuts and of dismantling the welfare state.
  Mr. Gordon Brown rose—
  Mr. Fowler: However, there is one cause for special concern which has been caused by the protracted strike of a small minority of staff at the DHSS central office at Newcastle—fewer than 400 out of about 10,500. The dispute centres around management efforts to make full and economical use of the new generation of computer equipment now in use by three-shift working in areas
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  where it is needed, such as the retirement pensions computer, and by ending unnecessary shifts where they are no longer justified, such as in laser printing. There have been protracted negotiations, and an offer from management under which no shiftworker need lose any take-home pay. Two of the three unions involved—the Society of Civil and Public Servants and the Civil Service Union—have voted to accept the management proposals, and the national officials of the third union, the Civil and Public Servants Association, have also recommended acceptance. But members of the CPSA voted last week to continue their action. In effect, they are saying that the present shift arrangements must be preserved in perpetuity, without reference to any changes in the actual requirements of the job of paying benefits to claimants.
  Let me make two things clear about the dispute. First, and foremost, I deplore attempts to hit pensioners and families with children in pursuit of an industrial dispute. That is precisely what has happened. Secondly, despite the disruption, I can reassure hon. Members that the benefit uprating will go ahead and that the Christmas bonus will be paid.
  I urge those who are still taking action to reconsider swiftly their position and accept what is by any sensible criterion a fair and reasonable offer. Failing that, we shall have to consider what further steps are needed to restore the service that pensioners and the public are entitled to expect.
  Mr. Roland Boyes: Will the Secretary of State explain what he means by a fair system? In my constituency workers who are on strike have been offered a pay cut of between £10 and £14 a week. Does the Secretary of State expect workers to accept pay cuts because they are in the Government's interest? That would be ridiculous. The workers want to return to work and to pay the benefits as quickly as possible, but they want a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
  Mr. Fowler: We have bent over backwards to do everything we can to preserve the interests of those who are working at Newcastle now. The hon. Gentleman's argument seems curious, considering that two of the three unions affected by the dispute have agreed to accept the offer and that the national leadership of the third has also recommended acceptance of the offer. To the objective outsider that shows that the case is not exactly as the hon. Gentleman seeks to present it, and that the Government have done everything in their power to make a reasonable offer. I hope that those who are on strike now will reconsider the offer urgently.
  If there is one point on which the public are agreed it is that the social security system has by any standards become complex to administer and difficult to understand. That is to the disadvantage of claimants and staff alike. It is also worth underlining that it is very different from the system that Beveridge intended. He intended a fund which built up. However, we have not a funded scheme but a pay-as-you-go system in which today's contributions pay for today's benefits. Similarly, he did not perceive the growth in non-contributory benefits for families, the disabled and others, which has taken place, nor the role of supplementary benefit. The social security system of 1984 is not that proposed by William Beveridge, and the opponents of change should not seek to wrap themselves in Beveridge's mantle.

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  In the review which is now under way we have gone out of our way to an unprecedented extent to find out what people think about the issues facing us. We have invited individuals and organisations to submit evidence, we have held public sessions to discuss some of that evidence, and we have brought in people from outside Government to help us to assess the evidence. The response has been remarkable: more than 4,500 pieces of written evidence have been received and we have held 19 public sessions in the United Kingdom.
  The task on which the Government are now engaged is to determine what should be done to improve the system, and in approaching that task we have several important considerations in mind. First, we must ensure that the resources provided are used to best effect. Secondly, we must take into account the issues that will confront us in the future. We know that although the real cost of pensions may not increase greatly before the end of the century, it will double after then. Moreover, that will happen at a time when the balance between the working and the retired population is worsening.
  Thirdly, we must make the systems that we operate less complex for claimants and staff. The history of the development of social security since 1948 has been one of ad hoc change and additions. It has left us in a position where the civil servant attempting to determine the entitlement to supplementary benefit must refer to a guidance manual that contains 16,000 paragraphs of instructions. That cannot make sense.
  Mr. Gordon Brown: The Minister boasts of an open review of the social security system, but will he also be open and frank with the House about what the social security review committees are doing? Will he confirm that, despite his promises to the House last July, and the promises of the Prime Minister, the committee that he chairs has been considering and costing detailed proposals to means-test child benefits, and considering proposals to remove the rights of teenagers to supplementary benefit? Will he confirm that the committee which is chaired by the Minister of State is considering removing the rights of pensioners to heating additions and to single payments? Will he admit that the welfare state is more in danger now than it has been at any time since Beveridge?
  Mr. Fowler: I was probably right not to give way to the hon. Gentleman earlier. The Government are reviewing the entire social security system. The hon. Gentleman has just repeated a story that appeared in The Observer last Sunday, and I congratulate him on his memory of the details. We are considering all the options in child benefit and in supplementary benefit. He did not mention it, but we are also considering all the options in retirement pensions. That is what a review is about. There is no point in my carrying out such reviews if I am not prepared to consider all the options that are put to me. The Government are carrying out a review that should have been conducted years ago, but we are doing it only now, 40 years after Beveridge. It is absurd for the hon. Gentleman to believe that he can try to tie my hands as to what I should consider.
  The review on housing benefit excepted, these are not separate reviews adopting different working methods and principles. We have embarked upon a review of almost the entire social security system. It is being carried out openly and without delay. It is being conducted in consultation
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  with not only the public and expert outside bodies, but with all relevant Government Departments. The Government are considering and will consider their proposals in conjunction with tax; that has never been at issue, and it would be absurd to do otherwise. The proposals, which I hope to make in the early part of the new year, will be the Government's proposals and will take into account all our objectives.
  We cannot and should not consider social security in isolation. Indeed, my Department is accompanying the review with examinations of the family practitioner service and the personal social services.
  The Government's record on health and social security is one of consistent and realistic commitment. We understand that the welfare state cannot survive without the underpinning of a sound economic policy—a point which Labour Members have never understood, either in Government or in Opposition. We also understand that the purposes for which the welfare state was created have still to be met. That is why we have identified a clear strategy for improving the management of the Health Service, so that it can provide the services we will need during the latter part of this century. That strategy is now showing results. The record levels of finance being made available to the Health Service are being used to provide services to still greater numbers of patients. In the coming months our examination of the social security system—the most fundamental in the past 40 years—will enable us to put forward a strategy there to ensure that our duty to help those in need can be met consistent with our responsibility to contain the burden on the taxpayer and national insurance contributor.
  The Government are determined that economic and industrial recovery must also benefit the elderly, the poor, and the sick. That is the challenge, and that is the challenge that we will meet.
  3.35 pm
  Mr. Michael Meacher: Eighteen months ago, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer revealed his fixation about cutting public expenditure by declaring in one of his first television interviews that his prime targets were health, social security and education. The experience of the past 18 months and the sheer lack of concern in the Queen's Speech for the steady arid remorseless deterioration of our once great Health Service and welfare state are abundant and tragic testimony 10 the ruthlessness with which the Government's anti-NHS arid anti-welfare state dogmas have been and are being pursued.
  The deterioration in the Health Service is readily covered up, as it was today, by the Secretary of State's quotation of highly selective and misleading criteria on which to judge his NHS record.
  Mr. Fowler: What about the number of patients treated?
  Mr. Meacher: The Secretary of State should wait for what I am about to say in answer to that point.
  On the other hand, the Secretary of State completely ignores much more relevant evidence.
  Let me immediately refute the two central pivots on which the Secretary of State, yet again today, seeks to take credit for his record on the NHS. First, he says that the NHS treated nearly 650,000 more inpatient cases last year

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  than in 1978, together with nearly 2·5 million outpatient attendances. Even a moment's reflection shows that that is a dubious and open-ended criterion of improvement, and it can just as readily be interpreted as implying the reverse. It says nothing about the quality of care, and, as cuts and closures bite deeper, it may simply reflect pressure for premature discharge in the face of rising demand for new medical care for those left on mounting waiting lists.
  Not only that, but this increase in treatment is not entirely of new patients. A proportion—for all we know, a growing proportion—consists of the same people returning because their original treatment did not suffice. We do not know that for sure, but it cannot be denied. Furthermore, we resent, and I believe that the nation resents, the Government seeking to take credit for the fact that doctors, nurses and ancillary workers have dealt with more cases, when the Government's policies, leading to mass unemployment, housing and urban decay and rising social stress, are major factors behind the increase in illness in the first place. We also resent the fact that the Government seek to capitalise on the statistic of medical throughput with blithe disregard and deliberate sabotage of the community care facilities into which these people are being discharged.
  Mr. Fowler: Does the hon. Gentleman regard the number of patients treated as being a true measure of the effectiveness of the NHS or not? If not, why, in 1976, did the then Secretary of State, in whose Department I think the hon. Gentleman served, say that more people were treated in hospital than ever before and that the number of day patients was also a record? Why should a Labour Government claim credit for that and not a Conservative Government?
  Mr. Meacher: The Secretary of State should look at his own documents. On page 1 of the Health Service in England report, he will see that, on all the criteria that he has mentioned, the record of outpatient and inpatient attendances in the five years previous to the last five years is almost identical to that in the last five years. But my point is that—[Interruption.] Perhaps the Minister for Health will listen to my answer. Neither in 1976 nor today is that an adequate measure of the performance of the NHS. It is an interesting and important one, and, as I said, we did as well as in the past five years, but it is not an adequate measure and Secretary of State is wrong to regard it as such.
  The second arm of the Secretary of State's argument in defence of his NHS record is equally flawed. He pretends that there have not been cuts by talking up the 17 per cent. RPI increase in NHS expenditure over the past five years. In the previous five years, the increase in NHS expenditure under the previous Labour Government on exactly the same basis was 19 per cent. Much more important is that, in terms of what money will buy in the NHS—that is what really matters—the Social Services Select Committee made it clear that the increase was not 17 per cent. but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt) made clear earlier, 7 per cent. I am glad to note the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short), who is chairman of that Committee and who has done sterling work. When account is taken of that, as it must be, of rising demographic factors among the elderly—
  Mrs. Edwina Currie rose—
  Mr. Meacher: I shall give way in a moment—and of the faster rising cost of medical technology, the increase was just about zero. That is the fact of the record over the past five years.
  Mrs. Currie rose—
  Mr. Meacher: I shall give way in a moment.
  Indeed, Government figures published in Hansard on 16 January 1984—anyone can look at them—reveal that, after taking account of those necessary factors, expenditure on hospital and community health services in England over the past five years has declined by an average of 0·75 per cent. per year.
  The House should remember that that is all against a background when the Government are already spending far less on health than any other comparable European country with, I think, the exception of Greece.
  Mrs. Currie rose—
  Mr. Meacher: If the hon. Lady persists in interrupting, I shall not give way.
  We are seeing a decline in expenditure on hospital and community services—[Interruption.] I suggest that the Minister for Health looks at the figures himself. Here they are. That is against a background when the Government are already spending only 5·7 per cent. of GNP on health compared with 8 per cent. in France, 8 per cent. in Germany, 9·5 per cent. in the United States, and 10 per cent. in Sweden. The difference between those figures is billions.
  The Minister for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The hon. Gentleman has used that argument before. He carefully misuses figures. He will use those other figures as a measure of spending. There is only one measure of spending, and that is the amount of money spent compared with the increase in the general level of inflation. On that basis, the increase has been 17 per cent. The rest of the figures that he is producing are technological nonsense, by which he tries to produce a deficit. Our proportion of GDP is lower than that of western European countries, partly because we are more economical in the delivery of our services, but it has increased. A higher proportion of GDP is being spent now than throughout most of the period of the previous Labour Government.
  Mr. Meacher: The Minister is beginning to lose control of the argument if he suggests that pay and prices in the NHS are not the relevant factor. The RPI is irrelevant. What matters is the cost of pay and the provision of facilities and equipment in the NHS. By that measure, expenditure has increased. The Select Committee, on which the right hon. and learned Gentleman's hon. Friends had a majority, in its unanimous report, said that the increase was 7 per cent. Even that does not take into account the increased number of the elderly and the faster rising costs of medical technology. When that is taken into account, the increase is zero.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: We must resolve the matter by a more careful use of language. If one is talking about spending, one is talking about the amount of money that is spent compared with the rate of inflation. When measuring spending, one cannot ignore that proportion of it which includes pay over and above the level of inflation. The input volume figure is a rough approximation of the

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  amount that that extra spending can purchase in the NHS when one takes into account the higher than average unit costs that the service has had, particularly for pay. It is an interesting figure. We still publish it and the Select Committee makes use of it, but it is not very important or accurate. As an attack on the Government's spending record it is utterly useless. The only measure of spending is how much the Government take from the taxpayer and put into the Health Service, and how that compares with inflation. The figure is 17 per cent. up, despite five years of recession.
  Mr. Meacher: If the figure is nonsense, why does it say on page 4 of the Government's report, which they issued a week ago, that
  "in terms of input volume — what money can buy for the Service — this means an increase of over 7 per cent.; this lower figure reflects the fact that Health Service costs rose faster than general inflation over this period."?
  What matters to patients is what the Health Service provides. It is not particularly impressive if the Minister for Health simply talks about an artificial RPI that does not apply to the NHS.
  Of the two main claims on which the Secretary of State bases his Health Service record, the first is misdirected and the second is downright wrong. In any case, they are not the most relevant criteria for judging the performance of the Health Service. I shall suggest some alternatives that are much more relevant.
  For example, waiting times are already far too long and are rapidly becoming worse. A recent BMA survey—I have the record with me and can show it to any hon. Member who so wishes—reveals that, for all of the six main specialties reviewed, a majority of district health authorities have experienced a lengthening of waiting times during this past year, when there were no industrial disputes. Perhaps, therefore, the Secretary of State should stop making excuses by continually referring to trade unions, because the last dispute was two or three years ago. A majority found that there was a lengthening of waiting times during this past year and that in every case the increase was as much as 40 to 60 per cent. That is not a small, but a heck of a big increase.
  Mr. Tim Yeo: How would the Labour party's policy of abolishing the private medical sector affect the waiting lists?
  Mr. Meacher: I am glad to answer that question. Our policy would considerably improve waiting lists, because long waiting lists give people a strong incentive to go private. If we had parallel waiting lists, which I personally favour, it would cause a far bigger drop in NHS waiting lists than any of the Secretary of State's measures.
  Mr. Pavitt: The Secretary of State made great play of the increase in numbers as a result of industrial disputes. Does my hon. Friend recall the two consultants' disputes in 1974 and 1975 and the junior hospital doctors' dispute, when waiting lists increased by 100,000, and that the Conservative party supported those disputes?
  Mr. Meacher: That is relevant. We are always told that we are responsible for industrial disputes, but on that occasion consultants were involved rather than ancillary workers. Perhaps Government supporters should rethink their line on the issue.
  Mr. Fowler: The difference is that we did not back that dispute. The hon. Gentleman is wrong. His hon. Friends explicitly back industrial action.
  Mr. Meacher: That is simply because the Government's attitude to industrial relations in the National Health Service, as elsewhere, is exceedingly provocative. We are talking not so much about support for a union as about opposition to the anti-trade union industrial practices in which the Government regularly indulge.
  A second criterion, which is more relevant than those criteria most often quoted, is international comparison. On that score Britain still treats fewer kidney patients per head of population, performs fewer bypass operations and has a worse perinatal mortality rate than many comparable countries.
  A third criterion is staff morale, which directly affects patient care. Anyone who has been in a hospital recently will know that currently staff morale is extremely low because of continual cuts, pay restraint and an ever-increasing work load.
  A fourth criterion is expenditure on prevention and community care. They are target areas for any future quantum improvement in the nation's health. Currently expenditure on prevention is peanuts and on community care stagnant.
  A fifth criterion is difficult to measure, but tell-tale indicators are beginning to appear. The level of cross-infection in hospitals is beginning to rise. The real lesson of the Stanley Royd food poisoning disaster at Wakefield is that lives were lost not just because of errors in food handling, but because there were not enough staff or equipment once the poisoning was discovered to ensure proper barrier nursing. In other words, cuts can kill, and, under this Government, cuts are killing.
  Mrs. Currie: The hon. Gentleman cannot have read pages 2 and 3 of the report by the Social Services Select Committee to which he referred. It says that there has been a
  "a 50 per cent. increase in new patients treated for end-stage renal failure; more than double the number of coronary artery bypass grafts; District nurse staffing increased by 15 per cent between 1978 and 1983 and the number of old people treated by district nurses rose by nearly a quarter to nearly 1½ million."
  Cross-infection is beginning to rise simply because more people are being treated in hospitals. I ant talking about many hundreds of thousands more patients.
  More than half the 17 per cent. to which the hon. Gentleman referred is represented by the resources put into the Health Service by this Government. We have increased pay, particularly to nurses. I can remember, even if the hon. Gentleman cannot, the time under the last Labour Government when we could not fill the places available because the pay was so pathetic.
  Mr. Meacher: Of course, there have been increases in particular areas of health expenditure. There were before 1979, and the figures form a continually rising graph in many respects, but whether that means an improvement in overall quality is by no means certain. Overall spending is being decreased. I could reel off a list of health care aspects for which standards are declining. If I had the time I would do that.
  I have described the criteria by which we should judge the Government's record. By those standards our National Health Service—I say "our" because the Prime Minister

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  does not use it — has manifestly and seriously deteriorated under this Government. That deterioration has been gratuitously aggravated by the Government's obsession with privatisation. It is crystal clear that privatisation, as we have always said, is not about efficiency but about sleazy deals. It is about expense accounts, back-handers and lowered standards.
  I shall cite some of the host of examples in the appalling record of privatisation. With the Sunlight Laundry, which operates for the Cheltenham and District health authority, only 15 per cent. of linen and pillowcases met the quality control standards. The DHSS recommends an acceptance level of 95 per cent. Seventy three per cent. of sheets were rejected. At the High Royds hospital in the Leeds Western health authority, the company involved is Hospital Hygiene Services. Dr. Terry Nelson, the head of the hospital's medical services committee, has complained to managers about erratic standards from the contractors. One senior nurse last week complained of faeces, urine and vomit on the floors.
  A report by Dr. William Newsom, a bacteriologist from the Papworth hospital, revealed high levels of dust in clinical areas in the Hinchingbrooke geriatric hospital, Cambridgeshire, and concluded that there was a risk of patients being infected. The South West Thames authority noted that some laundry contractors would not accept badly soiled linen. Yet that is rather important for hospitals. Trent pointed out that private contractors could not always provide complex and special requirements as cheaply as the public sector.
  Rather notorious is Crothalls at Barking in the Redbridge area. I quote a report by an independent health inspector commissioned by Redbridge community health council, which made some alarming observations — [Interruption.] The Minister of Health might find this funny, but I suggest that he listens to the consequences of what is happening to some of our people because of his policies.
  In the kitchens, there were accumulations of dirt and grease in the corners of the preparation and cooking areas. Food debris had collected behind and beneath pieces of equipment that had not been removed for proper cleaning. There was a thick layer of grease and dirt under the utensils sink. The presence of dead and decomposing cockroaches showed the lack of regular and effective cleaning. I see that the Minister is not laughing now, because the position is serious. Several live cockroaches were also seen.
  I want to give one more example that I know will impress the Minister for Health. A senior Conservative, Professor John Davis, who is one of the country's leading paediatricians, resigned a fortnight ago from Cambridge health authority in protest against political decisions to force hospital cleaning services to be privatised. In his letter of resignation, he said:
  "You will know that my attitudes are essentially conservative, but there comes a time when one must be seen to live up to one's professed principles and true conservatism means recognising that the economy is made for man and not vice versa, given the necessary recognition that resources are not infinite."
  I suggest that Conservative Members take account of that message.
  Such examples give the lie to the Government's claim that privatisation is about greater efficiency. It is about greater profits for Tory shareholders. I do not include the Secretary of State and the Minister for Health in that, but
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  I do include several of their colleagues, including some Conservative Back Benchers. They make their profits at the expense of forcing down the wages of some of the lowest paid people in our society.
  The Barking hospital dispute is an illustration of that. The pay for cleaners is being cut by 40 per cent. Mr. Peter Pritchard, who was the chairman of Pritchards — the parent company of Barking hospital contractors, Crothalls—paid himself an additional £70,000 this year on top of his salary through a dividend increase because of record profits from privatisation. If those policies continue, the prospect that faces the NHS during the next five years is frightening.
  According to a 17-page parliamentary answer that I received a fortnight ago, during the past five years 193 hospitals involving 14,000 beds have been closed by this Government. I accept that 35 hospitals have been opened, but there has been a net loss of 158.
  The Secretary of State had the gall to speak today of 1 per cent. real growth in NHS resources. There was no growth last year, because the so-called Lawson cuts chopped 1 per cent. off the NHS budget. There will be no growth this year because the Secretary of State has forced health authorities to take out of their budgets for patient care a significant part of the pay award to nurses and ancillary staff. There will be no growth in future years, because, for example, the current draft South West Thames strategic plan reveals that that region is being forced by deepening Government cuts to halve the total of its acute beds over the next 10 years. That goes further than cuts. It is butchery.
  It is planned that this process will be intensified. Many of those who defend the NHS and oppose cuts have been and continue to be blackballed off the RHAs and DHAs. That is being done in the most direct political manner possible. I have a hit list that has been drawn up by four Tory members of the South West Thames regional health authority selection panel. It shows, in the handwriting of one of the four Tory members, those who were not to be reappointed to the DHAs and the RHAs, those who were to be reappointed—all in strict accordance, as can be seen from the list, with party allegiance—and which of the four Tory members was to do the proposing at the committee meeting.
  When all the opponents of cuts have been victimised, further cuts can be facilitated. That in itself encourages a further switch to private medical care. This process of steady decline for the NHS becomes circular and reinforcing with the announcement, which I take seriously, by the Secretary of State a month or so ago that the private sector has now grown so much that it must be taken into account when NHS funds are allocated. To rob the Health Service, which is already starved, of yet more money, on the ground that some well-off people have taken to using private clinics, would be as destructive and unfair as depriving state education of funds in areas where there are public schools. It would be to use the effects of a bad policy as a reason for making that bad policy even worse. Yet that is precisely the self-reinforcing pattern of decline that the NHS now faces.
  Health authorities are stacked now with compliant Tory placemen. That opens the way for deeper cuts and encourages the development of private health care, and that is used to justify further cuts in the NHS. For the

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  Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues to say that the NHS is safe in their hands is the final insult. It is about as safe as the Conqueror's logbook in the Belgrano affair.
  Mr. Fowler: I noted what the hon. Gentleman wrote in his pamphlet on that score. There is no truth in what he says. I have not asked health authorities to do what he suggests. The hon. Gentleman has talked about political influence. Has he not written to all Labour members of health authorities asking them to identify Labour supporters on those authorities? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain his reasons for doing so.
  Mr. Meacher: The Secretary of State was reported as saying that as the private sector has grown significantly, it should be taken into account in the allocation of NHS funds. I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman did not mean what he said, but he said it none the less.
  I have written to Labour members of health authorities. I am sure that I was right to do so. I have written to those who are known to be Labour sympathisers—there are a few left — who are members of regional and district health authorities. I have asked them to make clear, according to their knowledge, the political affiliations of those who sit on the authorities. I want also a list of those who have not been reappointed or who have been removed from office, those who have been appointed in their place and, where it is known, the political affiliations of all those persons.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: What for?
  Mr. Meacher: I shall tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman what for. He has been pursuing a campaign of political victimisation against all those who support the NHS and oppose cuts. I intend to stop this Tory hit-listing by providing the public and the electorate with the details of what is happening.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Gentleman probably suspects that so many of the recipients of his letters have been outraged by their contents that I and many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have been shown copies of them. I am disgusted and so are members of health authorities. If he will place a copy of one of his letters before the House, it will make clear that he has been seeking information on the political affiliations of members of health authorities and trying to introduce a whipping or caucus system involving pre-meetings with local Labour parties and Labour groups. It is sheer humbug for him to complain about the introduction of politics in the Health Service and to criticise non-political appointments to authorities throughout the country.
  Mr. Meacher: To accuse me of introducing politics into the NHS is the most incredible hypocrisy to come from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. When I have the facts, I think that they will support my case, not his. There is nowhere near a political balance in the membership of regional and district health authorities. I doubt whether there is more than a handful of district and regional health authorities where there is a Labour chairman. I suspect —I do not know the facts, but I shall get them—that about 80 per cent. of the chairmen of health authorities are Tories. If that is supposed to be even-handed and balanced membership, I suggest that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should use a dictionary.
  Mr. Harry Greenway rose—
  Mr. Meacher: No, I shall not give way. I have been speaking for a considerable time, largely because of interruptions.
  Mr. Greenway rose—
  Mr. Meacher: I shall not give way.
  Even this Government do not claim that the welfare state is safe in their hands. If they did, they would be stretching their credibility beyond the limit. Single pensioners are being robbed of £2·80 a week. which matters a great deal to those on that standard of living. Married pensioners are being robbed of £4·65 a week by the Government's break with the uprating link with earnings.
  The Government's abolition of the earnings-related supplement to unemployment benefit robs the average unemployed man — there are almost 4 million in the dole queues — of about £16 a week. Unemployment benefit is being taxed for the first time under this Government. Yet, at the same time, they have handed out £360 million to the very rich—those with more than £100,000 of stocks and shares—with the abolition of the investment income surcharge. Perhaps worst of all, the Government apparently believe that those on long-term supplementary benefit with the heating addition are so well off that in three weeks' time £1 is to be knocked off their benefit by the iniquitous scale margin.
  If the Secretary of State or other Ministers had to live out that to which they so glibly sentence others, they would not be so ready to grind the faces of the poor. The trouble is that the hard-nosed occupants of the Government Front Bench, from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer downwards, have no idea of and no interest in what it is like to be condemned to poverty and despair in Thatcher's Britain.
  I shall be able to deal quickly with social security in the Gracious Speech because it is rather like the Sherlock Holmes dog which failed to bark in the night — memorable by its virtual absence. Unmentioned are the so-called five Fowler reports, which the Secretary of State likes to call the most radical review in total of the welfare state since Beveridge. Given the Government record, that is Fowlerspeak for the most radical dismantling of the welfare state since Beveridge.
  The Gracious Speech refers only to the already much heralded and much debated 5 per cent. annual revaluation of pensions for early leavers and the provision of more information for occupational scheme members. We agree in principle with the provision of more information for those in occupational pension schemes, but we wait to see whether that provision will go far enough in practice. The 5 per cent. annual revaluation is deeply flawed on two counts. The Government know that 5 per cent. is well below the historic trend figure for earnings. Secondly, and more importantly, it excludes existing pensioners because it applies only to benefits earned from next January. That is wholly unfair and discriminatory.
  The Secretary of State has been a pushover for the drug, tobacco, food and Health Service equipment supply companies. He has become a soft touch to the occupational pension schemes. What a tragedy it is that the only people to whom the Secretary of State is apparently able to show his virility are those living in poverty—trade unionists working for him in Newcastle, from whom he arbitrarily stole bonuses of up to £14 a week, and miners, from whom

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  he purloined £15 a week, even when the NUM could not pay that money because its funds had been sequestrated. That is the type of policy in which the Secretary of State believes.
  Even if the Queen's Speech is a mouse in social security terms, a counter-revolution — of course, it is unmentioned—is gathering pace against the welfare state, led, under this Government's leader, not by Robin Hood but by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Like everything else they have done, the Government have loaded the dice.
  The Fowler reviews are anything but independent, unprejudiced inquiries; they are fixed up to the eyeballs. With the exception of one, which is headed by the chairman of the London Brick Co. Ltd.—obviously he was chosen because of his great knowledge of housing benefit — they are all chaired by Ministers. That is virtually unprecedented. The reviews are crammed with carefully-selected, card-carrying Tory party members, which makes it abundantly clear that the whole exercise is just one of going through the motions as camouflage for predetermined conclusions.
  When I specifically asked by letter for a more balanced membership of the inquiries the Secretary of State refused. External contributors were given only two months to make submissions. Each review has been made subject to a nil extra cost constraint, which means that open-minded examination of what is required to meet identified needs—such an examination is needed—is impossible. When completed, the reviews will not be published. Even by this Government's standards of using power and patronage to eliminate all opposition, this is the most stitched-up con trick that I have ever come across in my political life.
  Mr. Nicholas Soames: Many Conservative Members understand the hon. Gentleman's grave difficulty, in the context of the language of Socialism, of bringing perspective or relevance to the matters about which he is talking. Does he agree that it is prudent, sensible and right for the Government to conduct a thorough review of the welfare state, bearing in mind that no such in-depth review has been conducted since Beveridge in 1945?
  Mr. Meacher: Of course I believe that it is right to do that. If I were conducting the reviews, I would have independent chairmen and a balanced membership and allow sufficient time for proper research and examination. I would not impose a nil cost constraint. I would publish the reviews' results. That is the difference.
  Mr. Greenway: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: No, I shall not give way.
  Even though it is all sewn up and the time scale is telescoped to a minimum—
  Mr. Fowler: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I shall not give way. I have been speaking for nearly an hour, and I am extremely conscious of the fact that I should draw my speech to a close, and I propose to do so.
  The Government, despite the telescoping of the time scale, could not bear to wait even a few months to do the decent thing and let the reviews report. The Government want blood now. That is why we have had newspaper leaks of £3 billion cuts in the offing, including £1 billion of
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  social security cuts. The post "star chamber" Cabinet meeting to take final decisions on the cuts was held this morning, but in a monumentally diversionary speech this afternoon the Secretary of State contrived to say not one word about it. One wonders why.
  I submit that it is a real abuse of the rationale of Parliament that we are called here to debate the relatively minor issues in the Queen's Speech including social security when the massive importance of those decisions on cuts which will dominate the lives of millions of our people and Parliament's programme for next year is completely ignored. Already, according to The Times of 25 June—that is hardly a pro-Socialist organ—social security cuts of £6·5 billion have so far been made by the Government. If further swingeing cuts are now made, as the leaks clearly reveal and the Government's record manifestly suggests, they will no doubt be done by means-testing, by taxing child benefit, by further major cuts in housing benefit, by uprating unemployment benefit by significantly less than the inflation rate or—I see that the Secretary of State is smiling — by uprating all benefits on less than an annual basis.
  I have to tell the Secretary of State that any one of those measures would do enormous damage to the welfare of millions of people. If that is the only way in which the Government can balance the books—when, according to the Government's successive Budget statements, they have already handed out cumulatively no less than £13 billion to the richest 5 per cent. of the population—they should make way for an alternative Government whose health and social security policies reflect far more closely the priorities of the British people.
  4.16 pm
  Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: If the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) had not had any responsibility for the DHSS during the time of the last Labour Government, his strictures would have been more convincing. As it was, his speech was rather wild and woolly—in marked contrast to the superb speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who addressed himself to the main issues facing the National Health Service and the social security system.
  I was disappointed that no reference was made in the Queen's Speech to the Health Service. The Health Service is vital to our country and the issues revolving around it are so important that that was a curious omission. It may be argued that the Queen's Speech concentrated on the economy, and, because of that, that is the point at which I shall start.
  As we know, the Government's view of the monetary disciplines within the economy is fundamentally that of maintaining supply and demand as the overriding criterion and their view could be described as almost fundamentalist. It is argued that demand will be the trigger for supply. The Government have eschewed any attempt to stimulate demand on the basis of the already being sufficient demand in the economy and in the Western world to increase supply. Some Ministers have argued, and continue to argue, that if only the Government took less in taxation there would be more demand in the economy from which supply would increase and jobs would be created — hence, the need to hold public spending. It is contended that to stimulate demand artificially is to stoke up inflation again, which could have disastrous effects.

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  In those two-dimensional terms, the logic of supply and demand seems to be irrefutable but, thanks to some research by my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body), I suggest that there is a third dimension that is seldom, if ever, referred to — need. The famine in Ethiopia is a classic example of need—the desperate need for food felt by hundreds of thousands of people. If they could receive that food only on the basis of their being able to pay for it, they would starve to death, but, thank goodness, our faith in economic disciplines is not so inflexible that we insist on payment before coming to their rescue. If Ethiopia demonstrates that need is a dimension that can never be left out of the economic argument—at least when it is a matter of life and death—does it not have a similar application in our nation? I believe that it does, in terms of health care, because health care is about life and death.
  As some hon. Members may know, since last January I have been the victim of a rare kidney disease. Without kidney dialysis, I would be a dead man. In the months during which I have been receiving treatment in hospital, I have cost the National Health Service tens of thousands of pounds — much more than I could have afforded privately; and, although I am a member of BUPA, it is a service that it does not provide because of the expense. Had my treatment depended on my ability to pay, I would not be alive today. The NHS met my need for treatment without requiring me to show that I had funds to pay for it. It operated on supply and need, not supply and demand. That will always remain true of the NHS. That is why it is such a precious asset to us all.
  It may be argued that, thank God, kidney failure is a fairly rare disease. It is not a common illness and requires expensive specialist services which do not apply to ordinary illnesses such as flu and colds. Therefore, while it may be reasonable to argue that need should dominate, when dealing with these more commonplace illnesses from which we all suffer, there is no reason why supply and demand—the ability to pay—should not at least play a part in considering how we should pay for the Health Service.
  From that it may be inferred that, while need is an important consideration in judging the cost of the Health Service, supply and demand is a discipline which is also there and will remain a constant part. In those terms it is perfectly reasonable to look at the Health Service under an economic microscope to see where savings could be made. All of us must be impressed by some of the savings to which my right hon. Friend referred. In so far as those saving are going towards patient care, who could object to any of that money, if it is being wasted, being used where it is most needed?
  I agree with my right hon. Friend's view, which is shared by many in the Health Service, that what Roy Griffiths has identified as the need for better administration is a crucial part of getting better value out of the Health Service. It is generally recognised that hospital administration has not been the profession that it should be. In some ways it bears resemblance to the management of hotels. After all, many of the services provided by hospitals are provided by hotels. I hope that we shall see a new breed of professional administrator who is used to dealing with the problems of providing beds and food, organising domestic help and ensuring adequacy of supplies.
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  We must also never forget that hospitals involve staffing—both doctors and nurses—the cost of drugs and the cost of specialist equipment. I am unhappy about the figures that have been given about the increase in the number of inpatients and outpatients and of doctors and nurses. We are told that the Health Service treated 450,000 more inpatients in 1983 than in 1978 as well as looking after 2·5 million more outpatients. Over that same period the number of hospital doctors has increased by 3,100. Therefore, each new doctor is being asked to treat 112 new inpatients or 800 outpatients.
  Nursing numbers have increased by 38,700 — one new nurse to every 11 new inpatients. I can speak only for the hospitals that I have been in since I was ill in January, but there the ratio is approximately one nurse to six beds. Therefore, if we talk about one nurse to 11 beds, we talk about a nursing service that is desperately over-stretched. Those figures are the roughest of rough calculations. They allow nothing for reductions in nursing hours, which change the figure of 38,000 drastically, or for the intensive type of nursing that is often required, when frequently the ratio is one nurse to one patient, or even two or three nurses to one patient.
  In the dialysis ward that I visit three times a week, the nursing level is officially for nine patients, yet there are 14 patients in the ward. Without the auxiliaries to support the nurses, the job could not be done. Even as it is, if there is any ill health among the nursing staff, the ward Js clearly desperately over-stretched. It may be argued that the nursing level is too high for nine beds, but we must be careful not to allow economies to distort nursing care too far the other way.
  I know that many senior nurses and sisters believe that what is now happening is a cause for concern and that we ought to be asking whether we are allowing our nursing levels to become dangerously over-stretched. It may be argued that if there is slack in the service it is right to take it up before embarking on ever-increasing expenditure. As has been said so many times already, the NHS, which was costing £7·5 billion in 1978, is set to cost £17·5 billion in 1985.
  The drugs bill, to which my hon. Friend referred, is always increasing, but I am not convinced that that is because the drug companies are making massive profits. We sometimes forget the enormous cost of producing new drugs and that on average only one new drug emerges from 10,000 originally synthesised. The period from patenting to commercial launch frequently lasts up to 10 to 12 years, and the cost of development can be about £60 million per drug.
  When these considerations are weighed, perhaps the drug companies are not quite the profit-grasping organisations which it is sometimes suggested they are. Whatever the case, the drugs bill is another call on NHS resources, and I entirely accept that any Government, faced with the dilemma of increasing costs, meeting needs and knowing that they must maintain the service at a certain level, will have to make some difficult choices in their priorities.
  Although I have misgivings about the present situation, I do not accept the argument that the shortcomings in patient-doctor relationships are the result of overworked doctors not having the time to get to know their patients, or that nurses are so run off their feet that they cannot find

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  time for gentle care. That is why I introduced my patients' charter in September, with its proposals for improving patients' rights.
  Mr. Jack Dormand: The Opposition very much welcome the hon. Gentleman's return to the House. He has been greatly missed, and is one of the nicest hon. Members. In addition, he always makes notable contributions to our debates; he is demonstrating that again today. In view of his recent experience, we are delighted to see him back.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to priorities. One of the minor but important aspects of health is preventive medicine and health education. In real terms, the Government have reduced the resources allocated to health education and preventive medicine. Is that one of the priorities which ought to be cut or which should go lower down the scale?
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about me. What he has said is one of the priorities which any Secretary of State should look at. It must be a matter of personal judgment as to where it should go in the list of priorities, but I recognise the hon. Gentleman's point.
  The patients' charter which I introduced in September contained proposals for improving patients' rights. I sent a copy to the DHSS, but I am sorry to say that apparently it has made no impression on anyone there. I have not heard whether it is thought that it is not worth the paper it was written on or, indeed, whether it had ever been received. Perhaps the Department is making the same mistake as some of the medical staff whom I criticised in the preamble to the charter—of forgetting that patients are the reason why there is a Health Service. They are its customers, and their rights must be considered and safeguarded. Judging by the huge amount of mail that I have received about the charter, my concern is shared by many other people, including doctors and nurses, and I shall willingly make all my correspondence available to my right hon. Friend or his hon. Friends if they would like to see it.
  Whether it be the prescribing of the wrong drugs by hospitals to patients with allergies when a telephone call to their GPs would prevent the mistake, or the unscheduled errors necessitating surgery and sometimes disfigurement, the patient is the sufferer, generally without any compensation unless something major has happened. My right hon. Friend will know that there are no national statistics on medical negligence claims, but he may also be aware that Action for the Victims of Medical Accidents estimates that there are more than 10,000 such claims current in England.
  I have received marvellous treatment from so many doctors and nurses working in the National Health Service that I shall always be indebted to them and hope that I shall always be a champion of the service.
  Modern medicine seems able to work miracles, to the point where I think some young doctors believe that they have most of the answers to whatever disease they are treating. That may be so, but the anxious patient that they are looking after is still a creature of flesh and blood, nerves and feelings. He still wants kindness, encouragement and hope, wants to know what is wrong with him and how he is to be treated. He wants his anxieties to be
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  allayed. It is the task of those working in the Health Service to meet his needs. It is the responsibility of all of us who have any responsibility for the Health Service to ensure that it has the means to do that, even if it results in more expenditure.
  4.30 pm
  Mrs. Renée Short: The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) has paid a moving tribute to the members of medical and nursing professions who have looked after him. I am sure that we are all delighted to see him back in the House. We warmly endorse what he said about the National Health Service.
  I share the hon. Gentleman's view about the contents of the Gracious Speech. It must be the first one for a considerable period to omit any reference — with the exception of occupational pension rights—to the social services. There is nothing about the National Health Service, except an ominous statement that firm control of public spending will be maintained. We do not object to that, but we are concerned about the way in which that control is to be exercised and about those parts of the NHS which are likely to suffer as a result.
  There is nothing in the Gracious Speech about nursery education. I am sorry that the Secretary of State for Education and Science has departed; I had hoped that he would stay for the debate. There is nothing about unemployment benefit or local authority housing. The latter is an area to which the Secretary of State for Social Services will look when his proposals for care in the community come to fruition, because local authority housing will have to undertake some of the burdens now carried by the long-stay mental illness and mental handicap hospitals. There needs to be some transfer of resources into that area, or the creation of additional resources, if the policy is to be carried out successfully.
  There is nothing in the Gracious Speech about any attempt to curb smoking or cigarette advertising. There is nothing to deal with the problem of over-prescribing of drugs. If the Secretary of State wants to save Health Service expenditure, he can look fruitfully at that area. There is over-prescribing by doctors and by those, such as receptionists, whom they depute to write out repeat prescriptions. What is the Department doing about that problem?
  There are great disparities in the periods for which drugs are prescribed. Receptionists write out repeat prescriptions without knowing why it is being done, the conditions for which the drugs are being prescribed, or the quantities which should be prescribed. It is a very serious situation. Those doctors who do not over-prescribe, and pharmacists who are on the receiving end of the prescriptions and see the waste of drugs, and therefore the waste of money and resources, are equally concerned about the problem.
  I suspect that millions of pounds worth of NHS money are flushed down lavatories when people empty their medicine chests and throw away medicines and pills. Often they have forgotten the reasons why those medicines were prescribed. Something must be done about the problem, because it involves a dreadful waste of resources which should be used in other areas of the NHS which are at present under-financed.
  The Gracious Speech refers to the decisions to abolish the Greater London council and the metropolitan councils,

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  including the one in the west midlands. The Prime Minister does not seem to like them any more than they like her, and I suppose that leaves us even.
  There are doctrinaire proposals to remove the nationalised bus services. Those proposals will have a disastrous effect on rural areas in particular. They will involve great cost for all those who need public transport if they are to travel at all.
  There are no proposals to deal with the urgent problem of replacing our outdated and derelict sewerage system or the water supply system. They are either inadequate or worn out and outdated. Those services should be provided, because they have a considerable bearing on the health of the community. The failure to replace those services also affects the level of unemployment.
  There is no commitment to a building and construction programme to absorb even part of the massive number of unemployed. The Prime Minister knows as well as I do that that would be one of the most effective ways of injecting life into our depressed economy, providing jobs, and revitalising the building materials industry and the manufacture of appliances.
  It is a major scandal that there is no mention of the plight of the NHS. There is no mention of the effects of the doctrinaire enforced privatisation of hospital services, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) dealt effectively and at some length. There is no mention of the enforced closure of beds because of the lack of money to pay nurses. There is no attempt to maintain the commitment given to develop the maternity services or to replace ancient and outdated hospitals. They are, incidentally, hospitals in which a great deal of very good medicine is being practised, in spite of the buildings and conditions.
  There is no mention of the commitment to appoint the consultant staff needed to provide a better and more effective service to patients. Long waiting lists still persist in practically every region. In my constituency, even patients suffering acute pain and very severe disability are still waiting four years for knee replacement operations. That is a very serious situation.
  However, the Government have achieved what no other Government before them have achieved — the highest number of hospital staff during one year who have been forced to go on strike to defend their jobs. The Government have also achieved a serious fall in morale among medical staff, and among consultants at teaching hospitals, who have heavy responsibilities not only for the care of patients but for teaching and training the next generation of doctors. They are very concerned at the constant pressures that they have to meet because of the lack of resources, and the shortage of staff which is part of the problem of lack of resources.
  Housing capital expenditure has fallen by 38 per cent. since 1979, total capital spending has fallen by 2 per cent., and local authorities are now unable to make use of accrued capital receipts for housing investment. Capital receipts are expected to fall sharply next year. Therefore, the outlook is very poor for improving the housing conditions of many people, including large numbers in depressed areas in the west midlands, who now live in substandard private housing and equally sub-standard and ancient local authority housing built in the first flush of publicly financed housing. They are doomed to spend much longer periods in sub-standard housing. There is serious disrepair in the public and private sectors.
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  I should like to say a few words to the absent Secretary of State for Education and Science. The teaching of science and technology is of crucial importance to Britain. We expect universities to respond to the needs of medicine, industry and commerce. Information technology, computer science and business administration are areas in which there is an urgent need to expand.
  Research on high technology and involvement with industry are crucial, but our universities have suffered massive cuts in their UGC grants over the past four years. For example, Aston university has sustained an enormous cut of 40 per cent. It has been forced to reduce student numbers by 2,000, academic staff from 500 to 300, and non-academic staff from 1,000 to 650. All the technological universities have suffered comparable reductions, yet it is acknowledged that increasing our lead in technological and scientific research is an essential ingredient for maintaining our future. Perhaps the absent Secretary of State for Education and Science will explain why we are pursuing such a punitive and destructive policy, and why he tolerates it.
  Our future depends to a large degree on our universities and polytechnics. Much of the research is long-term in character and cannot show results at the end of a given financial year or give an immediate cash return, yet it is of vital importance that it should continue. The Government, who pride themselves on the fact that the Prime Minister had a scientific education, show a complete lack of understanding of, and disregard for, the need to safeguard our future progress in science and to invest liberally in higher education. That is where our future lies—from the point of view not only of teaching and academic research, but of industrial progress. The Gracious Speech merely shows that the present narrow-minded monetarist policies are to be maintained.
  The Social Services Select Committee has reported on the effects of the University Grants Committee cuts on medical teaching and research. It is the intention of the Committee to monitor progress during the next two and a half years and to see how the situation develops. I wonder what the Secretary of State intends to do to meet the demand for higher education from men and women students.
  The Gracious Speech says nothing about any expansion of university teaching. However — I suppose that we ought to raise the flag about this—there is to be a Bill to allow parents to exempt their children from corporal punishment. The provisions will apply only in local authority schools. They will not apply to the public schools. Conservative Members will know more about that than I do, having been on the receiving end. What about those local authorities which still allow corporal punishment? We seem to be making very slow progress in that area.
  I am delighted to see that the Secretary of State for Education and Science has returned to his place.
  Mr. Greenway: The delight is not mutual.
  Mrs. Short: Not mutual? The hon. Gentleman does not know.
  I wonder why the Secretary of State did not take his courage in both hands and ban corporal punishment in all schools. Of whom is he afraid? He should have second thoughts on the matter. To beat a child is a degrading and disgusting act, particularly for the petty offences with

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  which some head teachers seem to be obsessed. I am sorry to say that some Labour-controlled local authorities still allow corporal punishment in their schools. I urge the Secretary of State to get rid of corporal punishment once and for all. There are other ways of dealing with naughty schoolchildren.
  No single year's programme could possibly rectify six years' devastation such as my own constituency has suffered. We have over 16 per cent. unemployment, our factories are closing, and many of those factories are disgusting places which need to be replaced. The whole of the west midlands is a gravely disadvantaged area. Our young people have no prospects of decent jobs. I have set this problem before the House on many occasions, but the Government seem to have it in for the west midlands. They seem to intend to allow the area to moulder away for the foreseeable future.
  The Gracious Speach contains irrelevances, such as the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan councils, including the West Midlands county council, and the insistence on futile and wasteful privatisation schemes in the midst of a ruinous coal strike. The Prime Minister seems determined to allow that strike to continue. She is not prepared to intervene.
  The Gracious Speech marks the nadir of the Government's incompetence. I hope that the Secretary of State for Education and Science will be able to tell us where progress is to be made and where resources are to be provided in order to establish a base for the scientific progress that we need if we are to survive in the competitive world. I hope also that steps will be taken urgently to see that the coal industry strike, which has lasted for many months, will not be allowed to fester on for much longer. If the Government allow the strike to continue, the country will realise that they are not fit to govern.
  4.46 pm
  Mr. John Ward: The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-West (Mrs. Short) will forgive me if I do not continue in the same vein. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate, and I welcome the promise made in the Gracious Speech to continue with the control of public expenditure, and to increase the functions of the private sector wherever possible—in short, to continue to ensure that the taxpayer and the ratepayer get full value for money.
  However, I must confess to disappointment that there is no reference in the Gracious Speech to the Warnock committee's report. I wish to refer briefly to two aspects of that report. In the previous Session, my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mrs. McCurley) introduced a ten-minute Bill with the aim of controlling maternal surrogate clinics. She was given permission to bring in the Bill but, inevitably, it was lost through shortage of parliamentary time. As one of my hon. Friend's supporters on that occasion, I should like to remind my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health of the great concern which still exists about this subject.
  The arguments were well set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde on 31 January 1984. It has, I believe, always been our concern that in family affairs the interests of the children should be
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  paramount. I therefore find it difficult to understand why we are allowing commercial activities to enter this field, with large sums of money changing hands in an attempt to provide a child for childless couples.
  I do not underestimate the distress that inability to have a child, with the continual round of medical tests and examinations, can cause to a married couple. But we must also consider the well-being of any child which may be produced by surrogate motherhood, particularly when a commercial organisation is involved. The child would be illegitimate, with all the legal complications which that entails. Also, little consideration seems to have been given to what would happen if the surrogate mother produced a handicapped child. Would she keep it? Would the potential parents perhaps refuse to proceed with adoption? We should have acquiesced in the production of a human being more in need of love and affection than a normal child and yet, by the process of surrogate motherhood, have put its future happiness at risk.
  Last September, my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health condemned an American "babies for sale" scheme. Clearly he is as concerned as I am about such commercial activity. I hope that we shall shortly hear that he proposes to do something about the problem.
  Speaking as someone with a scientific qualification—not in the medical field—I would be the first to agree that not all scientific progress is necessarily human progress. I have received much support in my objection to maternal surrogate clinics, and I believe that the House should be given an early opportunity to debate and to legislate upon the matter. The Government could do no better than examine again the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde, which would simply prohibit the operation of maternal surrogate clinics in the United Kingdom. Such a measure would receive support on both sides of the House.
  The other matter that I wish to raise with my right hon. Friend relates to proposals in the Warnock report for the use of human embryos in medical research. The report recommends that research conducted on human in vitro embryos and their handling should be permitted only under licence. It also recommends that such embryos should be allowed to be kept alive for only 14 days. I have received an enormous amount of correspondence on this subject and every letter opposes such a proposal.
  Most hon. Members probably instinctively find such a proposal distasteful, but it is our duty to examine its more long-term effects. For example, will 14 days be long enough? An argument is probably already being marshalled somewhere to the effect that experiments on embryos would serve humanity if they were allowed to proceed beyond the 14-day limit. Many of us have worked through organisations such as FRAME — the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments—to reduce the use of animals in medical research. It would be intolerable if, when FRAME is having some success, a market should be established for human embryos—even under licence.
  Other European countries have already had to consider this problem. The vast majority of British people probably agree with Sir John Peel, who said:
  "You do not use a human as a guinea pig unless it is a bona fide attempt to improve the condition of that individual. No one can conceive that experimenting on an artificially-produced embryo can be to the benefit of that embryo. The argument that it might benefit others is a red herring."

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  It is easy to state the problems and the dilemmas which we shall face when we come to debate or, indeed, to pass legislation concerned with the Warnock report, but I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health will acknowledge that this is a matter in which sensitivity is needed and that it is of great concern to many people who we represent in the House. It is no exaggeration to say that if legislation which would affect the matters about which I have been speaking is introduced, the vast majority of us hope that it will be on a free vote because it would be difficult to support some of the Warnock report's recommendations.
  I nevertheless pay tribute to the work done by the Warnock committee. It has produced a document which will allow us to consider scientific progress and its effects on the human race for many years to come. It does not follow, however, that we must accept all of its recommendations. I hope that the House will shortly have the opportunity to make its views known on at least the two matters that I have mentioned this afternoon.
  Genetic engineering opens a problem for humanity, and the House should not duck its responsibilities in this regard. These matters are of great concern to many deep thinking people in Britain. They are of great concern to the Council of Europe and, I suspect, other countries. I have the honour to be one of the House's representatives at the Council of Europe. The 21 nations that meet there have already become aware that human genetic engineering in all its aspects is a complicated, difficult and, above all, sensitive matter. I hope that the Government will cooperate with any international group that seeks their aid. Perhaps I might use a Chinese proverb: humanity must not travel too fast for its soul to follow.
  A market has already been set up in the United States to provide babies for childless couples, and we can see the beginnings of such a market in this country. The Warnock report has produced the facts and some recommendations. It is for this House, I believe, to take the moral decision as to whether the report's recommendations should be implemented. I hope that we shall get the opportunity to make that decision soon.
  Whatever arguments the House may adduce, and however we may divide on political lines on other subjects, we can surely agree that protecting our children and children yet to be born is a measure of our concern for civilisation itself.
  4.53 pm
  Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: I shall not continue the line of thought taken by the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Ward) in regard to the Warnock report, except to say that I agree that it considers matters that are of considerable concern to us all. I, too, hope that we shall have an opportunity to debate it. Dealing with moral arguments through legislation is fraught with immense problems. As the hon. Gentleman said, the House is not divided on partisan lines in such matters.
  I regret that the Gracious Speech does not mention health and health care. I hope that that does not suggest that we can expect only a continuation of existing policy and practice. I am doubtful about the Government's continued concentration on management and efficiency and therefore on statistics that assist the Secretary of State in this compartment of the NHS. No one doubts that management and efficiency are an aspect of the Secretary of State's work but the difficulty is that they skew
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  examination of problems in the NHS. The key question that faces any Secretary of State is whether the country is more healthy. The Government keep saying that the NHS treats more patients than when Labour was in power. That does not indicate a healthy society but greater demand for treatment, which is quite different.
  We should put far greater emphasis on helping individuals and communities to be healthier. The Secretary of State referred to his speech at the Conservative party conference at Brighton. I watched him make that speech. He reworked it today but, then as now, its great defect was its failure to mention prevention or self-help care. For example, the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education report on the effect of food and food additives on health has been suppressed, although we know that unhealthy eating kills. Each year, 30,000 men in Britain aged under 65 die from heart disease whereas other European countries have been able to reduce the incidence of such deaths. Moreover, 100,000 people die each year as a result of smoking-related diseases but we still permit cigarette advertising to be associated with sporting events, thus psychologically linking healthy pastimes and smoking. I deplore that.
  Alcohol Concern has spotlighted the effects of alcohol abuse. Apart from the effects of alcohol abuse on health, road accidents and crime, it estimates that £2 billion is lost to industry each year because of dependence on alcohol or alcohol abuse. When other countries such as the United States are doing so much to wean people from alcohol addiction, why are we doing so little and to so little effect? Each year 2,000 women die from cervical cancer although statistics show that 90 per cent. of them have never been screened. Far more could be done to promote screening by broadening out remuneration to doctors and ending apparently restrictive age limits.
  This morning, I was able to pay a brief visit to the spinal unit at the royal national orthopaedic hospital. The vast majority of cases there arise from road accidents. We know that motor cycle accidents are proportionally 27 times more common than those involving motor cars and yet we do not examine regulatory means of preventing people from damaging themselves. For example, the minimum age for driving a car is higher than that for driving a motor cycle. One means of inhibiting young people from riding motor cycles is to make the age limit the same.
  There is a lack of linkage between services. Rate capping and rate penalties are deleterious to health care. The increased number of people who now have to do without home helps means that some will have to be drawn into hospital or other institutional care far earlier. The lack of a broader definition of people requiring attendance allowances means that people will require institutional care before they would otherwise need it.
  Other Government Departments could also help massively to prevent people from needing treatment. It is well known that housing conditions contribute considerably to health, yet since 1979 the massive cuts in finance available for housing have meant that the general health level has declined considerably. Despite that, Conservative Members appear not to realise that present housing finance policy will mean that even more people will suffer a deterioration in their health as housing conditions decline. Local authorities may, in theory, have the alternatives of rehabilitation and redevelopment, but unless houses are rehabilitated on a regular basis every 15

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  or 20 years, they will have to be demolished. People will be forced increasingly into unsatisfactory accommodation because we do not look after our housing stock.
  Similarly, our system to enable people to pay fuel costs is manifestly inadequate. A lack of attention to heating affects health. Social security support for fuel costs cannot meet the immense rises in energy costs of the past 10 years. Yet we do not link that with the possibility of preventing people from requiring health care. Health care is more expensive than helping people to pay their heating costs.
  My final point regarding prevention relates to collaboration with the voluntary sector. I commend the Government's work on drug abuse. It is to their credit that they have given grant-aid to organisations that work to prevent drug abuse and to promote rehabilitation and treatment. The Government's approach has not been at all narrow-minded. I applaud their introduction of further measures.
  However, it is sad that such local projects are not similarly treated in collaboration with the voluntary sector. We should learn from the experiments of women's movements, such as the well woman clinics. They have shown what can be done in health care, which men have failed to grasp in years past. There are many good practices going on in individual ways and we should examine them to see how they can be translated for the greater good. It is no use believing that care in the community can work by diktat. It will not be beneficial to move people out of institutions if we do not support the institutions required to help people in the community.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has a point about partisan appointments to health authorities. The political credentials of appointees are undoubtedly being examined carefully. What is more, those appointments are now considered at ministerial level. Much anxiety is expressed about the diminution of pluralism in our democracy. We shall not be able to involve people in our democratic processes if they believe that they can be appointed to a body that exercises authority and influence only if they belong to a particular political party. Such a position would be dangerous.
  It is sad that many organisations that are beneficial to the Health Service and the social services and that are funded by both local authorities and the Government are treated in the same way by the far Left as by the Right. A voluntary body in Hackney will find that its local authority will believe that if a job is worth doing it should be done by the state. If local authorities are to determine their grant-giving practices by political criteria, the same is true. I hope that the hon. Member for Oldham, West will condemn such a practice, if it is carried out by members of his own party, just as he condemned the Government for it in health authorities.
  Social conditions are deteriorating generally. There are rare outbreaks of salmonella poisoning, but we should be worried about regular outbreaks of various kinds in institutional care. The public health aspect of care has brought the greatest good for the greatest number in our history. The extension of the expectation of life has not come through technology and surgical skills, but through the improvements of water supplies and the development of public health. Unfortunately, it is in those areas that our social conditions are deteriorating.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Patten): I always listen with care to the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft). I am grateful for his remarks about the Government's drugs initiative, which I hope will receive all-party support.
  I listened to the hon. Gentleman's voice that expressed, almost with J. B. Priestley-like reasonableness, such as we expect from an hon. Member from Yorkshire, many points, and suddenly heard him say, in a different tone, almost exactly the same scare-raising, hair-raising things about the state of the public health which were earlier said, totally unreasonably, by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). That worries me. He must not make unsubstantiated assertions about threats of increased infection and outbreaks of food poisoning without quantifying the increase and giving the House evidence.
  Mr. Meadowcroft: I accept what the Minister says. There is a danger that statistics are self-fulfilling. When the press becomes interested in an outbreak of salmonella poisoning, other outbreaks suddenly become public property. I accept that danger. However, I would expect him to be desperately worried about other aspects of public health which are not on the agenda, but which I would have expected to see there. In Bradford people are extremely worried about the incidence of dysentry—and not people who are prone to lay such things at the feet of our immigrant populations. The outbreak is mainly concentrated in old council estates on the periphery of the city. I would have hoped that the Minister would be worried about that.
  The general problem is immense. Resources for health services will never match expectations, as the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) continually tells the House. When a particular treatment or skill is known to be possible, everyone expects it to be generally available. Clearly, that demand cannot be met. In a sense the more glamorous a specialty the less is its impact on health care. The more expensive an individual treatment or individual technology is, the more difficult it is to make it generally available. We shy away from the fundamental problem of questioning clinical freedom. We avoid developing better evaluation of treatment and medical audit. At present the inhibition on clinical freedom is the waiting list, but we passively allow that to continue. It is time we examined ways and means of tackling the mismatch of expectations and resources for services.
  It is sad for the NHS that the case against the Government's failure to tackle such matters is so badly handled by the Labour Opposition. The Government are let off the hook time and time again by the Labour party's obsession with antique clichés and, even worse, by its acceptance of the Government's terms of debate. A different agenda for debates on health matters is needed in the House. There is a crisis in the NHS and in social services. It is sad that neither the Government nor the Opposition Benches are aware of the fact that a new agenda is required, and that they cannot deal with it.
  5.9 pm
  Mrs. Edwina Currie: I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Ward) said about the Warnock committee report. I hope that the House will have an opportunity to debate the problems outlined in the report, preferably before the Government

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  have made up their mind as to what they want to do. I hope that Ministers will ensure that, whatever comes before the House, hon. Members will have a free vote.
  I wish first to discuss the annual report on "The Health Service in England", which came out recently. The NHS is the jewel in the crown of the DHSS, and its successes between 1978 and 1983, which were outlined by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, are worth hammering home. Inpatient treatments have increased by 648,000 a year, and outpatient attendances have increased by 2·5 million a year. Both have shown an increase about three times higher than under the Labour Government. There has been an increase of 19 per cent. in cases per available bed for inpatients, and day cases have increased by a further 250,000.
  The National Health Service is rapidly becoming the largest employer in western Europe, certainly in terms of the numbers on its books. It is the right sort of employment for the services that it is intended to provide: consultant staffing has increased by 13 per cent.; district-nurse staffing has increased by 15 per cent.; nurse and midwife staffing generally has increased by 13 per cent.; and general practitioners and dentists have increased by 12 per cent. At the same time, the average doctor's list has decreased by 9 per cent., so that our family doctors have far more time to talk to us. Under the Conservative Government, full-time staff has increased by 60,000. There has been a reduction in ancillary staff, but 46,000 of those extra 60,000 are nurses and midwives. The Government should be immensely proud of that record.
  The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short), who has left the Chamber, talked about the terrible state of some hospitals. She should be aware that the capital programme is now 23 per cent. higher in real terms than it was under the Labour Government. Therefore, to answer the question about who is replacing our tatty old hospitals, we are, and we are doing it much faster than the Labour Government did when they had the opportunity.
  The annual report shows some of the perils of throwing money at a problem and keeping one's fingers crossed. The 17 per cent. additional money over and above inflation that the Government have provided to the NHS has resulted in people throughout the country scratching their heads and asking, "Where has all the money gone?". I include among them many of the administrators responsible for the Health Service.
  It is worth exploring the point in a little detail. Half of the 17 per cent. went on pay rises and the reduction in the average working week of a nurse. That is an improvement in service, whatever the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) might say, because there used to be an astonishingly high turnover in trained nurses. It used to be impossible to fill posts for trained nurses, and that still happens in specialty areas such as sick children's nursing. I commend to Ministers the possibility of extending special allowances, which are currently available for geriatric and psychiatric nursing, to other sorts of nursing to attract staff to those areas.
  Half of what was left after the pay rises went on non-pay rises for NHS drugs and equipment. One would have thought that, with the purchasing power of the NHS being what it is, the NHS retail price index would be lower than the national retail price index, not several percentage points higher. That problem must be tackled and solved to the benefit of the Health Service and us all.
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  Part of the 17 per cent. went on the 1 to 1·5 per cent. demographic change—mainly the increased number of old people. I must tell Labour Members that that increased money was made available and that it became possible to maintain the same level of health services to the increased number of old people who presented themselves for care and treatment, many of them over and over again—and why not? An elderly person costs the Health Service nine times as much as a young person, and the Government have managed to maintain services. Indeed, there is even something left over from the 17 per cent.
  I congratulate Ministers on that achievement. If the Labour Government had produced such a record on the Health Service, Labour Members would be shouting it from the rooftops. I remember only too well when I was a member of a health authority when Labour representatives were in charge that it was extremely difficult to get staff, our capital programmes vanished into thin air, and waiting lists became longer. I feel sorry for the hon. Member for Oldham, West, who has a difficult job in blabbing on about cuts when there are none.
  While speaking about the social security budget of £39 billion, I shall mention a point that has been only briefly discussed hitherto, and that is pensions and pensioners. In 1982–83, total expenditure on contributory retirement pensions was about 13·5 billion, which represented 70 per cent. of the outgoings of the national insurance fund and nearly half of all social security benefits, excluding rent rebates and allowances. If we add to that the £1·4 billion spent in that year on supplementary pensions and the £40 million, which in that context was peanuts, for the over-80s who did not have a record of contributions, we discover that pensions represent one of the largest budgets in all public spending.
  About 10 million people receive state retirement pensions, and for about half of them state benefits account for three quarters or more of their total incomes. Therefore, we are talking about an important part of the national economy. We have been told that the gap between pensioners and others is widening. It is worth recognising the promises that were made some years ago:
  "Pensioners … can confidently look forward to sharing in the increased standards of living of the country as a whole."—[Official Report, 13 June 1979; Vol. 968, c. 439.]
  It will be difficult to fulfil that promise.
  The present commitment is that pensions should be uprated in line with the retail price index. However, the working population is busy uprating itself way above the retail price index, as average earnings are soaring. That means that the gap between workers and the retired begins to widen, and it means especially that the expectations of those who retired, in relation to what they might have been earning had they still been in work, will be challenged.
  That is in contradiction to recent history. The report, "Population, Pensions Costs and Pensioners' Incomes", which was published recently, stated that the basic pension, as a percentage of average net earnings for a male manual worker between 1951, when it was 30 per cent., and 1981–82, when it was 50 per cent., has been increasing steadily in the post-war period. We have raised expectations that pensions will continue to increase as a proportion of earnings, and those expectations may be difficult to challenge. The explanation will need careful presentation.
  We should also recognise that, despite the increased number of pensioners, the share of personal disposable

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  income that has gone to pensioners during roughly the same period has increased much faster. We have been allocating a larger and larger proportion of our national income to pensions, and perhaps we should consider whether more of that money should go to the economy, training or education. We must find the right balance.
  The objective of all Government policy towards pensions—
  Mr. Frank Field: Before the hon. Lady leaves her point about the need to consider the commitments that we have made to pensioners, I should tell her that that commitment is enshrined in legislation. The Social Security Act 1975 contained a commitment to move pensioners' incomes closer to average earnings over a period of time. Is she suggesting that we should scrap the Act and tear up our agreement with pensioners, and therefore widen the gap between the earnings of pensioners and those of the rest of the community?
  Mrs. Currie: No. As my pension date is getting closer, as it is for all of us, I hope that when I reach that stage my pension will be not 50 per cent. but a higher proportion of average earnings. I merely point out that such commitments are expensive and that we should be aware of what is happening in the national economy when we make them. I do not wish to trade party points with the distinguished hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), but I recall that the 1983 Labour party manifesto stated that that commitment would be carried out "as soon as practicable."
  The objective of all Government policy has been to provide adequate pensions on the basis that the old should not live in poverty. That policy has been set by all Governments, and the whole House endorses it. There has been much legislation, especially the 1975 Act, and the Government Actuary's report this year showed alarmingly how difficult and expensive it would be if the state alone had to provide those adequate pensions. Many Governments — certainly this Government — have developed a secondary objective, which is to try to spread the burden and to add more legs to the stool so that it does not eventually topple over. Therefore, we should welcome the review of pensions, and the reviews of other benefits that are under way. We should commend Ministers for the astonishing amount of effort and number of hours that they have put into ensuring that those reviews are doing their job. We have what must be the best-informed Front Bench on this difficult and complex subject that has ever been seen in the House. I compliment my colleagues on that.
  In the opinion of many, Beveridge fails, and is likely to fail, to satisfy the demand, so we should turn to the private sector. One of the most interesting items in the debate recently has been the Centre for Policy Studies report, which came out in 1983. It said many things, but picked up two facets likely to be the subject of legislation—if not in this Session, in the next one—and one was mentioned in the Gracious Speech. One subject is early leavers and the other is portable pensions.
  I share the objectives of encouraging mobility and a widening of choice. It must be possible for the best people to move around and to take their pension rights, if not their actual pensions, with them. Between 1969 and 1975, when the last legislation on this subject was introduced, I had four different jobs. Three of them were pensionable,
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  and I lost every penny that I had put into those pension schemes. I am never likely to see my money again. I resent that. It did not make much difference at the time, but in years to come I may wish that I had that money.
  I see the objectives of the report as possibly conflicting with the original objective of avoiding poverty. If we get away from the compulsory nature of most company pension schemes and the Government scheme, I fear that we may end up with smaller private pensions, and eventually with a bigger burden on the state.
  The Government Actuary estimates that there are 90,000 occupational pension schemes, of which about 79,000 have fewer than 30 members. We are talking about huge sums of money and a wide diversity of schemes, few of which are properly regulated.
  One of the most interesting documents around is the National Association of Pensions Funds' survey of occupational pensions for 1983. It looked at 1,100 schemes, which covered £75 billion worth of funds by market value. It found that the total contributions to those schemes was £7·25 billion a year. The outlay on occupational pensions in lump sums was £4·75 billion a year and the pension outlay alone for those schemes has been rising extremely fast. Between 1982–83, it rose by 15 per cent. to £2·75 billion a year. In other words, on the occupational pensions side we are talking about a huge part of the economy. It is estimated that, in total, about £100 billion is involved, which works out at an average of £18,000 per employee — far more in many cases than people have in any other form of wealth.
  It is not just the economic and social aspects of all this that concern me. We have to be sure that we change company law to protect the people involved. That is mentioned in the Gracious Speech, where it says:
  "to ensure that members are able to obtain information about their schemes."
  I have tried ploughing through the accounting standards committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants exposure draft 34, "Pension Schemes Accounts", and, having read it once, I am heartily glad that I decided not to be an accountant. However, we should welcome the interest of the accounting profession in getting company law right on this. No company is obliged to have a pension scheme and, if it does, few rules are in force.
  Most pension schemes are trusts, but they do not have to be, and it is possible for a man to pay into a scheme for 20 years and not get a penny. This has happened to some of my constituents. It happens, for example, when a pensions fund is not kept separate from the accounts of the company and is drawn on as an asset of the firm. It happens particularly if a pension fund invests heavily in shares that go bust, even if it invests in the shares of its own company. If that company goes bankrupt, on the day that people go for their redundancy pay, they find that they do not have a pension. We must do something about that. There is a temptation, even for a good company, to go raiding a pension fund. Most countries raid their own pension funds, and we certainly do.
  There is no clear statement of liability to pensions on the balance sheet, and when a company is taken over the purchasing company may not have the foggiest idea what liabilities it is taking on, partly because the original company may not even know. The accounts of a pension fund do not have to be audited or checked by an actuary. Even if the fund is run by a trust, there is no statutory

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  requirement on the trust at present to publish, or even to prepare, a report for the employees—the contributors—nor even for the trustees themselves.
  There is a temptation, where that liability is known, to reduce the liability. For example, when British Airways recently offered an average of £6,000 per employee to encourage employees to change over to a less generous pension scheme, and to reduce their pension rights, I understand that 17,000 out of 26,000 eligible people took the money and reduced their pension rights. I think that they were mad to do that, and the day will come when they will rue it.
  The accounting profession is concentrating its efforts on disclosure policy, but I have a feeling that that is rather akin to choosing what colour to paint the stable door. My concern is that, when my constituents retire and go to open the stable door, they should find a serviceable horse inside and not an unpleasant, smelly mess that somebody else will have to clear up.
  The real problem is that we do not take pensions seriously enough. My generation could not care less, but it should, because it has to pay not only for its own future pensions but for the current pensions on the "pay-as-you-go" scheme. We do not realise how much pensions cost. Recently, the House voted to increase our pension contribution from 6 per cent. to 9 per cent. The policemen here in Westminster pay 11 per cent. for their pension, and one of the propositions on the table for the police is that that should go up to 14 per cent. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who I think is about my age, would, if he were providing his pension entirely as a self-employed person, have to fork out 23 per cent. of his earnings. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is a little older than us both, would have to fork out 38 per cent. of his salary if he were having to provide for his pension himself.
  Just for the Government schemes alone, employers and employees are forking out 18 per cent. of current earnings to the national insurance fund, and that is set to rise to 20 per cent. and higher. This is what bothers me. If we allow free choice, without minimum standards, then there are strong odds that the young and the middle-aged will not pay. They will make a conscious, or even sub-conscious, calculation of what the risks are to them of needing that pension or that survivor's pension soon. While the risks are low, the incentive will be low. At that age, the pressures of mortgages, cars, children and everything else will tend to take priority.
  My most acute concern is for survivors of pension schemes. Typically, a good pension scheme provides two thirds of final salary for the pension contributor, but only 50 per cent. for the survivor, and in many cases survivors are not mentioned. Most of the elderly are women and most old women are widows, and many widows live in poverty. Even with an occupational pension from a company that is regarded as generous, there are occupational pension widows in my constituency who are having to rely on supplementary benefit to top up their pension to a reasonable standard.
  If we are arguing for equality, we could say that women should do this themselves, but women find it much harder to provide for their own pensions. They have a shorter working life, not just because of the earlier retirement age, but because of time off for children. They are more likely to work part time and they are more likely to have low pay
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  —the figure is about 75 per cent. of male pay. They are more often given exemptions from superannuation, or they may find that they are not entitled to it.
  Even where women pay the contributions, there is discouragement and they tend to lose out. A lady in her sixties in my constituency has been claiming £17 a week on her own contributions. Then her husband died and she started to receive the £47 a week widow's allowance on his contributions, so her £17 was stopped. If ever there was a discouragement to women to demand better rights and pay for them, that must be it. In the private scheme survey by the National Association of Pension Funds only just over half provided any pension at all to a dependent widower. So perhaps my male colleagues should be more worried about what may happen to them than I am about what may happen to the ladies.
  I support the philosophy behind the CPS report. But unless the Government set clear enforceable minimum standards, we are heading for trouble. If we give people enough choice, I am afraid that they will choose not to fork out enough. If we give them enough mobility, they will move away from a realistic and knowledgeable assessment of what their expectations will cost in today's hard money. It is they and their survivors who will suffer and, most of all, their children and grandchildren who will be paying out in tax to keep their elders who should have known better but did not.
  I am glad to support the Government and I shall watch developments with interest.
  5.30 pm
  Mr. Jack Thompson: I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). The energy and enthusiasm that she put into her speech were remarkable. am sure that she has earned the right to sit down because she must be completely exhausted.
  At the beginning of her speech the hon. Lady produced a mass of statistics. Unfortunately, in my constituency pensioners do not live on statistics. They do not sit down to a plate of fish and statistics. Nurses do not go out to buy their shoes with statistics. It is cash that counts. The message that she was trying to put across at the beginning of her speech would not go clown well with the ordinary people in my area.
  I want to speak today on education rather than social services. One sentence on the last page in the Queen's Speech covers a multitude of sins or a multitude of valuable prospects for the education service. It says:
  "My Government will continue to develop policies to raise educational standards."
  It could be argued that that is a beginning rather than a continuation. That is the theory that has been put forward. The question arises on the practice. The Secretary of State for Education and Science was here a few seconds ago but he has just disappeared. He regularly makes pronouncements in the House and elsewhere about the need for innovation in educational standards. He is noted for his dreams. However, his achievements to date need some examination.
  I am constantly reminded by educationists from the north of England of the right hon. Gentleman's address to the north of England education conference in January. He set some commendable objectives. According to the press notice issued by the Department, he set out
  "to define the objective of the main parts of the 5 to 16 curriculum so that everyone knows the level of attainment that should be

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  achieved at various stages by pupils of different abilities; to alter the 16-plus examinations so that they measure absolute, rather than relative, performance; to establish, as a realistic objective, the aim of bringing 80–90 per cent. of all pupils at least to the level which is now expected and achieved in the 16-plus examinations by pupils of average ability in individual subjects; and to do so over a broad range of skills and competence in a number of subjects. Sir Keith said 'This is the objective which the Government now wishes to set itself and its partners in the education service in England and Wales.'"
  I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman's partners would wish to consider his proposals and would probably, in the main, agree with his targets. But there is a major flaw in the progression of those aims. His partners, the local education authorities, are all suffering in various degrees from the reduction in expenditure demanded by the Government. I speak as a county councillor for 11 years, a chairman of school governors, a member of two other boards of school governors, the member of a board of governors of a technical college and with two years' experience as leader of a county council. Early on in my involvement in the education committee of my local authority I was reminded during discussions on priorities in education of a comment by one of my more elderly colleagues. He said that a teacher could teach a large class in a meadow without resources and would achieve a limited success. There would be an improvement by the provision of adequate resources and a greater improvement if teachers and pupils had a suitable building with adequate support facilities. That clearly illustrates the basic priorities. Teachers should be adequately trained with a good in-service training. There should be full and proper resources with suitable buildings, properly maintained and cleaned.
  What is the reality? That is not the reality in my county which has poor in-service training, a serious lack of resources and in many cases unsuitable buildings, badly maintained and with inadequate support. That also seems to be the case in other shire counties. Therefore, the foundation upon which the Secretary of State wishes to build is crumbling.
  Northumberland, the northernmost county in England, like other shire counties, has to provide almost 60 per cent. of its budget for education purposes. In that county that is £65 million out of £113 million in the current year. The penalising legislation introduced in recent years has caused serious problems for the county although there have been constant efforts to protect the education service against the worst effects of the reductions. Other services have had to pay the price.
  Those difficulties were aggravated by 14 years of local Tory control, which produced poor pupil-teacher ratios and poor school buildings, built on the cheap and now causing expensive maintenance problems. In the past two years a high school, built in the 1960s, had part of its flat roof blown off in a high wind. The cost of replacing that roof was nearly £200,000—money that could have been usefully spent in other areas of the education service. Almost £250,000 was wasted on providing a new roof because of the cheap building system that had been used.
  Betwen 1979 and 1981–82 the per capita allowances diminished in real terms by 32 per cent. in my county. That was before Labour took control in 1981. One of my last acts as leader of the council was to establish special funding on a one-off basis to attempt to restore the
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  necessary standard of service required in both resources and building. That action proved to be of great benefit but it probably will not be continued because it was on a one-off basis.
  In the budget for 1979–80, £835,000 was provided which was not even considered to be adequate. In 1980–81, still under Conservative control, that was reduced to £735,000—a 12 per cent. drop. In ensuing years inflation has been added to that base figure of £735,000 to bring the total in 1984–85 to £1,361,150. Thus, in reality, £750,000 has been taken out of the repairs and maintenance element of my authority's responsibilities for education and buildings.
  The special funding arrangements introduced by the Labour-controlled authority in 1983–84 and 1984–85 restored £650,000. But the lack of repair and maintenance during the 14 to 15 years of Conservative control will still cause significant problems. Of even greater importance is the pressure on high schools as a result of the teacher-pupil ratios. Proper curriculum development is difficult. Indeed, I must compliment the administration in my county, the teachers and the heads, on the efforts that they are making to protect the students from the worst ravages of staff reductions. In addition, there is a serious lack of proper remedial teaching and that is causing problems throughout the service, from the five-year-olds beginning school to those aged 16 and over.
  In one of the primary schools in my constituency, of which I am proud to be a governor, there is a class of 32 children. Five of them have speech problems but, because of the lack of specialist resources, there is little opportunity to assist them during their early years in school. That will be a continuing problem for them throughout their school careers. One young girl had hearing and sight difficulties identified when she was in the reception class. She was under five years of age at the time. Six years later there was a response to her needs and she is now receiving treatment. Indeed, she has moved up from the first to the middle school. But when she was between five and nine years of age appropriate consideration was not given to her problems.
  The concern felt by many in the county is reflected in the attempt earlier this year by representatives of the high school governors to meet the Secretary of State for Education and Science. He refused their application to see him, claiming that he was too busy. I understand that attempts are now being made by the governors of the middle school to arrange a meeting with all the middle school governors in the county, and to try to persuade the Secretary of State to meet them as well.
  Recently I received a letter from a fellow chairman of middle school governors who comes from a more rural part of the county. He claimed to be speaking for his governors following a governors' meeting and said:
  "We spend time each year listing items for repair in order of urgency, but knowing there is little chance of most of these items being dealt with. The fabric of our school is deteriorating."
  He went on to say that the governors deplored the low capitation allowance that deprived children of necessary equipment, books and so on. He said:
  "We see our PTA being asked and expected to increasingly provide equipment that many would regard as essential. In the long term we see the danger that this will lead to inequalities between schools in poor, as opposed to wealthy areas."

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  I should add that this weekend I shall be attending a PTA function to raise funds to provide essential facilities in the school. I am happy to do so but am sorry that it is necessary.
  The governors see evidence of teachers staying in post rather than moving to gain experience and promotion, as job prospects are blocked by those who are reluctant to leave work temporarily because they may find themselves unable to find employment again later. The comments of that board of governors, through its chairman, confirm my recent impressions. During the recess I spent half of my time visiting schools in my constituency. There is a three-tier system in the area but in every school similar comments were made. As I had the time available, I was able to discuss the situation in detail with the staff and the heads. I received the same message as I heard from the chairman of that middle school in Northumberland. Among the staff and the heads there is an overriding feeling that morale is not as high as it should be. Teaching is becoming more and more difficult. If teachers could leave the profession for other jobs, I should imagine that quite a few of them would do so. Obviously, however, that is not possible in the present employment situation.
  The falling rolls in Northumberland are broadly in line with the national average but there is one significant difference. The number of pupils is falling quite dramatically in rural areas but is increasing in urban areas. Consequently, there are half-empty schools in the rural areas and overcrowded schools in the urban areas. In the west and north of the county the school population is diminishing but in the south-east it is increasing. But the Government do not take that problem into account in the funding arrangements.
  Another problem facing our county, and other counties with rural areas, is school transport. We spend almost 16 per cent. of the budget on transporting children round the county, taking them to and from school. That is a very heavy burden for a small authority such as ours. At present, the authority is trying to establish its budget for 1984–85 and is suggesting—I doubt whether with any success—a standstill budget for the third or fourth time. If that is agreed, it will take the authority £8 million above the Government target and about £17 million into penalty. That means that the authority will be severely penalised. However, if it decides to reduce the services that are already skinned to the bone, particularly in education, those services will be approaching a standard that is unacceptable in terms of the requirements of the Department of Education and Science and its inspectors.
  The Secretary of State has not yet returned to the Chamber, but his pious dreams—albeit I support the principles outlined in his speech—cannot be superimposed upon the nightmare position of education in my county. One question that must always be raised concerns the Secretary of State's power of persuasion within the Cabinet and Treasury. He does not seem to have as much clout as some of his colleagues. But it should be remembered that the education service forms the basis for the future. One can talk about the social services—and I very much support the arguments for that service—and the economy, but the future lies in our education service. Education starts with the under-fives and ends at the 16-plus point. Indeed, it never really finishes. However, we must provide the resources and facilities to ensure that education, and with it the future, is protected as much as possible in present economic conditions.
  5.47 pm
  Mr. Harry Greenway: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me, as London Members of Parliament face some difficulty in trying to cope with a lobby and at the same time take part in this important debate. I was very interested in the speech of the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Thompson), which concentrated on the important subject of education. I intend to speak on the same subject, but first I should point out that I am sorry that the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) is not in his seat. He admitted that the Labour party has instituted a witch hunt requiring Socialists on health authorities to identify themselves and their allies. He made extraordinary accusations against the Government that are totally unsupportable.
  If the hon. Gentleman had had the courage to give way to me, which he did not, I would have told him to go and have a look at some Labour-controlled education authorities that are appointing Socialist headmasters in a corrupt way, and have been doing so for a long time.
  Ms. Harriet Harman: Name them.
  Mr. Greenway: They are in parts of London and Wales. I shall give some specific examples—
  Mr. Boyes: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order to accuse elected representatives, like us, of being corrupt? Should not the hon. Gentleman be forced to withdraw that remark, as it is a slur on councillors throughout the length and breadth of Britain?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): I did not hear the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) say that about another hon. Member. But if he did, I am sure that he would want to rephrase his remarks.
  Mr. Greenway: I simply referred to what another hon. Member said and replied to his argument. I am not surprised that hon. Members do not like it, but it is about time that Labour Members faced up to Labour tactics in local government and did something about it.
  Mr. John Patten: Does my hon. Friend agree that it should be a cause at least for some discussion when one Labour-controlled borough in London appoints as its new director of social services the chairman of the social services committee of another Labour-controlled borough?
  Mr. Boyes: What is corrupt about that?
  Mr. Greenway: I agree with my hon. Friend. The GLC appointments need looking at. The chairman of the London area enterprise board was the leader of the Labour group in Wandsworth. I put it no stronger, but the matter needs attention.
  Mr. Frank Field: I cannot quite understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. Is he saying that our accusation against the Government over reappointing Conservative sympathisers to health authorities is justified because authorities in London and Wales appoint people to positions in schools even though they are not the most appropriate? Is he saying that one wrong justifies another or does he condemn both practices?
  Mr. Greenway: I have too great a personal regard for the hon. Gentleman to break our friendship on that argument. It is unworthy of him. Labour's witch hunt of the health councils is unjustified and it is paralleled by

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  Labour appointments in schools and local authorities. The position is unsatisfactory and needs to be examined. It is as bad, disgraceful and corrupt as it is to support violence against the police. The situation is in that category and Labour must pull itself together.
  We had an interesting debate on higher education recently. The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice), when challenged by me, was not able to say that if a Labour Government were returned they would restore cuts in higher education spending.
  The hon. Member for Wansbeck spoke of the Secretary of State in mixed terms. He spoke as an administrator rather than a practitioner. I do not mean that in a denigratory sense. The present Secretary of State has brought to education a quality of thought and stimulus of action which was matched by few of his predecessors. Everyone in education agrees with that. My right hon. Friend's particular concern is for the bottom 40 per cent., the deal for the underdog in schools. That is the type of child in whom I am especially interested; he or she is forgotten, ignored or kicked around. The quality of thought and stimulus that the Secretary of State has brought to such children's curricula is more than commendable.
  The Secretary of State has initiated examination reform that has been overdue for tens of years. The 16-plus examination system is based on a format that is full of faults and that was established in 1917. This Secretary of State is the first to tackle the problem. That is a criticism of those who came before him. He is tackling the problem in a far-sighted and useful way.
  Today the pupil-teacher ratio in schools is better than ever. Do the Opposition want resources to be spent on more and more teachers or do they think that there should be a mix of more teachers and other things? When I challenged an Opposition spokesman recently to say what he thought was the ideal pupil-teacher ratio he said that he did not know but that it should be better. That is an example of the fatuously thin thinking on the Opposition Front Bench.
  Corporal punishment is mentioned in the Queen's Speech. It is no use trying to tackle behaviour problems in schools without doing something about religious and moral education. Children need to know the difference between right and wrong and they learn that best through religious and moral education.
  In two thirds of primary schools teachers handling religious education are too confused to cope. Children are not taught the subject properly. In a quarter of secondary schools no religious or moral education takes place beyond the age of 14 or the third year. That is desperately unsatisfactory. Behaviour in schools and everywhere else is governed by individual self-discipline and by accepting moral standards. For me those are Christian standards, but each person comes to his own morality through his own religion.
  Mr. Frank Field: The House will agree that we need to pay more attention to how children acquire moral standards. If the Government hold that view, is it not unsatisfactory that they should have disproportionately cut teacher training places at church colleges compared with other colleges?
  Mr. Greenway: I do not want any cut in religious education training places. I hope that Ministers will consider a programme for religious education teachers similar to that used to produce more and better maths teachers. Both the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary are extremely keen on religious education.
  I am worried about the proposed Bill to deal with corporal punishment in schools. There are two levels of discussion on that important question. I do not say this in a party sense, but the Labour party's position is similar to that of the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment. The Swedish attitude also is idealistic. The Labour party takes the naive view that all children are basically good and that punishment is therefore irrelevant and unnecessary. That is a dangerous approach. The Opposition say that it is wrong to use force to bend children to one's will. That may be right but they hold the view idealistically. There are times when even the most mild and idealistic parent uses force to bend a child to his or her will.
  The Labour party and Swedish-type thinking supports the Rousseau approach, as in "Emile", that children are basically good, that they can be handled through their self-motivation and that their self-motivation can be related to their discipline. That is an intellectually interesting view, but we must move to the other level—the practical level of how children are, particularly in schools.
  Thomas Arnold, a headmaster of the great Rugby school—similar to the public school attended by the hon. Member for Durham, North—once said:
  "My aim is to produce Christian gentlemen; Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make."
  He put his finger on the matter.
  The practical approach to discipline cannot be intellectual. Corporal punishment is not a cure for bad behaviour, but it can be a deterrent. The cane should be used sparingly until it eventually eliminates itself; it should not be eliminated by an Act of Parliament. It should be used only by the headmaster and his deputy. It can be effective, although it should be used only for major offences such as serious bullying. I once saw boys of 19 taking money from boys of 11. They made them jump in the air so that any money in their pockets would jingle. Such behaviour is quite unacceptable and must be handled firmly. In such a case corporal punishment is not out of place. Of course, I accept that one cannot use corporal punishment on youths of 19, but it can certainly be used on younger children.
  Cases of vandalism could also be handled by corporal punishment. The children involved should be made to repair any damage. I am not, of course, suggesting that girls should be subjected to corporal punishment.
  The Opposition must accept that there is tremendous teacher and parental support for corporal punishment. Happily, severe beatings are a thing of the past. There is no longer the appalling brutality about which children have written when they became adults. The essential point about discipline in schools is that there must be equal treatment for all children. The Bill will create unequal treatment. Some parents will not allow corporal punishment for their children while other parents will accept it. Corporal punishment should be immediate and never malicious.
  What are the alternatives? Will there be "sin bins" with children driven off in shame? Will they be given lines or additional mathematics? What would that do to a child's

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  attitude towards mathematics? Will they be sent on runs? Will teachers use sarcasm? The lash of the tongue is more wicked than a reasonable lash of the cane. Bitter sarcasm destroys the mind — yet is not the mind a central responsibility for teachers? Is shouting at a child an alternative? Is suspension and expulsion? What happens to a child if he is expelled? That boy is the very boy who needs to be in school. What will he do if he is not in school?
  If a pupil refuses all the alternative punishments that I have outlined, what is to happen then? There must be an end to the road. Should that child be referred to the juvenile courts? What will that do to him? An hon. Friend recently told me about a child who had been referred to a juvenile court because he had stolen 10p. A short wigging or a tap could have sorted out the problem. That child had to suffer appearing in a court — and that procedure was established by the Labour party. It is no good the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) smiling. She must know that it is part of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. Should the children be referred to a psychiatrist or to the psychological service? We must avoid that where we can for we would needlessly be making "cases" of them.
  Headmasters and teachers must continue to stand in loco parentis. They must control discipline in schools within the guidelines laid down. Two systems of discipline cannot be applied in one school, as that would be a departure from the vital principle of equal treatment. The only way out is for parents to be asked to accept a discipline code before their children enter a school. Perhaps areas should have some schools that use corporal punishment and some that do not. Parents could then choose to which schools they would send their children.
  Parents cannot judge or run school discipline from outside the school. Headmasters and teachers must handle discipline immediately, on the spot and with equal treatment for all children. I am concerned that the Bill may not allow that. I shall wait to see what my right hon. Friend produces in the Bill. In the meantime, I ask him to take account of the points that I have raised.
  6.6 pm
  Mr. Laurie Pavitt: The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) will not expect me to follow him on the subject of education. He will know that I wish to talk about the National Health Service. I listened to the hon. Gentleman with interest. I knew that he would get to Tom Brown's schooldays eventually, and he did. The hon. Gentleman's opening remarks tempt me to speak about political appointments in the Health Service and about the six regional health authority chairmen who were sacked and the six political appointees who took their places.
  This is a mishmash of a debate, and I blame the usual channels for that. All Health Service debates are a bit of a mess, although not as bad as foreign affairs debates. The two important matters of the Health Service and social security always mean a mixed debate, but today's debate is rather like Gaul, in three parts, because we have the Health Service, social security and education.
  A number of hon. Members have said that the National Health Service was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. I have been a Member of the House for 25 years and have spoken in every debate on the Queen's Speech. I must be conservative in my old age for I speak on the same subject
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  as always, the NHS. This is the first time that I can recall there being no mention of the NHS in the Queen's Speech. There has been a little compensation in that the Secretary of State has shared his thoughts with the House, although he missed some important points.
  I believe that three pieces of legislation should have been included in the programme for this Session. Many statistics have been presented to the House throughout the debate so far. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) presented us with a good many. We keep on proving that we have a marvellous illness service. It is suggested that the NHS becomes better the more people it treats. That approach might be all right for industrial production, but it is not for the Health Service. The NHS has existed since 1948. We are all aware of demographic problems—and aging population—and the demands that these factors make on the service. However, the greatest gap in the Gracious Speech is a reference to the need to make inroads in prevention.
  I should like the Government to introduce a Bill designed to prevent or reduce chest diseases. Secondly, I should like them to introduce a Bill designed to prevent or reduce dental caries. Thirdly, they should introduce a Bill to prevent excess profits in the drug industry. Such a measure would release considerable resources, which the NHS so badly needs.
  When it comes to patients versus profits, the Government are always reduced to being a puppet. Thal has been evident in the Government's agreements with the tobacco-producing industry since they took office in 1979. It is common knowledge that the greatest single step in the prevention of chest diseases would be to stop the smoking of cigarettes. About 100,000 premature deaths—deaths between the ages of 45 and 65 years—could be avoided annually if the Government would act to prevent the smoking holocaust. As the Secretary of State for Education and Science is to reply on behalf of the Government, I shall not have many of my questions on health answered this evening. However, I am grateful to see the Minister for Health in his place. I am certain that he will write to me in response to the questions that I shall ask. He always does.
  First, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that there are 100,000 premature deaths annually of those aged between 45 and 65 years? That is the figure that is referred to by the Royal College of Physicians and the British Medical Association. The most recent Government figure was given by the Prime Minister in 1980 when she spoke of 50,000 premature deaths—still too many — through the smoking of cigarettes. It is inevitable that the debate on premature deaths through smoking will continue and it will be helpful to have the Government's official figure.
  Last year there were fewer than 5,000 deaths through road accidents in England and Wales. The Secretary of State for Social Services has come under pressure from hon. Members on both sides of the House because of their great concern about drug abuse and the increase in the use of heroin. It was thought that drug abuse was peaking 15 years ago. There was a trough in the late 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, but there is now an increase in deaths as a result of drug abuse, including the use of hard drugs. Incidentally, I do not know why the Secretary of State never takes action on amphetamines. It is about time

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  that their part in the escalation was recognised. Despite increasing drug abuse, the number of deaths recorded last year as a result of the abuse was fewer than 3,000.
  I commend the campaign that is designed to reduce or eradicate drug abuse, but if we can take that problem on our shoulders, which resulted last year in fewer than 3,000 deaths, we should surely be doing something to overcome cigarette addiction, which is causing about 100,000 premature deaths each year. Surely the weight of evidence demands that much higher priority should be given to the prevention of chest and heart diseases.
  The House will recall that about 20 years ago Sir George Godber, the then chief medical officer of health, made a statement which was followed up by the World Health Organisation two years later. Sir George said that the greatest single step to preventing illness and overcoming the need for treatment would be to do something about cigarette smoking.
  Since 1961 the main protagonist in this debate has been the Royal College of Physicians. At the BMA's conference last year the 600 delegates, representing the entire medical profession, carried nem con a motion that the Government must listen to medical opinion and cease to be the puppet of the tobacco industry. Dr. John Harvard, the secretary of the BMA, said:
  "The tobacco industry spends millions of pounds employing advertising, public relations and promotional experts to help them promote a product we know—and they should know—is directly responsible for disease, illness and death. Advertising, sports and arts sponsorship, competitions, clothes bearing brand names and holidays are all part of the industry's attempt to fool their customers into believing that smoking is glamorous, healthy and desirable. These same consumers are our patients, and we know the truth—that smoking causes appalling illness and so many unnecessary deaths that the figure of 100,000 premature deaths each year is beyond comprehension."
  The head of the BMA's professional division, Dr. John Dawson, has stated:
  "We all know tobacco is a killer. Doctors know it, the public knows it and the tobacco industry ought to know it. Year after year, doctors at the BMA's Annual Representative Meeting have called for legal controls, but instead we have voluntary agreements, cosily agreed between successive Governments and the manufacturers. These agreements—as you can see—are a sick joke."
  I have three questions for the Minister. First, will he and representatives of his Department meet the BMA to discuss in what way the Government can take action to prevent the holocaust?
  Mr. John Patten: We met the BMA on Monday to discuss the issue that the hon. Gentleman is raising.
  Mr. Pavitt: I am grateful for that. I hope that there will be a continuing dialogue. It is important that the BMA's campaign, which is to be accelerated, should be well in tune with what the Government are doing. The Government should respond to what the BMA is trying to do.
  Secondly, will the Department use its influence to provide time for a private Member's Bill aimed at reducing the smoking of cigarettes if the Government are not prepared to introduce such legislation themselves? In 1980, the previous Secretary of State for Social Services, now the Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin), said that he felt it was time, although the Government did not wish to introduce legislation, that the House of
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  Commons, without the Whips, should come to its own conclusion on this issue. Indeed, the Whips did not intervene when subsequently two Bills were introduced by me, which were intended to deal with the cigarette-smoking problem. It seems that the Government have changed their policy since then, so I ask the Minister whether the Government are prepared to provide time for a private Member's Bill — it would have all-party support — to deal with the problem. I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that, if such a Bill were introduced, the Government would give it time and allow the House of Commons to make its own decision.
  There is soon to be a statement on economics and finance. Against that background, will the Minister discuss with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer the possibility of avoiding the problems that sport and the arts would face if the promotional activity of the tobacco industry is, as I hope, stopped? If taxation on a packet of cigarettes were to be increased by one tenth of a penny, an additional £6 million would be raised. That is the sum that the industry is spending to sponsor snooker, other sports and the arts, for example.
  The Government are being made to look foolish. They are not prepared to accept the advertising of cigarettes on television, yet tobacco companies are using hundreds of millions of pounds of television advertising. We need legislation, not the customary agreements.
  Information about another preventive measure was leaked, but the programme did not arrive. About £500 million a year is spent on dental services and there are about 250 million items of dental service. That is happening when the disease of dental caries is preventable. I hope that the Government will take their courage in their hands and bring forward a Bill to get rid of the muddle about fluoridation of water supplies. The Conservatives know that, under Prime Minister Macmillan, there were three years of intensive research into fluoridation, culminating in 1961. The resulting evidence shows that if fluoride were added to water in the proportion of 10:1,000,000 the spectrum of dental caries, especially in children, would be altered. At present, 33 different chemicals are added to the water drunk by hon. Members in the Palace of Westminster. Before we drink it, the contents of an average glass of water have been through the body six times. The idea that we must not touch the water supply is ludicrous.
  Fluorides exist in large parts of the country, especially Derbyshire, in quantities 10 times greater than would be needed to prevent tooth erosion. No one ever suggests taking the fluorides out of water. As the Minister knows, the Strathclyde judgment last June makes it extremely difficult for water authorities to know how they are protected by the law if they decide, as has been done in Birmingham, to add fluoride to the water.
  Mr. John Butterfill: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is profound and sincere apprehension among large numbers of the general public, becaue fluoridation represents compulsory medication? The treatment is not necessary for water purification. I and many other hon. Members probably receive more letters on this subject urging us not to accept the priniciple of compulsory medication through fluoridation than on any other subject.
  Mr. Pavitt: That argument is well understood. An organisation, headed by Mr. Clavell Blount, inundates

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  hon. Members with that type of argument. I disagree with it, for the simple reason that there is no suggestion that there should be compulsory taking out of fluorides. This compulsory medicine is found naturally in Derbyshire. There is no reason why other parts of the country should not enjoy the same services. I advise the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) to read the documents issued by the Department of Health and Social Security, the Medical Research Council and the British Dental Association. Dentists are trying to do themselves out of a job by ensuring that they do not have to fill any more teeth.
  The Government have failed to support the generic substitution Bill which I have introduced three times. I hope to have the privilege of introducing that legislation again in the near future. Answers from the Under-Secretary of State to my questions show that a saving of £29 million can be made on 10 drugs by generic substitution. The Minister knows that the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee favour generic substitution, with safeguards. The Minister knows also, because he studied my Bill when it was printed last year, that it included those safeguards and did not interfere with clinical freedom. A doctor has only to say, "No substitute" and he gets the brand name he wants. If my legislation were on the statute book, there would be a saving of between £150 million and £200 million a year. One drug company representative calls on every nine general practitioners.
  We know the arguments about the need for research. The last drug company that I had the privilege of visiting was spending £4 on promotion for every £1 on research. The Minister will know, because he has read the same statistics as I have read, that 73 per cent. of NHS drugs come from multinationals. In the main, drug research occurs elsewhere. I am sure that the Minister has seen the recently published survey showing that research on drugs in the United Kingdom is much less than claimed by drugs industries and the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry. If the Government took the step of accepting my legislation, they would help to release the resources for patient care about which they talk so much. Just as the Government will not tackle the tobacco companies because big business rules OK, they will not tackle the drugs companies, because, once again, it is the companies and shareholders' profits that call the tune. The Government should have the courage to do what is right.
  My great problem concerns death from not lung cancer but emphysema. We all have to die. Hon. Members will know what happens if they have been to a chest ward and watched elderly patients struggling for every breath. I have been round one such ward with a consultant. At the first bed I heard, "Hello, Bill," "Hello, doctor," as the patient gasped. As he walked away, the consultant said, "I think he will die by Friday." At the next bed again I saw the struggle for breath, and after his cheerful word to the patient the consultant said, "I think he will probably last another 10 days." At the third bed, hearing the struggle and gasps for breath, the consultant said, "This is a tragedy. He will be tortured for at least six weeks before he dies. I wish that there was some way in which he could be put out of his agony." The way in which those people die is criminal. The Government have a responsibility to do something about that problem rather than about the number of deaths. I hope that the British Medical Association's campaign will stir the Government at last to do something other than offer platitudes.
  6.27 pm
  Mr. David Evennett: I am pleased to have been called to participate in the debate.
  I disagree with the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), because I believe that people are interested in the wide issues involved in this debate on social services, the NHS, and education. Those issues affect everyone in society, and this is a good opportunity for the House to have a general debate on them.
  I applaud the content of the Gracious Speech. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services on his first-class speech. We must compliment my right hon. Friend and his Department for all the work that they have done during the past 12 months on the vital issues that affect people. I always regret the fact that, during wide-ranging debates of this type. the Opposition Front Bench presents the inevitable hysteria and manufactured outrage. It advocates more legislation and expenditure. That is not the answer to our problems. The answer lies not in the expenditure of more and more money but in the quality of service provided, the way in which money is used, and the results achieved. The Opposition Front Bench is bankrupt of ideas on these matters. Its contribution was regrettable for its lack of content.
  Most debates on pensions in this Chamber centre on the state pension. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), who, regrettably, is not in the Chamber at the moment, that there is a long overdue need for changes in the occupational pension schemes. About 12 million workers are covered by occupational pensions which are based largely upon the idea of a person remaining in one job for the whole of his or her working life, thereby penalising those who change jobs. This is still the case, even at a time when the Government are trying to encourage mobility within the nation's work force as part of their efforts to achieve economic recovery and lower unemployment.
  Some people may resent the Government's proposed action in this area as such pensions are essentially a matter between employer and employee. However, considerable tax advantages are enjoyed by these schemes, and for the most part employees have little option but to participate in a company pension scheme, usually the only one offered to them. Indeed, it is often part of their terms and conditions of service.
  Pension contributions are often the largest investment that employees ever make, and their financial well-being in retirement depends on their pension. However, most contributors have no control over this most important asset, nor in most cases do they have any knowledge about how their pension funds have performed. In addition, those who change jobs to meet employment demand or because of career advancement may jeopardise their financial security in later life. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South said that she had changed jobs several times and had lost her pension contributions.
  The changes needed to ensure that occupational pensions become a valuable asset in retirement are threefold. First, those who leave a job early must know that their pension will have some real value on retirement if it has been frozen. Currently an employee who leaves a job at the age of 35 will receive a pension at the age of 60 or 65 which is based on his earnings at 35. Some inflation-proofing is obviously needed.

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  Secondly, for those who change jobs but do not want their pensions to be frozen until retirement, the right to transfer needs to be greatly improved. For example, they could transfer current pension rights to the new employer or to some other individual or pension of their choice. The development of new types of pension plan, such as the portable pension, would be of great help.
  Thirdly, members of pension schemes should have the right to information on the performance of such schemes. Pension funds have assets of about £100 billion, yet currently the members have no right to know how those funds are performing, and as a result comparison with the performance of other funds is precluded. Consequently, investors are unable to move their money to a better performing scheme simply because of the lack of information.
  We must congratulate the Secretary of State and his Department on the great deal of consultation between the Government and the interested parties that has taken place during the past year. There has been much discussion, and finally we are to get the action which is required. That must be welcomed.
  As a former teacher, education provision is dear to my heart. I was interested, as we always are, in the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), who has had vast experience in education. I am particularly pleased that the Government are committed to the continued improvement of education standards. Since 1979 there has been a concerted effort by the Government to ensure that education standards are raised, and with considerable result. There have been better standards of teacher training, greater parental involvement, improvement in the school curriculum, examination changes and so on. These are all to be welcomed as positive advances in the past few years.
  I am fortunate to represent a constituency within the London borough of Bexley. As an education authority, Bexley has always maintained high education standards and has been wise enough to retain a variety of education. It has maintained grammar schools alongside comprehensive schools.
  Like many hon. Members, I have occasional disagreements with my local education authority on a specific issue, but I totally support its general approach to education, because the standard of education provided is extremely high. It always seeks achievement. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North said that the Secretary of State had made a priority of under-achievers. Bexley has always tried to look after the under-achiever as well as to create standards of excellence for those with tremendous ability. If standards of education in Bexley are compared with those in inner London and other parts of the country, the results show that the authority's efforts to make education standards a top priority have been successful.
  Education is important to the future of the nation, but it is perhaps even more important to the individual. A basic education forms the base for further education and training which, it is hoped, will make it easier to find worthwhile employment and to equip the individual for life. We must, however, start from basic education — we look for excellence and achievement later.
  The present Government are the first for a long time to address themselves to the real problems in education. The
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  improvement in the quality of those entering the teaching profession has already been noted, and the issues dealt with in the recent past are real issues, rather than the bogus issues and sterile arguments which were advanced in the decade prior to 1979.
  I am, however, unhappy about what the Gracious Speech says on corporal punishment. I have considerable reservations on this issue. As a former teacher, I am not keen on the cane, the slipper, the ruler or other methods of corporal punishment, but in many serious cases, especially when a teacher is assaulted, corporal punishment may be an effective remedy. I recognise that there may be parental objections to corporal punishment and I am aware of its limited advantages. If we suggest greater parental involvement, parental views must be respected, and a genuine objection to the use of corporal punishment must be respected.
  However, I have some reservations about the proposed legislation, especially if it follows the Government's consultation paper. Compromise is often the worst of both worlds, and that could be so in this case. I await the Government's Bill with interest, but I ask the Minister to give attention to the problem of differing punishments for the same offence. Two pupils might commit the same offence and the teacher could impose different punishments. I seriously doubt whether the proposed legislation in this respect would work.
  I said that legislation is not the answer to every ill. The Opposition seem to think that legislation and more money will solve the problem. They do not. I remain interested in the working parties set up by the Secretary of State for Social Services into the future of the social services. He suggested that a new Beveridge was needed, but that could not be incorporated in this year's Gracious Speech because the reviews have not been completed. I await the outcome with great interest. Undoubtedly, a wide-ranging and radical reform will have to be undertaken, and I hope that the next Queen's Speech will contain such a proposal as the beginning of a phased programme of social welfare reform. As with the changes in education that have taken place in the last five years, and the proposed changes in occupational pension rights, it is long overdue.
  6.39 pm
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: I hope that the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) will forgive me if I do not follow him exactly on the question of pensions, because I want to stay at the Elephant and Castle and talk more about the social security aspect of the debate.
  The hon. Member suggested that perhaps we could not expect too much in this Queen's Speech because everything is under review or always being called into doubt. If the Secretary of State is to make proposals on the occasion of a future Queen's Speech—I do not think that his timing involved that intention as we can expect action from him sooner—I hope that, following some of his remarks about what will happen to the system of benefits as a result of his radical overhaul and review, our worst fears will not be proven.
  At the time of the Budget there was a Treasury Green Paper dealing with public expenditure into the 1990s. Even then it was clear that there would be great difficulty not only in the DHSS but in all the spending Departments towards the end of the decade and thereafter. The Green Paper acknowledged that the aim was to set spending in

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  real terms at a fairly stable level between now and about 1986, and that subsequent decisions would have to be made towards the end of the decade. At that time I asked the Secretary of State whether there was an inbuilt problem, to which the Prime Minister has referred as the ticking bomb.
  Largely because of the nature of the system, the growth of medical technology and the growing number of elderly people, all the financial pressures build up, so that the Green Paper is optimistic if not downright complacent. In looking at the welfare state, the Secretary of State faces the enormous problem that any decisions that he wishes to take must be within the straitjacket of that problem and the guidelines set down by the Treasury. I notice that he is nodding either in comprehension of, or agreement with, my argument.
  I recall that the Secretary of State was rather sceptical when I raised the point earlier in the year. He felt that it was not as great a problem as I was envisaging. As the reviews continue, leaks emerge from the DHSS about what is being considered. I appreciate the Secretary of State's point that in a proper review it is necessary to look at everything. But there are indications that the thinking behind the review is largely related to meeting the kinds of demands that were highlighted by the Green Paper and that have been highlighted since by the continuing pressure on public expenditure. That has placed the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues in an extremely difficult position.
  I would argue that the reviews are fatally flawed. For a Government who preach the ethics and the business approach of the grocery shop in Grantham, it seems ridiculous, when looking at something as complex as the system of public expenditure as it manifests itself in benefits, to look only at the expenditure side of the account and not at the income side, particularly with regard to tax, and, most controversially, tax concessions.
  It would seem to be cackhanded, to say the least, to suppose that anything approaching a fundamental or radical reappraisal of Beveridge — to use the Government's phrases since the reviews were announced —can be carried out when only one side of the scales is examined. The Secretary of State and his former colleague, who has gone to the Northern Ireland Office, will confirm that much of the evidence submitted to the reviews argued that there should be an integrated tax and benefit system; that the reviews should look at both tax and benefit and not just at benefit. The sense of disappointment or unease concerning the reviews is underlined by the fact that the stipulation that is frequently repeated is that they must be carried through on a revenue-neutral basis.
  I hope that hon. Members in all parts of the House agree with the Secretary of State that there is a need for a radical and an unashamed look at the way the welfare state operates and at how it can be made more efficient—whether tax and benefits should be integrated and whether it is possible to be more selective. Will the Secretary of State agree that the points which have been put to him —more eloquently and in more detail than I can put them tonight—over the past few months are bound to undermine seriously the course of his investigation?
  In the past two weeks it has become apparent that the Secretary of State is having to fight with the Treasury the age-old rearguard battle for his Department's spending. That hardly suggests that a radical reappraisal is taking place. It leads us to believe that ultimately the Treasury
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  will use the review as a means of cutting further areas of public expenditure, without allowing any attempt to introduce a better system.
  It is, perhaps, not surprising that the Gracious Speech makes no reference to the reviews or the benefits system generally. Nevertheless, it is a considerable disappointment. It is easy —as the Labour party spokesman, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), showed earlier — to oppose the Government from a very destructive point of view. But we have also to be constructive. If we cannot make reasonable suggestions, at least we should try to put down some reasonable markers to show our areas of concern.
  The alleviation of poverty — an aim, presumably, with which all parties would agree—cannot be discussed without focusing the argument on the need for administrative efficiency. I think that the Secretary of State would agree with that. It should also focus on the extension of choice. I think that he would agree with that. As many have argued, we should try to move towards the elimination of the poverty trap and the unemployment trap. I think that there is a consensus in the House in that respect.
  An increasing number of people are dependent on means-tested supplementary benefit. If the system were simplified, it could lead to a greater take-up of benefit. We should try to do something about the vast, complex network of means-tested benefits, and move towards a more straightforward basic benefit. That could then be topped up by housing credits, child benefits or child credits, or by clothing or heating benefits.
  The computerisation of the PAYE system offers an excellent opportunity to integrate the tax and benefit system and to move towards direct payments in cash, if not in kind, and to increase the level of take-up.
  When the Meacher committee examined many of the problems, a senior official at the Inland Revenue talked about computerisation. I cannot speak for the Treasury Bench, but I confess to having no knowledge of the problems raised by computerisation. It was disturbing that the Inland Revenue official made it clear that if the configuration of the computer brought in to computerise PAYE was not correct, it would be impossible to develop the system radically for many years thereafter. It is a crucial problem, and I put that to the former Minister for Social Security when I gave oral evidence to his review committee in the summer. Ministers must ensure that the correct type of computer configuration is used so that further development will be possible. The Government and future Governments should not be thwarted in any attempt to eradicate poverty simply because of a technical failure by the Inland Revenue.
  There is heated debate within the Cabinet, the Government and the House about what is to happen to benefits. Like many others, I should like to make a special plea to the Secretary of State about supplementary benefit. If we can believe what we read, the Secretary of State has put up a courageous fight against the hard-faced men in the Treasury. He will have the full support of the Opposition Benches as he continues on his wet-ward way. On price protection and uprating, we hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to stick to what we had understood to be the stance of the Conservative party under the leadership of the present Prime Minister, particularly in relation to supplementary benefit and the long-term benefits.

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  In their 1983 general election manifesto, the Conservatives pledged that:
  "In the next Parliament, we shall continue to protect retirement pensions and other linked long-term benefits against rising prices."
  As far as pensions are concerned the Government have stuck to that commitment, but there is now deep concern about the promise about
  "other linked long-term benefits".
  Those benefits were listed by the Chancellor in an answer to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore)—the shadow Leader of the House—on 11 July 1983. Long-term supplementary benefit itself was not included in the list. The doubts and concern were deepened by exchanges between the former Leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), and the Prime Minister about supplementary benefits and long-term linked benefits, in which it became clear that the Prime Minister was departing rapidly from the pledge that she seemed to have made.
  Unemployment continues to bite hard and the numbers of the long-term unemployed are growing. It is surely inconceivable that the Government will not be able to pledge themselves to maintain the comparative value of long-term benefits. I hope that the Secretary of State will continue to make every effort both during and after the review process to ensure that they do.
  I should also like to mention child benefit. In the 1983 election manifesto the Government reiterated their commitment to maintaining its value. The Prime Minister has reiterated that commitment again since the election, and on 27 June the Secretary of State repeated the promise in reply to a question from the then hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock). He had asked:
  "Will the Secretary of State give a categorical assurance that there will be no introduction of means testing for child benefit, nor a reversion to a system of tax allowances?"
  The Secretary of State said:
  "On the first question, I give the hon. Gentleman a categorical guarantee about child benefit. We do not intend and never intended to change the basis of that benefit. That was just another scare during the election, which was denied at the time." —[Official Report, 27 June 1983; Vol. 44, c. 357.]
  More recently, the Secretary of State referred to the subject in Question Time. I hope that he will be able to stick to what he said then, not just until the dust settles over the current round of reviews, nor just during the longer term reviews, which he has described as the most radical since Beveridge, but as long as he occupies his present office. I hope that he will continue to set his face firmly against any increased selectivity or taxation of child benefit, which would be immensely damaging and would, I believe, be opposed not just by the Opposition but by significant quarters of the right hon. Gentleman's own party. To be fair, I believe that the Secretary of State shares our view. I wish him success in the battles that he will have to fight.
  The Queen's Speech is thin in general, but nowhere is it thinner than in health and welfare. Perhaps we should breathe a sigh of relief that the Government do not wish to do too much this year.
  Mr. Giles Radice: Wait for Monday.
  Mr. Kennedy: Yes, indeed.
  The lack of health and welfare measures can only reinforce the view that, whatever is said at the Dispatch
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  Box or at party conferences, the Government are increasingly isolated and insulated from the problems which people face, especially in the north of England and in parts of Wales and Scotland. Poverty is biting more and more deeply. In that respect, the Government do not represent the majority of the people. They do not enjoy the confidence of the majority of the people. Nothing in the Queen's Speech will dispel the growing awareness that the Government are out of touch with those in poverty and have indeed increased their numbers, and have proved themselves supremely unable to combat the ravaging effects of their own policies. We cannot support the Government in that aspect of their policies but, where the Secretary of State is able to fight a valiant rearguard battle and to preserve benefits, he will have our full support.
  6.56 pm
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Reference has understandably been made in the debate to the Beveridge report on the welfare state. Those who established the welfare state would be disappointed that, in the face of mounting affluence and an enormous allocation of resources, there are still unmet needs in our society.
  Seventy-seven per cent. of us own colour televisions, 81 per cent. have washing machines and 61 per cent. have cars. We should not forget our recent debates about Ethiopia, or forget that the average income in India is one fiftieth of the income of people on the poverty line in America. The Secretary of State has pointed to the huge allocation of resources by the Government to social security. Thirty per cent. of all Government spending is on social security — a budget of £37 billion a year. Every day, £100 million is spent on benefits. Of every £10 entering the family budget, £1·80 takes the form of benefits.
  As some needs have been met, new needs have been uncovered. Some appear among the casualties of affluence, and others are connected with population changes.
  During the next 30 years the number of those aged over 70 will increase by more than 15 per cent. and the number of those aged over 80 will increase by 50 per cent. It is in part a tribute to the success of the welfare state that life expectancy has been so greatly increased. Income maintenance is important to the elderly, and we must continue to produce the wealth from which we will pay the benefits, but it is even more important to create the economic stability which will release pensioners from the fear of inflation. Transport policies, housing programmes —I recently visited projects in my constituency which are examples of pioneering work in sheltered housing—and law and order are important for the elderly. Contrary to the statistics dealing with violence, many old people are afraid to go out. The police and the establishment of victim support schemes are therefore important in restoring their confidence. Health provision is vital to their welfare. My right hon. Friend has mentioned improvements in patient care which make a lot of difference to them. The 30 per cent. increase in hip replacement operations in five years has made more difference to the lives of the elderly than would have many other measures.
  At Brighton last month, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that
  "efficiency is not the enemy but the ally of compassion."

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  It is right that money spent on the Health Service should be spent cautiously and well. I hope that the Government will encourage the establishment of "well elderly clinics". In many areas there are far more people caring for the elderly than for children. We make tremendous efforts to prepare people for parenthood but do little to prepare them for caring for an elderly relative. Monitoring their welfare, the overprescribing of drugs and undetected medical conditions are all part of providing a service for the elderly.
  I welcome the choice in residential care for the elderly. There is local authority, voluntary, private and housing association provision. However, I urge the Government further to develop their range of measures that are designed to improve the registration and inspection of homes for the elderly and to set proper standards and procedures to maintain them. I also urge the Government to consider clarification and co-ordination of methods to finance the variety of provision and to examine some of the anomalies.
  Shortly after Beveridge's report, George Orwell wrote "1984". When considering the welfare state, some people may think that the Big Brother world of "1984" is all too apparent. When we listen to speeches such as that made today by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), who wants to establish a monopoly of provision and is suspicious of any private or voluntary contribution, we may feel that "1984" is here. As in the industrial world, welfare needs the "doers and go-getters" to provide diversity. I am vice-chairman of the National Council of Carers and their Elderly Dependants. It was founded by "a doer and a go-getter", Rev. Mary Webster, in 1965. She noticed that single ladies with elderly relatives were often absent from church. Being absent from church is a sure way of getting a voluntary organisation founded on one's behalf. That is how Edward Rudolph founded the Church of England Children's Society. The National Council provides support for people who care for elderly relatives at home. Some 95 per cent. of our elderly are at home and four-fifths of the over-85s are at home. The National Council provides advice, companionship, and informed lobbying and it urges respite care. It is in the best tradition of voluntary activity to meet a need.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Ward) mentioned a Chinese proverb. I should like to repeat a proverb that I was told when I spoke at the India Welfare Society recently: "Light a candle; do not curse the darkness." We have many examples of people who have been prepared to light candles. This is the centenary year of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which was established to meet a need. In my constituency there are many examples of welfare provision that individuals and groups have set up autonomously. The Phyllis Tuckwell memorial hospital cares for the dying. We have the Alzheimer's Disease society and a club that provides for the care of the mentally ill. It uses volunteers who provide a service for the mentally ill and educates the public about the implications of mental illness. I welcome my right hon. Friend's initiative, which was announced in July, "Helping the Community to Care" under which £10·5 million was allocated over three years to assist volunteers, families, neighbours and others to care for the elderly.
  In the welfare state there is a great danger of recipients feeling patronised by the providers. I spent many years as a social worker and will always remember a colleague
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  telling me, "Teaching reading and writing in schools is really imposing middle-class values on working-class children." What absolute nonsense. Nor shall I forget the chairman of a school governing body telling me that when he selected staff he had to establish that they were ideologically committed to mixed-ability teaching because his primary goal was to achieve a classless society. That might be a laudable aim but riot from a chairman of a board of school governors. That principle certainly did not apply to his football team.
  I welcome the plans of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to enhance the role of parents on school governing bodies. This is another example where the people involved often know as much as the experts. I welcome the decision of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to consult the public in social security reviews.
  Governments can allocate resources. They can ensure that they are competently and carefully administered. They can introduce legislation when valid grounds for introducing laws have been established. The Gracious Speech contains many such examples. Governments can also lead public opinion, respond to concern, promote debate and achieve good practice so that individuals, families, groups and communities, whether professional or voluntary, can work together to help the vulnerable, alleviate distress and meet disadvantage with the hope of improving the well-being of all of us.
  7.6 pm
  Mr. Frank Field: One of the advantages of being called late is that one sees how other hon. Members have tackled the task of applying themselves to the Gracious Speech. I have an added advantage in that I am speaking after the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley). I hope she does not mind my recalling that, some years ago—she does not look as though it was many years ago—we worked together in the Child Poverty Action Group which is concerned with the welfare of poor families. She talked of the importance of people who go out into the world and light a candle. In one important respect she lit a candle at CPAG. Since the second world war, no one other than she has studied how poor families have managed over time. Many studies have taken snapshots but they have studied different people. Although many people remain poor for a long time, the number of people who move in and out of poverty, even at today's level, is significant.
  I should like to pay the hon. Lady another compliment. When she stood up I was not sure what she would say. It is a great compliment to be able to say that an hon. Member's speech is not predictable. I hope that we shall hear her often.
  I hope that my speech is not so standard as to be predictable. I should like to examine two areas of Government policy in which the Government have clearly outlined objectives but which, on analysis of progress towards them, appear flawed. The first is the economy.. which I shall relate to the numbers of people in poverty. The Government are right to believe that it is foolish to try to separate the living standards of the community from the wealth generated by it. However, that should not be the only part of our debate as we should consider how to distribute wealth, whatever its level.
  The Government's strategy to increase prosperity is clear. Hon. Members will forgive me if I remind them

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  what it is. The Government believe that the chances of increasing prosperity are increased if the rate of inflation is reduced. We must agree that the Government have succeeded in that, although some people have had to pay a considerable price for it. There has been a massive increase in the number of people unemployed. We cannot talk about a burden of unemployment which we share. Unemployment is not spread fairly throughout the community, but is borne by a minority. The price of reducing inflation is being borne by a minority of people.
  Secondly, the Government say that reduced taxation will increase incentives. Their record on that is, at best, mixed. Thirdly, and most important, the Government believe that they can generate business prosperity by controlling interest levels.
  That brings me directly to the debate which the Cabinet held this morning about the level of Government expenditure, and especially the level of Government borrowing. The Government claim that, if expenditure is not met by taxation, the difference must be met by borrowing. One can increase Government borrowing only if one borrows in the money market at increasingly favourable rates of interest. Therefore, the Government have set a target to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement as a percentage of the gross national product. There is a weakness in that strategy. In every other recession or trade cycle Government borrowing has increased. It has almost acted as Adam Smith's hidden hand. It has been the mechanism built in the economy to push the economy from the bottom towards growth. The Government have sought to reduce public sector borrowing in order to reduce interest rates and encourage business prosperity. That belief is central to their strategy.
  I question whether the Government strategy can be successful because the natural mechanism in the economy to restore the movement back to full employment has been butchered by their intention to reduce PSBR as a percentage of national income. Therefore, the general prosperity for which they hope will not occur and there will be less money for the poor.
  I turn to the objectives which the Government have set themselves regarding the poor. They seek to decrease the number of poor people and to increase the number of people who can free themselves from poverty. Yet in the Gracious Speech there is no mention of the Government's intentions regarding poverty. That is not because they have been successful in reducing the number of poor people. Perhaps the Secretary of State will at some stage tell the House when it can expect the next round of figures on the numbers of people on low incomes. The most recent figures relate to 1981. The Government must have the 1983 figures to hand. When they are published, hon. Members will not be surprised to see an increase in the number of poor people measured by the number living on supplementary benefit.
  There is another contradiction in the Government's programme to free people from poverty and to give them an income above the poverty line as of right.
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): The hon. Gentleman's speech is so interesting that I wish to ask whether by "low incomes" he
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  means individual low incomes, which may go to someone who is a member of a relatively prosperous household, or household low incomes.
  Mr. Field: I mean household low incomes, because that is how the Government analyse the figures. In the analysis of low income families made by the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West she showed how important additional incomes, especially those of children, were to a household in raising the household income above the poverty line. The Government are considering that point in their review, and I hope that they will read what the hon. Lady said.
  I come to the inconsistency in the Government's social programme. We must consider the level of national insurance benefits if we are to be successful in giving people an income which raises them above the poverty line. Yet the Government's record shows a list of national insurance cuts. I could give a list of social security cuts, but it is more difficult to give a list of health provision cuts. I hope that the Secretary of State managed to fight his corner with the Treasury by pointing out cuts which it had previously made in his budget.
  As most people do not have large bank balances to fall back on, if national insurance cuts continue, they will be thrown back on the supplementary benefit system. Therefore, the number of people on low incomes and on means-tested low incomes will increase. If we seek to build a welfare state which will act as a floor on which people can build by their own efforts and free themselves from poverty, we must question an overall strategy which pushes more and more people to means tests, builds a ceiling over them and makes it immensely difficult for them to free themselves from poverty.
  Child benefit has been alluded to by many hon. Members. It is a topic which the Government are currently reviewing. There is talk that the level of child benefit should be taxed. Before the Government announce their decision, I hope that we shall have an open debate about the pros and cons of such a move. I would not oppose the taxing of child benefit if all the revenue that accrued from it were ploughed back into the child benefit scheme. The Secretary of State could then announce an increase of about £2·30 a week in child benefit. As other hon. Members have pointed out, the Government have met their commitment to maintain the child benefit level in real terms; indeed, it is at a record level.
  The Secretary of State will agree that, although the value of child benefit has been maintained, we have not maintained it at a sufficiently adequate level to keep it in line with changes in the tax threshold. Because of that there has been a change in the tax burden, both from rich to poor people and from those who are single without children to those with children. Another Government objective is to protect the family. I am worried about the change in the tax burden from those without children to those with children because we have not increased child benefit in line with changes in the tax threshold. Such a change would give the Government leeway to make up lost ground, but the lost ground will not be made up if the Secretary of State must surrender to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the revenue that results from taxing child benefit, because the Chancellor would use it to make other changes in the Government's programme rather than to increase child benefit.

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  Another reason why I urge such a change is that the more we consider the relativities of benefits and tax levels, the more we discover that they derive from the work done by Steven Rowntree at the turn of the century. Although he was fairly accurate in working out the minimum needs of men, he guessed the minimum needs of women and children. We know from what our European neighbours and the Americans have achieved in their budgetary studies that the benefits we pay to children are inadequate compared with those paid to adults. A change in child benefit financing such as I have outlined would allow the Secretary of State considerable revenue to make a major change in the welfare state that would begin to redress that historic grievance.
  Above all, such a change would mean that the higher child benefit becomes, the more secure is the floor on which families can build futures for themselves. Although Labour Members say that that strategy alone is inadequate, we would be foolish to deny that it is part of the strategy that we wish to adopt.
  I have raised some questions about the Government's economic strategy, which I believe is faulty. There are also faults in the social security system. However, I have ended with what I hope will continue to be a note of agreement across the Chamber about the importance of child benefit and the slow but sure steps that we should make in public debate about child benefit. If child benefit is taxed, we should use the revenue to increase child benefit rates.
  I have ranged wide of the Gracious Speech, but I justify my contribution by saying that, although the subjects were not mentioned in the Gracious Speech, they will begin to dominate Parliament as the months go by. It is perhaps better to discuss some of them in a rather cooler atmosphere this evening.
  7.22 pm
  Mr. Bill Walker: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Broad Green—
  Mr. Frank Field: Birkenhead.
  Mr. Walker: I misread the list of Members. I knew that it was the Liverpool or Birkenhead area, because the hon. Gentleman is not appreciated by some people in the Labour party to the same extent as he is appreciated in the Chamber. His contribution was valuable and constructive, and although I do not agree with everything he said, it was put in a way that would not give offence; many of his colleagues could learn from that. I wish that we could transfer abilities that are valuable in the Chamber to our constituencies, where perhaps they would be properly understood.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) is not here. He said that unemployment in Scotland was especially ghastly, and I would have wished to have drawn to his attention the position in the Western Isles. The crofters there live on and work their crofts, yet they register as unemployed and obtain unemployment benefit. More importantly, they register as long-term unemployed. They and we know that the chances of their being offered jobs are extremely remote —I wonder whether some of them want jobs. They have helped substantially to distort the unemployment figures.
  The Select Committee on Scottish Affairs recently visited Norway to consider the position of similar crofters
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  in northern Norway. Their incomes are made up, by an organisation equivalent to the Scottish Development Agency, to about the national average wage for industrial workers. The amount involved is about the same, but the impact is different when one considers statistics. One country has low unemployment in its remote, sparsely populated areas, whereas in western Scotland and other remote areas of Scotland the unemployment figures are horrendous. Perhaps we could learn a lesson from Norway.
  Along with many hon. Members, I must draw attention to something that the Queen's Speech did not say. I am sorry that there are no proposals to change the Civil Aviation Authority, and I am especially disappointed by the absence of a proposal to introduce a formal appeals procedure against decisions by national air traffic services. Parliament has given the CAA quango dictatorial powers against which there is no formal appeals procedure. That cannot be good for the quango, it cannot be good for the individuals who are affected by it, and it is certainly no way to run affairs in a democracy.
  Today's debate is about education, health and social services, and I shall talk about their position in Scotland. Although my proposals and thoughts are primarily about Scotland, they are relevant to other parts of the United Kingdom. In some Scottish schools, there are disruptions and forced breaks in children's education. The teachers tell us that they are on strike. I suggest that some of them are behaving like members of an industrial trade union, not like members of a professional body, as they keep telling us they are.
  Teachers behaving in this way cannot expect to enjoy the continued support of taxpayers for the maintenance of their professional terms of employment. They cannot expect to continue to receive support for the job-for-life element. In these difficult times, when we are all properly concerned for the many whose jobs have vanished and who are unemployed, how can hon. Members support or justify such a job-for-life element for individuals who have abandoned the most basic of their professional requirements — their duty to the children, the maintenance of standards and the setting of examples?
  I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science that, when consideration is given to any request that teachers' pay and conditions be examined by an independent review body, one condition for the acceptance of such a proposal should be the introduction of measures to put teachers on the same basis as industrial workers whose practices those teachers are emulating. If they act unprofessionally and strike to the detriment of children, they should be treated in that way. In future, teachers should reap the rewards of their actions and be given terms of employment covered only by the employment protection legislation.
  In that way, teachers will be in a position similar to that of unprofessional bodies, which have never claimed to be professional but which use the strike element as a means of putting pressure—properly in a democracy—on their employers. However, it is improper for people who claim to be professionals to expect to enjoy professional codes, of conduct and conditions of employment, but then to behave unprofessionally.
  In Scotland, the time has come for the Government to take a cold, hard, look at how we fund Scottish Health Service facilities. Much of the aggravation that we, as hon. Members, face, particularly about health provision,

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  is created by local demand to maintain facilities and services. I cite the example of the cottage hospitals, and the ever-increasing pressure by health boards for centralisation of services in large cities, with the consequent closing of cottage hospitals. This leads to demands by people living in rural areas for changes in the way that decisions are made, and pressure is put on the Secretary of State each time a cottage hospital comes up for closure for him to veto that closure.
  That is why we should be looking also at the way that health boards in Scotland are managed and run. If we accept that the challenge of future funding will call for a dramatic new approach, I recommend that the Government examine the viability of handing over to the regional councils the responsibility for running and managing health boards in Scotland. It happens that the regional areas are the same as the health board areas. At the same time, the Government could look into the practicality of doing away with the local authority rates, a measure that I am confident will receive widespread support both in the House and outside. The alternative fund-raising—we all realise that funds have to be raised —could be done by introducing a local income tax in Scotland, making use of the computer facilities that already exist at centre 1.
  There could also be a provision for local income tax to be raised at regional level. If these two changes were implemented, they would remove control from the unelected health boards, which are described by many in Scotland as being run by nameless and faceless people. No matter how good or dedicated they are, they are unknown and are appointed, so the public rarely knows who they are. Control could then be transferred to the regional councillors, who would be faced with elections at regular intervals, and so should be more responsive to local demands and situations. In this way, we would make the whole system more democratic but, more important, the funding and the raising of funds would be spread over all the taxpayers in the way that it is not at present in local authority spending.
  There would also be advantages for other sectors, but as today's debate is about health and not about police and fire services, I shall not mention them. However, there would be tremendous advantages in making the local people pay for the local services provided, and what is more important than Health Service facilities?
  In the remote part of Scotland that I represent, every time that there is a demand by the local health board for a change in health provision, pressure groups build up. They base their case largely on the problems that arise in the winter months, when many communities are isolated. It is not unusual for communities to be isolated for weeks at a time, and last year there was the appalling situation when many thousands of skiers were isolated at the head of Glen Shee in my constituency.
  Therefore, we require both emergency facilities that are readily available and hospital facilities. Any pressure to close hospitals close to Glen Shee would receive short shrift, but other parts of Scotland have similar problems, with roads that are regularly closed. It is unwise to have all the health care located in large cities, because the distance from these cities to many points where problems
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  may occur can be long, and in the winter months can mean the difference between life and death for critically ill patients.
  At the moment we are looking at and reviewing local authority funding. Would this not be a unique opportunity to give health care to those who are represented locally and elected locally, instead of to appointees?
  Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt) made some observations about the tobacco industry. I have no interest in the tobacco industry. I am a non-smoker, and have never smoked. I am concerned because the hon. Gentleman continues to promote the idea that somehow the Government can take action to stop people smoking. There is only one way to do so, and that is by education and by encouraging people to change their ways. He seems to ignore the contribution that the tobacco industry makes world-wide to the economies of so many nations, and in particular to the well-being and education of Third world farmers. It provides training in crop rotation and husbandry, as well as giving the necessary funds to carry out these changes.
  If we follow the logic of the hon. Member for Brent, South, he is asking us to ban all car driving because there are so many accidents on our roads. That is nonsensical as well. I do not doubt that the hon. Member for Brent, South cares deeply about this matter, as do many of us —I care deeply myself. However, I do not believe that the House or the Government should consider introducing nanny-type Acts which would probably fail because, like prohibition in the United States, they would not work.
  7.35 pm
  Mrs. Ann Clwyd: I have been listening all afternoon to the interesting speeches from the Conservative Benches. They have accused us of being devoid of ideas on the NHS. I commend to their attention the report of the Royal Commission on the National Health Service, on which I had the good fortune to serve for three years up to 1979. The report had the misfortune of landing on the desk of a Conservative Secretary of State for Social Services. Unfortunately, most of the recommendations in the report have not been implemented by the Government. If they are looking for ideas to promote the NHS, I suggest that they look again at the main recommendations of the report.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) mentioned the resignation from the Cambridge area health authority of one of our leading paediatricians, Professor John Davies. My hon. Friend read extracts from the letter of resignation, a letter that is well worth reading again. Professor Davies said:
  "You will know that my attitudes are essentially conservative, but there comes a time when one must be seen to live up to one's professed principles and true conservatism means recognising that the economy is made for man, and not vice versa … If we are not prepared to pay the economic price for acting morally, we may end up by paying the moral price for acting economically."
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science is here now, and I remember him giving evidence to the Royal Commission on the National Health Service. He was asked whether the reorganisation of the NHS in 1974 was, in his opinion, a good or a bad thing. He gave the question a good deal of thought and in reply said that, on reflection, he thought that it was a bad thing. Perhaps the right hon.

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  Gentleman will also think that some of the cuts that the Government are now inflicting on the NHS are bad things when he comes to reflect in three years' time.
  I want to deal specifically with the implications to the NHS of rate capping. Paragraph 16.2 of the Royal
  Commission's report on the NHS said:
  "Good co-operation between the NHS and local authorities is important because their responsibilities overlap. The most common example of joint responsibility is the care of infirm elderly people. Many of them can be looked after at home without over-burdening the family if the local authority is able to provide a home help and meals on wheels, or day care and social work support, or sheltered housing; and the NHS provides family practitioner, health visiting and home nursing services. If these services are not available and properly co-ordinated where they are needed, an elderly person may need to go into an old people's home, or hospital. Effective co-operation is similarly important to the other main patient and client groups who require help from both NHS and local authority services — the mentally ill, the physically disabled and the mentally handicapped — and for the individual person at risk. Cost considerations apart"—
  I am sure that Conservative Members will agree with this—
  "most of us would prefer to live at home rather than in an institution or hospital, however congenial. It is obviously desirable that services should be provided in a way which makes the life of the patient as independent and satisfying as possible."
  In his excellent pamphlet, Dr. Peter Draper has written at length about the health implications of rate capping. He has come to the conclusion:
  "Demands on community care services"—
  and "community care" is a phrase much favoured by the present Government—
  "are currently increasing for three main reasons. First, there is the age factor—the absolute and proportionate number of the old and very old is still increasing— and, secondly, Health Service policies to close large psychiatric and mental handicapped hospitals create new and substantial needs for community care. Thirdly, new social legislation has increased the statutory services which a local authority must provide. The Criminal Justice Act 1982 is an example."
  Government policy has encouraged the development of voluntary organisations as an economic way of providing services. Voluntary organisations generally are involved in initiating new projects and providing services for the less popular groups such as alcoholics and problem drug users. Such services are mainly or sometimes exclusively funded by local and central Government.
  The probable impact of rate capping on community care is serious. While the probable effect of rate capping on local government services relevant to prevention and health promotion are on their own disturbing, the impact on community care, if the proposals are fully implemented, can only be described as catastrophic. The existing services are at the moment under considerable strain. For example, an inner London health visitor recently said:
  "We estimate that on our patch there are at least six families which need social work input. They are not getting it because there is such a shortage of staff. Area offices just cannot accept any more case load. Health visitors and district nurses are doing quite a lot of work which should be undertaken by social services. We no longer even try to refer some things because it is no use."
  There are three main reasons for concern about the impact of rate capping on community care. First, the Government's estimates of appropriate personal social service spending are strikingly lower than those judged necessary by local councillors and officers. For example, the Association of Directors of Social Services calculates the difference for London as being £126 million which
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  would necessitate cuts equivalent to the total spending on homes for the elderly and home help services in London. For inner London, Government calculations allow for only 72 per cent. of planned spending.
  The second reason for concern is that increasingly spending is falling on local government because of Government policy to shift care to the community and away from hospitals. That is universally seen as more desirable from the individual's point of view as well as a cheaper way of providing the same service. Joint financing arrangements with the NHS were introduced to assist that process which was aimed particularly at closing large hospitals for the mentally ill and the handicapped. Under those arrangements central funds are available for health authorities to work with local authorities to set up community-based services. However, over a few years local authorities are expected to take over the revenue consequences. Therefore, while Government funds are saved, local government picks up an increasing share of the bill for community services.
  What joint financing means in practice can he illustrated by some figures from the London borough of Islington. With 340 Islington people in long-stay hospitals for the mentally handicapped and about 300 people in mental hospials, even if only 500 were returned to the community, about half of them because of the financial responsibilities of the borough, spending would be increased by £2·3 million. Currently, that additional spending would incur block grant penalties of £6 million.
  That bleak climate affects those who are responsible for trying to plan and improve community care. The district medical officer of west Lambeth said:
  "The main danger is to our carefully laid plans for care in the community. We envisage taking responsibility in the community for some 400 elderly, mentally ill and handicapped people over the next 10 years, opening seven residential homes a year together with associated day care all over the district. We are utterly dependent on the local authority and its ability to support these initiatives."
  The third reason for concern is the impact on voluntary organisations which rely so heavily on local authority funding. As one community health council secretary put it recently:
  "At present the council fund a wide variety of voluntary groups, including community transport, MIND, contact to family, the local disablement association. All those groups supply services to help maintain individuals in the community. Rate-capping will seriously affect this work and could lead to many organisations folding."
  The voluntary organisations providing services for alcoholics, for the single homeless and for problem drug users face particular difficulties as the services they provide are not seen primarily as a local responsibility. for example, in 1983–84 services for drug takers in Greater London received £388,400 from the Government. Of that, £155,000 came from DHSS pump priming grants, and local funding is required to take on those services in the next few years. But given the present constraints, even previously sympathetic councils are not able to provide or promise future funding under the scheme. So future funding for those services is seriously threatened.
  For the Government, one of the attractions of the move to community care has been the hope that financial savings might be made. However, that is not borne out by many authorities. For example, the director of social services in Newcastle recently estimated that a scheme for the mentally handicapped worked out by his department would cost £15,000, instead of £8,200 for institutional

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  care. A very important article in the journal Public Administration looks at spending trends in joint finance, and concludes:
  "The way in which these resource trends have impacted on personal social services and the community care strategy in particular can be summarised as follows. First, recent Government policy has tended to squeeze out cost effective community care by the severity of the constraints placed on local authority spending. An attempt has been made to mitigate this by the use of joint finance, but in a harsh resource environment local authorities have a very limited capacity to pick up committed growth of this kind and are likely to make less effective use of such moneys. There has been a tendency to give higher priority to the mentally handicapped partly as a result of joint finance, but this has been accompanied by a worsening position for the elderly."
  The move to discharge patients from mental illness and handicap hospitals has led to an increase in the current boarding and lodging allowances paid by the DHSS. The rapid growth in the number of private homes for the elderly has also increased social security spending in that area, especially as the Government's financial commitment has appeared to be open-ended. In a report to the Select Committee on Social Services the Association of Directors of Social Services alleged that private lodging-house owners were receiving as much as £80 a week from social security in order to house mentally ill and handicapped people in shared rooms. The association's president stressed that the potential waste of public money was enormous.
  The British Association of Social Workers, in evidence to the Select Committee on Social Services, said that more than one fifth of all local authorities were refusing to take on further commitments in joint finance. Much of the evidence to the Select Committee on Social Services which considered community care commented on the need for more finance to promote a real shift towards the community and on a need to measure the results of extra resources.
  Although much concern has been expressed about the slowness of the move towards community care, many people are worried about the effects of the initiatives that have already taken place. Large institutions are closing without the necessary facilities being available to care for ex-patients. When the Secretary of State for Education and Science was Secretary of State for Social Services, I was on the board of a regional health authority which thought that its duty was to close as many mental handicap hospitals and institutions as possible and to cut their populations by half. Many of those people were discharged into the community without adequate resources being made available. Some of them were readmitted to those hospitals because of malnutrition while they were being looked after in so-called community homes.
  The Richmond Fellowship produced a report in 1983 on mental health policy entitled "Mental Health and the Community". It said that the number of hospital beds was being reduced at a far faster rate than the replacement community option was being constructed. An article in the magazine World Medicine describes the difficulties of mental patients after discharge which have resulted in a surge in the number of suicides shortly after discharge. In its evidence to the Select Committee on Social Services, the Campaign for Mentally Handicapped People expressed doubts about private residential homes for the mentally
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  handicapped which might not meet other needs such as day-time occupation, a full and varied leisure life and access to medical and paramedical services. I certainly share that concern.
  Similar anxieties have been expressed about private residential care for the elderly. An article in the Health and Social Services journal in July, entitled "Options in the NHS", argues the case for specialist geriatric services against private nursing homes. The National Schizophrenia Fellowship has strongly condemned inadequate after-care for discharged patients most recently in its evidence to the Select Committee. The implications of so-called community care for women are well documented. Often the phrase "community care" means that women are expected to care. The real costs of care are, therefore, disguised.
  The Equal Opportunities Commission, in a report in 1982 called "Care for the Elderly and Handicapped—Community Care Policies and Women's Lives", concluded:
  "The expectation that a woman will provide the necessary care within the family, whatever the cost to herself, still underpins the reality of community care. Cuts in health and social services and cash benefits intensify the demands placed on carers. They mean that there are less physical resources to aid them, less alternatives to relieve them and less money to support them. Savings in public spending increase the cost to the carer in terms of her social life, her employment prospects and ultimately her physical and mental well-being. These costs are borne individually and do not figure in any public spending accounts. The price paid is the restriction placed on women's opportunities."
  Rate capping is bad for all of us, and particularly for the health of us all. We have a deceitful Government who have no scruples about saving at the expense of the old, the sick and the disabled. I have been told that this evening the Minister for Housing and Construction is jubilant at the agreement to trim spending on housing by only £65 million. In a country in which 78,000 people are homeless, 1·2 million people are on housing waiting lists, 192,000 families live in overcrowded houses, 1·1 million houses are unfit for human habitation and 390,000 dwellings do not have a bath or inside toilet, it is a disgrace for any housing Minister to claim that he is jubilant. Less money for housing repairs and improvements can lead only to a decline in housing standards, which we all know are directly linked to the health of everyone in this country.
  7.58 pm
  Mr. John Butterfill: One of the pleasures of this debate has been the undoubted sincerity and compassion of hon. Members on both sides of the House when dealing with health and social security. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), who has had a lifetime of concern for the sick and disabled. But, unlike him, I was not surprised that the Gracious Speech did not contain any reference to the Health Service.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out clearly that the Government are committed to the Health Service and have demonstrated that by the fact that they have more than doubled expenditure on it since coming to power. Not only have the Government increased revenue expenditure on the Health Service; they have reinstated the capital-intensive building programme which the Labour party scrapped when it was last in power.
  My constituency has been a beneficiary of Government policy towards the National Health Service in that its long

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  awaited new hospital at Castle Lane is to be constructed shortly. The whole of the Wessex area, which has been seriously underfunded compared with other regions, is benefiting from the Government's review of relative funding which has resulted in an acceptable increase in available resources. I am happy with what the Government are doing and have every confidence in my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team.
  I was not surprised that there was no direct reference to benefits and social services in the Queen's Speech because my right hon. Friend is conducting one of the most serious and far-reaching reviews of the benefits system ever undertaken. Unlike the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), I do not agree that my right hon. Friend should seek to exclude means testing for certain benefits. I believe that one of the scourges of the present system is that benefits are not means tested. Given that we shall always have finite resources, it does not make sense to spread resources as thinly as possible over the entire population when we could, by means testing, direct resources to those most in need.
  The Secretary of State should consider child benefit in particular. All hon. Members with children are entitled to receive child benefit—or rather their wives are entitled to receive it. It is ludicrous that my wife and the wives of other hon. Members should receive child benefit when, as members of the more affluent section of society, we do not need it and when poorer people rely upon it to feed and clothe their children. Through means testing we could adjust the balance. We could give more to those most in need and nothing to those who do not need it.
  Similarly we should carefully examine the death grant. It is ludicrous that the grant is set at £30. It has remained unchanged for many years. We are all entitled to receive it, whereas the overwhelming majority of people do not need it. Most estates are capable of providing sufficient funds to pay for a funeral. Even in my constituency, which is widely regarded as being relatively affluent —although it has its poorer pockets—elderly people have said to me, "I cannot afford a funeral when I die. I am desperately worried about it and about imposing an intolerable burden upon my children." They say that they are terrified of going to a pauper's grave.
  Some form of means testing should be used. For the death grant the form would be simple. Every person who dies has a return of probate. When the level of probate is above a certain set level the death grant should be refused. When the executors of an estate believe sincerely, and make a declaration to that effect, that the estate is expected to be such that funeral expenses would place an intolerable burden upon relatives, the death grant should be paid. We should also have power of recovery if a false declaration is made as well as a penalty if it is made knowingly. Such a scheme would be simple to administer and it would give great comfort to those who are worried about dying. At the same time, it would save a great deal of money which the Treasury could spend on the more needy.
  It will not surprise hon. Members to learn that I consider the blind to be a needy group because recently I tabled an early-day motion on the blindness allowance. Before I was elected I believed, with the majority of people, that blind people received an allowance because they were blind. I was shocked and appalled to find that they received no such allowance. No special payment is made by the state to the blind. Indeed, blind people do not normally qualify for mobility allowance, invalidity
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  allowance or attendance allowance. Only if a blind person suffers from an additional infirmity does he qualify for allowances.
  If a blind person is so poor that he has to rely upon supplementary benefit, he may receive an addition to that benefit because he is blind. That addition is £1·25 a week. That is to compensate the poorest in our society for the disadvantages of being blind. It does not go anywhere near covering the costs of being blind. It does not cover additional transport costs, books in brail or the million and one additional costs incurred by the blind because they are blind.
  The blindness allowance has not been raised since 1969. It was first introduced in July 1948 at 15 shillings a week. According to a parliamentary answer last year, the current purchasing value of that 15 shillings is over £8. It might now be nearly £9.
  We have a duty to do something about the plight of the blind. I recognise that the Government have tried to do something for them. For example, they doubled the tax allowance, which now stands at £360 a year. However, that is giving money to the one section of the blind that least needs it—those receiving income and paying tax. Seventy per cent. of the blind do not earn enough to pay tax, so the money is being given to the wrong people.
  My early-day motion suggests replacing the existing benefits, such as they are, with a single, means-tested blindness allowance. I emphasise "means-tested" because it is no use taking what limited funds the Treasury can give to the blind and spreading them thinly over their entire number. We must in this, as in all benefits, ensure that they are directed to the poorest and neediest in our society. Only then can we fulfil our obligation to look after the weak.
  8.11 pm
  Mr. Frank Haynes: I welcome the compassionate speech of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill). I, too, have listened to all the speeches today and there has been great compassion in those of Conservative and Labour Back Benchers alike. But there was no compassion in the speech from the Secretary of State, yet that is where it is needed. We criticise him strongly for that.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West about the raw deal experienced by the blind. Like him, they tell me of their problems when they come to my Saturday morning surgeries. I hope that the message will be heard by the Government and that they will take action.
  The death grant is another area that needs a compassionate approach. The Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box today but showed no compassion. The right hon. Gentleman's speech was wicked in many respects. He spoke about the pharmaceutical industry and its profits, but did not say that he would take action to stop profits being raked off from the NHS and from those who have to pay for their prescriptions. I understand from the press that the Chancellor will announce another increase in prescription charges when he makes his autumn statement next week. That is not compassion; it does not help those in need.
  Mr. Butterfill rose—
  Mr. Haynes: I cannot give way as there is little time left and many other hon. Members wish to speak.

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  I can understand why the Secretary of State does nothing about the massive profits of the pharmaceutical industry — it contributes to Conservative party funds. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West can shake his head, but I know that that is true.
  The waiting lists in the NHS are shocking. The Secretary of State says that he is pouring money into the NHS, yet the waiting lists in many areas become longer and longer. I know of many people who require orthopaedic surgery—they have made their contribution to our nation, but the Government are not prepared to help them. The Government help their own and pour money into their pockets. In 1979 they reduced income tax by 26p in the pound to help those who contribute to Conservative party funds. They will not help those in real need.
  The Government ask for cost-cutting exercises and more efficiency in the public sector. Perhaps there could be more efficiency in hospital theatres, where millions of pounds' worth of equipment stands idle for many hours a day. Why do not the consultants and physicians work at night for a change, as do others in the NHS? Why do they not perform their operations at night, thereby helping more people and cutting down waiting lists? They will not do so because that would mean that they could not play golf or work in the private sector. They even make the excuse that if more people had operations there would be insufficient beds for them. The answer is that the Government should cease their rate-capping exercise because community services are crucified by the cuts. Local authorities should be given sufficient money to provide proper services so that people could leave hospital sooner and be looked after properly at home. That would make more beds available.
  The Government must consider the matter sensibly. Conservative Ministers are not prepared to listen to sensible suggestions. It is political dogma. Not long ago Scotland Yard referred to the number of its officers who belonged to the Freemasons. My district health authority is loaded with people belonging to the Freemasons. What will the Government do about that?
  Mr. Boyes: Nowt.
  Mr. Haynes: My hon. Friend is right. The Government are not prepared to listen—to them, it is water under the bridge. The Government should show a more compassionate approach and provide the finance to help those in real need.
  Elderly people speak to me about their fears that they will either have a pauper's grave or have to sell their treasured possessions to meet the undertaker's bill. The Secretary of State for the Environment stood at the Dispatch Box more than two years ago and said that, following talks with the national conference of the British Legion, the death grant would be fixed at a higher rate within six months. Yet the death grant has not been sorted out — the Government are kicking it around like a football. They could not care less.
  There is a shortage of nursing staff in our hospitals. We have an opportunity during the summer recess to make visits in our constituencies and to attend meetings to discover what is happening in the areas that we represent. I found that within the district health authority in my constituency there is a shortage of nurses in the mentally handicapped and geriatric services. In one instance there
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  were two nurses on night duty looking after 143 mentally handicapped patients. The fire prevention officer told me that there would be serious loss of life if there were a fire. What is to be done about that? Money can be found to buy weapons of destruction but it seems that we cannot find enough money to provide proper facilities to help the seriously ill and to provide equipment to save life. It is shocking that the Government cannot make that provision.
  When I learnt that there was a nursing shortage within the health authority in my constituency I stepped back three years. The training school for nurses in my constituency has a complement of 52 but the NHS cuts led to the nursing budget being cut within the authority. The result was that only 36 young lasses were trained as nurses. Three years have passed and the authority finds that it does not have enough nurses for the mentally handicapped and geriatric services. That is an example of what the Government are doing.
  I hope that Ministers and Conservative Members will wake up to what is happening. My right hon. and hon. Friends know what is going on. I had the pleasure of listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) addressing the House from the Opposition Dispatch Box. Earlier, the Secretary of State for Social Services had ducked about all over the place to dodge the questions which were put to him. Those who read tomorrow's edition of Hansard will learn exactly what took place at the beginning of the debate.
  What will be the end result of the Government's cost-cutting and inefficiency? I understand that there is a review taking place of the ambulance and fire services, our emergency services. Are they to be subjected to a cost-cutting exercise? If the Treasury Bench moved in that direction, that would be the limit. The Government Front Bench should be thinking again if that is the intention. If the Government are carrying out a review to improve the emergency services, I shall go along with it, but there should be no cost-cutting exercise for the emergency services.
  It seems that those outside this place are not aware of the effect of the Government's cuts. I hope that the Secretary of State for Education and Science will listen to what I am saying instead of talking to his Parliamentary Private Secretary.
  There will be a massive problem in my constituency in 1985 when children move from primary to comprehensive schools. The Secretary of State for Education and Science travels throughout the country talking about parental choice but that is a load of rubbish. In my area there are two primary schools that feed into two comprehensive schools. If the parents decide that all their children should go to one of the two comprehensive schools, there will be an obvious problem. The right hon. Gentleman will understand the problem and he should be aware that it is arising. Why does he travel the country telling parents that they can have a choice? The county councils' education committee in my consitituency has to determine how many children can go to one school and how many can attend the other. It is necessary to maintain the right balance because otherwise one school would be overloaded as a consequence of parents exercising their choice.
  Conservative Members must realise, as I do, that from time to time a boundary has to be changed because the birth rate on one side of a town is higher than on the other. There has to be a balance and so the boundary is moved. Everybody understands that. It is wrong for the Secretary

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  of State to say at the Dispatch Box and at various conferences that there is parental choice. I wish that he would drop that, because so-called parental choice is thrown in my face when I live up to my responsibilities, meet my constituents and answer their questions as well as I can. The fact remains that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about parental choice and I am not.
  Sir Keith Joseph: My colleagues and I try always to talk in terms of giving parents a chance to state and obtain, if possible, their preference. I agree that we cannot give them choice because of many factors, some of which have been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Haynes: I understand that to a certain extent. The right hon. Gentleman must understand that in many areas eight or 10 parents obtain their choice of schools for their children and the rest do not. The Government must be careful in what they say. People latch on to what they say and I get kicked up the backside instead of the Secretary of State. I am not responsible for his statements and I hope that he will consider what I have said.
  8.28 pm
  Mr. Timothy Wood: I was delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) in his place earlier this evening. It is extremely pleasing that someone who has been treated within the National Health Service is able to be with us once more. I endorse what he had to say about patients' rights. We must ensure that we have a Health Service that provides for the concerns of individual patients. All too often patients' private worries may not be considered sufficiently when a consultant or a nurse is endeavouring to care for a large group of patients.
  I welcome the announcement of reviews of various parts of the social security benefit system which were made earlier in the year. I hope that these several studies will result in a comprehensive change to the benefit system. Over the years, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services said, a variety of Governments have had many good reasons for modifying and adding to the original system, and the objectives of the system have become muddled. More importantly, the intended beneficiaries are confused. Those who administer the system have to battle through a mass of documentation and advice. There are many variations in individual needs, the complexities of the system are absurd and there is a pressing need for simplification. At the same time, income and means-tested benefits create the so-called poverty and unemployment traps.
  It is indefensible, for example, that a married couple with two children can move from weekly earnings of about £60 to about £110 with virtually no change in their disposable income. For a significant band of people an increase in weekly earnings can result in less money for a family to spend. One of the causes is income tax. It is nonsense that, on the one hand, income tax may be charged while, on the other, various income and means-tested benefits are given. Yet more than 1 million families who pay tax receive housing benefit. That cannot be sensible. It is stupid.
  I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) said on child benefit, death grant and blindness allowance, but I hope that we will not introduce a whole series of individual
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  means tests. By all means, if necessary, consider the income received through various grants and benefits within the income tax structure and assessment of total income, but let us not have further individual means rests. The position is confusing enough without introducing yet more means-tested benefits.
  Our means-tested benefits are illogical and costly to administer. They are often unfair in their implementation and, furthermore, a significant disincentive to employment. For many people, if employed, they are a disincentive to work and progress. Some complain about the standard rate of income tax at 30 per cent. being a disincentive to advancement, but the poverty and unemployment traps create disincentives of a completely different magnitude.
  I welcomed the substantial increase in tax thresholds earlier this year. I believe that the highest priority in any further tax changes and reductions must be to raise still further the tax thresholds and reduce the overlapping of taxes and benefits. I emphasise that this is not a new problem. Indeed, when my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State for Education and Science was responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, the problem was similar. Governments may come, Governments may go; but this problem has not been resolved. It is high time that it was. I hope that eventually a tax credit scheme will be introduced. I hope that, in the review of the present system, the rationalisation of the present creeping system will be directed to that objective. I hope also that a future Gracious Speech will make that commitment.
  My second issue relates to education. I am concerned that some of the major industrial firms in my constituency repeatedly tell me that they are experiencing, even now, great difficulty in recruiting people for development work or other highly skilled occupations. I have been greatly impressed by the initiatives that have been taken during the past year by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I strongly support the objectives set for secondary education and those in the examination system, but I remain concerned as to whether we are sufficiently extending and developing enough individuals to play leading roles in the industrial and commercial activities of the future. It is essential to our success in a highly competitive world that we exploit to the full the abilities of our people. I believe that we need to encourage more people to participate in higher education and that it is necessary to provide places for them. Only by making that investment will the more able be equipped to create the wealth and the jobs to help the less able, the weak and the elderly.
  I am aware that there are cost implications in both the issues that I have raised. In the second of those issues, I believe that those cost implications are more than justified, because that investment is essential for our future industrial well-being. I do not wish to go back in another five years to the firms in my constituency and have them still complain that we are not doing enough to prepare individuals for the new technologies. If those firms are complaining in five years, this country will not have the funds at its disposal to provide for the weak and the elderly.
  Similarly, on the first issue, I recognise that swiftly to change to a tax credit scheme would be immensely expensive. However, if we move gradually to such a scheme and remove some of the anomalies and stupidities

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  of the present system, we will create an arrangement that is more understandable and has more scope for help for those who need it and for incentive for those who could benefit by being able to advance in their jobs or to obtain jobs. I hope that, despite the small numbers here this evening, there will be plenty of people who will hear and read my comments.
  8.37 pm
  Mr. Roland Boyes: In the short time available to me, I want to correct something that is said regularly by the Government about the DHSS strike in my constituency and my hon. Friends' constituencies in north-east England. The House and the country at large are deliberately and maliciously misled about the strike's causes, and I hope that this evening the record will be corrected and straightened out. On 22 October, in the other place, the noble Lord speaking on behalf of the Government did not once give the reasons for the strike. Speaking on 23 October 1984, answering questions in the House, the Prime Minister never mentioned the real causes of the strike. Today, the Secretary of State for Social Services mentioned the strike but not its reasons.
  I do not believe that people strike for nothing. If workers go on strike, there is an underlying cause. I want to explain why the people in the north-east are taking strike action against the Government's proposals and, acting on the Government's behalf, the management.
  As we know, the Government have instructed management in DHSS centres and other centres to carry out a cost-cutting exercise. The Government asked for a saving of £700,000 in the computer centres in the northeast. Without much ado, trade union members and management were able to save £650,000. The argument is, therefore, about a residual amount of about £46,000. To save that £46,000, the DHSS management decided to have a ridiculous and stupid head-on clash with the trade unions. Consequently, the wages of workers were cut by between £8 and £14. Surely, at this time, with escalating prices and indeterminate inflation, one could not expect people in the north-east of England easily to accept a cut in wages. No one in his right mind would accept that without an argument. But the DHSS management was under Government instructions, and, as we have seen on a number of issues, the Government prefer clashes to peaceful and sensible negotiations. They wanted this strike for reasons which they will eventually have to explain.
  The public, not to mention hon. Members, have never been told of the consequences of this strike. In order to save £46,000 the people of Britain are already facing a bill of more than £100 million, and it is steadily growing. The latest estimate is that it is now approaching £120 million. That bill will have to be paid because of the intransigence of the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues. At a conservative calculation, it will take about 2,000 years to recoup what this strike has already cost. We shall still be paying the bill in the year 4000. That is the stupidity of what is happening.
  Up to now, the strike has cost between £37 million and £40 million for Post Office emergency payments, £33 million in overtime payments throughout DHSS offices, and £11 million at the Washington child benefit centre. Millions of pounds have been overpaid, and that will have to be corrected. Indeed, there is a rumour that the Minister
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  was overpaid this month, but as he is not present he will be unable to comment. Up to now, 3,800 extra DHSS staff have been taken on. The total cost in a full year will be about £38 million. In addition, 260 new recruits have been taken on to prepare Giros and other cheques.
  I stress again that the Government are trying to save £46,000, yet they are prepared to let the strike continue. Conservative Members have the audacity to claim that this strike action has been taken by uncaring people. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) have regularly spoken to these workers. We know that they care a lot more than Conservative Members about those who are in need of these payments. The Government pretend to care, but they show that they do not by not settling this strike through sensible agreement.
  The Secretary of State told us this afternoon that, of the three unions involved, two had settled. That suggests that the majority of staff have settled on the management's offer. One of the unions, the Civil Service Union, has six members; the Society of Public and Civil Servants has 45 members; and the Civil and Public Services Association, the largest union, has 280 members. When the CPSA members voted, they rejected the management offer by 227 votes to 23. Although I do not speak on behalf of the two smaller unions, I understand that they have accepted the offer only in principle.
  Extra cash is given to the staff because they work irregular hours under a shift rostering system. They receive 20 per cent. for a three-shift roster and 10·5 per cent. for a two-shift roster. The sum they receive is similar to the disturbance grant. During the last negotiations, management's proposals for the rerostering schedules were not at all clear. Consequently, it was impossible for the unions to ascertain the wages implications of the offer. Logically and sensibly, they rejected it. Management was also unable to guarantee that all those who wished to work a three-shift roster would have the opportunity to do so.
  Let me add further confusion by quoting what the Government spokesman in the other place said. In reply to one noble Lord he said:
  "and who are affected or could be affected by the changes that have been proposed, will in fact continue to be paid at the rate that is in hand at the moment."
  That sounds fine, but two or three minutes later he said in the same reply to another noble Lord:
  "In this dispute the unions appear to want the existing shift patterns to be set for all time. Obviously, this questions management's right to manage. This is something that the department cannot, and should not, accept.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 October 1984; Vol. 456, c. 5–6.]
  Having first said that everything was fine, he then said that it was not because the department would demand the opportunity to manage the staff.
  It should be noted that there will be a full review of the system in 1986, and although the staff may get what they want now the management has made it absolutely clear that, as a consequence of the 1986 review, it would not guarantee any changes in permanency of service.
  Mr. Wood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Boyes: I usually do, but on this occasion I shall not. Some of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends still wish to participate and I have promised my Whips that I shall finish at 8.50 pm. If the hon. Gentleman intervenes, he will merely deprive his hon. Friends of time and I am sure that he would not wish to do so.

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  In the case of the miners, the Government are prepared to cost the taxpayers any amount of money. They do not care whether the bill rises to £2 billion, £3 billion or £4 billion. Out of wicked political vindictiveness they are prepared to make the taxpayers foot the bill. The same applies to the DHSS strike. In order to save a paltry £46,000, the country will have to pay hundreds of millions of pounds. That is unacceptable to the Opposition. I only wish that the Government would find it unacceptable and would tell the managers in the computer centres in Washington and other parts of the north-east, "Get our people back to work. Get these Giros paid to those who need them."
  Mr. Don Dixon: Is my hon. Friend aware that there was a complete lack of consultation prior to the management vindictiveness against the workers in Washington and Newcastle?
  Mr. Boyes: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He and I have met the unions and know what the situation is. No consultative procedures were carried out.
  This strike could be ended tomorrow morning if the Secretary of State for Social Services told his permanent officials in the DHSS, "Give those people the shift rostering payments to which they are entitled. Get the computers running again. Begin proper negotiations."
  As I have already said, the people of the north-east have already given up £650,000 out of £700,000 without any problem. They surely have a right to proper talks on the remaining £46,000. I hope that the Minister will confirm that he will get these people back to work on proper pay.
  8.50 pm
  Mr. Roger Sims: I can understand the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) wanting to argue the case that he has, and he will not expect me to answer it at this hour. At least he has put the case in the way that it should be put in this arena or across the conference table. It is unfortunate that he appears to be supporting a strike which is causing a great deal of inconvenience and distress to many pensioners who are innocent parties. Surely there are better ways than that of settling industrial disputes.
  I particularly welcome the commitment in the Gracious Speech to increase efficiency in the public sector, and there is no larger public sector than the National Health Service. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his production of the annual report on the Health Service. It is a first-class document. Its style, content and presentation are admirable. It should be required reading for all hon. Members, particularly those on the Opposition Benches who are sometimes somewhat selective in their comments on the Health Service.
  I suspect that it is unlikely that our constituents — who, after all, pay for and are the users of the Health Service—will have the opportunity in large numbers, or the inclination, to study the material in the report, quite apart from the fact that it costs nearly £7. My right hon. Friend might like to consider producing a popular version of the report—perhaps in leaflet form—which could be available in doctors' waiting rooms, hospitals, libraries, and so on, so that our constituents could see exactly what the Health Service is doing, what its resources are, and how it uses them.
  The task of the National Health Service is to restore the sick and injured to full health and to seek to maintain the
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  healthy in that condition. It is a health service; it is not a cleaning service, catering service or a laundry service. Therefore, I warmly support the efforts of my right hon. Friend and his Ministers to encourage competitive tendering for those parts of the operation of the service.
  In his speech, my right hon. Friend referred to a health authority which was saving £1·4 million on domestic services. I think that he was referring to my local health authority in Bromley, which has now, in one of its hospitals, put catering out to tender. In one hospital the projected annual saving is £40,000. Extrapolating that figure throughout the country, the potential for savings can be seen to be enormous. It would make more resources available for the care of the patient. It is the exercise not of party dogma, but of good housekeeping.
  There is scope for savings in the prescribing of drugs. I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement about the discussions that he intends to undertake as to the extent to which generic drugs can be prescribed. My right hon. Friend also referred to the quantities in which they are prescribed. It is understandable that doctors do not want to have their patients coming back continually for repeat prescriptions, and that therefore they tend to be rather generous. I am sure that we all know of cases where people have been given a prescription for far more tablets or medicine than they need to use. Medicine chests in homes throughout the country are full of unwanted pills, ointments and medicines.
  I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to a report of a two-week campaign by local pharmacists in Cornwall to have unwanted pills and other medicaments returned. The value of the products which had to be destroyed after being returned was £150,000. On a national scale, that would amount to a saving of about £20 million. It was a small exercise in a small area, and I am not suggesting that it is necessarily typical, but it suggests that there is scope for substantial savings in the quantity of drugs prescribed.
  I was interested to note that my right hon. Friend referred to tranquillisers. I have had some disturbing evidence of the extent to which they are prescribed for people in times of particular stress—perhaps a family quarrel, a divorce or a bereavement. The prescription having been given for that purpose, it is often repeated indefinitely, despite the fact that originally it was presumably for a transient matter.
  In an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) spoke of people having tranquillisers for two or three years. I know of a case in my constituency where a man was on tranquillisers for 17 years. That is extraordinary because, apart from the distress caused to the man in being continually tranquillised, he became, as it were, addicted and went through a very difficult time when he finally decided, of his own accord, to come off the tranquillisers. Apart from all the human misery involved, a considerable sum of money was spent unnecessarily.
  With regard to the abuse of drugs, the Department has taken several initiatives. The problem has been the subject of debate in the House. This is an area in which an attempt is being made to prevent people from needing the services of the NHS.
  Several initiatives have been taken by the Department in encouraging the sensible use of alcohol. Most people enjoy alcohol, and it can be positively beneficial, but the Department is right to be concerned about the 1 or 2 per cent. of users of alcohol who abuse it.

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  I wish that I could be equally complimentary about another area of preventive medicine. I refer to page 11 of the report on the NHS, where it says that
  "smoking remains the major avoidable cause of death and disease".
  I warmly endorse the remarks of the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), who has fought a campaign in the House on the issue for many years. I hope that before long we can have a debate devoted to the subject. Although the Department supports Action on Smoking and Health and the Health Education Council financially, Government action amounts to very little. The sponsoring of sports and the arts by tobacco companies now extends into an area where some of the tobacco companies associate their brand names with holidays and, by inference, good health. To use the hon. Gentleman's words, that is making a fool of the Government. The free advertising given to cigarettes on television—including the so-called non-commercial BBC — would be laughable if it were not tragic in the influence that it has on young people.
  There are several points that I should like to pursue with my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) if time allowed. Perhaps I shall have some other opportunity to do so.
  Proposals are outlined in the Gracious Speech which, if Parliament approves them—after, no doubt, a good deal of argument—will be the law of the land by this time next year. The rule of law is the system under which we operate. Our whole way of life is based on the assumption that the law will be complied with. No political party, no trade union, no individual, can pick and choose between the laws that they wish to obey and those that they wish to ignore. It would be impertinent of me to add to the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on that subject when she opened the debate on Tuesday, save to say that those who deny the rule of law put in peril not only themselves but the whole nation.
  9.1 pm
  Mr. Tony Fayell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) for giving me an opportunity to make some brief remarks.
  The question of housing benefits was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Mr. Wood). Housing benefits cost the nation £3·9 billion a year—a tenth of the social security budget. There has been an increase of 140 per cent. in real terms in housing benefits over the past 10 years. That is an alarming increase. Why should that increase have taken place when incomes, in real terms, have increased? I suggest that the answer is that 90 per cent. of housing benefit goes to local authorities, and that their expenditure has outstripped income. More and more households now find it impossible to meet their rent and rate demands in full because of the unwarranted increase in local authority expenditure, and a third of all households in the United Kingdom are now eligible for housing benefit. I therefore welcome the housing benefit review.
  However, the members of the review team will have an impossible task. They will find that families on low incomes will still require help with rent and rates. They may tinker with the system, but the same 7 million
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  households will still require help with rent and rates, because local authority expenditure is too high and the system of financing local authorities is wrong.
  Housing benefit now means that only a third of all local authority electors pay full domestic rates. The ratepayer therefore no longer has control over local authority spending, and, because of the existence of housing benefit, the local authorities no longer have to answer to the ratepayer. It is a vicious circle. As housing benefit increases, the more families are thrown on to housing benefit. The more families are thrown on to benefit, the less answerable financially local authorities become to those who elect them. The social security team will find that the domestic rating system requires a thorough overhaul. That nettle will have to be grasped in the end, because otherwise housing benefit will continue its relentless increase.
  9.3 pm
  Mr. Giles Radice: We have had a wide-ranging debate on social services and education. Such debates are perhaps more common in the United States than in this country, but they are none the worse for that. Social services and education are the services which are most important to the well-being of our people.
  We have heard many good speeches. In particular, I should like to mention the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), with his great knowledge of the subject, my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), and for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) and my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes). The arguments about health and social security have been expressed ably and eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher).
  I know that the Secretary of State was to have received a deputation from organisations of the deaf to discuss the need to remove restrictions which discriminate against suitably qualified deaf people training as teachers of the deaf. The meeting was postponed because of today's debate but I am anxious, at the request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), to get some idea of the Government's stance on this important matter. My right hon. Friend asked me to ask the Secretary of State why there has been so much delay in responding to the case for allowing qualified deaf teachers to teach the deaf. My right hon. Friend would have questioned the Secretary of State himself but has had to leave for the north-east to preside over the annual conference of the north of England regional association for the deaf.
  The Queen's Speech contains two sentences on education. The first promises a Bill to give parents the right to exempt their children from corporal punishment. The second gives a puff to the Secretary of State's policies for raising standards in schools. The Corporal Punishment (Exemption) Bill, as it might be called, arises out of the decision of February 1982 by the European Court of Human Rights in the Campbell and Cosans case. The court decided that when a parent holds a conviction against punishment of this type it amounts to a philosophical conviction under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights. That decision has created quite a problem for the Secretary of State.

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  It is well known that many Conservative Members strongly believe in the value of corporal punishment. In the consultative document which the Secretary of State issued in July 1983 he said that sanctions, including corporal punishment, form an important aspect of discipline. On the other hand, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights is binding on the United Kingdom.
  The Secretary of State has tried desperately to square the circle between his and his party's convictions and the decision of the European Court. Hon. Members will note that the consultative document was produced 17 months after the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. Nor is it that the consultative document was lengthy—it was about four small pages long. Instead of coming out for abolition, the consultative document proposed a compromise. It proposed a system of opt-out for the children of parents who opposed corporal punishment. Subject to that new condition, the decision whether to retain corporal punishment would be left with the school governors. In the consultation exercise that followed, the compromise has been widely condemned. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities called the proposals "unworkable". The Association of County Councils said:
  "a system which allowed different sanctions for the same misdemeanour … would be difficult to justify and might be regarded by some as lacking morality."
  The Campaign for State Education said that the European Court has made the use of corporal punishment
  "inequitable, illogical and above all impractical".
  The Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association had the gravest reservations—I think rightly—about the wisdom of creating two disciplinary systems. The National Union of Teachers said that the Government's policy was "ill conceived".
  Perhaps the most significant comment came from the National Association of Head Teachers. Hon. Members will remember that the consultation document said that the head should have a central role in discipline. Nevertheless, the NAHT warned the Government that there was a basic conflict between their decision not to abolish
  "and its decision to retain a sanction which will be implemented on a totally unsatisfactory basis. This is doubly unsatisfactory bearing in mind the fact that the Government, in its own submissions to the European Court, emphasised the wholly undesirable effect that would be in terms of discipline and the administration of schools arising from the right of parents to withdraw their children from this particular sanction".
  In view of those devastating criticisms from the overwhelming majority of leading authorities in the education community, will the Secretary of State tell the House how many of the more than 100 organisations and individuals who commented on the consultative document supported an exemptions system? I suspect that the number could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
  It is a tragedy that, despite all the objections, the Government have chosen to exclude professional and authoritative advice and to proceed with the unworkable exemption compromise. The Secretary of State has not had the courage—that is not a charge which I usually make against him — to take the only feasible course and abolish corporal punishment. He should have taken the advice of the Society of Education Officers when it said that it would be preferable for the Government to grasp the nettle immediately and issue a policy statement announcing the abolition of corporal punishment in all schools within a specific time.
  It is interesting that the Secretary of State for Scotland has taken a much more intelligent and courageous line. In
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  answer to a parliamentary question on 10 July he said that the general aim in Scotland remained the elimination of corporal punishment. Instead of sitting on his hands, he wrote to regional councils urging them to abolish corporal punishment. That did not happen in England.
  Although the Bill will cover Scotland, that answer to a question put down by the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) is different in tone and style from a reply given by the Secretary of State for Education and Science. He said:
  "Subject to compliance … decisions on the use of corporal punishment should be left to the schools themselves."—[Official Report, 26 October 1984; Vol. 65, c. 735.]
  The Secretary of State for Scotland said:
  "Compliance with the Court's judgment … would be best secured by completion of the voluntary process of elmination of corporal punishment in education authority schools which has been the long-standing general aim in Scotland." — [Official Report, 10 July 1984; Vol. 63, c. 448.]
  Not for the first time the Scots take a more progressive view of education than the English.
  The Secretary of State for Education has ducked the issue. The only sensible, practical and humane policy is to abolish corporal punishment. The Opposition will take every opportunity to convert the exemption Bill into an abolition Bill. If the Secretary of State is not prepared to respect the results of his own consultative exercise and accept amendments to his Bill, we shall have to consider our position on the whole Bill.
  Mr. Greenway rose—
  Mr. Radice: I shall give way, but I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene on this issue.
  Mr. Greenway: The hon. Gentleman's words will carry more weight if he suggests feasible and workable alternatives. He has not done that, nor has the Labour party.
  Mr. Radice: If the hon. Gentleman were to visit all the other countries of western Europe, none of which allows corporal punishment, he might find out. As those other systems of education have shown, it is possible to run education without corporal punishment. As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, the best teachers can keep order without needing that deterrent. If there are problems with discipline, the many authorities that have already abolished corporal punishment have found alternative methods for dealing with it. It would not be such a difficult problem as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
  The second matter mentioned in the Gracious Speech is educational standards. Hon. Members will remember that on 6 January 1984 in Sheffield, the Secretary of State, with a great fanfare of publicity that was ably organised by his Department, announced a plan for raising pupils' achievements and standards in schools, which he claimed modestly was bold, ambitious and realistic. On behalf of the Opposition, on 20 January, I welcomed some part of that speech in the House and I especially welcomed the Secretary of State's statement that there was a
  "basis of quality and past success in"
  the state education system, and that
  "our schools are offering more pupils a broader education, and a larger proportion of pupils are successful in examinations at 16-plus."
  The latest figures from the Department show that that improvement has continued. The facts contradict the

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  mindless attacks on the comprehensive schools and the ill-informed abuse of the state system of education which are indulged in too often by Conservative Members, who should know better, and too often by the popular press.
  I also welcome the Government's abandonment of the fruitless chasing after educational hares such as vouchers, open enrolment and the return of selection, and I welcome the fact that the Government are addressing themselves to the real issues such as curriculum reform, the examination system of the improvement of teacher quality. We share the objective of raising the level of achievement in schools, although our definition of achievement is much wider than that of the Secretary of State. We wish to raise the level of achievement of all children, not just the few. I warned the Secretary of State—
  Sir Keith Joseph: The hon. Gentleman generally tries to be fair. The emphasis of the Government throughout has been on raising the achievements and performance of children of all abilities, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be fair enough to acknowledge that.
  Mr. Radice: Yes, I am fair enough to acknowledge that that is the Secretary of State's position. Unfortunately, it is not always the position of Conservative local authorities or, indeed, of members of the Conservative party.
  I warned the Secretary of State that he could not hope to be successful unless he was prepared to put his money where his mouth was. I also said that many local education authorities were already experiencing great difficulties in meeting their statutory obligations and I quoted the words of his advisers, Her Majesty's Inspectorate, who said:
  "In most secondary schools, existing levels of resources could not now be stretched to meet the demands legitimately placed on them by the community at large, nor could they in all cases maintain the existing basic provision."
  In reply—I will be fair to the Secretary of State and use his arguments—the Secretary of State said that not all problems could be solved with money. He also argued that in nearly all authorities there was considerable scope for redeployment. However, he said that where money was needed and where there was no scope for redeployment, he might have to try to convince his colleagues that more must be made available. I remind the Secretary of State of those words, because it is our contention that, 10 months after the launch of the so-called bold, ambitious but realistic plan, his strategy is running into the sand.
  There are two reasons for this. The first is due to lack of resources, and the second is the manner in which the Secretary of State has attempted to carry through his plans. I do not propose to pursue the second matter tonight because, as the House knows, we shall have further opportunity to discuss these issues next Wednesday.
  This evening, I shall say something about resources. It is ironic that in the same week that the Secretary of State was complacently puffing his policies to raise educational standards, his advisers—the HMI—sounded alarm bells about educational provision in Norfolk, a county that I visited last week, where I saw for myself what was happening. The HMI report said:
  "The officers, advisers and teachers are fully conscious of their responsibilities but it is clear that they are all operating in a system that not only has no slack in it, but which is already decidedly over-stretched and showing signs of inadequate levels of provision of staffing and materials."
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  The report goes on to discuss some of the issues raised by the Secretary of State in January and bluntly warns him:
  "If the local education authority is to set out to spread more widely the examples of good practice that exist: to make more equitable the access to educational opportunity of all its pupils and to improve the 5–16 curriculum in order to raise standards in line with national policy intentions"—
  in other words, what the Secretary of State is saying—
  "the Authority as a whole will need to review its policies for education, including its financial provision and the priority should be given to educational needs in the context of all other calls it has upon its resources."
  Unfortunately, the case of Norfolk is not atypical. Its spending is not below the average for the shires. It is spending up to its grant-related expenditure level. What should be worrying the Secretary of State is that if Norfolk follows the advice of the inspectors and gives educational spending priority, it will run up against the Department of Environment targets and penalty system. This point has not just occurred to me, but was mentioned by the chairman of the Norfolk education committee, whom I am sure the Secretary of State knows well.
  Norfolk and many other local education authorities are in a "Catch 22" situation. They are told that they will get less from central Government next year. However, they are penalised if they raise locally the resources that they need to tackle the educational problems that have been identified by the HMI. What is happening is that the Secretary of State's plan to raise educational standards is being undermined by the squeeze on resources imposed by the Treasury via the Department of the Environment.
  What success is the Secretary of State having in persuading his colleagues to provide the extra resources for education that the HMI says in a number of cases is now urgently needed, or has he allowed his obsession for public spending to overcome his concern for education? We shall learn the harsh truth on Monday afternoon and we shall be able to debate the outcome on Wednesday.
  What is clear is that this thin Queen's Speech will do little to improve our welfare and education services. Sadly, we shall be reminded on Monday that, whatever the desires of their respective Ministers, policy on education, health and social security is, in reality, largely determined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister. We shall also be reminded that, with this Government, it is their ideological commitment to monetarism and cutting public expenditure that shapes policy, not the needs of the people. We believe that as a nation we must change priorities and put the needs of people first. In the coming Session, we shall be arguing that case not just in the House but in the country as a whole.
  9.24 pm
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): I cannot just enjoy myself by talking about education; I must also try to reply to some of the comments that have been made on health and social security.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) tried as hard as he could to avoid facing the facts, but he could not get away from the two central truths. The Government have shown the priority that they give to the NHS by increased spending. The key figure there is how much it has cost to provide the service. In the past five years the cost of the NHS to the economy as a whole has increased by 17 per cent. — 10 per cent. more than public spending as a whole.

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  The hon. Gentleman's attachment to input volume figures is just another demonstration of his desire to avoid talking about the real measure of NHS performance—the number of patients treated. He cannot get away from the fact that in 1983—in just one year—the number of patients treated in the NHS increased by as much as during the whole five years of the previous Labour Government.
  Nor could the hon. Gentleman escape from the formidable speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), who catalogued a list of record services in highly technologically advanced areas as well as in more mundane areas of service that the NHS has been able to clock up.
  Moreover, I must remind the House that it is impossible to escape the improvement that the NHS is, with all its blemishes, providing for the public, by pretending that the country, as the hon. Member for Oldham, West most disingenuously pretended, is suffering from a serious decline in health. The present generation, with all the problems that it has, is enjoying longer life expectancy and a record low infant mortality. I do not at all discount some of the real problems that go with poverty, but nevertheless one of the biggest characteristics of current demand on the NHS is that it is seeking to cure people of the problems of affluence.
  The hon. Gentleman did not give a convincing case on the NHS, but it was rather better than his attempt to wave away what the Government are doing to improve the position of early leavers from occupational pension schemes. His case was pitiful. The Labour Government gave no statutory protection whatever against inflation to the preserved rights of early leavers in their legislation on occupational schemes. We are putting that failure right.
  Yet the hon. Gentleman has the nerve to complain that we put an upper limit of 5 per cent. on the annual increase which has to be made. We have to balance the rights of early leavers against the interests of the schemes and avoid putting excessive burdens on them. More importantly, we think that 5 per cent. is a reasonable ceiling because the Government have not only brought inflation down to 5 per cent., but they intend to bring it down still further. The truth of the matter is that, if the Labour party were ever to regain power, 5 per cent. would be nowhere near enough to cover the inflation which would be the result of its profligate policies.
  Mr. Meacher: It is good to hear the Secretary of State returning to those areas where his policies on NHS reorganisation were such a success in 1973–74. Perhaps he will accept that what matters is what money will buy within the NHS and that the 17 per cent. figure which relates to the RPI is not directly relevent to the NHS. That is the simple point that I am making.
  All that I said about the 5 per cent. revaluation was that 5 per cent. is less than the other recommended figure of the Occupational Pensions Board, which is 8·5 per cent. The key point that I made, which the right hon. Gentleman has not answered, is that it applies only to existing pensioners and will relate only to benefits paid after next January. Why should millions of pensioners lose out because of the failure to protect them in the past? Is it because the Government are more concerned about the occupational pension scheme than its members?
  Sir Keith Joseph: The hon. Gentleman has been let down by his memory. The recommendation of the
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  Occupational Pensions Board was a 5 per cent. limit. It was the TUC that recommended an 8·5 per cent. limit. The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) repeated something that has been said frequently by hon. Members on both sides of the House and that is that there is a virtually insatiable demand on the Health Service, particularly with the technological advances that are constantly being offered to the public. In the NHS there is a sort of rationing by queueing. But, although the waiting lists are still far too high, they are substantially lower than they were when the Conservative party first came to office. In March 1979, the waiting lists amounted to 750,000, but five years later the figure was 690,000. That fall occurred despite the adverse effect of the 1982 NHS strike.
  The hon. Member for Leeds, West may be comforted by the knowledge that he was wrong to refer to a fall in the number of home helps. There are now more home helps in action than there were five years ago.
  Mr. Ward: I hope that my right hon. Friend will highlight the fact that, despite all that the hon. Member for Oldham, West said, he did not once refer to the need to raise the money from hard-pressed taxpayers and ratepayers. I hope that my right hon. Friend will emphasise the need for budgetary control throughout all the services provided by the Government.
  Sir Keith Joseph: I regret to tell the hon. Member for Oldham, West that he is not unique in that regard. All his right hon. and hon. Friends suffer from the same Utopian ignoring of resources.
  Mr. Meadowcroft: I was trying to say that the number of home helps had not necessarily been reduced in every case. Of course, because of the rate penalties. some authorities have reduced the number of home helps and they may be the very authorities to have the most serious problems. The point is that when making a financial equation, let alone a social equation, the cost of home helps is minimal compared with the cost of keeping people in institutions. If only on financial and not social grounds, we should be massively increasing the number of home helps.
  Sir Keith Joseph: I am almost a fanatical admirer of the home help service and those who work in it, so I agree with the hon. Gentleman; but he is guilty of ignoring constraints. One would have thought that the hon. Gentleman did not think that there were any financial constraints on Government. He spoke as if he was quite unaware of opportunity costs. He catalogued all the areas in which the Government could spend more money and showed a blissful indifference towards the effect on jobs and inflation.
  As always, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) made a very interesting speech. He recognised the Government's success in reducing inflation but claimed that it has led to rising unemployment. He also recognised the Government's intent to enable the poor to escape from poverty. Without presenting the Government or management as perfect, I would say that the greatest cause of rising unemployment and continued poverty has been the many trade union leaders who have encouraged their members to price themselves out of jobs. The hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) has a very nice smile and thinks I am not serious, but I am. Over the years,

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  those trade union leaders have obstructed the rising productivity that releases people from poverty. There is no way in which the whole population can escape from poverty except by the community as a whole, including them—
  Mr. Dormand: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir Keith Joseph: I have a lot of ground to cover so I cannot give way.
  Mr. Dormand: Is it in order to accept or refuse an intervention on the basis of one's smile?
  In 1979 when this Government came to power the right hon. Gentleman used a word which became a byword outside the House. He said that the new Tory Government and the new freedom from controls would mean that entrepreneurs would be "galvanised" into action. We heard that week in and week out. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that entrepreneurs have been galvanised into action now that 4 million people are unemployed?
  Sir Keith Joseph: Yes, but not enough of them. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that his region and others will recover their vitality and full employment without lots of entrepreneurs, he is making a great mistake.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) made a short but splendid speech. She reminded us of the crucial pioneering role in social services of those who lit a candle by identifying social needs and setting out to create voluntary societies. I was the honorary treasurer to the Rev. Mary Webster, of whom my hon. Friend spoke. I pay tribute to people like Mary Webster, Chad Varah of the Samaritans, the remarkable Dame Cicely Saunders of the Hospice movement, the late Megan Du Boisson who founded the Disabled Income Group and Alec Dickson of the community service volunteers. All hon. Members could add to that list of people who have lit a candle by identifying needs to lead the Government. In many cases action has been taken without the Government. I am glad that my hon. Friend spoke in that way.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Mr. Wood) spoke with legitimate intensity about the poverty trap and yearned for the introduction of a tax credit scheme, but he was good enough to recognise how expensive and difficult that would be. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) spoke of the housing benefit. My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) congratulated my right hon. Friend on the annual National Health Service report, its presentation and contents, but urged my right hon. Friend to bring down the price of it so that it could be more widely read.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) spoke with strong feeling about the need to consider blind people and their needs. I do not dare comment on the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) about how Scottish funding should be done. I regret that I was not here to listen to all that was said by the hon. Members for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt), for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes), for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson).
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  I turn with some pleasure to the subject of education. The hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) put to me a question on behalf of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris). We are in the midst of consultation on the response that we shall give to recommendations about the teaching of the deaf. The hon. Member for Durham, North mounted his familiar charger and accused me and the Government of not providing enough resources to fulfil the educational objectives that he and the Government share—to raise standards. It is not an indictment—
  Mr. Radice: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question about the number of organisations that agree with his opt-out scheme for corporal punishment?
  Sir Keith Joseph: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will criticise me for it, but I had intended to deal with that matter later. The hon. Gentleman was not the only person who raised that subject. I must also account to several of my hon. Friends.
  Together with the hon. Member for Oldham, West the hon. Gentleman lives in a never-never land where there is no shortage of resources. The first duty of any Government is to do their best to ensure that money from the taxpayer and ratepayer is well used, especially when there is as much money as there is available to education authorities. I agree that it is difficult in a period of falling school rolls to cope with diseconomies of scale and provide the services expected. However, some authorities do better than others with the money available. Some allow more waste, some are downright profligate, some are extremely prudent.
  This Government did not invent financial prudence. If only previous Labour Governments had been more prudent, we would not be in this plight today. It was the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey)—and I give him credit for it—who attained the largest fall in public spending in one year that has been recorded since the second world war. Who invented cash limits? It was the Labour Government, and quite right they were. They sought to limit public spending. They did not do that very well, and they left the country in a terrible state.
  The hon. Gentleman must answer one question. He must tell the House and the country whether he will commit a future Labour Government, if there ever is one, to provide more money for education via the local education authorities.
  Mr. Radice: I remind the right hon. Gentleman that his Government are planning to spend in 1985–86 £3·5 million more on defence than on education. The Labour Government spent £600 million more on education than on defence while they were in power. That is the right priority and we will seek to ensure that more is spent on education than on defence. We will try to ensure that local authorities have a properly resourced education service.
  Does the Secretary of State believe that Norfolk is a profligate authority?
  Sir Keith Joseph: The House will judge whether that was a commitment on behalf of a future Labour Government—I suspect that it was not.
  The hon. Gentleman legitimately asked whether I would follow my pledge given at Sheffield 10 months ago to seek more money from my colleagues—
  Mr. Radice: What about Norfolk?
  Sir Keith Joseph: I shall come to Norfolk. We shall see what happens there as a result of the report.
  The hon. Gentleman asked whether I had yet approached my right hon. Friends for additional money because I believed that more was needed. I am not yet convinced that, overall, more is needed. I have said publicly, and I say it again, that if the local education authorities and the teachers' associations manage to agree a settlement under which teachers undertake certain defined responsibilities and accept—
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: A cut in pay.
  Sir Keith Joseph: That is the hon. Gentleman's proposition, not mine. If they accept that there shall be a regular professional appraisal of their effectiveness as teachers, if the local education authorities undertake to deploy their teaching force and the training and retraining of that force according to such assessments, and if I judge the agreement to be a good bargain for the children, parents and the public generally, I shall go to my right hon. Friends and seek the necessary money. However, I cannot guarantee the results having discussed the matter with my right hon. Friends. I eagerly await the settlement that I very much hope will emerge.
  The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) chided the Government for omitting to refer to nursery schooling in the Gracious Speech. We do not believe that there are sufficient resources to universalise public money on nursery education and so we concentrate on the compulsory schooling period. However, we are maintaining nursery education on the taxpayer for about 40 per cent. of the children of the relevant age group, especially in areas where social need is greatest.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Ward) urged the Government to take intensely seriously the reactions which he reported to the Warnock committee. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is coming to the end of consultation on the Warnock committee's report and the Government will come to their decision when the results of the consultation have been studied.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) urged the Government to tackle the problems of matching the teachers of religious education to the needs for them. The Government have not reduced the number of training places for the teachers of RE. The number of places has been maintained, and the difficulty is that we cannot always fill them. Paradoxically, there are unemployed RE teachers who cannot find jobs. We are facing a considerable problem. My hon. Friend knows that the Government are eager to find a way to help improve the position. If he wishes to talk to me on this subject, which I know interests him intensely, I shall always be ready to listen to him.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), in alliance with the hon. Member for Durham, North denounced me—
  Mr. Radice: An unholy alliance.
  Sir Keith Joseph: I thought of the term but decided not to use it. My hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman denounced me for the option that I have chosen on corporal punishment as a result of the European Court's decision. I was denounced by my hon. Friends for not allowing some
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  preservation of caning in instances which, in the view of my hon. Friends, thoroughly warrant that punishment. I have been denounced from the Opposition Benches for not going so far as to abolish corporal punishment.
  If the Government had chosen another option, I would have been denounced just as fiercely. Whatever option we choose, there will be many who disagree with us. The Government believe that we should leave the decision, with all the attendant untidiness and untidy consequences, to parents, teachers and governing bodies. The House will have a chance to consider this policy when we come to legislation.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage rightly emphasised the need for technological training.
  Mr. Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Sir Keith Joseph: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me for not giving way. I have much ground still to cover.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North came south of the border to denounce the behaviour of some teachers. I agree with what he said. I have seen reports to the effect that many schools were closed and others disrupted as ILEA teachers participated in the day of action, which, I understand, was supported by NALGO, TGWU, NUPE and the inner London branch of the NUT, to protest against the Government's plans for rate capping and the abolition of the GLC. I am sad to learn that teachers are thus prepared to damage the service that they claim to support—all the more so because ILEA is not to be abolished under the Government's plans but is merely to be made more directly accountable to the ratepayers who foot its bills.
  Recently, Mrs. Morrell, the leader of ILEA, made some strange statements to the ILEA education committee in which she sought to denounce the Government on a wide range of issues. She has asked to see me to discuss two of her criticisms, and I hope to clarify them then. I shall not let the more serious points rest unanswered in the meantime. First, Mrs. Morrell sought to give the impression that the requirement in the paving Act to seek ministerial consent for contracts valued at more than £100,000 and for all lettings of school facilities to out: side groups has imposed a serious burden on ILEA. The facts are that general consents were issued on 2 August in respect of most transactions involving ILEA, and further general consents were issued on 31 October covering lettings. I understand that ILEA obtains its supplies of goods, materials and equipment generally from the GLC supplies division and that there is no requirement to seek approval on its transactions with the supplies division. The Government cannot apply a general consent to contracts that are placed by the GLC supplies division with outside suppliers, most of which are not placed exclusively for ILEA.
  Secondly, Mrs. Morrell has claimed that I have, without consultation or justification, introduced an administrative memorandum requiring that any proposal for a new nursery class must receive the formal permission of the holder of my office. The facts are that ILEA officers saw the memorandum in draft; the interpretation of the legal decision regarding the addition of nursery classes to private schools is generally accepted by LEAs — although an authoritative decision can be given only by the

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  courts—and the only proposals that need to be seen by the holder of my office are those that attract statutory objections or involve a voluntary school.
  Thirdly, Mrs. Morrell has accused me of casting a slur on the efforts of London children and their teachers when I said that ILEA expenditure was out of proportion to the results achieved for the children. I noted with interest that she sought to rebut my statement by referring to the fact that ILEA examination results were the best since 1978. I readily grant that point. ILEA's actual examination results are close to those predicted by statistical analysis of the social and economic characteristics of the inner London education area. Mrs. Morrell does not seem to understand that my comment is not so much on the quality of the education in ILEA, although I certainly share with ILEA the aim to improve it, but on the amount of money spent by the authority in relation to those results. I expressed a strong doubt that the results would have been any the worse if the expenditure had been much less.
  Mr. Spearing: What about those not taking exams?
  Sir Keith Joseph: Alas, a very large proportion does not take exams in other parts of the country, too. [Interruption.] No; it is a question of the relevance of the curriculum, the effectiveness of the teachers, and the support from the home.
  Fourthly, there is the matter of the underspend of £24 million in 1983–84. Mrs. Morrell has now explained the elements that go to make up the underspend, as if that excused it. The fact is that the budget is estimated net — expenditure minus income — and there was an overestimate of £24 million.
  Finally, Mrs. Morrell asked for the plans to evict ILEA from county hall to be scrapped. There are no such plans. Mrs. Morrell has said that ILEA's accommodation requirements are such that they could occupy a large proportion of county hall. I look forward to hearing about that in more detail when Mrs. Morrell comes to see me.
  I pay tribute to the sheer difficulty of being an effective teacher. Teaching is a demanding job.
  I have read the claims of the teachers' unions for pay increases for April 1985 presented to the Burnham committee on 1 November. It is quite clear to me that the expectations of the teachers' unions are entirely unrealistic as, indeed, they were last year. As a nation, there must be limits to what we can afford to spend on public services, including education. This Government have fought and won two elections on a clear commitment to restrain public spending, so freeing a greater proportion of national effort for the manufacturing and trading sector on which ultimately economic health, jobs and all the nation's services, social and public, must depend. That remains our position.
  I must therefore ask for realism among those who would seek to set public service pay by comparisons. Let us suppose that any particular group managed to increase the pay of its members in relation to some recent or long-past comparison study. Does that group think that every other group would fail to try to follow suit? There would be a whirlwind of competing claims leading to rocketing inflation and increasing unemployment.
  That is why I believe that the teachers are doing themselves a great injustice in putting forward a totally unrealistic set of claims, unwelcome as that may be to
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  them. The answer must be that pay, including even that of teachers, must be settled principally by reference to what can be afforded for the service in question, informed by considerations—in relation to the necessary qualities—of recruitment, retention and motivation.
  That is not to say that I regard the present teachers' pay arrangements as satisfactory. I hanker after a more relevant relationship between pay and performance — [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Oldham, West thinks that that is funny. The interests of the children require that teachers should be encouraged to be effective. Some teachers deserve more pay because they are more effective in the classroom. That is why I spoke with such concern about the outcome of the negotiation which is shortly to be resumed between the local education authorities and the teachers' unions in the working party established under the aegis of the Burnham primary and secondary committee.
  I hope for a successful outcome to the deliberations of that committee, but I must recognise that there are many obstacles to be overcome. Any new arrangements for teachers' pay and professional commitment will have to satisfy stringent tests as to acceptability and affordability. On acceptability there is the prior question of whether teachers' employers — chiefly the local education authorities, which run the maintained school system—and the holder of my office jointly consider that the proposed changes would produce a worthwhile improvement in the delivery of the curriculum in schools. We must all return to that test as the essential baseline for our judgment.
  Linked with that is whether the profession might share our views. As yet I do not know the answer which the teacher associations might offer to such a question. We must await the outcome of continuing discussions with the teacher associations.
  Affordability is the second test—whether the ideas now in circulation can be refined to produce a package which will substantially benefit the education of our children, and which should therefore be regarded as a reasonable claim on scarce public resources. Again, I have no ready answers to that. The next meeting of the relevant working party of the Burnham committee is on 15 November. I shall not try to anticipate the outcome. Equally, I recognise that the employer and teacher associations may well require more time to consider whether they can agree on a package for consideration by the Government in due course. Mr. Teacher — [Laughter.] I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that you will be insulted by that mistake. There is, Mr. Speaker, the very important question of the deployment of teachers.
  Recently the Department has set out a range of policies for raising standards in schools, as the hon. Member for Durham, North reminded us. Some of those policies may be more demanding of teacher time or may require a different emphasis in the use that schools make of the teacher time now available to them. Those issues were addressed in the discussion paper, "Schoolteacher Numbers and Deployment in the Longer Term" that we issued in September. I shall be discussing that paper with the representatives of local authorities and look forward to receiving their and other views on it.
  In the paper, we identified a number of claims on teacher time in connection with in-service training, the preparation of the curriculum in secondary schools—
  It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  Wheelwright Sixth Form College, Dewsbury
  10 pm
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
  Mr. John Whitfield: The people of Dewsbury were reassured to note from the Gracious Speech on Tuesday that the
  "Government will continue to develop policies to raise educational standards".
  However, the decision by the Kirklees metropolitan district council education authority to remove completely school-based sixth form education from non-Roman Catholic children in Dewsbury can only be construed as an attempt to reduce education standards in my constituency. The local education authority would no doubt deny that that was its intention, but what are its reasons for wishing to close the Wheelwright college and to push all would-be sixth form children in the area into a further education establishment known as the Dewsbury and Batley technical and art college — DABTAC for short — which it intends to redesignate as a tertiary college?
  The final paragraph of the so-called consultative document of February 1984, which was entitled "Post 16 Education in Dewsbury", sums up the local education authority's case. It claimed that the tertiary college would be a new institution. The quality and commitment of the existing staff, the adoption of the best practices of the present institutions and the comparatively minor capital expenditure could, claims the LEA—obviously it is not sure — create a good tertiary college and thereby significantly enhance the educational opportunities available to all. In fact, the proposed tertiary college would not be a new institution. In reality, it would be an extended version of DABTAC, using the same site and a few additional Victorian buildings in Halifax road, Dewsbury, in what is already a highly congested area.
  The present attractive and comparatively modern buildings of the Wheelwright college on the other side of town would be abandoned. The commitment of the Wheelwright staff has already been severely damaged, not to say undermined, by the manner in which the notice under section 12 of the Education Act 1980 was drawn up, containing as it did the detail of transitional arrangements, and in particular the transference of students from Wheelwright to DABTAC. It was surely inappropriate to refer to transitional arrangements when a decision on a closure had not yet been confirmed by the Secretary of State. The closure was not in any event to take place until 1987.
  To set out such arrangements without any consultation with the staff concerned was a wholly reprehensible act and can only have been designed to undermine the future viability of Wheelwright college, but that policy had started back in 1980.
  The phrase "comparatively minor capital expenditure" is one that the Minister might well be advised to beware of. How often have we heard that expression anti been attracted by the superficial simplicity of the claim that big is always beautiful? If only the Government had resisted such lures when reorganising the local authorities in 1974, the present Parliament would not have been faced with the uphill task of abolishing the metropolitan counties.

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  Wheelright college was opened in September 1974 as a result of one of the last major decisions of the former county borough of Dewsbury. In its reorganisation of secondary education in the town on comprehensive lines, a system of four high schools for children aged 12 to 16 and one sixth form college were established. It was always envisaged that post-16 education would be best provided by a complementary service from the new Wheelwright college, on the one hand, and the further education establishment, DABTAC, on the other.
  The scheme was approved by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who was at that time the Secretary of State for Education and Science. As part of the reorganisation, the famous old Wheelwright grammar school ceased to exist. The college was set up only 10 years ago specifically to provide sixth form education for up to 300 children, for most of whom there was to be no other such opportunity. In spite of falling general school rolls and the fact that the St. John Fisher Roman Catholic high school established its own sixth form in 1977, Wheelwright college has prospered, maintaining a roll of about 250 students.
  However, not content with what had been done in Dewsbury in 1974, the new education authority in Kirklees has, since 1977, been examining the whole educational provision in north-east Kirklees. From 1980 the authority allowed rumours to circulate that it was considering closing Wheelwright college. There is no doubt that the insidious rumours which were allowed to circulate well in advance of the so-called consultation process which began at the beginning of this year caused the rolls to fall from 294 students in 1981 to 220 this year. Even so, Wheelwright college is still by far the largest unit providing sixth form education in north Kirklees.
  I hope that it is not presumptuous of me to expect that the Minister may well say that the Secretary of State is now exercising a quasi-judicial role in deciding whether to confirm the section 12 notice of intention to withdraw support from Wheelwright which was issued by the LEA on 20 September.
  I wish to put a direct question to the Minister: where do he and his Department stand on the provision of school-based sixth form education? Are they for it or against it? I sincerely hope that the Minister will assure me that the Government would never be content to see all 16-plus education in an area confined solely to establishments of further education. Such would be the situation for all children in Dewsbury, except Roman Catholics, if Wheelwright college were to close. In Kirklees such a move would have particulrly sinister implications, because the education authority recently rejected an offer of £2 million made to Dewsbury high schools under the Government's training and vocational education initiative on the ground that the money was soiled with the hands of the Manpower Services Commission and that therefore it was not wanted.
  It has to be admitted that sixth form education in north Kirklees is in a somewhat jumbled state. In addition to the St. John Fisher Roman Catholic high school, there are other sixth forms at Heckmondwike grammar school, which is shortly to close, at Mirfield high school. at Batley boys high school and Howden Clough girls high school. The largest of those sixth forms has no more than 120 students. What can be the possible educational logic behind the closure of a purpose-created sixth form college,
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  leaving behind other much smaller individual sixth forms? No doubt they will be knocked on the head one by one on the grounds of their small size and alleged unviability as stage two of the insidious Socialist grand plan for more social engineering in Kirklees.
  Even today, Wheelwright college, which caters for up to 300 pupils, is far more viable than any of the surrounding high school sixth forms. With an assured future it would be more than capable of providing increased facilities, if required, for sixth form education in north Kirklees if the Secretary of State believes—as I am sure he does — in maintaining education standards and choice.
  The parents of Dewsbury are making their views known in no uncertain way. Already more than 8,000 have signed a petition which has been organised by the Wheelwright students council. Moreover, more than 1,000 parents have put together and signed individual letters of objection to the section 12 notice. In the time-honoured anti-democratic Socialist manner, however, staff employed by the local education authority have been gagged when it comes to making their views about what is educationally best known to the Secretary of State. The governing bodies of the four feeder high schools in Dewsbury have been fixed with political placemen by the Left-wing caucus on the local education authority which is determined to close Wheelwright college in spite of all the opposition.
  We are not here concerned with a group of neighbouring schools that, due to falling rolls, cannot sustain 16-plus education in each of their establishments. In 1974, a sensible scheme was set up in Dewsbury. It was approved by the then Secretary of State for Education and Science. Four high schools, including the former Wheelwright grammar school, ceased to maintain their own sixth forms and the Wheelwright college was established to provide school-based sixth form education for the children of Dewsbury. At that time, the St. John Fisher Roman Catholic school did not have its own sixth form. More recently, it has obtained approval for the establishment of one. In the surrounding areas of Mirfield, Heckmondwike and Batley the high schools have, perhaps with some difficulty, maintained their sixth forms. When considering the many objections that are being put to him, my right hon. Friend might feel that he must take into account the future viability of some of these separate sixth forms.
  In pursuit of its dogmatic egalitarian ends, the Left-wing caucus controlling Kirklees recently embarked on a mockery of a consultation process. The LEA's consultation document stated in the first sentence of the introductory paragraph that it had concluded that the educational interests of the people in Dewsbury and the surrounding areas would be best served by the establishment of a tertiary college in Dewsbury which would replace DABTAC and Wheelwright college. In that context it issued the consultation document and, almost as an afterthought, said that its publication did not mean that a decision had already been reached. It was no surprise to the people of Dewsbury that, in spite of overwhelming opposition to the proposal which was expressed during the consultation period, the LEA resolved in September to withdraw support from Wheelwright college. It therefore embarked on the process to close down probably the one really viable sixth form in the area—the only sixth form available to the 40,000 non-Roman Catholic residents of Dewsbury.

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  Will my hon. Friend the Minister confirm that the principles set out in Department of Education and Science circular 4/82 of 8 June 1982 still apply? Will he confirm that the pattern of education chosen in an area should maintain and, where possible, improve educational opportunity for people aged 11 to 19 in all ranges of ability? Will he confirm that parental choice and the need to maintain what is best and has proved its worth in the existing system of secondary education in the area are still relevant factors? Will he confirm that academic performance is still a major factor in defining the work of any school that it is proposed to close?
  The objections which will in due course be submitted to the Secretary of State will show that Wheelwright college has a sustained record of success in the provision of sixth form education. They will reveal that it has proved its worth under the existing arrangements, that it can continue to do so, and that it can easily be increased in size if that is required. Will the Minister confirm tonight that, provided the Secretary of State is satisfied that that is so, the prima facie case for the retention of the college can be displaced only by compelling educational reasons? I can tell him now that no such reasons exist.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Bob Dunn): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Whitfield) on obtaining the Adjournment debate about the future of Wheelwright sixth form college in his constituency. I am pleased to be able to reply to him. He spoke tonight about a subject which is of immediate interest in his constituency, but which is nevertheless representative of an issue that faces most areas as the school population declines. In doing so, he has shown the active and diligent way in which he represents his constituents' interests.
  My hon. Friend spoke of the proposal by the Kirklees local education authority to reorganise provision for the education of 16 to 19-year-olds in Dewsbury in a tertiary college, and to close the Wheelwright sixth form college as part of that proposal. I shall come to that in a moment, but, before I do so, there are a number of important educational and financial considerations that underlie the closure of any school which must be considered. In the limited time available to me, I shall try to say something about them and to outline the particular considerations that apply to secondary education and especially to education for 16 to 19-year-olds.
  With regard to Wheelwright college, my hon. Friend will have noted that I was careful to refer to the local education authority's proposal to close it. There are detailed procedures enshrined in law that must be observed before any school can be closed — and a sixth form college is a school within the legal definition. In the present case, those legal procedures have already been set in hand, and I shall need, therefore, to be circumspect in what I say in relation to the merits of the proposals. I am sure that my hon. Friend will appreciate why that is so. Before I go further, I should perhaps outline the statutory procedures that are set out in section 12 of the Education Act 1980. When a local education authority decides that it wishes to cease to maintain a school, it must publish locally notices of what it is proposing and submit the proposals to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. There then follows a two-month period when objections may be submitted to the local education authority. Those who have a statutory right to object are defined in the Act
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  as 10 or more local government electors, the governors of any voluntary school and any local education authority that might be affected by the proposals.
  If there are objections, the authority must send them to my right hon. Friend within one month of the expiry of the notices with its observations, and my right hon. Friend must then consider the proposals on their merits and make his decision accordingly. If there are no objections—that is not the case in Dewsbury—the authority may in the case of county schools determine to implement the proposals without reference to my right hon. Friend unless he has informed the authority that he wishes to decide the proposals irrespective of whether objections have been made. In the case of Wheelwright college, he did in fact call in the proposals, as he normally does where a change is proposed in the pattern of provision for 16 to 19-yearolds.
  I have taken careful note of all that has been said tonight about the proposals for Wheelwright college—as indeed I have of my hon. Friend's previous correspondence with me on this matter and of correspondence from others. But it would not be right for me to make any comment about its future at the moment. Proposals under section 12 to cease to maintain the college were published on 20 September. We are therefore still in the two-month period in which objections may be lodged. My right hon. Friend will hear from the local education authority before Christmas of any objections submitted and of the authority's observations on those objections. He will then need to consider all that has been said and to act in a quasi-judicial role. That is why I must take care tonight that I do not say anything which would prejudice my right hon. Friend's decision.
  Naturally, when my right hon. Friend considers proposals before him, he must take account of all the relevant factors. Those factors include the educational and financial merits of the proposals, the statutory objections and the local education authority's comments upon them; and his general policies on education as set out for instance in circulars 2/80, 2/81 and 4/82. In addition, representations are sometimes made for the proposals, and those, too, would be taken into account. I stress that my right hon. Friend's decision is taken only after the most careful consideration of all the relevant issues.
  Perhaps I should say a word or two about the general considerations that arise in relation to 16 to 19 education. There are, of course, several different options available to a local education authority. They include sixth forms in secondary schools; co-operative arrangements between two or more schools at sixth form level, with or without the involvement of a further education college ; or a break at 16 with sixth form colleges such as Wheelwright; or with tertiary colleges such as the Kirklees local education authority has in mind here.
  Authorities may decide to adopt any of those patterns throughout their area, or they may choose to provide varying patterns of provision in different areas. All that is a matter for local decision within the statutory framework which I have already described. It is for local education authorities, in consultation with the governors in the case of voluntary-aided and special agreement schools, to decide whet pattern best suits their local circumstances and the preferences of parents. My right hon. Friend has made clear his belief that no pattern has in itself overriding advantages or disadvantages of principle; and that he sees no inherent merit in authorities adopting a uniform pattern

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  for the whole of their area. What is important is that whatever pattern is chosen should maintain, and where possible improve, educational opportunities for the whole range of ability. My right hon. Friend also expects local education authorities to give the most careful consideration to the need to retain what is best and has proved its worth in their existing system of secondary education.
  Finally, I repeat that the statutory period for the submission of objections to the proposals has not yet closed. When it does, the proposals will come before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for decision. I am, of course, meeting my hon. Friend with a deputation from
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  Dewsbury on 4 December. I assure him and his constituents that all their arguments will be carefully considered by my right hon. Friend, along with the other considerations that arise, before he reaches his decision. At this stage, it would not be right for me to offer an opinion in case I should be thought to be prejudicing that decision.
  I end by congratulating my hon. Friend once again on his success in obtaining this debate, and on placing on record so carefully his views about this proposal.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Ten o'clock.

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

Companies Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate the greater part of the Companies Acts. I may modestly say that it is 599 pages long. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, perhaps I may say that we cannot wait to read it.
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Business Names Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to the names under which persons may carry on business in Great Britain. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Company Securities (Insider Dealing) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate the enactments relating to insider dealing in company securities. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make, in connection with the consolidation of the Companies Acts 1948 to 1983 and other enactments relating to companies, provision for transitional matters and savings, repeals (including the repeal, in accordance with recommendations of the Law Commission, of certain provisions of the Companies Act 1948 which are no longer of practical utility) and consequential amendments of other Acts. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Bankruptcy (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Advocate (Lord Cameron of Lochbroom): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to reform the law of Scotland relating to sequestration and personal insolvency; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Cameron of Lochbroom.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Family Law (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make fresh provision in the law of Scotland regarding aliment; regarding financial and other consequences of decrees of divorce and of declarator of nullity of marriage; regarding property rights and legal capacity of married persons; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Cameron of Lochbroom.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Recreational Gardening Bill [H.L.]
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the law relating to allotment gardens and to confirm that allotment gardening has the status of a recreation. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Wallace of Coslany.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
Debate resumed on the Motion moved on Tuesday last by the Earl Cathcart—namely, That a humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
3.11 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, on the first day of this debate, when most of us were fresh, and, thankfully, out of our robes, two of your Lordships remained in very splendid attire to start it off. I should like to add my own congratulations to my noble friends, Lord Cathcart and Lord Dundee, on the splendid way in which they did this. Their speeches were the opening flourishes of the trumpeters before the tournament. Their function was not to break any lances. Jousting began in earnest only

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yesterday, and your Lordships were at it from three o'clock until after half-past ten. The lists were crowded and the splinters flew, but no bones, so far as I know, were broken.
Today is the middle day of the tournament and our subjects are Home and Social Affairs. It is my duty to place before your Lordships a number of topics—each of them the subject of legislation in the coming Session—over which your Lordships will then canter and wrangle until my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor comes delicately, but formidably, into the field, picking his way between the broken lances and the scattered plumes, with all the assurance of one who has assisted at the opening of, I believe, over 50 Parliamentary Sessions.
There will be some work for him to do, I am sure, because, as your Lordships know, Her Majesty's Government are convinced that the Greater London Council and the other metropolitan county councils are an unnecessary and wasteful tier of bureaucracy. The London borough councils and the metropolitan district councils are, we believe, both closer to the people are better able to meet their needs. We propose, therefore, that most of the functions of the Greater London Council and the metropolitan county councils should become the responsibility of the lower tier borough and district councils. A few services will be run by joint boards of borough or district councillors. These are the fire service in London, where the joint board will also have responsibility for civil defence, and the fire, police and public transport services in the metropolitan counties. We also propose that in inner London education should become the responsibility of a new, directly elected authority. I take this opportunity to say that the Home Secretary will retain the statutory duty of seeing that satisfactory fire cover is maintained. His permission will still be needed before a single fire station is closed or a single fire appliance dispensed with and he has no intention whatever, as some have suggested, of reducing that cover below the minimum standards which are nationally agreed and to which all fire brigades already work.
The Government are convinced that abolishing the upper tier of local government in these areas will mean a more economical and more effective local government, and better value for money for ratepayers and council tenants. May I remind your Lordships that many such tenants pay rates with their rent and so contribute to the GLC and other metropolitan councils, just like other householders. Legislation for the local authorities is the responsibility of the Department of the Environment and my noble friend Lord Avon will be bearing the heat and burden of that day.
Electoral matters, on the other hand, are for the home departments. We propose to introduce a Bill to implement the changes in electoral law which we set out in our White Paper on the Representation of the People Acts. This White Paper was based on recommendations of the Home Affairs Select Committee of another place and followed consultations with the political parties represented there. The Bill will make the first major changes in
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electoral law since 1969, when voting age was lowered to 18.
Many British citizens living and working abroad have close connections with constituencies here and they ought to have the right to vote in our elections. But it would be wrong to give the vote to those who have been abroad for many years and may even have no intention of ever coming back. The Bill will give British citizens resident abroad the right to vote at parliamentary and European Parliament elections for up to seven years after they leave this country. This right will be subject to a requirement that they were registered as electors while they were resident here for the constituency in which they will vote—or, if they were too young to be registered, that they were at least resident in that constituency.
The Bill will also allow electors who are away on holiday on polling day to vote either by post or by proxy. There will be a slight extension of the election timetable to allow postal ballot papers to be sent outside the United Kingdom; and all absent voters will be able to vote by post or by proxy. Because of special difficulties in Northern Ireland we reluctantly take the view that the new arrangements should not, for the most part, apply there.
We propose to increase candidates' deposits at a parliamentary election from £150 to £1,000. The threshold for forfeiture would be reduced from one-eighth to one-twentieth of the total votes cast. We are quite clear that something must be done to reduce the large and increasing numbers of freak candidates standing at elections. The deposit is the only practicable means of doing this that we have at our disposal.
Your Lordships may feel some slight inhibition—at least if you do not sit on the Liberal Benches—from interfering too vigorously with another place on matters touching their election. You may feel fewer such inhibitions when it comes to discussing the Prosecution of Offenders Bill, which we hope to introduce shortly in your Lordships' House of Parliament. The main purpose of this Bill will be to establish a new prosecution service for England and Wales. This is part of the process of modernising and improving our criminal justice system which we began in the last Parliament.
This measure will be based on the Report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. The commission recommended the establishment of a prosecution service independent of the police. They found our present arrangements defective in a number of ways. They thought that too many cases were coming before the courts which were unmeritorious and that timely intervention by a legally trained professional might have stopped them. They found greater variations in prosecution policy across the country than was justified by the need to reflect local circumstances. They suggested that it is destructive of public confidence in the fairness and equity of the system if someone accused of an offence in one area has to face trial while in another part of the country, for no apparent reason, the matter is dealt with, say, by a police caution. The commission also criticised the division of responsibilities for funding of prosecutions and for policy matters. In their view, and that of Her

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Majesty's Government, this does not accord with accepted principles of sound management.
Reservations were earlier expressed in this House, which we shared, about the proposal that the service should be locally based and locally accountable. After extended deliberation and careful consultation, we decided that the new service should be nationally based, with the Director of Public Prosecutions at its head; that the Director of Public Prosecutions should, for this purpose, act under the superintendence of the Attorney General, and that the service should be accountable through him to Parliament.
A national service does not mean a centralised one. It is our firm intention to devolve decision-taking to the maximum extent possible to the local level. We propose that the Attorney General will lay down guidelines on the policy; but their application to individual cases will be left to officers who will be based locally, near the courts, and the police with whom they will have to work very closely. Local prosecutors will thus be able at the same time both to take account of relevant local circumstances and to be insulated from undue local influence. Indeed, by thus securing the independence of local officers, we will make it possible for some cases that at present are dealt with centrally to be devolved to the local level.
Our aim is to establish a service that, from the outset, will be efficient and effective in the sense that delays and cost will be kept to the minimum, consistent with the needs of justice. We hope to enhance consistency of decision taking and to weed out unmeritorious cases; and to do so by establishing a service that will be highly professional and willing to take important decisions impartially and with authority.
We shall also be introducing in this Bill a power for the Attorney General to refer Crown Court sentences for the opinion of the Court of Appeal. Very occasionally, sentences raise important issues of principle or give rise to public concern. The purpose of the provision is to enable the Court of Appeal to give a clear public statement of the correct sentencing principles to be followed. But the principle that these are matters for the courts will be preserved. The procedure, which we expect to be used only sparingly, would not affect the sentence imposed on the particular offender concerned, but it would be an opportunity for review in those exceptional cases which have given rise to genuine concern. We believe that it will help to enhance public confidence in the criminal justice system.
We intend to meet, within the Bill, our commitment to move towards a system of statutory time limits in criminal proceedings in England and Wales. The provision in the Bill will impinge most directly on the prosecution, but we hope they will have a generally beneficial effect on the system as a whole. We intend to mount several field trials to help in working up the scheme. Detailed implementation will be by means of regulations, which will be made when the trials have been concluded and in the light of the experience which they provide.
Finally, the Bill will introduce changes in the award of costs in criminal cases. Some of these changes will be required as a result of the establishment of an
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independent prosecution service, and we shall take the opportunity to bring forward a number of other changes to remove inconsistencies in the present practice.
The next Bill I must refer to arises directly from a commitment given in your Lordships' House earlier this year by my noble friend the Leader of the House during debates on the Telecommunications Bill. This is the Interception of Communications Bill. For many years, successive Secretaries of State have been able to authorise interception of communications only under strict and rigorously applied procedures and for closely defined purposes in the public interest. The procedures for the authorisation and control of interception on behalf of the police, Customs and Excise, and security service in England and Wales are set out in the White Paper The Interception of Communications in Great Britain, which was published in April 1980. It was introduced to Parliament by my noble friend the Leader of the House while he was still a right honourable Member of another place. The operation of those procedures has, since 1980, been subject to continuous review by an independent judicial monitor. This was, first, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, and, latterly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bridge of Harwich. Similar procedures, conditions and safeguards are observed in Northern Ireland, subject only to the overriding requirements for dealing with terrorism.
During discussion of the Telecommunications Bill your Lordships made it clear that you felt that these important matters, which raise fundamental questions of the balance between the needs of the state and the rights of the individual citizen, should be put on a clearer and more comprehensive statutory basis; hence my noble friend's undertaking.
Your Lordships' view was confirmed by the findings of the European Court of Human Rights on 2nd August in the Malone case, which concerned telephone interception on behalf of the police. The court acknowledged the existence of the detailed procedures set out in the 1980 White Paper and that interception, as currently practised, was lawful under our domestic law. But it found that the law was not sufficiently clear and precise about the scope and manner in which the power to authorise interception was to be exercised. It was for this reason that the court concluded that our legal framework did not satisfy Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
Interception is an important weapon to be used—but used sparingly—in the fight against terrorism, organised crime and drug smuggling, and for the safeguarding of our national security. Used in this way, it does not undermine the right of individuals; it protects them. In the wake of the Brighton bomb, I scarcely need to remind the House that the liberties we stand to lose without this carefully limited power fully justify the measures which are taken.
The Bill will create a new and comprehensive statutory framework to govern both postal and telecommunications interception. It will include all the matters covered by the clause on interception that was moved at the Committee stage of the Telecommunications Bill in your Lordships' House in

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February. It will reinforce the safeguards against abuse of interception, and will bring the law in this country into accord with the requirements of the European Convention.
A significant element of our legislative programme is directed towards uncontroversial technical law reform. Of these reforms, many are inspired by Law Commission reports. Two such Bills—the Enduring Powers of Attorney Bill and the Land Registration and Law of Property Bill—will be introduced this Session.
My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor intends to promote a Bill containing a variety of miscellaneous items. Although its Short Title will be Administration of Justice Bill, it will include provisions to enable properly qualified non-solicitors to compete with solicitors for conveyancing work. The provisions will implement the main recommendations of the conveyancing committee's report, which was published in September. It is intended that a council be established to draw up the detailed rules needed to protect the consumer against incompetence, negligence and fraud and to issue licences to show those applicants who satisfy the requirements laid down. This council will be under a duty to ensure that the requirements it sets are no greater than are needed to provide adequate consumer protection.
It remains the Government's objective to enable financial and other organisations to employ solicitors (or licensed conveyancers) to provide a conveyancing service to their customers. But it is important to ensure that the consumer does not suffer through conflicts of interest or anti-competitive practices when the institutions provide that service. We are currently considering the responses to the consultation paper we issued inviting views on how those problems could best be overcome.
A Bill will also be introduced to enable two international conventions to be ratified by the United Kingdom to improve the prospects of recovering children taken abroad by a non-custodial parent. They are the European Convention on Child Custody and the Hague Convention on Child Abduction. The first is concerned with the recognition and enforcement of child custody orders made abroad, and the second with the return of a child who has been abducted by a parent from his home country. I am sure that your Lordships will welcome these measures.
The next item in our programme that I must mention is designed to meet considerable public concern about the treatment of members of occupational pension schemes who leave schemes before they are able to draw their pensions. There is at present no requirement for a deferred pension to be increased in the gap between leaving and pension age. That means that the real value of the pension can be considerabley eroded.
We issued a consultative document on the matter last November. After considering the responses we announced our intention to introduce legislation at the first available opportunity. A Bill will, accordingly, be introduced this Session which will include a requirement that anyone leaving an occupational pension scheme after the legislation takes effect will have to have their deferred pension increased. This measure
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will ensure that early leavers get a fair deal. It will also ensure that occupational pension schemes do not serve as a barrier to job mobility.
The Bill will also give effect to the proposal on transfer rights contained in the consultative document we published last May. We recognise that the majority of schemes already give transfer rights. We shall now make them available to everyone. This will give members of such schemes greater freedom of choice about how they secure their pension rights. It is also our intention to remove the 26-year age limit from the preservation requirements of the Social Security Act 1973 and to take powers to require pension schemes to disclose information to their members.
Your Lordships will already have noticed a number of references to steps we plan to take to bring our statutes and practices into line with the requirements of European conventions and the European courts. A further such step is the Bill which we shall introduce to secure compliance with a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, in February 1982, that parents who hold a philosophical conviction against corporal punishment in schools are entitled to have that conviction respected.
Our intention is to allow parents to exempt their children from corporal punishment. Although there has been criticism of this course, we prefer it to the only practicable alternative, which would be to forbid the use of the sanction in schools altogether. Our proposals avoid this and to that extent help to sustain the right of schools to decide for themselves whether they need to retain this sanction.
Punishment is by no means a central, nor a dominating, theme in our education system. Your Lordships should not think that, because developments within the community have made this piece of legislation necessary, we give it any more weight than it justly deserves. The central aim of the Government's policies for education is more positive. It is to raise the standards which are achieved by our young people. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has announced plans to improve the training of teachers, to seek broad national agreement on the objectives of the school curriculum and to introduce changes in the examination system which will reinforce good and effective teaching in our schools. That is an ambitious programme, and we shall press ahead with it in the coming year.
Some of the pieces of legislation that I have so far mentioned relate only to England and Wales, but there will be activity North of the Border, too. The Government will be introducing two measures to achieve desirable reforms in the law of Scotland. The first, which should be brought before your Lordships shortly, is designed to implement the recommendations of the two reports of the Scottish Law Commission on matrimonial property and on aliment and financial provision on divorce, respectively. The second measure will contain a large number of miscellaneous provisions, including the implementation of three further reports from the commission on irritancies in leases, rectification on contractual and other documents and evidence in cases of rape and other sexual offences. This measure will also include provisions paving the way for the

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introduction of a small claims scheme to enable certain consumer disputes to be settled in the sheriff court without the need for legal representation. We shall also take the opportunity to bring forward some useful amendments in such matters as criminal procedure and the administration of the courts.
A small matter for the record is that I notice an editorial change to my speech which suggests that the measures which I have attached to the second measure may, in fact, appear in the first.
Time and convention have meant that I have had to devote almost the whole of what I have said to our legislative programme for home and social affairs. It is a substantive programme, designed to achieve substantial results. It does not, of course, represent a half of what the Government intend to undertake and achieve in home and social affairs during the coming Session. Our legislative Acts are designed to amend and improve our framework of laws. Operating within that framework, the Government will also pursue their goals by executive and administrative means. They will seek to achieve, across the board, a more efficient use of our common resources, to get the taxpayer better value for his money and more services for the same money. That must, if the services are welcome, be welcome itself.
I have outlined a substantial programme. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and many other noble Lords across the Floor of the House are in duty bound to belittle it and to say that it is misdirected. I believe they are wrong. It is time for me to leave the lists to them and to leave to my noble and learned friend those who speak after me in this debate.
3.33 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the House has been treated to the usual elegant speech from the noble Lord the Minister. He is quite an expert in the culinary art, and has managed to present what is a most skimpy meal prepared for a hungry nation as though it was a Tuesday evening dinner in your Lordships' House.
Looking for the moment at the Benches occupied by the right reverend Prelates, I wonder whether I may say in language which might be familiar to them that I do not intend to speak with the voice of an earthquake or the voice of the tempest—which is more suitable, I suppose, to some sort of political haranguing—but in the still small voice of reason, which is a little more appropriate to your Lordships' House. When trying to define the differences between us—the Front Bench here (and, of course, my noble friends who sit behind me) and the Front Bench opposite—it is as big a division as the the division created by this Government in our own people. May I say to the noble Lord the Minister that, it is a difference (to use a phrase that will not be unknown to your Lordships) in the language of priorities.
On this side of the House the priorities on home and social affairs are the care of the sick, the old, the deprived and the homeless. The priorities are equality of opportunity and sacrifice; and, above all, to see that there is one class of citizenship in this country, and that that is a first-class citizenship. The phrase "second-class citizenship" was used in the most sympathetic terms by one of the leaders of the
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Confederation of British Industry only a day or so ago. He used that definition when he was referring (as I said, in sympathetic terms) to the over three million unemployed in this country. None of those priorities found its way into the gracious Speech; and at home what we have from this Government is a spirit of conflict and confrontation instead of what my noble friend and I would have preferred—concern and conciliation.
In that respect I could refer—but I do not think this afternoon's debate is the appropriate one for it—to the conflict and confrontation with the trade union movement. I would not necessarily have referred to trade union legislation. I would have referred to the contempt with which the trade union movement in this country was treated in the GCHQ matter, without the slightest consultation and in the most arrogant manner. I will move on, not to deal with that matter but to refer, if only for a fleeting moment, to something mentioned in the gracious Speech which is so important, and that is the abolition of the Greater London Council and the other municipal authorities to which the Minister referred. So important is this matter to the members of the Opposition that we have chosen to see to it that next Wednesday the whole of the debate, which is to be dealt with by my noble friends Lady Birk and Lord Underhill, is on the relationship between national and local government.
It is therefore inappropriate for me to seek to duplicate that debate in reverse, as it were, by dealing with that matter today, but I must refer to it, though briefly, because the noble Lord the Minister did. That Bill is going to be a bad Bill. It is going to be an undemocratic Bill; and it is going to be a Bill, as the Government well know, against the current opinion of all those affected. It will be a Bill expensive in money and expensive in the depletion of social services that will be entailed.
If your Lordships will forgive my reminiscing only for one moment, I must refer to the fact that the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, has done us the privilege of being in our midst this afternoon. It was precisely 30 years ago that I had the honour of being the chairman of the London County Council; and the noble Earl, who was kind enough to nod, remembers that he was the very much esteemed Minister of Housing and Local Government at that time. I enjoyed a co-operation with him which will remain with me in my political memories for the rest of my life.
Is a matter of only some years later that, with Sir Isaac Hayward, I led a delegation to the noble Earl when he was the Prime Minister. I addressed him at No. 10 Downing Street and he listened to me with all that patience and all that courtesy for which he is known. I dared to say to him then, quoting speeches that he had made in admiration of the London County Council when he was Minister of Housing and Local Government, that I did not know why he was trying to abolish it. I dared to say in that eminent presence that it seemed to us that it was a political attempt to do away with an authority that seemed consistently to have a Labour majority. The noble Earl, Mr Harold Macmillan as he then was, just looked at me. He did a cough I remember very well; he did a wink I remember very well; and he then said, "Tut, tut!" That I take as being on the record.I should not want to

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mislead your Lordships by saying that he did not agree with my remarks.
It is so strange that some years later I sit in your Lordships' House and we are about to be faced with a Bill for the abolition now of the Greater London Council. I cannot help saying in the presence of the noble Earl that I wonder whether this, too, is not owing to the fact that Government circles want to get rid of a Labour authority, and other Labour authorities, without trusting to the right of the people to choose what they want. So there is confrontation with local authorities.
If I may, I shall move on to another type of confrontation and another type of failure to deal with the social problems of our time in any adequate way. I turn at once to youth. There is mention of youth in the gracious Speech; it is on the third page:
"My Government will continue to develop policies to raise educational standards".
That appeared on 6th November, and on the very same day the following is the headline in The Times:
"Education 'in danger' as government cuts leave schools short of books".
I must quote from some portions of the article following upon the report of the inspectors on educational provision and response in some Norfolk schools. At once may I say, because I believe in being fair, that the inspectors quite separately criticised Haringey, which happens to be a local authority, but on rather different lines.
In regard to Norfolk, this is what The Times reports:
"They say the Conservative-controlled county council is endangering education standards by cutting costs".
I go on:
"The report on the county's schools is certain to reopen angry debates over education spending policies. The inspectors say that Norfolk's budgeting is so tight that any further cuts will prevent schools from 'maintaining' an acceptable quality of work".
This is my last quotation:
"Recent spending limits have most seriously hit school equipment budgets, repairs and maintenance, meals, nursery schools and post-16 courses. Few primary schools had computers, none had a policy of buying calculators, and in one small primary school a cardboard box of untuned percussion instruments was the entire music stock".
What hypocrisy for the gracious Speech to refer, as it does, to the whole issue of improving educational standards!
Having dealt with education, I go on to see what happens to youth thereafter. What happens to youth thereafter was in a Government document issued this October and giving figures of unemployment for July. As I understand it, that was the last document from the Government which dealt with those figures by separating the age groups. The figures are: under 18, 7.3 percent.; 18to 19, 15 per cent.; and 20 to 24, 26.7 per cent. That means that for all those in our country under the age of 25—for all of them—there is the lot of forming 50 per cent. of the unemployed 3 million odd in this country. What a lost generation! What a deprived generation! I am tempted to say, what profiteth a nation if it manages proudly to say that it has dropped some inflation percentages but has lost the souls of its young people?
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Going on from education in regard to youth, I noticed, as I am sure other noble Lords will have done, that nothing has been said about one of the most worrying aspects of our youth today. It may have some relationship to escapism from anxiety and from unemployment—I am not going to dwell on that—and that is in connection with drug addiction. I raise the matter in the debate on the gracious Speech because I know of the great concern of the BMA in regard to this matter and over the fact that there is absolutely no guidance or leadership being given by the Government at this moment in regard to the real problems that affect drug addiction.
There is not the slightest doubt that much more money is needed at the drug addiction centres and there is much more need for specialist advice. But the Government must take a lead on what is eating into our national life in a way which is so destructive. A lead must be give by the Government in discussions and in consultation, too, as to what general practitioners have to face in the urban areas literally through physical attacks by drug addicts. I call for Government leadership in this matter and I regret there is no reference to it in the gracious Speech.
I must say something by way of welcome in regard to the gracious Speech, otherwise I shall be accused of being ungracious myself. I do at once say that one welcomes the Bill in regard to the national prosecution service. When we were dealing with the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill we on these Benches fought hard to protect the police and see that they had appropriate powers. We also thought it right to protect the rights of the citizen and to achieve a correct balance. One of the anxieties we had was that to the community at large it must seem wrong that the police are there to conduct criminal inquiries and that the same authority is in charge, in many cases, of deciding whether or not to prosecute and to carry out the prosecution itself. It is right that there should be a division of those duties.
I was glad to hear the noble Lord the Minister say that there would be a central authority, with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General—the Attorney General accountable to Parliament—and that there would be local autonomy. The noble Lord the Minister talked of guidelines. I am not sure what those guidelines are or what they are to be, but I hope that it therefore means that there will be consistency in parallel cases, where they exist, in the decisions as to whether or not to prosecute. The diversity of practice in the country at the present moment is causing the gravest anxiety, as it has done for many, many years. In one area of the country one has the police issuing cautions and in another area of the country apparently they have not heard of the ability to issue a caution and a prosecution is brought on exactly the same facts.
I also welcome the implementation of the Cork Report. We on these Benches have pressed for it for a long time. My noble friends and I hope that in the Bill to come before us two aspects will be covered. The first is the protection and help that ought to be given to the small, honourable trader who finds himself in a position of insolvency. On the other side one hopes that there will be real deterrences for those who use the limited company cover for fraudulent activities and

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who, after a liquidation, seem to be able immediately to form other companies and carry on their iniquitous activities.
We also welcome the measure that is going to deal with the interception of communications. Indeed it was my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones who, in a previous Session and in a most eloquent speech, moved for statutory control in regard to the interception of communications. I had the honour—only because my noble and learned friend happened to be absent—of moving the amendment to which the noble Lord the Minister referred—somewhat briefly, if I may say so, but understandably so. I moved the amendment back in February of this year. I am sure that was not one of the moments when the Leader of your Lordships' House felt annoyance—as he seemed to indicate there may be occasions when he feels annoyance—at the fact that your Lordships passed that amendment against the Government wish by 129 votes to 112. We shall now have the statutory measure, because the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, promised this House at the Report stage that, your Lordships having passed that amendment, there would be this legislation. As one would expect, that undertaking has been honoured. We thank the noble Viscount for it. I hope that your Lordships will not be deterred in this Session from acting likewise when your Lordships' consciences are aroused as they were on that occasion.
I end by saying this. The people of this country deserve a more caring Government in home and social affairs. I hope that your Lordships, in your wisdom and in your objectivity, will see that in the coming Session that lesson is taught to the Government.
3.52 p.m.
Lord Banks: My Lords, the House has listened with considerable interest to the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I hope they will forgive me if I do not follow them through all the various issues that they have raised. I should like to concentrate on social security in general and pensions in particular. I am assured that today is the day to do that, though it is never entirely clear whether social security comes under the heading of Social Affairs or of the economy. Social security is designed to remove or alleviate social ills of a financial nature. But when we consider the fact that the cost of it in 1985 is anticipated to be somewhere in the region of £40 billion, taking some 30 per cent. of Government spending, then we realise the importance of its relation to the economy.
I should like to turn first to the reference in the gracious Speech to a pensions Bill, to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred. Of course, strictly speaking, occupational schemes are not social security. However, they do supplement the State retirement pension, and in the case of contracted-out schemes they replace part of it. In talking about occupational schemes, I must declare an interest because I am an insurance broker specialising in life assurance and pensions.
The forthcoming Bill to which the noble Lord referred, as the noble Lord made clear, will have as its principal feature the proposal to assist future early
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leavers—and it is important to realise that it is future early leavers and not those who have already left as early leavers—by compelling their former employers to increase their paid up pensions by 5 per cent. per annum to retirement. We on these Benches have made it clear that we support that, although we realise that it will involve extra cost. I imagine that the new Bill will not extend to portable pensions. The noble Lord said that it would extend to transferability but at the moment portable pensions is a matter still at the consultative document stage. However, I wonder whether we may expect legislation on that particular subject during the course of this Session.
The Government proposals for portable pensions are welcome as far as they go, but they are somewhat limited. They do not necessarily make anyone better off. They would provide a second alternative to the earnings related pension, the second part of the state pension. The first, which is available at the moment, is a guaranteed minimum pension within a contracted-out occupational scheme. If the Government's proposals were to go ahead, the second would be the option of a personal pension policy, an alternative to the earnings related pension which in itself of course is limited. I should like to see it made possible for someone not covered by an occupational scheme to improve his position over and above the state pension, if he chose to do so, by investing in a personal pension policy with a matching contribution, up to a fixed limit, from his employer. I have put forward a proposal to that end, envisaging that proposal in the context of the abolition of the earnings related pension.
That reminds me that the state scheme at the moment is faced with two severe problems. The first problem is the cost of the earnings related pension in the second and third decades of the next century—the alarming prospect at that time. The second is the gap opening up between the pension payable to the youngest and the oldest pensioners between now and 1998, with the oldest being the poorest until well into the next century. The Select Committee on the Social Services of the House of Commons and the Social Security Advisory Committee have both drawn attention to these two problems. With regard to the latter, they say that funds must be found to compensate those who have little or no earnings related pension.
Of course, cost has been the difficulty. I believe that both problems could be solved without any extra cost to the Government, if that was felt to be essential. It would be done in this way: first, by abolishing the earnings related pension; secondly, by ending contracting-out; thirdly, by removing the liability of an employer to provide a guaranteed minimum pension in formally contracted-out schemes—contracting-out is of course ended because there would be nothing to contract out of; and then by providing that employers and employees in formally contracted-out schemes pay full national insurance contributions. The extra revenue provided could in that way be used to increase the basic pension by 25 per cent.
Those are the rudiments of a proposal that I have put forward in greater detail to the Fowler inquiry. I hope that the Government will consider it carefully. It would, of course, involve some re-adjustments in the

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relationship betwen the state and occupational schemes, but if the two problems that I have mentioned cannot be solved in any other way, then that may have to be faced. Government inquiries are going on into other aspects of the social security system. I hope that the opportunity will be taken to look at the social security system as a whole and to consider the impact of the taxation system upon it. The gracious Speech speaks of
"further reform of the tax system".
I believe that it is essential to consider tax reform and social security reform together, and the Alliance parties are committed to that.
There is some speculation at the moment as to whether further reform of the tax system will involve a change in the tax treatment of occupational pension schemes. If pensions are regarded as deferred pay they should surely be taxed on receipt, as now happens. If personal pensions are to be regarded as savings out of taxed income, the contributions and the build-up should not be exempt from tax but the proceeds should be available in capital sum, tax-free, at the time of receipt. It does not seem to me that there is very much point in changing from one of these systems to the other. Piecemeal tinkering, such as taxing the yield on pensions while leaving other tax reliefs the same as they are now, could lead to a very great increase in the cost to employers of their occupational schemes—an increase, it is suggested, in an informed calculation, of 66 per cent. if the rate of tax was only 15 per cent.
Under the present system the provision of a proportion of benefit at retirement in the form of a tax-free lump sum may seem anomalous. It is the only area where a real taxation advantage is available. But the Wilson Committee on the functioning of institutions under the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, had this to say about it:
"If this view of pensions as deferred pay is accepted, the chief anomaly lies in the tax-free nature of the lump sum. It is difficult to justify this on logical grounds. But it has become such an accepted part of the present arrangement that its removal could not be regarded as equitable in its effects".
Payments of lump sums on retirement in 1979, the most recent year for which I have figures, amounted to £950 million. If we tax them at 30 per cent., that would produce £285 million, a very small drop in the ocean when compared with the £40 billion spent on social security. I do not believe that such a saving would be worth it if it led to a solution that could not be regarded as equitable in its effects.
To return to the reform of the whole social security system, the reasons why that is necessary are really well known. First, some of the benefits are inadequate in spite of the money that is spent. The Social Security Advisory Committee has expressed its view that supplementary benefit levels are not high enough. There is constant pressure for the improvement of various benefits—that, for example, the long-term unemployed should get the long-term supplementary benefit rate; that the earnings rule shoud be ended, which is, after all, something to which the Government are committed; that a disability income should be established—again, I believe the Government agree that that should be done some time; and that an adequate carer's allowance should be
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provided. And so on. Incidentally, I hope that reports that the Government are going to break the link between prices and certain social security benefits is not true.
Then there is the factor of the whole system being made more complex by the introduction of housing benefit. There are the different sources from which benefit is derived—national insurance, contributory benefits, non-contributory benefits, supplementary benefits, family income supplement, housing benefit, statutory sick pay, child benefit—and the problem of overlapping benefits to which that gives rise. A great burden is now placed on supplementary benefit—a burden that it was never envisaged it would have to bear. There is also the impact of taxation, with some people on benefit paying tax. Clearly the Government feel themselves that there is a case for reform or they would not have set up the inquiries they have.
It seems that three main solutions are put forward. The first might be described as Beveridge-plus: improvement of the present scheme, trying to improve the benefits under the scheme as it is. But it seems to me, for the reasons that I have given, that the present scheme is too rickety a basis on which to try to build a new edifice. The second solution is that everything should be means tested, including retirement benefits. That is the view of the Institute of Fiscal Studies. It has some attraction. It means that more would be paid to those in need for the same cost. But it has many difficulties, not the least of which would be saying to people who at present draw benefits as of right, or who, because they have paid contributions over the years have been led to expect that they would receive benefits as of right, that they were now to have these benefits put on a means test basis. And, of course, to do it would be to go in the opposite direction to the Government's commitment with regard to the earnings rule.
Thirdly, there is the tax credit solution, the combination of income tax and benefit systems under which all income tax allowances and all social security benefits are turned into positive tax credits, as has already been done with child benefit, and all income over and above those is taxed. So far as an individual is concerned, you add up his credits on one side, his liability to tax on the other; if the credits are higher than the tax, then there is a payment out to the individual. If the liability to tax is higher than the credits, there is a payment to the Government.
Various methods are suggested as to how that principle might be applied. There is the national dividend scheme. Under that, the same credit is paid to everyone whether they are in work or not. Clearly that would have benefits with regard to easing movement in and out of work. It would not matter, so far as benefit is concerned, whether a person was unemployed or not. One could be unemployed and could earn something and pay tax on it under that system without endangering the benefit. That idea would help to cope with the kind of society, the leisure society, which some people think we are entering into with the very high rate of unemployment and the great changes which are taking place in the structure of industry. That system would also clearly help the poverty trap.

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In this scheme which was drawn up for the Liberal Party by Philip Vince that simple scheme has been modified a little. In this new plan more is given to people unable to earn than to those in work and there is also a tapered low income credit. That modifies the effects I have just been describing, but it does not eliminate them. The plan would still help to deal with unemployment and the poverty trap as I was describing it a minute ago and as Mr. Rory Francis has shown in his pamphlet, Credit, Income Tax and Unemployment.
But the basic arguments for the tax credit system are that it would rationalise, unify and simplify the tax and social security systems; it would mitigate the poverty trap; it would restore supplementary benefit to its intended role of discretionary extra provision in a few special cases; and it would provide the means for a further redistribution of income in favour of the elderly, of children, and of those at present caught by the poverty trap. I hope that the Government, in pursuing, in the words of the gracious Speech, as reported at col. 3 of Hansard for 6th November,
"further reform of the tax system",
will accept the need to consider tax and social security benefits together, in order to provide a simpler and more effective system.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, it is one of the agreeable aspects of our procedure that we begin the Session on a Motion for an Address to the Sovereign thanking her for the gracious Speech with which she opened it. It is agreeable because it reminds us of how lucky we are in this country in our institutions, in our Monarchy and in the occupant of the Throne; and this, particularly at a time when some people, like the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, are talking of divisions, is in fact a very unifying factor.
Before I pass to the main subject of the debate I hope your Lordships will allow me to say how much I personally welcomed the reference in the gracious Speech to the forthcoming state visit to this country of President Banda. I had the privilege of being entertained by him in his own country at the time of its independence, and I have seen a little of the superb job of work he has done in building up that lovely country. I am sure he will be very welcome here; and perhaps we can appreciate all the more the success of his rule in his own country when one reflects that Malawi is never in the newspapers.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, made one of his most adroit speeches, and that is putting it very high indeed. It was a most skilful performance, as one would expect of the noble Lord. But, if he will allow me to say so, there was one omission which no doubt his regard for the time of your Lordships' House caused him to make. He gave a most eloquent description of what he regarded as the priorities (he used that word): various good causes in the social sphere. That certainly touched a sympathetic chord in my mind in view of the fact that my noble friend Lord Stockton put me in charge of many of those services for quite a number of years.
But the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, having given those as his priorities, did not for one moment indicate
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that he realised that all those good things, all those admirable things, could be paid for only on the basis of a strong and expanding economy, and that, failing that, it would simply not be possible to finance the relief of suffering, the provision for old age or an educational system of very high standard, and that everything—literally everything—turned on the capacity of this country to earn its living in the world. It is an extraordinarily dangerous illusion to think that the world owes us a good living because of our nice blue eyes.
The noble Lord went on very much along that line when he asked, in a burst of eloquence, what it should avail a nation if its young people are frustrated, even if it gets its inflation rate down. I wonder whether the noble Lord has ever reflected on the effect on young people in particular of the sort of inflation rate which we indeed had in this country at the time this Government came into office, and which they suffer from in such widely dispersed countries as the Argentine—perhaps they deserve it—and Israel. Nothing demoralises a country more quickly and effectively than the rapid erosion of the value of its currency, the complete discouragement of saving, the whole demoralising and wrecking effect of inflation; and to dismiss that, as the noble Lord did, as really being hardly a worthwhile contribution was, if I may say so, hardly worthy of the noble Lord.
One of the aspects of our affairs which I think troubles many of us, and which I hope my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will deal with when he comes to wind up, is the decline in respect for law from which we are suffering. I must say that the party opposite has a good deal of responsibility for that. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, will recall that at his party's recent conference a motion of support was carried for those local authorities who defied the law. It is well known that certain trades unions and their leaders are openly in contempt of court.
It simply is not good enough to say, "Oh, we don't obey Tory laws; we pick and choose those laws we will follow", because a regard, a reverence, for the law as the law is the framework of a civilised and demoratic society. Of course we are all enormously annoyed by certain laws that are passed, particularly when we are in opposition. We seek, and are perfectly entitled to seek, to repeal them; but while they are the law of the land it really is dangerously irresponsible to encourage people to disregard them.
That leads me to the other enormously distressing phenomenon which we can see any night we wish on our television screen; that is, the violence on the so-called picket lines. These are not picket lines; these are not pickets. Pickets, in our good old trades union practice and in our law, were a limited number of people who attended at the place where they would otherwise have been working to advise others coming to work of the strike and of the issues, but not physically to obstruct them and not to turn up in thousands to attempt by force to prevent their entry. This is not picketing. This is, in the language of the law, riotous assembly. I am a little surprised that those who organise these activities—I understand they are centrally organised from central headquarters—have not been proceeded against for procuring riotous assemblies, which is what they are. Again, I hope we

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may hear whether consideration is being given to seeing that the law is not treated with such contempt.
It is not only on the so-called picket lines that we have violence today. As the noble Lord knows only too well, we have a great growth of ordinary crime—crimes of violence in particular. Your Lordships should be concerned—as I know the Government are concerned—to check this rising tide of violence and crime. There are two aspects of doing that which I would venture to commend to your Lordships.
One aspect involves unfaltering support for the police. I thought it most unfortunate that in another place there were those who saw fit to accuse the police, or some of the police, of racialist tendencies. The police have been under the greatest strain both at the pits and on the streets and they are entitled to the fullest confidence and support from the people of this country, regardless of party, creed or race. I hope that it will go forth from this House that we have the greatest admiration for the members of our police force and the way in which they are standing up at the moment to wholly unprecedented strains. They very rarely get any weekend leave, they are constantly being moved to places where there is trouble, and they have responded absolutely magnificently.
The other aspect is perhaps a more delicate one, and that is the question of the sentences imposed by the courts. Generally, the sentences are excellent, but I believe that their deterrent effect has been very much undermined by the system of parole and premature release. It is fairly well-known among sophisticated criminals that if a judge says he will send a criminal to prison for 14 years, he is unlikely, at the worst, to serve more than eight or nine years. I believe that we are eroding the deterrent effect of perfectly proper sentences by this habit of continually releasing pople on so-called parole or other grounds for release.
Recently there have been two cases which have drawn attention to this matter. One of the cases concerned a man who committed a second murder while on release from a life sentence imposed for a first, and the other case was one in regard to which your Lordships may have seen the press reports and to which Judge Argyle, a very distinguished judge at the Old Bailey, drew attention. It concerned a man who was supposed to be serving a five-year sentence for robbery, buggery and assault, and he was up before Judge Argyle for a second series of similar offences committed while still on release during the duration—or during what should have been the duration—of his first sentence. Judge Argyle commented—and I think that your Lordships will agree with him—that:
"It is a pity that much of the time of the police, as with this defendant, is taken up by recapturing dangerous criminals on home leave, remission, bail or parole".
I think that it is for those who guide these matters in the Home Office to realise that, notwithstanding the pressure—of which we are all aware—on the prisons, to go on releasing really dangerous criminals before their sentences have fully expired is extremely dangerous. It also involves some breach of faith.
When capital punishment was abolished some years ago we were told that a life sentence would really mean
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life. My Lords, does it? Certainly our experience is that people such as the murderer to whom I referred who are sentenced to life are, in fact, released before that time. The argument against capital punishment—which was very eloquently urged at one time—that a true life sentence was an even stronger deterrent, has simply been blown sky-high by this practice.
That leads me to one further reflection. Those of your Lordships who were in the House yesterday were both deeply impressed and somewhat worried by what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, about international terrorism when he spoke with such obvious knowledge of this exceedingly dangerous activity. Without reopening the general question of the application of capital punishment for terrorist offences—although in all frankness I think that that should be done—I wonder whether the Government have given consideration in cases of this type to invoking the Treason Acts where capital punishment, of course, remains the penalty. It is not for me, in the presence of the Lord Chancellor and a former Lord Chancellor, to offer a view on the law, but it would seem arguable that events such as the Brighton bombing could be described as an attempt to wage war against the Queen in her realm, which is the classical definition of "treason" under the Treason Acts, and it may well be that the proper procedure in any case where people are apprehended when committing this kind of appalling act is to indict them under the Treason Acts and that the consequences of conviction under the Treason Acts should follow. I leave that suggestion with your Lordships.
I wish to deal this afternoon with only one other point, and it is one that has already been touched upon by my noble friend on the Front Bench and by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I refer to the reference in the gracious Speech to the Bill to abolish the Greater London Council and, though I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, mentioned it, the other metropolitan county councils as well—
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I think that my noble friend did do so.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, if he did mention it, I apologise to him. However, the noble Lord's emphasis was on the GLC as, I confess, will be mine. I know that views are very strongly held both ways on this matter, but surely it is essential that we should get on with it quickly. Until it is settled, until the Bill is through and in operation, there will be a great deal of confusion as regards government in London and a great deal of extravagance and waste of money.
Speaking as a London ratepayer, I intensely resent money raised in rates paid by me being used to finance the GLC's most expensive propaganda campaign about its own merits. With remarkable insensitivity—remarkable, at any rate, anywhere else—they portray themselves as a most wonderful, wise, prudent, gentle, kindly and efficient body, brooding with wisdom over London. It is funny that they feel it necessary to advertise that and that—if it be true—people may not have apprehended it for themselves. However, when it comes to advertisements such as the full page advertisement that they put in the national press a few days ago, of an

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entirely polemical party political character, it seems to me to be going too far in the use of the ratepayers' money. Your Lordships will recall that particular advertisement—and it really is quite funny—in which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is portrayed in mid-air, in hardly an aerodynamically stable position, and the rest of the page is devoted to what is, frankly, personal abuse of him. That is not, with respect, the way in which a respectable public body carries on such propaganda as it thinks fit.
If that is to go on, if they are to continue in that way, then the sooner they are abolished, the sooner, to put it crudely, their hands are taken out of the ratepayers' pockets, the better. I hope that I shall hear from one of my noble friends that steps are being taken to prevent the GLC from carrying out the scorched earth policy on finances which they have threatened. It is essential that from now on very strict control should be exercised over their financial dealings, and I very much hope that that will be insisted on by the Government.
The GLC's extravagance is, of course, extraordinary. The press carried a report the other day, which I have no doubt is true, that they decided to put the three initials "GLC" upon three notice boards outside the Brixton Leisure Centre and that that operation cost £13,000. The folly of it is all the more evident when one remembers that in a matter of 18 months or so those letters—GLC—will at any rate have to come down. Although it is a small matter, it is indicative of the frivolity and irresponsibility in financial matters of which they are guilty.
On the question of principle, I wonder whether your Lordships do not think that, anyhow, we are today at risk of being over-governed by local government, with two tiers of local government. Surely one tier is enough. Two tiers involve competing bureaucracies corresponding with each other and (which I think is dangerous) the senior one being able to precept on the lower one and therefore itself not having to face the ratepayers from whom it is demanding payment. It must be a temptation to extravagance when you know that someone else has to face the unpopularity of extracting the money which you wish to spend. I appreciate that this question of single-tier government goes further than the Greater London area and the municipal metropolitan counties, but I hope that the Government are giving consideration to the question whether, given the expense of local government today, we ought not to move steadily nationally to a single-tier system.
The gracious Speech is a very vigorous document emanating from a vigorous Government, and it will undoubtedly mean a vigorous Session of Parliament. For my part, I wish the measures contained in it good fortune and, after full debate, I hope and believe that they will adorn the statute book.
4.31 p.m.
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, it is always fascinating to listen to the noble Lord who has just spoken. Nobody would doubt his ability, and I pay him this tribute from the ranks of Tuscany: that when he was a Minister he was one of the best Ministers in the
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Ministry of Health and knew more than any who had been there before him. I pay him that tribute and recognise his ability; but I want to give him one little truth. There is only one thing that can prevent the hooliganism that is present in the world. If the noble Lord is so inspired to oratorical arpeggios, as he was at that moment, he should ensure that the education system of Britain gives the equality of opportunity for education that the ranks of noble Lords opposite possess from birth. We should open up the field of education, which is the greatest democratiser of all. In the end, that is where we can break down hooliganism and vulgarity, and get equality of opportunity within the nation.
However, instead of that being done I very much regret—and I shall have to be proved wrong—that Thatcherism is doing the very opposite as regards educational opportunities to that which the old Tory Party did, which introduced many reforms in the last century. It is a tragedy that modern Toryism is breaking down many of our liberties and changing the nature of British democracy.
It is also dangerous to prophesy. I read Mrs. Thatcher's messages every New Year. I have taken the trouble to collect them. In January 1980, in a beautiful voice, our Prime Minister said:
"Our country is on the way to economic prosperity".
The number unemployed was 1,400,000. In January 1981 her message was:
"We are absolutely on the right track and people know and feel it".
The number unemployed was 2,400,000. In January 1982 she said:
"This year 1982 has all the signs of being one of great opportunity for Britain if only we have the courage and determination to succeed".
The number of unemployed was 2,800,000. In January 1983 Mrs. Thatcher's message was:
"1983 will begin to show the benefits which the British people are gaining from the government's resolute approach."
The number of unemployed was 3,200,000. Come off it! Stop kidding the public and let us get down to the brass tacks of building an education system in Britain that will give an opportunity to dispense with hooliganism and enable people to live a decent life.
I regret that in discussing home and social affairs, and while welcoming the gracious Speech, major attention is not given to the longest strike in the history of British mining. The silence of the Prime Minister, officially, is marred by the obvious link with an Americanised Mr. MacGregor, the plastic bag carrier chairman of the Coal Board, whose record in the United States is one of ruthless consequences. Nobody can deny that if they know the history of MacGregorism in America.
We are told that the news of Mr. Windsor's visit to the Libyan leader, Muammer Gaddafi, was found by many to be embarrassing. Of course it was. But that was not the point. Roger Windsor is the union's chief executive officer. But little notice is taken of the years of contact that British businessmen, salesmen and politicians have developed with Libya. Little notice is taken of the Libyans who have been brought here to learn our business and manufacturing potentialities. Why, then, are we embarrassed by this situation?

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Of course, the enfant terrible of the old Liberal Party was Churchill, and as far back as May 1908 (talk about lampooning the Tories!) the dear old gentleman said this:
"a party of great vested interests banded together in a formidable confederation … with sentiment by the bucketful, patriotism by the imperial pint; an open hand at the Public Exchequer, an open door at the public house; dear food for the million; cheap labour for the millionaire".
That was the right honourable Winston Churchill.
Lord Somers: Oh come, really!
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, I entirely agree. It was a terrible indictment of Toryism, and wrong. But he was often wrong as well as right. The Erebian darkness of the old Tory Party of those days must have been illuminated with rollicking laughter at their enfant terrible, the Liberal Churchill in the House. Alas! long ago the Valkyrie has guided him to Valhalla! And, alas! today the stodgy ranks of acquisitiveness sit and dominate the modern Tory Party. It is nothing like the Tory Party of Disraeli; it is nothing like the Tory Party of the 19th century that struggled for reform; and it lacks compassion.
All the talk about the leading light of the NUM visiting Libya is of little importance. What brought on this longest industrial strike in our history? The dribble back to the pits must be analysed, but how many of them who dribble back really cut coal? The National Coal Board's accounts and report justified many of the men's fears. The men are worried about their jobs. There are fears that coal mines that are so-called uneconomic will close and thus shed thousands of jobs. As much as anything, the chairman of the Coal Board is to be blamed for this feeling. Remember, the Coal Board announced on 6th March that the industry would reduce deep mined coal by 4 million tonnes. That would mean that 20 pits would close, thus putting 20,000 men out of work. That was the nub of the trouble. Indeed, the same would be done to our mines as Beeching did to our railways.
Despite all this, there is some division in the ranks among the miners. It was said that the strike was not legitimate, so thousands of striking miners turned to picket non-striking miners. So we divide the police, the pickets and the miners. While the miners on strike are going hungry, it is interesting to see what financial beneficence and emoluments members of the Coal Board enjoy. Some 13 members of the board were receiving between £500 and £55,000.
Lord Somers: My Lords, may I interupt the noble Lord?
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, the noble Lord can interrupt with pleasure, because he has been mumbling all the time I have been speaking.
Lord Somers: My Lords, admittedly, I mumbled once. I should like to ask the noble Lord why it is that he does not apply for Libyan citizenship and go and stay there?
Lord Davies of Leek: My Lords, if that is the level of question from the ranks of Toryism, one understands why they are in a mess.
A Noble Lord: The noble Lord is a Cross-Bencher.
Lord Davies of Leek: Well, that is worse still. The impact of closing 20 pits, and the loss of 20,000 jobs is a greater vexatious factor in these days of massive unemployment than it would have been years ago when there was less unemployment. The level of national unemployment is part of the trouble that we have today. There is an outstanding and unanswered question, which is—and I do not know the answer; neither does anybody else at the moment—how do we define a marginal mine, and when are we to say that it is exhausted. If it can be afforded, the introduction of more expensive machinery can often make a marginal mine more productive. It is a problem which our engineers have difficulty in solving.
Trade unionism is now in a position that is not so easy as in times of full employment. The pitilessness of the employed for the long-term unemployed is summed up by the phrase, "Get on your bike and look for a job". Social relationships with that kind of language grow petulant, resentful, and rankled. Therefore, the bonds of class and loyalty to the union and other workers begin to flounder. The four freedoms—freedoms of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear—which Roosevelt once declared, are in danger, because the most important freedom of all that the working people need is the fifth freedom: freedom from contempt. We have not built up a system of society that brings to the semi-educated and the hard manual worker freedom from contempt. The noble Lord scoffs, but it is a truth of history.
The roaring current of change bewilders man, and we are in a dangerous period of history. The miners' strike dominates the situation. Yet hardly a word has been spoken about it in this House. Eleven proclamations have been made under emergency laws since 1920. The Act was originally rushed through both Houses because of a miners' strike then. Again in 1926 the Government proclaimed a state of emergency. Then the coal owners locked out the miners before the strike began. Twenty-three times since the war troops have intervened. Troops were used to stoke the boilers at Buckingham Palace. They were used in the dock strike. They were used under the Emergency Powers Act of 1964 and which made permanent a wartime measure.
The coal industry now asks what is its future? In 1982 the National Union of Mineworkers made public a secret document showing plans to close pits at twice the rate of the previous eight years. The document consisted of evidence to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, and the game was given away when a statistical analysis of colliery costs was shown. This was a sentence in that document:
"The attached table (this deals with a very sensitive area and is not for publication) illustrates very broadly in each year to 1990–1991 the financial effect of closing certain uneconomic collieries at the rate assumed—some 2 million tonnes capacity per annum in the Board's 10-year Development Plan".

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A conspiracy of silence was maintained here instead of taking the miners into their confidence. The stark question is: what does this mean? It contrasts with previous closure plans, because the community of non-miners in the villages where the pits exist may go into poverty for ever if those pits close.
Thus, in the years from March 1974 to March 1982, 29,000 lost their jobs at an average of 3,700 men a year. In the year 1981–82 employment fell by 12,000 to 212,800. Now the National Coal Board plan to close pits on the same scale as in 1981–82 for the next nine years. That would be a loss of 100,000 men. What would that mean? The entire Scottish, North-Eastern, Western and South Wales coal mining areas would pretty well shut down. They are already described in the board's report as "the peripheral areas" of the National Coal Board.
Miners once before have seen the desolation of massive unemployment. Their industry was halved in the decade between 1960 and 1970 from 602,000 men working in the pits to 287,000. If these are the blessings of "MacGregorism", then he has need to walk through the streets with a plastic bag on his face. The derelict areas know what this poverty means. When the miners are out the small shopkeepers, the small businessmen, suffer too.
All this talk and action by the coal board are not encouraging the great investment needed in Britain's greatest national asset. The coal is there for at least another 500 years. The Plan for Coal envisaged high investment. It is not taking place. Instead we have inherited "Beechingism" in the pits, "Serpellism" on the railways cutting then from 11,000 miles to 2,000 miles, and now "MacGregorism" in our pits. This should not be done to a body of great human beings who, in battle and in fight against all odds underground, have helped to save this country in two world wars. They deserve better attention from this House than it has so far given them.
4.47 p.m.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, I think it would be agreeable if I mentioned the pleasure it gives us to hear the well-known tenor voice of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. Much as we may disagree with nearly everything that he said, we are glad to see him back, obviously very well recovered from his recent illness, and to hear his voice again. In the light of the speeches we have had hitherto, which were of some weight, I feel that my contribution to this debate is really somewhat minimal. It is going to be brief, which should be a pleasure to your Lordships. I have only three matters to raise, and two of them come within the ambit of
"Other measures will be laid before you."
The first suggestion I have to put forward, however, is of some urgency. It is in respect of road safety, especially as it applies to motor cycling. I do not think it need involve any great hole in the wide range of legislation which is obviously on the way. The problems of road casualties (especially among young people) arising out of carelessness, ignorance and the like in respect of motor cycles are such that something has to be done.
I feel confident that I am competent to approach the
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matter because many years ago I was an enthusiastic motor cyclist. I still believe that motor cycling is a thrill almost akin to that of riding to hounds or steeple-chasing. I have bashed around Brooklands in my day, but things were very different then. Not only are motor cycles more powerful than they were but, despite improved road surfaces and other road developments, traffic densities are so great that the death toll among people involved in motor cycling is now approaching 2,000 a year, many of them young. It is not only the motor cyclist who suffers. Large numbers of other road users, including and especially pedestrians, are killed and injured.
My noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve has often urged that it should be obligatory for motor cylists to switch on their headlights whenever their machines are in motion. I have come to agree completely with her and this is my first suggestion. I have consulted a number of motorists and professional drivers and in general it seems that the time has come to introduce legislation to give effect to this. Something ought to be done, must be done, to improve the conditions for motor cyclists on the road.
My next point is another simple one, also connected with road safety and road casualities which are such a scourge. The obvious success of the safety belt law tends to indicate that the time is coming when safety belts on rear seats should be contemplated, especially for children. I do not propose to deal with the pros and cons of this now; but, without going into them, has not the time come when regulations should be introduced such as we introduced in 1964?—I refer to Regulation 121 relating to seat belts and anchorage points. This regulation says that every motor car registered after so-and-so must be provided with anchorage points designed to hold securely, et cetera. Looking ahead, I believe that something of the sort is due now against the day when, in addition to its being in accordance with the views of many individual motorists, the fitting of seat belts in rear seats may well become obligatory.
These two proposals may not involve complex legislation, but I appreciate that they will require careful discussion and consideration with and by the interests involved: the manufacturers of the apparatus, the agents, the police and traffic authorities. I have heard it suggested that some sort of slogan—shall we call it a Jimmy Saville type of stunt?—might sink into the minds of motor cyclists who appear to disregard all the dangers that arise from excessive speed.
Talking of road safety and what can be done by all of us encourages me again to inquire how it comes about that independent television has for some years given space for programmes urging the adoption of road and other safety measures. Why cannot the BBC do something of the sort? Is it that the BBC's dedication means that it is so obsessed with its passion for ratings that it tends to kid itself that it cannot afford the space? I believe the the television media could do more than they do in regard to road safety.
This brings me to my final point. My speech is necessarily brief because I put my name down before I had seen on the Paper that on 27th November we are to have a debate on broadcasting here, and much can be left to that. I urge the Government to be more conscious than they appear to be of the power of the

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broadcast, whether by television or radio. Not only do these bodies broadcast but sometimes they distort and sometimes even censor news items and panel programmes. I know that the BBC is always ready to get on its high horse if it is criticised like this, but, as I see it, it is apt to disregard its privilege. I see that we are to debate television on the 27th of this month and there is little more for me to contribute today, but this morning in "from today's papers" the BBC began with a long extract from the Guardian intended and designed to debunk President Reagan, before giving the more restrained views of other papers. Last night in "Yesterday in Parliament" it did not even mention the fact that your Lordships' House had sat the day before and indeed did not mention the brilliant speeches that we had here with material proposals from two noble Earls. They devoted the programme to a long story of the opposition to Government in the other place.
I will not continue with that because we shall be discussing this subject on 27th November. Let the Government bear in mind the warnings such as Lord Chalfont gave in the defence debate on 9th December 1981 and the exchanges at Question Time only last week on 30th October, in columns 454 to 456, containing the contributions made by my noble friends Lord Kimberley and Lady Young. Why is it that the Observer and the Guardian are so often involved? What about the more moderate papers? I do not know what other measures can cope with problems of this sort but we shall see more about it in our debate on broadcasting.
4.59 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I shall follow the noble Lord, as he put it, "bashing around Brooklands" only so far as to say that he has made a good point that 2,000 deaths for the young on motor cycles is far too many. In return for something done to stop that, I should like to control their noise, which is far too loud.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, made two comments which I wish to support very fully: one was the worry we who are concerned with education all have about the decline in the sale of books. This is the most disagreeable thing which is going on at the moment. It is very serious. Sales are falling in every direction: public library sales are down, the number of private buyers is down and prices are up. The whole matter needs careful examination but not now. The other point that the noble Lord made-I support very much what he asked the Government to do—is to pay more detailed attention to the whole question of drugs.
I shall not say more than that at this point because I want to turn to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to whom I always listen with fascination, sometimes with surprise, sometimes with dismay. But today I was actually made nervous by the degree to which I agreed with what he said—which seemed to me needed looking at rather carefully. He gave me two leads into what I was going to say. The first was about law and order, to which I shall come back in a minute, and the second was about terrorism, which I shall come back to in another minute.
But, first, I must say that it was not until he suggested, with a perfectly straight face, that length of
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sentence has some effect on deterrence, which anybody who has taken any trouble to study this subject knows backwards is rejected by every single thinking person, with the exception of the noble Lord—
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord would not wish to misrepresent me; he is too courteous. The passage in my speech about length of sentence, as I think the noble Lord will find when he reads Hansard, was in the part dealing with what one might call ordinary crime. In respect of terrorism, I suggested the invocation of the Treason Acts.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I agree with everything the noble Lord has said. I am criticising him in relation to ordinary crime, to what in Northern Ireland we used to call the "ODC", the ordinary decent criminals.
At the same time the noble Lord expressed a worry about parole. I assure the noble Lord that he need not be worried about the part of parole which involves releasing people before their time, because the statistics of success—that is to say, not offending again—are extremely good. We cannot go into this in detail. We have had many discussions of it at great length. As I say, it was not until the noble Lord revealed these thoughts that I felt a little better about agreeing with him on some of the others.
Perhaps I may now turn to the question of law and order. I have very little to add to what the noble Lord has said. A civil row such as a strike is a perfectly good thing, and one can take either side, and there is no objection to it. If one of the parties to a civil dispute of this kind is given a verdict of contempt and is fined, this is still, in my opinion, a civil offence and is not breaking the law in a way which is offensive. But if one reads the code of practice for picketing which the party opposite produced in their last Bill, one will see listed under the criminal offences—and, listed not as a code of practice, but as actual criminal offences—almost everything which, as the noble Lord has said, is done every day at the moment.
I agree with him that there comes a time when one may sympathise with passions which rise in these very intense disputes and one may certainly not have contempt (as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, suggested) for one side or the other. But one begins to feel that these activities are highly organised and could happen only with the most careful arrangement. And surely high organisation and careful arrangement to commit something which is known by everybody to be a criminal offence, is itself a criminal offence. I say no more. There are problems about dealing with this, I can see.
I would only say that up to date my friends in the Labour Party, particularly on the Front Bench in your Lordships' House, and their leaders outside have been quite firm in denouncing violence. They have not referred to the point which the noble Lord made, or the point that I have just made. I warn them that this is going to get more difficult. They will be pressurised more and more in the next months to take a position for which they would lose my respect, which at the moment they fully hold. I want to say no more than that about this very distressing dispute which is going

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on and which is going some way towards ruining the country.
My Lords, the other point that I wanted to make was about terrorism. The difficulty which arises over terrorists is not how one deals with them; because they are mostly sentenced for life. There is no argument about that. I am not going to take up the capital punishment argument. It would be a great convenience, of course, if one could shoot terrorists on conviction—and, personally, I would not particularly object because I do not mind taking human life in the right circumstances—but I believe that it would be wholly counter-productive. It would produce a row of martys and one can defeat terrorism only by defeating the ordinary folk who are behind the terrorists in a half-hearted sort of way and who will give them shelter and all the rest of it. We know this from Northern Ireland. There is nobody in the security forces in Northern Ireland who wants capital punishment for terrorists.
What I am concerned about is a different factor. When there is the number of terrorists that we have in this country—I think it is 30 or 40 serving very long sentences and spread around the gaols—they make each gaol their footing, with more than one of them, at any rate, in an unbalanced state. No governor can feel happy when there are people of this kind in his prison; and the reason is perfectly clear. The ordinary, decent criminal can be hired as a gangster or a hit man to commit the most serious crimes; but he does not justify himself. He just says, "Why shouldn't I? I owe nothing to society, and I wanted the money". The terrorist, even though often he is, in fact, persuaded only by the misplaced patriotism of his employers, to believe that he is doing something good, is proud of what he has done. This means that he is entirely intractable in prison. He cannot be trusted for one moment and is unlike the ordinary, decent criminal who settles down to do his "bird" and keeps out of trouble until it is over, hoping for a good release period on parole.
So the prison service is up against an entirely new situation and the really tragic thing is that this is only just beginning. Terrorism originating from Northern Ireland is not going to stop in the next 10 years, and probably not in the next 20 years. And terrorism originating from everywhere else is growing every year. So there is going to be a very serious position. I am not going to say what ought to be done. I think I know what ought to be done, but I am not sure that it can be done. I think that no more than three long-sentence terrorists should be in any prison at one time and I think they should be isolated from everyone else. Now, my Lords, this is quite impossible to do at the moment, and I do not know how it is going to be done. But I think it is a very serious question and I should like to feel that the Government were looking at it really carefully.
I have one other point which I want to take up, which was not inspired by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. It concerns the news that we have just had that there is going to be a cut-off in the building of hostels for ex-prisoners. This sounds very small and uninteresting after the sort of things that we have been talking about. But, of course, the volume of crime in this country consists as to two-thirds of petty
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recidivists committing crimes again and again. So if something is done to deal with the small man, then one does something to relieve the trouble in prisons and also to reduce the total quantity of crime.
Before going on, I want to say that the Home Secretary, in the last month or so, has done two or three very good things, one of the most important of which, I think, was to announce that he has accepted that there must be a time limit on remand without trial. I shall watch with hawk-like interest to see exactly how he achieves this. His announcement of that—with against him, I believe, certain people whom I shall not mention—is I think very important. Also, of course, the reduction of time on parole from 12 months to six months has already begun to reduce the prison population, and it is hoped to work up to a reduction of 2,500.
The point that I want to talk about is the problem of hostels. I had the honour to serve on a committee on residential provision for homeless discharged prisoners, which in ordinary English means hostels for people coming out of prison. This was presided over by that most remarkable woman Lady Reading, and under her ruthless guidance we produced an admirable report which argued that, as quite a large number of people coming out of prison had no home to go to, the provision of accommodation for them was an essential part of after-care.
The chances of their keeping out of trouble were much enhanced by properly run hostels for this purpose. We estimated that even if you took 10 per cent. of the 50,000 discharges, which was the figure at that time, as being homeless you would require something like 5,000 places in hostels; and at that time there were 20 hostels with 232 places. But 18 years later, there are now 3,000 places in 300 hostels and it is estimated, in a very careful survey done by the Association of Chief Probation Officers, that another 2,000 are required which makes our figure of 5,000 none too bad.
Nobody who has been concerned with petty crime in the courts is in any doubt about the value of hostels for petty offenders. I do not think that there are two opinions anywhere. I believe that every judge, every magistrate, every prison officer, the prison department itself, the probation service certainly and social workers in general all believe that, if there is somewhere where a man can go to be properly looked after at reasonable cost, you have a better chance of keeping him from offending—even if only for a month or two; and that is time saved—than if there is not. It seems to me perfectly obvious.
So here we have a system, which was analysed originally, has been built up carefully over 20 years, is working extremely effectively and is said by the people most concerned to demand a continual increase, suddenly cut off at the top. Of course, the existing hostels will remain, but the increase is being stopped. I know something about this as president of NACRO, because we run a number of hostels, and my information is not entirely second-hand. .The DoE has put up £4½ million towards, I think, 320 hostels in the coming year and they are being scrapped. There were plans for 460 and 480 hostels the year after and the year after that and they are being scrapped. The waste of time, the waste of expert planning and the waste of

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preliminary money is quite large and, worst of all, the failure to carry out the promises made to the enthusiastic voluntary bodies who are doing these things is absolutely sickening and everybody is very upset about it.
It costs £ 11,000 to keep a man in prison and £ 1,000 to keep a man in a hostel, so this is something which pays. One would have thought that even the Treasury could recognise this, but they stick to their old slogan:
"Never buy today what you can pay more for tomorrow",
and we are landed with this ridiculous situation. Here is something which is good, which is working and which needs development, but which is being cut off in its prime. I have spoken long enough. I hope very much that the noble Lord will persuade his Home Secretary and his colleagues to think again on this important point.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, in many ways I will follow the noble Lord who has just spoken, but I wish that he would not refer to the ordinary, decent criminal. If we stopped using such euphemisms we would know precisely what we were talking about. It seems to me that if someone is a criminal he is neither ordinary nor decent. I, too, follow a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said—possibly for the first and only time when speaking in this House. Yesterday I had the pleasure of hearing the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and I take his theme. As I recall, he ended his speech by saying that we must embark on a policy of preventive and pre-emptive action. He was, of course, speaking about security on the international scene. I should like to return to security on the home front.
The last published figures show that crime has increased, and particularly crimes of violence. During the summer months I had the privilege of attending and speaking at a number of conferences of women's organisations representing thousands of women. At each of those conferences there were speakers and resolutions expressing concern at the terrible attacks on the elderly and defenceless; at burglaries where intimidation, cruelty and criminal attack always accompany theft. These are now daily occurrences. There is the senseless vandalism in public places such as sports grounds and shopping centres; there are the attacks on workers such as bus conductors, teachers, social workers, shop assistants, and even doctors and nurses, who are going about their duties.
What is particularly disturbing is the now growing acceptance that this will happen. The suggestion is that it is the duty of the victim to have exercised such criminal prevention that this need not have occurred. Yesterday I heard the argument advanced, yet again: "You should not go into certain places at night". If you go to a new town you do not know which are the places that you should avoid at night. One is told "You should not leave your car in that street, because the car is too valuable and the street too dangerous". How are you to know this? Then, "You should arrange your shop so that you do not tempt people to take things". This I resist. But, of course, we want to involve everyone in crime prevention and this is what I hope the Government will put over more strongly.
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Societies largely get the kind of law and order that they deserve. But equally every citizen has a right to go about his business or pleasure without hindrance, and this is what we have to pin our law and order on. So if we accept that crime prevention is our business, let us examine the possibilities that are offered.
Many of your Lordships will today have read the publication by the Adam Smith Institute of the Omega justice policy—I am going to buy a copy of this, because it sounds so fascinating—which advocates private enterprise supplying prisons, as is already happening in certain states in America. As we do not increase the number of prisons very substantially I am a little disturbed that the Government may yet privatise this service also. It also advocates more reliance on private investigation agencies, so I think that it behoves us to look at the existing position in the United Kingdom.
I take an advertisement from one of the trade journals which is headed:
"Who says crime doesn't pay?"
It continues:
"As the crime rate increases, so do the number of people aware of the need for crime prevention. That's where we fit in".
They describe their product—an electric alarm.
"Prevention, you understand. So what have we done? Well to start off, we gave ourselves a bold new image. You can't fail to notice us now that our packs have been totally redesigned … We're also spending thousands on promotions".
This is what we have to take on board.
"The security market is rapidly expanding and we intend to make the most of it."
Security is very big business, and growing all the time. Hundreds of companies are offering all kinds of gadgets to protect one from crime. It is estimated that there are about a quarter of a million uniformed guards to protect one's property or person.
What qualifications are needed? Who tests the products? Who guards the guards? These are terrifyingly topical questions, coming after the violent assassination of the Prime Minister of one country and the attempted assassination of the Prime Minister of another country. It is significant that dictators are never assassinated. Assassinations take place only in democratic countries. I believe that this provides a lesson for us.
Most of these companies and their personnel are, I am sure, reputable. However, where there is no accountability there will be "cowboys". Therefore, in this Session of Parliament I shall yet again attempt to introduce a Private Member's Bill to create a licensing system. If a business has nothing to hide, it will welcome such a system. We need to control the vast increase in the number of private armies of security guards. May I repeat what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, when he attempted to introduce a similar Bill in 1981:
"You cannot open a store in a street to sell fruit without a licence, but you can open a firm to sell security devices and services without any restriction whatsoever".
This situation does not make sense.
Secondly, and linked to my previous point, may I ask the Government whether they intend to introduce the promised Bill relating to the law of trespass. I recall that such a Bill was promised by Her Majesty's

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Government when the original Bill introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, failed because of lack of time in the other place. Surely this Government, of all governments, care about the protection of the citizen and private property. I plead with them to show that they have a true interest in law and order.
5.22 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, because I agree with many of the points which she made. I hope, however, that she will forgive me if I do not follow precisely her point of view. May I also join my noble friend Lord Ferrier in saying how great a pleasure it was to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. It was delivered with his old vigour. It was slightly frightening to see him speaking from the elder statesmen's Bench. I wondered whether his remarks might not be quite so vigorous as when he sat behind the Front Benchers of his own Party and bellowed down their necks. However, the noble Lord was in good form.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, and the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, took the Government severely to task on several points. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said that we on these Benches have different priorities and indicated that he believed that they were the wrong priorities. He referred to confrontation and to an uncaring attitude. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, referred to our lack of compassion. However, the Conservative Party is just as interested as the party opposite in ensuring better provision for the sick, the aged and those who are disadvantaged in any way.
I shall not refer to the details because that is not the point of our debate today, but the action of successive Secretaries of State for Health and Social Security during the past five years proves that in real terms this Government have spent more upon health and social security than the previous Government. We are certainly a caring Government. However, we can spend the right amount of money upon health and social security only if the country is truly competitive in world markets. That can be achieved only with a minimum of state control of productive industry and with cost-effectiveness in all activities. Hence, I welcome the intention expressed in the gracious Speech to expose state-owned businesses to competition, to increase competition in local bus services, and to transfer the National Bus Company to the private sector.
Apart from my concern about what I believe to be a misrepresentation of the Government's attitude on the part of certain noble Lords opposite, I am concerned about similar attacks upon the Government, alleging lack of compassion, and, by implication, upon my right honourable friend the Prime Minister by certain right reverend Prelates. I regret that I am unable to address my remarks to those right reverend Prelates, for they are not here. May I point out that I am not referring to the right reverend Prelates whom I expect to be present this evening.
If one seeks compassion, one does not have to seek it very far. There is ample evidence of compassion in the feelings of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. Most sensitive people find the public flaunting of such feelings to be distasteful. The attitude of those right reverend Prelates reminds me of the
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parable of the Pharisee and the sinner. They seem to demand of my right honourable friend and her Cabinet that the Minister should behave both like the Pharisee and the sinner. Dare I say that the right reverend Prelates remind me especially of the Pharisee.
True compassion lies in making sure that inflation will never again rise to the level at which old people, the low paid and the sick suffer significant deprivation day by day. This point was made by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter in his splendid speech.
One of the difficulties which faces us as a nation is to persuade ourselves, and to be persuaded, that we must escape from the chains of the bottomless pit attitude. For most of the past 35 years, successive Governments, especially Labour Governments, encouraged people of all kinds, in particular individuals who were dependent upon central government and those connected with local government, to believe that for their particular needs Government resources were like a bottomless pit.
Notwithstanding the continuing encouragement since 1979 to people engaged in all kinds of activities to make their enterprises competitive and to become self-reliant, far too many people—for instance, doctors in the National Health Service—still believe that if they make their case strongly enough, or even if they strike or threaten to do so (as have the miners and British Leyland employees) the bottomless pit will, somehow, be opened for them. We all know that the bottomless pit is not there and never has been.
Thus it is essential that illusions should be dispelled for all time, but this can be done only by a Government who constantly hammer away at the need for everyone, but everyone, to balance their books and to take responsibiliity for their actions. If this appears to be hard-hearted to those who do not understand it, perhaps they might accept that it is none the less essential if the standards of welfare for the helpless and under-privileged are to survive and if equal opportunity, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, is to be created for all.
I now turn to and welcome the provision for the abolition of the Greater London Council and the metropolitan county councils. I regret that I shall be unable to take part in next week's debate. Therefore I shall mention the subject briefly on this occasion. I accept that when these large organisations were created a good theoretical argument could be made for the extra, super-layer of government. I fear that this took place in a period when management consultants were producing big ideas for big projects and when a great deal of theory was in the air. However, it would be fair to say that experience has shown that these large organisations add unnecessarily to the expense of local government. What is more important, they do not increase the exercise of democratic control over those activities which Parliament has delegated to local government.
Also, because these organisations are big, in terms of the number of electors for whom they are responsible, they are tempted to compete with central government rather than complement it—not only in matters which have been delegated by Parliament, but also in matters such as liaison with overseas-based terror movements

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which have not been so delegated. Such competition for control of the affairs of this country is, to say the least, damaging to the well-being of every citizen. I suggest that time has moved on and that these large local authorities have been proven to be more of an embarrassment to the country than a help to effective local government.
To turn briefly to another point, I welcome also the electoral law to cover overseas citizens—especially those within the European Community and the Commonwealth. Over the years, many friends of mine, particularly businesmen—and I am speaking, in the case of the Commonwealth, of the days when I was in the Navy—have asked "Why is it that you have a vote at home when you are overseas for a couple of years and we do not?" I have always thought that that was very ridiculous. In the European Community it is now, in a sense, even worse because our overseas representatives, if one can call them that, or our overseas members of the Commision do not get a vote—let alone businessmen. I think it is splendid that that situation is to be put right. It is also helpful that holidaymakers should not feel deprived or that they may not need to adjust their holidays to suit an election.
Finally, much as I welcome practically every proposal in the gracious Speech, there is one, which was mentioned by my noble friend the Minister, whose wisdom, and indeed fairness, I question. It is the proposed right of the parents of children educated at public expense to exempt their children from corporal punishment. It is potentially unfair because some children may be beaten and others not for the same offence. It is unwise because such punishment is an ideal deterrent against certain types of offence.
I was partly state educated in that my parents paid only half of the fees of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. The last time I was beaten was after that basic education, when I was a midshipman aged 18 in the fleet flag ship. My sin was to fail to call the flag captain to meet a very senior Royal Marine officer who was coming on board for breakfast. The beating was sufficiently unpleasant to make sure that I took the necessary care not to repeat that sort of offence ever again. But it was over quickly and it did me no lasting harm—at least, I do not think it did!
I hope that the Government will think again about proceeding with a Bill about such a matter, which is very pompously described in the gracious Speech, but which seems scarcely to justify primary legislation and indeed might be thought to be a waste of your Lordships' valuable time and that of another place. I hope that my noble friends in the Government will think again about that rather extraordinary piece of proposed legislation. But having said that, I wish them very well with all the other proposed legislation that is before us.
5.35 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I, too, welcome the return of my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek. Sitting beside him during his speech, I felt the vigour and the bitterness of what he had to say. I recall that a colleague of mine in another place once said that he was converted to socialism during a long illness from which he had never fully recovered. That cannot
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be the case with my noble friend. It is evident that he has recovered—so there must be some other explanation. I can only think that absence from the mellow influences of your Lordships' House has caused him to have a rather jaundiced view of life for the time being. Anyway, I am sure we are very glad to see him.
In his speech at the beginning of today's debate, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, gave a catalogue of the business we shall have to do during the coming Session. It was long. In some respects, it sounded tedious. It seemed to give unlimited opportunities for homework to those with a taste for it. All together, it seems as if we are likely to have a very hard time.
It appears to me that during the course of a Session of this kind occasions will arise when there will be differences of opinion between your Lordships' House and another place. In fact, we had the first indication of that from the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, who has already asked the Government to think again. No doubt there will be numerous occasions when the Government are asked to modify what they propose to do. It is with this in mind that I turn to the remarks made by the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council on Tuesday afternoon, to which my noble friend Lord Mishcon made reference towards the end of his speech.
It is worthy of some notice that the noble Viscount felt we should be admonished, or at least warned with a hand in a velvet glove, that if we push our views too far and too often it could on occasion be resented by the elected Members of another place. To me, this seems to be a matter of some constitutional importance—especially in view of the prospects of the forthcoming Session. It seems to me that with the threat of abolition from the Labour Opposition in another place, and now indications of restiveness on the Government side in another place, we shall soon have no friends there at all. I ask myself this question: why do we continue to hold this vulnerable position in the structure of our parliamentary system? Why are we so constantly challenged as to our legitimacy, as to our authority, and as to our wisdom?
If we are still on sufferance some 73 years after the Parliament Act 1911, then somebody must be responsible for that. It surely must be because the elected Members of another place have failed to find an agreed basis for the reform or the future of your Lordships' House. If we can fix the responsibility—as we surely can—upon politics, politicians and the other House for our present tenuous hold on our place in the parliamentary system, we are entitled to feel a little resentment, too. A lot of hard work is done here, and there is a good deal more to come. Surely, within the limitations, which are severely drawn, of the powers and scope of our activities, we should be respected for the views that we hold and the decisions we take.
I sincerely hope that we are not going to have little homilies every now and again with the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council saying, "Now be careful, your Lordships, not to arouse resentment in another place." I agree entirely with my noble friend that we have to conduct ourselves in our wisdom, and with a sense of propriety and integrity, to do our job as we think fit. The system permits of this. We are here to

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do that, and if we are no longer desired to be doing that it is up to someone to do something about it.
I see no reason at all for lowering our standards of diligence or our integrity to placate those who have the power, but not the will, either to reform themselves or to change the arrangements in your Lordships' House. Moreover, I should add this. The more fundamental weakness in our Parliamentary system is surely an electoral system which fails to produce a representative House of Commons and a representative Government. In my opinion that really is the greatest weakness of our Parliamentary system today. Our institutions, which I have always regarded with great respect and from time to time have had concern about, are losing respect and authority because they are not representative in our democracy. Steps are not taken to adjust institutions to the needs of the times because of the vested interests of those who serve in them.
The other point I wish to raise is not of constitutional importance but is of some significance from the point of view of parliamentary procedure. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is in his place because I want to raise a matter relating to the use of Private Members' Bills for important measures which come to your Lordships' House under the discipline of a timetable and conditions which make it difficult to give them proper attention. I refer to the Warnock Report. I am not going to deal with the recommendations made but only with what I hope can be a clear understanding about procedure. Recently the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, in introducing the debate on the Warnock Report, referred to the Government's consideration, already in progress, of the recommendations that that report contains. He said that the Government were hopeful of reaching conclusions in a reasonable time and that they were giving to the end of the year for an opportunity for public debate and discussion before the Government moved to a firmer conclusion upon the recommendations of that report. But the noble Lord said nothing about legislation and still less did he say who would introduce it if it was needful.
When I look back on the process of legislation on these sensitive moral issues I see the extent to which Governments have stood aside, or have been willing to be pushed aside, from acting upon them themselves. Governments have been willing to leave it to the Private Member's Bill and sometimes, although they had the intention of legislating themselves, they have seized the opportunity of a Private Member's Bill that happened to come out of the ballot pretty high up on the list. From the Obscene Publications Act 1955 right through capital punishment, homosexuality, contraception, abortion, marriage and divorce, to video recordings (which was a form of censorship of pornography) we have had three previous Acts of Parliament relating to pornography, none of which was a Government Bill. Is Warnock going to be a Government Bill or are the Government willing, or even anxious, to leave it to Private Member's Bill procedures?
I do not expect for one moment that the Government contemplate legislating on the Warnock Report in the present Session. If they are not going to reach conclusions until the early part of next year it is unlikely that they wish, or will be able, to introduce a
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Bill of acute difficulty, sensitivity and controversy late in the Session. What then is the programme on Warnock? What will happen if an honourable Member in another place comes out in the ballot and selects the whole, part or something to do with Warnock as a Private Member's Bill? Will the Government join in that, or will they insist that this is a matter on which the Government must retain legislative control? I should be glad to know what the answer is likely to be.
I want to mention just one or two absentees from the gracious Speech. I do not think I have heard anything about legislation on building societies in this Session. Is anything likely to come forward in this Session from the consideration that has been given to the future role and scope of activities of building societies? They are a very important part of national life today and of our financial institutions. It is important for us to know whether we need contemplate early, or rather later, attention being given to them.
Finally, your Lordships' House will be surprised if I do not draw attention to the fact that not a single word in the gracious Speech deals with the area and welfare of any species other than our own. This is an omission which in the past would have been no surprise whatever, but since animal care and protection has appeared in the manifestos of all the major political parties in the last two elections it is somewhat disappointing that nothing is said in the gracious Speech about work to be done in that particular field. At the very least the Government might have expressed a little regret that they have not yet been able to fulfil the pledge they made in 1979 to update the law on experiments on living animals
I am not complaining, because I know the reasons for the delay. European consideration of a convention in the Council of Europe has taken two years or more, and that is of considerable importance and has a bearing upon our own domestic position. But is there any certain assurance forthcoming that this legislation will be introduced in the 1985–86 Session, seven years after the pledge was given? I think that that is a reasonable time, even allowing for the Council of Europe to spend a long time on their own draft convention.
In some way I think I can repair the omission to any reference to animals in the gracious Speech by having a little one of my own. I propose on Tuesday to introduce a Bill to give added protection to badgers. This is a serious matter because the badger was made a protected animal in 1973 but immediately ran into tragic difficulties by being associated with bovine tuberculosis, and a process of extermination of the badger in some parts of the country has been going on ever since. But that is not all. Badger digging, badger baiting and the other horrible things done to animals are becoming a growing feature of life in the countryside. My Bill will be an attempt to give the badger a little more protection than it has already.
Finally, I refer to another aspect of animal welfare upon which action surely ought to begin, and that is slaughter. Behind the bloody curtain in the slaughterhouses probably some of the worst treatment of animals goes on. It is hidden from the public, but we have a report of the Farm Animal Welfare Council which surely is disturbing to all people who think that

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our slaughter arrangements and the humane treatment of animals in slaughterhouses leave our conscience with no undue worries. There is a lot wrong, and many recommendations are made by the Farm Animal Welfare Council. When the council made recommendations about the treatment of poultry and other table birds at the place of slaughter, it took four years to get legislation through in this last Session. I sincerely hope that we shall not have to wait four years for legislation on the slaughter of red meat animals.
We are awaiting another report. It is not before us now, but it will have to be dealt with when we get it. We expect it next year. It is a report on the conditions of so-called ritual slaughter, which is a grievous and controversial matter. But we must face it. However, for the time being we must concentrate on the report of the Farm Animal Welfare Council on our traditional slaughterhouses.
I hope I can have an assurance from the Government that legislation will not this time take four years and that they will press on with it. All the time we are waiting for changes in animal protection, the suffering, agony and abuse of animals continues. I sincerely hope that we can as far as possible shorten this. It is no surprise, I think, that with the present conditions of a wider appreciation of the relationship between man and the animal kingdom Members of another place get more letters and other representations about animals than about any other single matter. I conclude by saying that animals are on their way into politics, and with humans on their side they can become dangerous.
5.52 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, I resist the temptation to follow Lord Mottistone into a detailed description of the last occasion on which I myself was submitted to the indignity of corporal punishment—no doubt a well-deserved indignity. I resist the temptation not least because I do not think that I can assert with the same confidence as had he that none of my several idiosyncracies may not be attributable to this experience. I resist the temptation, too, to enter into the controversies which there have been between certain right reverend Prelates and members of Her Majesty's Government for rather different reasons.
I hope it is not just because I am getting older every day, but I feel that we have had a good debate. It has had its stimulating moments, more particularly when, not for the first time and not surprisingly, the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, joined issue with Lord Mishcon, to be followed by the dulcet tones which we all so much welcomed hearing again of Lord Davies of Leek. I thought myself, as I think my noble friend Lord Donaldson did, too, that Lord Boyd-Carpenter won on points. I am a little disappointed about that, because he always does, and I am always glad not to be speaking before him, I must confess.
The afternoon is wearing on, and it is difficult to find anything fresh to say or some new way of saying something which has already been said; but there is a matter on which, before I sit down, I should like to touch. I think it is of great importance, and it has been touched upon already. Your Lordships will remember
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much better than I what George Macaulay Trevelyan said in his History of England. Significantly enough it was published just a month or so before the General Strike of 1926. Writing of the English Parliament—and he meant the English and not the British Parliament—he said that it had no one man for its maker; no man made it; it simply grew. He went on:
"It was the natural outcome, through long centuries, of the common sense and the good nature of the English people, who have usually preferred committees to dictators, elections to street fighting and 'talking shops' to revolutionary tribunals".
Over these last 40 weeks throughout the coalfields of Britain common sense and good nature have gone out of the window a bit, have they not? Something faintly akin, and perhaps not radically different from, revolutionary tribunals have come to rule the roost. My point is this. There is not a single word in the gracious Speech about these circumstances, which have been discussed by others already. It is the social and political implications of the Government's approach to this dispute that I should like to touch upon.
It has often been said, of course, that the dispute is one of the most violent, divisive and costly catastrophes in our domestic scene for many years. It is a source of acute concern right across the nation. Indeed, press rumour has it—and, of course, I would not dream of discussing this matter—that Her Majesty herself is much concerned. There has also been the involvement of the leaders of various Churches, of course; yet there is not a word in the gracious Speech. I think the House is due a very careful explanation for this circumstance. There is not a word about how the Government propose to end this sorry business, or to try to end it; nor about how they propose to repair the damage to the social fabric of the nation.
The damage is attributable in large measure, if not indeed entirely, in my view—which not all of your Lordships will share—to what I see as the Governments incompetent handling of the matter. Why is there nothing said in the gracious Speech? Is there anything to hide? Are the Government afraid to tell us?
Up until recently the Government have made only one overt contribution to the issue. (I have said this before in this House, but I say it again because I feel like a famous Secretary of State for Scotland who was once asked to speak up in the House of Commons and who replied, "I am so sorry; I didn't know anyone was listening to me".) That contribution has been frequent ministerial rhetorical denunciations of mob rule. No one in his right mind would demur to the terms of these. But they become boring with repetition, and the Scargill-McGahey axis finds them utterly resistible. That is because Mr. Scargill and Mr. McGahey are accomplished demagogues and they are not unskilled in rhetorical denunciation, as Mr. Scargill's rapturous welcome at the Labour Party conference so graphically demonstrated—I am sure to the grave embarrassement of many of their Lordships on the Labour Front Bench of this House.
So while Ministers made speeches, Mr. MacGregor and the police carried the can. I share the admiration of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for the way that the police have dealt with this situation. It must have been most distasteful to them, and it is becoming

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more distasteful every day. What are the Government going to do to bring it to an end? I am not as well informed as some of your Lordships as to Mr. MacGregor's background, but I have some considerable sympathy with him and the situation in which the Government have left him, as it were, unsupported except by rhetorical speeches which are practically meaningless because they have been repeated so often.
In demanding, as I think there ought to have been long ago, a political initiative, I am not in any way suggesting that the Government should have compromised with Mr. Scargill. Appeasement can be a sensible policy, and so can compromise, too. But compromise makes sense only if the people with whom you are compromising are agreed with you on fundamentals and the Scargill-McGahey axis does not of course agree with parliamentary democracy. It is not concerned to promote stability in our political system: it is concerned to promote instability. I am not suggesting as a political initiative beer and buns with the boys at 10 Downing Street. But there have been opportunities for constructive political initiatives which have been missed. Why have they been missed? Why have they not been taken?
Someone said the other day that they thought that in some respects this was the worst Government that we have had since 1956.I must say that I felt that that was a bit unfair to the Government of 1956.I looked back through history to see whether I could stumble on a Government whose bungling (as I see it in this particular matter) bore some of the hallmarks of the present Government's handling of this affair. By chance—and I finish where I began—I found the answer in the work of George Macaulay Trevelyan. I am sure your Lordships remember so much better than I what he said about King John at the time of Magna Carta. After commenting on his unpleasant nature, he conceded that he showed,
"pertinacity and technical ingenuity in pursuit of his designs",
but added in effect that he was utterly lacking in any broad political strategy, foresight or vision. I should think, judging from their handling of this matter, that it is a similar lack with which history will indeed indict this Government.
6.4 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, we all accept that the provisions of the gracious Speech appeared in the national press before it was made, and it was well publicised. But one omission from the gracious Speech surprised me very much. The National Health Service, now in severe difficulties as a result of Government policy, is completely ignored. Of course I must make the proviso that in point of fact there are in the gracious Speech the words,
"Other measures will be laid before you,"
but from previous parliamentary experience I have always held that that phrase has some sinister implication.
In the National Health Service, waiting lists continue to grow. In London the situation is acute, with waiting lists of 115,000 people facing long delays for treatment and for a bed, and in acute cases nearly 10,000 people are waiting. This is in London alone
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and does not include Greater London and the South-East.
The main reason for this situation is lack of adequate finance. For far too long the South-East has been deprived of adequate finance in order to assist other areas. Hospital closures, at the same time, have not helped. Like many other people in this House and elsewhere, I had hoped that the welcome reorganisation of the National Health Service would provide economies in administration which would in turn advance patient treatment and care. But this has not happened.
I must, in passing, say that at least there are some pluses. Recently I was at the official opening of a large extension to my local maternity unit. As a result of the extension the average number of births there per annum of 2,000 will next year increase to 3,000. But while there has been this welcome addition to the maternity service, the well-loved mothers and babies hospital at Woolwich has been closed and, unfortunately, many expectant mothers will face great difficulty in getting public transport to reach the alternative hospital that will now provide care. So there is a plus in one case, but a very definite minus in the other.
Now the Government are exerting pressure for the privatisation—what a horrible word—of ancillary services such as cleaning, laundry and catering. Whether this will effect financial savings is open to doubt, but so far as domestic and catering services are concerned, patient care will suffer because domestic workers in hospitals are, to a great extent, auxiliary nurses. They are part of the hospital team, showing care and concern for patients. Those of us who have had experience in these matters know that there is certainly a degree of personal relationship as a result. I would say, without fear or favour, that contractors who take over these contracts have no intimate or personal relationship.
Recently I was speaking to a lady who has faithfully served the Health Service for 14 years and who has given great devotion to her duties in charge of domestics. Next year she faces redundancy and her job will be taken over by some unnamed contractor.
Housing is another omission from the gracious Speech. I think it is a glaring omission, for the situation is extremely serious, with so many thousands of substandard and derelict properties in need of modernisation standing empty. Stocks of houses have been depleted—particularly council houses—due to Government policy of sales and cuts in local authority building. I am not against home ownership, but for the newly married or those in inadequate accommodation the only answer is a mortgage on inflated property values, with high interest rates.
For families on low income or where the breadwinner is unemployed, it is indeed a prospect of despair. With so much unemployment and so much need existing, it is astonishing that the Government persist in the restriction of this vital field. Reducing the rate of inflation is a welcome and desirable objective of any government but not at the expense of the unemployed and those with social needs. That is the effect of the Government's monetary policy—the creation of two societies, the "haves" and the "have-nots".

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On education, I note that the Government, apart from exemption of caning rights, propose to continue to raise educational standards. I am not aware that they have done so. My noble friend Lord Mishcon has already referred to the report of HM Inspector on standards of education in Norfolk, not a very progressive authority in the past, anyway. Lack of books, poor standards of accommodation and many other factors have been clearly stated as resulting from financial stringency. To make do financially, local authorities are compelled to close schools and to postpone maintenance, which in itself is not necessarily sound financial policy. The longer that you postpone maintenance, the greater the cost to public funds.
The falling birth rate is the normal excuse advanced for closure of schools and redundant teachers. This is an act of immediate expendiency, not necessarily with the future in mind. I give an example. In my area of Bexley, a primary and junior school has been closed and the land sold for private building. And somewhat expensive new houses are now emerging. Opposite the site is a children's home covering several acres which it is proposed should be closed and the land disposed of, no doubt for development. Within a measurable period of time, it is reasonable to assume that the extra private housing development will mean more young children needing a school in the very area where a school has been disposed of for private housing development. That seems to me to be utter nonsense and to show a lack of foresight for the future.
In many areas, valuable courses such as music have had to be curtailed or dropped. Teachers are frustrated beyond belief in striving to maintain standards in a situation of make do and mend and patching up the system. I know full well what that means because my daughter happens to be a deputy head. She is unmarried and lives at home, which means that we have the backlash of frustration when she gets home from school. So the Government have not raised educational standards. Their policies have, in fact, reduced them.
Youth training schemes for unemployed school leavers serve a useful purpose, particularly if jobs are available for the lads to go to afterwards. Surely, however, our educational system should be, and must be, geared to provide modern technical training for young people to leave school prepared and equipped to meet the needs of the new technology in industry. The provision of training courses is an expedient at the present time to reduce the number of people who are unemployed. It does not mean that after training they will get a job. It is the problem not only of training but also of the provision of new work that has to be faced.
To be concerned about unemployment is not enough. Action is very urgently needed. It so happens that I can speak very fully about what it means to be unemployed. I first experienced long-term unemployment in my late teenage years. The memory of that soul destroying experience, the feeling of despair and of, yes, degradation still remains like a scar. I made my maiden speech in another place, actually a few feet from where I am standing now, on 7th February 1946—nearly 40 years ago—on the Second Reading of the National Insurance Bill
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introduced by a Government which was the most socially revolutionary of its kind and which set up a magnificent record of achievement now being rapidly undermined by this Government.
In that speech—I have a copy of it here—I referred to an experience I had of being asked by my local vicar to visit a young man whom he had helped a little financially. The young man had problems about rates and Heaven knows what else. I went to see him. He was newly married, buying a house on mortgage and furniture on the hire purchase system. The couple also had a young baby. When I saw him, he was just a trembling creature. His wife was obviously suffering from under-nourishment and the child was ill upstairs. He was a pitiful wreck. His self-confidence had been completely destroyed because he had no work. He had lost his job because of a financial crisis. He was redundant. That happened before the National Insurance system came into force. There is now some provision. But the moral effect on people, particularly young people, of unemployment is very serious. It affects their outlook and their life. It is something that we have to face.
That was the situation that I saw and experienced personally over 40 years ago. We are back to square one today. If anything, the situation is worse. We live in a modern technological age capable of advancing living standards and of creating wellbeing with increased leisure. Yet we have put the clock back. Sympathy is not enough; action is needed. Resources should be put at once into an extensive programme of public works: house building, new houses and the restoration of old properties, roads, schools, maintenance and improvements to the environment, parks and open spaces, communications by rail and road and many other fields. This is not a waste of public money; it is an investment—an investment in social values providing employment and enhancing family life. The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, may smile. He is an astute businessman, very wise in the methods of investment, but he invests for cash return. I am talking about investment for social return and a better standard of life for people. It is an investment in social values, providing employment and enhancing family life. Make no mistake, you can pay lip service to the problem, but unemployment is threatening family life.
Family life today is not what it was some years ago, and the nation is lacking for it. Not only that, but it puts marriage under strain and, let us face it, leads to an increase in petty crime. A great many of the problems that we face today in that field are due to the fact that youths have nowhere to go and nothing to do. As for the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, no, Satan finds work for idle hands to do. That is a lesson that we have to bear in mind. This is a cancer in our society which calls for immediate and ruthless surgery.
In conclusion, I should like to say that I agree completely with my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby that this House faces great responsibility in the new Session and that we must, without fear or favour, play our part in giving close and impartial attention to the very important legislation coming before us. We face great responsibility; we must carry it out and, in so doing, justify the existence of this Chamber.
6.21 p.m.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, in general I welcome the gracious Speech. It mentions some quite important measures other than those which have been referred to in your Lordships' House this afternoon and this evening. I refer to the proposals in the gracious Speech to deregulate the cinematograph industry. British films have earned a great deal of finance in the export market, and I think that these measures—of course, we can judge them only when we see the Bill concerned—will give a great deal of incentive to our film producers, technicians and actors, and hopefully will mean that some of our cinemas which have been closed will be reopened and, possibily, that new ones will be opened. These are measures to be welcomed.
The other measure which I welcome is the one on control of pesticides. This is very important for the environment. Crop spraying is, of course, essential, but in the wrong hands these substances can be very dangerous. We have all read of instances of this. I believe that the most important aspect of this measure, which I am very glad to see is going to be introduced first into your Lordships' House before going to the other place, is that dealing with the importation of crop sprays and other insecticides and substances which can be potentially lethal. I do not know how much is imported at present, and I do not think the debate on the gracious Speech is necessarily an occasion on which to query this; but it is an important factor. When this very important Bill comes up, no doubt this will be a vital debating point. Clearly there are instances where crop sprays and other ingredients which have been imported have not fulfilled the appropriate regulations. The other vitally important thing here is suitable and clear labelling, because if these substances get into the wrong hands they can be lethal.
Mention has been made of the proposals to abolish the Greater London Council. I consider that the enabling Bill—I must say this—was inadequately drawn until it was revised. Here I follow to some extent the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, with whom I seldom agree; and this relates particularly to his remarks about Private Members' Bills. But I believe this is a measure which will have to have the very closest scrutiny in your Lordships' House. I will say no more than that now because clearly it is going to have a very long passage through the other place. Again, we shall want to see not only the important parts of the Bill but also what is in the small print. This is a very important measure, a very controversial measure, and I hope that this time the Government will get the thing rather more right than, if I may say so, the enabling Bill, particularly in its early stages, sought to do.
There are two measures which I am sorry to see are not in the gracious Speech. The first concerns the construction industry—and I declare a small interest as a non-executive director of a civil engineering company. Small civil engineering and construction companies are having very difficult times indeed these days. Of course, we have to face market forces; if the orders are not there one cannot expect these companies to be in the situations in which we should like to see them. Without necessarily wishing to knock direct labour, I should like to say that I believe some
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of the direct labour organisations are having a deleterious effect on some of the construction industry concerns. It is a very important industry in this country. We have some admirable people working in the industry. I am not necessarily asking the Government to provide financial aid—I do not think that is what is wanted—but it would be helpful if the PSA and other bodies could employ more construction companies, particularly the smaller ones.
I follow to some extent what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said about the health service. I do not agree with all his views, because I believe that this Government have spent a great deal on the health service and are continuing to do so. There is one question which I should like to put to the Government—and I know it is the subject of a Starred Question to be asked soon. The future of the Griffiths Report is a matter of great importance. This report has been in operation for a long time. The aspect of the managerial services in the health service is also very important.
There is a particular need for some of our long-stay hospitals to be improved. Much has been done, including a lot of rebuilding, but too many of our long-stay hospitals are rather soulless, with long corridors and a lack of any real communication with the patients. This is in no way a reflection on the staffs of these hospitals; that needs to be made absolutely clear. Again, without any extra money necessarily being provided, I believe the funds are there already for more to be done, particularly for the long-stay hospitals. People are in general hospitals for only a relatively short time, but long-stay hospitals are home for many people.
I believe, too, that the provision of more kidney machines is necessary. Again, this is an investment, because the more that people, particularly those who are working, can be put on a kidney machine the less time they are going to spend off work, depending, of course, on the extent of the infection to the kidney. Here, again, there is a most important issue at stake.
We are in for a very busy Session. There is much about the gracious Speech that is imaginative. There are omissions: but the final words in the gracious Speech may well repair that situation.
6.30 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I had intended to devote my ration of time to mental offenders, but there is a half sentence in the gracious Speech which I cannot pass over in total silence, although others have referred to it, and I am sure that my noble and learned Leader of the day—Lord Elwyn-Jones—will deal with it very comprehensively later. But in the gracious Speech there is a proposal:
"to enable the Attorney General to refer Crown Court sentences for the opinion of the Court of Appeal".
That strikes a chill into the hearts of some of us who were under the impression that our sentences in this country were generally understood to be too long, especially sentences passed by the Crown Courts. That appeared to be the attitude of the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw—and I mentioned to his office today that I might be referring to him. Anyway, that would seem to have been his auitude in the past and he has

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made attempts to persuade the judges to shorten sentences. However, that is the proposal and no doubt I and others will return to it later.
I must just quote what The Times had to say. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will soon put The Times right, but he cannot put me right altogether this time—
The Lord Chancellor: No, my Lords, I cannot.
The Earl of Longford:—because I am only quoting The Times. The Times, on 7th November, said:
"The Government is to go ahead with legislation to enable the Attorney General to refer over-lenient sentences"—
that is The Times' word, of course—
"to the Court of Appeal in spite of strong opposition from the judiciary".
It then goes on to spell out the nature of that opposition. Therefore, so far as we can gather from The Times there is strong opposition from the judiciary to this proposal. But I am not going to deal with it further this afternoon because I know that my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones will take it on.
When it comes to mental offenders, I would take as a text—it is rather a long text but still it is a text—a quotation from the report of the Inspector General of Prisons. The Inspector General's report said:
"Prison medical officers have frequently told us that managing mentally ill offenders was the hardest part of their duties. Many Governors expressed similar views. There may be room for argument over the number of such offenders who would be better cared for in a mental hospital"—
now comes the punch line—
"but there can be no doubt that many"—
that means many mentally ill offenders—
"are inappropriately confined to prison".
If that is the view of the Inspector General, I am bound to ask the Government—and I realise that it is the province of Lord Elton's department, but the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be replying—whether or not the Government agree with the Inspector General that many mentally ill offenders at the present time are "inappropriately confined to prison" and, if so, what steps are the Government taking to rectify this very unpleasant position? Those are two questions of which notice has been given.
The subject can be looked at in a number of ways. One can look at it in administrative terms or regard it as a human, psychological or ethical problem. But if we consider it in administrative terms, I recall that on 4th July I opened a debate in this House about the establishment of regional secure units. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, who speaks with a kind of unique authority on this particular matter—as do one or two others—because he was involved in the setting up of the original Butler Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders, pointed out that this idea had been mooted as long ago as 1960 and that when the Butler Report came out in the 1970s the plan was to set up secure units to provide 2,000 beds. I gave notice to Lord Elton's office that I would like to know how far we have progressed. We are four months
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further on from July, and we were told that things were happening then.
Therefore, I should like to ask the Government: how far have we now got in November, as compared with July, towards the target which was originally set of 2,000 beds? That, again, is a matter into which we should perhaps go at greater length on another occasion, but it is certainly a matter that must be raised.
The administrative question is hard enough in political and economic terms, but it is not intellectually a very difficult problem. What is difficult is to decide how a mental offender should be treated even if we have all the resources in the world, which of course we are not in the least likely to have. Mental offenders fall in various categories. I know one mental offender who was sent to Broadmoor. He has done wonderful work since then and he set up the Matthew Trust to help such people. In fact, he has in my eyes done more for mental health than anyone else within my acquaintance. That is one type of mental offender.
On the other hand, I shall concentrate by way of illustration—but I am not asking for a detailed reply about this individual case—on someone well known, by name, at any rate, to the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I am referring to someone whom I have visited for 15 years in various prisons and once a month during the last year. This prisoner has been in prison altogether for 19 years. He was convicted of horrific crimes and I am not in any way suggesting that he was wrongly convicted. The question is: what should be done with him now?
As long ago as 1971 the Home Office psychiatrist, the late Dr. Peter Scott, persuaded the late Mr. Reginald Maudling, then Home Secretary, that this particular man ought to go to Broadmoor or some such place. The Home Office tried desperately hard to get him to Broadmoor, but the Ministry of Health refused to have him. That was well understood at the time. More recently another Home Office psychiatrist came and examined him very thoroughly over a period of about two years. The Home Office were more liberal than usual and they were kind enough to let me see a copy of the report. There is no doubt about it that this particular Home Office psychiatrist once again said that this man ought to go to a special hospital. But there is no question of him being in a special hospital; he is still in prison and in a most frightful state.
Your Lordships do not have to take my word for it. There is an eminent man, whose name I could supply if necessary, who visited him for many years when he was in Wormwood Scrubs. When this eminent man saw him the other day in his present prison he was horrified and could not believe that he was the same man. His weight was down from 13 stone to 8 stone. He could hardly speak; indeed, he speaks with great difficulty. When I told him at the beginning of the interview that I would be taking up the matter with one of the Ministers in the near future, he had forgotten what I had said long before the end of the interview. That is the state in which he now finds himself.
Thirteen years ago that man was recommended for Broadmoor by the best psychiatrist that the Home

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Office could find. I am not going to pursue that matter further except to quote one sentence from the letter which has been sent to this gentleman's solicitor, which runs as follows:
"The doctor"—
I will not give the doctor's name but he is referring to the doctor in question—
"does not consider that this prisoner's mental illness is treatable within the terms of Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983 and, therefore, there is no power to transfer him to a special hospital".
Again I shall not pursue that particular case now except to place the problem by this case before the House. Here we have a man in wretched health. We are told that there is nothing wrong with him organically, but he is in a most appalling state and the psychiatrists who really know about him and who have gone into his case thoroughly—the only two who have ever done so—have recommended Broadmoor. However, he is kept in prison and we are told that he could not be treated. Yet the view of the psychiatrists I have quoted was that he could be treated. So we have these problems which will exist whatever resources are made available. I think that the House should be aware of them because in my view they are some of the most difficult problems.
Indeed, there is no good my pretending that I think this case is in any way being well handled. However, I should like to put one question to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, but I gave notice of it to Lord Elton's office. Is it the case that no prisoner can be transferred on mental grounds to a special hospital, or to one of the mental institutions, unless the hospital in question or the higher authorities in the Ministry of Health agree? Do the health authorities have a veto in this case? Even if the Home Office want to transfer a prisoner as happened once before, the department of health can stop them. I gave notice of that question and I hope that it can be answered. I have spoken for 10 minutes, which is as long as I meant to speak. This is a very grave and a very complicated question, and I shall return to it again in the near future.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, there is no mention in the gracious Speech of social policy, and this is not perhaps surprising if there is no legislation in this field on the way, unless perhaps something is to come forward in the other measures. However, this does not excuse the Government for their lack of interest in what my noble and learned friend Lord Wilson of Langside has called the "social fabric". Indeed, the absence of concern for the grievous social problems facing the nation is what emerges so signally if one reads between the lines of the gracious Speech.
One understands, of course, that the word "social" is not popular with the Government. One recalls the resistance of the wartime coalition to Beveridge's proposed name for his scheme, which he wanted to call "social insurance"; the House of Commons jibbed at that so it became "national insurance". "National" has always been a more popular word than "social" in this country, but you cannot have a nation without social cohesion, and this is something that our nationalist and patriotic Government have failed to realise. They cannot wish away the social dimension
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because it is all around them. Social security, to a considerable extent as a result of their own policies is running away with an increasing proportion of the budget, and now the Government have to contend with a Social Democratic Party with a real interest in deriving social benefits from a non-monopolistic market economy.
There are many social concerns which have very little to do with socialism, but the Government do not want to know about them. Yet even this Government would not deny that man lives in society—and that includes British Tories. In fact, some Tories not in the Government go further and state their fears about the disintegration of that society if current policies are pursued.
I do not want to make a long speech or a detailed speech, but I think it is fair to give the Government advance notice—because we are still a fair assembly, whatever our differences of opinion—of some of the main points on which we shall be pursuing them during the Session of Parliament inaugurated by this debate. Let me start with a few statistics and indicators. The most important are demographic. Over the 20-year period 1981 to 2001 the total population of this country is expected to rise by less than 4 per cent., but over the same period the proportion of young children will have risen by 17 per cent. and old people by 30 per cent. The latter figure masks a decline of those between the ages of 65 and 75, but a sharp rise of those over the age of 75 and, indeed, of those over 90.
Let us look first at the elderly end of the spectrum, with which I shall include the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped, because these three groups together form the priority groups identified in 1981 in the Government's paper on Care in the Community. Your Lordships will have heard me speak before about the direct conflict between the lip-service paid by the Government to the Care in the Community concept and the crippling effects of their policies towards local government on its implementation or, for that matter, on its feasibility at all.
I am not alone in my criticism of the Government in this field. Earlier this year the British Medical Association passed a motion, part of which read as follows:
"that this conference deplores the transfer of patients into the community without adequate planning and provision; it instructs the GMSC to negotiate additional resources for community care as a matter of urgency…"
I do not know what success the GMSC has had with the Government. Perhaps we shall hear something when the Government publish their Green Paper on primary care, and possibly not. Because when people are extruded from health service beds they are outwith the health authorities' reach, except where the hard-pressed community health service can reach them; yet in many cases they are not within the reach of the impoverished social service departments. The Government really must face the facts. They may talk of joint financing arrangements between the NHS and the social services departments, but they know perfectly well that even if NHS funds are available to start the ball rolling, rate-capping, or the fear of it, will deter many local authorities from entering into such commitments.

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To what extent will National Health funds be available? Will the health authorities just hand over the proceeds of the sales of old hospitals when they naturally want to retain them in view of the cash and manpower limitations placed upon them? I very much doubt it. Therefore, will the Government not recognise that they will either have to compensate health authorities for that money or provide new money for community care, at any rate in the transitional period?
If Care in the Community is to have any hope of success, the role of the carer is crucial. According to the official census figures, 23 per cent. of our 10 million old-age pensioners are cared for by relatives or friends as against only 6 per cent. in institutional care. With the numbers of the elderly increasing by 2 per cent. per annum and the numbers of geriatric beds declining—10,000 beds have been lost since 1979—there will inevitably be more and more individual carers, often sacrificing their own careers and jobs, who at present receive virtually no back-up, yet who are saving the state between £90 and £200 per week in residential care or in the cost of a geriatric bed.
It really is time that the Government considered the idea of a carer's benefit, as proposed by my party and mentioned, I think, by my noble friend Lord Banks, or at the very least the wider provision of certain services which are not prohibitively expensive but which will make all the difference between a tolerable life for carers and sheer hell. I refer in particular to laundry services for incontinent patients living at home and temporary places in hospitals for such elderly folk in order to give their caring relatives a break from their year-in year-out commitment. What about the GP and community and cottage hospitals now being closed down at a rate of knots? Could they not fulfil this function?
Carers often soldier on because residential care on offer is below an acceptable standard for their loved ones, but that is where many of our elderly will end up. Yet the inspection of mushrooming private residential homes is totally inadequate, and there is mounting evidence that the sums paid out by the social service departments are not matched by quality or accountability. Will the noble and learned Lord not agree that the one-off £100 registration fee and the £10 annual fee per bed are quite inadequate to fund a proper inspection service? What will the Government do about this? We have no doctrinal antipathy to private services, but why should they be sacrosanct from inspection?
I turn to the mentally ill and handicapped. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, in particular, will recall the new responsibilities placed on social workers by the Mental Health Act among all their other statutory duties. The Act required an exam to be passed, but provided no funds to enable training. The exam was boycotted by NALGO, and as a result some social workers in this field are qualified and some are not. Can the noble and learned Lord tell us whether the Government are satisfied with the present position and, if not, what action they have in mind?
What about the regional secure units, only one of which I understand is fully operational? I hope that the
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Government will be able to tell us that that programme will receive a further impetus as a result of the appalling revelation only the other day that a mentally defective arsonist was sentenced to life imprisonment for want of anywhere else to stow her away. This I think is a point analogous to those that have been made by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. Here I quote again from the BMA's recent conference motion:
"that this meeting deplores the continued inability of the mental health and social services to meet the needs of those disadvantaged patients who can obtain the shelter, care and treatment they require only from the penal system, and calls upon the DHSS for action to remedy this situation".
Later on they say:
"that this meeting urges that the closure of large mental hospitals should not occur in the absence of adequate alternative facilities."
What have the Government to say to that?
I had wanted to say something about children, but I do not want to abuse the patience of the House at this time of night so I shall restrict myself to two questions. In 1981–82 £370 million was spent by the social services department in the exercise of their responsibilities for children in care. Most of it was spent on residential homes, hostels and boarding out. Should not more be done to prevent the necessity of care in the first place? This is what was suggested by the Short Report, which was published in March 1984 and, in fact, the Government appear to agree with it. They say in paragraph 8 of their reply:
"The Government shares the committee's views on the importance of prevention and is giving particular attention to daycare for young children."
But in Section 11 of their reply that is largely negated by the overriding importance which the Government attach to continuing restriction on public expenditure. On most recommendations here the Government have simply passed the buck to the local authorities, who they know will be unable to cope. Accepting recommendations and failing to provide resources is not a consistent stance. Will the Government come clean on this and say what action, if any, they propose to take in this Session of Parliament?
The next point on children concerns the under-fives. Recent research indicates the great importance of nursery education in run-down inner and city fringe areas. Playgroups and toddler groups may well be desirable developments in middle-class suburbs, but they are clearly not a solution for this problem across the country. Will the Government make a serious commitment to nursery education in the conurbations? If not, they will have a great body of very determined parents of young children to contend with. I know that because I have been to some of their meetings.
I have said nothing so far about the voluntary services, and I am not going to say much because the question had a good airing in the debate initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, on 22nd October. In that debate I asked the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, how we should interpret Section 3(9) of the Rates Act, which was introduced to alleviate the squeeze on local authority grants to genuine charities in the social services field.
The noble Lord undertook to write to me, and I have spoken to his office. He confirms that I shall be

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hearing from the Department of the Environment. But I want to put on record again that this is a matter of real concern. In effect, the trigger mechanism, Section 3(9), works only if the local authority applies for redetermination to the Secretary of State, and this year, on my information, only one authority has made such an application. Therefore, this alleviating subsection which was introduced to help protect local authority grants to genuine charities seems to me to be most unlikely to work.
Probably the best thing is to watch this closely for the first year, and if it proves inoperable or ineffective some of us may want to promote an amending Bill to which we hope the Government might be sympathetic. It was certainly very much the mood of the House during the discussion on the Rates Bill that genuine voluntary organisations should be helped to continue to provide their services to the community.
Finally, if all this sounds like niggling special pleading for certain groups or interests I would remind your Lordships that these people—the elderly, the young, the sick, the disabled—make up half, if not more than half, of our society. Self-help is an admirable concept; nobody denies it. We are all individuals with huge capacities for facing adverse circumstances and improving on them, and for cultivating the most marvellous blossoms in the most unpromising soil. That is the essence of our humanity.
But in an advanced industrial society you cannot get round the fact that money, not barter, is the means of exchange, and that large, cohesive, self-sufficient families are no longer the basic units of the social system. When people are under age, over age, in poor health or out of work, it is virtually impossible for them to fend for themselves in the four-square Robinson Crusoe way that the present Government expect of them. If you live in a peasant sociey you may be able to go out and gather twigs for a fire. In central London you certainly cannot, so you have to pay the standing charges to the electricity and gas boards, with which (because you are no longer an earner) you may well need help.
We might go so far as accusing a Government which pride themselves on good housekeeping of bad housekeeping, because housekeepers, by definition, take care of all the members of the household. And we might go even further than that and accuse the Government of negligence where they neglect these responsibilities. If the noble and learned Lord replies that all this is beyond a government's competence, I hardly need to remind him of all people that the feudal system fell when the Crown became the champion of the people against the powerful vested interests of those times; and the powers of the Crown are now vested in Her Majesty's Government, whose duty is to the whole people. It is our duty in Parliament to ensure that they never forget this. I do not think that the noble and learned Lord will dissent from this, and I suspect that it is a view that he may from time to time urge on his colleagues in Cabinet. If he does, I only hope that it does not fall on deaf ears.
6.54 p.m.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I should like to begin by expressing my personal pleasure, and I am sure that of the whole House, at having the presence here
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throughout the debate today of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton. He honoured the House similarly in the debate yesterday on foreign affairs, and it is most gratifying to learn that he is to make his maiden speech in this House next Tuesday. We wait with impatience to hear him. It was my privilege to be on opposite sides of the House to the noble Earl over the course of many years when he was a Minister and I represented West Ham. His kindness at all times in talking about the problems of my constituents was, if I may say so, magnificent.
The debate that we have heard today—a serious and, I hope, valuable debate—arises from yet another flood of Bills and of legislation. I am quite sure that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor cannot be held personally responsible, because he has always fulminated against a lot of new legislation. But here it is, we face it again. We shall of course be examining all this legislation with the greatest care. We shall, when we think it right to do so, seek to amend and improve it, as we did effectively in the last Session—and often doing so right across party lines.
I feel sure that when on the first day of the debate on the Queen's Speech the noble Viscount said, as my noble friend Lord Houghton has reminded us,
"I feel that your Lordships will understand me when I say that the views of this House, if they are pushed too far and too often could on occasion be resented by the elected Members of another place", [Official Report; 6/11/84, col. 17.]
he was in no way seeking to restrict the right of this House to scrutinise and to amend Government Bills if that should be the will of this House. That Members of another place might resent it, this we understand. We resented it when, in another place, we were at the receiving end.
The problem of dealing with the Queen's Speech is that it contains references to many Bills whose content we do not yet know. When he opened the home and social affairs debate on the Address on 28th June last year, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said at column 128 that he would suppose that,
"it is a wholesome and civilising practice … to have a general debate at the beginning of each new Session of Parliament on general topics contained … in the gracious Speech."
How wholesome and civilising it is depends, I suppose, on the contents of the Queen's Speech.
Here we are moving to some extent in the unknown. For instance, we await with impatience, because it may affect the social scene in a great many ways, the outcome of the deliberations of the Star Chamber, of which the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, is the unlikely head. Perhaps I should warn him as to what happened last time when the Star Chamber overplayed its hand. He has been warned; but we await to hear the further and better particulars of a great deal of what is to be postponed before we can pass judgment upon it.
However, sins of omission are already all too apparent. In particular, it seems to us—and some of my noble friends have mentioned this already—that the proposals in the Speech give no sign of determination or commitment to deal with issues which are threatening, as I fear, the very stability of our society. The gravest is, as noble Lords have said, unemployment. That will be considered in detail in our debate on Wednesday; but it is a stark fact that the

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unemployment level in this country now is the highest in our history, and, what is more disturbing, it seems certain to rise to still greater heights. It is a shaming condemnation of failure and, if I may say so, in particular of the failure of the Government.
I turn to unemployment in this debate this day because of its relevance to the problems of law and order, for unemployment is an important factor in the impact of crime and clearly cannot be dissociated from it. The incidence of the crime was stated in a powerful way by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, when he told the House that this country has the highest overall crime rate in Europe for housebreaking, robbery and assault. My noble friend Lady Phillips elaborated the extent of crime that has to be faced.
One of the most striking omissions from the Queen's Speech is any reference to the challenge of crime or to the problems which its seriousness has created. It is true that there is a reference to the proposal that a national prosecution service, independent of the police, is to be introduced in England and Wales. My noble friend Lord Mishcon has broadly welcomed the proposal. So do I, but we shall have to reserve judgment on the detail of what is proposed.
Then, in the same sentence referring to that there is the reference to a Bill,
"to enable the Attorney General to refer Crown Court sentences for the opinion of the Court of Appeal".
My noble friend Lord Longford drew attention to that. Is it the case that it is only sentences which are too lenient that are to be referred, or is it possible that sentences which are far too severe might also be referred for the Court's consideration?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I shall almost certainly forget this point that the noble and learned Lord has made if I do not answer it now, briefly. He is, of course, aware that excessively severe sentences are already the subject of applications for leave to appeal and get legal aid. The Court of Appeal at the moment does not have the power to deal with too lenient sentences. He will know, as I know, that of, say, 20 complaints about sentencing that we receive in our morning post, probably more than 15 complain of excessive leniency. One must have consistency in sentencing and the absence of this power of reference without causing double jeopardy has caused both the Home Secretary and myself a good deal of anxiety.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I am most grateful for that intervention from the noble and learned Lord. What is important is that one should retain a sense of balance in the approach to this matter. The noble and learned Lord is quite correct that the facilities and availability of the Court of Appeal and, if I may say so, even occasionally of this noble House, come in usefully to rectify severity of sentence.
But the proposed Bill, prima facie at any rate, looks like containing an important change in the role of the prosecution in the field of sentencing. As my noble friend Lord Longford has indicated, it is significant that in the report on a seminar attended by 74 judges and recorders in January this year it is stated that there was a strong feeling against giving the prosecution the
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right to appeal against sentences and against the Attorney-General having the power to refer sentences. In our system sentencing is the responsibility of the judge who has heard the evidence and is aware of the individual accused's circumstances. It would be a serious innovation to depart from that principle, often in the face of ill-informed clamour.
Therefore, while I noted with some satisfaction the assurances of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his admirable canter through the forthcoming Bill at the beginning of the debate, I also noted, with some relief, that we shall examine its proposals with very great care because I think the tradition of the practice of the prosecution in regard to sentencing is a very fine one.
Frankly, I think there are far more pressing matters of concern in the penal scene than that. One is the condition of prisoners and the state of the prisons. One of our unenviable records is that we have more prisoners in prison per head of population than any country in Western Europe. That is not a proud record. Early this year there were 44,000 prisoners in our prisons. If I may say so to the noble Lord who spoke against parole (namely Lord Boyd-Carpenter), the Home Secretary very rightly extended the power of parole to short-term prisoners and since 1 st July that has resulted in the release of 2,000 prisoners. Parole is not something embarked upon lightly. There is a parole board report that goes carefully into this and makes as much judgment of this matter as any human ingenuity or knowledge can direct. There is nothing reckless about the parole process. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, the effect generally has been wholly beneficial both to the prisoners themselves and in reducing the appalling pressure upon prisons.
On present trends I understand that there are likely to be about 47,000 prisoners by 1990. This, again, will mean overcrowding in bad prison conditions, even if, in the meantime (as we are glad to note to be the case) new prisons are to be built.
This state of affairs of the bad conditions in prisons is especially resented by remand prisoners, many of whom are held in custody in bad conditions while awaiting trial. About 40 per cent. of remand prisoners are later either acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence. The average time spent in custody awaiting trial is 12 weeks in England and Wales and four months in London. There are now 6,700 untried accused individuals and 1,450 convicted persons not yet sentenced. Home Office figures show that 50 have been in jail for over 18 months, 180 for a year to 18 months, and over 2,000 for three months to a year. A particularly cause for concern is the fact that still each year about 3,000 defendants under 17 are remanded to adult prisons and remand centres to await trial and sentence, even though no court can sentence an offender of that age to imprisonment in an adult penal establishment. Those remands are, I submit, an indefensible scandal. I hope that the suggestions that have already emanated from the Minister at the beginning of this debate may lead to hope that this situation will be ameliorated.
As to prison conditions, may I ask what has happened to the proposed creation of a code of standards for prisons which, at any rate, at one stage, if not promised by the Home Office, was certainly

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contemplated? Has the commitment to produce such a code been abandoned? It was good to hear that there are proposals to impose a time limit, if I understood the noble Lord correctly, on the period during which accused persons may be kept in custody. As the House knows, in Scotland the law provides that once a prisoner has been committed for trial then, unless he is released from custody, he must, with one or two exceptions, be brought to trial within 110 days. That is a powerful constraint on prosecutors and, I submit, a valuable safeguard for accused persons. It may be that the noble and learned Lord is not immediately in a position to elaborate what is proposed in that field, but we shall await with impatience to hear what is proposed either this evening or perhaps on a later occasion.
On prison conditions themselves, we note that substantial new investment is to be put into the prison system; and, of course, we agree with that—about £250 million additional capital expenditure over previous plans and an increase in staff of about 5,500. But, as the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (of which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, is the distinguished president) has pointed out, there is unfortunately no comparable expansion planned for any other part of the penal system. The probation service is expected to grow by only 3 per cent. with an additional 285 officers. The noble Lord in his moving speech has pointed to the most unfortunate decision of the Government, as I understand it, that there shall be no increase in the number of after-care hostel places beyond March 1985.
Before I leave this prison aspect, may I ask why the Government should still have to plan for a rise in the prison population of 10 per cent. by 1991? Why, as I have said, do we still imprison more people per head than most of our West European neighbours? We need a better balance in crime spending and, I hope, more day centres and more possibilities for more community service orders—and courts are limited in the use of those possibilities because of lack of facilities.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, opened the debate with a reference to the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. We shall be debating that in a full day's debate on Wednesday, but I feel that I should not leave it without at least some comment this evening in the light of what has been said in the course of this debate. Our submission on this side of the House is that these proposals have been motivated almost entirely by party political considerations. This became very clear in the unlamented Clauses 1 and 2 of the interim provisions Bill, which the House rejected with contumely because it was a piece of political gerrymandering being attempted that would put Tammany Hall to shame. Happily, the House gave them short shrift. Like so much in the proposed abolition Bill (which, of course, we have not seen) that Bill was brought forward with reckless haste, quite contrary to what happened before the Acts which set up the GLC and the metropolitan county councils initially—both preceded by detailed investigations and by Royal Commissions, with Parliament and the Government then in a position to deal with the matter after full and informed debate and consideration. The
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new proposals have already been subjected to constant revision and I have no doubt that some are now still under way.
What is to be the shape of the new constitutional structure? I understand that the two-tier system is to be replaced by a kind of three-tier system: boroughs, quangos or joint boards and, of course, the central Government. In place of local democratic decision making, more power is to be given to the central Government and the non-elected, or indirectly elected, boards. London, if the Bill goes through, will be left as the only major city in Western Europe without a directly-elected, city-wide authority. It is a fantastic suggestion.
My next point links to some extent with the moving speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, who, alas, has had to leave on other business—and I am expressing that only by way of regret and not of criticism, because I wanted to say that we appreciated his speech. There is grave concern among voluntary organisations in the social field about the consequences of the rate-capping legislation and the proposed abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. CABs are especially vulnerable and concerned, as are law centres; and I hope that it may be possible tonight for the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, whose personal sympathy for law centres I know full well, to give some confidence to them in their insecure position. They all survive on short-term grants. Most of them, incidentally, are the product of a social zeal and conscience by young people in the slum centres where many of them have arisen.
My understanding is that six have been saved from closure, I am happy to say, by temporary grants from the Lord Chancellor's Department; 20 will be hit by the abolition of the metropolitan counties, 26 are in rate-capped local authorities. I am informed by the Law Centres Federation that next year eight law centres may have to close if renewed urban aid is not forthcoming. In response to the Benson Commission, the Government expressed the view—and I think that the noble and learned Lord himself expressed it—that law centres should exist to supplement private practice where this suits local circumstances; but my Lords, no decision has yet been made about how law centres are to be financed. If the noble and learned Lord can give some encouragement and guidance about that this evening, I know that the hundreds of those who benefit from the law centres and the young people who run them will be deeply grateful.
Time is passing and I would not wish to overburden the patience of the House. I would have liked to make some observations about the education scene. We are very disappointed that only three lines of the gracious Speech are devoted to it—two of them mentioning the grotesque proposal in regard to corporal punishment which will produce nothing but injustice in the schools and which has been condemned by most bodies interested in the welfare and education of young people and, indeed, by natural justice. The Bill may save us from condemnation by the European Court. It can do nothing else of any benefit whatsoever, in our view. Unfortunately, I have no time to deal with the anxiety expressed in major reports from the University Grants Committee and the National Advisory Committee, both urging easier access to higher

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education and a reform of outdated grants. No doubt we shall return to that theme very soon indeed.
I should have liked to have time to say something about housing, and to say it particularly in the presence of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton. I recollect the time when he forced through 300,000 houses in a year—marvellous! There were a lot built in West Ham. I wonder whether there is any hope of persuading she who must be obeyed to put him in the job of rebuilding the housing needs of this country. Perhaps it is too much to hope for. I end by indicating that we look forward to a period of earnest consideration of matters which can greatly affect the future of the people of this country.
7.20 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the urbane and attractive speech to which we have listened rather took me by surprise. I was thinking that the noble and learned Lord was going to sum up the debate from his side. Instead, with perfect legitimacy, he embarked upon new fields and ventures which I do not think I can follow him in completely or it would occupy the greater part of the time which the House would be willing to give me.
There is only one thing which I would say about the new matter which he introduced, and that is this. Of course, from the very first time that I was Lord Chancellor in 1970, I have been particularly preoccupied with the problem of the remand prisoner, and from my point of view, the only way in which I could contribute to that has always been to reduce the period of time between committal and arraignment. I managed to halve that time between 1970 and 1974. I say this not in the least criticising the noble and learned Lord my successor, and predecessor in my present term of office, but by the time I took office again in 1979 the period had again gone exactly back to where it was in 1970.
Since then committals have gone up by 45 per cent. and I have still managed to reduce the time between committal and arraignment significantly. Therefore, I think he will do me the credit of admitting, if he can remember—and there is no reason why he should—the various speeches that we have interchanged at various times in our various careers, that I have again and again complained of the state of our prisons, as I think we heard him do tonight, and have again and again when in Opposition urged on the respective Ministers to improve the state.
We are, of course, facing—and I think this is something to which I may have to revert in another connection—demographic changes of a very curious character at the present time. The young male population is going up, and going up for a period of time which, of course, can be predicted almost exactly because the size and shape of our demography is already well known. One has to say this, because I have in fact said it before in response to a speech by the most reverend Primate. Crime of a serious kind is a malady, if that is the right word, peculiarly of the young male. Of the, I think, 45,000 people imprisoned at the present time, all but about 1,500 are male and most of them are young. One must view these things from a demographic point of view and I shall be
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coming back to that again and again in connection with other points that I want to raise.
I suppose that I have been asked somewhere between 40 and 50 questions during the course of this debate. What I can hope to promise in relation to those who have asked them—and they were all perfectly legitimate questions—is that I will see that this debate is very carefully scrutinised. Those who have asked the questions will, I hope, where it is possible, receive answers either from me or from my noble friend Lord Elton or from some other Minister to give them the best answers of which we are capable, and if they want to get further publicity for the answers we will do our best to arrange the method and the occasion upon which that can be given. But I do not think that I ought to go further tonight, because I shall otherwise be taking up a very great deal of your Lordships' time.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, began his speech by saying that he was going to speak in a still, small voice. Having regard to the ownership of the still, small voice on the occasions to which he guardedly referred, I am not sure that perhaps he was not exaggerating even his influence. There were other voices which were probably not uttered at a shout. But I want to criticise one or two of the things that have been said in criticism of the Government.
The first was said on the first day by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, when she said that she thought we were running out of ideas. I was much more sympathetic to the criticism of the noble and learned Lord, which we heard at the beginning of his speech, that we have a very busy Session with a number of new and very controversial ideas. Of course the House will know perfectly well that I am not keen on manifestos, but, at the same time, one must remember that we are on the second Session of a five-year Parliament and that our election manifesto contained a number of these new ideas which we have not yet brought into effect. Of course, they will all have to be debated in this House. We shall await those debates with interest and we hope to give as good as we have got.
The role of the House is, of course, one which is beyond question. I know that my noble friend the Lord President of the Council did not mean in any way to depreciate the importance of this House's adopting an independent and scrutinising line when it comes to examine the details of Government legislation. But, speaking as one who has spent, I think, approximately half his career in this House and half in the other, I should just like to say this: I think there is a danger, with so many of us having spent so much of our lives in the House of Commons, of turning this House into a sort of mirror image of the House of Commons, and that is not really what we are meant for. We are independent counsellors of the Crown and we are not elected, and I know that my noble friend the Lord President of the Council was far from depreciating the importance of the role which this House can play when he said that perhaps there was a danger of lack of comity between the two bodies. The House of Commons is elected and we are not and the noble and learned Lord will know, because we exchanged many a salvo when I was sitting approximately where he is sitting now, that we did in the end, sometimes with reluctance, yield to the view of the then elected Chamber when our roles were reversed.

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If one does not accept the view that we are running out of ideas, I am bound to say this. I think that some members of the parties in Opposition—I do not know whether I should call them two or three parties—have one idea which is manifestly wrong. I think this is the point at which the debate has really revolved, because I have never taken the view, and I do not take the view, that compassion and caring is shown and measured by the amount of money you spend. I cannot resist the idea that every constructive suggestion which has come from the Opposition during the course of this debate today or yesterday, except in the field of defence which we are debarred from discussing now, has been a request for the spending of more money.
That was replied to with force by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and by my noble friend Lord Mottistone. One does not show compassion or caring by prescribing inefficacious remedies; nor, if you overspend, can you remedy the fault that you have committed by good intentions. In fact, a society which allows its currency to be debased, as it was being debased in 1979, is a demoralising society; demoralising of moral standards just as much as if people had set out to do harm to their fellow citizens. The essence of policy in all societies—dictatorial or democratic, which means Labour or Conservative Governments in this country—is the attempt to match unlimited requirements by woefully inadequate means. The proper method of approaching this problem, particularly in your Lordships' House, is a close analysis of the facts and a careful scrutiny of the kind of remedy for admitted evils which is likely to be efficacious. Viewing matters in that way, it would be fair to say that the Government have come fairly unscathed out of this debate.
May I make one other point to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock? Obviously, in a sense, today's debate has about it an element of unreality because on the next day of our debate on the gracious Speech we are to discuss the economic situation. To discuss housing, health, education, social services and the various elements of policy without the context of the economic situation has about it an element of unreality which has constrained critics and will now constrain me in my answer. However, I start from a perhaps not dissimilar position from that which was put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock: that the state exists for the nation and not the nation for the state. It is our business to create a framework of conditions within which the nation (by which I mean the individual, the family, the regions and all the subordinate voluntary associations which are at once the glory, pride and justification of a free society) can pursue their own avocations and achieve their own types of excellence in an atmosphere of peace, harmony and prosperity, not infringing the rights of others or interfering with their legitimate activities but pursuing each their own different excellence.
The question is: exactly how do you mix the various ingredients? I must begin—this is fundamental to the difference between the Government and some of our critics—by repudiating completely the view of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition on the first day of our debate about the alleged dichotomy between North and South and rich and poor. Society has ceased to be like that. What would one say, for
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instance, about the West Midlands? Everybody knows that the recession has hit manufacturing industries in the West Midlands just as hard as it has hit places further north. What would one say about Bristol and Lambeth, where there were riots? What is one to say—I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will agree with me about this—about West and East Ham, as it used to be called, or Docklands? The fact is that social deprivation is not peculiar to the North.
Secondly, I would assert without fear of contradiction, I believe, that this alleged contrast, leaving aside for the moment unemployment, between rich and poor—the gap which the Leader of the Opposition claimed to be increasing and growing—has no reality at all in a modern society. Newspapers are always reminding me that I am extremely old. Well, I am. I can remember the world before 1914. I can remember the world between the two world wars. I know what life was like then. But society has ceased to be the two nations of Disraeli's Sybil.
Society is an extremely complicated spectrum of people with different degrees of possessions. When I was very young, about 10 per cent of the population owned their own houses; 20 years ago it was about 40 per cent.; it is now about 60 per cent.; and in another 10 years it will be 80 per cent. Those houses contain consumer durables of a kind which the so-called poor in my youth would never have dreamed of possessing: refrigerators, and usually motor cars, either outside or in garages. Those houses contain every kind of appliance. As for the average wage, I remember that when I was leading this House 20 years ago a tremendous fuss was raised on the Labour Benches because Mr. Butler had said that he would double our standard of life within 20 years. Twenty years have passed and we have more than doubled our standard of life. There was a tremendous row at the time about surtax. But we are now living in a world where a miner can earn £164 a week if he is not on strike.
We are not living in a world where there is a gap between rich and poor. There is hardship, and hardship is caused by unemployment exactly as much as noble Lords have said. However, the idea that the kind of society with which we have to cope is like the kind of society in which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, reminded us that he grew up is, I believe, a total mistake. If one wants a good example of it, I suggest that noble Lords should reflect upon the fate of Mr. Mondale, because poor Mr. Mondale was suffering from the same illusion as they. The reason why Mr. Reagan won the presidential election was because he had got this point right and Mr. Mondale had got it wrong. There are not two nations. We are one nation, and we must build up the unity of the nation as much as we can.
I feel that I ought to make one or two points in order to dispute the kind of picture which has been painted. Let me take health as an example. This year we are spending £ 13·5 billion in cash—more than double the cash that was spent in 1979, and in real terms more than 18 per cent. above inflation. There has been an increase in the number of patients of about 650,000, in the number of out-patients of 2½ million. The number of doctors and dentists is up by 12 per cent., and the direct care staff by 14 per cent.

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Let me also deal with education, about which other points have been made. Of course we are faced with the demographic fact that there are fewer pupils in our schools. The bulge has gone up in terms of age. But expenditure per pupil in real terms is up, since 1978–79, by 16 per cent. in primary schools and by 8 per cent. in secondary schools. The pupil-teacher ratio is the best ever—17.8 to 1 against 19 to 1 in January 1979. How I wish that when I was Minister of Education in 1957 I had been able to boast of such a pupil-teacher ratio when I had to confess that I was grappling with classes of 50! The provision of new books rose sharply in real terms in 1982–83. Total expenditure upon education and science as a whole has risen, in cost terms—that is, in absolute terms—since 1979 by 1 per cent., despite a fall in the school population of about 12 per cent.
One can go on mentioning these facts again and again, but I beg of noble Lords opposite to recognise that over the whole range of expenditure, and in real terms, this Government are actually spending more on the caring services than they left us in 1979. At the same time—and I can give the figures if need be—we have managed to control inflation.
This is no mean achievement and we are not ashamed of it. What I do dispute (I will not say, resent) is the theory that because we are not spending still more—because we have had to grapple with a declining currency and started with inflation of something like 20 per cent., which went on like a runaway train for nearly three years—we do not care about other people's suffering. I feel that that is an unjust charge. It is unjust in fact and it is unjust in principle.
Time is getting on, my Lords, and there is a great deal more that I could say. Perhaps I had better not talk about the miners' strike in spite of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside. I will just say this. One does hope very much that the miners will resume control of their own affairs. What went wrong was that, against the terms of their union's own rules, the miners were denied a ballot. Where they did ballot, they voted overwhelmingly not to go on strike. The awful scenes of violence must have been organised by someone—against the criminal law, not against the legislation passed by this Government.
The more that one can encourage the miners to resume control of their own affairs, to return to enjoy the enormous prospects which the coal industry now possesses, and to take advantage of the vast investment which has been made in coal, the happier we shall be. I can give your Lordships a series of figures. In 1983, the United Kingdom's investment in coal was £697 million. In West Germany, investment was £280 million; in France, £63 million; in Belgium, £32 million. The chances for coal have never been so good, if people will only see that as true.
I will say just a few words about unemployment. I was a little disappointed when the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said that we were wrong to refer in the Queen's Speech to the fact that there are more people in work than there were this time last year. I think that was a very sensible thing to say. The noble Baroness said it was not quite good enough; of course it is not
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quite good enough. But if one does not analyse the problem correctly, one will not be able to solve it. The fact is that 160,000 young people have come onto the labour market in the past 12 months. There has been a large number of persons gaining employment—both in the field of direct employment and among the self-employed. The problem consists in the fact that, although vacancies are rising and opportunities are rising, there has been a surge in the demographic population among younger people. We must do our best to solve it.
It must be said that we are doing our best to solve that problem. It is no good just treating as a palliative our training scheme. This year the Government are spending £2¼ billion on special employment and. training measures, currently helping 689,000 people. This is not the picture of the world in which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, grew up—nor, for that matter, of the world in which I grew up. It is a world in which society has undertaken social responsibilities and is seeking to discharge them without destroying the stability of its currency. As I have said, we have achieved a very considerable measure of success in both since 1979.
I want to end by saying something which I hope is not controversial but which represents very much my feelings about the function of government in society. I ought to have remarked how much I appreciated what was said by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter about the rule of law, because that is vital if the fabric of society is not to be completely undermined. The fact is that one cannot pick and choose which laws one is going to obey or which laws one is going to enforce. The idea that one can choose is one which is ultimately disruptive of the whole basis of civilised life.
I do not want to quote Aristotle in this connection—I believe that he was the first ascertainable writer to have said this—but I am going to quote two other observations about the nature of society. A free society such as ours is, of course, one in which strongly-held opinions can be openly expressed when they diverge from one another. But freedom to differ is not the only thing that keeps society together. It needs cement to hold it together, if there is to be a free divergence of opinion. This quotation comes from the writings of Aristotle:
"Mutual affection is the greatest of all blessings in a state as it affords the best guarantee against civil strife".
And so, from Cicero too:
"We have a natural propensity to love our fellow man, and that, after all, is the foundation of all law".
The third reference is the one I will end with—because, as I have said, I have taken too much time. It comes from Toynbee's studies of history. He pointed out that if a society is to hold together it must possess a quality for which he said there was no equivalent English word, but he borrowed a label from the Arabic language. It was Casahiyyah: the quality of mutal allegiance and loyalty by which a nation can stick together. I, for want of a better expression, call it cement. That is a metaphor, but let us seek to create in our nation the quality and the institutions which those three writers can be found to have expressed—and let that be our aim in the future.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gowrie, I beg to move that this debate be adjourned until Tuesday next.
Moved, That the debate be adjourned until Tuesday next—(Baroness Trumpington.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before eight o'clock.