Sitting of 6 February 1985

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

    Council House Building
    Mr. Flanneryasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the number of council house starts in the years 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984, respectively.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young): The figures for the first six years are as follows: 75,000, 55,000, 34,000, 21,000, 29,000 and 30,000. The provisional figure for 1984 is 23,000.
    Mr. Flannery: Do not those figures reveal a disgraceful position? There are 500,000 building workers out of work, longer and longer waiting lists in all big cities., and houses being sold off at half price, which depletes the urban housing stock, yet the Government produce these figures, which alarm anyone who wishes to house our people. When will the Minister resign?
    Sir George Young: I urge the hon. Gentleman to broaden his horizon and consider other indicators of housing performance apart from local authority starts. Local authorities' improvement grants have increased from £90 million to more than £900 million. I suggest that he has a discussion with an Opposition spokesman on housing. The hon. Gentleman implied that he was against the right to buy but, as I understand it, Labour party policy, as announced by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Bar (Mr. Rooker), is to admit that the right to buy has been a success, and that the Labour party would face considerable opposition if it went ba/ck on it.
    Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Labour party is being hypocritical in trying to stop people from buying their homes? That is wholly contrary to the views of the council tenants, who want to buy their homes rather than to see massive additional house building.
    Sir George Young: There is clearly a private debate going on within the Labour party about whether to remain committed to repealing the right to buy. As I understood it, the party is against that, but the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) does not seem to have been party to that decision.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the Minister stop diverting the question away from the abysmal number of local
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    authority starts by referring to the Government's other so-called initiatives, which have not resulted in anything substantial? Has not he or the Secretary of State, had a word, for example, with Laurie Barratt, and their other friends in the building industry, who say that their well-cherished joint venture scheme will no longer go ahead because of the 15 per cent. VAT on building improvements and the Government's freeze on the right to of local authorities to spend their capital receipts?
    Sir George Young: If one looks at the performance of the private sector between 1980 and 1983, one sees that the number of starts increased from 98,000 to 167,000. One must put that in the balance, as well as the factors that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Are not Opposition Members foolishly playing the numbers game when they concentrate solely on public sector new building? Is it not the case that many authorities—my own in Nottingham is a case in point, with 47,000 homes in its ownership—should be concentrating on maintaining and improving their existing stocks?
    Sir George Young: My hon. Friend is right. Whatever the political complexion of local authorities, they have all recognised that the real challenge is to modernise and improve the existing stock and to convert other stock that needs improvement. That has been the thrust of local authority expenditure, and it is wholly misleading to take as the sole criterion of performance, as the hon. Member for Hillsborough did, the number of local authority starts.
    Mr. Heffer: Has the Minister had drawn to his attention a report of the commission headed by Prince Philip, which made it clear that those who wanted to rent property were having great difficulty in doing so because of the cuts in capital expenditure determined by the Government?
    Sir George Young: I have seen an interim report from that commission containing some evidence. As I understand it, the commission has not yet come to any conclusions. The Government await with great interest the findings of this important commission.
    Mr. Robert Atkins: Is it not true that many local authorities choose to direct their housing resources into more productive areas? For example, the borough of South Ribble is the national leader in building sheltered accommodation of a private, housing association or even a council nature. Should not local authorities direct their resources towards that?
    Sir George Young: My hon. Friend is right. We have encouraged local authorities to provide housing for the elderly, the disabled and the homeless rather than try to meet the general needs, which we believe the private sector will have a crucial role in satisfying.

    Improvement Grants
    Mr. Pikeasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has for the future of improvement grants.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Ian Gow): We intend to issue a consultation document on private sector housing improvement policy, including the future of the home improvement grant system, as soon as possible.
    Mr. Pike: Does the Minister recognise the great anxiety caused by the fact that many councils have already stopped giving improvement grants? The Government must produce not only a new policy, but the essential cash for councils to do this work. Will he carry out his earlier promise to the Government and resign if that cash is not forthcoming?
    Mr. Gow: Not all that we read in newspapers is true. As to the hon. Gentleman's substantive point, it comes ill from a Labour Member to talk about improvement grants. During the last financial year spending on improvement grants was £900 million, compared with £90 million in the Labour Government's last year of office. In this financial year we expect — we cannot give a final figure — spending on improvement grants to be about £750 million.
    Mr. Latham: When the document, which is already rather late, appears, will it address the fact that improvement work is especially labour-intensive—the most labour-intensive in the construction industry—and that it is a cost-effective way of repairing urban decay?
    Mr. Gow: I agree with both parts of my hon. Friend's supplementary question.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: Is the Minister aware that many unemployed people who own small terraced houses in cities such as Leeds cannot find the capital sums needed to maintain their homes? Is it not within the Government's brand of Conservatism to assist a property-owning democracy? Do they realise that their schemes would become much more favourable if they made more money available for private sector grants?
    Mr. Gow: The primary responsibility for maintaining and repairing a home rests with the owner of that home—
    Mr. Straw: Is that what the Minister said before the election?
    Mr. Gow: I wish that Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen would not shout from a sedentary position, but would listen to the answer. A major part of the review of our home improvement grant policy is that we should achieve a better targeting of available resources. We shall try to ensure that resources from the public sector go to assist those who cannot afford to carry out improvements and repairs, and to the houses in the greatest need of repair.
    Mr. Hargreaves: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is hypocritical of Labour Members to condemn the Government's record on improvement grants when one considers that in my constituency in 1978—the last year of the Labour Government—the local authority spent £233,000 on improvement grants, and that this year it is spending £1,800,000? Does my hon. Friend further agree that unless we spend even more we shall end up building more council houses?
    Mr. Gow: My hon. Friend's point is a vindication of the Government's policies and an indictment of the policies of their predecessors.
    Mr. John Fraser: Will the Minister stop his smug, braggart boasting about the generosity of the election bribe of £900 million, which to many people amounts to little more than telling a man about to be executed that he is having a good breakfast? [Interruption.] It is all very well
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    for the smug Minister to smirk as well. Does he not realise that 250,000 home owners have had applications for home improvement grants in for over a year, and that his cuts in the housing investment programmes and freezing the use of capital receipts mean that they are still waiting in anxiety and distress and are now unlikely to get their grants? This is an act of treachery by a Tory Government towards many poor and anxious owner-occupiers.
    Mr. Gow: Some of that synthetic anger—
    Mr. John Fraser: It is not synthetic anger. Come to my advice bureaux.
    Mr. Gow: The hon. Gentleman is not the only hon. Member who has advice bureaux. When my right hon. and learned Friend the then Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the exceptional measures for improvement grants in his Budget of March 1982, he made it clear to the House that it was a temporary measure, partly in response to the 1981 English house condition survey. In fact, the exceptional measures for improvement grants were twice extended beyond the period that my right hon. and learned Friend had originally announced.

    Ministry of Agriculture Environment Co-ordination Unit
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many officials in his Department are engaged in liaison between his Department and the environment co-ordination unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): Contacts are numerous and frequent, and no precise figure can be given.
    Mr. Chapman: As land use statistics relating to our dramatically changing countryside are collected and assessed by my right hon. Friend's Department rather than by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, will my right hon. Friend assure the House that there is the closest co-operation between his Department and the recently established environment co-ordination unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? Will he also assure us that the close co-ordination and co-operation will be at ministerial level?
    Mr. Jenkin: Happily, I can give my hon. Friend assurances on both those counts. There is increasingly close co-operation and also an exchange of views between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and my Department, both at official and ministerial level.
    Mr. Ron Davis: I remind the Secretary of State that the level of co-operation between his Department and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been subject to criticism by the Lords Select Committee, by the Royal Commission tenth report and, most recently, by the House of Commons Select Committee on the Environment. In the light of that, does the right hon. Gentleman not feel the need to introduce a new sense of urgency into his discussions with the Ministry of Agriculture? May we expect a statement or some new policy initiative soon to resolve the undoubted difficulties between the right hon. Gentleman's Department and the Ministry of Agriculture?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair to both Departments. I am sure that he has noticed a

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    number of recent conservationist initiatives taken by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, including the initiative in Brussels for the new structure directive, the change in the farm grant system to favour conservation, the participation in the new and very welcome experiment in the Broads to preserve the Halvergate Marshes, the reduced levels of financial support for drainage grants, and support for fanning and wildlife advisory groups throughout England. These all represent a considerable shift in emphasis, which I am sure is welcomed on both sides of the House.
    Mr. John Mark Taylor: When he turns his mind to matters that have to do with agriculture and with the Department of the Environment, will my right hon. Friend consider the European Community fund for the preservation of the habitat of endangered species? Is the United Kingdom drawing on the fund adequately?
    Mr. Jenkin: If my hon. Friend would care to put down a specific question on that point, I should be very happy to give him an answer.
    Mr. Denis Howell: Does the Secretary of State agree that the Select Committee report of this House was extremely scathing, but also realistic? Will he acknowledge that since the enactment of the Wildlife and Countryside Act it has been reported that over 156 sites of special scientific interest have been damaged? Do the Government not accept considerable responsibility for that damage? They provided only £600,000 to police the Act in relation to land acquisition and management agreements. Although the Government are to provide £7 million this year, which we acknowledge and appreciate, it shows the degree of ineptitude of the Government. May we have an assurance that the Government will provide sufficient money so that all the responsibilities of the Nature Conservancy Council can be carried out?
    Mr. Jenkin: I must ask the House to await the Government's response to what is without doubt an important report by the Select Committee. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman's acknowledgement of the very substantial increase in the funding of the Nature Conservancy Council—an additional £7 million—was singularly churlish. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that this increae has been very much welcomed by the council.

    Planning Laws (Contravention)
    Mr. John Huntasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied with the enforcement procedures provided by the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 in respect of buildings constructed in contravention of the planning laws and subsequently occupied as a main or only residence; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Macfarlane): My right hon. Friend is satisfied with the provisions of section 87 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, as amended. If, however, my hon. Friend is aware of any special difficulties, my right hon. Friend will be glad to consider them.
    Mr. Hunt: On tht very point, is my hon. Friend aware that a mobile prefabricated home was recently erected on green belt land in my constituency within a few days
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    without any kind of planning permission and that Bromley council reckons that because of the cumbersome nature of the present planning laws it may take several years for this building to be removed? Is this not an affront to the law-abiding neighbours in that area? Can we not tighten up the law in order to deal more promptly and effectively with those who deliberately flout it in this way?
    Mr. Macfarlane: I do not think that either my right hon. Friend The Secretary of State for the Environment or my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is anxious to return to the conditions that prevailed in the 1960s, which involved the use of magistrates' courts. They would lead to all kinds of problems. The vigilance of the local authority is absolutely critical and vital in all these circumstances, and Bromley has a good record. Its officers know what legal measures are appropriate. I am aware that there have been exceptional delays in some cases, in particular in the case to which my hon. Friend has referred. However, local authorities can take more effective action quickly by prosecuting for failure to obtain the site licence that is required under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. However, we must have a look at these problems, and I shall write to my hon. Friend.

    Rural Conservation
    Mr. Kenneth Carlisleasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent measures he has taken to conserve the rural environment.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. William Waldegrave): Our recent agreement to the Broads experimental scheme is a significant step forward both to safeguard the unique landscape and to test the effectiveness of a new means of achieving a viable agriculture in environmentally sensitive areas. We have also just published the Government's response to the Countryside Commission's review of uplands policies.
    These decisions follow my right hon. Friend's earlier announcement of substantial increases in grant-in-aid to the commission and the Nature Conservancy Council in 1985–86.
    Mr. Carlisle: I am grateful for that reply, but will my hon. Friend emphasise that if we are to conserve wildlife in the wider countryside we need to develop the concept of integrated farming in its practical applications? In this respect I was glad to hear what my hon. Friend said about the Broadlands experimental scheme, but will he press for the extension of this integrated approach to other areas?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support for the experimental scheme. It has been widely welcomed on both sides of the House and by those who are concerned with the integration of farming and the countryside. Similar schemes are in operation in some of the national parks. This is a major step forward. We all want to learn from it how to go forward in this very sensitive area.
    Mr. Chris Smith: In pushing forward his unfortunately inadequate steps to conserve the rural environment, will the Minister be giving wholehearted and full backing to the Bill that is to be introduced on Friday next by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark)?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is a great expert on these matters. The Government have

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    done much more than the Labour Government did. It is well known that we welcome the blocking of the three-month loophole, as proposed by the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark). However, I hope that the hon. Member for South Shields will await my proper response to his Bill when we debate it on Friday.
    Mr. Steen: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways of conserving greenfield sites in the countryside is for the Government to auction off some of the 112,000 acres still on the land register and in public ownership?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I think that there is something in what my hon. Friend says, but it does not relate directly to these issues.
    Dr. David Clark: Obviously the protection of the rural environment depends essentially on closing the loopholes in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Will the Minister state whether the Government intend to back the Bill that will be discussed in the House on Friday, which seeks to close those six major loopholes? Will the hon. Gentleman make a clear and unequivocal statement to the House on where the Government stand? We need the answer now.
    Mr. Waldegrave: One major loophole is covered in the hon. Gentleman's Bill, and the Government have long made it clear that they welcome its closure. They also welcome the forthright support given by the all-party Select Committee for the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which has been the subject of much rather ill-informed criticism on the part of some Opposition Members, although not the hon. Gentleman.

    South-East (Structure Plans)
    Mr. Andrew MacKayasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the present progress of structure plans in the south-east.
    The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Kenneth Baker): The south-east region comprises Greater London and 12 shire counties. The latter are covered by 17 approved structure plans, most of which are at varying stages of review and alteration. At present I have before me proposals for nine alterations. My hon. Friend will know that Berkshire county council is preparing a single new structure plan to replace the three existing ones for east, west and central Berkshire. A draft for this replacement plan was published last April for public consultation.
    Mr. MacKay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his Department's diktat to Berkshire county council to make provision in its structure plan for central Berkshire for a vast number of new houses to be built is completely opposed by the population of Berkshire for three very good reasons? First, there is not the demand for those houses. Secondly, terrific damage will be done to the environment. Thirdly, employment in the regions concerned and our inner-city policy will be adversely affected.
    Mr. Baker: I understand that the county council issued a consultation document containing a figure of nearly 8,000 extra houses, but that it has now issued a further consultation document, and public meetings are being held and public consultation is being carried out about it. I appreciate that there is considerable pressure around
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    London and in the home counties for new houses, but there is also a strong counter pressure against new large estates. A balance must be struck in such matters.

    "Coal and the Environment"
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a further statement on the Government's response to the Commission on Energy and the Environment's report, "Coal and the Environment."
    Mr. Macfarlane: Progress continues to be made in implementing the commitments given in the Government's response to the commission's report.
    Mr. Dormand: Will the Minister give further attention to two aspects that are emphasised in the report? First, renewed efforts should be made with regard to dereliction. However, I immediately recognise the excellent work that has been done under Governments of both parties. Secondly, the despoliation of beaches is as serious now as it was when the report was published in 1981. In coalmining areas beaches provide an important amenity, yet they are an eyesore now as they are covered with coal waste. Will the hon. Gentleman do something about that?
    Mr. Macfarlane: We share the hon. Gentleman's anxieties and agree with the strategy that he wants to see implemented. Within the resources available, I can give the hon. Gentleman that full assurance. The Horden pipeline experiment is of great importance but is not at present operating because of the dispute. However, in use it has proved technically very successful. The experimental period is to be extended to allow a full assessment to be made once the dispute is over.
    Mr. Forman: When considering the Government's response to the impact of coal on the environment, will my hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues be prepared to give full weight to the possibility of installing equipment on a pilot basis which might reduce the emissions of acid and other noxious substances from coal-fired power stations?
    Mr. Macfarlane: I note my hon. Friend's request. I shall study it and write to him.
    Mr. Gareth Wardell: Are the Government satisfied that no longer will opencast coal mine workings be permitted as near to occupied dwellings as 50 yards?
    Mr. Macfarlane: We have considered many elements of planning and coal, coal extraction and the general development order. They are all under review and are constantly under discussion, though the role of the local authority is obviously of prime importance. We have made great steps, and I shall look into the point that the hon. Gentleman raises.
    Mr. Barron: Will the Minister also look into the cost of the protection of the environment arising from coal mining? Does he think, for example, that the Exchequer might relieve the National Coal Board of some of its costs, so making pits more economic?
    Mr. Macfarlane: The hon. Gentleman, representing the part of England that he does, will be pleased to hear that my right hon. Friend has agreed to provide £2·5 million to help finance spoil disposal schemes. A list of possible schemes has now been drawn up and discussions between my Department, the NCB and the local authorities involved are continuing. That is good news.

    Borough of Brent (Negotiable Bonds)
    Mr. Pavittasked the Secretary of State for the Environment why the London borough of Brent has been forbidden to issue negotiable bonds to assist in its financial responsibilities and with the construction of new homes; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: No such instructions have been issued, either by the Government or, I understand, by the Bank of England.
    Mr. Pavitt: Does the Minister realise that the fact that the Conservative-controlled London borough of Brent is rate-capped means that, although the instructions have not been issued, there is no way in which negotiable bonds can now be put on the money market to deal with the crisis there of 17,000 on the housing waiting list and £30,000 a week being spent on the homeless? Is he aware that because of that taxpayers and ratepayers will have to pay an extra 0·5 per cent. if, after July, when we reach the top of the reserve list, the London borough of Brent is then able to borrow capital to deal with its problems? Does he realise that, as a result of the situation, taxpayers and ratepayers will have to pay an increased subvention, all because of the way in which the Government are looking after the money market first and homemakers second?
    Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The list of authorities wishing to make bond issues is full until the beginning of April, but the Bank of England has accepted bookings for Brent bonds to be issued subsequent to that. The hon. Gentleman rightly says that Brent is under Conservative control. That is why it is one of the rate-capped authorities that will comply with the law. It has already shown the way to many other rate-capped authorities by making savings of up to £20 million without making one person redundant.
    Mr. Simon Hughes rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question relate to Brent?
    Mr. Hughes: Yes, Mr. Speaker. As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, Brent council is a hung council, with the Tories only governing by agreement with the Liberals. Is he aware that the only way in which that authority will be able to meet the rate-capped limit—[Unterruption]—is if the £3 million of housing benefit repayment due is paid into its budget? What does the right hon. Gentleman propose to do to make sure that outstanding repayments of millions of pounds to that and other rate-capped authorities are paid so that they may be able to fix a rate? [Interruption.] May we also have an assurance that the money brokers will not charge extra interest just because they are rate-capped authorities.
    Mr. Baker: I am delighted that the Conservative group in Brent has the support of the Liberal group there in implementing economies without Brent having to suffer. That is the policy that has been followed by the authority, which is conducting its affairs in a responsible and sensible way.

    Alnwick (Urban Aid)
    Mr. Beithasked the Secretary of State for the Environment why projects in Alnwick are no longer eligible for urban aid.
    Sir George Young: Our policy is to concentrate traditional urban programme resources in the more extensively deprived urban areas with 20,000 or more population. Alnwick district has no urban centre of that size.
    Mr. Beith: May we be told who dreams up the arbitrary lines and population figures so as to exclude from urban aid places which his officials have hitherto recognised have problems of social deprivation and unemployment just as great as those of areas of larger population? Will the hon. Gentleman recognise, when making future grants, the problems of areas such as Alnwick, whose problems were recognised in the past?
    Sir George Young: I understand that even during the time of the Lib-Lab pact Alnwick did not receive any special treatment under the urban programme. The policy, which I am prepared to defend and which I hope the hon. Gentleman will support, is to concentrate the urban programme on areas which suffer from extensive deprivation. Having looked at the statistics for his constituency, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the needs do not compare with those of other urban areas, where the need is far more extensive. There are small acute pockets of deprivation in Alnwick, but the scale of the problems is such that the local authority should be able to cope with them from its normal resources.

    Housing Capital Expenditure
    Mr. Altonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied that the amounts allocated to housing capital expenditure in "The Government's Expenditure Plans 1985–86 to 1987–88" will be sufficient to prevent the deterioration of the housing stock.
    Sir George Young: The Government's plans allow for over £3 billion of public investment in housing in each of the next three years. It is for local authorities to decide what proportions of their share to use on renovating their stock, on home improvement grants or on other capital expenditure.
    Mr. Alton: What advice does the Under-Secretary of State have for authorities such as my own, which have already entered into legal and binding agreements for next year's capital programme and now find that their allocation is insufficient to meet those contracts? What advice does the hon. Gentleman have for authorities which have stopped their housing action area programmes and have put most of their resources elsewhere?
    Sir George Young: The message to Liverpool must be that it needs a heavy injection of realism. The council's stated intention for capital expenditure on housing stretches far beyond any reasonable expectation of capital provision. The message to go back to Liverpool is that Liverpool must try to live within its means.
    Mr. Yeo: Is my hon. Friend aware that housing expenditure is one of the most labour-intensive forms of any public expenditure? Is he further aware that the reports in today's press of the possibility of further cuts in housing expenditure have given rise to considerable concern?
    Sir George Young: There is no foundation for that headline.
    Miss Boothroyd: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that, because of the Government's pernicious financial policies, for the first time in the history of the Black Country towns within Sandwell are unable to build council houses? What message does the hon. Gentleman have for the more than 6,000 families who are on a council waiting list in that area?
    Sir George Young: The first message to any local authority must be that it should look at the number of vacant units it already has. Often those units are vacant for more than 12 months. The local authority's first priority must be to get that stock back into use.
    Dr. Hampson: Does my hon. Friend agree that we are accustomed to the press selectively quoting from leaked Government documents? Will he go beyond what he said to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo), because, unless he knocks on the head the impression given in The Guardian today that councils will not be eligible to use their assets, there will be no incentive for councils to sell their assets, which is central Government policy?
    Sir George Young: I have seen the article to which my hon. Friend referred. The headline in particular is grossly misleading. No such proposal is on the table.
    Mr. Steel: Does not the hon. Gentleman's answer to the questions asked by the hon. Members for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) and for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) mean that he is denying the figures contained in the reports, which claim to come from his Department, showing that there has been a severe reduction in the number of new starts in house building in the public and private sectors? Is the hon. Gentleman denying those figures?
    Sir George Young: When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 18 December his proposals for the capital spending in 1985–86 by local authorities, he indicated that the pesent system was unsatisfactory and that he was embarking on discussions with the local authority associations. My right hon. Friend has held a useful meeting with the chairman of the local authority associations. That article arises from a subsequent discussion between my right hon. Friend's officials and officers of the associations.
    Mr. Bendall: As the London borough of Redbridge has had its share cut by £7 million, how does my hon. Friend think that Redbridge, with a large number of Airey houses, can repair those units? The cut will seriously delay those repairs.
    Sir George Young: I am well aware of the particular problems in Redbridge, where there are a number of Airey houses. I have had a meeting with the chairman of the housing committee. The representations made by my hon. Friend and by the chairman of the housing committee have been taken into account in assessing Redbridge's housing allocation for next year.
    Mr. Rooker: I ask the Under-Secretary of State two questions. First, will he answer question No. 12 and say whether the money will prevent a deterioration in the housing stock? Secondly can the hon. Gentleman categorically tell the House whether the proposal announced by the Secretary of State to cut to 20 per cent. the amount that local authorities can use will be the figure
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    in the order brought before the House, or will the figure be less than 20 per cent., as forecast in The Guardian this morning?
    Sir George Young: The figure will be 20 per cent. On the first question, the responsibility for preventing the deterioration of the housing stock has to rest in the first instance with the owner-occupier, who is, in the vast majority of cases, the owner of the stock, rather than the Government.

    Council Housing (Privatisation)
    Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take action to privatise local authority housing other than through individual sales to sitting tenants or third parties.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Private developers have bought, improved, and successfully resold, thousands of derelict and vacant local authority dwellings. Some local authority tenants are taking on the responsibility for running their own estates through management co-operatives. I want to see these welcome trends accelerated.
    Mr. Marlow: As it appears that in those countries where rented accommodation is provided by commercial enterprise rather than by a municipal organisation the housing and the environment are better and the cost is somewhat less, will my right hon. Friend consider being more radical in his proposals and require some local authorities to divest themselves of some of their larger and less well-run estates to private enterprise organisations licensed by the Government and operating within certain requirements?
    Mr. Jenkin: There are now some 70 schemes of substantial local authority estates or blocks of flats being refurbished and developed in partnership between the public and the private sector. Some of those include tenanted estates. It is encouraging to find that when tenants are offered the chance of and consulted about participating in such ventures they prefer to do that rather than to stay with the local authority. That is something that we are pursuing with considerable energy, because I believe that it is an important development.
    Mr. Winnick: Why does the Secretary of State not recognise that hundreds of thousands of people are living in great housing hardship and misery because they cannot be housed by their local authority? Is it not a striking illustration of the Government's callous indifference that they have each year cut the amount of money made available to local authorities? In my borough, only because it has not had the money available, no contracts for new council housing have been entered into for the past six years. When will the Secretary of State recognise his responsibility towards people in such a desperate housing plight in my borough and the rest of the country?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am a bit surprised that the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to welcome schemes where private sector money will relieve local authorities of the cost and responsibility of refurbishing some of their most unattractive and difficult to let areas so that the local authorities can concentrate on providing for the needs where the hon. Gentleman has identified. He has a blinkered view of the best way forward in this matter.
    Mr. Spencer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is only too self-evident from the evidence of Socialist city

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    councils up and down the country that the vast amounts of money that have been directed into those quarters have not benefited the council tenants, who were meant to be the beneficiaries, and that it is necessary to consider new methods of financing housing for those who cannot afford to pay for it themselves?
    Mr. Jenkin: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. I am prepared to adopt the words of one Labour leader of a council in the north-west, who said the other day:
    "In many of these great urban estates the public sector has caused the problems, and they will not be solved without the support of the private sector."
    I agree with that.
    Mr. Cartwright: Does the Secretary of State confirm that the best way to deal with monolithic council estates is not to sell them for private profit but to devolve power to the tenants to enable them to run their own affairs through management and maintenance co-operatives? What practical steps is he taking to encourage local authorities to make progress along those lines?
    Mr. Jenkin: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is room for a variety of solutions. Some of the tenants' cooperatives that have been developed have been extremely successful. If he consulted his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), he would find that it is a matter of great regret that Liverpool city council has cut off tenants' co-operatives from any access to city finance—
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Quite right.
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Member says "Quite right." He should go and talk to the people who are waiting for their houses from those co-operatives.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that in many areasa local authorities are not allowed to improve as many houses as they would like, or as their tenants and local ratepayers would like? Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that in those areas regional and local newspapers are frequently given to criticising councils for their failure to improve as many houses as they would like? Will the right hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear to the media that councils cannot improve the number of houses that they would like because of Government policy and ministerial action, rather than because of their own decisions?
    Mr. Jenkin: If the hon. Gentleman has only just discovered that it is the Government's policy, in pursuit of their general economic initiatives and the control of inflation, to keep a firm control of public spending, I am not quite sure where he has been for the past five years. I would have more sympathy for any council that had gone out of its way to seek private sector partnership to try to resolve some of its problems—[Interruption.] I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman's council has done just that. That is the way in which those blocks of flats and estates can be refurbished and developed. There are now examples all over the country which are cheered and applauded by those who live on the estates.

    Thames Water Authority
    Mr. Simsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he last met the chairman of the Thames water authority; and what subjects were discussed.
    Mr. Gow: I met the chairman on 14 January. We discussed several subjects, mainly financial.
    Mr. Sims: Can my hon. Friend tell me why he has chosen to ignore the view put forward by the chairman of Thames water authority that the figure that my hon. Friend uses as a reasonable return on assets is hypothetical and unrealistic? Is my hon. Friend seriously asking me to vote this evening in support of orders to limit the extent to which local authorities can increase their rates, and is he asking me tomorrow evening to vote for orders that will place on the Thames water authority the duty to impose a far higher rate than it wishes or needs to impose?
    Mr. Gow: The net tangible assets of Thames, as at 31 March 1984 and as certified in the accounts that were signed by the chairman and the director of finance and audited by Arthur Andersen, are £4,425 million. I understand the views expressed by my hon. Friend. He is correct in that, to my regret, there is no agreement between the chairman of Thames and myself about the basis on which a proper return on investment is required. Nevertheless, it is true that for the current financial year the rate of return required by Thames is 0·5 per cent., which is the lowest target for any water authority, and for the coming year the target set for Thames is 1·37 per cent., which is still the lowest target for any of the 10 water authorities.
    Mr. Pavitt: Will the Minister convey to the chairman of Thames water authority the admiration of many hon. Members on both sides of the House for the way in which he has resisted the Government's attempt for the first time, to make water a taxable commodity? Will the Minister convey our thanks to the chairman for standing up to the Government in the vigorous way that he has already done?
    Mr. Gow: We are setting higher targets for the water industry as a whole, including Thames. I should like to join the hon. Gentleman in paying a tribute to Mr. Roy Watts — [Interruption.] Oh yes. The chairman of Thames water authority is fully aware of the fact that he was chosen by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to be chairman of Thames because he had the qualities that were required of the chairman. I pay tribute to what he has achieved. The dispute is about the rate of return that should be required on a current cost accounting basis.
    Mr. Jessel: Will my hon. Friend please explain why any financial return on capital is needed at all for this public utility operating in a monopoly beyond what is required for current outgoings, for provision for future construction and repair and for repayment of debt over a reasonable period, such as eight or 10 years?
    Mr. Gow: Because it is the Government's policy that assets in the public sector should earn a proper rate of return. In that respect we are following precisely the principles that were laid down by the Labour Government in their White Paper in 1978.
    Mr. Eggar: When my hon. Friend met the chairman of the Thames water authority, did he discuss the denationalisation of that body? Is he aware that the board is in favour of such a course of action? Could he not agree with the chairman of the board on that objective at least?
    Mr. Gow: I did not discuss that possibility with the chairman of Thames Water Authority on the occasion to

    933
    which the question relates. My hon. Friend will be aware of a reply that was given last week by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to a question on this subject.
    Dr. Cunningham: Is the Minister aware that we welcome his confirmation that Mr. Roy Watts has not only acted with courage but within his terms of reference, unlike the hon. Gentleman, who seems to be doing everything possible to exceed his in leaning on the chairman, second-guessing him, overruling him and imposing a tax on water consumers in the Thames area? Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, by normal accounting methods, Thames Water is the seventh most profitable business in Britain? Will he also confirm that the current cost accounting methods he is seeking to impose are not widely employed in business in Britain and amount to an imposition by the Government of a naked tax on water consumers?
    Mr. Gow: It is strange that there should be this conversion of the hon. Gentleman. The orders that will be debated tomorrow evening are the fourth and fifth orders that have been laid before the House. The first three orders, which were made under section 29 of the Water Act 1973 and which were calculated on exactly the same basis of current cost accounting, were not opposed by the Labour party. I remind the House of the conclusions reached by Price Waterhouse and Co. in its report in 1981 on the principle of current cost accounting. It said:
    "The approach to current cost accounting, which has been adopted by the water authorities, is both soundly based and sensible."

    Domestic Rates
    Mr. Proctorasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received from ratepayers concerning the likely level of rates for 1985–86; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: I have received a variety of representations. If authorities budget to spend at target the average increase in rates should be in low single figures.
    Mr. Proctor: Does my right hon. Friend agree that high rates are inimical to job creation and that there is much support for the Government's rate-capping proposals in areas such as Basildon, which is spending £600,000 on housing administration, and Lewisham, which has just commissioned a report that will cost the ratepayers of Lewisham about £5,000, into the psychological impact of golliwogs on children in Lewisham?
    Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend has to suffer under the district council of Basildon, which is living in an unreal world, having increased its planned spending last year by 20 per cent. Undoubtedly, the ratepayers of Basildon will be helped considerably by the rate-capping that we are introducing this year.
    Mr. Fatchett rose—
    Mr. Boyes: Does the Minister agree that the natural solution to the level of rates is to let those who have to pay them speak through the ballot box? Through various measures, such as the abolition of the GLC and metropolitan councils, and now rate-capping, the Government seem to think that democracy can be thrown out of the window at their whim. They will suffer as a consequence of that in future.
    Mr. Baker: Only 18 out of the 413 local authorities will be rate-capped this year. This means that some 390 will be living within the system. Some of those authorities will be allowed—and are already predicting—very large rate increases. For example, Liverpool city council, which is not rate-capped this year, is predicting a very substantial rate increase. We feel that the Government share the responsibility for protecting ratepayers in the hard-pressed areas.
    Mr. Forth: Could not my right hon. Friend hold out hope for hard-pressed ratepayers, and avoid the necessity for future rate capping, by bringing forward proposals to reform local Government finances in such a way as to reestablish the connection between voting and paying tax, the lack of which is one of the main reasons for the current problems in local government?
    Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The link between the rate demand and the ballot box has grown very thin in many areas. This is one of the many matters that I am considering in my review of local government. I hope that it will be possible to bring forward proposals later this year for public discussion.
    Mr. Loyden: Does the Minister not understand that at a time of mass unemployment, when thousands of people are awaiting housing, and when, in many towns and cities, there is an aging population, local authorities need not less but more finance to provide for those problems, which have been directly caused by the present Government?
    Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman represents part of the city of Liverpool. His city council is making such demands upon the national Exchequer that no Government could possibly meet them. I hope that that will not result in a grave crisis in the city of Liverpool later in the year. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to help to solve the housing crisis in Liverpool, he should persuade the city council to end its policy of buying co-operatives and instead to encourage co-operative housing development, which is what many of the people of Liverpool want.
    Mr. Peter Bruinvels: In Leicester, which is to be rate-capped, I have received fewer than 12 letters expressing opposition to rate capping and more than 150 expressing approval of it. Will my right hon. Friend assure his Department that the majority in Leicester believe that rate capping is important for the future of the city?
    Mr. Baker: I thank my hon. Friend for his robust defence of Government policy.
    Mr. Speaker: I must correct a wrong. I call Mr. Fatchett.
    Mr. Fatchett: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. Despite the embarrassment that you caused my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes), I thought that he did very well with his question.
    Is not the reality that the Minister has had to introduce rate capping because the Government have totally failed to honour their commitment in relation to local government expenditure? They have failed to abolish rates. They have lifted the burden of local authority expenditure away from the taxpayer and on to the individual ratepayer. Rather than helping the ratepayer, the Government have made themselves the enemy of the ratepayer by ensuring that they are paying more for less in terms of services.
    Mr. Baker: Since 1979 we have succeeded in restraining the rate of growth in local government expenditure to 1 per cent. a year in real terms. In the 1960s and 1970s there was growth of about 3 per cent. a year in real terms. The 18 rate-capped authorities together account for excess spending this year of £550 million.
    Mr. Straw: When Mr. John Clout, the leader of Conservative-controlled North Yorkshire county council, complained last month that of the 8·6 per cent. increase in the rates more than half was due to cuts in central Government grants, was he telling the truth?
    Mr. Baker: Speaking from memory, I believe that in North Yorkshire there was an increase in grant this year. Several shire counties have suffered a reduction in grant this year, including my own county of Surrey, which has just announced a rate increase of 4·9 per cent.

    Water Authorities
    Mr. Hicksasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the response of water authorities to the Government's decision to revise their financial targets in 1985–86; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Gow: Mixed. If I should catch your eye tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, I hope to make a statement then.
    Mr. Hicks: Can my hon. Friend explain the logic of the Government pursuing a strict anti-inflation policy and then deliberately imposing an increased scale of water charges on business and domestic consumers?
    Mr. Gow: I understand my hon. Friend's point, but it is Government policy that a proper rate of return should be earned by assets in the public sector. As to the effect of inflation, a 1 per cent. increase in water charges would add one hundredth of 1 per cent. to the retail prices index. Mercifully, charges for water are a modest part of
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    household budgets. Moreover, water charges are taken fully into account when calculating supplementary benefit, and 3 million households receive help in that way.
    Mr. Harris: Will my hon. Friend think again, even at this late stage, as many of us do not see the logic of the Government's policy? What is more, many people outside will be angry when they receive their water rate bills in a couple of weeks' time.
    Mr. Gow: I shall do my utmost to persuade my hon. Friend in the debate tomorrow.
    Mr. Bermingham: Will the Minister come clean either now or tomorrow and admit that the Government are imposing a tax on users of water, whether private or industrial? There is a tax on gas and electricity for the benefit of the Government's coffers, and water authorities are now being used in exactly the same way.
    Mr. Gow: I do not agree that the Government are imposing a tax on water. We are requiring a higher rate of return on assets owned by water authorities. A consequence of that higher rate of return will be higher investment and a reduction in borrowing. The latter is a central purpose of the Government's economic policy.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on, but in the debate tomorrow I shall bear in mind those hon. Members who wished to get in on this important question.
    Mr. Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the point of order arise out of questions?
    Mr. Winnick: I cannot pretend that it does. If you cannot accept it now, Mr. Speaker, may I give notice that I intend to raise a point of order with you at the first opportunity?

Gibraltar
3.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the outcome of my meeting yesterday in Geneva with the Spanish Foreign Minister, Sr. Moran, about Gibraltar.
As I foreshadowed in my statement to the House on 28 November, our meeting marked the start of the restoration, after an interval of 15 years, of direct communications and the free movement of persons, vehicles and goods between Gibraltar and Spain. We have also started the negotiations that were envisaged by the Lisbon statement of April 1980. They are aimed at overcoming all of the differences between us on Gibraltar and at promoting co-operation between Gibraltar and Spain on a wide range of matters. In addition, Spaniards in Gibraltar and Gibraltarians in Spain will enjoy European Community rights in advance of Spanish accession to the Community.
Spanish, British and Gibraltarian officials will now meet to deal with several specific areas for practical cooperation. They include aviation, tourism and economic and cultural matters. The first such meeting begins this month. Mr. Moran specifically reaffirmed to me the undertaking set out in the Brussels communiqué that the Spanish Government will take the early actions necessary to allow safe and effective air communications in the region. Specific ideas for this are now under consideration.
Mr. Moran raised the subject of sovereignty at our meeting. He was entitled to do so under the terms of the Lisbon and Brussels statements. He also outlined informally to me some ideas on the subject and said that he will later make formal proposals. However, Mr. Moran underlined the importance that he attaches to the interests and feelings of the Gibraltar people when dealing with this issue. For my part, I made clear that the British Government's commitment to honour the freely and democratically expressed wishes of the Gibraltarian people, which is plainly set out in the preamble to the Gibraltar constitution, stands unchanged.
Sir Joshua Hassan, who has led his people so resolutely over many years of difficulty, participated at my side yesterday as a member of the British delegation. He subsequently described the meeting in Geneva as positive and constructive in every way, and expressed himself fully satisfied that the results are good for Gibraltar. I greatly valued his wise advice. I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to his courage, steadfastness and statesmanship.
The task ahead is to see that practical co-operation between Gibraltar and Spain develops in a way which will benefit both peoples and that Spain and the United Kingdom continue to manage our differences as befits friends and allies.
In conclusion, I should like to make quite clear to the House that this result is good for Britain, good for Spain and, above all, good for the people of Gibraltar whose wishes we are pledged to respect.
Mr. Denis Healey: I welcome the statement of the Foreign Secretary and the fact that the frontier is now open. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House will feel that it is important that the
938
increase in contacts at the human level between Gibraltar and Spain and the close economic and cultural links which the Foreign Secretary foreshadowed should be able to reduce the fears and suspicions which have long tormented relations on both sides.
I am glad that the Foreign Secretary was able to tell us that Sr. Moran recognises the importance of the feelings and interests of the people of Gibraltar on this matter and has therefore made no formal approach on the question of sovereignty at this stage. He must recognise that there is widespread opposition on the rock, and there would be increased opposition if there were any pressure from the Spanish side for early negotiations on this matter. I hope that the Spanish Government also will consider the implications for any negotiations on the rock with regard to their own position in the Moroccan enclaves across the straits.
Nevertheless, I hope that all hon. Members will recognise that the existence of a strong democratic regime in Spain after so many years — a regime which, moreover, will join Britain in the Community in the very near future — increases the importance of developing links at every level between Gibraltar and Spain.
May I ask the Foreign Secretary two specific questions? First, can he tell us yet which civil servant will be responsible for pursuing the course which he has described to us this afternoon? Secondly, has the Prime Minister now any plans for visiting Madrid? The Foreign Secretary will be aware that she is the only Prime Minister of a community country who has not yet visited the capital of Spain.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: She has been everywhere else.
Mr. Healey: I must confess to my hon. Friend that my suggestion was not wholly without concern for assuring that there is no disagreement between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary on this matter as so unfortunately occurred during the negotiations on Hong Kong.
Finally, I hope that the precedent of better relations with Spain will be followed by seeking better relations with another democratic regime in another hispanic country which also maintains historic claims to sovereignty over a British colony.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. There is no parallel between the case of Gibraltar and that of the Falkland Islands. They are historically, legally and constitutionally quite different. Perhaps the most important difference is that Spain recognises the validity of our title under the treaty of Utrecht whereas Argentina refuses to acknowledge our sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Spain's attitude to the rights of the inhabitants of Gibraltar is also markedly different. Spain is an ally in NATO and a prospective partner in the European Community and has publicly stated that it intends to pursue its claim by peaceful means. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that that is in total contrast with the historical, geographical and constitutional position of the Falkland Islands. Our position in relation to the Falkland Islands remains unchanged.

939
The discussions between Spain and the United Kingdom will be monitored by civil servants on both sides at suitably senior level, subject to my direction on behalf of the Government.
As for possible visits, at this stage I say only that the agreement reached in Brussels and its implementation from yesterday plainly opens up prospects of visits far more clearly than has been the case thus far.
Sir Peter Blaker: I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on the part that he has played in ensuring that the border was finally opened. We hope that tourism will benefit from that, but does he agree that the main economic enterprise in Gibraltar remains the dockyard? Does he agree that it would be most helpful to good relations between Spain and Gibraltar if the Spaniards sent some ships to that yard for repair?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his congratulations. He was right to draw attention to tourism as being perhaps the most important component of economic growth in and around Gibraltar. Nevertheless, the dockyard remains important. I am glad to be able to tell the House that in the first nearly two months of its existence as a commercial yard it has got off to a very good start, that 500 people are now employed there and that the management expects a substantial increase in that number in the months ahead. A significant number of craft have passed through the yard. I am sure that the Spanish Government and, perhaps more important, Spanish commercial interests will appreciate the importance of the point made by my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Russell Johnston: I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on a well balanced and fair statement which safeguards the democratic wishes of Gibraltarians and paves the way for better relations with Spain. So why is Mr. Joe Bossano getting so excited?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations. As he will know, there are circumstances in which Opposition parties do not always take the same view as the Government of the day. I believe that the developments likely to take place in Gibraltar in the months and years ahead are likely to be seen as so much to the advantage of the people of Gibraltar that the understandable anxiety that now exists in Gibraltar—I seek in no way to diminish its significance—will respond to the practical consequences of the steps that we have taken.
Mr. Michael Latham: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's achievement and that of Sir Joshua Hassan. In telling the Department that the Government stand firm on the commitment to the Gibraltar constitution, will my right hon. and learned Friend stress that in no circumstances will the House of Commons permit any retreat from that position?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I have made it quite plain, not just in the Department where it has always been abundantly plain but to the Spanish Foreign Minister and the people of Gibraltar throughout the negotiations, that the commitment set out in the Gibraltar constitution stands without qualification and is of the utmost importance. One of the most important features of the negotiations has been the extent to which that has been wisely and practically acknowledged by Spanish Government spokesmen.
Mr. Tom Clarke: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that on an important constitutional matter the view of every opposition is important? In view of the narrow margin between the parties in Gibraltar, what consideration was given to the views of Mr. Joe Bossano?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I agree that one should not disregard the view of any opposition in a parliamentary democracy. When one discusses a matter of such importance with a democratically based community such as Gibraltar, it is right to pay attention to the views expressed by the democratically elected Chief Minister. He offered wide and sustained advice throughout the matter, and has been responsible for carrying through the Gibraltar legislature the necessary measures, which he has done. That is the right way to handle such an issue. I am grateful for the support and advice that I have received from Sir Joshua Hassan.
Sir Antony Buck: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that most Conservative Members will wish to congratulate him on what has been achieved and, even more, on the responsible attitude adopted by Sir Joshua Hassan and many people in Gibraltar. Will my right hon. and learned Friend say a word about the defence implications of the agreement, and confirm that Gibraltar will continue under the new set-up to be an important factor in our defence of that part of the Mediterranean?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his opening remarks and endorse what he said about Sir Joshua Hassan. The defence component of Gibraltar remains important. One of the points touched on in the Brussels communiqué was the possibility of discussions on military matters with the Spanish Government. That has not arisen yet, and a number of other questions in the NATO context do not arise in the present circumstances.
Mr. John David Taylor: Although most hon. Members will welcome the Government's position, which honours the freely and democratically expressed wishes of the Gibraltarians, they must be worried that in the statement the Secretary of State made a distinction between our Government's position and the position of the Spanish Foreign Minister. Will he explain further the distinction that he made when he went out of his way to say that the Spanish Government simply and merely attaches importance to the interests and feelings of the Gibraltar people? That is certainly not recognising their democratic rights.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: It is right to acknowledge the extent to which the Spanish Government, founded, as the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) pointed out, on the basis of a democratic constitution, and democratically elected, recognise the importance of Gibraltar's democratic institutions. Some time ago, Sr Moran observed:
"If they gave me Gibraltar on a plate against the will of the Gibraltarians it would not be a good deal for Spain."
That is an important recognition of the importance of the wishes and interests of the Gibraltarians. I take the opportunity of paying tribute to Sr Moran's contribution to the negotiations. I repeat that our commitment as set out in the 1969 constitution stands unqualified.
Mr. Nicholas Soames: Clearly the House will wish to congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend

941
and Sr Moran on the positive way in which the talks have begun. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that clearing the air on this matter will facilitate Spain's entry into the European Community, and also enable it to continue its membership of NATO?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's opening remarks. We attach importance to Spain's continued membership of NATO and its accession to the Community. I hope that the agreements that we reached on this matter will help to sustain both those things. It was also important for us to reach a conclusion on these matters bilaterally between our two countries to establish a cooperative atmosphere and to make it plain that it was not in any sense being agreed upon in the course of securing agreement to Spain's entry to the Community.
Mr. Eric S. Heifer: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that congratulations are due both to him and, more important, to the democratic Government in Spain who have acted intelligently throughout the discussions? Is it not clear that in the long run the question of sovereignty must be settled through negotiations with Spain? Is it not also clear that Joe Bossano has much in common with Felipe Gonzalez if we could only get the two people together and discuss the matter in such a way that Gibraltar could be considered as part of the new approach of the Spanish Government towards devolved government in Spain, which is in line with their Socialist policies?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I repeat my tribute to the way in which the Spanish Government, democratically elected as they are, have approached this matter. The fact that the border is now open, and that there is an atmosphere in which good contacts and personal and social relationships are likely to be established, may lead to all sorts of changes of mind on both sides of the border. I cannot predict what course those will take, save to reaffirm our commitment to the wishes of the Gibraltar people as set out in the 1969 constitution.
Mr. John Stokes: My right hon. and learned Friend will know how much I admire his efforts as Foreign Secretary, and how much I oppose the ignorant attacks on the Foreign Office. But ordinary people are puzzled by the talks with Spain about Gibraltar. They say, "If we have no intention of surrendering the sovereignty of Gibraltar to Spain, why have the talks at all?"
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The answer to his question is that the sovereignty of Gibraltar has been at issue between the Spanish and British Governments for many years. It has overshadowed and made much more difficult the conduct of relations between those Governments. It has created conditions that have made the prospect of social and economic prosperity for Gibraltar much more difficult. The agreement that we have reached is that the topic can be discussed by the two Governments on the firm basis that I have outlined of our continued commitment to respect the wishes of the Gibraltar people. From that can flow nothing but advantage. As I said in my opening statement, it is a good agreement for Britain, for Spain and for the people of Gibraltar.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: With regard to the Foreign Secretary's reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) on the historical differences between Gibraltar and the Falklands, does the Foreign Secretary accept that he is making a serious criticism of his hon. Friends and mine on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, who expressed the gravest doubts about the legal and historical background? Does he dismiss the Select Committee? What is his attitude to it?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman will have many opportunities to discuss the Falkland Islands, but that subject does not arise from this statement. It would be wrong for me to swap views with the hon. Gentleman now. I raised the subject in answer to a question from the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). I answered his question by saying that the two matters are completely different.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: Does my right hon. and learned Friend realise that his statement today, together with his efforts and those of Sr Moran and Sir Joshua Hassan, will be broadly supported by the great majority of hon. Members? Will he confirm that top of the agenda for the talks will be allowing more flights into Gibraltar as soon as possible.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's opening remarks. As I said in my statement, and as was set out in the Brussels agreement, the Spanish Government reaffirm their commitment to take the early action necessary to ensure the safe and effective use of airspace in the region.
Mr. David Young: Honourable Members on both sides of the House will be grateful if we can reconcile the three conflicting points of view. Before we sink into a swamp of self-congratulation, may I point out that many Gibraltarians believe that they are being sold out the back door economically, if not politically? What will the Foreign Secretary do to consult the official Opposition on this matter? Does he recognise that Spain is again playing on the fact that Gibraltar is still a colony? Would not one of the options be to offer self-government if the aspirations of the Gibraltar people were not satisfied?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: As to consultation with the Opposition, the hon. Gentleman will have noticed that these matters have been the subject of frequent debate in the Gibraltar Legislative Assembly, and that has been the background against which the Chief Minister of Gibraltar has been playing his part in these negotiations.
As to self-government, the treaty of Utrecht, on which our sovereignty is founded, contains in it a provision to the effect that, in the event of the United Kingdom wishing to give up sovereignty, Spain should have first refusal. It has been clear, and was emphasised, for example, by Sir Joshua Hassan in London last Wednesday that the choice for the people of Gibraltar is either to remain under British sovereignty or to move under Spanish sovereignty. There is no third option under the provisions of the treaty. In that context, we emphasise the importance that we attach to the pledge to respect the wishes of the Gibraltar people.
As to the hon. Gentleman's accusation of a sell-out, economically if not politically, the state of affairs in Gibraltar up to now has been nothing but bad for the Gibraltar economy. It has involved an outflow of money

943
across the border of about £150,000 a week, about £16 million in the past two years. As a result of the changes that came into force yesterday, the prospects for economic prosperity for the people of Gibraltar and the region have been substantially improved.
Mr. Mark Wolfson: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the future of the Gibraltar economy will increasingly depend on the ability of the Gibraltarians to develop it? To this end, will he give what support he can to the establishment and development of some basic further education in Gibraltar? At this stage, this is very limited, which means that the necessary skills for the future are not being developed?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I take note of that specific point without making any comment about it. My hon. Friend is right in the premise of his question, that the prosperity of Gibraltar will depend on the enterprise of the people of Gibraltar, matched with the courage that they have always shown during the difficult years through which they have just passed.
Mr. Eric Deakins: Does Sr. Moran now fully appreciate that the only way for Spain to regain sovereignty over Gibraltar is for her to set out to win the hearts and minds of the people of that colony?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: That has been clearly stressed in the remarks that I quoted about the need for any negotiating process to have respect for the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. I underline that point.
Mr. James Couchman: I would not wish to be unhelpful in the face of considerable diplomatic triumphs, but, like many other hon. Members, I am concerned to establish that the opening of the gate has merely returned the situation to that which pertained for many years, and that it does not represent a step towards ceding Gibraltar to the Spanish. Therefore, will my right hon. and learned Friend remember that many Gibraltarians are able to trace their ancestry back to this country for many generations?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I assure my hon. Friend that I have been mindful throughout of the factors to which he has drawn attention, and that in all these matters we have been concerned not just with finding a conclusion that will promote good relations between Spain and Britain but in paying attention to the interests of the people of Gibraltar. I have no doubt that this agreement is in their interests, and it is underpinned by my repeated emphasis on the continued validity of the preamble to the 1969 constitution.
Mr. Jim Craigen: Having arrived in Gibraltar with a parliamentary delegation on the day that the Brussels communiqué was announced, may I ask the Foreign Secretary whether he will take it from me that there is considerable mistrust of Spanish officialdom in Gibraltar? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that he will do more to reassure the official socialist opposition and the official democratic opposition in Gibraltar that they need not be equally distrustful of the intentions of the Foreign Office?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I take this opportunity to tell the House that there is no question of the Foreign Office adopting a separate position or policy over this matter. The decisions taken by the Foreign Secretary on behalf of Her Majesty's Government are taken not out of any consideration for Foreign Office interests but because we judge them to be in the best interests of Spain and Britain and of the people of Gibraltar. I well understand that, in the light of the experience of the last 15 years, there is bound to be some mistrust of officialdom of the kind that the hon. Member described on the Spanish side of the border. There is mistrust not just of officialdom but elsewhere. One of the benefits of opening the border will be the gradual dissolution of that mistrust and the improvement of the economic prospects of the people of Gibraltar.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: Is it not clear that this is a splendid agreement, because one can now buy whisky in Gibraltar at £3.50 a bottle? Will my right hon. and learned Friend have a word with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in order to find out whether that price can be emulated here?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I hesitate to respond favourably to my hon. Friend's invitation to job back in my previous existence in this House.
Mr. Healey: If the Foreign Secretary rejects the Falklands as a precedent for Gibraltar, does he accept the view of King Juan Carlos of Spain and of his colleague the Spanish Foreign Minister that Hong Kong may provide a useful precedent?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I would counsel the right hon. Gentleman against following that course. He must remember very clearly that British sovereignty over Gibraltar is plainly founded upon the treaty of Utrecht without any limit to its term. That is in total contrast to Hong Kong where 92 per cent. is held on a lease that is due to expire in 1997. I would not encourage the right hon. Gentleman to go down that road.

RAF Molesworth
4.3 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Michael Heseltine): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the operation conducted last night at RAF Molesworth to clear the site of trespassers and to fence it.
The then Secretary of State for Defence announced on 17 June 1980 the Government's decision that Molesworth, a disused airfield in Cambridgeshire, had been selected as the second United Kingdom cruise missile base. The normal process of planning consultation was set in hand towards the end of last year against the requirement to begin major construction on the site this autumn if deployment by 1988 is to be achieved.
As the House will be aware, RAF Molesworth, as an unfenced and open site, has been the scene of continued trespass by individuals and groups opposed to its use as a cruise missile base. Their activities have given rise to much local anxiety. The anti-nuclear protest groups have made clear their intention to engage in a systematic programme of deliberate delay and disruption, not excluding unlawful means, in order to prevent its development. It would have been quite wrong to allow such a protest to build up on Ministry of Defence land and to accept that the serious inconvenience to local people would continue.
I therefore directed that the necessary steps should be taken to end this as quickly as possible and with the least likelihood of danger to all concerned. To do so, it was necessary to act in secrecy and with speed in order to prevent the very serious problems which would have arisen from the reinforcement of the protesters that had been threatened. This could have led to a major confrontation with all the risks which that involved to both demonstrators and those responsible for the maintenance of law and order.
The operation began shortly before midnight last night with the arrival of Ministry of Defence police to clear the site of trespassers and to take control of it. The civil police were responsible for policing outside the site itself. At the same time, 1500 Royal Engineers began to fence off the whole site with dannert-type fencing. They are also providing observation platforms and perimeter lighting which will assist the Ministry of Defence police in their continuing task of guarding the site. In addition, members of the Property Services Agency and civil contractors moved heavy equipment on to the site to begin the construction of a permanent weldmesh fence for which planning agreement has already been given.

This House reaffirmed in October 1983 its support for the NATO twin-track decision on intermediate range nuclear forces. The Government very much hope that, now that the Soviet Union has returned to the negotiating table, it will be possible to make progress on the arms control element of that decision. But until progress has been achieved which makes this unnecessary, we shall continue with preparations for the deployment of cruise missiles. That is a decision approved by Parliament. No responsible Secretary of State for Defence, or Government, could countenance such preparations being frustrated by a small, unrepresentative minority within our society.
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That is why the action that I have described has been undertaken today. I have myself visited Molesworth this morning in order to pass on the Government's thanks to those concerned. The House will, I know, wish to join me in paying tribute to all those involved in ensuring that this major operation has proceeded so successfully.
Mr. Denzil Davies: The operations about which the statement is made demonstrate again how heavy-handed, how insecure and how insensitive the right hon. Gentleman is when trying to deal with those whose only offence is their wish to protest peacefully against nuclear weapons. We remember the right hon. Gentleman threatening from the Dispatch Box that he would authorise the shooting of unarmed demonstrators. We remember how relentlessly he pursued the prosecution of the hapless Sarah Tisdall. We have read this week, in matters that are sub judice, how he exaggerated the problems of the Ministry of Defence on that occasion. Now we see the right hon. Gentleman doing exactly the same thing again. Clearly he has no understanding of what some of us thought was a civilised and humane way of trying to deal with these problems in Britain.
When the right hon. Gentleman strutted around Molesworth this morning in his flak jacket, did he not realise that he was not evicting some wild, Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang, but that he was evicting 100 British citizens, most of whom are Quakers with a long religious tradition of honourable protest against the weapons of war?
Will the right hon. Gentleman answer three questions? First, how many troops were involved and what regiments did they represent, how many military police were involved and how many civilian police were involved? Secondly, did he personally authorise this ridiculous operation? Thirdly, is he aware that all that he has done has been to sow 100 dragons' teeth? The protest not only will go on but will intensify because of what the right hon. Gentleman did this morning.
Mr. Heseltine: The whole House will have noticed that when what I have done has been to secure the maintenance of law and order and the legitimate rights of my Department to use its own land for its own purposes, the determination that we in this country share to live within the law is wholly repugnant to the Opposition.
If the right hon. Gentleman had taken the least trouble to read the statements of many members of the peace protest groups about the plans they had in mind deliberately to frustrate the Government's intention to develop that base—their widely publicised plans to lie in the path of necessary equipment, to frustrate the contractors, to stop us brick by brick—he would have realised that if I had acted with less dispatch they would have begun to implement those plans and to call up additional resources from all over the country. We could have faced civil disobedience on that site not just for days or weeks but for months.
If the right hon. Gentleman reads what has been clearly stated he will understand that about 1,500 Royal Engineers were used to build a fence. The people who maintained law and order were the Ministry of Defence police and the civil police. However, it would not be appropriate for me to give details of the numbers of policemen involved. If I did that, the only gain would be that it would enable the right hon. Gentleman and his friends to calculate how

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many more demonstrators they need in order to — [Interruption.] Today we have heard the petty response of a party whose only real cause of complaint is that it has been deprived of one more opportunity to support lawlessness.
Dr. Brian Mawhinney: Does my right hon. Friend realise that his decision has the full support of my constituents in the nearest city to Molesworth and that it has, in particular, the support of the constituents of my next-door neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), who is today in his customary place on the Treasury Bench? He has vigorously defended his constituents' interests for many months. Does my right hon. Friend accept that his decision, coupled with that of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to meet extra police costs arising out of demonstrations at Molesworth, has reconfirmed the belief of the people of Cambridgeshire that this Government will provide the necessary national defence, but not at the expense of their local legitimate interests?
Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for both of his questions. Of course I completely support what he has said about the decisions of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend for his words on behalf of his constituents, which I very much appreciate. I am particularly grateful to him—and he will understand if I make the distinction — for what he said on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). Throughout the long occupation of parts of the Molesworth site my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon has been in the most invidious position as a member of the Government. He has continually made representations to me. I have tried to keep him as fully informed as possible, and I am glad that only about six hours after he was involved in the presentation of a petition on behalf of a very large number of his constituents, we were able—I am sorry about the short delay—to act.
Mr. John Cartwright: Does the Secretary of State agree that we should get last night's events into proportion? Does he accept that within a democracy protesters have a perfect right to demonstrate against aspects of Government policy with which they disagree, but that the authorities are equally entitled to outwit them? That is just what happened last night at Molesworth.
Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as he has made two important points. Every hon. Member recognises that there is a legitimate opportunity for peaceful protest within certain understandable conventions. Indeed, this House is about peaceful protest, and that is one of the great traditions of our democracy. But if a Secretary of State charged with responsibility for maintaining the law in these matters, reads that unless he is careful and gets his plans right he may endanger the very lives not only of male protesters but of women and children, he has a positive duty to take all reasonable steps possible to minimise the force necessary to secure the Government's proper objectives.
Sir Antony Buck: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Conservative Members very much welcome his statement because of the relief that it will give to law-abiding constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), who is a Whip, and to the
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constituents of other hon. Members? Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have shown our determination to retain and maintain the credibility of our deterrent posture?
Mr. Heseltine: I am most grateful to my hon and learned Friend for that point. Now that the arms negotiations are under way, nothing is more evident than that our policy of deterrence has paid off. Those who are concerned with the deployment of cruise missiles should remember that one of their principal arguments against the missiles was that if we went ahead, the Russians would not talk to us and would move out of the negotiating conferences. However, they have actually moved back. Since we took a decision to deploy cruise missiles in this country in 1979, the Soviet Union has increased its deployment of SS20s by more than 250.
Mr. Tony Benn: Is the Secretary of State aware that the peace camps in Britain, founded on the Gandhi principles of non-violence, are very highly respected all over the world, that the transfer of British territory to an American President so that he can make war from that base without the consent of the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister or the House of Commons is unacceptable, and that the decision to build a Berlin wall around the camp, together with the right hon. Gentleman's readiness to shoot those who might try to get into the camp, shows that the Government are prepared to use the full apparatus of the state to obliterate opposition to their policies?
Mr. Heseltine: I heard what the right hon. Gentleman said about American bases in this country. If I had an apology to make to the House, it would be that I have so slavishly followed the conventions that he so honourably defended when he was a member of the previous Labour Government. However, I do not feel it necessary to make that apology, because I took the view that the right hon. Gentleman's defence policies were broadly right. I do not understand why, in opposition, he has so extraordinarily abandoned them. Perhaps I can take issue with the right hon. Gentleman on this, as on so many other things. He says that the peace groups are respected throughout the world. That is a matter of judgment. But what is respected about this country throughout the world is our love of law and order and our respect for parliamentary democracy.
Sir Anthony Grant: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these pests who have made the lives of the citizens of Huntingdon a misery are certainly not respected by the people of Cambridgeshire or Huntingdon? Is he further aware that our constituents very much welcome the firm and efficient way in which he has carried out this operation? Does my right hon. Friend realise that they greatly admire the dedicated way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) has fought on their behalf for several months? Finally, is my right hon. Friend aware that he is to be congratulated because the operation was undertaken, remarkably, without any leak from his Department?
Mr. Heseltine: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, and I agree with everything that he said. However, I have unselfishly to admit that the credit for there being no leak must be extended much more widely than just my Department.
Mr. Peter Pike: How much did last night's exercise cost? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that

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that exercise was more consistent with a police state than with a democracy in the way in which it was carried out in such secrecy? The right hon. Gentleman said that the protesters at Molesworth represented a minority opinion, but does he not realise that opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of people are opposed to cruise? The Government were elected by fewer than 50 per cent. of the voters and it is they who are in the minority on this occasion.
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman will realise that the Government have one of the largest parliamentary majorities since the war. The Conservative party made it quite clear that if it was elected to office it would proceed with the deployment of cruise missiles. We very much believe that the Labour party was quite right in 1979 when it took the decision that led to their deployment in this country.
The cost of the exercise last night was probably relatively small because of the large number of service men involved. It was probably the cheapest way of proceeding, because if we had not carried out that operation we might have suffered substantial delays in the construction programme, which would have imposed a larger cost on the Ministry. The hon. Gentleman asked whether our action was not representative of that of police states. I do not know how one can maintain law and order in a parliamentary democracy without asking the police to ensure that it is maintained.
Mr. George Walden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that most, probably all, Conservative Members believe that the protection of defence establishments is an integral part of our defence policy? Will he continue to take whatever action is necessary within our democratic traditions to avoid a repetition of the shambles at Greenham common?
Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking those questions and I sympathise with the approach that he adopts in asking them. The shambles imposed on our society is organised by those indulging in the protest movement. Precisely because we live in a parliamentary democracy and follow the proper traditions of that democracy, there is a limit to the scale on which the police can prevent people from indulging in demonstrations of the sort that we have seen. That imposes a terrifying cost, not just financial but social, on large numbers of citizens who profoundly disapprove of what the protests are all about. A balance must be struck, and what guides my Department, as it did last night and on earlier occasions, is that we always try to use the minimum of force compatible with securing our objectives.
Mr. David Winnick: Is the Secretary of State aware that what took place was an eastern European type of operation—which illustrated only too well the continued erosion of civil liberties that has taken place under Conservative rule? [Interruption.] The shouts that are coming from Tory Members may be likened to the nods of approval that one would expect in eastern European states for action against protests. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, no matter what operation took place last night, the campaign against cruise missiles will
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continue because we live in a democracy and people who feel so strongly about such matters that they wish to demonstrate will not be stopped?
Mr. Heseltine: The House will think it extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman can be so selective. In talking about what happens as a challenge from the East he conveniently ignores the fact that the East began the deployment of the weapon systems that led to the protests at Molesworth and Greenham common in the first place. If he had a shred of objectivity, he would consider what might happen to people who tried to occupy bases in the Soviet Union in similar circumstances.
Mr. Peter Viggers: Will my right hon. Friend agree that CND consistently and deliberately misleads as to the amount of public support it enjoys in Britain? Does he agree that the true level of support was evidenced by a petition for the removal of the camp at Molesworth, which was signed by more than 90 per cent. of the local population within three days; by a poll at St. Ives which went against CND's protest appeal against cruise; and by a petition at Alconbury for the removal of a camp, which was signed by more than 90 per cent. of the local population in a short time? Will my right hon. Friend join in urging CND to cancel its pointless and disruptive Easter march?
Mr. Heseltine: I support my hon. Friend and admire the energy he puts into the articulation of the case. When public opinion is consulted on these matters, it finds the tactics of the protest groups wholly unacceptable. The problem in a democracy such as ours is that a burden is imposed by tiny minorities behaving in a way that is unacceptable to the vast majority of us. My hon. Friend asks whether I am aware that the views of these minorities are unrepresentative. Yes, I am aware of that, and in my constituency at the last election one such person stood against me. The House will be pleased to hear that I won.
Mr. D. E. Thomas: Will the Secretary of State accept that the tactics employed by the state are equally unacceptable in a parliamentary democracy? Does he understand that the use of massive force in a paramilitary operation by the Ministry of Defence, using troops against civilian peace protesters, undermines the very quality of democracy that he pretends to support?
Mr. Heseltine: It was an interesting choice that someone with my responsibilities had to face. Had I pursued the logic of that question, I would have given notice and presumably deployed what I would have believed to be an inadequate force, and then we could have had thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of men, women and children with whom to cope. Presumably at that point the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends would have told me that I should abandon the Government's policies because an even larger and less representative minority was challenging us.
Mr. William Powell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the western boundary fence of Molesworth is also the county boundary between Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire? Will he accept from me the welcome that my constituents in Northamptonshire will give to the action taken by his Department and the civil police during the evening? Is he further aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) and I have, during

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the last weeks and months, received a growing volume of protests from our constituents in Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire about the growth of criminal and antisocial behaviour by the campers at the Molesworth air base? Will my right hon. Friend accept that our constituents will fail to recognise the description of those people, who have now been removed, as Gandhian in their behaviour, as has been claimed for them? Will my right hon. Friend accept that my constituents will welcome his statement that the preparations for Molesworth will continue, because they know that the surest way in which it will be unnecessary to deploy at Molesworth is if we continue with our efforts until such time as agreement is reached at Geneva?
Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those remarks. I agree wholly with his last point, and I assure him that the interests of the citizens of Northamptonshire were as much in my mind as the interests of the citizens of Cambridgeshire.
Mr. Bob Clay: Will the Secretary of State admit that this has been another example of the right hon. Gentleman informing the House that he has carried out his orders from General Bernard Rogers in the Pentagon? Did not last night illustrate again the Government's increasing determination to carry out by force what they cannot do by persuasion? It is clear that the majority of people in Britain are opposed to cruise missiles. Given all the heart-rending stories about the dilemmas and so on that the right hon. Gentleman faced, will he now say whether any warning was given to the men, women and children that they would be moved? [Interruption.] Did they receive eviction notices? If it was not appropriate to issue such notices, why have eviction notices been issued at Greenham common since the peace campers first went there? Is it not a fact that because of the tremendous resistance of the women at Greenham, he is now using the iron fist at Molesworth? The logic of the right hon. Gentleman's argument that he is saving money—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] I am taking no longer than did the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Powell). If the right hon. Gentleman is arguing that his action will save money in the long term—by nipping the protest in the bud now—the logic of that is that he might as well get the troops out now and round up the lot of us—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and achieve what he wants in one go.
Mr. Heseltine: It may come as a severe disappointment to the hon. Gentleman to learn that we went to a great deal of trouble to give proper warning to those involved at the peace camp. The chief constable involved, using words which were designed to ensure that the campers were given the chance to go of their own free will, made it clear that coaches were available to take women and children, that welfare services would be available, in conjunction with the Cambridgeshire county council, and that no pressure to move would be put on until the morning. I believe that he went as far as could seriously have been expected in all the circumstances. Great attention was paid to ensure that that message was delivered to the people occupying the land.
The hon. Gentleman repeats parrot cries about the Pentagon which suit the convenience of his prejudices. It will come as a disappointment to him to hear that I did not discuss the plans of last night either with the Pentagon or
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with General Rogers, and I have no reason to suppose that they were aware of them in time for them to make any impact whatever on them. The hon. Gentleman talks about persuasion, presumably thinking that we should try to persuade tiny and and unrepresentative groups. We believe that the real challenge of persuasion is to persuade the British electorate to give us a mandate to carry through certain policies.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that a further statement follows this debate before quite a heavy day. I ask for shorter supplementary questions, which will lead to shorter answers.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the vicinity of the great air bases in my constituency, where by far the largest number of American aircraft and personnel are located, the most popular sign in the windows of the houses of the ordinary people who live nearby is not "Yanks go home" but "No peace camps here"? My right hon. Friend's action has been a clear response to the wishes of the vast majority of ordinary people who have the experience of living alongside the American camps and the peace camps and who have no doubt that they prefer the Americans.
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend puts more eloquently than I can the deep conviction that exists on this matter. Any Government since the war could have asked the Americans to go. They did not, because they knew that we gained immeasurably from the American presence.
Mr. Kevin Barron: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that what happened at Molesworth last night will be seen by people as nothing more than an irrational operation that is part of an irrational policy of having first strike nuclear weapons on this soil? Is the right hon. Gentleman telling the House that the question of law and order is for the Minister of Defence and not for the law courts?
Mr. Heseltine: The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second question is also no.
Mr. Robert Key: In the interests of lowering the risks of confrontation between the demonstrators and the military, will my right hon. Friend urge my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to bring forward at the earliest possible opportunity the implementation of section 25 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984? I believe that this measure would be widely welcomed by the local constabularies involved.
Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand if I say that I shall ensure that his views are drawn to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: The Secretary of State has clearly failed to note that the majority of people have, in opinion poll after opinion poll, spoken against cruise missiles. Has the right hon. Gentleman recognised that point? Will he recognise that the majority of thinking people will see the action last night as crass insensitivity at a time when the Geneva talks are continuing? Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the majority of people who have protested peacefully and non-violently at Greenham common and elsewhere are doing the only thing they can to show the Government that they wholly oppose the deployment of nuclear weapons?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Lady is completely wrong. Those people could have stood for election in the constituencies, where the people express a proper democratic view. Many of them stood for election and failed. A large number of them sit on the Opposition Benches, and that is why they were humiliated in the last election.
Mr. Michael Mates: Amid all this mock furore from the loony Left, will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to remind the House of the real success of last night's operation? The real success is the fact that we have revealed again the determination which NATO, with Britain leading, has shown in bringing the Russians to the conference table to discuss disarmament. That is the real success of last night.
Mrs. Clwyd: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Allan Rogers: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall take the point of order after the Minister's answer.
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) strikes at the core of the matter. Those who were against the deployment of cruise missiles told us that, if we proceeded, the Russians would not negotiate about arms control. Now that the Russians have come back to negotiate about arms control, those people tell us that, if we continue, the Russians will not negotiate about arms control. Our view is diametrically the opposite—the firmer our deterrent, the more likely it is that the talks will be successful.
Mr. Speaker: What is the point of order?
Mr. Rogers: Am I allowed to state my point of order, or am I being challenged, Mr. Speaker? — [Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members do not have any belief in democracy, so I shall forget all about them. My point of order is—
Mrs. Clwyd: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Rogers: My point of order is—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am trying to help the hon. Member. It might be best if I took the point of order later.
Mr. Rogers: I am trying to control my feelings, Mr. Speaker. I felt that, when I rose to make a legitimate point of order, you were challenging my right to make a point of order. I respect your independence. In that respect, I must admit that I was concerned about the way in which you asked me about the point of order.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member should come to the point.
Mr. Rogers: I shall, Mr. Speaker. As previous Speakers have ruled that it would be wrong for Opposition Members to refer to Conservative Members—whether it is right or wrong — as Fascists or neo-Fascists, is it proper for an hon. Member to refer to other hon. Members who have spoken during this debate as the loony Left?
Mr. Speaker: It might be thought to be a term of endearment.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
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accept that one of the most important outcomes of his action yesterday was the reinforcement of the right of the majority to be heard? Is it not time that the minorities were told—as my right hon. Friend has done on this occasion—that the majority's views must be understood and that their lives should not be continually allowed to be made a misery by these loony people who feel that they have a right to run into the ground the lives of everyone else?
Mr. Heseltine: I do not think that I should adopt the use of the word "loony" as its use appears to be rather sensitive in certain sections of the House. I believe that it is necessary for the parliamentary democratic process to be upheld. That is why we argue in elections, and when we win elections we carry through policies precisely as my hon. Friend suggests.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) that I was not seeking to get a cheap laugh at his expense. I believe that we should seek not to raise the temperature of hon. Members through anything we say in the Chamber. Although I do not think that "loony" is a very unparliamentary word, let us avoid its use this afternoon. Mr. Tam Dalyell. [Interruption.]
Mr. Tam Dalyell: In view of the comment I heard made by a Conservative Member, I point out that I hope that matters of sub judice and privilege will be referred to in the proper way after a certain case is concluded. The remark was quite audible.
On what date was the Prime Minister consulted about this operation, or was it her idea?
Mr. Heseltine: I took the original decision in November. We began planning procedures within my Department. I informed my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of my plans some considerable time after that, when I believed that the plans could be fully implemented.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the moves at Molesworth last night were moves not against peaceful demonstrators but against those people who, when they decide to demonstrate, reserve unto themselves the right to break the law, be it civil or criminal? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is immensely sad to note that not one single voice will be raised this afternoon from within a party which still has some pretensions to office to praise the fact that the rule of law has been upheld?
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend has come to the centre of one of the most depressing features of this Opposition. There was a time when there was a consensus about the maintenance of law and order, but the Labour party seems to be incapable of ever standing up for the rights of the majority or, in fact, for the maintenance of law and order.
Mr. Roland Boyes: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Opposition are for the defence of Britain and that they believe, along with the vast majority of people—as expressed through opinion polls—that the deployment of cruise missiles will make Britain a more dangerous place in which to live? Is the Secretary of State aware that the people of Britain will contrast very much the building by the Ministry of a 7½ mile long 7 ft high fence of barbed wire with the building by the peace people of a school and a church, which was dedicated by the Bishop of Huntingdon, and the sending to Ethiopia of 20 tonnes of wheat grown by them on that site?
Mr. Heseltine: The British people will understand that if we had not put a fence around that land, the Ministry of Defence land would have been occupied by increasingly large numbers of people determined to act illegally.
Mr. Robert Adley: Has my right hon. Friend thought about the strange anomaly of the enthusiasm of Opposition Members for opinion polls? May we expect an opinion poll on capital punishment to be as highly regarded by the Labour party? Following the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), would it not be right and proper to recognise that the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright), who speaks for the Social Democratic party and presumably for his Liberal allies, did not share the ridiculous view held by Her Majesty's loyal Opposition towards the maintenance of law and order? May I ask that the word loyal be put in inverted commas in Hansard?
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend makes a critical point. If the Labour party had its policies tested by opinion poll, it would virtually never secure a majority on any one of them. It cannot secure a majority in any circumstances.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Does the Secretary of State accept that last night's jackboot-method attack on the peace camp at Molesworth is but another example of the paranoia and increasing brutality of the Government's policy of foisting nuclear weapons on an unwilling population? What steps is he taking to inform the people of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and the surrounding districts of the increased danger to their livelihoods of a nuclear explosion because of the presence of nuclear weapons on that site? How many of the people living near to the camp could expect to survive a nuclear attack or the explosion of a cruise missile?
Mr. Heseltine: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I would rather tell the truth. That will perhaps be rather more attractive to the citizens of Huntingdonshire who, I think, know as well as I do that the decision to modernise NATO intermediate nuclear weapons was taken in April 1979 by the Labour party then in government.
Mr. Gavin Strang: Does not last night's massive use of force demonstrate that the Government are hellbent on the further deployment of cruise missiles, which will be American-owned, controlled and operated? Surely he recognises that further
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deployment in Europe must damage prospects of progress in the forthcoming United States-Soviet talks on nuclear disarmament?
Mr. Heseltine: I have answered that question. There is no truth in it, and that is why the Soviet Union is back at the negotiating table. This Government are broadly pursuing policies pursued by every Labour Government since the war.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: We have had some splendid revelations today. It took a three-month planning exercise for the Secretary of State to go down in history as the victor of Molesworth common. More British troops were used against 100 British peace campaigners and Quakers at Molesworth common than were used against the Argentines at Goose green. That is the extent of Secretary of State's victory today. If ever a nut used a sledge hammer, it was the Secretary of State on this occasion. Is the Secretary of State aware that with the Geneva talks about to take place, many people throughout the world and in this country believe that we should not be going ahead with any preparations for further deployment of cruise, but that there should be a complete freeze on any deployment until we know the outcome of those talks? When the Labour party is on the Government Benches—[Interruption.]—it will not be long—it will be our policy to rid these islands of cruise, other nuclear weapons and nuclear bases.
Mr. Heseltine: I suppose that it is too much to expect the hon. Gentleman to report accurately what the House has been told. The only people who had contact with the demonstrators were members of the civil or Ministry of Defence police. The Royal Engineers were used to build the fence. To the best of my knowledge—I shall correct this if it is wrong—when I was on the site at about 11 o'clock, no force had been used in connection with moving any demonstrators because they had gone peacefully. One of the reasons why they had gone peacefully was that it was apparent that there was no purpose in them doing anything other than that. If there had been an inadequate presence on that site, they would then have been tempted to resort to the tactics that they had told us they would use — to call up more demonstrators from all over the country. The hon. Gentleman tells us that when the Labour party is in power it will pursue a whole range of non-nuclear policies. He fails to understand that it is because of that threat that it is not in power.

Local Government (Practices and Procedures)
4.45 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement.
In the debate on the Address on 7 November I said that I intended to set up an inquiry into various practices and procedures in local government. Following discussions with the Opposition parties and the local authority associations, I am now in a position to give further information to the House.
The terms of reference for the inquiry will be as follows:
To inquire into practices and procedures governing the conduct of local authority business in Great Britain, with particular reference to:

a. the rights and responsibilities of elected members;

b. the respective roles of elected members and officers; and

c. the need to clarify the limits and conditions governing discretionary spending by local authorities

and to make any necessary recommendations for strengthening the democratic process.
Within those terms of reference I am inviting the committee to pay particular attention to the following issues:
ensuring proper accountability for decision-taking to elected members and to the electorate generally; and examining possible ways of strengthening local democracy within the existing structure of local government;
clarifying the status and role of party groups in decision-taking;
ensuring the proper participation and accountability of individual elected members in the decision-taking process;
examining any problems of propriety which may arise from members' conflicts of interest, particularly where officers of one council serve as councillors of another;
considering the merits of the development of full-time councillors; and the related issues of the use of members' allowances and the remuneration of councillors generally;
reviewing the system of co-option of non-elected members;
studying officers' relationships, particularly in view of their legal and professional obligations, with elected members and political groups;
clarifying the limits and conditions governing discretionary spending, including the use of sections 137 and 142 of the Local Government Act 1972, and sections 83 and 88 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, for political purposes in local government, or in relation to bodies set up, and largely financed, by local authorities.
Local government franchise, finance and structure will be outside the terms of reference.
In view of the growing public concern about the use made by some local authorities of their discretionary powers to engage in overt political campaigning at public
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expense, I am asking the committee to submit an early interim report on this question. As far as the report as a whole is concerned, I am asking the committee to aim to report within a year.
It is essential that the inquiry should be both impartial and effective in dealing with these difficult issues. The best way to achieve this is to establish a small committee of people of judgment and ability, headed by a chairman of known integrity. My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales and I therefore propse to appoint a committee of four or five members chosen for the personal contribution which each can make to the wide-ranging subject matter of the inquiry.
I am glad to inform the House that Mr. David Widdicombe, QC, has indicated to me that he would be prepared to accept appointment as chairman of the committee of inquiry. Further appointments to the committee, of which I shall advise the House, will be made shortly.
Dr. John Cunningham: The Secretary of State has just made a very important statement about local government, which plays a crucial role in our plural democratic society. It is important that the matters that he intends to have examined are examined as objectively and impartially as possible. I welcome the fact not only that the right hon. Gentleman consulted Opposition parties, but that he has placed particular emphasis on the need for impartial approaches on these very sensitive matters.
I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman several questions, arising not so much from the terms of reference, which my hon. Friends and I believe to be broadly satisfactory—I understand that that is the view of the local authority associations, too—but from some of the points of detail that he spelt out in the statement. Why did he refer only to conflicts of interest in respect of officers who seek to be elected to councils? There are other conflicts of interest in local government at present and they, too, must be examined, particularly when they involve business and commercial interests.
I hope that in taking account of those matters and appointing members to the inquiry the right hon. Gentleman will ensure that the interests of women in local government are represented on the committee of inquiry—
Mr. Eric Forth: Why?
Dr. Cunningham: If the stupid exclamation by the hon. Gentleman is anything to go by, I had better spell out what I think. We very much hope that one of the members of the committee of inquiry will be a woman.
Why does the Secretary of State feel it necessary to have the interim report, especially in view of the time scale? I ask him to assure the House that, if he feels that he must proceed with that—we would prefer him not to — the many more fundamentally important issues involved in his statement will not suffer as a result, and the role and functions of councillors, for example, the legal rights and obligations of officers and the work of local authorities, will not be squeezed out by overemphasis on the voluntary expenditure of local authorities, the discretionary use of sections 137 and 142. I remind the Secretary of State and the House that when those matters have been tested in the courts, the councils have always

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been exonerated in their use of such money, perhaps with one exception, which is still sub judice and on which I shall not comment.
I believe that many people involved in local authorities of all political persuasions, whether councillors or officials, will welcome the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that those matters are to be examined, as he described, in an impartial way. If that particularly important aspect of his statement is not adhered to, it is unlikely that there will be a successful outcome.
Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's ready welcome for the inquiry. He said in his speech on the Loyal Address that that was the line he would be likely to take if he were satisfied about impartiality. I think that he has shown that he is.
I shall take the hon. Gentleman's final point first. I was gratefully reassured by my consultations with all the local authority associations. They welcome the inquiry and are fully prepared to co-operate with it. That is a very important matter. The hon. Gentleman also asked some detailed questions, one of which was about the conflicts of business interests. They were examined by the Redcliffe-Maud report, but they are comprehended within the phrase that I used about the individual accountability of councillors. I take note of what the hon. Gentleman said about the desirability of having a woman on the committee. I hope that the decision will be made shortly, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to wait until then.
With regard to the interim report, the hon. Gentleman must recognise that there is and has been rapidly mounting public concern over the misuse by some local authorities of their discretionary spending powers at the same time as—
Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Secretary of State is speaking about an impartial inquiry, yet referred to the misuse of public funds. That must prejudice the impartiality of any inquiry.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State must take responsibility for what he says, but he was asked a long question and he is now having to answer it.
Mr. Jenkin: Many people regard it as a misuse of public funds. I am prepared to accept that. It is because there are complex legal and political issues that I thought it right to refer the matter to the impartial inquiry. Legal cases demonstrate the complexity of the issues. That is why it is right to ask for an urgent interim report. However, I give the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) the assurance that that will in no way detract from the work of the committee, and I hope that it will report within a year.
The hon. Gentleman is not right to say that none of those matters has yet been resolved. The case of City of Westminster against the Inner London education authority was decided in the High Court. I understand that ILEA has now dropped the idea of appeal, so that judgment stands. However, the Greater London council case is being appealed. I hope very much that all those concerned with the wellbeing of local government will think it right to respond in due course if the committee decides to call for evidence that would be helpful to its members in reaching their conclusion.
Sir Dudley Smith: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, which some of
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us feel has long been due. Will the inquiry examine the problem whereby a local authority can give itself planning permission, thus sitting as judge and jury in its own court? It is a long-term problem, sometimes discharged honourably and sometimes not, and it exercises many people.
Mr. Jenkin: I should like to look at what my hon. Friend said. I had not thought of that problem as being within the purview of the committee, except in so far as it might reflect upon the propriety of the decision and the manner in which it is reached. The question of the details of planning law should be examined in another context.
Mr. Simon Hughes: On behalf of my party, I join in welcoming the inquiry, the chairman as named and the Secretary of State's courtesy in fulfilling his obligation to consult spokesmen in Opposition parties about the terms of reference and appointments. I endorse the view that for practical reasons a woman on the committee of inquiry would be a good idea. There are women serving in local government, and they have particular needs. They should be taken into account for all sorts of reasons.
This is an important point. I hope that the Secretary of State accepts that consideration on conflicts of interest should be as wide as possible. All sorts of interests should be considered. I have one substantial regret, that the question of the franchise has been excluded. The Secretary of State's former PPS, the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Thornton), shares the view of many hon. Members that proportional representation in local government is the best safeguard against abuse by tyrant majorities — not elected majorities, but majorities of councillors—who are tempted through the grey area into indiscretion and malpractice. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) and others in Liverpool and elsewhere know full well the implications of such views. Proportional representation in local government, as Bradford demonstrates, would be a much healthier form of local government.
Mr. Eric S. Heifer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have again just heard reference to something that has appeared in the newspapers — allegations made in relation to people in Liverpool which have not been substantiated. No charges or court cases are pending against anybody. Under the circumstances, is it right that hon. Members should raise such matters in that way when we are discussing setting up an inquiry commission into local government?
Mr. Speaker: I must say again that I cannot be responsible for what hon. Members say in this place. If the hon. Gentleman seeks to put a question about his constituency I shall do my best to accommodate him.
Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the committee and for the advice that he gave when I consulted him. It would be inappropriate for the question of the franchise to be referred to such a committee. I understand his views but that matter must be for another occasion.
Mr. Michael Forsyth: I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement of an inquiry, but will he act now and act quickly against those authorities, whose actions are nothing less than corrupt, which are allowing extremists in their midst to soak the ratepayers to fund

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miners, women's committees and every other trendy cause? To give one example, Fife region has spent more than £1 million on funding striking miners. Will my right hon. Friend accept that we welcome a detailed look but we want action against political contributions?
Mr. Harry Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have questions following statements peppered with points of order. I shall call the hon. Gentleman to put his question and perhaps he will include his point of order in it.
Mr. Ewing: I know that you are fed up, Mr. Speaker, but I have an important point of order. You have just given a ruling to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) about what Members say in the House and their being responsible. Is it in order for hon. Members to use the privilege of the House to make statements about councillors being corrupt? The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) is using the House to describe councillors as corrupt when he simply does not have the courage to go outside and make the same statement. He knows that those statements are simply untrue.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us keep moderation in our language. It would be completely out of order to impugn the integrity of any hon. Member in the House and we should be extremely careful about what we say about those outside because they have no right of reply.
Mr. Jenkin: I am well aware of the strong feelings expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) and many people outside the House about some of the payments that have been made by local authorities. They raise complex questions of law and propriety. It would be wise for the House and the Government, before reaching a conclusion on this, to have the impartial advice of a group of men, and perhaps women, of integrity on those difficult matters.
Mr. Richard Holt: Will my right hon. Friend accept that my constituency and Teesside as a whole will welcome his announcement, particularly, I imagine, lifelong Labour councillors, who hope that the committee will look into some of the practices on selection and deselection which are taking place in that area at the moment? In particular, I hope that my right hon. Friend will include in the report the activities of Middlesbrough councillors who are able to claim attendance allowances for themselves for so-called surgeries held in their own front room any evening of the week while they are watching television.
Mr. Jenkin: Members' allowances are well within the terms of reference of the inquiry but I have to disappoint my hon. Friend because I doubt whether the activities of local Labour parties in choosing their candidates will be.
Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that he is not proceeding with this inquiry on the presumption that anyone who is mentioned by his hon. Friends is guilty of some sort of corruption? How will the committee go about taking evidence and who will be allowed to give it? As it is clear that some of the matters to be discussed are matters of opinion and judgment rather
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than simple legality, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that all the evidence provided to the committee of inquiry will be published in full? As the inquiry has obviously been in the right hon. Gentleman's mind for some time, why has he given only the name of the chairman of the inquiry? How shall we be consulted, for example, about who will be the impartial member nominated to represent Scottish interests?
Mr. Jenkin: I have made no assumptions whatever about any activities that may have been referred to in the House during the course of the statement, or outside, where many hon. Members are aware that there has been growing disquiet about a number of activities that have become apparent in local government. That is why we are having the inquiry. It will be for the committee to decide whether and how to call for evidence but the committee is not empowered to compel witnesses to appear. It will be for the committee to decide whether any evidence given to it is published or given in confidence. The hon. Gentleman may make his own inquiries, but there may be a number of people, perhaps serving council officers, who would like to feel that any evidence or help that they may be able to give to the committee would be treated as confidential. But it will be for the committee to decide how to conduct its affairs.
Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Is my right hon. Friend aware how welcome the inquiry will be in High Peak and in Derbyshire as a whole? Will he ensure that the inquiry investigates the decision of Derbyshire county council to force schools to overprint school stationery with anti-nuclear slogans?
Mr. Jenkin: That would be a perfectly good piece of evidence on which to seek to apply to the committee.
Mr. Tony Banks: The Minister is prejudging the matter.
Mr. Jenkin: I am not prejudging anything at all. I am merely saying that it is a matter on which it will be appropriate to give evidence to the committee.
Mr. Banks: Is the Minister aware that the reason local authorities and the GLC decided this morning to submit evidence to the inquiry is that local government has nothing whatever to hide, which is more than one can say for the Government. This will not be an impartial inquiry in that sense because the Government have already had their mind made up for them by their Back Benchers, as we have seen this afternoon. Will the terms of reference of the inquiry extend to the influence of freemasonry in local government, which we consider to be insidious and dangerous? Will the Secretary of State be accepting nominees for the membership of the committee of inquiry from the local authority associations?
Mr. Jenkin: The question of evidence of outside influences on members would, I should have thought, be germane to the question of the independence and accountability of members of local authorities. I have no doubt that, if there is an opportunity and the hon. Gentleman wishes to present evidence on freemasonry, the committee will welcome that. I consulted all the local authority associations, including the Association of London Authorities and the GLC, and I found unanimity for the view that it would be better not to have any serving councillor or serving officer of any existing local authority

963
on the committee. In considering the membership I shall take close account of that advice. The hon. Gentleman must await the announcement of the further members.
Dr. Keith Hampson: My right hon. Friend's statement is welcome, particularly for people in the metropolitan counties such as west Yorkshire and Leeds, where we are already well on the way to seeing £1 million spent in political propaganda. Will he reassure people in those areas that the interim report will be speedy and that it will be the prime and sole concern of the committee initially and not just part of its general examination of all the other issues as well? We do not want to feel that my right hon. Friend is fudging the issue or that the committee will simply identify abuses. Can he assure us that the committee will produce positive recommendations upon which he will act? People in Leeds and west Yorkshire know that there is abuse.
Mr. Jenkin: It is my intention to ask for an urgent interim report. I assume that the committee will do its very best to fall in with my request. No doubt the committee will receive much evidence on these matters and will wish to take account of it—including evidence of the strength of many people's feelings on the issue.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: To demand from the committee an interim report on one narrow party political point will not help it to stand a chance of being accepted as impartial. Would it not have been better to allow the members of the committee to decide which issues they wished to tackle in an interim report? Secondly, if there is to be an interim report, could it not consider the problems of those many councillors who, as a result of the economic policies of the Government, have been made redundant after giving long service to local government and now find it extremely difficult to receive sympathetic treatment in relation to social security and unemployment benefit because of their duties as councillors? Would not that be a better topic for the interim report than the narrow party political issue that the right hon. Gentleman has dragged in?
Mr. Jenkin: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. There has been a general welcome both inside and outside the House for my intention to ask the committee to study a matter that is the cause of widespread public concern. No doubt the other matter could be tackled in connection with the question of the remuneration of councillors.
Mr. Barry Henderson: Contrary to what was alleged, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) has already widely published a pamphlet listing in detail the abuses to which he has just referred in brief summary. Is my right hon. Friend also aware that the representatives of about 95 per cent. of my constituents will warmly welcome his announcement? Their only anxiety will be to know how long it will be before the abuses about which they are concerned are brought to light by the committee. Can anything be done in the worst cases? Well over £1 million has already been spent by Fife regional council in helping people with jobs to stay on strike, and many unemployed people and pensioners in my constituency feel bitterly that their rates are being abused without discussion or vote in the regional council.
Mr. Jenkin: Those problems fall squarely within the terms of reference of the committee. It would be right to leave them to the committee. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall ask for an urgent interim report.
Mr. Ewing: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance in relation to the spending referred to under section 88 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act? Can he assure us that the purpose of the inquiry is not to stop such spending altogether but to define the parameters within which it may take place? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is an equal possibility that the inquiry might agree on wider rather than narrower parameters?
Mr. Jenkin: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no intention to ask the committee to consider the abolition of that section. Whether it should be redrafted to resemble the corresponding English section is a matter on which we should await the committee's advice.
Sir John Osborne: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the education committee chairman in Sheffield has written to school governors and chairmen of governors, and has embarked on a publicity campaign directed at parents, blaming the Secretary of State for Education for failures in the education system? Would that be a suitable subject for investigation by the Committee?
Mr. Jenkin: The gentleman would be perfectly entitled to express his view as a private citizen, but perhaps he would not be entitled to spend ratepayers' money on so doing. That is the issue that is causing concern and on which the committee will be asked to judge.
Mr. Terry Fields: Surely the clue to the real purpose of the inquiry lies in the innuendos of the Secretary of State, Conservative Members and the whingeing Liberals? The inquiry is part and parcel of an attack on Labour-controlled authorities, prompted by the campaign that is to ensue in the coming months. Is not the Government's intention to mask the successes in Liverpool, where 200 jobs have been created and 2,268 council houses will have been built by May, while the Government and big business have done nothing? Should we not borrow a doctrine from the British Boxing Board of Control, which would diagnose the Secretary of State as being punch-drunk from last year's hiding and in no condition to take on Liverpool and other areas this year?
Mr. Jenkin: I am afraid that the affairs of the British Boxing Board of Control will not fall within the terms of the inquiry.
Mr. Derek Spencer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us who served in local government before we came to this place are reassured by the setting-up of the committee? One of the fears engendered by our experience was that there was plenty of evidence that public money was spent on a basis of political partiality. If local government has nothing to hide, it has nothing to fear, and one can expect widespread submissions to the committee from every quarter.
Mr. Jenkin: My hon. and learned Friend's proposition was also put very firmly by all the local authority associations. I found that most reassuring. These matters could very properly be subjects for the inquiry.
Dr. John Marek: We have witnessed the jackboot methods of the Ministry of Defence in the

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previous statement. If the Secretary of State for the Environment is to avoid the same charge, can he assure us that the composition of the committee will be truly impartial and generally acceptable to both sides of the House? Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to pay tribute to the thousands of councillors of both parties throughout the country who give sincere and loyal service well beyond any recompense in terms of expenses and allowances? If the Secretary of State is worried about democracy and about proper financial accounting, surely he should set up an inquiry into the workings of central rather than local government.
Mr. Jenkin: I am entirely at one with the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the many councillors who give loyal service far beyond the call of duty. It is a matter of public record that the proposed chairman of the inquiry, Mr. David Widdicombe, stood as a Labour candidate for the constituency of Totnes in his youth. He has authorised me to say that he is not now a member of any political party. I shall certainly keep the questions of impartiality and balance in mind when appointing the other members.
The hon. Gentleman's last question is not relevant except in so far as it bears upon the conduct of business by local authorities.
Mr. Piers Merchant: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. Is he aware that it will be especially welcome to my constituents in Newcastle upon Tyne, who have laboured under the spending abuses of both Tyne and Wear county council and the Newcastle city council? Would it not be appropriate for the inquiry to take evidence connected with the donation of more than £300,000 by the county council in support of the miners' dispute and a similar donation by the Newcastle city council, the operation of the Newcastle city council priority area teams in spending large sums of money on political propaganda, and the noted increase in the past year in spending allowances for members of Tyne and Wear county council?
Mr. Jenkin: All those matters seem to be proper subjects for evidence to the committee. The interim report will be confined to the question of the use of local authority powers to spend ratepayers' money on political propaganda. Many of the other matters suggested by hon. Members on both sides of the House will fall entirely within the committee's terms of reference but would not be subjects for the interim report.
Mr. Hugh Brown: The Secretary of State has made a very important statement. I make no complaint about the fact that there was no similar statement from the Secretary of State for Scotland. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is here, and I accept the convention, but it is never satisfactory.
What consultations have there been with Scottish interests? The Secretary of State was asked whether the committee would have a Scottish member. Would it not have been better to set up a sub-committee or a separate committee if, in the opinion of the Secretary of State for Scotland, there is a need for such an inquiry?
Mr. Jenkin: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there was full consultation with COSLA by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. I understand that COSLA
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is satisfied with the proposed terms of reference. It is within our contemplation that a distinguished Scot might be asked to serve as a member of the committee.
Mr. Robert B. Jones: Will the terms of reference permit the committee to consider the practice of local authorities that use pre-tender conditions and contract clauses to impose political views? I refer to councils that have barred from their tender lists contractors who have carried out operations at Greenham common and other military installations. Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to study Dr. Goodison-Wicke's book entitled "The New Corruption" which charts the enormous growth of such activities in local government? Will all of those issues be considered by the committee?
Mr. Jenkin: Contract conditions are specialised matters and hardly bear on the conduct of council business. I do not think that that would be within the terms of reference. However, it will always be open to anyone to make a suggestion as to how the terms of reference should be widened. Dr. Goodison-Wickes' pamphlet has been read widely in local government. Although it presents a particular view of the problem, it shows some of the grounds for concern that many right hon. Members have expressed.
Mr. John Evans: In view of the Government's record of attacks on local government in the past five years and in view of the outrageous statements that Conservative Members have made today, is the Secretary of State beginning to form the opinion that the inquiry can be regarded as impartial only if he ensures that not one member of it has anything to do with the Conservative party?
Mr. Jenkin: I suspect that that might be difficult to achieve but I intend to ensure that the members of the committee are recognised for their impartiality and integrity. I hope that that satisfies the hon. Gentleman. The questions that have been put to me at the Dispatch Box today have served only to reinforce the wisdom of referring these issues to a committee of this type.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: Is my right hon. Friend aware that West Yorkshire metropolitan county council, through its leader, recently issued a secret memorandum exclusively to Labour councillors asking them to suggest up to £50,000-worth of spending on road programmes in their wards? Does he agree that that is a legitimate cause for anxiety among many people who regard it as an erosion of the traditional values of local government? Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the terms of reference of the inquiry will be sufficiently wide to enable it to consider this and similar cases?
Mr. Jenkin: I can give my hon. Friend the assurance for which he asks.
Mr. Guy Barnett: The Secretary of State will be aware that, for years, the responsibility borne and the business carried out by leaders and chairmen of committees has grown. Will the committee be competent to re-examine the proposals that were made by the Robinson committee on the possibility of paying leaders and chairmen of committees in view of the substantial responsibilities that some of them now have?
Mr. Jenkin: Yes, Sir.
Mr. Eric Forth: Perhaps my right hon. Friend could meet at least two of the Opposition's requests by appointing a Scottish woman. That would kill two birds, as it were, with one stone. My right hon. Friend has said that franchise, finance and structure will not be considered by the committee. Structure is being dealt with differently, but can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government are dealing with the financing of local government urgently? Can he also confirm that any recommendations that arise from the investigation into the financing of local government will appear before, or at least at the same time as, the recommendations of the committee of inquiry, so that the matter might be dealt with comprehensively?
Mr. Jenkin: I assure my hon. Friend that I have nothing but respect for Scottish women, as my mother was one. I also assure my hon. Friend that the finance study that I have asked my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment to undertake are well under way, but it will be some months before we shall be able to embark on public consultation. I see no overriding need for the work of the committee and those studies to proceed in tandem. They are addressed to important but different matters. However, I take my hon. Friend's point.
Mr David Alton: I especially welcome what the Secretary of State said about protecting people who give information from vindictive retaliatory action. Will he consider two issues that arise out of his decision yesterday to reject the Asda hypermarket application, which the police have announced today that they will investigate? Will he ensure that the committee investigates that matter? Secondly—
Mr. Terry Fields: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Alton: Will the Secretary of State examine issues raised by the "jobs for the boys" policy that is being pursued by councils such as Liverpool, in which political placemen are put in positions of power purely because their political faces fit?
Mr. Terry Fields: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot make a point of order just because another hon. Member has made a provocative statement.
Mr. Terry Fields: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall take the point of order after the Secretary of State's answer.
Mr. Barry Porter: Some of them are crooks.
Mr. Jenkin: The matter that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) has raised would be quite inappropriate for referral to the committee now. The appointment to councils of paid officials with party affiliations is a matter that the committee could consider, but I would not wish to argue that it would necessarily be appropriate. Many of the changes in the conduct of local authority business reflect fundamental changes in the nature of the business that is done and the nature of the societies in which councils operate. Far be it from me to suggest, by referring many of these issues to the
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committee, that the changes are necessarily wrong. On the contrary, it might well be that the law could catch up with the way in which many councils wish to conduct their business. In those circumstances, it is right that democratic freedoms, the rights of oppositions and fundamental freedoms should be preserved.
Mr. Terry Fields: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I must object most strongly to the language of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton). Such language is part and parcel of early-day motion 353 in which the hon. Gentleman impugns the integrity and honesty of people outside who are in no position to defend themselves. The hon. Gentleman talked about "jobs for the boys". We are creating jobs for the boys and girls of Liverpool, which he and his crowd cannot do.
Mr. Speaker: Every hon. Member must take responsibility for what he says in the Chamber. I cannot repeat that too frequently.
Mr. Heffer: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have been in the House for 21 years now, and important points of order of this type have always been listened to with care by Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) referred to certain people as crooks. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) said that the police are investigating an event in Liverpool. Is it not clear that when the police are investigating a matter it is not right for any hon. Member to make statements in the House impugning anyone who might be involved? It is certainly wrong for hon. Members to refer to people who might be involved, or who are being investigated, as crooks. Only after the investigations, legal action and a decision by the courts can such statements be made. On that basis, I trust that we shall not have any more of this, otherwise the hon. Members concerned should leave the House, make their statements publicly without privilege and face the consequences. I believe that they should withdraw their statements.
Mr. Alton: I leave it to the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) to make his own statement to the House.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The early-day motion to which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) referred precedes the statement made by the Merseyside police this afternoon that they intend to investigate the matter. As far as the statements made in that early-day motion are concerned, the deputy leader of the Liverpool city council and a developer who wanted a £20 million development in Liverpool—
Mr. Speaker: Order. That has nothing to do with me. Let us seek moderation in our language in this place. That has always been our tradition. I never heard any accusation or use of the word "crook" referring to any hon. Member. If that happened, I would expect the hon. Member concerned—and I did not hear it—to withdraw the remark.
Mr. Barry Porter: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I made no mention of any hon. Member. I merely heard one Opposition Member refer to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) as a rat, and while he has certain unattractive—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I would not like that either.
Mr. Frank Dobson: On the basis that every hon. Member should be opposed to

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corruption wherever it occurs, would the Secretary of State talk to the Leader of the House and his Cabinet colleagues and suggest, as there is continuing disquiet about the behaviour of hon. Members and the behaviour of lobbying organisations that operate in the House, and, to a large extent, finance lunches and dinners in some of the dining rooms of the House, that while it is appropriate for there to be an inquiry into allegations of corruption and malpractice in local government, it would also be proper for the House to prove that, while endorsing the inquiry, we are not living in a glasshouse and throwing stones at other people?
Mr. Jenkin: It may be within the recollection of the hon. Gentleman that such a study of affairs in the House led to the setting up of the Register of Financial Interests to which most hon. Members contribute, even if it is only one way. Obviously this would be quite outside the terms of the inquiry.
Mr. Derek Fatchett: Given the extent to which Conservative Members have been prepared this afternoon to throw cheap political jibes and to prejudge the issues, would the Secretary of State reconsider his earlier comment that evidence will be taken in private in certain cases? Surely, if evidence is taken in private, cheap allegations can be made against individual councillors and officers without those councillors and officers having the right to reply to such allegations. All that, I argue, will lead to a judgment on the part of the public and those involved in local government that, far from being an impartial inquiry, the inquiry is already predetermined to come up with one particular decision.
Mr. Jenkin: There is no suggestion that the inquiry is predetermined. As I made clear in what was, perhaps, a rather lengthy answer to the hon. Member for Mossley Hill, there is no presumption whatever that the existing statutory framework is necessarily the right one.
On the question of evidence in private, this must be a matter for the committee. It would not be improper for the committee, if it considered this necessary in order to protect witnesses who might be serving officers or who may have other roles, to be prepared to hear evidence in private. But, of course, the membership of the committee will be a sufficient talisman of its ability to distinguish between what it should take note of and what, if there is no possibility of challenging it, it might do better to ignore.
Mr. Greville Janner: Is not the real purpose of the Minister's inquiry to try to prevent the use of sections 137 and 142 of the Local Government 1972 Act by councils such as Leicester which are suffering from the ugliest and highest levels of rate-capping, so that they will no longer be able to inform their electors as to the awful results of the Government's rate-capping legislation? When the Minister says that information is proper but political propaganda is not, is he not defining information as that which he and the Government put out and political propaganda as that which is put out in the same way by their opponents in the honourable traditions of Her Majesty's Opposition?
Mr. Jenkin: All I can say—and I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman has studied the recent
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judgment of Mr. Justice Glidewell — is that this is a distinction that is drawn in the interpretation of section 142. I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that this is by no means the central purpose of the committee's inquiry. The wide-ranging nature of the comments that have been made in all parts of the House indicates that the committee is, indeed, welcome and that it will have a wide range of issues to which to address itself. Indeed, I think that the members of the committee are in for a rather interesting time.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Does not the Secretary of State accept that since 1979 he and his Government have pursued a vendetta against local government and, in particular, a vendetta against those authorities that have sought to use existing local government legislation to the full to try to ameliorate some of the social and economic conditions in which they are placed?
The statement that he has made this afternoon and the observations of his hon. Friends suggest to me and, I believe, to many people outside the House, that this is not an objective inquiry at all, but a form of attack on those local authorities that are trying to use existing local government legislation to the full.
Does the right hon. Gentleman not further accept that implicit in the terms of reference that he has announced this afternoon is an attempt to curtail local government democracy in the country? I refer him to the section in which he states that there will be an inquiry into the propriety of members of councils being employed by another council. Should he not be considering the difficulties and the lack of democracy suffered by many local authority workers who are denied the right to stand for election to a local authority or to participate in local authority affairs? Finally, has the right hon. Gentleman consulted any trade unions on the matter?
Mr. Jenkin: The purpose of the inquiry and the terms of reference of the inquiry in general were welcomed by the local authority associations of all political persuasions. One issue on which there was no argument by those associations is that it would be right for the committee to examine the growing practice of officers of one authority being councillors of another. The obvious conflicts of interest which could, but do not necessarily, arise are matters that, rightly, should be subjected to such an impartial inquiry.
Mr. Peter Pike: Will not the Secretary of State accept that, despite his repeated assurances throughout the statement that it would be an impartial inquiry, the large majority of people who are interested in genuine local government, bearing in mind the Government's track record of the last six years, will view this as an attempt by the Government further to restrict local government? Would it not be far wiser to hold an inquiry into giving genuine freedom, power and finance to local government to meet the needs and requirements of the local communities who elect councillors?
Mr. Jenkin: There is no reason why the committe should not examine the giving of genuine freedom and power to local government. The only matter that I think it should not examine is local government finance, which is the subject of separate studies.
Mr. Bill Michie: Will the Secretary of State agree that often, during business in the

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House, when Parliament considers local government in terms of its democracy, its accountability and its finance, the old proverb springs to mind, "Physician, heal thyself"? Would it not be useful, therefore, if we had that pinned up on the wall as a reminder to ourselves?
Mr. Jenkin: I think that I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. If the affairs of all local authorities were as open and accountable as are the affairs of any Government of whatever party to the House of Commons and to the electorate, there would be fewer grounds for the disquiet that has arisen and for the general welcome that the inquiry has received.

New Zealand (Nuclear Vessels)
5.39 pm
Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I understand the position, it is not possible to table private notice questions relating to the policies of other Governments. I raise this point because many hon. Members are deeply concerned about the pressures that are being applied to a democratic Commonwealth country, namely, New Zealand, arising from its policy of using port facilities for nuclear vessels.
We have close ties with Commonwealth countries. There are items of furniture in this very Chamber given to us by New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries. Is there any way in which we can express our concern about the pressure being applied against New Zealand, especially by the United States? Could a message be debated and sent from this House?
Finally, as this concerns a Commonwealth country, will the Table Office be able to accept questions on it?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has more or less answered his own point of order. He is an experienced Member and there are many ways in which matters of this kind can be raised. There is, however, no ministerial responsibility for anything that the New Zealand Government may do.

People's Right to Fuel
5.40 pm
Mr. Dennis Canavan: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prevent disconnections of domestic fuel supply in cases of hardship; to implement a statutory code of practice for dealing with such cases; to introduce a fuel allowance scheme to help eradicate fuel poverty; and for related purposes.
This is my third attempt to introduce a Bill of this nature. I shall not dwell on the aspects of disconnection and threatened disconnection, save to say that last year the domestic fuel supply of 120,000 households was disconnected when most of the people involved were already suffering hardship. The Bill would make it an offence to carry out such disconnections without a court order. Those cases show that the present voluntary code is not working. The Bill therefore seeks to introduce a statutory code of practice.
I shall address most of my remarks today to the third aspect—the introduction of a comprehensive system of fuel allowances tied to housing benefit. Understandably, a great deal of public attention and controversy has recently centred on the DHSS regulations for payment of the severe weather extra heating allowance. Indeed, the controversy was such as to provoke the Minister for Social Security to come out with the Newtonian admission in the House that the regulations were "weird and wonderful". They are so weird and wonderful that people in the north and in Scotland, where the weather is coldest, are excluded from extra payments while people in the south and parts of the midlands where it is not so cold are included.
It is worth pointing out that the rules in question are internal to the DHSS and have never been approved by Parliament. If everyone is sitting comfortably, I shall explain just how weird and wonderful they are. If X is the 24-hour mean atmospheric temperature in degrees Celsius, subtract X from 15·5 for each day of the week, add up the seven answers and call the total Y. That gives the number of degree days. If Y is greater than or equal to Z, where Z is the DHSS trigger point, you get your money. If Y is less than Z, you do not get your money. Hands up all those who understand that. It seems that Members of Parliament find it impossible to understand. If Members of Parliament do not understand the formula themselves, they certainly have a brass neck expecting the public outside to understand or accept it.
When I taught mathematics I used to try to teach from examples rather than merely speaking in the abstract. I shall therefore give some examples of the way in which the trigger mechanism works. The trigger point varies from place to place. I have tried to obtain support for the Bill from both sides of the House, so I shall not seek to score party points by choosing one Labour and one Conservative area. Instead, I shall take my own constituency of Falkirk, West and compare it with that of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), a non-party leader who occasionally sits beside me. The trigger point for Falkirk is 122 degree days. For Plymouth where the climate is warmer it is only 105 degree days. In other words, if the temperature in Plymouth remained at half a degree above freezing point for a week the extra allowance would be paid. In Falkirk, it would have to remain at about 2 deg below freezing point all week for the extra allowance to be payable. The

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assumption seems to be that the people in Falkirk are thick skinned. In fact, they are very warm-hearted people, although that is no thanks to the Government's coldhearted policies.
It may be argued that my example is hypothetical because temperature is not constant but varies from day to day and from one time of the day to another. In an area such as Falkirk the temperature at the coldest time of the day would probably have to fall as low as minus 25 deg Celsius before people qualified for the extra allowance. A further anomaly is that for the purpose of the allowance the temperature is measured not in Falkirk but at the meteorological station 45 miles away at Leuchars, where the weather could be quite different.
The Bill seeks to introduce a scheme based on climatic differences. I have broken my own tradition and sought all-party support. I normally just ask my hon. Friends. Last year the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) introduced a Bill covering just one aspect of this matter. My Bill is more comprehensive. The hon. Member for Dundee, East asked me to sponsor his Bill on that occasion and he has reciprocated by sponsoring my Bill.
I also invited the Leader of the House to sponsor the Bill, and he very kindly replied that he would consider my request, but he wrote to me recently saying that on second thoughts he had decided to turn down my invitation. I am sorry about that, as the Scottish Conservatives are reported to have passed a resolution last weekend demanding an end to the disparity that I have described. It is perhaps a measure of the lack of interest on the part of Scottish Tory Members that not one of them is present, although I invited several of them to sponsor the Bill. Indeed, I received what I thought was a sympathetic response from one of them. To save him embarrassment, I shall not give his name, but he once held very high rank, he is a well known lawyer, well respected in Scottish legal circles, and a close friend of the Prime Minister. He said that he would listen to my speech before making up his mind and then signal to me if he was prepared to sponsor the Bill. Unfortunately, he is not even here to listen to my speech.
The Glasgow Herald today reported that the Solicitor-General
"felt it extraordinary that while Braemar had been the the coldest place in Britain one night the 'trigger' point for payment had not been met because the temperature recording station was at Dyce, Aberdeen."
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The report also states:
"Mr. Fraser, in his letter to Mrs. Thatcher, said that the present scheme could be so flawed it might have to be wholly reconsidered under the Department of Energy review."
As a member of the Government, he should have known that it is not the Department of Energy but the DHSS that is supposed to be reviewing the matter.
I have heard rumours that the Government intend to scrap the heating allowance altogether. That would be an absolute travesty of justice, not only for the people of Scotland, but for people in all parts of the United Kingdom. It would be better to introduce a comprehensive system of fuel allowances with a regional element based on climatic differences. I do not have time to go into the details of the scheme now, but under the terms of the Bill the detailed regulations would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
At present hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from hypothermia, or the threat of it. Many of them are old-age pensioners. In some cases it would not be an exaggeration to say that they are not merely suffering but dying from hypothermia. Therefore, the House must respond to their needs constructively. My Bill is an attempt to introduce a comprehensive charter to eradicate fuel poverty, and I therefore ask the House to support it.
Question put and agreed to.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Who will prepare and bring in the Bill?
Mr. Canavan: Mr. Kevin Barron, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Gordon Brown, Mr. Robert Parry, Mr. David Winnick, Mr. William McKelvey, Mr. Gordon Wilson, Mr. Jim Craigen, Mr. Eddie Loyden, Mr. Bob McTaggart, and myself, and I have still space for one Tory Member, if he wants to signal me that he wants to sponsor my Bill.

People's Right to Fuel
  PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO FUEL
  Mr. Dennis Canavan accordingly presented a Bill to prevent disconnections of domestic fuel supply in cases of hardship; to implement a statutory code of practice for dealing with such cases; to introduce a fuel allowance scheme to help eradicate fuel poverty; and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 22 February and to be printed. [Bill 76.]

Local Government (Rates)
5.52 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As the Chairman of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, the Committee asked me to express its concern at the unusual speed with which the order has been brought forward for debate today. I believe that it was laid in the House only last Wednesday, which has placed the Scrutiny Committee in considerable difficulties.
Under Standing Order No. 104(9) we are obliged to draw any instrument to the special attention of the House. If we want to do that we must afford the Government Department involved the opportunity first to furnish us with a written memorandum and, if necessary, to give oral evidence. You will appreciate that as the Government laid the order only on Wednesday, it is extremely difficult for us to scrutinise it, ask for witnesses, and oral or written evidence. I appreciate that under the Standing Orders of the House the Government are not required to ensure that an instrument has been to the Scrutiny Committee before it is brought to the House, but the custom and practice have always been to attempt to do that unless there is an extreme reason of urgency why they cannot give the Scrutiny Committee reasonable time to carry out its functions.
Can you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or Mr. Speaker, look into the matter to see whether it was urgent, what attempts the Government made to ensure that the Scrutiny Committee had the opportunity to hear witnesses and to take written statements if it wanted, and why it was necessary to introduce it in such a way as to break the traditional convention that the Scrutiny Committee is given adequate time to consider an order? That is especially important in view of the controversial nature of much that is contained in the order.
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I may be able to help the hon. Gentleman. I wish to preface my remarks by saying that the whole House appreciates the work done by the hon. Gentleman, as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, and those who serve with him. The House is indebted to them.
I am aware that some members of the Committee expressed concern about the timing of the debate after the meeting of the Joint Committee. The arrangement of business is a matter for agreement through the usual channels and subject to correction. I am not aware that the Opposition expressed concern about this issue. However, it is not unusual for important business to follow swiftly after Joint Committee consideration. I assure the hon. Gentleman that had the Joint Committee raised an important query about the validity of the draft order, business would have been rearranged. However, in this case the Committee had no doubts. Although the timing may be unusual, I do not think that it is in any way improper and, therefore, I think that the business may proceed.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It seemed unfortunate for the Secretary of State to imply that because I happen to be a member of the Opposition, I am a party to the business of the House regarding this matter. I raised the point as the
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Chairman of the Select Committee on behalf of all the members of that Committee. It must be the duty of the Whips on both sides of the House to ensure that traditional procedures are observed as far as possible.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I cannot help the hon. Gentleman very much on that. He has had the opportunity to put his case, it has been heard by the House, and there has been a further point of order from the Secretary of State. Both he and the right hon. Gentleman have dealt with the point. Their remarks were addressed more to the usual channels than to the Chair. The hon. Gentleman will realise that it is not possible for the Chair to assist him in this matter. However, he has had an opportunity to put his point on the record, and I am sure that it has been heard on both sides of the House.
Mr. Alan Williams: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) makes a valid point. He is not party to any agreement that is reached through official channels. Regardless of the fact that we cannot alter the position today, it would be appropriate that if in future there is a departure from normal conventions in relation to timing, at least the Chairman of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments should be informed and given an opportunity to consult his colleagues on whether they wish to make representations to the leaderships of both sides of the House. Will that be considered in future?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that the exchange has assisted the House. This is not a matter over which the Chair has any definitive authority.
5.58 pm
Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I beg to move,
That the draft Rate Limitation (Prescribed Maximum) (Precepts) Order 1985, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.
The order is the first of two that will come before the House under section 4 of the Rates Act 1984. It is a stage in the rate-capping process, and the House is asked to approve the maximum rate or precept limits for each of the authorities selected for rate capping. This order covers the four precepting authorities, and my present intention is to table the order covering the rating authorities that have not agreed their limits in a few days. I certainly take note of the point you made, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about the question of timing.
The House knows that the Government's case is that the purpose of rate capping is to protect ratepayers from the impact of high rates caused by high spending. All the authorities designated last July have budgeted this year to spend both more than 4 per cent. above their targets and more than 20 per cent. above their GREs. The order covers the Greater London council, the Inner London education authority, the Merseyside county council and the South Yorkshire county council. I shall say a word about each in turn.
The GLC has doubled its spending in three years. It has more than doubled its precept since the Socialists took control of county hall in 1981. It spends as if there were no tomorrow, and I suppose that for the GLC, there is no tomorrow. Its £10 million advertising campaign has become a national scandal. This year, it is recruiting 1,700 extra staff, and last week GLC councillors — I quote from The Standard of 1 February—were

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"deluged with 125 separate spending plans together as thick as five telephone directories. Most had been delivered to their homes (at more expense no doubt) only the night before. Others were actually trundled in while the meeting was going on. Small wonder,"
writes The Standard,
"that even a Labour councillor complained that he had not had time even to look at the proposals and could not vote for them."
In the face of that evidence, how can the GLC argue that the precept limit in the order is impossible?
The Inner London education authority is unique, not only in its constitution but in its unrivalled extravagance as an education authority. During the past three years, its school population has fallen by 10 per cent., but its spending has increased by almost a third to more than £900 million. Compared with other authorities, ILEA now spends per pupil 29 per cent. more than Manchester, 31 per cent. more than Sheffield and 54 per cent. more than Bradford. Those familiar with Bradford will know that it has a large immigrant population.
Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the Secretary of State turn his mind to the Z scores of deprivation produced by his Department, which show that those who live in the Inner London education authority area are far more deprived than the populations of any other cities? Will he also confirm that Her Majesty's inspectors of schools have never substantially criticised the organisation, operation or standards of ILEA? Indeed, when a special survey of the authority was carried out by Her Majesty's inspectorate of schools, it endorsed the progress being made by that authority.
Mr. Jenkin: If the hon. Gentleman catches your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will be able to make those points. The fact is that ILEA's spending per pupil is extravagant compared with other inner-city areas that have high incidence of deprivation, large ethnic minority populations and many children whose mother tongue is not English.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that until ILEA was stopped by the court, it was spending no less than £750,000 on a blatant political advertising campaign. I wonder whether my hon. Friends who represent London constituencies noticed a recent advertisement in The Guardian for a personal assistant to the leader of ILEA? That person must have
"Political sensitivity and a supportive understanding of the objectives of the majority party (Labour)."

What will be the cost of this person's salary to be paid by inner London ratepayers? The answer is £17,598 a year.
Since 1978–79, Merseyside county council has increased its spending—
Mr. Guy Barnett rose—
Mr. Jenkin: I shall not give way. This is a short debate, and the hon. Gentleman may have an opportunity to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Merseyside county council has increased its spending by almost 150 per cent. since 1978–79. That is faster than any of the five Merseyside district councils, including Liverpool. It is the worst spending record of any of the six metropolitan counties. Its annual transport deficit is no less than £82 million, and during the past three years, Merseyside's precept has increased by more than 50 per cent. Yet Merseyside has decided to help to fund
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Liverpool's first novelist in residence. The council has just given a £1,500 grant to the makers of a record album attacking the police. The council gave its staff the day off with pay to strike against abolition—the strike did more to generate support for abolition than anything else the council had done.
South Yorkshire council has increased its spending since 1978–79 by 132 per cent., which is more than any of the four district councils in its area. Recently, it gave £100,000 to the miners. It has decided to put nuclear-free-zone signs on 21 primary routes through the county at a cost of £100 per sign. It subsidises public transport to the tune of no less than £73·5 million a year. Buses cost the passenger transport executive £1·92 per passenger mile, but the passengers pay less than a quarter of that sum. The hapless ratepayers must pay the difference.
Those are the councils which claim to be starved of money for their essentials, yet the examples that I have quoted show them to be wildly extravagant. Why should the hundreds of responsible councils suffer for the extravagance of the few? Many councils, Labour as well as Conservative, budget to stay within the guidelines, and those four should do the same.
Before I discuss the individual precept limits, I should remind the House of the stages in the process that have already happened. On 24 July last year, I listed the 18 authorities to be capped and announced their maximum expenditure levels. Under the Rates Act they could appeal against those expenditure limits and ask that they be increased. As the House knows, the Labour party's national executive committe decided on a policy which it described as "non-compliance". As a result, not one Labour-controlled authority availed itself of the appeal procedure. I extended the time and gave the clearest sign, both inside and outside the House, that the professed reasons for not appealing were misconceived. But still not one authority appealed—
Mr. Jack Straw: Including Portsmouth.
Mr. Jenkin: Portsmouth is now prepared to accept the rate limit that has been set and will budget within it.
Dr. John Cunningham: In view of what the Secretary of State said about redetermination, and especially his reference to Portsmouth, perhaps I could remind the House of what the Conservative leader of Portsmouth city council, Mr. Ian Gibson, said about applications for redetermination in the Municipal Journal of 3 August last year:
"The thing about redetermination is that it could come with strings attached that my council could not possibly accept."
"My council" is a Conservative council. That is the reality of redetermination.
Mr. Jenkin: The truth is that Portsmouth city council quickly came to the conclusion that it did not need to apply for redetermination. Councillor Gibson assured me the other day that the council will make a budget fully in line with, and conceivably below, the rate limit that has been set.
On 11 December, I announced the rate support grant settlement and, basing myself on those expenditure levels, I announced the rate and precept limits to the House. Again, the Rates Act provides a right of appeal. Any authority that wishes to challenge its limit can come in and argue for a higher limit. None of the four precepting authorities named in the order has done so.

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However, in recent months non-compliance has taken a curious form. Substantial quantities of paper arrived on the desks of my officials, through various routes, setting out, often in considerable detail, many of the facts and figures that those authorities wished me to consider in reaching decisions on their rate limits. Indeed, the information flowed in so thick and fast that when I met a deputation on Monday from 17 rate-capped and nine other Labour-controlled authorities, the pile of information on the table in front of me stood over six inches high. If that is non-compliance, so be it. Around that table were sitting some of the real non-compliers, who had put in no information because they had followed the national executive committee's instruction. I gained the impression that they felt a little let down by what their colleagues had done.
That brings me to the individual precept limits set out in the schedule to the order. The GLC's precept limit of 36·52p is what I proposed on 11 December. It corresponds to a spend of about £785 million, assuming a modest drawdown of balances. Compared with the GLC's proposed budget of more than £860 million, the result of passing the order will be that next year's GLC precept will be about 7p less than it would otherwise have been. Of course, if we add the London Regional Transport levy, the amount that ratepayers will pay will be higher than this year' s precept—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] It is no good hon. Members saying "Ah". Everyone knows that this year the GLC manipulated its precept downwards by drawing over £200 million from balances while increasing its spending by over £100 million. Because of this manipulation, there would have had to be a big increase in the joint precept of the GLC and ILEA anyway next year. Without rate capping, the fact remains—it cannot be seriously challenged — that from next April, Londoners would have had to pay 7p more in the pound than will be the case.
Mr. Tony Banks: The right hon. Gentleman referred to "modest reserves". What reserves has he calculated that the GLC has to draw on? Why, after three requests from the GLC for him to give the information on how he arrives at that reserve, has he still refused to reply?
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman knows that, under the Act, I am entitled, if I do not have all the detailed figures, to make assumptions. There would have been no need for me to make any assumptions if all the authorities had followed the procedures laid down in the Act and provided the information for which they were asked. It has been open to them to have discussions with me and my officials about expenditure levels and rate limits. I have dealt as even-handedly as I can between authorities in calculating limits, but in setting those limits I have to take account of the individual circumstances and the differences between authorities.
I have made assumptions only where information has not been provided or is not available about authorities' individual circumstances. I have sought to compare reserves with statistical average levels for the class of authorities and have also allowed for possibly inadequate reserves in 1985–86 in those cases where local authorities have made substantial use of funds this year, 1984–85, so depleting their reserves. I point out to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) that the councils
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not giving us information could have worked both ways. By not using the statutory procedures, the authorities, and the GLC is one, may have concealed contingencies built into their budgets.
Mr. Tony Banks: The GLC has not.
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman may say that, but it may have shortfalls in spending. I know that the GLC has been trying to get rid of money as fast as it can, but this could happen. I have had to make assumptions, and those assumptions may well have been in favour of the authority. The effect will be to make the limits more generous than they appear. The percentage cuts of which the authorities are making much are unreal because they include large allowances for planned growth.
The ILEA precept is a different story. In December, I proposed a precept limit of 74·19p. The limit of the order is now 3·06p higher, at 77·25p. The reason for the increase is straightforward. ILEA has been helpful in supplying information. Part of this consisted of a breakdown of its reserves. It appeared that part of those reserves—those contained in its building and renewals fund — represented money from the sale of capital assets. By law, such money is not available for use to support revenue spending.
Now that I have the detailed figures, I have made an allowance for this factor and I have made a number of other adjustments in the light of ILEA's information. Accordingly, ILEA's precept has been raised to 77.25p. This still represents a reduction of nearly 3p compared with this year's ILEA precept of 80p. Only a few moments ago, I received a further letter from the chairman of ILEA, and this is being considered.
The 3.06p uplift does not allow ILEA to spend any more money. It is still based on an expenditure level of £900 million. What has changed is how much of that spending can be financed from precept and how much from reserves. I hope that if any of the rate-capped authorities believe that the same consideration might apply to them, they will note that it was information given to us from ILEA that led to a modest easing of the precept limit. In the absence of rate capping, ILEA was proposing to spend not £900 million but £957 million. This would have required a precept not of 77.25p but of 83.1p.
Let us take the GLC and ILEA precepts together, and apply that to a typical, two-storey terraced house in Tower Hamlets, with a rateable value of £211—quite a humble house. The ratepayers of that house will next year save £32 from what they would otherwise have had to pay. Without rate capping, they would have had to pay £32 more, on the budgets that both the GLC and ILEA say that they would have introduced without rate capping.
I shall give another example, of a small corner shop in Lambeth, with a rateable value of £350. There, next year the ratepayer will pay no less than £52 less than he would have paid without rate capping. When further savings are added because of rate capping in some boroughs, I think that ratepayers will see quite clearly that rate capping is at last coming to their rescue.
Mr. Chris Smith: In that case, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what the ratepayers with children in Inner London will say when they have to pay more for school meals and when school facilities and the quality of education go clown as a result of this decision?
Mr. Jenkin: They will think much the same as the parents in any other area who have been paying higher prices for school meals for years. The level of payment for school meals in ILEA, given all the available concessions, has become a scandal. It is possible for ILEA to do something about that, but that is up to it. I am merely setting the upper limit, and it will have to decide how it will live with the limit.
There is a different story on Merseyside. Here, the precept limit of 82.86p, though no change from what I proposed in December, represents a 27 per cent. increase on this year's precept. There is a clear reason for that. This year, Merseyside is planning to draw down special funds so that its precept is much less than would be necessary to support its spending this year if it had to be financed by ratepayers. The information that I then had suggested that the council would not be able to do this again next year. Even a reduced level of spending would have to be financed almost wholly from the precept. Therefore, in any event, the precept will have to be higher. Again, after carefully considering the further information that Merseyside county council gave me—non-compliance again—I decided to confirm the limit that I originally proposed.
Mr. Robert N. Wareing: It may seem to the right hon. Gentleman that he is benefiting Merseyside by allowing it to increase its rate precept to 82·5p in the pound, which is a 27 per cent. increase on last year. The right hon. Gentleman is presumably trying to protect ratepayers against increases. Is he interested in value for money? By asking Merseyside council to reduce its budget by £23 million, which is 10 per cent. of the budget, he is asking the ratepayers to pay 27 per cent. more for 10 per cent. less.
Mr. Jenkin: Both sides will get a great deal more value for money from what the council spends. The hon. Gentleman is anticipating my next point.
Compared with a £249 million budget, which Merseyside says that it would have introduced in the absence of rate capping, this precept, although a 27 per cent. increase on last year, is 50p in the pound less that it would otherwise have been. That is what Merseysiders would have had to pay if there had not been rate capping.
I can take an example from the constituency of the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts), of a typical semidetached house in Bootle with a rateable value of £250. There will be a saving for the owner of that house of about £125 compared with what he would have had to pay in the absence of rate capping. I ask the House to contrast what will happen to that ratepayer in Bootle with what will happen to a similar ratepayer in Liverpool, whose rates will not be capped. I think that the ratepayers in Bootle may well consider themselves to be mighty lucky.
Mr. John Powley: I am interested in what my right hon. Friend is saying about how much the domestic ratepayer will save, but will he bear in mind that a large proportion of rates is paid by commercial and industrial ratepayers, who get no relief according to their ability to pay? It is that sector as much as any other that needs relief from the high-spending authorities.
Mr. Jenkin: That is why I quoted the corner shop in Lambeth as an example of a saving of £1 a week.
Finally, there is south Yorkshire. In December I proposed 81·32p, a reduction on this year's precept of just
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over 2 per cent. South Yorkshire sent me a certain amount of information, but I concluded that it was not such as to lead me to change my proposal. South Yorkshire was proposing to spend £206 million next year. Thanks to rate capping, south Yorkshire's precept will be about 35p in the pound below what it would have been, saving the ratepayer in a typical three-bedroomed semi in Barnsley or Sheffield about £63. That is on a rateable value of £180.
Those are the precept limits for the four precepting authorities. If the House approves the order they will have over a month in which to decide on their budgets and declare their precepts which, to be legal, must not be higher than the figures in the order.
Mr. Barnett: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain upon what basis the limit of a precept has been fixed in each case?
Mr. Jenkin: The Act obliges me to take account of the spending level, the amount of the rate support grant and the availability of reserves. I was given a great many figures by these authorities, but I still had to make assumptions, and I explained to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) the basis upon which they were made.
Mr. Barnett: Will the right hon. Gentleman publish the calculations in each case?
Mr. Jenkin: The Act requires me to make assumptions. I have said that if an authority asked for an alternative level, I should be prepared at that point to discuss the assumptions with the authority, but as none has done so I was entitled to make the assumptions that I did.
Dr. Cunningham: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jenkin: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish what I have to say on this point. In answer to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West I said that one of the factors that we had in mind was what would be the appropriate average level of reserves for authorities in that class. The Inner London education authority and the Greater London council are each in a class of their own. Therefore we had to make assumptions on the best information available. If an authority wished to challenge those assumptions, it should have made an alternative proposal which could have been discussed.
Dr. Cunningham: How can the right hon. Gentleman ask the House to approve this order with its so crucial consequences for four elected authorities while at the same time he denies to the House the fundamental information upon which he has made his calculations? Is not the House of Commons entitled to know the assumptions that have been made?
Mr. Jenkin: The Act is quite clear. It entitles me to make assumptions. And the procedure is quite clear. I have made it clear on many occasions, both individually to the authorities and in public, that if any of these four authorities had come forward with another proposal it could have sat down with me and my officials and gone through the figures. As it was, not one of them chose to do so. Therefore these levels are before the House.
Predictably, the capped authorities prophesy all sorts of doom and disaster. Yes, they will have to make savings, as others have done already. Nevertheless, having considered the matter with some care, and bearing in mind

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the GLC's grossly inflated budgets, the very modest level of savings being sought from ILEA and the huge subsidies to transport in south Merseyside and Yorkshire, I am in no doubt, and the House should be in no doubt, that all four authorities can budget to spend sensibly on services while remaining within the limits in the order.
All four authorities were represented in the deputation which came to see me on Monday. Let me tell the House what that deputation asked for. Although this House had voted on 15 January to accept the rate support grant settlement for next year, as set out in the report, the deputation asked in effect that I should cast it aside; that I should abandon targets and hold back; that I should make some huge but unspecified increase in the amount of rate support grant; that I should abandon the Rates Act which was passed by the House last year; and that, apparently in return for all this, the 26 authorities represented round the table would be good enough to join me in some commission of inquiry. They said nothing about cutting out growth or about trimming their spending. Indeed, the figures they tabled at the meeting assumed continuing growth in spending.
I doubt whether the House was therefore surprised to read in Tuesday's press that I had been unable to accede to those requests. But of course it is worse. I do not suppose that there was a single person in that room in 2 Marsham street on Monday who thought that those proposals were seriously intended. On the contrary—
Mr. Tony Banks: Why not?
Mr. Jenkin: I shall answer the question "Why not?" Every one of those council leaders was there for quite different reasons, which had been spelt out with admirable clarity in a two-page report that had been presented to them three weeks earlier by Councillor David Blunkett of Sheffield, the leader of the deputation. It has come to be known as the Blunkett report.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels rose—
Mr. Jenkin: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to deal with this point. They wanted to be able to say that when I laid this order before the House today I would be unable to claim that the capped authorities simply refused to meet me at all or that they were unwilling to put their case collectively. They also wanted to
"ensure that at the councils' budget meetings in March elected members cannot be accused of failing to challenge the Secretary of State face to face in this way prior to considering the kind of tactics, potentially illegal or otherwise, being considered by the councils concerned".
The Opposition might be interested to hear that the Blunkett report went on to say that it was their aim
"to prevent the break-up of groups arguing about whether or not we should meet Jenkin."
Finally, it was their aim to dislocate the Department of the Environment's parliamentary timetable.
Rarely can a deputation have been launched with such shoddy and transparent humbug. Rate capping will not only curb the spending of the most extravagant over-spenders. It will protect the ratepayers in those areas. And as I said in our rate support grant debate last month, it will allow me to set fairer targets for the much larger number of prudent, low-spending councils which for too long have had to suffer for the extravagance of the few.
For all these reasons I ask the House to approve this draft order.
6.27 pm
Dr. John Cunningham: The House is asked today to approve an order through which the Conservative Government will impose a maximum rate on four democratically elected local authorities. We are being asked to take an unprecedented step to impose further central control over the lives of more than 9·5 million people in Merseyside, south Yorkshire and London.
In spite of repeated assurances since taking office in 1979, Tory Ministers are now face to face with the reality of the abysmal mess that they have created in local government during the last six years. In 1980, the present Secretary of State for Defence promised that the Government would not fix the level of an authority's rates. He said:
"Those decisions remain with the authority." — [Official Report, 5 February 1980; Vol. 978, c. 251.]
The present Secretary of State for Employment made a similar promise. When he was Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services he said:
"It is not suggested that it"—
the needs assessment—
"prescribes a specific level to which an authority ought to spend … I want to make it quite clear that that was not the purpose. We are seeking to find the fairest way to distribute public money to local authorities … " — [Official Report, Standing Committee D, 1 April 1980; c. 941.]
The right hon. Gentleman also said:
"My Department will not be in the business of saying how much each authority should spend, where it should or should not make cuts or on what it should spend money. … Local authorities are autonomous … but the ultimate decision on rating and on the volume of expenditure of local authorities is a matter for the councillors themselves." — [Official Report, Standing Committee D, 27 March 1980; c. 840–41.]
That is the sort of promise that the House has been given by Conservative Ministers since they came to office. Now all of that is being swept aside by the Secretary of State's proposals.
As policy failures have embarrassingly mounted, the Government have simply ploughed deeper into the rights of local councils — [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) wish to intervene or does he just want to waffle on from a sedentary position? As policy failures have embarrassingly mounted, the Government have ploughed deeper into the rights of local councils, casting aside promises in the way that I have described, ignoring all evidence, defying good administrative experience and refusing to learn the lessons — and that from a Government who are allegedly committed to freedom, choice, accountability and the better use of public money.
Market forces are apparently no longer in vogue, at least in the Secretary of State's Department. Massive intervention on a widening scale is the reality. Whitehall-imposed decisions are his practice. The second-guessing of every council in Britain by civil servants is the norm, and chaos is the result. Even The Economist was recently moved to describe the Government's approach to local council finance as "lunatic." Need we say more?
Tory Ministers have legislated themselves and local government into a legal quagmire and they know it. As councillor Roger Parker Jervis, the Tory leader of Buckinghamshire, said, councils have been "legislated into a corner" by this Government. The truth is that the Conservative party no longer has any clear philosophy of local government or well-based body of coherent thought about its role or contribution in a plural democratic

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society. It has no consistent principles in its approach and no thoughts about a stable, productive relationship between the centre, national Government, and local government. Indeed, in stumbling into the real crisis that exists, successive Ministers have displayed contempt and imcompetence towards local administration on a quite staggering scale.
I say quite bluntly that the order has no place in the House of Commons. The House is not equipped or competent to fix the rate of any local authority in Britain, let alone that of four altogether, in one brief debate. In our view, Government have no right to these powers either, and are similarly and singularly unfit to use them with any proper understanding of the consequences. The budget of Merseyside county council is £180 million, of south Yorkshire £172 million, of ILEA over £900 million and of the GLC over £900 million. Yet Parliament is asked to discuss, understand and approve in three hours the consequences of reducing those budgets by more than £200 million. It is a preposterous proposition and the House is singularly unfit to decide upon it.
Of course the request is absurd. We do not have the information. We do not even have all the information that the Secretary of State possesses. As he has just made clear, he refuses even to be candid with the House about the assumptions that he is making. In reality, we are being asked to rubber-stamp an imposed control, regardless of the consequences for the education of children in London, for bus services in south Yorkshire, for police and fire services in the metropolitan counties and for the quality of public services for millions of people.
The Rates Act is an enabling Act, and a general powers measure that allows Tory Ministers to bypass the ballot box and to decide in Whitehall on the quality and level of services provided in the towns, cities and counties of Britain. The order makes the accountability of elected council members to their communities an irrelevance. It destroys the relationship, based upon universal suffrage, through which voters have always been able to hold their elected councillors to account. Nothing positive or worthwhile will emerge from the application of these powers which, judging by today's detailed story on the front page of The Guardian, are about to be extended to the total control of local councils' own money from their own capital receipts.
Mr. Patrick Jenkin: At Question Time the hon. Gentleman will have heard my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State deny absolutely and categorically the suggestion embodied in the two headlines involved in the story in The Guardian. There is no foundation for it at all. No such proposal is on the table. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are discussing with the local authority associations, as I promised, what changes will be necessary in the capital control system in order to reconcile their legitimate aims with the Treasury's legitimate aim of keeping control over public expenditure. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not pursue that point.
Dr. Cunningham: I heard the Under-Secretary of State and I have listened carefully to what the Secretary of State has said. They have both denied the headline, but they have not denied the detail of the story at all. They have admitted that the matter is under consideration, and that causes me considerable concern. On the subject of
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promises, I shall tell the right hon. Gentleman what one of his Cabinet colleagues, the Secretary of State for Employment, said. I quote from the Local Government Chronicle. The right hon. Gentleman was talking about local government finance and said:
"It will certainly not involve central Government telling local government what to spend … nor will it mean cash limits with a statutory ceiling on rate increases."
The reality is that we have had all these promises before, and they are simply hollow. Moreover, they have been cynically cast aside by, among others, the Secretary of State.
Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: The hon. Gentleman used the phrase, "their own capital receipts." Is it not true that many of those capital receipts were originally subsidised from central funds, sometimes by as much as 65 per cent.? How does that make them the local authorities' own capital receipts?
Dr. Cunningham: The hon. Gentleman should read the words of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment who, in making his statement in December, and in the emergency debate the following day, was at least moved to concede that it is the councils' own money. If on nothing else, I agree with the Secretary of State on that point.
The Government are forcing local councils to be lenders and, on an increasing scale, using councils' own money to buttress the political aims and objectives of Government policy. That is another grotesque abuse of power, and one that will be totally destructive of local accountability. Just as the water industry is to be used as a tax collector for central Government, regardless of that industry's economies, and as with the gas and electricity industries, local government's financial control and freedom over its own money is to be removed. In pursuit of a manifestly failed economic policy, which is leading this country deeper into unemployment and despair, this Government choose scapegoats on all sides. Local government is a favourite target, but not one credible economic argument has been, or can be, advanced in favour of total control of councils' expenditure generated from their own resources.
The right hon. Gentleman made a number of claims about reductions in rates. As usual, he had nothing to say about the fact that it is widely recognised that the real reason why rates have increased by 141 per cent. since 1979 is because of Conservative policies, in particular the systematic reduction of rate support grant.
He also had nothing to say about the impact of the order on the quality and availability of services to the almost 10 million people who will be affected by it. He chose singularly to ignore the fact, in speaking of the authorities, that, despite his criticism of them, their local communities had voted for Labour administrations, and in some cases had consistently done so. The right hon. Gentleman is asking the House to bypass the political decisions of those communities.

Rates have gone up dramatically as a result of Government policy. All local authority associations say so and the Audit Commission says so in its report. Tory councillors say it, as do national newspapers such as the Financial Times, The Guardian and The Times. Only the right hon. Gentleman, his ministerial colleagues and a few trusty Back Bench supporters try to deny it.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Will the hon. Gentleman agree that there are only low turn-outs in the areas about which he has been talking? Only a small number of people pay rates, the number of votes cast in those areas is not high and consequently the voting numbers are not representative of the local communities. The hon. Gentleman cannot say, therefore, that the voting figures reveal the kind of services and spending that he is advocating. People want a reduction in rates and a reduction in services as well.
Dr. Cunningham: I remind the hon. Gentleman that in our democracy we have a universal franchise; everyone is entitled to a vote. More households in Britain pay rates than pay taxes. I assume that the logic of the hon. Gentleman's argument is that if people do not pay they should not vote, a concept which we fundamentally reject and which has no place in a democratic society.
Neither the Act nor the order will enable the Government to give any significant or meaningful help to Tory councils, which Ministers have persistently promised to do, and the right hon. Gentleman made that promise again today. The recent rate support grant report laid bare the hollowness of that promise. Nor will the Act mean any significant advantages for industry and commerce, as the Department's consultants recently reported.
After its leak to The Guardian, I was sent a copy of a report commissioned by the Department entitled "The Effect of Rates on the Location of Employment". It cost £50,000 of the taxpayers' money to produce; its 100 pages cost £500 a page. It concludes that there is no foundation for the Government's argument that rates have caused the loss of jobs. Three years ago my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) produced a paper on the subject. It covered three pages, as against the 100 pages of this document, and my hon. Friend's paper was presented to the right hon. Gentleman free of charge. It gave him the information that is now given at a cost of £50,000.
Mr. Richard Holt: I have had a communication from the south Tees business community. They, not the accountants or the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), create jobs and wealth, and I will send a copy to the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). It shows that, as a direct result of this year's imposition of rates in Cleveland, the business community estimates the loss of a further 8,000 jobs in that area.
Dr. Cunningham: Surveys done in the past—many were done at the time of the passage of the Rates Act—concluded that rates formed a small percentage of business costs. I have not seen any evidence, from the Government or the Tory party, to contradict that information.
Mr. Holt rose—
Dr. Cunningham: I will not give way. I must move on.
The Secretary of State also ignored his powers in section 5 of the Act to set an interim limit while the negotiations to which he referred took place. Why did he do that? He announced his intention on 11 December 1984, with the deadline of 15 January 1985, a hopeless timetable, given the two-week holiday period in between.
To add confusion and to cloak his intentions, the Secretary of State has persistently refused to tell the councils or Parliament what assumptions he has made
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about councils' finances in fixing their rates. What is being hidden? The right hon. Gentleman's political bias as well as his inconsistency are being disguised, and I again challenge him to explain why the House of Commons, in being asked to approve this order, and the councils affected, are being denied this crucial information.
I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he will give an explanation. Of course he cannot, and he will not, because he is afraid that the House will understand why he has made the assumptions that we believe he has. He is afraid to put his fairness, or lack of it, to the test.
I learn today, most disturbingly, from the Labour leader of Haringey borough council, Councillor George Meehan, that Conservative councillors in the borough have told him that they have been told of the assumptions made by the right hon. Gentleman in respect of Haringey borough council. That can only be described as contemptible, especially since, as everyone knows, the Labour party is in control of and responsible for the affairs of that borough. It is yet another way in which the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to bypass the democratic wishes of the people of the borough.
Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Either Councillor Meehan or the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the position. I have said nothing to the Conservative members of Haringey which would justify the hon. Gentleman's statement. What I have said—what I said the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks)—is that one of the factors which we have had in mind is to compare the reserves of an authority with the average level of reserves of authorities of that class, and that would seem a reasonable exercise.
Many of the authorities have told us their reserves and have given us many of the figures that go to make up the reserves. Where they have not, we have had to make assumptions. It would have been perfectly proper for Councillor Meehan or anybody else to have come to us and said, "We think that this is too tight. It can only be raised. The Act does not allow us to reduce the rate limit, only to raise it." Anybody could have come and discussed that issue with my officials and the whole thing could have been gone into. They chose not to do that. I am entitled to say, therefore, that the limit is acceptable to them.
Dr. Cunningham: If this is all so innocent, why will not the right hon. Gentleman publish the assumptions? There has been no convincing answer. We have received correspondence about the matter, it has been raised on the Floor of the House and repeated requests have been made, but the right hon. Gentleman has given no explanation which is satisfactory to the House and the councils concerned. As to what I have said about George Meehan—he is not only a political colleague but a friend—I specifically had the assertion checked before I raised the matter in the House. Councillor Meehan authorised me to say what I am saying. I do not say this lightly, without authority or frivolously. The action to which I referred cannot contribute to the happy or speedy resolution of these difficulties.
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman has made his point. There is no truth in any suggestion that I have made available details of the assumptions. It would have been improper for officials to have had meetings of that sort

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with minority members of the council. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw any suggestion that my officials have behaved improperly.
Dr. Cunningham: The argument about the application of these rate limits rests not just on the right hon. Gentleman's assumptions but on the use of grant-related expenditure as one of the two crucial tests before authorities are designated under the Act. Grant-related expenditure assessments have been rejected as an objective test by all local authority associations. None of them, including associations under Conservative political control, accepts that test. Yet ministerial decisions are based on dubious calculations and outdated information. In a report published in 1984 entitled "The Impact on Local Authorities' Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Block Grant Distribution System" the Audit Commission said:
"The existence of so many unresolved questions after four years experience of operating the Block Grant system also casts doubt upon the use of GREs for any purpose other than grant distribution. And it is evident that complexity has not, so far, produced a general perception of equity."
The report went on:
"Unfortunately, the information used to calculate both the needs for local authority services and the availability of local resources is open to serious question."
That is the independent and considered view of the Audit Commission about one of the two principal tests on which the Secretary of State has based his decision to impose this order on the four authorities.
The order will place huge strains on the budgets of the authorities affected. There will be expenditure cuts for Merseyside of more than £44 million, for south Yorkshire of almost £28 million, for the Greater London council of almost £75 million and for the Inner London education authority of £57 million. I have received a copy of the letter sent to the Secretary of State today by the leader of ILEA, Frances Morrell, who leaves him in no doubt that there are serious questions to be asked about even the right hon. Gentleman's new limit for that authority and the limit's impact on the quality and scope of education in London.
All these cuts are made on the basis of the decision of the Secretary of State which, in turn, rests on a shambles of incoherent and failing Government policies. The arguments for the order are false and racked with contradictions. The performance of Ministers in dealing with local council policy is incompetent, dishonest and deplorable. The House should reject the Government's case.
6.54 pm
Sir John Osborn: I assure the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) that rates are driving businesses out of Sheffield and have been a perpetual cause of increasing unemployment. If the hon. Gentleman thinks differently, I assure him that many industrial leaders deplore the fact that I, as the only Conservative Member of Parliament in the region, have not been able to stop this drain and to persuade my hon. Friends to do something about it before today.
Dr. Cunningham: Given the hon. Gentleman's long experience in the industry, he must know, as I know from my association with the industry, that the devastation of
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the steel industry as a result of the Government's policies has been the principal factor that has driven business from Sheffield.
Sir John Osborn: I shall now revert to the debate. If the hon. Gentleman would like me to talk about steel, I shall. I am afraid that if I do, not many hon. Members would have much chance of dealing with the subject of the debate. I shall therefore refrain from talking about steel.
The order arises from the Rates Act 1984. The order is, in fact, the Act put into practice, and that is happening none too soon for householders and those who run industries, commerce and businesses in the city and south Yorkshire. Today's debate covers familiar ground.
Ms. Harriet Harman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir John Osborn: The hon. Lady should bear in mind the fact that if I am interrupted, I shall spend between 15 and 20 minutes on my feet and may prevent other hon. Members from speaking. I give way.
Ms. Harman: On the point about commercial rates, is it not the case that the link between unemployment rising and rates has not been proven? Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that in low rate areas the rents on those commercial properties increase and, therefore, at the end of the day the amount spent on rents or rates is about the same. The money going into rates is at least ploughed back into the local community for services and jobs. When the money goes in increased business rents, it goes goodness knows where and therefore is not ploughed back in. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that his argument about unemployment and rates is totally spurious?
Sir John Osborn: The hon. Lady should let me continue with my speech.
As the hon. Member for Copeland knows, the last Labour Government were concerned about the level of spending in south Yorkshire and Sheffield before 1979. I attended many meetings involving local councillors who were worried about what would happen under a Labour Secretary of State for the Environment. Since 1979, this Government have tried hard to control the increase in local authority expenditure grants. The targets and penalties have been designed to encourage moderation, and many authorities have co-operated.
We are dealing with those authorities that have resisted. For those few authorities encouragement has had to become compulsion. Those councils, and south Yorkshire especially, have only themselves to blame. They have tried to portray my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in an uncompromising light by saying that they have not had sufficient time to make their case. The hon. Member for Copeland made that point. What rubbish! The high-spending councils have had too long to make their case. They have been making their case since 1979. The Government have a clear mandate to control the level of public spending. Local authority expenditure is about £33 billion, or a quarter of all public spending. Local authorities employ roughly one tenth of the total work force. It is daft to think that local authority spending is exempt. The hon. Member for Copeland, councillors and others think that their mandate has been invalidated by the control from Government that the order provides. Those arguments are based on the claims of local democracy.
There we move to the heart of the matter which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester,

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East (Mr. Bruinvels)—the link between the ballot box and the rating system has worn thin. Of every £1 spent by local councils on local services, less than 25p in the £1 is provided by householders. Slightly more than 25p comes from businesses and other non-domestic ratepayers and about half comes from taxpayers. That means that, in a city such as Sheffield, one out of every two households, or roughly one in four of those entitled to vote, pay full rates. Those who pay do not vote while those who vote do not pay. That is taxation without representations. What sort of a mandate is that?
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: It is not a mandate.
Sir John Osborn: Quite right, it is not a mandate. In previous debates I have said that I should prefer some form of rate reform, but consensus on that has not been possible. Something must be done now, and I therefore welcome the present measure.
In the Daily Telegraph last week Anthony Lejeune said:
"The weakest point in the moral armour of modern democracy is that citizens can vote money for themselves out of the pockets of other citizens and are encouraged by politicians to do so. The most notorious current example is the unscrupulous use of the rating system by Left-wing local authorities."
At last something is being done to limit the damage that they cause.
Sheffield has suffered harshly in recent years at the hands of the city council and the South Yorkshire county council. Domestic rates in Sheffield have risen by 245 per cent. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment said that rates have risen by 132 per cent. in Yorkshire over the past six years. District and county councils have recklessly, deliberately and profligately ignored every request to limit their spending. Commerce and industry must welcome the introduction of rate-capping. They have seen the disastrous effects at first hand, and a survey by Sheffield chamber of commerce shows that 48 per cent. of the firms that cut their work force during the previous two years laid part of the blame on rates.
Sheffield has a tradition of heavy industry, and the rate burden is exceptionally heavy. The result is viciously circular. As businesses close, residents leave to avoid the high rates, and the declining rate base hits those left behind even harder.
It is no good pretending that those are not the effects of high rates. They are, and it would be an irresponsible Government who did nothing about it. Predictably, authorities designated to have their rates limited have produced scare stories of how that will decimate local services, and I referred to education earlier this afternoon. What an admission of poor management. South Yorkshire has been set a limit that requires the council to absorb the cost of inflation in next year's budget. Many a company in south Yorkshire and elsewhere would have been happy with such moderate cutting proposals during the recent recession, and I speak with some personal experience of the matter.
South Yorkshire will still be left to spend large sums of money—£178 million. In south Yorkshire the local authorities have spending targets which I calculate amount to £660 million for 1985–86. That is over £500 per head of population. That is solely local authority spending. It is rubbish to claim that such sums will result in the destruction of services and the neglect of statutory duties.
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If my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State or the Minister for Local Government disagree with my figures, I hope that they will put the record straight. Last year, south Yorkshire county council spent over £90 million subsidising transport and recouped a bare £20 million in income as the Secretary of State said.
Is it unrealistic to suggest that there is room for improvement there? Spending on transport revenue support in south Yorkshire amounts to more than £45 per head. That is almost double the average for metropolitan counties. The total cost per head for the provision of all services is about £158 while the class average is £20 per head less. Even after rate capping the council will have plenty to spend.
As is widely acknowledged, the rating system is far from perfect and a review of all local authorities, finance is welcome. Today's measures are regrettably necessary. They will make the system a great deal less imperfect.
The Labour-controlled Sheffield city council and South Yorkshire county council have briefed Members of Parliament of all parties about their position. When Socialist councillors have been present at those meetings — the House must bear in mind that I am the only Conservative Member of Parliament at these meetings—they have interpreted the briefings as advocating that public expenditure, in itself, must be good.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, local authorities have spent money on nuclear-free zones and funds to striking miners. How can we be sure that they have gone to the families rather than to the pickets? They have financed CND conferences, and an anti-apartheid headquarters. They have politically appointed staff in town and county halls. These matters also involve Sheffield district council because it is a collecting agency.
My right hon. Friend's statement about an inquiry on abuse must be welcome. The reference to industry and commerce not backing the Government must relate to the rate support grant. I have a copy of a letter sent to my right hon. Friend from the Sheffield chamber of commerce. South Yorkshire and Sheffield have special problems related mainly to regional development. The level of GRE needed to cover a population that is aging because the young are moving out is a problem, but industry and commerce must work closely with county hall and the town hall. It is part of the process of living with local government as they find it. They must eliminate retribution if possible but above all they must attempt to make bad local government for industry and commerce better.

The Sheffield chamber of commerce—I have been a member of the council for some 30 years—does not want a militant confrontation involving county hall, town hall and the Government. That is why I should back it in seeking any negotiations with councillors.
Since the April tragedy at county hall in Barnsley many of the councillors, including the chairman of the police committee, George Moores, have been sponsored or closely connected with mining and the mining communities and objectivity has been lacking during the miners' dispute. They must surely have learnt that violence begets violence. The tragedy of the coal strike illustrates that.
I hope that moderation and common sense will prevail in relations between Government and local government. I appeal to South Yorkshire county councillors and the

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district councillors to act sensibly and work with the Government rather than to continue to show defiance that they have shown for the past 10 years.
My right hon. Friend referred to the Blunkett letter. I have seen press releases suggesting that as leader of the Sheffield city council he may think differently from what I have hoped. I hope that the permanent officials and the councillors will accept the guidelines laid down by my right hon. Friend. I know that Conservative councillors on the county and district councils in south Yorkshire, including their leaders, County Councillor Irvine Patnick and Sheffield councillor David Heslop gave my right hon. Friends their full backing. They have advised me that, if anything, the measures come too late; they cannot come too soon. My right hon. Friend has the support of Conservatives in the area I represent.
7.9 pm
Mr. Eric S. Heifer: When I hear Ministers speak from the Conservative Front Bench it increasingly reminds me of when I first became a city councillor in Liverpool, and was put on the children"s committee. At that time, the council was run by the Conservative party, and the lady who became our chairperson was opposed to central heating in the children's homes on the grounds that it was not good for them. Also, we decided to get some bicycles for the children, and we actually got that through. Then the lady said, "But don't forget that they must be second hand."
That is the penny-pinching, miserable attitude that the Conservatives have towards local government, but at least at that time we had the opportunity of determining how much we spent. We had the opportunity of explaining to the general public at the election what had happened and why they should get rid of Conservatives and put Labour people on the council. The local people took the decision. They had the right to decide. However, with this Government that right is, slowly but surely, stage by stage, being taken away from the people. We have the rate-capping procedures as well as the forthcoming abolition of all the metropolitan authorities, only because they are Labour authorities doing a good job for the people they represent.
The Secretary of State made great play of the extravagant overspending by the Merseyside county authority. He said that one of the dreadful things that it was doing was supporting what was called the "resident author" and giving money for a record against the police. He hinted that a certain amount of money had gone to support the miners. With regard to the police, one person who was constantly opposed to what the police were doing on Merseyside was Sir Kenneth Thompson, the old Conservative leader of the council. I read more letters in the local papers complaining about the authoritarian development of the police written by Sir Kenneth Thompson, than I have ever seen from any Labour man in my life. That was interesting. Even if a few bob is going towards a record, it could not possibly be in the same category as the opposition to what was happening in the police from Sir Kenneth Thompson.
The amount of money that might go into those peripheral things is very small. They are the things that Ministers pick out, use and exaggerate. No doubt there were Tories on the Nottingham city council who, many
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years ago, opposed a grant for Torvill and Dean, yet because of that grant they become gold medallists in ice skating. Time after time we can give examples of such grants having been tremendously helpful to individuals and the nation, but Conservative Members would never understand that.
I should like to mention some of the problems that have arisen, for example on rate support grant. I have a table showing the changes in rate support grant for the Merseyside council over the past decade. In 1975–76, the Government grant was 66·5 per cent., and the ratepayers' contribution was 33·5 per cent.; in 1980–81 the Government grant was 61 per cent. and the ratepayers' contribution 39 per cent.; in 1984–85, the Government grant was 51·9 per cent. and the ratepayers' contribution 48·1 per cent.; and in 1985–86 the Government grant is 48·7 per cent. and the ratepayers' contribution 51·3 per cent. That is the truth about what is happening. When the Government talk about rates going up, they do not explain that they have gone up because the Government grant—the rate support grant—has gone down. Therefore, the local authorities have been faced with the prospect of cutting their services or giving the people a decent service and having to put the rates up. Then they are called extravagant overspenders. These are the wicked people—
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heifer: I shall not give way. I shall speak for only 10 minutes because many hon. Members want to participate—
Mr. Bruinvels: But the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry) has gone to sleep.
Mr. Heifer: Even if my hon. Friend has gone to sleep, his contribution to the debate will be much greater than the hon. Gentleman's.
I should like to bring out what is really happening and the effect of the Government's proposals on Merseyside. I understand that the maximum precept that the county can raise is £219 million. The council's estimate for maintaining existing services is £242 million. Therefore, there is a gap of £23 million. The county council believes that the Government have got the figures wrong. I shall not argue at length because these are technical arguments, and hon. Friends who are members of the county council can argue that case better then I can. However, on the basis of the present situation, with the Government's decision and the £23 million gap, it is important to understand what would happen to vital and important services on Merseyside.
First, the county authority would need to reduce the amount available for the police by £5 million. In real terms, because of the financial relationship with the Department of the Environment, that amount would be £10 million. That could mean at least 700 to 800 policemen and women not receiving any payment. In the area crime is rising, drug usage is on the increase. A recent survey that we quoted in the House last week shows that policing in poorer areas is worse than it is in better-off areas, and the poor are getting a raw deal from the police service on Merseyside. The police are overstretched. More foot patrols are needed. It is absolutely absurd that the concil should be faced with that position.

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Expenditure on the fire services would have to be reduced by £2·5 million. Expenditure on road maintenance would go down by £4 million. Anyone who goes around Merseyside now knows that the roads have deteriorated terribly over the past few years. They are getting worse because even now the money is not there as it should be. There would be a reduction of £1 million in expenditure on waste disposal.
The Secretary of State spoke at length about the passenger transport subsidy There would be a reduction in that of £8 million.
Mr. Barry Porter: So there should be.
Mr. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman, who represents Bebbington in Merseyside, is actually saying that the people of Merseyside should pay much higher fares than at present. He is saying, "Put the burden on the shoulders of those who can least afford it because they are the people who use the public transport." For my part, I believe that it is important that the ordinary people be given the opportunity of using public transport at a reasonable cost.
It is estimated that if the £23 million reduction were achieved it could lead to about 3,000 redundancies among the personnel of Merseyside council, and that is in an area with one of the highest levels of unemployment in Britain.
I do not know whether Conservative Members ever go beyond Watford. One or two may, but those who do not should go to areas such as Merseyside. I can tell the House why we do not have the problem of a Tory Member of Parliament. Unfortunately, Sheffield still does, but Liverpool does not. We have a semi-Tory in the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), who is not present at the moment, but we have no Tories because Liverpool has suffered under the Tory party over the years and it is fed up with them.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels rose—
Mr. Heffer: I shall not give way and I have explained why.
The Secretary of State is right to say that the Merseyside council can increase the precept by 27 per cent. Nobody argues with that. But if it does, I am told by the county authorities that it would lose about £29 million from Government sources. That would mean a cut of £23 million for services over the period. It is in a catch 22 situation.
I hope that all hon. Members, including Conservative Members, who are concerned about local democracy and about stopping the trend towards increasingly centralised government, will come with us into the Lobby tonight and support my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
7.21 pm
Mr. John Cartwright: The alliance Members will be voting against the order tonight, not because we necessarily endorse the spending levels or priorities of the authorities named in the order, but because we are opposed to the principle of rate capping. We argue now, as we argued during the progress of the Rates Bill, that it is inappropriate for Parliament to set the rate or precept of an elected local authority. That is the job of the elected councillors. If Members of Parliament take unto themselves the responsibility for fixing rates, there is no point in continuing to have elected local councillors in our town and county halls.
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Nor do I accept that civilisation as we know it will be threatened if some local authorities spend more than the Government believe to be appropriate. Some local authorities have always spent more than the average and some have come to grief with their electors at the subsequent election. The level of rate that is charged by a local authority to its ratepayers is a matter between itself and the local ratepayers. If they do not like it, they will react through the ballot box in the traditional way.
It may well be that some Conservative Members will say that the current system of local government finance is not sufficiently accountable. There is some strength in that argument, but the response should be to make the system more accountable rather than to create some big brother in Westminster and Whitehall to lean over the shoulders of councillors and to second-guess their decisions.
Nor is it true, as was argued during the passage of the Rates Bill, that capping the high-spending authorities will automatically release resources for the traditional low-spending counties and other authorities which have stuck to the Government guidelines. If one doubted that, one has only to consider those cries of pain and bewilderment from representatives of the shire counties during the recent debate on the rate support grant. That underlines the fact that the low spenders in the shires continue to be held to low spending, despite the introduction of rate capping.
The second ground on which we shall oppose the order is that there are doubts about the basis of the precept limits in the order. For example, the original maximum precept allowed for ILEA in December 1984 was 74·19p and £44 million was to be taken from the ILEA reserves. The order raises the maximum precept to 77·25p and only £9 million is to be taken from reserves. The Secretary of State was good enough in his introduction to explain some of the reasons for that alteration, but we still do not have any disclosure of the assumptions surrounding the £9 million to be taken from the ILEA reserves. The same is true in relation to the GLC where £71 million is assumed to be available in its reserves for current spending. Again, there is no supporting evidence for that decision.
It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to tell the House that that sort of issue is between himself as Secretary of State and the councils concerned. The House is being asked to approve the maximum precepts in the order. We are being asked to make a judgment. I cannot understand how we can be expected to make a judgment without the available evidence being given to us of the sort of assumptions which the Secretary of State has made in relation to those reserves. We are being offered a straight take-it-or-leave-it decision. We are being asked to rubber-stamp the figures in the order. That brings the House into disrepute and it bears out the predictions and forecasts that some of us made in Committee on the Rates Bill.
Against that background, it is sad and regrettable that the designated authorities have not strenuously and vigorously argued their needs to the Secretary of State. I am not suggesting that they should have sought formal redetermination. I understand the risks that are involved in that course. But they should have taken the opportunity to argue their case with the Secretary of State and to demonstrate the flaws in the figures which he has put forward. That is a matter of regret because they have let down the people that they represent in not taking that opportunity.
One of the sad things about the whole business is the sense in which both sides — Ministers and local

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councillors—seem to be more concerned with scoring points off each other and legally wrong-footing each other than about the future of the services which are under discussion. It is a case not just of extracting the maximum political gain but of safeguarding services which are vital to a great many people that we represent.
Mr. David Alton: Does my hon. Friend agree that cities such as Liverpool are being turned into "Confrontation Streets" with the longest-running soap operas and farces in local government? People are being used as pawns in a power game that is being played out over their heads. That means that in the long term ratepayers will be disadvantaged. It is sad that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is not present to hear that point.
Mr. Cartwright: It would be unwise to involve myself too far in the internal politics of Liverpool. They are obviously dangerous politics and certainly bitter. I shall only say that the threat to refuse to levy a precept on the part of the authorities concerned is a threat to gamble with other people's jobs and services. That is a dangerous thing to do. If the gamble fails, many people will be without a job and will not have the vital services on which they depend. The money at some point or other will simply run out if no precept is levied.
One of the most worrying aspects about the way in which the rate-capping operation is being conducted is the fact that all rate-capped authorities will face the damaging impact of sudden cuts. For example, ILEA is being asked to cut about £66 million off its budget. If that cut were phased over a period, it might be possible so to organise it that damage to top priority services was limited. Instead, cuts will have to be made suddenly, in a hurry, and there will be no opportunity to look across the various spending areas and to try to protect the high priority services. When cuts have to be made in a hurry, they fall on whatever can be cut at speed, irrespective of priority. An education authority is likely to make cuts in books and equipment, not to fill staff vacancies wherever they occur, and to cut discretionary student awards.
Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman claims that those are the results of the way in which rate capping is being run. Does he not agree that ILEA has known its expenditure limits since last July? If it had taken a realistic view of the outcome of the ensuing process, it could perfectly well have made its dispositions months before it had to draw up a budget. We are not asking for a substantial cut in its present level of spending. The difficulties described by the hon. Gentleman are to be laid fairly and squarely at the door of the present majority party on ILEA.
Mr. Cartwright: The authorities concerned should certainly have argued their case with the Government. I would certainly take issue with those authorities which, far from trying to take account of reality, have simply planned to jack up their expenditure higher still. That will make the impact even greater, the cuts will have to be even sharper and the brakes will have to be slammed on at the last minute. I believe, however, that suddenly imposed cuts are inefficient, wasteful and harmful to the services.
There is another risk of chaos and of a dangerous impact on the services. It will arise if the precepting authorities
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accept the maximum precept, and levy a precept on that basis, but are then unable or unwilling to face the necessity for the consequent spending cuts. Some authorities simply will not face that necessity. Others may not be able to do so, because of the political realities of the council chamber. There will then be a risk that spending commitments will not be reduced to meet the resources available. At some point during the year the money will run out and there will be chaos. The Secretary of State has not yet faced that risk. I am interested to hear how he believes that those who are dependent on local authority services can be protected against it.
A question mark now hangs over the edifice of local government finance erected in the past four years—the complex bureaucratic business of grant-related expenditure, targets, penalties, holdback, clawback and, finally, rate capping. As the Audit Commission pointed out, the complex paraphernalia does not save money. Indeed, there is evidence that it wastes money. The Cambridge university report makes it clear that the Government's aim of reducing rates does not have the impact on employment that they have claimed. The complex operations—the bureaucratic spider's web of controls on democratic local authorities—are not delivering the goods. The sooner we get rid of this complex, ramshackle and wasteful system, the better for local government.
7.34 pm
Mr. Barry Porter: I am delighted to follow the reasonable gentleman from the Social Democratic party, the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright). The order shows that, unfortunately, reasonable people do not necessarily exist in all the local authorities. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has vacated his place after making a gesture by attending part of the debate. I have the advantage of having been here at the beginning, having listened to most of it and having remained awake for most of it, despite occasional temptations to the contrary.
The purpose of the debate depresses me. Such a discussion should be taking place in the town halls of Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester, London and elsewhere. I have always advocated the existence of autonomous local authorities, rightly and proudly independent of whatever party happens to occupy Westminster. Unfortunately, that desire has not yet come to fruition. When I hear the hon. Member for Walton talking about local democracy, I wonder whether he approves of the mandate system in Liverpool whereby Labour councillors are told to vote in a certain way regardless of the arguments. That is not democracy. If the right hon. Gentleman had stayed to listen to the debate he might have been able to clarify his view on the question whether such a practice is democratic.
Under the present method of local government finance the taxpayer, via central Government, has become the major contributor to the expenditure of local authorities. There is an unarguable case for saying, therefore, that central Government should have a not inconsiderable voice in deciding how much local authorities can spend. In happier days I was the chairman of a local authority committee with considerable spending power. Central Government's voice— as it happens, it was a Labour Government — was exercised by persuasion and suggestion, and in the end common sense prevailed. Ultimately, the local authority accepted the right and

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indeed the duty of Government to deal with the interests of their overall economic strategy — in which local authority spending plays such a large part—and of the taxpayer. It never entered my mind to question the right and duty of central Government. Over the past few years, the accepted practice has been challenged. That has happened—I hate to say this—not so much for financial as for political reasons. The Act behind the order has become a disagreeable necessity. No Conservative—certainly no Conservative with a local authority background — would have wished that to happen. However, the measures have become clearly necessary and they have my support. No Government of any colour would welcome such a turn of events, but all Governments have a clear duty to ensure that their calculation of a proper total of local authority spending is adhered to.
The authorities with which we are dealing have chosen, first, to ignore their clear constitutional relationship with central Government and, secondly, to spend ratepayers' and taxpayers' money with the gay abandon of the financial alcoholic. None could be worse than the peculiar Socialists who control in their own fairyland the finances of the soon-to-depart, wholly unlamented, Merseyside county council.
The pronouncements of the Merseyside county council are less overtly dramatic than those of the GLC and the London boroughs who continue to astonish the nation. However, they are no less dangerous for that. The principal reason for the high level of spending by the Merseyside county council, which some Opposition Members consider to be a matter for great pride, is the revenue support for bus and rail services. There is an argument for subsidising those activities, but in 1984–85 the council spent £44 per head of population on support for buses and trains, over and above what it paid for free travel for pensioners. Expenditure on those services was 80 per cent. above the average of the metropolitan counties. The council has adopted a policy of taxing the ratepayers, many of whom — including many of my own constituents — are not at all well off, in order to subsidise the users of public transport, who may or may not be well off, and also to provide plenty of jobs for members of the Transport and General Workers Union. In that year, the council also spent £80,000 on propaganda which will, it hopes, prevent its abolition.
Those of us who live on Merseyside have seen the extravagant posters that show the fire service going down a plughole invented by the Government, the police going down a plughole invented by the Government, everything going down a plughole invented by the Government. It is utter nonsense.
Mr. Wareing: There are 50,000 unemployed.
Mr. Porter: That is not the point. I have mentioned the subsidies given to transport and I listened to the figures that the hon. Member for Walton gave. Even he must realise that there can be counter-balancing operations within a legal precept for Merseyside county council which would enable services to be provided at a reasonable cost without local people noticing that there had been any change. I am inspired by the people of Merseyside who treat the publicity campaign of the council with a proper and studied indifference.
Mr. Alton: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that perhaps most disreputable of all is the implication that has
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been given to pensioners on Merseyside that, as a result of abolition of that council, they will lose their bus passes? Does he agree that that has caused considerable distress and disquiet?
Mr. Porter: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for that reminder. That is fairly typical of the publicity being promoted by the hon. Member for Walton and his friends. It is utterly untrue. Such issues will be a matter for the district councils to deal with when they succeed the county council. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the activities of the county council, how can it be right to spend nearly £1 million on such publicity material? The money should be spent on things that are of much more use to the people whom the council purports to represent.
People who live in the Merseyside county council area will welcome the order, as will Wirral district council. We would also welcome a decision from the Government about the methods of finance for local authorities to make those that spend accountable to local opinion and voting power. I heartily support the order and I hope that it will be only an interim step in progress towards a new and highly desirable local democratic system. In the meantime, I am happy to support the Government putting some form of straitjacket around the politically and financially mentally disturbed who, at present, are a burden on my constituents.
7.42 pm
Mr. Bill Michie: I have listened to the whole of the debate and to the exchanges on the statement that preceded it. I am worried that, because of the three-hour limit on the debate, some of my right hon. and hon. Friends will not have an opportunity to put the case for their areas.
I should like to dissociate myself from what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Sir J. Osborn) said. He makes his own minority speech and often gets the facts wrong because he is still not aware of what is happening in areas such as Sheffield and south Yorkshire. Unlike me, he has never been on the city council. I have been a member for 15 years and remain one. However, I admit that he has experience of the steel industry, as he was a manager for many years. That company was running down long before the rates issue was thought of.
South Yorkshire county council and Sheffield city council have suffered drastically because of the reduction in grants and because of penalties in the past few years. Such reductions affect everything and even run contrary to many of the projects which the Government have encouraged. Sheffield city council is one of the 23 programme areas and we have six partnership authorities where deprivation is considered to be especially severe. All those authorities get annual allocations of money from the Department of the Environment to fund schemes that have an impact on conditions in their inner areas. The House is probably aware that 75 per cent. of the allocation is met by the Government and the remaining 25 per cent. must be picked up by the local authorities.
The problem is that, because grant has not increased in the past few years, the council is penalised on the 25 per cent. that it must pay. If Sheffield had taken more of the grant from the Government, it would be outside the trap. It is being penalised only because it has used less grant. The same is true of south Yorkshire. It is a pity that the

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hon. Member for Hallam is not here as he is a member of the chamber of commerce in Sheffield and I should like to quote a letter that it wrote. It said:
"It is a matter of continuing concern that expenditure both on the Urban Programme itself and on 'time expired' projects are subject to Block Grant penalties. This appears to us inconsistent with the Government's objectives in promoting the Urban Programme, and we shall again be making representation to the Government to try to have this anomaly ended."
That is not the comment of a rabid Left-wing organisation, but it recognises the discrepancies.
For the county council, the block grant system, complete with expenditure targets and grant penalties, was introduced in 1981–82. In each year since then, the council's block grant entitlement has been cut. The proportion of the council's spending which is supported by the Government has fallen from 58·8 per cent. in 1980–81—the year when the new system was introduced—to 48·7 per cent. in 1985–86. That represents a reduction of £56 million in the council grant and means an extra 13p on the rate precept for 1985–86. That burden must be carried by the ratepayers, the very people whom the Government claim to be helping.
Opposition Members are proud of and will defend the services provided by local authority work forces. Too much is said about local authorities featherbedding their staff. I have much experience in these matters and believe that the work force does a tremendous job under enormous strain. We defend their right to give their best. We will defend the right of plumbers and joiners to get on with the job instead of having to look over their shoulders to see whether their job will be there at the end of the year. We will defend social workers who should be looking to their clients rather than looking over their shoulders to see whether an old folks' home that they are trying to get somebody in is about to be closed. Teachers should be concentrating on their classes and not worrying about whether expenditure is being cut so much that they must buy their own chalk and their pupils' parents must buy books — one of the recommendations of the hon. Member for Hallam. He said that in five or 10 years' time parents and kids will have to pay for their own books, such is his affection for the bad old days. He got his comeuppance from his supporters in Hallam on that.
I must correct my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) who said that bus fares were subsidised to help poor people. In south Yorkshire, poor and rich people use the bus service and defend the council's policy of subsidising it. They do not regard the council as extravagant but as providing a service that is worth maintaining. It protects the environment and the value of land that can be used for other developments. It is nonsense to suggest that the rich are subsidising the poor. The subsidy is enjoyed and supported by all. It is value for money.
I should like to conclude by quoting not a political party but John Banham, the head of the Audit Commission for local authorities in England and Wales. He said that Sheffield was one of the best-run authorities in the country in terms of providing value for money. He continued:
"There is no question that there is a great deal that other cities have to learn from this place."
He felt so strongly about this point that at a press conference—not behind doors or in any attempt to hide it—he said:
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"… poor distribution of rate support grant meant that industrial northern cities like Sheffield were not getting the contribution from central government that they needed."
The argument is not about whether there should be efficiency drives in local government. I just wish that we had one in central government—that would be a turn-up for the book. We are arguing about the rights of duly elected local authorities to run their cities in the way in which their citizens want them to be run. We are arguing that unless they are given that right, and unless a proper assessment is made of their real needs—that has never been forthcoming from the Government — there will always be problems, the ratepayers will suffer and those in need will suffer even more.
7.50 pm
Mr. Guy Barnett: In opening the debate, the Secretary of State claimed that the order that he was placing before the House was designed to protect the ratepayer. I do not propose to dilate on that for long. It is arguable that that is his main responsibility, particularly when central Government expenditure under this Government is very much open to criticism. Perhaps he should look at his own housekeeping rather than interfere in the housekeeping of local authorities that are also directly elected. If he considers that it is his responsibility to protect the ratepayer, as he clearly does, he has another responsibility that he must take on board and which he never admitted in his speech.
I wish to speak on behalf of the Inner London education authority. In that connection, the Secretary of State never mentioned the responsibility that he must take on board, if he believes that it is his responsibility to protect the ratepayer, to safeguard the education of the children of London. That responsibility he has not admitted in the House.
It is important for the House to recognise, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), the severe damage that the Government have done to the relationship between local and central Government. It is interesting to record that at the Conservative party local government conference in 1979 the Prime Minister said:
"Good Government rests on a partnership between Whitehall and Town Hall."
I agree with her. I believe that that is something for which the last Labour Government were attempting to make provision. We worked hard to this end in the Department of the Environment, and I am proud of the relationship that existed between local and central Government. One reason for its success was that in those days the system of multiple regression analysis admitted in the way in which the grant was determined that local government had an authority as well as central Government.
Relationships between local and central Government will always be difficult or in need of careful co-operation, as the Prime Minister remarked in her speech in 1979. It will be difficult, for two reasons. The first is that local and central Government are both directly elected. The second—and this is the important point—is that they both have an authority. Central Government have a general responsibility for the economic policy of the country, but local authorities are responsible for running services.
The only body in inner London that has a responsibility for running education is the Inner London education authority. It is charged by law to do that job and to determine the education needs of London.

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My impression in listening to the Secretary of State and to some of the remarks that emanate from the Department of Education and Science is that they do not know or understand the problems with which ILEA has to cope. The grant-related expenditure system that the Government have invented to decide how much local authorities should be allowed to spend does not take account of the factors in inner London which, by any standard, must greatly increase the cost of running education in inner London.
For example, there are no fewer than 147 mother tongues in inner London. That can be described both as a problem for ILEA—and it is a considerable one—and as a great opportunity. If the children in London with their many different backgrounds and languages are educated in their mother tongue and in English, in years to come this might grant to London an enormous advantage. It could be an international city with a considerable proportion of its citizens genuinely billingual. No account is taken of this in the Government's assessment of expenditure.
No account is taken of the fact that London has many old school buildings. Half of London's secondary schools are old buildings which are expensive to heat and to maintain. There are also higher land and building costs of one kind and another. The population density in inner London is another factor that is ignored in the grant-related expenditure assessment. In addition, there are many children in inner London whose parents are on supplementary benefit. Those examples demonstrate the extra costs that are borne by ILEA.
Unless the Government understand the factors that contribute to the relatively high budget that is necessary in inner London, they will be capable of doing serious damage to education in inner London.
There is a good deal of evidence of the cumulative effect of multiple deprivation. Bearing in mind—and this is based on the figures of the Department of the Environment—that seven out of the 10 most deprived local authorities in the country are in inner London, one realises the serious problems faced by ILEA. In some recent research, an examination of the children in schools as opposed to the population of all age groups demonstrated the high measure of deprivation. A single-purpose authority like ILEA is therefore coping with probably greater problems than even it may recognise.
These factors must be taken into account. The Government are going down a dangerous road. If they attempt to impose a rate cap or precept cap on ILEA, they could do immense damage to education in inner London because of their relative measure of ignorance of the extent of the problems with which ILEA has to cope.
Mr. Dobson: Would my hon. Friend agree that it is somewhat ironic, following the publication of the Hargreaves report, which was sponsored by ILEA and commended by the Secretary of State for Education and Science, that the Secretary of State for the Environment should now be making sure that ILEA will not have the resources to implement the report to improve standards in secondary schools in inner London?
Mr. Barnett: I agree with my hon. Friend. I welcome the Secretary of State's reaction to that report. It is one of many examples, including Her Majesty's inspector's report, showing the high regard in which ILEA is held by officials in the Department of Education and Science, although it is charged with extravagance and every possible sin by the Department of the Environment.
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For those reasons, I believe that the Government's proposal today is dangerous and irresponsible. I deeply regret the steps being taken and the collapse in relationships between central and local government that has characterised the Government's period of office.
7.59 pm
Mr. Richard Holt: I agree very much with the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett) about the change in relationships between central and local government. When I was first elected a councillor in the London borough of Brent 22 years ago I could make an appointment with the town clerk and see him within two or three days if he was free. Every member of the council, irrespective of political persuasion, sought to carry out his duties with a dignity that no longer exists. In those circumstances, it is inevitable that there has been a breakdown in relationships, and it is very much a political breakdown. The Labour party is pleased that it has succeeded and that the relationships that previously existed have broken down. I speak from more than 20 years' experience in many local authorities, having served on a London borough council for 10 years, led a district authority in the south and later served on a shire authority. I now represent an area in the north-east with Labour-controlled county and district authorities. I can thus see very clearly the differences in attitude and in the way in which local government is conducted.
In the north of England rates are comparatively higher than in the south, with the result that job opportunities are far greater in the home counties than in the north-east. The Opposition have argued that there is no correlation between rates and jobs, but the Teesside Small Business Club—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not tempt the House to go beyond the terms of the order, which relates to the Merseyside and South Yorkshire metropolitan councils, the Greater London council and the Inner London education authority. A large number of hon. Members from those areas wish to speak on matters covered by the order.
Mr. Holt: I am fully aware of that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My charge against the Government is that the order does not go far enough. The Cleveland business community wants to know why Cleveland has not been rate-capped and included in the order. [HON. MEMBERS: "Wait till next year."] By next year the Conservatives will have taken control of Cleveland. Only this week they put forward a very sensible amendment to the budget ro reduce the rate increase from £2·10 to £1·80. That kind of change—
Mr. Dobson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely the hon. Gentleman is out of order in discussing rates in Cleveland and inviting rate capping for that authority. That is in no way germane to the matters under discussion. Numerous Opposition Members have left the Chamber because they see little prospect of getting into the debate.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is ingenious of the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) to try to argue that his authority should have been included in the order, but if that argument were accepted we should finish up discussing a very large number of authorities. I hope that hon.

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Members will confine their comments to matters covered by the order — the Merseyside and South Yorkshire metropolitan councils, the GLC and ILEA.
Mr. Holt: I accept that, as yet, there is nothing in the order about Cleveland, but the general tenor of the debate so far has concerned the relationship of central Government and local government per se. It therefore seems not unreasonable to draw upon practical examples from Cleveland—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, those matters were fully discussed when we considered the Rates Bill of 1984. The hon. Gentleman's comments would have been most appropriate then, but I very much doubt whether they fit into the subject of today's debate.
Mr. Holt: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the report in The Guardian to which the Opposition have referred was not confined to the four local authorities covered by the order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House is not discussing any newspaper report. It is discussing a statutory instrument — the draft Rate Limitation (Prescribed Maximum) (Precepts) Order 1985. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will address himself to that or resume his seat.
Mr. Holt: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Mr. Speaker himself was here when the Opposition raised the subject of the relationship between jobs and rates and the report that appeared in The Guardian. I wish to counter the argument advanced before you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, took the Chair. The business community in Cleveland would have liked rate capping to apply in that area so that the imminent loss of jobs could be avoided. It would be wholly irresponsible of me not to speak on behalf of the Cleveland business community while the order is still before the House in case I manage to persuade my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government to consider rate-capping Cleveland. The House will be interested to hear of the situations that have arisen in that Socialist Utopia, but before going off on that I wish to show that the result of this year's rate increases in my county—
Mr. Straw: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know that you wish the debate to range as widely as possible and you have been generous to my hon. Friends, but it is surely out of order to speak about the rates in Cleveland.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I do not want the debate to range as widely as possible. I want it to be about the order before the House. I hope that the hon. Member for Langbaurgh will either address himself to the order or resume his seat and allow an hon. Member who intends to follow the rules of procedure to take part in the debate.
Mr. Holt: The Labour party is obviously frightened to hear what I have to say. I will talk about Brent instead. I hope that I shall not be ruled out of order if I talk about a local authority within the London area. May I have your ruling on that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has not yet given me anything on which to rule. I assume that if he
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discusses Brent in the context of the order his comments will be in order, but I shall have to wait and hear what he has to say.
Mr. Holt: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Brent is very much affected by GLC actions. As a result of the change to Conservative control this year, Brent will not have a rate increase on top of the GLC precept—
Mr. Dobson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The rates levied by the Brent authority, whether Tory, Labour or Bob's your uncle, are not the subject of the order before us today.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) is right. I hope that the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) will address himself to the order or give way and enable another hon. Member to speak.
Mr. Michie: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. To help the situation, should we not be kind and give the hon. Gentleman two minutes because he has obviously brought the wrong speech?
Mr. Holt: The ratepayers of Brent, whether they are precepted by the local authority or the GLC, will have to pay the rates. The sum that they will have to pay is less because they are now in a Conservative-controlled borough. The order, which rate-caps the GLC, will assist them, and businesses in the Brent area will be infinitely better off than under the previous authority. That change of political control is without any diminution of services although, I admit, there may be no contribution to the London Lesbian Line or the Women's Police Bus Cooperative. I regret that when the Labour and Liberal parties in Brent got together they produced a poster for a dance, which shows two men dancing together. Perhaps that is what the Labour and Liberal parties want to do with each other.
The order is the first step along what I hope will be a long line of sensible measures introduced by the Government, which will follow the example set in this order, which provides for four local authorities to be rate capped, and rightly so. I look forward to the day when I can speak properly about the fact that Cleveland authority should be rate-capped. However, I shall be denied that pleasure because it will go Conservative in May and as a result will not be rate-capped.
8.11 pm
Mr. Robert N. Wareing: The attack now being made on many metropolitan counties, including Merseyside county council, is not based on rational criteria. The Secretary of State's argument that ratepayers on Merseyside need protection is a new one for Secretaries of State for the Environment in this Government. The real reason why ratepayers in Merseyside have suffered during the past few years is because since 1981 the rate support grant to Merseyside county council has been reduced by £74 million. But the council has lost much more than that, because the Government introduced their mystical GRE assessment, which was condemned by the Audit Commission, which the Government appointed. The Government have made targets of a purely hypothetical kind, which have been set by civil servants in Marsham street, whose knowledge of the northern parts of our country, especially of

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Merseyside, must be extremely slight—about as minute as the Prime Minister's and the Chancellor of the Exchequer's knowledge of modern economics.
The result of those mythical assessments and hypothetical targets has been penalties to the tune of £76 million being imposed on Merseyside county council since 1981. Under successive Secretaries of State for the Environment since 1981 total grant loss has been £150 million — almost the average total annual budget of Merseyside. Incidentally, 1981 was the year when Labour became the majority party on the county council.
The Secretary of State said that Merseyside county council was spending heavily. Following the Toxteth riots in Liverpool in 1981, one of his predecessors, the present Secretary of State for Defence, addressed the Conservative party conference at Blackpool and pointed out that the problems that gave rise to the riots could be dealt with only by increased public expenditure. That is precisely what Merseyside county council has attempted to do. It has injected millions of pounds into the area to create jobs, and to save and generate small business enterprises.
As a Merseyside county councillor I do not apologise for spending more than £40 million in the years since the Labour party came to office to generate 8,000 new jobs in the local economy. I do not apologise for a penny that was spent in the take-up campaign to ensure that more money was injected into the economy by telling people what their social security rights were. I do not apologise for the campaign being conducted for better pay for the low paid. We should campaign for more money to be injected into the economy. The cost-effectiveness of our policies on Merseyside in creating small business enterprises has been far greater than the regional policy of successive Governments.
The precept for Merseyside for the current year is 65p in the pound. The gauleiters in Marsham street are telling the county council that it should impose 82·8p in the pound. As I pointed out, that is a 27 per cent. increase. The Secretary of State has not addressed himself to the fact that if the artificial target of £219 million, which he set, is adhered to by Merseyside county council, there will be a 10 per cent. cut in the budget. That budget covers only current developments, not new ones. It pays for what is, and not for what many people believe should be. The Secretary of State asks for a 10 per cent. cut but a 27 per cent. increase in the rate precept. Where then is the famous Tory argument about the need for value for money?
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) pointed out that 700 policemen may have to be dismissed to meet that cut. It is ironic that last year the Home Office approved £100 million expenditure by Merseyside police authority and was willing to provide the 50 per cent. grant to maintain and improve policing standards in an area which needs more adequate policing. But the Department of the Environment said, "We approve only £88 million. If you spend £100 million, which the Home Office has approved, and for which it will supply a grant, you will be £12 million overspent." To meet that overspend, it cost the county council an additional £18 million.
The hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter), who is no longer present—he has probably returned to finish what he was doing before he strolled into the Chamber — was alarmed at the sums being spent on public transport. He read from the central office brief, which I have — it is not only Labour councillors who allow
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documents to go astray. The document says that ratepayers are being taxed heavily to subsidise the buses. What the document does not say is that after 1981—the policy was found to be correct in a case before the High Court when the county council was prosecuted by General Universal Stores—for the first time in more than 12 years, there was an increase in passenger usage of the buses on Merseyside. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry) and in parts of my constituency, 75 per cent. of the population do not have the use of a private motor vehicle. Indeed, many are recipients of DHSS benefits.
Mr. Eddie Loyden: Does my hon. Friend recall the way in which the large stores in the city reacted commendably when increased trade was brought about the greater mobility of people caused by the metropolitan county council adopting a "fares fair" policy?
Mr. Wareing: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The stores committee, which opposed our transport policy in 1981, is now our firmest ally on this issue, and it wants the cheap fares policy to continue.
Mr. Robert Parry: Recently the stores committee made it clear that if there was a heavy increase in rates in Liverpool, many hundreds of jobs would disappear.
Mr. Wareing: That committee is learning the real reason why rates have increased. The blame lies at the door of the gauleiters in Marsham street, not at the door of the councillors of any party that has been in control in Liverpool. I would like to be a fly on the wall when the Secretary of State meets the Conservative group on Merseyside county council next Friday. I am sure that those councillors realise that, despite political differences—there are some politically sensitive areas in Liverpool— the order will not deal with the real problems of Merseyside. The Secretary of State should consider more disregards.
If the council cuts the fire service budget by 10 per cent., four fire stations on Merseyside will have to close. There is the possibility that 3,000 jobs will be lost in an area of great deprivation. There was a time when the Tory party chided the Labour party for believing that the man in Whitehall knew best. But we have gone full circle. Merseyside has many social needs, a great problem with drug abuse—Merseyside police have only eight officers in their drug abuse squad — a declining port industry, and more than 50,000 people who have been out of work for well over a year. Where do the civil servants in Marsham street put those factors when they are making their calculations? They are completely ignored.
The Government believe in public expenditure cuts, and that is the real exercise here. By 1986–87, local authorities will have a shortfall of £2·3 billion if they are to maintain their existing services. The Secretary of State should talk to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, who was Secretary of State for the Environment at the time of the Toxteth riots, and ask him how he gets money from the Cabinet. When the Trident programme was introduced, we were told that it would cost £4·3 billion, but last week, taking the exchange rate of June last year, we were told that the cost would be about £10 billion. Everyone knows that it will cost at least £12

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billion. The Government can find money for Trident, but they cannot find money to deal with the social problems of the area that I represent. But the people of Merseyside will not work with a pistol at their heads. They will defy the Minister, and he will have to negotiate with them, as there will have to be negotiations to solve the problems of other areas.
8.24 pm
Mr. Tony Banks: This rate-capping order is a further step towards centralised and authoritarian Government, and towards the destruction of local government democracy and accountability. Scarcely a week goes by without the House becoming more and more enmeshed in the day-to-day affairs of local government. At present, things are relatively easy for the Government, because they are merely setting up the machinery of control. The real problems will arise when that machinery is operated. In the not-too-distant future, hon. Members on both sides of the House will be so sick of being asked to decide about local government minutiae that there will be a major revolt against the Government.
The Government have clearly abandoned their previous promises to take Whitehall off the back of local government and to replace the domestic rating system. The Government and the Secretary of State stress the economic case for ever-increasing control over local authorities, but their real motivation is a political one, based on party political malice. Rate capping and the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils arise directly from the intolerant, bigoted and dictatorial attitude of the Prime Minister. To her, all opposition is anathema. To her—she said this in her Carlton house speech—there is no difference between Left-wing Labour councillors and international terrorists. That was an insult to all democratically elected local councillors.
The Prime Minister lives in a world of dangerous self-deception and increasing fanaticism. To her, everything is either right or wrong, and she is always right. To strengthen that self-deception, she surrounds herself with political eunuchs who lack principles, honesty and self-respect.
The Secretary of State talked about high spending in Labour-controlled London boroughs, but he should be honest enough to tell the House and the country that about £3,000 million has been removed from London's rate support grant between 1980–81 and 1985–86. The reduction from 60 per cent. to 48·7 per cent. in central Government support for local government since 1978–79 represents a massive switch from national taxation to local taxation. The Government are also using nationalised industries to charge artificially high prices to extract taxation from ordinary people.
Labour-controlled local authorities have tried to defend themselves against the legalised robbery of the withdrawal of rate support grant. But the Government say that those authorities are spendthrifts, and they talk about extravagance. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) hit the nail on the head when he mentioned Trident. Its cost has increased from an estimated £4,500 million in July 1980 to about £11,000 million in January 1985. What would the Secretary of State have said if a local authority had got its capital expenditure programme so wrong that it more than
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doubled during five years? His hon. Friends would have been jumping up and down blaming incompetent financial management in local government. The incompetent financial management is not there, but in central Government.
The Government say that the local government overspend of about £770 million imperils their economic strategy. That is a bit of a joke, because we do not believe that the Government have any economic strategy. That £770 million represents less than 1 per cent. of total public expenditure. If only the Government could get their central financial programmes accurate to less than 1 per cent. of a margin of error, they would have something on which to applaud themselves. However, they are wildly overspending in terms of their capital and revenue programmes. Then they have the cheek to turn around to Labour-controlled local authorities trying to defend themselves from central cuts and call them extravagant and spendthrift.
Overspend is a matter of opinion rather than an economic tool. The GLC, which has always been described by the Secretary of State as an overspender, found that, because of a sleight of hand in accounting, its target was increased by 63 per cent. from last year to this year. Therefore, at a stroke, a massive amount of so-called overspending was written off by the Government.
The Minister made another point that was echoed by Tory Members, which was that high rates destroy jobs, and Treasury Ministers regularly parrot that. The hacks of Fleet street in Tory rags such as The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express continue to write about it all the time, but the fact is that it is simply not true. The London Chamber of Commerce, for example, in a report that it produced in June 1983, found that rates ranked last of seven costs identified as important by London firms. It found that rates came after labour costs, payroll taxes, bank charges, other taxes, rents and transport.
As the Secretary of State knows, we have now seen a copy of the report commissioned by the Department of the Environment from the University of Cambridge. It is a most exhaustive report examining the correlation between rates and jobs. It examined every district in England and Wales, and found that there was no connection between rates and jobs.
Mr. Holt: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I realise that this puts you personally in a difficult position. However, earlier, when I was speaking on this point, your predecessor in the Chair, the Chairman of Ways and Means, ruled that I was out of order in seeking to refer to the report that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is now referring to. If it was out of order for me to do so, it must be out of order for him.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): The Chair is indivisible in these matters. It is important that we keep within the rules of order.
Mr. Banks: I could not agree more, Sir Paul.
However, the Government gave as their justification for their rate-capping order and the precept limitation order on ILEA and the GLC the impact of high rates, as they see it, on jobs. This report, commissioned by the Department of the Environment, shows that there is no such correlation. Therefore, the report should be made widely available to hon. Members. I want to hear the Secretary of State try to refute the large report that his Department

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commissioned, and that destroys one of the major points of the Government's case for rate-capping and this precept order.
The Government's policies are responsible for the gross overspending in the economy and for the, destruction of jobs, and not the rates, town halls or county halls. It is about time that the Secretary of State got honest, and started to admit this fact to the House.
The GLC's expenditure limit is to be £785 million, with a precept limit of 36·52p. Will the Secretary of State provide the House with information on how he calculated that precept limit? As far as we can work out, either he or a bunch of his civil servants plucked it out of the air. They assumed GLC reserves of £71 million. Where did the Secretary of State get that figure? That is not a figure that the GLC can recognise. Speaking as a member of the GLC, I do not think that it has reserves like that. The Secretary of State then says that if we tell him what our reserves are he will tell us what he will do about it. The GLC members have said that, before they are prepared to have talks with the Secretary of State, he should tell us how he arrived at the figure of £71 million for the reserves. What does he define as reserves? The answer to that might give us a clue as to how he arrived at the figure.

I ask the Secretary of State to address himself in particular to the issue of non-uniform rates. The GLC's statutory responsibilities vary in different parts of London. For example, it is responsible for magistrates courts only in the outer London area. Accordingly, the precept varies and in practice there are five separate precepting areas within the Greater London area. The Secretary of State has provided no information on the way that the maximum precept of 36·52p in the pound is to be interpreted within the separate accounts of the council, which it is required by statute to maintain for each of the precepting areas.
In a letter of 14 January, the Department of the Environment expressed the view that it would be lawful to levy a precept in excess of the prescribed maximum in some precepting areas. The Rate Limitation (Non-Uniform Rates and Precepts Limits) Order 1985, laid before the House on 23 January, confirms this position. However, the GLC's provisional legal advice, provided by Roger Henderson, QC, suggests that no precept should exceed the maximum, and that the statutory instrument may be ultra vires. I hope that when he replies, the Minister for Local Government will tell us the position of the GLC and the application of non-uniform rates within the Greater London area.
What will happen if ILEA stays within its existing budget? Will the Secretary of State be taking over ILEA? These are the practicalities of the order. The Government are bogging themselves down in a morass of local government finance, and they will live to regret the day.
8.37 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes: I declare an interest, which I share with some other hon. Members, in that I pay rates to two of the four named authorities—ILEA and the GLC. As the Secretary of State reminded me earlier, under these orders, I stand to benefit personally. I shall have a third benefit if he goes ahead with rate capping for my borough, and Southwark is also prevented from levying the rate it would wish to. However, that does not change my view that rate capping is unprincipled and that redetermination of rate limits would have been the wrong way forward.
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What we are witnessing tonight on these four authorities is the second part of a pincer movement. The first part was the reduction of their rate support grant. Having reduced what they received, the second part is reducing what they can require people to pay to them. The authorities are caught from both ends, and the money is not made up in other ways or by money from other sources. They will be short of money.
The Secretary of State knows that I do not hold any brief for the most substantial part of local government finance coming from the taxpayer. I do not believe that, just because the rate support grant was at 60 per cent., that should always be the level. Local government expenditure should, where it can be, be raised and spent locally.
Encapsulated in this order, however, is a tale of arbitrariness, full of assumptions, and of removing accountability. I criticise the arbitrariness, the assumptions and the removal of accountability.
The Secretary of State has never explained the arbitrariness of the choice of the 18 authorities, four precepting and 14 others, that he has chosen to be rate-capped. He has never explained why only those authorities with an expenditure of 4 per cent. above target, itself arbitrary, and 20 per cent. above GREAs, themselves arbitrary, should be the group chosen. There is an artificial cut-off point. We all know that, if he had altered the criteria slightly, more Tory authorities would have been included and there would have been another grouping based on an equally arbitrary basis.
One of the results of this arbitrariness affects ILEA in particular. Its budgetary year runs for 12 months from September. Although it will be rate-capped for the coming financial year, its funds are committed for the current academic year. Therefore, what is now a 6 per cent. cut becomes in reality a 10 per cent. cut for ILEA in the coming year.
There are also many assumptions that the Government can be shown to have got wrong. One is the Government's understanding of the effect of rates on businesses. In terms of the psychology of the business man, high rates do matter, but the reality is that they are not nearly so severe a penalty or imposition as the Government always claim. Another of the Government's assumptions, about waste and about the advantages of their system of financing, was disproved by the report of the Audit Commission last August. That report was much heralded but brushed under the carpet as soon as it came out with the wrong conclusions.
We need to know what assumptions are made about the reserves when the facts have not been made available. Southwark is proposed to be rate-capped. When we debate that proposal before long, will the Secretary of State assume that a reserve is available in Southwark which can be brought into his calculations? The Secretary of State's announcement in December did not make a specific assumption about this authority. We need to know the figures; otherwise I make the same criticism of the Government as I make of the Labour group on Southwark council: that they do not produce options for the opposition or the public to consider to enable them to judge whether or not there are reserves and whether or not they can get to, or near to, the rate-capping limit. We cannot legislate and make orders simply upon assumptions. Departments and Governments work on facts and those facts ought to be before the House.

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It is important to recognise and to proclaim the fact that this order will take away accountability. Under the Rates Act the Government set up a consultation process. The imposition of rate capping is coming before the end of the consultation process, which shows that the consultation process is a sham. Unless the Secretary of State tells the House what the assumptions are, there will be rumours like the one about Haringey repeated earlier today, with certain Members asserting that assumptions of one sort or another have been made while the Secretary of State is saying that that is not the case. The Government have taken the town hall to Whitehall. We are spending much more time debating local government matters because that is what the Government want. Therefore, the Government must make available what they criticise local councils for not making available.
It was a tragedy that when the order was introduced there was no mention of services by the Government. That is what rates are about. The Government seem to ignore arguments about services. That is not to say that the ruling Labour groups in certain councils do not frequently distort them. They do. Liberals believe that it will be impossible, without reducing services, to get down to the proposed limits. If this is the case, I should like to know whether the Minister is prepared to listen to authorities such as mine in Southwark. Southwark should be able to prove to the Secretary of State that it is prepared to make savings, although it cannot reach the Secretary of State's targets.
All the Liberal and alliance groups in rate-capped authorities have said that they want to talk to the Government. We believe that negotiation will be in the interests of our constituents and will provide an opportunity to protect services. Negotiation is better than no talk at all. The Labour party has let down the people in the areas that it represents. If it insists upon spending money upon controversial matters—for instance, upon arts services festivals in London—and does not provide money for home helps and for basic services, it will find that that is not what people are asking for. The people in London, south Yorkshire and Merseyside say that those authorities waste money. If, after cutting out unnecessary expenditure, it can be shown that the money available is insufficient, we can then make a good case to the Government.
The Government have asked us to go down a road that leads ultimately to disaster. Every time the Government impose their will upon local government, local government seeks ways round the law. There will be more abuse. The result of more abuse will be even more Government intervention. The result of more intervention is even more abuse. Local democracy is then demeaned and does not serve the people it is intended to serve. The result is a battle between central Government misusing its position to interfere and Labour authorities often exploiting people simply for political, retaliatory purposes. That is not in the interests of the people of this country. That is not what democracy is about. That is why these orders are bad and unacceptable. We shall vote against them. I hope that the Government will soon be persuaded that to cap rates is to go down a foolish, misguided and, in the end, an economically unjustifiable path, and that they are not serving anybody by going down it.
8.46 pm
Mr. Eddie Loyden: Reference has been made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) to Liverpool. During an inquiry by academics from Liverpool university and elsewhere there was clear evidence that many of the problems facing Liverpool were the result of eight to 10 years of Liberal party control. The hon. Member for Mossley Hill has had the audacity to refer to the confrontation in Liverpool. The hon. Gentleman ought to remember that it was while his party was in office that Liverpool suffered so greatly over housing developments and in many other ways. It was the Labour party in Liverpool that inherited the mess left by the Liberal party, which at the end of the day was acting in concert with the Conservative party.
Figures against the case put forward by the Secretary of State have been mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing). I do not intend to repeat what my hon. Friends have said. However, it is very important to look at what I consider to be the kernel of the problem for local authorities and at the reason why we are debating this order.
Like some other hon. Members, I was a city councillor and a member of Merseyside county council. Indeed, I was a member of both of those bodies during the transitional period. I knew a great deal about what was going on then. But in all truthfulness and honesty I must say that I did not welcome with open arms the reorganisation that was brought about by the Tory Government and which created the second-tier authorities. At the time there was a lot of concern about the overlapping and duplication that would occur between the two tiers. Thus. I do not speak as one who was totally committed then to the metropolitan counties.
The local government reorganisation did not do what was needed. It did not assess the changes taking place in terms of community needs and matters involving the environment, housing and so on. Those changes went virtually unheeded by the reorganisation in the early 1970s. However, the metropolitan counties have been innovative. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Derby pointed out, Merseyside county council recognised that the Government's policies were creating mass unemployment, and as it had resources at its disposal, it created organisations that were capable of training people and that created jobs for the unemployed. Since then, the metropolitan counties have been innovative and have not gone on doing the same thing for decade after decade and generation after generation. They have not acted as if they were caught up in impervious rings that they were unable to get out of, but have recognised the need to tackle the changing problems facing them.
Local authorities did very little about minority groups or about the unemployed. Some of the greatest criticism came from the Liberals in Liverpool, when the metropolitan county accepted the need for it to do something about the unemployed on Merseyside. Despite all the Liberals' criticisms and snide remarks about the unemployed centre, that centre now houses many community groups and is cited as a tremendous example of what can be done by local authorities.

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It is wrong to argue that local authorities must be rigid in their activities. Many new problems are emerging and local authorities must adjust themselves to them and must consider whether their expenditure meets the needs of the people. Thus, although the reorganisation was far from perfect and did not relate to the changing conditions of the people, I recognise that a new generation of councillors has tackled many problems that were neglected for too long.
The Secretary of State's arbitrary decision means that authorities such as Merseyside will be unable to continue to help to deal with the deprivation that has resulted directly from the Government's policy. Some argue that authorities such as Merseyside are responsible for the confrontation, but it was the Government who threw down the gauntlet to local authorities and who interfered with their democracy. It is the Government who have created confrontation and not the local authorities. The Government constantly interfere directly. A supposedly non-interventionist Government have done more intervening in the rights of local authorities than any Government before them.
In that sense, local authorities will feel the full effect of the decision that is to be taken tonight. Local authority unions and ratepayers recognise more and more the role that the Government are playing in destroying local democracy. They now understand that to defend it they must join those who were elected to represent them to resist the Government's excesses.
8.55pm
Mr. Jack Straw: I, too, declare an interest in that I am a ratepayer of the GLC, ILEA and of the London borough of Lambeth. Thus, the Secretary of State is about to perform a triple on my rates, having forced them up considerably during the past four years by cutting out most of those authorities' RSG.
The order has been brought to the House with undue and unnecessary haste, and with the House being denied crucial information that is in the Secretary of State's possession about the way in which he has exercised his discretion and judgment. The order should be rejected on those grounds alone.
My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), in his capacity as Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee, pointed out to Mr. Speaker this afternoon that his Committee was deeply concerned about the short notice that it had been given to scrutinise this measure. Those observations are all the more powerful since they come from a Committee which contains a majority of Conservative Members but which has discharged its responsibilities to the House in a non-partisan way.
In his defence, the Secretary of State has pleaded that the maximum rate for the precepting authorities has to come into force by 15 February. He is gravely misleading the House. By his own Act, he gave himself powers under section 5 to set an interim maximum where, in any circumstances, no final maxima had been prescribed by the relevant date. In commending that clause, as it then was, to the Committee, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), said:
"Clause 5(1) provides that stopgap—an interim maximum which allows an authority to levy a rate while negotiations continue." — [Official Report, Standing Committee G, 28 February 1984; c. 813.]
Yes, it is unfortunate that negotiations about rate limits have only recently commenced, but the fault for that lies
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fairly and squarely with the Secretary of State. It was he who forced into the Act conditions attaching to the redetermination procedure so potentially onerous that no authority could conceivably have used that appeal mechanism, as we warned in Committee last year, and as he well knows.
Then there is the crucial question of information that is central to the order but which the Secretary of State has denied to the House. He made a series of assumptions about, among other things, the reserves available to the authorities. He sought repeatedly to reassure the Committee upstairs and the House last year that all his decisions would be subject to the fullest possible scrutiny by Parliament. How can that scrutiny be exercised without the information upon which his decisions are based being made available to the House?
In no way does it lie in the right hon. Gentleman's mouth to complain that the authorities have not provided him with information. Indeed, the Secretary of State said this afternoon that information flowed into the Department thick and fast, and he added that all the authorities had provided a great many figures. It is outrageous and unacceptable that the House, and not just the authorities, should be denied the central information on which the Government are making orders such as this.
The Secretary of State has sought to justify draconian controls over local government by reference to the Government's economic policy. There is no justification for that, as I spelt out in the rate support grant debate on 16 January. Let us be clear that, stripped bare, these provisions are nothing more than a crude attempt to stitch up Labour authorities which are seeking to defend jobs and services against the ravages of unemployment caused by the Government. The order is an abuse of power.
The Secretary of State claims that the authorities were fairly selected by reference to what he has, in the past, described as the "robust" and "objective" tests of GREA, as he told the Standing Committee on 21 February 1983—[Interruption.] I am glad to see the Minister of State blowing in incredulity at the thought that his right hon. Friend would have used such words. If the Secretary of State believes that these measures are robust and objective, he should talk to the Minister of State, for only three weeks ago that Minister made it crystal clear that he thinks no such thing either about GREA or target. Indeed, he described the system as well nigh incomprehensible, as exceptionally difficult to explain and as byzantine in its complexity. Any system that is incomprehensible and byzantine cannot possibly be robust and objective, for to be that it would have to be fair and be seen to be fair.
In the rate support grant debate, many Conservative Members complained bitterly about the nonsense of GREA. The crucial defect in the Secretary of State's case is that GREA is being used for a purpose for which it was never intended, as my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) spelt out.
If GREA were an objective test, one must ask why the City of London has not been rate-capped when its expenditure is three times above GREA compared with any other authority, at 263 per cent. The Minister will answer that, although the City of London's expenditure is 263 per cent. above its GREA, the city does not meet the other test for rate capping, that of target. But target is supposed to relate to an authority's cash growth in expenditure, and the City of London's cash growth in

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expenditure has also, since 1978–79, been the highest of any authority in the land, at 274 per cent., way above that of the much abused GLC.
Nothing illustrates better the thoroughly arbitrary and disreputable way in which the Secretary of State has fixed and fitted up these tests than to compare the treatment of the GLC with that of the City of London. The City's target has been fiddled so that it escapes rate capping. The GLC's target has been fiddled so that it is heavily penalised and is now rate-capped.
If the Secretary of State does not accept that, perhaps he will explain how, as one of the many costs that he has had to pay to make rate capping work, he has this year, at a stroke, increased the GLC's target by 64 per cent. over last year.
The four rate-capped authorities we discuss today have increased their expenditure by more than the average for all authorities. It is inherent in any system of local democracy that some authorities will spend more than the average and that some will spend less. No freedom is exercisable without diversity. But of the four authorities, only one, the GLC, has increased its expenditure since 1981–82 by more than central Government have increased their expenditure on, for example, defence.
For the GLC, Merseyside and South Yorkshire, a large part of their expenditure increase has been on public transport. That expenditure has proved overwhelmingly popular, as the Government know now that they have taken control of LRT, and, despite the lunancies, illegalities and irrationalities of the Secretary of State for Transport, have had broadly to maintain the Fares Fair policy. This expenditure has also been efficient in economic terms. The Department of Transport's study showed that, for every £1 in subsidy, the local economies benefited by £1·20.
Part of the increase in expenditure by South Yorkshire and Merseyside has been on the police, at the behest of the Home Office. If these provisions go through, Merseyside may have to cut its expenditure on its police force by over £5 million, to a level that could not be achieved
"without severe emasculation of the police service",
as the chief constable of Merseyside, Mr. Kenneth Oxford, said a few weeks ago. The Merseyside fire service would have to be cut by £2·5 million, despite the fact that Merseyside is one of the most risky fire areas. The ability of the fire service to meet its statutory obligations would be critically impaired.
The other significant part of the increase in expenditure by these three authorities is seen in the employment policies. We applaud those policies. All three of the authorities are working in areas of massive economic deprivation and high levels of unemployment. They have been able, not least through constructive partnership with the private sector, to create and secure jobs and to reduce the terrifying levels of unemployment. If these programmes are cut, jobs will go and unemployment will rise. Is that what the Secretary of State wants? I believe that the answer is certainly yes.
I declare a further interest because I am a parent of a child at an ILEA school. From 1971 to 1974 I was the Islington borough representative on that authority. ILEA has higher unit costs than other authorities, but that is the product of providing a higher level of service and providing many services for people who work in London,
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but whose homes are in the lower rated shire areas, and is the product of the additional costs, which cannot be avoided, of running a service in a capital city.
The Government recognise those factors when they consider financing the Metropolitan police. Even though there are more police officers in London than in comparable areas outside London—we recognise that—the Government must explain why it costs 40 per cent. more to employ a police officer in London and £800 more for the Metropolitan police to buy a police vehicle than it costs outside London. Why does it cost £5,500 to clear up each crime within London, but only £1,500 to clear up each crime in metropolitan areas outside London?
The Government understand these additional costs in relation to the Metropolitan police, but they are blind to the extra costs of the capital city in relation to ILEA. ILEA has a fine record. It is one of only six authorities regarded by HMI as having a proper standard. If ILEA were required to spend as these rate limits suggest, a great many jobs in the service would be at risk and the quality of the education provided for all our children could well suffer.
The Secretary of State made the preposterous claim that he was doing all this to bring down rate levels and to improve expenditure in the non-rate-capped areas. When will the Secretary of State understand that the system he has created is so barmy that, if rate capping works to bring down expenditure in the rate-capped areas, rates will have to increase in the non-rate-capped areas? How many more times do we have to tell the Secretary of State about this? He has spelt this out in parliamentary answers. Does he not read those answers? Does he not understand that if all the authorities did what he told them and all spent at GREA, rates in Berkshire would have to go up by 20 per cent. and rates in Essex would have to go up by 25 per cent?
Mr. Patrick Jenkin: That is silly.
Mr. Straw: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why it is silly? The Secretary of State says that he knows that no authority will do this. I assume that means that GREA is a nonsense of an exercise. Is that the point? Of course that is true.
Mr. Jenkin: It is stupid.
Mr. Straw: The right hon. Gentleman says that it is stupid. He gave me the answer. It may be true that his policy will not work overnight and do what he wants it to do so that all authorities can spend at GREA. The right hon. Gentleman told the House that the idea was that the policy should work towards all authorities spending at GREA. In that case, at the very least, rates in Essex would not be forced up by 30 per cent. They would be forced up by 15 per cent. The Secretary of State must understand the simple arithmetic of this system — "overspending" by Labour authorities has protected jobs and services and the ratepayers not only in those Labour areas but in the lower-rated Tory areas. Such is the madness and utter lunacy of the system created by the right hon. Gentleman.
I have two concluding points. The first is about the crucial connection between rates and jobs. When will the Secretary of State and the Minister of State have completed their evaluation of the Cambridge report? It is a final report, and they no doubt knew about its contents before it was submitted to them. [Interruption.] Do they want a copy?
The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Kenneth Baker): Put it in the Library.
Mr. Straw: I am not allowed to put things in the Library. We have had that problem before. Only Ministers can deposit documents in the Library.
When will the Secretary of State publish the report, which concludes:
"the analyses provide no evidence that either the level of rates or the increase in rates affects the distribution of employment between local authority areas."?
It continues:
"If the failure to detect a widespread and general impact of rates on the location of jobs reflects the absence of such a link, there are important implications for public policy. In particular, the findings suggest that local authorities that have above average levels of rates, or that levy above average rate increases, are probably not damaging their local economies."
It suggests that it is highly probable that additional expenditure out of rates in the higher rated areas is increasing employment.
If the order is carried, it will do nothing for the Government's economic policy; it will severely damage the lives of people in some of our worst-off areas; and it will force up unemployment and replace the democratic will of those communities by centralised dictation. It must be rejected by the House.
9.11 pm
The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Kenneth Baker): The House will be pleased to know that the debate does not have to go on until 10 o'clock. The arrangement is that I speak for about 10 or 15 minutes.
This is the first occasion that the House has had a chance to debate the first order under the Rates Act 1984. I found myself agreeing with the phrase used by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) when he said that he looked upon the order as a disagreeable necessity. No Government go readily into the business of rate capping.
The hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) talked about the strained relationship that exists between central and local government and how it has changed over the past four or five years. It has not changed solely because we have been in office. Underlying forces have been at work for a long time. One fundamental change is that we have succeeded in putting the handbrake on local authority expenditure. In the 1960s and 1970s it was growing at about 3 per cent. a year. Since 1979, it has grown at about 1 per cent. per year. I would be the first to recognise that that imposes a great strain upon the relationship between local and central government.
Dr. Cunningham: Even if that were a valid argument in respect of that part of local government expenditure provided by the Exchequer—one can see and concede the arguments for a cash limit on that expenditure at some point — what is the relevance of all that to local government expenditure from its own resources?
Mr. Baker: It arises because successive Governments, not just ours, have been worried by the totality of local government expenditure and the sources from which local government can finance it.
We are bringing in this order today, and we shall be bringing in an order for the lower-tier authorities in about a fortnight, because the overspending of the 18 rate-capped authorities together represents £632 million against target. That is a massive sum of money. Since 1979, those 18 authorities have increased their expenditure from £1·3 billion to £3·1 billion. That is a massive, threefold increase, and infinitely higher than the rate of inflation.
1020
The four authorities covered by the order are overspending against targets some £523 million when we are asking local authorities to exercise restraint, and most of them are doing so. Some 85 per cent. of the local authorities are spending at target or close to it.
I should like to refer to the meeting that took place earlier this week, when a group of rate-capped authorities came to see the Secretary of State and myself. There were not just rate-capped authorities — 26 authorities were there in all, led by Councillor Blunkett. It was a self-appointed caucus. There was nobody in the delegation from those significant authorities controlled by Labour — Birmingham, Newcastle, Coventry or Gateshead—and there were no representatives from the shire counties. One had to ask oneself whom those people represented. They represented just themselves.
The rate-capped authorities were there, plus another nine. If we negotiated with them as a group, we would betray the other 387 authorities that are working broadly or precisely within the system—[Horn. MEMBERS: "Why did the Government have the meeting?"] Because we are reasonable people. Those representatives asked to see us and we said that we would meet them. If we had not met them, the Opposition Front Bench would say, "Why are you so pigheaded, obdurate and obstinate in not seeing them?" Of course my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or I are willing to see them, but they cannot be expected to enter into negotiations with the Government as representing the broad mass of local authorities.
We made it clear to Councillor Blunkett, the leader of Sheffield, that we would not be blackmailed into providing more finance. That was the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Sir J. Osborn) asked me to reconfirm. That meeting on Monday this week was not the first round of a 15-round contest. Uppermost in our minds have been the interests of the domestic and commercial ratepayers who have suffered considerably through a blizzard of increased rate demands over a period of years.
Mr. Heffer: The Minister will agree that the various authorities put forward a series of very important proposals, to which the Secretary of State referred. Why were they just pushed aside without any serious consideration?
Mr. Baker: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman why. Councillor Blunkett was asking us whether we would suspend the operation of the rate support grant system, which is separate from the order that we are discussing. He asked us to suspend the Rates Act and to recalculate the entire rate support grant system. He asked for a cooling-off period.
The 18 rate-capped authorities had from 24 July' last year — the date on which my right hon. Friend announced the expenditure levels for those 18 authorities — roughly until Christmas to discuss with the Government, if they wanted to, whether those expenditure levels were adequate. They chose not to do so. All right. That was their choice, but by not coming to discuss the matter with my right hon. Friend, they denied themselves the opportunity of discussing whether the expenditure level for their areas was appropriate for next year. When the rate limits were announced—
Mr. Barnett: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baker: I should like to proceed.

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On 11 December my right hon. Friend announced the rate limits. Again, the authorities had an opportunity to come and see us. When the statement was made, we made it clear that they had until 15 January. We extended the date until the end of January. We have followed an open-door policy. We have said that we would be prepared to meet them, and that the meetings would be only on an individual basis. However, when the authorities asked whether we would see a collective delegation, we said yes. In view of what I have said and in view of the time that the authorities have had since 24 July to discuss the matter with the Government, all that I can say is that they have been warming up for that cooling-off period for 30 weeks.
Mr. Simon Hughes: I hope that the Minister will come to the conclusion that the whole point of the meeting was to cover up the divisions in the Labour party between those who believe that they can make some savings and those who believe that they should not do so. Whatever the merits of the authorities meeting the Secretary of State, that was the reason for the meeting, and those people are to blame for its failure.
Mr. Baker: I could not have put it better. Sometimes the alliance is right, as it is on this occasion. The purpose of the exercise was political brinkmanship and to cover up the clear divisions between the individual authorities. Some wanted to settle and some were prepared to move into illegality.
Mr. Michie: I do not want the House to be misled by the claim that no local authorities have communicated. I do not have the information in front of me, but I remember that the chief executive of Sheffield wrote to the Secretary of State about the anomalies of the block grant as opposed to the urban programme and its problems. The Audit Commission also brought to the Government's attention the anomalies in GREA, and so forth. The problems have been presented to the Government and the Minister is well aware of them without being reminded of them every five minutes.
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman is a county councillor in south Yorkshire. We have had one letter from south Yorkshire, virtually declining to give us any information. I believe that we have had a little more information from Sheffield, but I shall have to check. We have told the authorities to provide us with the information which, under the Act, the onus is upon them to provide. Indeed, some of the authorities did. When we met the delegation on Monday we had on the desk in front of us the piles of information that we had received from ILEA and the GLC.
Mr. Barnett: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He says that the authorities have had since last July, and in theory he is correct. But does he not understand that it would be inappropriate for the authorities to make an approach to him until they have made their budgets or their estimates as to their expenditure for 1985–86? Is he not also aware — surely he is — that they now have a statutory responsibility to consult in their areas before setting that budget? Therefore, it is important that they know what they are talking about before they make any approach to the Secretary of State.
Mr. Baker: The timing of consultation is specifically provided for in the Rates Act, although I cannot remember
1022
in which section. There was no reason why the authorities should not come to talk about expenditure levels way back in the summer and autumn if they had wanted to. They chose not to for political reasons.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) asked me what the effect of rate capping would be upon local communities and their services. I can only say that if authorities had started last year, after the announcement of the expenditure levels, to live within those levels, they would not now be facing some of the problems that they are having to face. He said that he was worried that the authorities had not come in. That means that the decisions that will have to be taken now will be more serious and grave than they would otherwise have been.
Again, it is depressing that, far from trying to live within the expenditure levels that we have set, the 18 rate-capped authorities have subsequently published their own budgets showing an increase of some £424 million over and above the expenditure levels. That is a cumulative act of considerable irresponsibility. Those authorities are building up expectations that no Government could possibly meet. For example, the GLC has just published a budget that increases its revenue expenditure next year by £100 million and its capital expenditure by some £300 million. For an authority that has only 12 months to survive and operate—
Mr. Tony Banks rose—
Mr. Baker: —that is to dance on the deck of the Titanic.
Mr. Tony Banks: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baker: No, I have given way several times.
Several hon. Members, especially hon. Members from the Merseyside area, have said that services will be slashed. The authorities should have addressed the problem a year ago. We are asking authorities only to cut expenditure according to the cost of inflation, by about 4·5 or 5 per cent. The authorities budget up and then say that they have to cut from the higher budget. There are many examples of authorities that have cut their expenditure effectively.
Mr. Wareing: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baker: Many authorities have been able to make such cuts. My hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) mentioned Brent. That authority, which is under mixed control, though led by the Conservatives at the moment, has cut £20 million without cutting a single member of staff.
Mr. Laurie Pavitt: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baker: With great respect, I have given way many times, and the hon. Gentleman has not spoken in the debate.
I should like to remind the House of the extent to which we are protecting the ratepayers in these proposals. Under the precept limit in the order, the precept for the GLC is 36·5p. The precept in the GLC budget will be 43p—an increase of 18 per cent. The ILEA's precept in the order is 77·25p. The budget that ILEA has issued implies 83p—7 per cent. more.

1023
In Merseyside, the figures are much better—I mean much higher—[Interruption.] The figures are better in the sense that they are even more irrational and show that the council is living in a dream world. The precept in the order is 82·86p. If the ratepayers of Merseyside were not protected by the order, they would have to pay 130·5p—57 per cent. more. The ratepayers of south Yorkshire would have to pay some 43 per cent. more.
The precepting authorities have spent extravagantly. The GLC has probably been the most extravagant. In the past 12 months, the GLC has taken on some 1,490 extra members of staff. It has indulged in a huge advertising campaign costing some £10 million.
The hon. Member for Woolwich fears that authorities that will not levy the precept approved by Parliament will be gambling with people's livelihoods and, in some cases, lives. I agree with him. I hope that the Labour councillors in the authorities under discussion will, during the next month, agree a legal precept. That was the advice that they were given by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his courage in giving that advice. It was the advice given by the leader of the Labour party at the Labour local government conference last weekend. That was the right advice. The right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman want no hand in condoning the illegality that some of the wilder leaders of the extreme Left in Labour councils advocate. I hope that their wise advice will be followed. Having seen the Labour party dragged down by Mr. Scargill, they want to ensure that it is not clubbed to death by Councillor Hatton, Councillor Livingstone and Councillor Knight. I hope that, now that Parliament is about to approve the precepts, the various councils will act and pass them into law during the next few weeks.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 255, Noes 193.

Division No. 94]

[9.28 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Brooke, Hon Peter

Aitken, Jonathan

Brown, M. (Brigg amp; Cl'thpes)

Alexander, Richard

Bruinvels, Peter

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Bryan, Sir Paul

Amess, David

Buck, Sir Antony

Ancram, Michael

Budgen, Nick

Arnold, Tom

Bulmer, Esmond

Ashby, David

Burt, Alistair

Aspinwall, Jack

Butcher, John

Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

Carlisle, John (N Luton)

Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)

Cash, William

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Chapman, Sydney

Baldry, Tony

Chope, Christopher

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Churchill, W. S.

Batiste, Spencer

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

Bellingham, Henry

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Bendall, Vivian

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Cockeram, Eric

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Colvin, Michael

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Coombs, Simon

Blackburn, John

Cope, John

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Corrie, John

Body, Richard

Couchman, James

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Critchley, Julian

Bottomley, Peter

Crouch, David

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Bowden, A. (Brighton K'to'n)

Dicks, Terry

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Dorrell, Stephen

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Bright, Graham

Dover, Den

Brinton, Tim

Dunn, Robert

1024

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Lawrence, Ivan

Eggar, Tim

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Emery, Sir Peter

Lester, Jim

Evennett, David

Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

Eyre, Sir Reginald

Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

Fallon, Michael

Luce, Richard

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Lyell, Nicholas

Fookes, Miss Janet

McCurley, Mrs Anna

Forman, Nigel

MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Major, John

Forth, Eric

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Mather, Carol

Franks, Cecil

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

Freeman, Roger

Monro, Sir Hector

Fry, Peter

Moynihan, Hon C.

Galley, Roy

Nelson, Anthony

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Neubert, Michael

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

Newton, Tony

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Nicholls, Patrick

Glyn, Dr Alan

Normanton, Tom

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Onslow, Cranley

Goodlad, Alastair

Osborn, Sir John

Gow, Ian

Pattie, Geoffrey

Gower, Sir Raymond

Pawsey, James

Grant, Sir Anthony

Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Greenway, Harry

Pollock, Alexander

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Porter, Barry

Grist, Ian

Powley, John

Ground, Patrick

Proctor, K. Harvey

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Rathbone, Tim

Hampson, Dr Keith

Rhodes James, Robert

Hanley, Jeremy

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Hannam, John

Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

Hargreaves, Kenneth

Roe, Mrs Marion

Harris, David

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Harvey, Robert

Rost, Peter

Haselhurst, Alan

Rowe, Andrew

Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

Ryder, Richard

Hawksley, Warren

Sackville, Hon Thomas

Hayhoe, Barney

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Hayward, Robert

Sayeed, Jonathan

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Scott, Nicholas

Henderson, Barry

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Hickmet, Richard

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Hill, James

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Hind, Kenneth

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Shersby, Michael

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

Silvester, Fred

Holt, Richard

Sims, Roger

Hordern, Peter

Skeet, T. H. H.

Howard, Michael

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Speed, Keith

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Speller, Tony

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

Spence, John

Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

Spencer, Derek

Hubbard-Miles, Peter

Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Squire, Robin

Hunter, Andrew

Stanbrook, Ivor

Irving, Charles

Stanley, John

Jackson, Robert

Steen, Anthony

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Stern, Michael

Jessel, Toby

Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

Jones, Robert (W Herts)

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Kershaw, Sir Anthony

Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

Key, Robert

Stokes, John

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

Sumberg, David

King, Rt Hon Tom

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

Taylor, John (Solihull)

Knight, Mrs Jill (Edgbaston)

Terlezki, Stefan

Knowles, Michael

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Lamont, Norman

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Lang, Ian

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Latham, Michael

Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

1025

Thornton, Malcolm

Watson, John

Thurnham, Peter

Watts, John

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

Tracey, Richard

Wheeler, John

Trippier, David

Whitney, Raymond

Trotter, Neville

Wilkinson, John

Twinn, Dr Ian

Wolfson, Mark

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Wood, Timothy

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Yeo, Tim

Viggers, Peter

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Waddington, David

Younger, Rt Hon George

Walden, George

Walker, Bill (T'side N)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Waller, Gary

Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd and

Ward, John

Mr. Tony Durant.

Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

NOES

Abse, Leo

Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Craigen, J. M.

Alton, David

Crowther, Stan

Anderson, Donald

Cunningham, Dr John

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

Ashdown, Paddy

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'I)

Ashton, Joe

Deakins, Eric

Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

Dewar, Donald

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Dixon, Donald

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Dobson, Frank

Barnett, Guy

Dormand, Jack

Barron, Kevin

Douglas, Dick

Beith, A. J.

Dubs, Alfred

Bell, Stuart

Duffy, A. E. P.

Benn, Tony

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Bennett, A. (Dent'n amp; Red'sh)

Eastham, Ken

Bermingham, Gerald

Edwards, Bob (W'h'mpt'n SE)

Bidwell, Sydney

Evans, John (St. Helens N)

Blair, Anthony

Ewing, Harry

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Fatchett, Derek

Boyes, Roland

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

Fisher, Mark

Brown, Hugh D, (Provan)

Flannery, Martin

Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Brown, R. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne N)

Forrester, John

Caborn, Richard

Foster, Derek

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd amp; M)

Foulkes, George

Campbell, Ian

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Canavan, Dennis

Freud, Clement

Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

Garrett, W. E.

Cartwright, John

George, Bruce

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Clarke, Thomas

Godman, Dr Norman

Clay, Robert

Golding, John

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Gould, Bryan

Cohen, Harry

Gourlay, Harry

Coleman, Donald

Hamilton, James (M'well N)

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

Hardy, Peter

Corbyn, Jeremy

Harman, Ms Harriet

Cowans, Harry

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

1026

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Park, George

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Parry, Robert

Haynes, Frank

Patchett, Terry

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Pavitt, Laurie

Heffer, Eric S.

Pendry, Tom

Hogg, N. (C'nauld amp; Kilsyth)

Penhaligon, David

Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

Pike, Peter

Howells, Geraint

Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Prescott, John

Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

Radice, Giles

Hughes, Simon (Southward)

Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

Janner, Hon Greville

Richardson, Ms Jo

John, Brynmor

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Johnston, Russell

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Jones, Barry (Alyn amp; Deeside)

Robertson, George

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Rogers, Allan

Kennedy, Charles

Rooker, J. W.

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Lambie, David

Rowlands, Ted

Lamond, James

Sedgemore, Brian

Leadbitter, Ted

Sheerman, Barry

Leighton, Ronald

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

Short, Mrs R.(W'hampt'n NE)

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Silkin, Rt Hon J.

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Skinner, Dennis

Loyden, Edward

Smith, C.(lsl'ton S amp; F'bury)

McCartney, Hugh

Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

McCusker, Harold

Snape, Peter

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Soley, Clive

McGuire, Michael

Spearing, Nigel

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Steel, Rt Hon David

McKelvey, William

Stott, Roger

Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Strang, Gavin

Maclennan, Robert

Straw, Jack

McNamara, Kevin

Taylor, Rt Hon John David

McTaggart, Robert

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Madden, Max

Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

Marek, Dr John

Thorne, Stan (Preston)

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Tinn, James

Maxton, John

Wainwright, R.

Maynard, Miss Joan

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Meacher, Michael

Wareing, Robert

Meadowcroft, Michael

Weetch, Ken

Michie, William

White, James

Mikardo, Ian

Williams, Rt Hon A.

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Winnick, David

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Woodall, Alec

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Nellist, David

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Tellers for the Noes:

O'Brien, William

Mr. Sean Hughes and

O'Neill, Martin

Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe.

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Rate Limitation (Prescribed Maximum) (Precepts) Order 1985, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.

Orders of the Day

  Hong Kong Bill
  Considered in Committee
  [SIR PAUL DEAN in the Chair]

  Hong Kong Bill
    Clause 1

      ENDING OF BRITISH SOVEREIGNTY AND JURISDICTION OVER HONG KONG
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      9.43 pm
      Mr. George Robertson: This is the crucial clause as it gives effect to the transfer of sovereignty from 1 July 1997. It is therefore appropriate at this stage to ask the Government a number of questions which have been outstanding since Second Reading.
      We had a very long, full and illuminating debate on Second Reading, and I see from the press that many people in Hong Kong have read our proceedings and, through the press and other channels, have offered many views on the subjects with which we dealt on that occasion. Nevertheless, a number of loose ends remain that are not covered in the amendments.
      Contrary to some of the views expressed in the colony, this is not a minority subject in the British House of Commons. Throughout the many debates in the past 18 months, the interest in Hong Kong, its people and its future has been outstanding. During that period, 73 Members contributed on at least one occasion in debates and questions on the subject. That is a fair record by any standard. A number of Members have spoken on several occasions while others have sat patiently throughout the debates but failed to catch the eye of the Chair. This has reflected the genuine and continuing interest and concern of the House for the people on the other side of the world whose future we are now debating.
      At the outset, I express our gratitude to the Government for the time that has been allowed between the Second Reading and Committee stages. The decision to postpone Second Reading for 10 days was taken in response to a request from the Opposition. It has provided a valuable opportunity for hon. Members and people in Hong Kong to study the issues and come forward with considered views on them. I see from the local press in Hong Kong that the gratitude that we are expressing tonight is reflected in Hong Kong.
      I examined the information provided to us about press comment, and must express gratitude to those who provided us with that information, including Mr. Colvin Haye, his assistants and the Hong Kong Government Office. They have provided full background information which allows us to see the views, not all of which are uncritical, of the Hong Kong Government, and to reach better decisions about the views that we have adopted.
      9.45 pm
      I can also fairly reflect the gratitude of individual Hong Kong people. I single out Mr. and Mrs. Y. W. Fong, who
      1028
      wrote to me on the back of a commemorative postcard—a first day cover of the official signing of the joint declaration. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) has had his attendances at the debate marked in the same way. Many other people have written interesting comments, which will be useful when we debate the technical clauses.
      wish to ask the Government many questions about the transfer of sovereignty. This may be the last chance to ask questions and hear the Government's view for some time. I shall deal with the question of an annual report to Parliament. During the period to 1997, when sovereignty is handed over, detailed discussions will have to take place about the handover. Some of them will take place in the joint liaison group, but many will take place in the Legislative and Executive Council in Hong Kong. There is no adequate way for hon. Members to gain information about what is going on unless it is provided in an ordered form. The best way to provide information would be for the Government to provide Parliament with an annual report of progress.
      During the last debate, many hon. Members were disappointed in the attitude of Ministers towards the idea of an annual report and of regular or semi-regular views on the issue. I hope that since then the Minister has had a chance to reflect, and that the Government will realise that we are not making a partisan point, but that it is a genuine desire of all parliamentarians to know precisely what is going on during that important period.
      I have consistently said to representatives from Hong Kong, individuals who have written and the media that we believe that party politics should not play a major part in this issue. Obviously the purpose of the Opposition is to question the Government and to ensure that they are on their toes. However, there will be at least three British Governments before Hong Kong finally becomes part of the People's Republic of China, and we are almost certain that they will include Labour Administrations. It is therefore extremely important that all potential Governments are well briefed on what is going on behind the scenes and know how much progress is being made. We must know what progress will be made on the drafting of the basic law, which, although it is a matter for the Government of the People's Republic of China, is crucial to the people of Hong Kong. There will also be questions about the progress towards the new nationality that we shall be debating later this evening.
      All those matters will be relevant to the transfer of sovereignty, and hon. Members have a right to know about them. The only alternative to the Government providing the information in an ordered form is to rely on the British and Hong Kong press. They will be the only ones to tell us what is happening and whether the progress is popular in the colony. I hope that the Minister can tell us whether we shall have such systematic feedback in the months ahead.
      Secondly, if there is to be an annual report, or even in the absence of one, will Parliament have regular opportunities to debate progress towards the transfer of sovereignty? I hope that the Minister has changed his mind since Second Reading, and that he will say that, for example, a Select Committee will investigate the many issues that arise in the intervening period.
      The third point on which I seek illumination is the drafting of the basic law. That will be part of the joint agreement with the People's Republic. Yet, as we know,

      1029
      the people of Hong Kong have an overwhelming interest in that law, and we are still not clear whether the consultation that the Chinese have promised with the people of Hong Kong will be formal or informal. Will committees be set up that represent directly the people of Hong Kong, or will there be less tangible consultation?
      The only agency that can provide such information to the House is the Government. It would be helpful to know this evening whether the Government are in a better position now than they were two weeks ago to tell us whether the consultation will include local people or whether it will mirror the rather vague, albeit important, statements that have been made by the Chinese about the necessity for consulting people in Hong Kong.
      Fourthly, in the period until sovereignty is handed over, the future prosperity and stability of Hong Kong will depend upon international acceptance of Hong Kong's unique status. We are still not clear about what will happen with the GATT and MFA agreements. The House will wish to know what progress the Government have made and how they intend to ensure that the enterprise on which Hong Kong's prosperity is based will continue. From press comment in Hong Kong during the past few months, this would appear to be a matter of acute and personal interest there.
      We must also ask questions about the progress towards more domestic institutions in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government have expressed their views, and decisions will soon have to be taken. A review has been fixed for 1987, and major decisions about the pace of change will have to be taken then. But a commentary from the Government, who still have overall responsibility for the structure of institutions in Hong Kong, would help hon. Members who are deeply interested in the introduction of more representative institutions there.
      The methods by which the House of Commons debates such a Bill are foreign to many people, not just in Hong Kong but elsewhere outside the House, and some of our procedures seem archaic and bizarre and are easily open to misunderstanding. I hope that people outside the House, especially those who listen so acutely in Hong Kong to every word that we say, will recognise that the scrutiny that we are giving to this Bill reflects a proper concern for the anxieties of the people of Hong Kong for their future, and our continuing concern.
      Mr. Robert Adley: I agree with almost everything that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) has said. We have done all we can to serve the people of Hong Kong to the best of our ability. I hope that it is not presumptuous to say to the hon. Gentleman that the fact that the House has been almost unanimous on this issue may not excite comment from those who look to this building only when it is in a state of apparent conflict. However, in terms of doing a serious job to the best of our ability, the way that we have tried to handle this issue is the best way to handle it on behalf of the people of Hong Kong, whose future we are trying to protect as best we can, within the somewhat limited means at our disposal.
      I do not wish to break the spirit of bipartisanship, but the hon. Member for Hamilton referred to the possibility of there being another Labour Government before 1997, which is a matter best left to the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) to work out. I mention this because
      1030
      it illustrates the impossibility of any Parliament, even if it is not democratic, giving guarantees about the future, because politics and guarantees are bad bedfellows. All that we can do is what we believe to be in the best interests of all concerned.
      Clause 1 deals primarily with the sovereignty issue, and there is no point in repeating all that has already been said. At this stage, there is advantage to be had by leaving a certain amount of fluidity in the Bill, certainly in respect of the nationality aspects that we shall be discussing later. I make one point in response to what the hon. Member for Hamilton said about there being some substantial time—I am sure that he is right—before we come to debate Hong Kong again. However, I am sure that he, like the rest of us, did not want to imply that by passing this Bill we wash our hands of Hong Kong and lose interest in it. We should not seek to imply either that the House will not debate, discuss, or even, if necessary, legislate from time to time on the rights of individual citizens in Hong Kong.
      In this clause we are dealing with sovereignty, and it is right that this should be settled once and for all, beyond peradventure, which is what the clause does. I support it. I hope that the hon. Member for Hamilton will agree that we should let it be known to all concerned—I am sure that the Government share this view—that if, as time goes by, changes need to be made in detailed aspects of the legislation, nothing that we do tonight will slam the door irrevocably on making changes in detail that may affect the rights of individual Hong Kong citizens.
      Mr. Russell Johnston: I shall be brief because we should not try to have another Second Reading debate on each clause stand part debate.
      I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), who has given a good deal of time and emotional effort to the problems of Hong Kong for some time, despite the fact that, as he said, this has led to him being criticised somewhat. From the beginning, he was on the right lines, and we should salute the fact that he was so, despite the fact that when he originally expressed his views they were not universally accepted. Secondly, I am very happy to support, as did the hon. Member for Christchurch, what the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) said. He will appreciate that the House is no longer simply bipartisan. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth) said that it was multipartisan.
      Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: Bipartite.
      Mr. Johnston: Bipartite?
      Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Cinquepartite.
      Mr. Johnston: That is far too clever for me.
      Mr. Powell: Count up to five—five parties.
      Mr. Johnston: It is a great pleasure to have the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) not only agreeing with me but doubling the number.
      I have only two points to make. First, I support what the hon. Member for Hamilton said about the annual report—
      It being Ten o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
      Committee report Progress.

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
    Ordered,
    That at this day's sitting, the Hong Kong Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour. — [Mr. Neubert.]

  Hong Kong Bill
  Again considered in Committee.
  Question again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
  Mr. Russell Johnston: I support what the hon. Member for Hamilton said about an annual report. The view of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) was not very clear on Second Reading. He spent a little time pooh-poohing the value of annual debates upon the Armed Forces. The Minister, who is sitting looking somewhat delphic on the Front Bench, suggested that this was an artificial exercise and that the Government, being open minded and willing to listen to argument at any time, would be only too delighted, if there were a great problem, to have a debate almost immediately. That suggestion was received by Opposition Members with a certain amount of dubiety. That dubiety has persisted. There is virtue in a regular examination of how matters are proceeding. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will reconsider the matter and will agree that a regular report to the House would be of value. I do not mean that there should be a regular report in written form, but that there should be the opportunity to have a regular debate. This House produces a great deal of material in written form which is never debated, and because it is never debated it is never read.
  My second point again supports what was said by the hon. Member for Hamilton. We hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to tell the House, if he can, how he envisages the basic law will evolve. That is of fundamental importance. The clause relates to the transfer of sovereignty. We are willing to transfer sovereignty if certain conditions are met. The agreement related to the meeting of conditions. This will result in a considerable diminution, in one sense, of the outright absorption of Hong Kong by the People's Republic of China. That reflects great credit upon the People's Republic of China. However, it means that we shall have a continuing interest in how the law in Hong Kong evolves over the next 13 years. If the Minister is able to say a little more than he was able to say last time about how this will be possible, the House will be grateful.
  Mr. Bowen Wells: I shall not detain the Committee for long on clause 1 stand part, but one major point needs to be made. When we hand over sovereignty in 1997 in accordance with the agreement, we will be handing over not only territory and people but also a system of government. It worries me considerably that, despite the two Green Papers issued by the Hong Kong Government, we have not sufficiently evolved the constitution of Hong Kong. In the true colonial tradition, the governor of Hong Kong has absolute power under the present arrangements there. The great merit of that system is that he is subject to the Foreign Secretary who is, of course, responsible to the House. The governor can be removed, and is removed every so often as appointments lapse and new people are appointed.
  When sovereignty is handed over, that situation will no longer obtain. I know that people in Hong Kong have
  1032
  serious misgivings about adopting an entirely democratic or parliamentary system that is based on the British model. There are many reasons why that may not be the most appropriate model for continuing the government of Hong Kong. However, I do not believe that the Government of Hong Kong have begun seriously to consider several fundamental issues, such as the way in which the Executive will be kept under control and ruled by a democratically elected assembly. At present it is proposed that the democracy should depend on a very low level of almost district or tenantry government as the only elected body, which then appoints members to ever more senior bodies until the Legislature is reached. But that is far too narrow a democratic base upon which to work, and from which to constrain the executive power now held by the governor and his officials.
  Sir Paul Bryan (Boothferry): Is my hon. Friend saying that the Hong Kong people are worried about the period between now and 1997 or about the period after 1997?
  Mr. Wells: The quick answer is both. The problem is how to evolve the new institutions in the period up to 1997, and thereafter to know how they are to work once Parliament's power is removed. The question is how are they to be evolved in a way that suits Hong Kong, the Chinese people and the way in which their traditions suggest that they can be ruled. Over the years, one problem has been the difficulty of arriving at a political settlement within China that was acceptable to its people. Consequently, there have been many disastrous wars and civil wars in China that have held back its development.
  Therefore, in the next 13 years we face a difficult problem in trying to evolve Hong Kong's constitution in a way that will preserve the basic liberties that are now enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong. The fundamental division of powers as between the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive has not been properly considered, particularly in the case of the Executive. At present, the Executive consists of the governor with his civil servants and officials acting—as we might say—as Ministers in the Legislative Council. But they are now to be retired to the sidelines. Nevertheless, the question of how the Hong Kong people are to control their Executive remains. I would hate to see us hand over the sovereignty of Hong Kong, with absolute power being retained in the hands of a governor and an Executive without proper democratic control which guarantees the freedoms of the people of Hong Kong and which they have enjoyed so far and which will be in stark contrast to the sovereignty to which they are to submit in 1997. Without that constitutional development, the people of Hong Kong will be vulnerable to the different tradition of the sovereignty to which they will be committed.
  I urge Her Majesty's Government to work with the Hong Kong Government quickly to develop the Green Paper and White Paper issued by the Hong Kong Government, tailoring it in a sympathetic way to the needs, traditions and customs of the people there. It should not necessarily be a Westminster system, but one which will enable the Executive to be controlled by the people.
  Mr. Tom Clarke: The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) was right to focus attention on the importance of the development of democracy, in an evolutionary sense, as we approach 1997.

  1033
  There is the temptation to think only in terms of 1997 and to forget that there are 12 years to go before we reach that time. I hope that those years will be used, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford said, towards achieving a greater degree of democracy than has been the case hitherto.
  It seems that we have been too ambivalent in our views about democracy. We must accept that existing laws must be adapted to meet the changing situation, and that situation will change rapidly as 1997 approaches. The basic law—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and others have referred, and to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) devoted much of his speech when we last debated this subject—is vital. I gather that the Legislative Council agrees with that and has reservations only on the question of passports, an issue which concerns, among others, the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell).
  We must give close consideration to the way in which the basic law evolves before Hong Kong begins to work, hopefully in harmony, with China in 1997. I hope that tonight we can continue to provide those concerned with an assurance that confidence on their part is not misplaced. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have an interest in encouraging confidence. That confidence is necessary, not just in Hong Kong but in relation to Hong Kong's association with China. In other words, there must be a clear understanding between Hong Kong and China as 1997 approaches.
  The Committee will not be surprised to hear me say that a great test of the basic law of democratic development in Hong Kong rests on the way in which we approach the problem of the Vietnamese refugees. I remain disappointed that the Legislative Council has not managed to make that an item of major priority, bringing pressure on the British Government to respond to the Canadian and American debates about the refugees that are taking place. In dealing with this problem in the serious way it merits, we could send a message to China that we believe that it is important to develop in Hong Kong not only laws but a humanitarian approach to problems of that nature which will be an inspiration to China and encourage the Chinese to develop their own views on human rights.
  10.15 pm
  Sir Paul Bryan: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that China has probably accepted more of those refugees than any other country? I do not believe that the Chinese need any lessons in that direction.
  Mr. Clarke: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is correct. None of us wants to score points, especially about China, because we are keen for the agreement to work. Hong Kong has lessons to learn. If those lessons come from China in the context of these negotiations, so much the better. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution.
  Mr. David Young: Both sides of the Committee want the agreement to work for the people of Hong Kong. It is a long time between now and 1997. As one of the major signatories to this agreement, Britain must maintain the confidence in Hong Kong not only of business but of the people. There must be close liaison and discussions about what is evolving in Hong Kong. There
  1034
  are few democratic institutions in the region, at the moment but I think that such institutions will take off with the spur of change of sovereignty. The minority communities are deeply worried not only about passports but about the position of their children.
  In Hong Kong, as in this country, people want a voice in the democratic system. I believe that hon. Members do not want just a formal debate on these matters that merely goes through the motions. This is a unique development. We are transferring over 13 years' not only sovereignty, but law, ways of life and institutions. If they are to be transferred smoothly and maintained, we need gentle touches on the tiller. Administrations in Britain and attitudes in China may change. Certain attitudes and institutions in Hong Kong will change. To retain the confidence and support of the Hong Kong people we need constant consultations between the British Government and the Hong Kong people. The results of those consultations should be reported at regular intervals of no longer than a year to the House for consideration.
  We have heard of the Hong Kong people's worry about passports. At this stage, we cannot dot every "i" and cross every "t". No one challenges the good will with which we enter this agreement.
  Members of the House, whatever their political differences, share an interest in the people of Hong Kong. We ask that there should be regular meaningful discussions on the Floor of the House at intervals of no more than a year. Now that we are moving towards the transition in 1997, that would be the way to gain and maintain the support of the people in Hong Kong whom it is our responsibility as Members of the British Parliament to sustain that relationship.
  Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: The clause provides for the withdrawal of our claim to sovereignty over Hong Kong from 1997 provided that the Anglo-Chinese agreement is ratified and the appropriate documents are exchanged.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Mr. Wood) was right when he said that between now and 1997—if the Bill is passed—it is important to ensure that as far as possible the internal Government of Hong Kong is arranged democratically so that power can be dispersed within the community by the time of the transfer of power rather than be concentrated, as it normally is with colonial Governments, in the hands of the governor.
  I hope that the Government will bear in mind, as a matter of urgency, the needs of the expatriate Civil Service in Hong Kong. Democracy may be the objective, but there will be a need to transfer and promote indigenous members of the service into various senior civil service posts in Hong Kong. I declare an interest, because I am a former member of Her Majesty's overseas Civil Service now on pension from Nigeria.
  The House is taking insufficient notice of the fact that the people to whom I refer, who have had their conditions of service confirmed and who have been assured that their pensions will be guaranteed and that their rights of transfer and promotion will be maintained before and after the transfer in 1997, will have their conditions of service changed from the date upon which the Bill becomes effective, because there will be a deliberate policy to appoint to senior posts on promotion and transfer people

  1035
  of Chinese ethnic origin in preference to expatriate officers. The rights and conditions of service of serving expatriates will have been prejudiced from the word go.
  The Government must arrange for those people to be able to retire with pension rights and conditions of service equivalent to those of officers in a similar position in the past when our colonies achieved independence. Previously, when colonies achieved independence, arrangements for the transfer of power were made rapidly between the final agreement with the parties following a general election and the assumption of power. In this case, there will be over 12 years of preparation. However, that is no excuse for failing to deal with the deterioration in the career prospects of members of the overseas Civil Service now serving in Hong Kong. By the time the Bill becomes an Act, their conditions of service will have changed.
  I understand from my hon. Friend the Minister of State that the rights of people in the Overseas Civil Service serving in Hong Kong are under active consideration. That is fine if it means that a public officers' agreement will be concluded and announced fairly soon, on which officers in Hong Kong may depend. However, if it is thought that the decision can wait for years because the transfer is not until 1997, a great injustice will be done. Many officers will leave the service prematurely, being willing to lose such pension rights to which they might have been entitled simply because of the insecurity that faces them.
  Therefore, I ask the Government in this intervening period to make a public officers' agreement with the overseas Civil Service in Hong Kong as soon as possible, such as was made in equivalent cases in the colonies when they achieved their independence, so that the officers have security and may continue to serve in Hong Kong to its benefit in whatever post they have.
  Dr. John Marek: I heartily agree with clause 1. I speak not in order to criticise it; it is absolutely the right clause. It is short, succinct and easily understandable by everybody. I worry about how much of it is understandable with regard to what will happen in Hong Kong itself. I shall refer to that later.
  I should like to say a few words about an annual debate or progress report. At this stage I am not particularly concerned about what form it takes, and as we have 13 years to go it would be premature to say that, willy-nilly, it must be an annual debate or a report presented as a Command Paper. It is important for the Government to say that they would make provision, if necessary, through the usual channels. There should be provision, annually if necessary, for a debate. It may not be necessary, but it is important, if there is pressure from Parliament or a significant part of the House, for this major issue to be debated.
  More importantly, from my point of view, we should have a collation of information. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Johnston) said that it was not so important, but I believe that it is probably more important. We have information from the press and various publications, but it would be useful if an annual report were compiled and presented to Parliament, although not necessarily debated. It need not even be published by HMSO. It might be published in Hong Kong. I am not particularly fussed about how it is done. We have many things to do, and it would be useful for us to have
  1036
  something like that to take away and look at to see whether progress has been made in Hong Kong or whether there are matters for concern.
  I should like to refer to consultation and getting the agreement of the people of Hong Kong to the measures that we are taking. I said this on Second Reading, but it is important to re-state it. I do not believe that all the people in Hong Kong, or anywhere near the majority, really understand what is proposed and what changes will take place, particularly what status they will have and what citizenship they will be entitled to. Such matters will hit Hong Kong as the years go by.
  I do not criticise the efforts that have been made so far by the assessment office and the monitoring team, but it is vital that we continue to do our best to inform, persuade, educate and argue with people in Hong Kong about what will happen. There is not necessarily a general acceptance any more than a general non-acceptance. I do not know. I am sure that, although most Hong Kong people are apprehensive and worried, they do not really have all the information that is necessary to take a considered decision. But if the measure is to succeed, it is important that by 1997 there should be a general acceptance by the people of Hong Kong about what will happen to them.
  10.30 pm
  Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Does my hon. Friend agree that as times passes various points or issues will undoubtedly arise and that as they do they should be debated? The only way to get general agreement is by general consensus and that can only come from debate. Therefore, debates should take place periodically in the Chamber.
  Dr. Marek: I agree that information should be made available, but if there is general agreement I do not see the need for a debate. I am sorry if my hon. Friend disagrees, but I have no love of being in this Chamber when everybody is agreed. We should all go home early. It is important to be here when important principles are at stake. If we agree, we should not be too long, and I shall not be too long now. It is important to be here when we disagree, as we often do, but I would not insist on debates just for the sake of them.
  The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber talked of tripartisanship. There is one Liberal Member present. It would be uncharitable of me to stick to the tenets of bipartisanship when there are other minority parties in the House. It is important that not only the Government and the Opposition but all the minority parties should be brought into the discussions. We should all be on the same side, working for a smooth transition of sovereignty from ourselves to the People's Republic of China. We should disseminate information as much as possible and learn in advance of different thinking on different Benches, so that, if possible, we can arrive at an agreed solution. If that cannot be done, clearly, as my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) said, we should have a debate to decide matters.
  However, I hope that such situations will be infrequent. One of the keys to a successful transition, certainly for the people of Hong Kong, is that we have a policy which has the agreement of all parties in the House. I hope that the Government will bear that in mind. Although we must

  1037
  argue about some aspects, such as nationality, in the schedules, I am sure that every hon. Member will welcome clause 1.
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: This is a historic and unique occasion and it would be wrong not to contribute to a debate that is of such importance to 5½ million souls in Hong Kong. Listening to the contributions this evening I am prompted to say that over the next 62 years we must be involved in a vigil for those 5½ million souls. That vigil does not end in 12 years. That vigilance, in terms of a moral responsibility, goes on and on. The link between the people of Britain and Hong Kong is far too important to believe that it can be cut off in a short period of 12 years.
  Vigilance will have to be expressed through the people of Hong Kong as well as through the British people in the House of Commons and there must be an appropriate mechanism through which that vigilance is exercised. I am not particular whether the mechanism is a Select Committee or a regular debate, but the vigilance must have an expression, and an annual expression would be appropriate. The vigilance of the people of Hong Kong must be maintained and that can best be done if there is steady progress towards more direct control of their affairs over the next 12 years.
  I have spoken to people in Hong Kong and I have the impression that there is much support there for a steady movement towards a greater say in their affairs and not overnight democratisation of the processes by which they live. That means a larger say for those in the middle and at the bottom of the Hong Kong social ladder and not for the most privileged. All the people of Hong Kong must have greater identification with the decisions that are made in their name over the next 12 years and we must be vigilant about their future over that period.
  There must be monitoring by the British and Hong Kong peoples over the next 12 years and beyond. We shall not have much direct influence over many changes in basic law but we shall have a moral influence. In addition, we shall have a role in monitoring the implementation of the proposed process of nationality. We have seen the way in which nationality provisions often take a turn that is very different from that which was intended. There are the unintended consequences of human actions and legislation and latent Government interpretation of the law. All those who have a large immigrant population in their constituencies know the difference between individual Ministers' interpretation of the law. We must keep a close eye on the spirit of nationality law and the way in which it works through.
  There will be minorities in Hong Kong who will be deeply and badly affected by the operation of the proposed nationality law. That is why there must be constant vigilance. Where grievous wrongs are identified, they must be able to be corrected. If that message goes out from the House of Commons this evening, many in Hong Kong will feel better about their future.
  Our close friendship, deep interest and central responsibility will continue over the next 12 years and beyond. No people can be severed from the British nation by legislation or the stroke of a pen. The bonds of friendship and unity will continue. I hope that those who
  1038
  are Members of this place and those who will replace us will keep in mind our long duty to and responsibility for the people of Hong Kong far into the future.
  Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: I also should like to welcome clause 1 and to wish the people of Hong Kong well in the process that will take them to their new status in 1997.
  Success will be determined by several factors. The first is internal circumstances in Hong Kong and the development of the new system of democracy, which I, like others, welcome. That must not cause upset or disruption or fears that might affect confidence in how Hong Kong is being run. I am confident that it can and will work.
  The attitude of the Government in Beijing will have a profound effect on the success of the transitional period. I shall be interested to see how sensitive to the future of Hong Kong the Beijing Government are in drawing up the basic law and in understanding how the system operates. The system is quite different from that which operates over the border and it would not be surprising if the economic life of Hong Kong were not fully understood or appreciated.
  I hope that the Government will help Beijing if difficulties such as I have mentioned arise. I am sure that there is good will on both sides and that the Hong Kong Government and the Hong Kong people will be only too pleased to help the People's Republic to enable Hong Kong's economic success to be sustained.
  Mr. Adley: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is, perhaps, a difference of view between the establishment in Hong Kong and the large number of extremely articulate young people who feel that they have not been enfranchised in any way? Is there not a danger that, by listening to the establishment, the British and Chinese Governments will fail to realise the aspirations of the young people of Hong Kong?
  Mr. Wrigglesworth: I hope that the British and Chinese Governments will listen to all of the voices. I have met many young people from Hong Kong, had lively discussions with them and thoroughly enjoyed doing so. They give every hope of a dynamic and prosperous future for Hong Kong. I believe that more than 50 per cent. of the population is under 21, so the voice of that generation must be listened to. However, it is important that the more senior voices of those in prominent positions in industry, for example, should also be listened to. I am anxious that the People's Republic should understand Hong Kong's very different system when drawing up the basic law. I do not lack confidence, as China has shown such understanding in the agreement. I thought that the People's Republic would never accept such an agreement. I am therefore confident that it will be sensitive to the different system that it will have within its orbit. Nevertheless, misunderstandings could arise, and there will have to be some sensitivity towards how Hong Kong works if there is to be no damage.
  It is important that Hong Kong's economic prosperity be sustained. The people of Hong Kong, especially the young ones, have become used to continuing growth such as we have not seen in Britain in post-war and many prewar years.

  1039
  10.45 pm
  It is important that the Government should help Hong Kong to sustain its trading relationships and prosperity in the transitional period because nothing would give rise to a flight from the economy and to greater damage to its prospects than a slump in its economic fortunes in that period.
  It is important that the Government and Parliament should help Hong Kong to sustain its position in the transitional period. I do not believe that regular reports and debates, as has been suggested by some hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), are the best way to do that. That might give rise to all sorts of things building up in Hong Kong. Those of us who know Hong Kong reasonably well realise that if a debate is anticipated on a set date every year and a regular report, this will lead to great build-ups. As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) commented, if problems arise hon. Members can raise them in many different ways. This has been done in the past and the ingenuity of Members will ensure that a debate is held when problems occur.
  However, that does not mean that the Government can be let off the hook and that Hong Kong's affairs should never again be debated by the House. There must be debates, but I do not like the idea of a regular debate and report which would entail discussion of Hong Kong whether or not it was necessary.
  Mr. George Robertson: Although there are undoubted dangers involved in the high expectations raised in Hong Kong by parliamentary debates, it would be equally dangerous to allow a number of issues to drift along on the tide of speculation without an opportunity being afforded to raise them in Parliament. It might be preferable to have something that people could observe as an authoritative sounding board rather than reading 70 newspapers juggling round the various factors involved.
  Mr. Wrigglesworth: I can see that, but it is a balance of judgment. Indeed, I do not wish matters to be brushed under the carpet or misunderstandings to occur because the House has no opportunity to discuss the affairs of Hong Kong, but the press in Hong Kong, of which many hon. Members have had experience, can be very excitable; it may misinterpret what happens in Parliament and, indeed, may expect too much of Parliament. It is not wise therefore to build up expectations unnecessarily. In my judgment, it would not be helpful for Parliament to debate and to produce reports on Hong Kong regularly. Those hon. Members who take a close interest in these matters will ensure that the subject of Hong Kong is raised in Parliament in the period up to 1997 and that its progress will be monitored carefully.
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Richard Luce): As the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) said, clause 1 is the central provision of the Bill. It provides for the termination of British sovereignty over the ceded parts of Hong Kong and the termination of British jurisdiction over the whole territory from 1 July 1997. It is therefore appropriate that the Committee should have decided to debate the matter for over an hour, raising issues that go wider than clause 1.
  I appreciate the way in which the House has approached the Bill and the future of Hong Kong and, above all, the
  1040
  common strand that comes through of the desire to see confidence in Hong Kong. That was the clear desire on both sides of the House.
  I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hamilton for welcoming the time lag between the Second Reading and Committee stages which we effected after listening carefully to the suggestions that he and other hon. Members made that there should be more time to consider the Bill before the Committee stage. I shall try to answer the points raised as clearly as I can to enable the Committee to proceed to the other issues.
  The point that has come through most strongly tonight, as on Second Reading, is the question of accountability to the House. My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have given this a great deal of thought. As hon. Members will recall, on Second Reading we had considerable reservations about having an institutionalised system in the form of an annual report and debate. We thought that that would not necessarily accord with the demands of the situation. It is worth recalling, too, that this is the third debate on Hong Kong in two months, although I appreciate that there are special reasons for that which will not apply in future years.
  My right hon. and learned Friend and I have responded to the views of Members in all parts of the House in deciding that an annual report on Hong Kong will be produced by the Government and laid before Parliament. The exact form has not yet been decided and the matter is to be discussed further with the Governor of Hong Kong, but it is expected to include a general account of developments in Hong Kong during the preceding year.
  The hon. Members for Hamilton, for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Johnston) and for Bolton, South-East (Mr. Young) have all raised important points. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs is bound to take a close interest and the Government stand ready to cooperate with it. If it wishes to look into issues from time to time, we shall do our best to co-operate.
  As to whether there should be a debate on the annual report, the House may wish to judge whether a debate is desirable or useful in the light of the report. If the House takes that view the matter can then be pursued through the usual channels. Equally, the Government or the House may judge on some other occasion that a debate should take place because something special has arisen.
  I hope that my comments will be of some help to the House and will show that it is the Government's desire to co-operate as best we can. I appreciate the importance of the House continuing to take a strong interest in Hong Kong throughout the period in which the Government have a clear responsibility for Hong Kong, certainly until 1 July 1997.
  The hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber and for Hamilton referred to the basic law. The situation in that respect has not changed substantially since Second Reading. Drafting the basic law is clearly a matter for the Chinese Government, but they have made it absolutely clear that they will consult Hong Kong opinion on a wide basis. The mechanics of the consultation are not yet clear and this is a matter for the Chinese Government, but we welcome the fact that they have expressed the clear intention to consult Hong Kong opinion.
  The hon. Member for Hamilton referred to international trade agreements. As he knows, provision is made for the special administrative region to continue with very

  1041
  important agreements such as the GATT, and the provisions for the Joint Liaison Group specifically mention the need to discuss how special arrangements can continue for GATT and other international agreements.
  The hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth) spoke of the Hong Kong economy, which is doing extremely well in terms of growth and exports. I am sure that continuity of international agreements is an important factor in that.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) and the hon. Members for Stockton, South and for Huddersfield talked about democratic institutions and the pace of progress in that respect. As the House knows, the first indirect elections will take place in September this year for part of the Legislative Assembly. Looking back to the debate of 5 December and to Second Reading, I believe that it is the general view of the House that it is best to proceed cautiously towards the fullest degree of democratic accountability by the Executive, and that is what we are doing, taking the views of the people of Hong Kong very much into account. As the House also knows, there will be a further review of the democratic institutions and the constitution in 1987 in the light of the experience of indirect elections in the next two years. Obviously, the House and, above all, the people of Hong Kong will have another opportunity to express their views.
  The hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) raised an important point about Vietnamese refugees, of which I am aware. It has a bearing on this legislation because it also affects the confidence of the people in Hong Kong. I did not answer him on Second Reading because of the lack of time. We give the matter high priority. There are still 11,900 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. I pay tribute to the people and Government of Hong Kong for the way in which they have tackled this major problem. They have coped with no fewer than 100,000 refugees since 1979, and they have done an admirable job in extremely difficult circumstances. The Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on Home Affairs is taking evidence on that. I gave evidence this week. We look forward with great interest to its report.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: On 25 July the Minister gave me an extremely informative analysis of the present population of Hong Kong. One of the sections referred to 4,500 stateless persons of non-Chinese race, most of whom originate from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Does the 100,000 that he mentioned include that figure, or is that figure included in the 95,000 other foreign nationals?
  Mr. Luce: Those 4,500 people are quite separate. At present they are stateless people. I think that 11,900 people are classified as refugees, who are foreign nationals. I am subject to correction on that. They are the clear responsibility of both the Hong Kong and British Governments, and it is our objective to find a durable solution to the problem.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) made an extremely important point about the officers in Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service in Hong Kong. He reminded the House that he served in the Overseas Civil Service, as I did. The agreement on the future of Hong Kong provides satisfactorily for the continuity of service by serving officers in the public services in Hong Kong on terms and conditions, including pay and pensions, no less favourable than on the 30 June 1997. Those provisions apply to members of the Overseas Civil Service serving in Hong Kong and other civil servants. The resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong by the People's Republic of China raises similar issues in respect of the Overseas Civil Service, as independence has in other dependent territories. With that in our minds, we address ourselves to questions about their futures. I know that my hon. Friend will retain a close interest.
  Mr. Stanbrook: I shall certainly do that. However, with respect, my hon. Friend has not grasped the point, which is that once the documents are exchanged and the Bill is enacted the conditions of service for all expatriate officers serving in Hong Kong will have been changed because from then onwards the policy will naturally be to promote as many people of Chinese origin as possible. That will mean that, if the qualifications of an expatriate and local officer are equal, when they apply for a post, the local officer will almost certainly be promoted. That has an adverse effect on career prospects, with a subsequent loss of morale, unless such staff now receive the sort of guarantees of security which others have had in colonies in the past.
  Mr. Luce: I appreciate my hon. Friend's point. The Hong Kong Government are reviewing the number of people in the Overseas Civil Service in Hong Kong, and they will consider the numbers in the years to come. I assure my hon. Friend that we take his points on board and that we are considering those matters urgently.
  I have tried to answer the debate as best I can. I hope that I have answered it sufficiently to be able to commend the clause to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Hong Kong Bill
    Schedule

      SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS
      11 pm
      Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 9, leave out paragraph 2.
      The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Harold Walker): With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 2 and the following amendments:
      No. 3, in page 2, line 17, leave out
      'new form of British nationality'
      and insert 'status'.
      No. 4, in page 2, line 18, at end insert
      'and
      (c) a British Dependent Territory citizen who has a connection with Hong Kong may have the option of being given a multiple access visa stamp in any existing British Dependent Territory passport'.

      No. 5, in page 2, line 18, at end insert—
      '(c) persons possessing that status may obtain a travel document.'.
      Mr. Powell: I have the honour to move the amendments also on behalf of right hon. and hon. Members of the official Opposition.
      Earlier, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) informed the Committee how closely in Hong Kong the proceedings on this subject in the House are followed. I can verify that from some information which the hon. Gentleman gave me, and which I hope he does not mind me quoting. He told me that when, on examining the Order Paper, my name was seen to be not only there but above the name of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), a frisson of alarm ran through the population of that colony. The hon. Gentleman confirms what I say. Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to do my best to damp down those anxieties by explaining that there is a simple reason for this unusual juxtaposition; I got there first.
      As you will realise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in the group of amendments that you have so wisely recommended the Committee to take together, two separate matters are raised. One is raised by the amendment that I have just moved, and on which I understand it is in order for the entire debate to take place—that the alterations in our law of citizenship, which are authorised by paragraph 2(2) of the Schedule to be made by Order in Council, should be made by substantive legislation. Only substantive legislation can permit the careful examination, clause by clause and detail by detail, of a change in the law on so important a matter. Apart from alterations from time to time in schedules to British nationality legislation, I believe I am right in saying that at no time has an alteration been made in the law of British nationality than by substantive legislation.
      Therefore, I was happy to join the official Opposition in urging upon the Government that, instead of proceeding by Order in Council under this paragraph of the schedule, they should proceed by legislation. If they are anxious about time, in recognition of the importance of the subject, no doubt the House would be willing to facilitate the consideration of a Bill, which would be the only proper way to do it.
      1044
      Perhaps a bargain has been struck between the Government and the Opposition Front Bench. I do not know. Perhaps the Opposition Front Bench—
      Mr. George Robertson: No.
      Mr. Powell: The hon. Member for Hamilton says no, and of course I accept that immediately. But suspicions keep recurring in one's mind, especially when one realises how difficult it is for an Opposition, in the circumstances of the present Opposition, to provide themselves with sufficient troops to carry a point to a Division and to make a reasonable showing in the Lobby. I realise that 1 am considering a theoretical possibility, but the Government might make the suggestion that a special procedure might be followed—indeed, this was mentioned in the debate on Second Reading—to facilitate the consideration of the Order in Council which the paragraph envisages. A green-edged, green Green Paper or something of the sort might be considered.
      An hon. Member from Northern Ireland is qualified respectfully to advise the Committee on this point of procedure. We have the misfortune, under direct rule, that substantive law is made for the Province under Order in Council. However, the extreme severity of that method is modified by the fact that it is normally, although not invariably, the practice to publish what are called proposals for a draft Order in Council. If the Government were to say that they had something of that kind in mind, it might go some way to assuage the anxieties in the mind of the Opposition, and I would urge caution. The existence of a document that is not itself a draft of an Order in Council makes it possible for that document to be discussed, and for differences to be made in that document and in the eventual draft when it is made, without the Government appearing to lose face as they would do if they had to withdraw a draft and replace it by another.
      However, I am afraid that whatever the good will with which this operation is conducted, and however frank and candid the discussions that take place, either in the course of the debate or more informally on such a document as proposals for a draft Order in Council, it is impossible, by the nature of the document, for the House to have the opportunity of considering severally the several aspects of the changes in law that are brought about. Even if the Government, as I hope that they will, go at least as far as to say that they will publish the draft Order in Council in proposal form, and give the House the opportunity to debate those proposals, I would still say, and place on record, that it is an unsatisfactory method of proceeding in legislating for citizenship.
      The other topic is the new form of British nationality that is envisaged in paragraph 2 of the schedule, from which amendment 3 results. There is a curious story that lies behind the paradoxical proposal of Her Majesty's Government that, on relinquishing sovereignty over Hong Kong, a new sort of British nationality should be invented to be conferred upon up to 3 million of the present inhabitants of that colony. This is an act so paradoxical and so curious that it naturally provokes a certain conjecture as to how it might have come about. I have done a little careful, microscopic reading of the White Paper, which is one of the few public documents that we have to enable us to reconstruct the processes that may have preceded this extraordinary outcome.
      There were such processes, and they were difficult processes. Earlier in these debates, we were told that the

      1045
      present proposals are the ninth in the series, there having been eight previous proposals that, for one reason or another, failed to stand up to whatever considerations were brought to bear on them. The Committee would do well to look carefully at the references to this proposal in the White Paper.
      As you appreciate, Mr. Walker, the arrangements for a change in British nationality are no part of our agreement with the Government of the People's Republic of China. They are merely dealt with in an associated exchange of memoranda, which is the crosshead to paragraphs 62–65, the last paragraphs of the White Paper. The first three of those four paragraphs describe the position of Her Majesty's Government on the subject. Paragraph 65, the last — of Revelations, one might say — describes the Chinese position, and sheds a little more light upon the story that lies behind the curious and paradoxical proposal that we are considering. May I read it to the Committee, with commentary.
      "The Chinese memorandum states the Chinese Government's position that Hong Kong Chinese are Chinese nationals."
      Certainly. That is self-evident and follows logically of its own accord. It is in accordance with that that
      "British Dependent Territories citizenship cannot be retained or acquired on or after the relevant date by virtue of a connection with Hong Kong."
      Since Hong Kong is no longer a dependent territory, no doubt the Chinese pointed out that it would be inappropriate—because they are not entirely insensitive to the nuances even of the English language; they are subtle interpreters of language and its implications—for that status to be retained. Accordingly, and very necessarily and logically, we conceded that point in paragraph 2(1)(a) of the schedule. The White Paper continues:
      "It"—
      that is the Chinese Government—
      "indicates, however".
      May I pause there for a moment. Why do the Chinese Government indicate when they have stated their position that Hong Kong Chinese are Chinese nationals? I should be glad to hear whether the Minister and his advisers think that there is any difference of emphasis or nuance between the words "state" and "indicate". At least "indicate" is a much more general and a much more stand-offish expression that a statement on the part of a Government. But what is it that the Chinese Government, we are told, indicate?
      "It indicates, however, that those Chinese nationals who hold British travel documents may continue to use them after 1 July 1997".
      That is all that the Chinese said—rather, indicated. I must not get it wrong. The Chinese indicated that their own nationals who happen to have British travel documents may continue to use them after 1997.
      Mr. Adley: The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) refers quite properly to the difference between "indicate" and "state". He used the words "paradoxical" and "curious". Will the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that the Bill does not seek in any way to confer United Kingdom citizenship upon 3 million people but that it is trying to supply the citizens of Hong Kong with some form of legitimate document to enable them to travel outwith Hong Kong but not to reside in the
      1046
      United Kingdom? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is a legitimate objective for the Government to try to achieve?
      Mr. Powell: The intervention of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) has allowed me to anticipate exactly the next stage of my argument. I have succeeded, I hope, in establishing that the Chinese Government indicated that so far as they were concerned they would have no objection if their nationals who could get hold of them got hold of British travel documents and used them, except in the circumstances that are set out in the remainder of the paragraph. Therefore, one naturally asks what we are doing in implementation of this understanding to provide those persons who have hitherto had a curious sort of citizenship, British dependent territories citizenship, with British travel documents.
      Why is it that this Order in Council is not an Order in Council that will create a status of those who can have a British travel document? As the hon. Member for Christchurch said, it does not confer United Kingdom citizenship. There is a reason for that. There is no such thing in our law as United Kingdom citizenship. But it does something perilously close to what the hon. Gentleman was indicating — I have used the word myself! It creates a new form of British nationality. So it confers British nationality. Perhaps the Minister will explain—it would be most interesting, and would be quoted in future textbooks on the law of British nationality, some of which will I hope be written by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook)—that it is impossible for this country to give anyone a travel document that could be described as a British travel document without conferring British nationality on him.
      11.15 pm
      I have offered the Minister the opportunity to prepare himself to meet that daunting inquisition by placing upon the Order Paper illustrations of how an Order in Council might have been empowered by the schedule to give the Government the power to issue British travel documents conferring certain rights in British consulates and so on to persons of a defined class or status. But that is not what is happening. That is what the Chinese indicated they would put up with. But instead of that we have invented a new form of what, over and over again, we go out of our way to call British nationality, in order to confer it upon up to 3 million of the inhabitants of Hong Kong to be enjoyed by them after the cession of the territory. I do not think that I exaggerate in describing that as a most paradoxical and curious proposal.
      I wish to go a little further into what might be the reasons for that proposal. Presumably someone did not think that a British travel document was good enough. Someone was dissatisfied with a British travel document. Who was it? Who said, "No, that won't do. That's not good enough. We want British nationality."? Who insisted on British nationality being conferred on up to 3 million of the Hong Kong people? It was not the People's Republic of China. Indeed, the astonishment is that its national sensibilities were not offended by the Government openly conferring British nationality on up to 3 million of its Chinese nationals. But I shall come shortly to why their offence was not carried to a point of mortal objection, although that objection may after all be concealed. We may one day find that that repugnance is concealed under the very cautious words of the "indication" in paragraph

      1047
      65 of the White Paper, which does not go to say that the Chinese Government take no objection to our conferring British nationality upon their nationals.
      So who was it? There is only one cui bono here, and that is the Hong Kong people themselves—those whom we were anxious to carry along with us in the general agreement, and who were able to persuade us not to rest satisfied with providing them with what the Chinese indicated they might have, but to provide them openly and expressly with British nationality and passports. That is the terminology. From their point of view what was the difference? The Government have explained to the House that there is no difference, and that the new-fangled sort of British nationality will confer no sorts of rights except those that a travel document would confer. Why, then, was it so important to the people of Hong Kong to be given what is described as British passports and British nationality?
      The answer is that they believe that, armed with that, in certain circumstances they can mobilise opinion inside and outside this country to enforce on a future Government of this country the concession of rights which do not attach to that status but which, it will be argued, are the natural implications of anything which is called a British passport or British nationality. If that is how it looks from the point of view of the Hong Kong people. I find it a little sinister that as yet it has excited no repugnance on the part of the People's Republic of China.
      Mr. Andrew Rowe: Is it not equally plausible that the reason why the citizens of Hong Kong sought this additional phraseology is that they believe that the travel document to which they would become entitled would receive more respect from those countries which they might wish to enter carrying that document if it contained that additional phraseology?
      Mr. Powell: We know that this form of British nationality will confer no additional rights on them. It is in the power and capabilities of the House to confer on Her Majesty's Government the right and power to produce the most impressive documents, loaded with all sorts of minatory and monitory abjurations to those before whom they might come.
      That could be done almost in the style of the old passports which we used to be so proud to carry, in which Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State called upon all kinds of lesser breeds without the law to extend all sorts of courtesies and protection to those who travelled under that illustrious patronage.
      There would be no difficulty in doing that. The point is—and the people of whom I speak are by no means lacking in shrewdness—that they perceived that there was an essential difference for certain purposes between having British nationality and just having what the Chinese Government had indicated that they would not object to. Therefore, I return to the question: why did the Chinese Government not object to our going out of our way, beyond what they had conceded, to confer our nationality on their nationals?
      I believe that they believed that for them, too, it might be convenient one day. They thought that if one day they found themselves somewhat embarrassed by some of the people in this category, it might be easier, more expeditious and more comfortable to dispose of them under the description — which we could not deny
      1048
      because it would have been our description—of British nationals than if they were merely Chinese nationals who held British travel documents.
      A fraud is being perpetrated by three parties in league together. One is the Foreign Office, as usual. I think I see the Minister shaking his head in dissent at that reference to the Foreign Office. I should have thought that he had been there long enough to have found that out by now. The second is the People's Republic of China and the third are the representatives of the Hong Kong people who have been engaged in these negotiations.
      They have put their heads together and have cooked this up to deceive the House and the people whom we represent, to deceive the House into supporting that nothing of any importance or significance, nothing that may ever rebound on them in the future, is being done or is being proposed. That is being done, and we should have the opportunity—in the form of considering this matter in legislative terms—to expose it further than I have been able to do in the debate on the schedule. At least, for the record, I have put it in evidence.
      Mr. George Robertson: The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) has created a climate of hostility to the cause he has promoted by the very fact that he has promoted it. I believe that, 8,500 miles away, the people of Hong Kong do not treat the matter lightly. We have heard, as ever, an interesting exploration of the logic and illogic that can be demonstrated by a master of the art, building one premise on the other and coming to an inexorable conclusion which we all know instictively to be wrong.
      The right hon. Member did the cause of an important principle a grave disservice by the accusation that he flung at the perpetrators of this "fraud". I am glad that I was left out of the catalogue of those who seemed to be involved in this deception of the House of Commons. This is the Committee stage, and the right hon. Gentleman has the right to re-enter the debate any time he chooses. Perhaps, by the end of my speech, I shall be added to the pantheon of those who would perpetrate this historic fraud.
      On Wednesday 23 January the press comments collected by the Hong Kong Government for the benefit of hon. Members reported:
      "Sing Pao and Sing Tao Jih Pao reported that five MPs including George Robertson"—
      I like the order in which the names are listed—
      "Denis Healey, Enoch Powell and Donald Anderson would seek amendments to the Bill at the committee stage to require a debate in both Houses of Parliament on the nationality of Hong Kong residents. Sing Tao quoted sources close to the House of Commons as saying that the chance of success of these amendments was very remote because experience showed that Bills were normally passed without amendments at the committee stage."
      It is interesting to note that the Chinese language newspapers have managed to look carefully at practically all the legislation—
      Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Not the Representation of the People Act.
      Mr. Robertson: —with the exception of the Representation of the People Act, which comes up for later consideration.
      The right hon. Member for South Down made the valid point—some of my hon. Friends will make that same point later—that the way in which the Government have chosen to create a new nationality has disturbing

      1049
      implications. It is true that never before has Parliament created a new nationality by means of an Order in Council. There are good precedents in statute law showing that nationality should be created by amendable legislation—legislation which is capable of being scrutinised and which has the safeguard of being difficult to pass through the House of Commons and, therefore, is not lightly undertaken by any Government.
      The Bill creates a new nationality and that is a major and serious matter. There is an increasing number of nationalities and they were all enshrined in the British Nationality Act 1981 which received the detailed scrutiny of the House, and which contrary to reports in the Sing Pao newspaper was amended substantially in Committee.
      11.30 pm
      My final objection is that anything that is created by statutory instrument or Order in Council can be easily amended or removed if circumstances change. It provides inadequate long-term security for those people fortunate or unfortunate enough to find themselves under the title designated within the Order in Council.
      Those are serious objections to the way in which the Government have chosen to create this new nationality, and it is only right as the right hon. Member for South Down fairly said to place those objections on the record. The official Opposition might be prepared not to divide the Committee on this central issue, but with those words I have no doubt entered the list of those involved in the gigantic fraud.
      The first precondition to the Committee accepting that exception to the normal rule has been conceded by the Government in their amendment No. 2 by which it is proposed to include the nomenclature of the new nationality in the Bill. A further assurance must be given by the Government on that exceptional circumstance before the official Opposition will be persuaded that to divide the House might not be in the best interests of those affected by the Bill.
      The Government must assure the Committee that the Order in Council will not be dealt with in the conventional way and that a draft of the draft statutory instrument will be available to the House and the people of Hong Kong which should preferably be debated in the House before the final draft statutory instrument is laid before the House. That would provide an opportunity to scrutinise the detailed nationality proposals so that hon. Members and those people who will be affected can express their views. It would also give the House a better opportunity to express strong views on the contents of the statutory instrument than the more limited opportunity available when a draft statutory instrument is laid before the House.
      The Government must provide sufficient time between the various stages of the legislation to allow those people who are unaware of Parliament's intricacies to discuss the Government's proposals and to rehearse their arguments of the past 10 days more pointedly as the new passports will be available long before 1997.
      The Committee expects an assurance from the Government this evening — I accept the limitations placed on any Government committing themselves and their successors—that any future changes in the Bill will not be effected simply by an Order in Council.
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      I have no doubt that the forensic skills of the right hon. Member for South Down will be applied to my plea that the limitations are considerable. However, the people of Hong Kong have a right to expect this from the Government who gave them the assurance in the first place and who negotiated the joint agreement and its annexes. They have the right to expect that in the foreseeable future the British Parliament will not indulge in any changes to the nationality based on temporary circumstances.
      The other factors that would lead the Opposition not to divide the Committee are largely conditioned by opinion as expressed in Hong Kong. There are no fully democratic institutions in Hong Kong, and we are therefore at a disadvantage in expecting views to come forward with great authority, but inasmuch as opinion has been expressed, it appears to be in favour of the methods adopted by the Government in the Bill. However, I have a suspicion that the enthusiasm for the Order in Council has less to do with the constitutional mechanism put forward by the Government than a faith in the Government who gave the promise and a fear of the Parliament that includes the right hon. Member for South Down.
      Mr. Bermingham: A new form of nationality will be created by Order in Council. I agree that the matter should be debated, and primary legislation rather than an Order in Council should be used. Does my hon. Friend agree that the new form of nationality creates a situation analogous to that in east Africa, in respect of those who are not ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong? I understand that there are some 6,000 Indians, for example, who might find themselves in the invidious position in which the Asians found themselves in east Africa, at a future juncture. That, too, should be covered by the orders that we make.
      Mr. Robertson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall come to some of the details. I am now dealing with the principle. My hon. Friend made a point about some of the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. In fact, he is referring not to the 6,000 people of Indian origin, but to their children after 1997, but I shall cover that point later. It is extremely important.
      Mr. Andrew Faulds: This was a matter that was raised in earlier debates and I think that the figure was 6,000 Indians. It is nothing to do with their children. It is Indians who are living possibly outwith Hong Kong at the moment, but are under the Hong Kong legislation as it presently exists, as the responsibility of the British Government. I understood from a commitment that the Minister gave excellently that those people's interests would be covered—I hope that the Minister will nod his head—by the arrangements that were being made.
      Mr. Robertson: I have a faint feeling that that question was directed not to me but to the Minister—
      Mr. George Foulkes: He nodded his head.
      Mr. Robertson: The Minister nodded his head in reply in the time-honoured fashion of Parliament. We shall come to that matter. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) that I shall be looking for precisely the same assurances that he is seeking.
      I return to the reasons, Sir Paul. I apologise for the fact that in my intervention on clause stand part I omitted your knighthood, which is an honour well earned.

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      For whatever reason, opinion as expressed in Hong Kong has crystallised round the idea of the Order in Council. It is a fact that there would be a misunderstanding that would be difficult to clear up if we were to seek to divide the House on this important issue. In many ways I regret that those misunderstandings have arisen. I regret that different views are now held about a constitutional and procedural issue in that regard, but we must live with it. The general non-partisan view that has been taken of the Bill up to now might conceivably be damaged if we were to seek to divide the House on a point of principle this evening.
      The final reason on which I base my case for not contesting the Bill, although placing our reservations on record, is the fact that there are unique circumstances in Hong Kong. This is a unique agreement, a unique joint declaration and a unique situation will apply after 1997. Perhaps it is to expect too much that uniqueness itself will be a protection in future which can be discounted when precedent is quoted against us. It is a reality that we must live with and we should bear it seriously in mind.
      A number of detailed questions have been asked in Hong Kong and I am sure that the Minister would want to give some assurances to the House this evening. The Legislative Council had a debate less than 24 hours ago in Hong Kong. It raised a number of points and I see from the telex today from the Hong Kong office that the Hong Kong Chief Secretary gave a number of interesting reassurances in that debate. It is right that some of those matters should be raised here so that the Minister, with whom the buck stops, can authoritatively tell the House and those who are watching us what the position is.
      First, there is the question of the acceptability of the new British national overseas passports in third countries. That has arisen on many occasions in the Hong Kong press and was mentioned during the debate in the Legislative Council. The Government are in no position to give absolute guarantees and it would be unrealistic to expect them to do so. On the other hand we have a right to ask the Government what they are doing to ensure that the new passport will be acceptable to immigration officers all over the world. Specifically, what will the Government do as a gesture to show that acceptability should be the norm? Will the Government make entry into the United Kingdom by British national overseas passport holders visa free? Will they give them unrestricted entry and exit? Without that it is difficult to see other countries giving open entry and exit.
      The second point is the question of identity cards being required alongside the passport in order to prove that the holder of the British national overseas passport has the right of abode in Hong Kong. That was not cleared up on Second Reading and it has concerned people in Hong Kong newspapers and in the Legislative Council yesterday. There is some confusion which was not cleared up by the Chief Secretary. Yesterday, he drew attention to section 14 of annexe 1 to the Sino-British joint declaration which provides for the holding of permanent identity cards to be stated in the future BNO passports as evidence of right of abode, and said that Her Majesty's Government would be discussing with the Chinese authorities the wording of the statement with a view to ensuring that BNO passport holders would not have to produce their identity cards for immigration clearance.
      The confusion is illustrated by a variety of statements that appeared to be emanating from authoritative sources.
      1052
      Some newspapers in Hong Kong on Monday 28 January quoted Principal Assistant Secretary for Security, Regina Ip, who said that local residents would not need to take with them their Hong Kong identity cards when travelling abroad to prove that they had the right of abode in Hong Kong as that would be stated in the new British national overseas passports. She added, interestingly, that the United Kingdom Government would seek an agreement from other countries for the exemption of visas after the new nationality title was approved. It would be interesting to have the Minister's comments on that.
      11.45 pm
      Mr. Stanbrook: Is the hon. Gentleman not ignoring the fact that after 1997 those to whom he is referring will be entitled to travel with British national overseas passports and will have an entitlement also to carry with them Chinese passports? Would they not be acceptable around the world by then? Why should he be so concerned about the acceptability of a species of British nationality passport which we all know is not 100 per cent. British?
      Mr. Robertson: The form of passport that they will hold as Chinese nationals has not yet been resolved. They will have the right to carry a special administrative region identity card. The question whether one document will suffice seems to be taxing the people of Hong Kong. I am expressing anxieties that seem to be the subject of wide expression in Hong Kong. It appears that they wish to know whether they will be able to use one passport or the equivalent of two passports to prove that they have the right of abode in Hong Kong. As this is a source of anxiety and concern in Hong Kong, it is something that can be clarified only by the Minister when he replies rather than by his proxies on the Legislative Council in Hong Kong.
      I am sure that the right hon. Member for South Down will find enormous interest in the debate which has taken place in the Chinese press over the Chinese interpretation of the new nomenclature. The translation from the English of "British national overseas", which seems remarkably clumsy in any event, appears to create some bizarre formulation which is not comprehensible in my pronunciation. The Chinese writing apparently creates confusion between the words "nationals", "citizens" and "subjects". We are told the Left-wing lawyer Dorothy Liu has been quoted as saying that it would be more appropriate to translate "British national overseas" as—there then follows a string of Chinese characters. The literal British translation of those characters is "British (overseas) subjects". The commentary of Wen Wei Po—that is a pro-Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong—quoted an English/Chinese dictionary and stated that the word "national" means — there then follows a string of hieroglyphics—
      "(subject of a country, in particular those living overseas)."
      It is said that Miss Liu's proposed translation could reflect the spirit of the proposed declaration more accurately but there is at least some room for confusion. It is conceivable that the title "British national overseas" was devised out of a knowledge of the Chinese language rather than out of a use of the English language.
      Mr. Adley: May we not deduce from what the hon. Gentleman has said the very point that I tried to make in the previous debate, which was that we should not make an attempt to write in too much detail at this stage, which would risk the sort of misinterpretation which he has well

      1053
      illustrated? We all understand the fears and concerns of those in Hong Kong, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that some of those who have been pressing so hard for so much seem still to fail to realise the difficulties in nuance that could result from pressing for too much too precisely and too quickly in the way that the hon. Gentleman has illustrated?
      Mr. Robertson: That is one version. The hon. Gentleman has a long pedigree in terms of Chinese relations. The problem is that the people who are creating the confusion are on his side of the argument. I agree that we must not allow ourselves to get too bogged down or encourage people in Hong Kong to get too bogged down with detail when their futures must be based on trust. Nevertheless, we are dealing with a Bill that concerns nationality, which people in Hong Kong deem important. If there is confusion, the Government should make the matter clear.
      The Government have given guarantees for people who, without the agreement, would appear to end up with no form of statehood. We are told that they are to be given British overseas citizenship. The paradox is that, in one respect, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants finds itself in the camp of the right hon. Member for South Down. I am sure that is the first time that that has happened. The council has made it clear that British national overseas and British overseas citizenship are not really nationalities but travel documents. I hope that the Minister is now better able to identify his plans to deal with the 6,000 prominent non-ethnic Chinese British dependent territory citizens who happen to be of Indian origin, and others who will find that they are stateless after 1997. They need reassurance from the Government tonight.
      The Minister has said that he seeks a durable solution for the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. The sooner we hear what that solution is, the better. I pay tribute to the Government of Hong Kong for its treatment of the 100,000 boat people who fled Vietnam. The residual problems of the 10,000 who remain, however difficult, cannot detract from the huge humanitarian effort that the Hong Kong Government mounted. My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) and I visited a camp and saw the pitiful conditions. The people there do not benefit from the stability and prosperity of the free enterprise system of Hong Kong. They have little past and a bleak future. The House should give them early assurances about their future.
      We must consider those who are able, because of their Government service, to register for full British citizenship. The Government have said that they will be generous with people, especially in the security services, who might have reason to fear the transfer of sovereignty. The Government have not been specific about the numbers who might be involved and the extent of the generosity that might be accorded. We know from what we are told that a number of people are very apprehensive about the future. Given that the generosity of the Government in this regard has not been notable in the past, some further assurances this evening would go a long way to reassure them that their future is guaranteed.
      These are a few of the questions and issues that have been raised in Hong Kong to which the Committee deserves answers this evening. I ask them in no
      1054
      controversial or combative way. These matters need to be put on record, and a much wider public outside is waiting for the answers.
      Mr. Michael Marshall: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and, indeed, the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), because, in the course of their contributions, a number of points were raised which, in a sense, broadened the queries that I seek to pursue in relation to amendment No 4 standing in my name. In tabling the amendment, I had no prior knowledge of amendment No 2. I am in some difficulty in judging precisely the effect of amendment No 2. I am sure that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies he will want to take into account not only some of the questions that have been raised so far, but, I hope, what I am about to put to him. The suggestion encompassed in amendment No 4, in the light of some of the problems about which the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen have spoken, I hope will contribute to overcoming some of those difficulties.
      The right hon. Member for South Down in his waspish and witty way was pointing to some unanswerable questions in my view. There are practical issues involved here, on which he touched, and I should like to think that what I am about to outline will provide a practical way out of some of the difficulties.
      In my view, we are now in danger of getting slightly confused about which kind of passport and what sort of citizen we are referring to. What I have referred to in amendment No 4 as British dependent territory citizen passport (Hong Kong), to give it its full title, I shall refer to as BDTC for the purpose of my remarks. I recognise, however, that if Government amendment No 2 is agreed to, we shall be talking about BNO passports.
      With relation to BDTC passports, and to put that into perspective, on the figures given to me by the Hong Kong Government Office in the helpful briefing that was arranged, I note that that covers current holders of just over one million and, for those eligible but who have not yet applied, two million. It is the largest group of passport holders in Hong Kong and is to be contrasted with the 18,000 British citizen passports of those who have the right of abode in the United Kingdom as opposed to the figure of some three million who have the right of abode currently in Hong Kong but not the right of abode in the United Kingdom, although they have the rights of access. To round off those categories, there are travel documents covering an additional one million people mainly through certificates of identity.
      The purpose of amendment No. 4 is to facilitate the entry into the United Kingdom of those Hong Kong Chinese residents who in my judgment have a particular role in the relationship between our two countries. This tends to be a matter of the frequency of visits of many of the people whom I have in mind. Secondly, I seek to help create a system which recognises the needs not only of those who travel backwards and forwards between Hong Kong and this country at present, but, even more important, of those who will do so after 1997. Thirdly, I should like to think that what I suggest would help to begin a process of accreditation which will influence the thinking not only about visitors from Hong Kong but British visitors to Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China in the years after 1997.

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      My concerns in putting forward the suggestion stemmed from two sources. One was the visit that many hon. Members paid in recent weeks to Hong Kong, courtesy of the Hong Kong Government, during which we learned of some of the practical problems. The second arises — and I declare my interest as parliamentary adviser to Cable and Wireless Ltd—from some of the examples of difficulties which, as I know from my experience, Cable and Wireless and other companies deeply involved with Hong Kong and China have had in the past.
      The problem to which I refer relates essentially to BDTC passport holders coming to this country on a regular basis who find themselves constantly subject to quizzing and cross-examination as to the purpose of their visits. They are not included in statistics which merely show those refused entry. It is not just a matter of immigration officers who may have got out of the wrong side of bed. For the perfectly legitimate visitor, a dialogue of misunderstanding may occur that is time-consuming and causes disproportionate offence to many people who have important reasons to visit this country, especially in the pursuit of trade and investment between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
      12 midnight
      The problem is not confined to business visitors. My attention has been drawn to the number of Hong Kong officials who have also been required to explain in considerable detail why they visit this country so regularly and the exact purpose of their visits.
      It seems to me that one way out of the problem would be for those who have reason to visit this country regularly to have that acknowledged in their travel document by an unlimited access stamp. I freely admit that I have followed the American example in this. In exchanges with my hon. Friend the Minister, who was kind enough to write to me after Second Reading, a certain amount of misunderstanding seems to have crept in. I may have contributed to that by using the word "visa". The present BDTC passport allows unlimited access. I merely suggest putting a stamp into that passport or its successor passport. That is not a visa system, because the process is voluntary. There has been careful consideration of words in many speeches today, so perhaps I should refer to a "multiple access stamp" and thus avoid any suggestion of a move away from existing rights, which is not my purpose at all.
      I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will also tell us whether in the light of the latest advice from Hong Kong, following the debate there, there is to be an absolutely straightforward transfer as between BDTC and BNO passport holders on the right of access though not the right of residence. The comments that have come out of the message to Mr. Colvin Haye in the recent debate in Hong Kong seems to throw some doubt on that. I think that the only clarification given related to entry certificates. On the assumption that the current BDTC privileges in terms of United Kingdom entry would be transferred to the BNO passport, the procedure that I suggest would apply equally to the latter.
      The problem that I have described has wider implications. The hon. Member for Hamilton referred to the acceptance of Hong Kong citizens' rights by third countries. There is an interesting difference in the figures that I gave earlier as between British citizen passports and BDTC passports. Some 104 countries allow entry on the
      1056
      basis of a British citizen passport with visa and 70 allow entry without visa for BDTC Hong Kong passport holders. In other words, some 34 countries will accept a British citizen passport but not a BDTC passport without a visa. Those countries include Austria, Brazil, Denmark, West Germany, Japan, Bermuda, Spain and Sweden. Therefore if my suggestion were to become part of the standard practice, I would expect the Government to seek reciprocity, certainly from other members of the European Community and from the Commonwealth. The people about whom I am especially concerned are involved in international trade, investment and the public service. They are important to the relationship between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom and to the wider relationship implied in the list of countries that I gave.
      We may not have addressed our minds to the question of what is to happen about British visitors to Hong Kong, especially those who go in pursuit of trade, industry and the international relationship implicit in the agreement, as 1997 draws nearer. Our difficulty at present is that we have old-fashioned thoughts about the way trade has been done between the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and China. We should take the view that whenever we are concerned with Hong Kong we are also concerned with China.
      We have a great opportunity to see the growth of investment in Hong Kong and to recognise that it is a longterm investment in China. I was glad to see that the Governor made that point in a speech to the stock exchange. Some people in the People's Republic of China will look for direct investment in China, but prudent business men, industrialists and those who already have a stake in Hong Kong would do well to consider the opportunity to create a centre of excellence in Hong Kong, which could relate, particularly to the special economic zones, as a natural bridge to the whole of China as its market.
      The way to facilitate that process is to ensure the freedom of travel from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom and vice versa, and by extension into China. In other words visa liberalisation would allow wider access to China as a whole.
      Those are some of the reasons why I urge my amendment on my hon. Friend the Minister. I hope that it provides him with a way through some of the practical difficulties. I have received support from members of UMELCO and members of the Hong Kong Government for my amendment. In talks about the issue it has become clear that the two classes of citizens—the BCCs and BDTCs — should be tackled in the short term. My proposal would help in that process.
      After 1997, a whole new range of relationships will evolve. I hope that my suggestion will facilitate the building of bridges, and the strengthening of links and of a tripartite agreement, to which the Committee has shown its commitment tonight. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will see that the objections he put to me in correspondence were based on a misunderstanding about the rigidity of the visa system. My suggestion is flexible and, I hope, practical.
      I recognise that the wording of my amendment would not fit into the terms of the Bill. My hon. Friend may be relieved to hear that I shall not, therefore, seek permission for a separate vote and to divide the Committee. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond in that spirit of good will and co-operation. I appreciate that, having heard the arguments in the light of current events, he may wish

      1057
      to give the matter further consideration. I reserve the right to come back on Report, because I believe this to be an important matter.
      Mr. Alfred Dubs: Unlike many hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, I have not had the opportunity to visit Hong Kong. However, having spent many weeks and months in the Standing Committee on the British Nationality Act 1981, may I claim some familiarity with Hong Kong born of those long hours of debate?
      I am not sure that I followed the argument of the hon. Member for Arundel (Mr. Marshall) correctly. He seemed to be implying that British dependent territory citizens have certain rights of entry into the United Kingdom, and that he wanted those rights to be retained when the measures about which we are talking come into force. My understanding is that, in the main, British dependent territory citizens do not have the automatic right of entry into this country. We established that during the passage of the British Nationality Act. Therefore, I had some difficulty following his argument, based as it is on an incorrect premise.
      When I re-examined some of our debates on the British Nationality Act, I wondered whether some of the discussions that we are having now were not foreseen—
      Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Yes.
      Mr. Dubs: —yet we seemed to ignore some facts that stared us in the face at that time. Shortly after that Bill becoming law we are forced to change some of its provisions, although we were assured at the time that the Government—the same Minister is sitting on the Front Bench now—had thought through the matters and were ertain that they were anticipating future developments in Hong Kong when they provided for the future citizenship of those in Hong Kong. If hon. Members doubt what I say, they should re-read those Committee debates.
      My special concern is with amendments Nos. 1 and 2, and with paragraph 2 of the schedule. I share the views expressed by other right hon. and hon. Members this evening that a matter of such importance as the nationality provisions affecting one territory should not be dealt with by Order in Council. Referring again to our debates on the British Nationality Act, in Committee and on the Floor of the House, the way in which the House dealt in detail with those provisions, and the way in which we were able to develop the arguments, I am even more concerned that the Government believe that Hong Kong will not have the benefit of those procedures. I must admit that we came up with the wrong answer for Hong Kong in the debates on the British Nationality Act—
      Mr. J. Enoch Powell: It was not our fault.
      Mr. Dubs: I should say that the Government came up with the wrong answer, because we must change the provisions now. But as the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) said, that was not our fault. Many of those points were put to the Government during the Committee stage of that Act.
      I shall not address any of my remarks to the ethnic Chinese, because I wish to keep my speech short. They are catered for, or at least there are not too many ambiguities about their position. I am concerned about other people
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      now in Hong Kong who are not protected in the same way. Some of these problems were referred to on Second Reading and earlier today. First and foremost, I am still not happy about what the Government think will happen to the 6,000 people of Indian descent. At the moment, they are British dependent territory citizens. They will become British nationals overseas under the Government's proposals, if amendment No. 2 is passed. However, any children born to those people after 1997 will, I assume, become British overseas citizens.
      12.15 am
      Although the intention of British overseas citizenship in the Nationality Act is that that status should not be hereditary, I interpret what the Government have said to mean that this group of people will, exceptionally, have a citizenship that can be passed on from generation to generation. The Minister suggested that on Second Reading. He said:
      "It is our intention that no British national or any child born on or after 1 July 1997 to a British national should be made stateless as a result of the nationality arrangements, envisaged in the Bill."
      He went on to say, when talking about British dependent territory citizens, that the "title announced today"—the transfer from BDTCs to British national overseas—
      "does not give a right of abode here. It preserves all but one of the entitlements possessed by those who are at present BDTCs. The one exception is right of transmissibility." — [Official Report, 21 January 1985; Vol. 71, c. 809–10.]
      British nationals overseas do not have the right of transmissibility, and their children will therefore become British overseas citizens, who will, by implication, have transmissibility, although that was never the intention of the Nationality Act. If I have not got that argument right, I hope that the Minister will clarify the point, but, having studied what he said on Second Reading, I cannot come to any other conclusion. If it were possible to come to any other conclusion, the Minister's undertaking that nobody would remain stateless would not be capable of fulfilment.
      I am concerned that we are getting ourselves into somewhat of a tangle, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) said earlier, we are in danger of putting a group of people into similar difficulties as those experienced by the east African Asians. They are still queuing up in Gujarat province in India and waiting six or seven years to come here and establish a right that has been given to them by successive British Governments, but is being handed out in meagre annual doses.
      The right hon. Member for South Down anticipated that, and said that the new type of citizenship should not be given, and instead travel documents should be issued. I take the opposite view, that we have a responsibility to see that we do not leave any people high and dry, and stranded with no territory to which they belong, and no place to which they can travel. It is by no means certain that there will be a continuation of rights in Hong Kong when the status of Hong Kong is changed.
      Mr. Michael Marshall: I am reverting to an earlier point made by the hon. Gentleman. I was trying to refresh my memory from the notes provided by the Hong Kong Government Office. The hon. Gentleman asked about British dependent territory passports, and I was looking to see what had been said in the debate in Hong Kong in the past few days. I see that no commitment is made as to when that passport will be superseded by the British

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      national overseas passport. I understand, therefore, that this passport must continue for some indefinite period, and perhaps we shall hear a view on this tonight. While the passport or other travel documents continue, the question of access to this country still remains as previously arranged. My understanding of that is that a stay of between one month and one year is available to BDTC passport holders. For that reason, I am suggesting that a stamp that could go into such a document and could subsequently be transferred into any document that is issued within the SAR after 1997.
      Mr. Dubs: No doubt the Minister can answer for himself in explaining the point. My argument was not that BDTC passport holders would lose their passports at a later date but that their children born after the due date in 1997 would become British nationals overseas. There were then difficulties. As to the hon. Gentleman's other point, I am sure that the Minister can answer that himself. My understanding is that at the moment, BDTCs do not have an automatic right of entry into this country. They may be allowed to enter this country for periods ranging from one month to one or two years, but they have to establish that right by seeking to obtain an entry certificate or by being allowed in. But that is by no means automatic. They may well be refused entry when they reach Heathrow.
      Mr. Michael Marshall: It may be that the words that are used need to be defined. Entry equals access. It does not mean residence. I understand that there is no difficulty about those with British dependent territories citizenship visiting this country on existing passports, but their entry is for the purpose of making a visit, not for residence.
      Mr. Dubs: I have to disagree with the hon. Member for Arundel. It may be that in practice the majority of BDTCs have no difficulty in obtaining entry to this country for the purpose of making a visit. Permanent settlement is not the question, but the fact is that they still do not have an automatic right, any more than do people from most other parts of the world. Therefore they have to be allowed in; they are not entitled to come in. In seeking to ensure that the existing rights of those people are not lost in their change of citizenship the hon. Member is saying that their very limited rights, which do not guarantee entry, should be transferred. I did not really follow the hon. Member's argument, even if I concede that in practice these people do not have too much difficulty in coming in as visitors. That is not the case with people from many other parts of the world, although this is not the occasion to develop that point.
      My concern is that we shall leave certain people without the basic rights to which they are entitled. Ought we not to consider allowing those people who wish to become British citizens and who have no other citizenship to become British citizens after a certain date? If they wanted to avail themselves of it, this small group of people would be able to come to this country and exercise the right that I would wish them to enjoy. The alternative is to leave them with no obvious place to which they belong. If they have no citizenship they will be, in effect, stateless.
      The other group of people about whom I am concerned are the Vietnamese refugees and any other people who do not come into the categories that we have discussed. I am not clear about the future position of the Vietnamese refugees. They are not ethnic Chinese; they are not BDTCs; and they have no means of becoming BNOs or
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      BOCs. In other words, they will remain stateless. The Minister referred to other groups who, apart from the Vietnamese, are in this position. I should be unhappy if we passed legislation that left a group of people in a territory for which we are still responsible suspended in mid-air, with no citizenship, no rights and no guarantees about their future. I am not saying that every Vietnamese refugee in Hong Kong is directly our responsibility and ought to be allowed to come to this country. However, we ought not to ignore the fact that these refugees exist. We must not just hope that they wil not make a fuss when we pass legislation and that the Chinese will take care of them. That is not good enough. If there is no other alternative, I believe that we have to accept responsibility for these people and possibly share it with other countries. Therefore, I am unhappy about what is intended for the two groups of people I have mentioned. The Government owe us a responsibility, and we owe them a responsibility to say what their long-term intentions are. I have said what my solution would be, and I should like to hear the Government's view.
      Mr. Adley: I join the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) in apologising to you, Sir Paul, for inaccurately designating you. I should like to take this belated opportunity to congratulate you on your merited and well-deserved knighthood. We all share in your pleasure.
      I am happy to speak after the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs), who has never been to Hong Kong. I think that I first went there in 1955. But I have one thing in common with him, and that is that, like him, I have never travelled to Hong Kong with the benefit of a free ticket from the Government of Hong Kong. Many hon. Members will well understand the reasons for that.

      In the past two weeks we have had a further chance to consider the Bill. That rightly enabled the people in Hong Kong to express their views and gave some of us a further chance to consider the point that my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary announced on Second Reading about the designation of British National (Overseas) citizenship. I am slightly concerned that the Indian community in Hong Kong, and particularly those of its members who settled there before India achieved independence, will find that their new status is less advantageous than their BDT citizenship, for the very reasons that were outlined by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). I did not necessarily agree with everything that the right hon. Gentleman said, and we may not draw the same conclusion, but it is important to discuss such matters openly and frankly.
      There are three things that we should avoid at this stage. First, we should avoid misleading people, deliberately or otherwise. Secondly, we should avoid making promises that we cannot deliver. Thirdly, we should avoid upsetting the delicate balance of the relationship between the British and Chinese Governments, and between both of those Governments and the people of Hong Kong. I am quite clear about what we should and should not be doing in respect of the first two items, but in respect of the third, one must bear in mind that nothing is quite as simple or as black and white as the right hon. Member for South Down might have us believe.
      Mr. Bermingham: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are discussing the future of several million people

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      who live thousands of miles away, and that they have a right to expect that whatever we legislate about will not deprive them of security in the future? At present we are putting a number of people in Hong Kong, who are not ethnic Chinese, in a position in which they may well find themselves stateless.
      Mr. Adley: The House of Commons is not in a position to give any guarantees to anyone in Hong Kong about their indefinite welfare. To seek to pretend that we can legislate indefinitely for their perpetual welfare falls fairly and squarely under the heading of making promises that we cannot deliver. I take the point about the minority Indian population, who are in a special situation. I think that my right hon. Friend the Minister nodded earlier that the Government are seized of it and intend to do something about it. But it is wrong to give perhaps 99 per cent. of the population of Hong Kong—the Chinese citizens—the impression that, merely by passing legislation here, we can provide them with permanent guarantees about their settled future. That is to make promises that we cannot deliver. I stress again that the people of Hong Kong are dependent on good relations between the British and Chinese Governments, and ultimately on the intentions of the Government of the People's Republic of China.
      12.30 am
      In a book that I wrote on the subject, I recalled stating on 8 September 1982:
      "The future status of Hong Kong depends ultimately on Beijing."
      Let us accept, as we debate this issue, that we can only do our best within the limitations of the power that we shall have in the future. The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) was right to point out that we should be failing in our duty if, by this legislation, we misled people into believing that they were being given something entitling them to what we know we are not able to deliver.
      The right hon. Member for South Down used the word "fraud" and implied that there was a plot between the Foreign Office, the Chinese Government and the Government of Hong Kong. In fact, the pressure to dot the i's and cross the t's has come not from the British or Chinese Governments but from certain people in Hong Kong, for understandable motives, and that pressure has been led by UMELCO in Hong Kong.
      All along we have been urged to provide security and guarantees. We cannot provide such guarantees, and that is why the right hon. Gentleman said that we were in danger of perpetrating a fraud on those people by this legislation. I emphasise that neither the British Government nor the Chinese Government have been behind the move to seek such guarantees, and even at this late stage the British Government are being pressed to make changes to the Bill.
      The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) referred to the press in Hong Kong criticising us for showing a lack of interest in their affairs. They always know best. On 4 November 1983, the South China Morning Post, referring to a visit that I was about to make, wrote:
      "Hopefully, his forthcoming visit to Hong Kong will impress on him the grave disquiet felt by people in many walks of life here about outsiders interfering in Hong Kong's affairs as negotiations on the future issue continue. Although Mr. Adley
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      has a mandate to speak for the electors of Christchurch and Lymington he holds no such mandate for the people of Hong Kong."
      Leaving aside his poor homework in designating my constituency wrongly, I wonder who the deputy editor of the paper, who wrote that, thought was going to settle the future of Hong Kong. That is the task of hon. Members here, and I agree with the hon. Member for Hamilton that we have done our best, within the limitations of the power available to us, to attend to their problems.
      Dr. Marek: It will not do to say that we have done our best and can wash our hands of the matter. There is an onus on us to ensure that nobody will be stateless as a result of what will occur in 1997. Although we may not be able to give guarantees here and now, let us hope that in the coming 12 or 13 years we will be able to ensure that nobody is stateless.
      Mr. Adley: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but we cannot, in legislation tonight, give people guarantees. Certainly we must do what we can. As for people being stateless, presumably the hon. Gentleman was referring to that tiny fraction of people who are not of Chinese race. The hon. Gentleman must do me the credit of recognising that I raised this point on Second Reading and have done so again during this debate. I have made clear beyond peradventure my belief that we have a responsibility for these people, perhaps more than others. It is not practical or sensible to try to write into the Bill precisely how we shall do that. It is better to get these provisions right in the next six or 12 months or two or five years rather than try to identify in this legislation every problem.
      It might have been better if we had had two Bills—one dealing specifically and solely with the sovereignty issue, and the other dealing with all the problems of nationality and citizenship.
      Mr. Faulds: If the Government do not get this matter right within the next seven or nine months, or whatever, what recourse does the House of Commons have under the Order in Council procedure to put it right?
      Mr. Adley: In June I shall have been a Member for 15 years. I cannot recall the House being incapable of doing what it needed to do if that was the will of the House and there was a majority to achieve that objective. I have great faith in the collective determination of hon. Members to act in a particular way if they wish to do so. I see that the right hon. Member for South Down is looking askance at that statement. He is probably thinking of the European Communities Act 1972. Whether hon. Members have the will to undo what we did at that time is a matter for debate—but not tonight.
      I respect the right of the right hon. Member for South Down to make the point that he made and I agree with him that it would be improper for us to make promises that we cannot maintain. The right hon. Gentleman did not answer my question whether he believed that it was right for the British Government to evolve a form of status for the Chinese citizens of Hong Kong which applied to their movements when they were travelling outside Hong Kong but did not affect their position in so far as they might wish to come to the United Kingdom. I do not propose to pursue him on that point now.
      Membership of GATT is one of the most important considerations for Hong Kong. That issue and others will depend upon finding some form of identity which makes

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      Hong Kong a separate entity to the People's Republic of China in the eyes and minds of those countries with which Hong Kong will be negotiating to maintain its present commercial status. For that reason, if for no other, I believe that flexibility is the sensible order of the day. That is why I have been concerned about the persistent attempts to try to find detailed answers at one pop to problems that, are only just beginning to emerge.
      I finish with these words. I believe that the flexibility I seek will prove to be the test of the sincerity of the Government of the People's Republic of China in their oft-stated intentions, now that sovereignty has been ceded, to maintain the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong.
      I conclude by agreeing with the hon. Members for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) and for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) that we must be certain that we receive from the Government a firm and clear undertaking that we shall maintain for those members of non-Chinese minorities in Hong Kong our absolute obligation to find a solution to their problem long before 1997, even if we cannot write that provision into this legislation immediately.
      Finally—
      Mr. Russell Johnston: The third "finally".
      Mr. Adley: That may well have been my third "finally". It will be the last. The success of this legislation will lie not in producing a bolt-hole in the United Kingdom for the people of Hong Kong but in maintaining the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong and maintaining for the Hong Kong people their ability to live in the present form of society in Hong Kong. Let us never lose sight of that aim.
      Mr. Bermingham: I wish to draw to the attention of the Committee the fact that, although I have never been to Hong Kong, I have, as a practising lawyer for 15 to 20 years, been dealing with immigration problems. I view with horror any legislation that will again create some of the misery that I have seen in those cases. I feel that I have a duty to point out the legal problems that I see.
      I have spent some considerable time studying the subject of the refugees. I am sad at having to take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), but I do not believe that anything good can be said about the closed and open camps in Hong Kong. One solution to the problem would be for the Hong Kong Government to allow the ethnic Chinese in the camps to assimilate into the community in Hong Kong. That would start to breach the logjam that has developed in those camps. I do not propose to develop that issue any further at this stage.
      Mr. George Robertson: I remind my hon. Friend that when I referred to the Vietnamese refugees, I paid tribute to the work that the Hong Kong Government had done in resettling almost 100,000 of the Vietnamese boat people. The fact that people are held in closed camps and the circumstances in which they are kept continues to cause anxiety to the Hong Kong Government, and to Members of the House. We long to find a solution which will remove people from those quasi-prison camps.
      Mr. Bermingham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for intervening and correcting the record in so far as I may have misheard him. He takes the stance that I do. I have given my views here and elsewhere, and I shall continue
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      to do so until the problem is solved because it is one that we must solve. I do not propose to continue with that point because it is outside the scope of the amendments.
      I did not participate in the Second Reading debate, but I have studied the record carefully. I appreciate that nuances can occasionally be read into the written word and I looked for the assurances given to what we might call the "ethnic minority groups" who might find themselves in a difficult position if the legislation is left as it is.
      I ask the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) to accept that my intervention in his speech was born out of the frustration of finding no commitment to the solution to the problem. I should not dream to seek to argue with him or any author about their books, but perhaps we could approach the matter in a way which does not leave us talking about BOCs, BNOs and BDTCss. They mean nothing to the man in the street. He wants to know whether he will have a secure status somewhere and somewhere he knows that he can go.
      The solution is not beyond the wit of man. For instance, in 1982 we gave the Falkland islanders British citizenship, and under the British Nationality Act 1981 we allowed Gibraltarians to register in the United Kingdom as British citizens. I understand that some 5,000 did so in 1983 and 1984. When we talk about the minority groups in Hong Kong we are talking about relatively small numbers of people. We are not talking about numbers that will compare with the South Africans. As I understand the legislation, nearly 1 million South Africans have the right to come to the United Kingdom as British citizens if and when the majority take control of the state, as will undoubtedly happen one day. In those circumstances, up to 1 million South Africans have the right to come to the United Kingdom, and there is nothing that we can do about it. It is in legislation already.
      If we can solve those problems and put forward such solutions, it is not beyond the wit of Parliament to put forward a solution in the years ahead before 1997 that will protect the rights of the Indians and other small minority groups who are not protected just now. There is no way that we can dodge that issue. Those people are not protected.
      12.45 am
      At this stage, I do not expect the Government to say, "We shall do 1, 2, 3 or 4." However, I ask for a clear and unequivocal statement in the House in respect of citizens of Hong Kong who are not ethnic Chinese, who could find themselves in much the same situation as the Asians in east Africa in the late 1960s. That was an appalling situation, which all of us recognise. Those persons should be told in simple terms that before 1997 we shall arrive at a solution that will create for them a citizenship and a right of abode in the United Kingdom in the event of their "security of tenure"—so to speak—in Hong Kong being jeopardised.
      In saying that, I in no way seek to criticise the Peking authorities. I appreciate that times will change between now and 1997. It would be a fool who did not appreciate that. At the moment Peking says, "Fine, everybody in Hong Kong can stay and we welcome them." However, conditions may arise in which those who are non-ethnic Chinese find that they wish to move. The security of knowing that one can go is in itself a deterrent to go. It has been found in the past that where people feel secure and welcome at home, they tend to stay.

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      The numbers involved are not great. I merely ask the Government to put down a marker, a clear undertaking that steps will be taken to protect those people's interests. I do not like the form of the Bill, in that it provides for those matters to be dealt with by Order in Council. That is not entirely satisfactory. However, I am prepared not to divide the House on the issue. I put the marker on the road for the future that if in the next couple of years clear provisions are not made, I, and I am sure many hon. Members, will seek to bring the matter back before the House.
      I should like to mention just one other small point. There has been talk about people who may want to leave Hong Kong because of the nature of their job, which makes them feel that in the transfer of sovereignty they would rather go away. It might be because they have been customs officers in Crown service, and so on. I know that there are provisions for their protection, but I ask the Government to take this point on board, which has been raised with me by people from Hong Kong. I refer to people in sensitive jobs. If we are to have secure government between now and 1997, those who have to carry out sensitive functions, whether they are ethnic Chinese police officers or customs officials, must have the security of knowing that if they wish to come to the United Kingdom in 1997, provision will be made for them and their families to be taken care of.
      I see that the Minister nods in acknowledgement of the problem. I concede that it has been raised in the past, but we have a duty to those whom we shall ask to serve us until 1997. They should know that, in the sensitive areas in which they serve, they have added security that will enable them to carry out their functions free from the pressures that would otherwise be upon them. If we are to have good governance in Hong Kong in those years—I am sure that we shall — we must give such security to those whom we ask to serve us.
      Mr. Luce: There has been considerable debate for an hour and a half on a series of amendments that are important both to the Committee and the people of Hong Kong.
      Let me set the scene with Government amendment No. 2 before I deal with amendment No. 1. The purpose of amendment No. 2 is to incorporate in the Bill the title of the proposed new form of nationality. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary announced on Second Reading, this will be, as we all now know, "British National (Overseas)".
      I am glad that we have been able to propose the amendment at this stage. We were pressed to do so by a number of hon. Members on Second Reading.
      The people of Hong Kong have now had an opportunity to express their opinions on the title, and I am glad to be able to report that it seems to be generally acceptable in the territory.
      It was not easy to devise a title that meets all the necessary requirements. On the one hand, it needs to make clear that we are dealing with a form of British nationality. That was the strongest desire of the people of Hong Kong. On the other hand, it is essential that the title can be used after 1997, and, therefore, that it carries no implication of
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      a continuing constitutional relationship between Britain and Hong Kong after 1997. The title "British National (Overseas)" meets both those criteria.
      The benefits of the new status will be set out in the Order in Council and will be subject to parliamentary approval, but the Government's intention is that the new form of nationality will carry broadly the same benefits as British dependent territory citizen except that it will not be transmissible by descent. Holders of the new status will be able to use British passports. They will be eligible for British consular protection in third countries. They will have a right to registration as British citizens under section 4 of the British Nationality Act 1981 on the same terms as the British dependent territory citizen. The detailed provisions will be set out in the Order in Council to be set before the House when they can be discussed in greater detail.
      The Committee will be only too aware that the title used to describe the status is itself the subject of great sensitivity in Hong Kong and the title now proposed has the endorsement of the Hong Kong Executive Council. As I have said it seems to have been generally well received by the public in Hong Kong. To put it in the Bill now will help to calm some of the anxiety on that score in Hong Kong. I hope that the Committee will be able to agree to the amendment. As it is a matter of importance to the people of Hong Kong, the amendment will be a reassurance to them.
      Putting aside the fantasy world of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) of plots, deceptions and frauds, let me get down to the reality of the other amendments. The effect of amendment No. 1, as the right hon. Gentleman says, would be to remove the nationality provisions from the schedule to the Bill in their entirety. The Government firmly believe that paragraph 2 should remain in the schedule to the Bill. The measures concerned arise directly out of the agreement and the United Kingdom memorandum. They are part of the same package. It is, therefore, appropriate that all such matters should be dealt with in the Bill. In fact, I would go further and say that silence on nationality would cause great uncertainty in Hong Kong and might cast doubt on the Government's willingness to implement the provisions in the United Kingdom memorandum.
      Since it was made clear that nationality questions were among the primary concerns of the people of Hong Kong, the Government consider that that would be damaging. In this enabling clause we are endeavouring to provide a clear framework and statement of intent with regard to nationality and to deal with what one hon. Member described as a unique situation. Of course, the details will follow in the form of the order, which on Second Reading my right hon. and learned Friend announced to the House we would undertake to introduce within a year of the passage of this legislation.
      In the debate today, several hon. Members have made it clear, as they did on Second Reading, that they were not satisfied that there would be sufficient opportunity to discuss the draft Order in Council in detail under positive resolution procedures.
      I acknowledge that the right hon. Member for South Down is saying that he believes that these matters should be dealt with by means of primary legislation. Other hon. Members support the right hon. Gentleman. I acknowledge that point of view but I have sought to explain why we believe that it is necessary to deal with the problem in

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      the way that we propose. The Order in Council procedure is inevitable because of the timing constraints on the Bill, which I have explained to the Committee.
      The Government have moved as far as they can to meet the wishes of the House of Commons. We agree that the House must be given the opportunity to have a preliminary debate on the draft order. In other words, it will be, as some hon. Members have described, an order with green edges. According to the way in which the debate goes, the Government will, if necessary, withdraw the draft order and revise it before laying it again before the House for debate in the normal way under the affirmative resolution procedure. It will be open to the House to express its views without having to oppose or reject the order as a whole. I hope that the House will find that procedure to be of help in enabling its views to he taken fully into account before the draft order is finally submitted for affirmative resolution.
      The right hon. Member for Down South anticipated how the Government's mind is working—this is not a plot, fraud or deception—and I know that he will not be satisfied with the procedure that I have outlined. He has made it clear that he will continue to press for a separate Bill. However, for the reasons which I have advanced, I do not share his views on this issue. The creation of a new form of British nationality for those who must lose BDTC in 1997 was essential to securing the acceptability of the agreement in Hong Kong.
      Amendment No. 3 seeks to insert "status" in the schedule instead of
      "new form of British nationality".
      I have already said that the Government are committed to granting a form of British nationality to persons who are BDTCs by virtue of a connection with Hong Kong. I hope that this commitment will enjoy the support of the Committee. It was made clear at the time of the assessment exercise in Hong Kong and at the time of the debate on the agreement in this place that the "appropriate status" referred to in the United Kingdom memorandum would be a form of British nationality. It was on this basis that the people of Hong Kong and the House endorsed the agreement. If we failed to specify that in the order it would cause great dismay and lead to the belief that we were not keeping our word.
      Amendment No. 5 is directed to the introduction of travel documents and I urge the Committee not to accept it. Paragraph 2 of the schedule does not cover the provisions in the United Kingdom memorandum relating to the issue of passports. These provisions will be implemented under the Royal Prerogative in the usual way. The United Kingdom memorandum makes the Government's intention absolutely clear. Persons who are BDTCs by virtue of a connection with Hong King will be eligible to acquire a status which will enable them to use passports issued by the Government. United Kingdom consular officials will be able to renew and replace these passports after 1 July 1997. The intention of the right hon. Member for Down South is presumably to deny former BDTCs the right to hold British passports after 1997. Their eligibility to hold passports was part of the package that was found acceptable by the people of Hong Kong and the House. I must urge the Committee to reject the amendment.
      Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Will the Minister make it clear what the people of Hong Kong were told was the advantage to them of having a British passport over having a British travel document?
      Mr. Luce: The deep anxiety of the people of Hong Kong, especially the 3 million who are BDTCs, is that they should retain some form of British nationality allied to a British passport, which would provide them, on the responsibility of the British Government, with, for example, consular protection in third countries. The matter has caused great concern in Hong Kong and we thought it right to satisfy that concern.
      1 am
      In amendment No. 4, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Mr. Marshall) asks questions that are geared to facilitate for entry to Britain. I appreciate that my hon. Friend has the best interests of the people of Hong Kong in mind. Since Second Reading, we have had correspondence, and I shall think carefully about the additional comments that he made today, to which it would not be possible for me to give a detailed and clear reply until I have considered them. I do not believe that amendment No. 4 would facilitate travel by Hong Kong BDTCs, which is clearly his intention. There is no requirement for BDTCs to have visas, as opposed to entry certificates, for entry to the United Kingdom. I do not think that it would be appropriate, or well received in Hong Kong, to introduce such a requirement, even on an optional basis.
      There is a system by which Hong Kong BDTCs may obtain entry certificates, as opposed to visas, before travelling to the United Kingdom. These are not required for ordinary visits of less than six months, although they may be obtained if the traveller wishes. In addition, BDTCs who are bona fide frequent travellers may already obtain entry certificates that are valid for two years and allow multiple entry to the United Kingdom. I believe that this practice already substantially meets the requirement suggested by my hon. Friend.
      On the wider point of the international recognition of British National (Overseas) passports, I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government will do all that they can to ensure the same access to other countries as that enjoyed at present by BDTC passport holders. We intend to negotiate visa abolition agreements.
      Mr. Michael Marshall: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as what he has said is helpful. I confess that I had not appreciated the significance of the entry certificate for two years. Could that entry certificate be shown in a travel document and be carried over after 1997? If such a transfer of documentation were possible, that would go some way to meet the bridging process that was behind my amendment.
      Mr. Luce: If I may, I shall respond to my hon. Friend as soon as I have had time to consider the matter.
      I should not do justice to the Committee if I did not pick up some of the other important issues that have been raised, such as statelessness and other matters relating to passports. I was asked whether the British national (overseas) passports will state the right of abode in Hong Kong. A statement to that effect wil be entered by the Government with respect to the period before 1997, as laid down in s ection XIV of annex 1 to the joint declaration.

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      After 1997, we shall be able to state that the holder of the passport holds a permanent SAR identity card which is evidence of his right of abode in the SAR. The Government will discuss with the Chinese authorities the wording of a statement to be included in the BN(O) passport. The aim is to ensure that an individual need use his passport—and not have to supply an identity card—only to satisfy immigration officials in third countries that he has the right of abode in Hong Kong.
      The Government have undertaken to make every effort to explain arrangements to Third countries, as I have said. This will be done between the enactment of the Order in Council and the issue of BN(O) passports. Given a clear indication of the right of abode, I se no reason for third countries to introduce new restrictions on entry of BN(O) passport holders.
      I deal next with statelessness. It is only right that the hon. Members for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) and for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) brought this up. I should therefore restate the position and clarify it. The hon. Member for Battersea raised an additional question that I should answer.
      The Government have clearly stated their intention in this area. It is our intention that no former Hong Kong BDTC, nor any child born on or after 1 July 1997 to such a person, should be made stateless as a result of the arrangements envisaged in the Bill. All former Hong Kong BDTCs will be able to acquire BN(O) status if they wish before 1 July 1997. If they do this, they will retain that status for the rest of their lives. Any BDTCs who do not acquire BN(O) status and would otherwise be stateless — for example, if they are not Chinese nationals and hold no other nationality—will become British overseas citizens on 1 July 1997. The children born on or after 1 July 1997 to former Hong Kong BDTCs who are Chinese nationals will, of course, have Chinese nationality. Children born to non-Chinese former BDTCs will acquire British overseas citizen status at birth if they would otherwise be stateless.
      Here I answer the question of the hon. Member for Battersea. The proposal that children born after 30 June 1997 to non-Chinese former BDTCs should acquire BOC status automatically at birth if they would otherwise be stateless is intended to apply to the first post-1997 generation. However, we appreciate that there may be concern about potential statelessness arising among subsequent generations of non-Chinese Hong Kongers. It would not be appropriate as a general principle to grant British nationality indefinitely and without restrictions to the descendants of British nationals. However, problems of further generations and potential statelessness—and we are looking here into the next century—are being urgently examined in response to representations made by the non-Chinese community in Hong Kong. In this category we include some 5,000 Indian citizens.
      I therefore hope that what I have said answers the position as the Government see it. I reaffirm the position of non-Chinese BDTCs resident abroad which I outlined on Second Reading. Residence outside Hong Kong is not a bar to the acquisition of the new British national (overseas) status. Thus non-Chinese persons who are
      1070
      BDTCs by virtue of a connection with Hong Kong will be eligible to apply for the new status whether or not they are currently resident in Hong Kong.
      Mr. Adley: My hon. Friend referred to "Indian citizens". However, the people who have lived in Hong Kong of Indian descent, and who were never citizens of India before they moved to Hong Kong, because it was not an independent country, are in a separate category. From what my hon. Friend said, it seems to me that these people of Indian race in Hong Kong who are being offered British overseas citizenship will be at a distinct disadvantage as against the overwhelming majority of the Chinese citizens of Hong Kong, who have the option of a BOC passport or Chinese citizenship. Is it not fair that in due course we should make sure that these Indian people in Hong Kong have an alternative, namely, British citizenship, over and above the proposals that my hon. Friend has made?
      Mr. Luce: If I referred to them as Indian citizens, I must correct that. I am talking about people of Indian origin who are part of the community in Hong Kong—all of whom, incidentally, will have the right of abode in Hong Kong. They come into the category of non-Chinese citizens on which I have given a fairly long answer. I do not think that it would be right or proper to grant them a right of abode and British citizenship. I have tried to explain how we propose to deal with the problem of non-Chinese citizens. In any event, there will be further opportunities to debate this. There will be a preliminary debate on the draft order when we shall be able to take the views of the House. I may also be able to say something further on that occasion which I hope will be helpful.
      Mr. Faulds: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for the generosity of his assurances about Indian people living outside Hong Kong, but do those assurances cover the next generation?
      Mr. Luce: I have explained the position very carefully. I ask the hon. Gentleman to read Hansard with care. Clearly there will be a problem with subsequent generations going well into the next century and we are considering that urgently. I would rather not add anything to what I have said at this stage.
      Mr. Faulds: I appreciate the Minister's position and I do not wish to push him, but if he cannot give that assurance about the first generation after Hong Kong's subsumption by China what will be the position of those people? If they are refused British citizenship and abode, where will they be left?
      Mr. Luce: I am sorry. I think that there is a misunderstanding. The people to whom the hon. Gentleman refers, if they have no other citizenship and would otherwise be stateless, will be British overseas citizens. I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman's question.
      Mr. Faulds: I am grateful to the Minister.
      Mr. Luce: The hon. Member for St. Helens, South referred to the admission to this country of people whom he described as "at risk". In certain very limited cases rights of admission will exist at the discretion of the Home Secretary, but this will be on a very limited basis for people who have been exposed to special factors and considerations. It would be inappropriate to disclose the categories and numbers of people involved or the special

      1071
      considerations or factors concerned. I should add that that point has already been covered in previous statements and debates.
      Mr. Bermingham: I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance. Perhaps I may press him just a little further. I do not expect him to go into details about the categories. I appreciate the reasons for not doing that. Will the Minister confirm that the right of admission will apply not just to those people but to their families and dependants surrounding them? One accepts that there are varying degrees of family, but I hope that this will be considered in the Chinese context rather than the narrow English context.
      Mr. Luce: Our policy is that the assurances extend to spouses and dependent children under the age of 18, as we have stated on previous occasions.
      I have tried to answer all the main points raised in relation to the amendments. I hope that the Committee will find Government amendment No. 2 acceptable but for the reasons that I have given I do not think that it would be right to accept the other amendments.
      Amendment negatived.
      Amendment made: No. 2, in page 2, line 17, leave out from 'acquire' to end of line 18 and insert
      'a new form of British nationality the holders of which shall be known as British Nationals (Overseas)'.—[Mr. Luce.]
      Question proposed, That the schedule, as amended, be the schedule to the Bill.
      Dr. Marek: I tabled an amendment which replaced the word "may" with "shall", but it was not selected because in the House of Commons we are allowed not to instruct, but to ask Her Majesty to do things. The amendment sought to put strength into the argument that no one should be left stateless. This is not the time to consider constitutional questions. Although some people say that Orders in Council are archaic, they nevertheless allow the Government to do things that they could not do if they had to introduce legislation.
      The arguments about statelessness were well put in the previous debate. I am satisfied with the Government's comments except for one matter that arose in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham). I am not happy that the relatives of some people who may be allowed to come to this country would be limited to spouses and children up to the age of 18. We should perhaps reconsider that and allow wider discussion. These cases, by their very nature being special, could also involve other close relatives.
      We should now wait to see what the order provides. When we have it in front of us, we can debate it, and then it can be laid before the House. The Committee can do no more at this stage, and I am happy with the schedule as it stands.
      1.15 am
      Mr. Bermingham: I ask the Minister to reconsider his answer to me regarding the children and the spouse, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) referred. It worries me that a senior official in his middle years could be "at risk" and have a group of children with an age span from 10 to 25 years. I make this point because I acknowledge the sensitivity of the Minister's job.
      It is important to accept that some people will be in that position, if we are to provide good Government up to
      1072
      1997. We must seek to protect them. Does the Minister propose that we protect such an official and his children who are under 18 years of age, but leave behind his children who are over the age of 18? If so, we are inhumane, unseeing and unthinking. Everyone will retire promptly before their children reach the age of 18, and we shall not have the continuity of service that we need.
      Will the Minister reconsider the family definition in a broader context than in the past? Realism and experience show me and, I hope, the Minister, that a family must be taken as a unit, and that one must not draw an arbitrary line. In cases of immigration, arbitrary lines have caused a great deal of sadness. we can avoid that on this occasion. We are not considering a large number of people. If the Minister will consider the matter in a broader context, we could save a great deal of trouble in the future.
      Mr. Faulds: The comment, perhaps, ought to be made before we finish that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), as is his custom, issued some frightening prognostications tonight. He portrayed the preparation of a great plot between the Foreign Office, the People's Republic of China and the Government of Hong Kong. God help the Foreign Office. It normally does rather well, and I have the highest regard for it. However, that great plot was to pass a fraud on the people of Hong Kong and to fool them into thinking that their futures were safe when they were not. It ought to be known in those distant islands by the people whose future we are discussing that the right hon. Gentleman makes a practice of such frightening prognostications.
      Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I make a practice of being right.
      Mr. Faulds: Invariably, as the House will know, the right hon. Gentleman's forecasts prove utterly wrong.
      Mr. Powell: When?
      Mr. Faulds: On many occasions, for example, his forecast of the terrible dangers of immigration and rivers running with blood. They were all wrong. He will also be wrong about this. It is only fair to tell those people to sleep easy. The right hon. Gentleman is incorrect. The House, the Foreign Office and the people and Government of China are concerned about the future of the people of Hong Kong. They should be assured that, although we have the greatest regard for the right hon. Gentleman as a parliamentary performer, we know that he is given to these strange frenzies and fevers. They should be disregarded, because, of course, politically, he is a busted flush.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
      Bill reported, with an amendment.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      1.20 am
      Mr. George Robertson: At this late hour, we have completed consideration of an important Bill. Our consideration has not been without event, because although the amendment to the Bill is important, the prophecies of the Chinese language newspapers were probably right yet again. However, the Government have made some concessions during our considerations, and it is wise to put our gratitude on record. The Government conceded more time between the Second Reading and

      1073
      Committee stage. They agreed to have annual reports on the progress being made in the transition, and they have agreed to two debates on the Order in Council on British national overseas status. They have also included the name of that nationality in the Bill. They conceded that the Order in Council will have green edges. These are important concessions. The Government have listened to the will of the House and, in doing so, have done a great service to Parliament.
      This Third Reading is not the end of the story. The book is not closing on Hong Kong, and there are 12 more years until the handing-over of sovereignty. The House must be conscious of its continuing obligations to monitor and to be vigilant about progress right up to 1997. On the evening of 30 June 1997, we shall make the transfer, and the House's direct influence will have gone. Until then, however, we shall not stop the scrutiny which, in the long transitional period, is imperative.
      1.23 am
      Mr. Johnston: It has been a privilege and a responsibility to have taken part in these debates on our acceptance, following negotiations, of the transfer back to China of the island of Hong Kong and its related territories. I include not just the land, but 5·25 million people—as many people as live in Scotland. It is a very different island that we hand back from the rocky pirates' base that we secured in the last century in circumstances in which we cannot take pride. It is also a very different China, though many traditions pulse unchecked through different political structures.
      I said during our first debate, and repeated on Second Reading, that it is difficult for a Liberal to give an uncritical welcome to a Bill which surrenders sovereignty over a people without giving them an open, free choice. Nations, both large and small, continue, sadly, to be over insistent on their national pride and not sufficiently relaxed over the natural, individual and community urge to be independent that people have.
      The enclaves that remain here and there across the globe are the leftovers of empires, and do not fit into tidy patterns, but why must we always have tidy patterns? Freedom and tolerance are more important than tidy patterns and historic rights. However, there is no doubt that the remarkable, indeed unique, agreement reached between the Government and the People's Republic of China can provide a framework which, while assuaging
      1074
      Chinese national pride, can equally facilitate the continuing evolution of the vibrant, yet controlled, free enterprise community that is Hong Kong.
      The formulation of the basic law will continue to be central to setting the ground rules and to establishing whether or not the agreement will work. I hope that it will. I believe that at this moment, every responsible person in China, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom believes that it will work. We all pray that we are right, and that Hong Kong will have the future that we all want for it.
      1.26 am
      Mr. Luce: I think that hon. Members will agree that we have had full discussions in Committee and on Second Reading, and I hope that this will be a source of great reassurance to the people of Hong Kong. We hope that the Bill will proceed to the other place, and that the House will continue to show strong support for it. I have tried to accommodate as much as I could the anxieties and views of the House. I believe that the people of Hong Kong have every right to be pleased to know that it has been the strong desire of the House, on both sides, to retain the closest possible interest in Hong Kong in the years up to 1997. That, too should be a source of reassurance.
      It is partly for that reason that the British Government felt it right to make concessions on annual reports and due debate on the draft order, so that the accountability of the House is fully demonstrated. As the House knows, ratification of the agreement has to take place before 30 June 1997. Strong views have been expressed about Hong Kong and its future, which, like the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Johnston) I believe should give a renewed sense of confidence. In the meantime, I repeat that Her Majesty's Government remain firmly responsible for Hong Kong until 1 July 1998. Against that background, I warmly commend the Bill to the House.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  Statutory Instruments, &c.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 79(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).
  Statutory Instruments, &c.

    INTERNATIONAL IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES
    That the draft Specialized Agencies of the United Nations (Immunities and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 1985, which was laid before this House on 18th January, be approved.—[Mr. Durant.]
    Question agreed to.

  PETITION

    Human Embryos
    1.28 am
    Rev. Martin Smyth: As one born and bred in the constituency of Belfast, West, I beg leave to present a petition signed by 13,906 constituents of Belfast, West. It is entitled "Petition for the Protection of the Human Embryo". Unfortunately in one way, perhaps thankfully in another, the constituents are represented by a person who has won a seat in this place that he will not take. Therefore, I am delighted that they have asked me to present this petition to the House.
    The petitioners affirm their belief that the newly fertilised human embryo is a real, living individual human being. They oppose all practices that discriminate against the embryo and violate his or her human dignity and right to life. The petition continues:
    Wherefore your petitioners pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which forbids any procedure that involves the purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experiment.
    Your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    To lie upon the table.

  M1 (Driving Conditions)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Durant.]
  1.30 am
  Mr. Roy Galley: This Adjournment debate was sought because of increasing concern about driving conditions and standards on the M1 motorway. Recent accidents on the Ml, some in adverse weather conditions, have reinforced that concern. The problems to which I shall refer are undoubtedly experienced on other motorways throughout the country, but my familiarity and love-hate relationship with that road, having travelled up and down it between London and Yorkshire most weeks since June 1983, lead me to be specific about the M1.
  Since I initially sought this Adjournment debate, the Select Committee on Transport has published its report on road safety. It covers in much more detail many issues of motorway safety and other related matters. I hope that at a later stage the House will have an opportunity to debate them in greater detail.
  Observation during the last 18 months of travelling up and down the M1 suggests that traffic volume has increased and that driving standards have deteriorated. Coming southwards from Yorkshire, the difficulties become acute after the M69, the M6 and the M45 merge into the M1. At peak times—that phrase now seems to encompass most of the week except late at night and on Saturday afternoons—the stretch of the M1 from the Leicestershire-Northamptonshire border at least to the intersection with the M10 is, frankly, hell on earth.
  There is an enormous volume of traffic driving too fast, very often filling all three lanes. We are plagued by drivers who fail to adjust their driving speed and style to changing conditions, be it of weather or traffic volume. Too much traffic stays in the middle and fast lanes, even when there is room in the nearside lane. People, perhaps understandably, refuse to move over into the slow lane or the middle lane for fear of being boxed in. They are tending now to treat the middle lane as a normal progress lane rather than as an overtaking lane. This contributes to sudden traffic build-up and little room for manoeuvre if a dangerous situation arises. It leads to the even worse sin of drivers overtaking on the nearside, which is becoming an even more prevalent practice. Another major problem is that drivers move too rapidly from lane to lane, very often without indication. This can be particularly horrific if, as is sometimes the case, an enormous lorry is involved.
  Great efforts have been made in recent years to cope with the problems of the M1 and other motorways. While traffic virtually doubled on motorways between 1973 and 1983, a further 1,000 kilometres of motorway have been constructed. That has not quite doubled the amount of motorway but it has gone some way towards doing so. The number of fatal and serious accidents on motorways per 100 million vehicle kilometres has been reduced and, overall, accident rates on motorways compare well with those on other types of road.
  Accidents on the M1 specifically have been reduced since 1979. Yet the accident rates for Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire—the two areas with which I am most concerned—have not fallen so significantly. They have varied considerably, but they are still bad. As my hon. Friend the Minister will be aware, the key factor about a motorway accident is that it is much more horrific than a

  1077
  trunk road accident because of the domino effect. However, it must be said that motorway accidents occur less frequently than trunk road accidents.
  I know that my hon. Friend has taken considerable steps to improve the M1, and I fully acknowledge the achievements of recent years. However, I fear that we shall have to run much harder to avoid a serious build-up of future problems. I should like to make some suggestions for future policy. Improvements to adjacent roads and motorways, such as the A1, have been made and I understand that further steps are planned. For example, the extension to the M40 is under consideration, and I urge that that is undertaken at the earliest opportunity. It may siphon off some traffic from the M1, but I doubt whether it will be sufficient. Although the southern sections of the M1 have only recently been extended to three lanes, we should start giving serious consideration now to widening them to four lanes as soon as possible. We should also consider the development of other alternative routes. Considerable progress is also being made in lighting stretches of the M1. However, I urge that a further impetus be given to that programme. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) will seek to comment on that point.
  Television advertising campaigns can be very effective in reinforcing road safety messages and in influencing driver behaviour. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to undertake such a campaign relating to the specific dangers that I have outlined. Such campaigns have been successful in the past when mounted by the Department and aimed at motor cyclists and cyclists. The police do a marvellous job on the motorway, but more policemen would be welcome. It is remarkable what a sobering effect of the fact that a police car is parked by the side of the motorway has on us.
  In adverse conditions advisory speed limits are often ignored. There is surely a good case for making them mandatory, although for that to be effective, the authorities should not be over-cautious and start the restriction too distant from the point of danger. In order to make that effective, means also need to be found for a quicker feedback of information about changing conditions on the motorway.
  I come to a relatively minor point that is nevertheless worthy of consideration. Strictly speaking, it is illegal to use hazard warning lights while the vehicle is moving. Nevertheless it is enormously helpful to slowing traffic in difficult situations if such a warning is given. While the police are unlikely to prosecute if people commit such a technical offence, it seems sensible to remove the illegality and to encourage the practice.
  There is also the hoary old chestnut about sections of the motorway being cordoned off when little work is going on. One appreciates that cones may well be living entities in their own right, and that they need fresh air in order to breath and breed, so we need to keep them out in the fresh air for fairly long periods. However, there have been great improvements in the past two or three years in taking them back to the cone house at night, or as frequently as possible. But as recently as last Friday, I found a stretch near the Rothersthorpe service station where the motorway was coned off for more than two miles with no sign
  1078
  whatever of any activity. If there has been activity earlier in the day, it would seem sensible to remove the cones at peak times, even if they have to be returned later.
  There is another area in which we are improving a little. I refer to giving more advance notice at the 800-yard rather than at the 600-yard mark of when lanes are to be taken out of action.
  I plead with the Minister not to raise the motorway speed limit for cars. For many vehicles, 80 mph on motorways is the de facto speed limit. With improving vehicle performance, an official 80 mph limit would mean a de facto limit of 90 moh. Indeed, raising the speed limit for lorries has had some adverse effects on road safety, although one apreciates the arguments which led the Department to agree to that increase.
  I urge the Minister to give serious consideration to a noticeably deteriorating situation, to the need for a television advertsing campaign and to the need — I appreciate that it must be a long-term task—to extend that motorway to four lanes along its southern section at the earliest opportunity.
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I understand that the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) has the agreement of the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) and the Minister to intervene.
  1.41 am
  Mr. Bruinvels: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) for allowing me to take part in this important debate and, as he hinted that I might, to raise the question of lighting up the entire length of the Ml, a motorway that I use every weekend and sometimes more often.
  I must at the outset declare an interest in that I am the joint chairman—with the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson)—of the British parliamentary lighting group. Together, in May 1984 we wrote a book entitled, "Light up the Roads", a copy of which is in the Minister's possession and in which we advocated lighting up all the motorways of Britain.
  Since being elected in June 1983, I have sought to make motorways, including the M1, safer. At present, we have 1,100 miles of motorway unlit, and only 68 miles of the M1 are currently lit. On 12 December 1984, the Minister told me in a parliamentary answer in column 526 that it would cost £9 million to light up the M1 and £81 million to light up the rest of the motorway system, with maintenance for the whole system costing £9 million a year.
  I highlighted the facts in a letter to The Times on 24 December last, but the problems has not gone away. We have had a rough time with the weather recently, with fog and mist, rain and heavy snow. The Minister said on 21 November 1983 that motorway lighting could be expected to reduce the night time accident rate. That is an important point, bearing in mind that each night time fatality is now costing the nation £205,460.
  Lives could, therefore, be saved by bringing light to the motorways. In recent years, an average of 206 people a year have died on the motorways. On the M1 in particular there are regular contraflows and lane closures. It is vital that such areas, and junctions, are properly illuminated. As my hon. Friend said, cones get in the way, and at night they may not be seen clearly.

  1079
  When the M25 junction is functioning at the M1, lighting will be necessary. The road will be narrow at that point and lights will be required. Lights there and throughout the motorway system are necessary to keep motorists fully aware of all road conditions.
  I am pleased to learn, following lobbying, that the M1 is to be lit between Newport Pagnell service station and junction 16. This news was well received in the Daily Telegraph and motoring journals, and the move has been encouraging for those campaigning for more lights on motorways. In a parliamentary answer, my hon. Friend the Minister told me:
  "I am keeping under review the need to provide additional lighting on the remaining unlit stretches of the M1."
  —[Official Report 12 December 1984; Vol 69, c. 52.] Not surprisingly, that has given me great hope. It is good news, and I hope that we shall receive some more news—if not tonight, then in the not-too-far-distant future.
  Lighting can reduce accidents by 60 per cent., as has been proved. As recently as Tuesday this week, a man from Leicester was killed on the M1. So there is still a problem.
  The first report of the Transport Select Committee said:
  "we recommend the gradual installation of overhead lighting on existing motorways."
  I am especially encouraged to know that the Transport Select Committee is in favour of lighting the motorways. The Committee recommended also that all new motorways should have overhead lights. That is marvellous. We should encourage moves to light the rest of the M1. The Department of Transport made a submission stating:
  "If … there is a serious night accident problem which cannot be solved by other measures then lighting should be considered."
  The evidence that the accident rate during the hours of darkness is worse than the rate in daylight cannot be disputed. Is not the time right and is it not worth spending the money now to make the M1 a safer place on which to drive?
  1.45 am
  The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) on securing this debate. I know that the subject is of great importance to him. Many of us travel up and down the M1 and some other motorways with great regularity. This is a useful opportunity for me to hear hon. Members' views on the M1.
  The M1 has had to carry much more and much heavier traffic than was expected when work started on it in the early 1950s under my predecessor the former Member for Wallasey, the late Ernest Marples. This has required successive Administrations to monitor the M1's capacity. Work has been necessary to deal with wear and tear. Roads, like houses, need to be maintained, renovated and extended. It is no good thinking that we shall find some wonder product which means that we shall never have to resurface or repair.
  Steps have been taken to increase the capacity of the length of the M1 between junctions 5 and 8 in Hertfordshire, which was the first part of the motorway to be opened in 1959. Under a scheme completed in November 1983 — between these two junctions — the motorway was widened to at least three lanes in each direction. Some surplus land enabled us to provide four lanes northbound between the site of the new M1-M25
  1080
  junctions, now under construction north of M1 junction 6, and junction 7. Some new overbridges were built of sufficient width to accommodate a fourth lane if this became warranted in the future.
  We are seeking to deal in the short term with some capacity problems at junctions. At junction 9 in Hertfordshire and junctions 12 and 13 in Bedfordshire northbound traffic has at times queued back on to the motorway in peak hours. A new roundabout junction is now in operation at junction 13 and, to ease traffic flows from the motorway, we shall be installing peak hour traffic signals at junction 12 this year. At junction 9 we are investigating the use of peak hour signals. Hertfordshire county council is also carrying out junction improvements to ease traffic flows from the motorway on to local roads.
  My hon. Friend has suggested that the southern end of the M1 should be wider. While I have sympathy with the difficulties he and other hon. Members encounter, I have to say to him that here, as in relation to the rest of our motorway and trunk road system, we must use our limited resources carefully and build to the standard justified by the traffic volumes. I want to make it quite clear that we do not provide a particular standard of motorway or trunk road just because the route has a particular status.
  Public funds for that work are not unlimited. It is important that we get the best value for money. If we were to build four-lane carriageways in places where they cannot be justified in terms of the traffic likely to use them other much-needed schemes would be postponed or forgone. As I have said on many occasions, I am not prepared to do that, but I shall do all that is necessary to try to make our roads safer.
  Having said that, I am aware that traffic volumes on some of the southern sections of the M1 are beginning to build up, and we are monitoring that matter carefully. This is particularly true between junctions 7, the M10, and junction 10, Luton South. We hope that the M40 will be able to provide some relief.
  There are several good reasons for completing the M40. It will bring relief to the M1 and the choice of an alternative route. There will be operational benefits from that choice during periods of maintenance or other disruptions to traffic, and I am sure that many people will seek to use the alternative route on their way to the north-west.
  At the M40 public inquiry, my Department predicted that the M40 will, in normal conditions, attract between 13,000 and 16,000 vehicles per day from the M1 from the date of its opening. Even modest estimates suggest that these figures would rise to a range of 16,000 to 20,000 vehicles per day by the M40's design year of 2004.
  My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and Transport announced their decision on 14 December last to accept the recommendation of the inspector, who held the public inquiry into the proposals, that the new M40 motorway extension should be built.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax will agree that the relief we are seeking to provide by building the M40 will play a significant part in tackling the problems of congestion on the M1 which he has discussed today. The House should, however, be aware that since my right hon. Friends' decision there has been an application to the High Court seeking to have the made scheme quashed. It remains the Government's underlying policy to complete the M40 motorway.

  1081
  In the corridor to the east of the M1 , the A1 already provides a high standard dual carriageway alternative. With the completion of the scheme currently in progress at Hatfield in early 1987, the A1 will be of motorway standard all the way from its junction with M25 at South Mimms to the Bedfordshire border, and may offer a more attractive alternative than the A1 does at present for certain journeys. That too should help with the traffic on M1.
  I agree with what my hon. Friends have said about driver behaviour. I am worried about the deteriorating standards of motorway driving. Most motorway accidents are caused by a minority of drivers who fail to react sensibly to changing road, traffic and weather conditions. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that, in terms of accidents, motorway travel is much safer than travel on other main roads. The accident rate for the M1 is not out of line with the average rate for motorways nationally, but I understand the anxiety about accidents in Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire which my hon. Friend mentioned.
  Although the overall performance on motorways is the best of any roads, I accept that any accident is one too many. Offering advice and guidance is straightforward, but it is less easy to persuade road users to act on it responsibly. Our existing media coverage by press, radio and TV fillers is designed to do just that. We are currently running a campaign on motorway lane discipline and 23 million leaflets are being sent out by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre at Swansea with vehicle tax renewal reminders over the 12-month period from May 1984 to April 1985.
  My hon. Friend mentioned that he felt that we should have a full scale national publicity campaign on motorway driving. It would be very expensive and not necessarily cost effective. It is vital that we continue to direct our efforts towards road user groups known to be most vulnerable to traffic accidents. Our current campaigns on child pedestrian safety, cyclist safety and against driving after drinking are most important. I am afraid that generalised messages such as "Drive carefully" regrettably tend to be less effective. I assure the House that the Department will continue to co-operate with local initiatives to encourage safe driving. Much good work has been done in that respect, and it continues to be done, mainly by the police. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be glad to know that the police are considering a nationwide motorway safety campaign this year. One of the main points that we keep on trying to press home is that it is only by keeping an adequate distance behind the vehicle in front, sufficient to stop under all weather conditions, that one can be sure of not going into the back of another vehicle when an unexpected hazard arises.
  Motorists who are concerned to remain safe on our roads would be well advised to take an advanced driving course and the Institute of Advanced Motorists or ROSPA advanced test, and to keep those qualifications up to date.
  My hon. Friend spoke about the motorway speed limit. The raising of the 70 mph limit to 80 mph on motorways was rejected last year because of the likelihood of increased casualties. However, the possibility has been raised again by the Select Committee's report, which we are considering, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will look carefully at what it says.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax also said that he hoped we would consider making mandatory the temporary speed limit signs on motorways, which are currently advisory. I have already said in answer to questions in the House that we are considering that matter at present.
  I should like to refer to lighting the M1, which is of such concern to both my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels), who has been unrelenting in his pressure on behalf of safety through lighting on motorways. I think that he knows that we already constantly monitor accident rates on our motorways, and if a serious night-time problem develops on a particular length of road, lighting is automatically considered. A study is made, taking account of the possible accident savings, and capital running costs. I should remind my hon. Friend that I am reviewing road lighting policy following the serious multiple accident on the M25 in December, and in view of the recommendations of the House of Commons Committee on Road Safety in its recent report.
  As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax in answer to his question on 14 December, 68 miles of the M1 is lit out of a total length up to junction 43 of 194 miles. A further 16 miles of lighting is to be installed between the Newport Pagnell service area and junction 16, and we hope to complete that work by the end of 1986. The decision to light that stretch was taken in view of the night accident problem. It will fill a gap between stretches already lit and mean that the motorway will be lit from its start to junction 17, which is the junction with the M45, at junctions 19 and 21, and from junctions 24 to 26. The possibility of further lighting will be studied, but we can do the lighting only bit by bit because of the maintenance and cone problem to which my hon. Friend referred.
  I have given the go-ahead recently for the installation of closer-spaced matrix signalling at 1 km intervals on 50 miles of the M1 in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. We are getting on with that, and I hope that a start can be made on installation early next year. We shall monitor what happens. We hope that that will help to reduce the number of accidents, and we shall be able to evaluate the techniques that we are using for potential future use on other inter-urban motorways.
  I should like to refer to reconstruction and maintenance. I was grateful for what my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax said about the improvements. Because of changing the crossovers and various other technical matters where we have to have contraflow systems, travelling has improved. But drivers still drive far too close together, and still ignore the speed advice signs.
  I know how annoying it can be sometimes when, having been held up, one sees a length of cones, and apparently no work going on inside the cones. We do not leave cones out to get the sunshine or the moonlight. They are there only when necessary — sometimes for the drying out of the road surface, which, according to the time of year, can take varying times. That is sometimes annoying to the travelling motorist who has been delayed.
  This has been a useful and helpful debate. I have taken careful note of what has been said. I hope that I have been able to reassure my hon. Friends—at least partially—and the House that the Government hae an active concern for the needs of travellers on the M1 , and will take their needs fully into account when developing the future strategy for the motorways and, indeed, for greater safety upon them.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Two o'clock.

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

Lord Chapple
Francis Joseph Chapple, Esquire, having been created Baron Chapple, of Hoxton in Greater London, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Willis and the Baroness Seear, and made the solemn Affirmation.
Viscount Allenby—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Students' Unions: Membership
2.48 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider sympathetically the proposals from the Federation of Conservative Students for the abolition of the present system of compulsory membership of students' unions and its replacement by a system of voluntary membership.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, the Government have noted these proposals, which would require legislation to implement. They do not at present intend to introduce legislation for the purpose, although the question of student union activity is under review. The Government have sympathy with the aim underlying the FCS proposals of preventing a small and often unrepresentative group of students from determining student union policies and actions in the name of a whole student body. The Government will be consulting higher education interests about what action it might be appropriate to take on the issue, and in so doing will take these proposals into account.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply, which is a little disappointing. Would he explain further the reasons for keeping a system going—his Answer notwithstanding—in which over £40 million of public money every year is given to student unions? Many thousands of pounds of that money are subsequently squandered on expenditure which has nothing whatever to do with education: for example, for the funding of buses and coaches for demonstrations, and for donations to political causes such as funds for striking miners.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, the Government have much sympathy with the question of my noble friend. The present arrangements which give rise to
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automatic membership of student unions derive from the provisions of charters and statutes in the case of universities, and articles of government in that of public sector institutions. Provisions can only be amended at the initiative of the governing bodies of the institutions or by legislation.
I am sure that my noble friend will be glad to hear that the Government believe that reform is needed, but they have no wish to involve themselves directly in matters which have traditionally and rightly been regarded as the responsibility of universities, polytechnics and colleges. They therefore intend to consult the institutions themselves as to how reforms can be introduced to ensure that union policies and actions are properly representative of their membership. In the light of the outcome of these consultations, the Government will consider whether further action may be appropriate.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, when the Government are further considering this matter, will they bear in mind that the student unions perform many useful tasks for students, as well as making a nuisance of themselves on occasion? Would they also consider that many students are short of money, and they might prefer that this quite large grant out of public funds which is available to their unions was paid to them, and they could then make up their minds regarding what they want to do with it?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes, my Lords, I agree largely with what the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, has said. Most student union expenditure is on the provision of welfare, sports and social services which need to be available within institutions and are rightly paid for from public funds. In so far as the Government might consider it appropriate to constrain expenditure by student unions, they will propose to transfer any savings that might arise into the grants made to individual students to enable them to choose individually whether or not to spend the money on excluded activities.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm whether there have been occasions when students have been expelled from their courses for not belonging to a union? If so, is not that an absolute scandal?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I do not know any details. I shall have to write to my noble friend.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, will the noble Earl redeem his rather disappointing reply to the noble Baroness by throwing light on two quite specific questions? First is he able to confirm from his extensive briefing that the total cost to public funds of support for student unions is well in excess of £20 million? Secondly, can he tell us anything about the recent developments in Australia where there has been legislation against requiring students to subscribe and belong to unions against their wishes?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, my ignorance of what happens in Australia is only matched by my ignorance of the answer to the first part of the noble Lord's question. I shall have to write to him on both points.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, will the noble Earl bear in mind that in the view of many of us the noble Baroness has grossly exaggerated such problem as there is? Will he also bear in mind that the income of students' unions from grants and from subscriptions is used to provide facilities for all students? It would be grossly unjust if some students were allowed to avoid paying their share.
The Earl of Swinton: No my Lords, I do not think that my noble friend has grossly exaggerated. She has put her case fairly and I hope that we are proceeding in the right way by consulting the institutions concerned.
Baroness David: My Lords, is it not the case that the Federation of Conservative Students is a slight embarrassment to the Conservative Party? Have there not been two official complaints from the Young Conservatives and the Conservative Student Unionists to the party about the tactics used by the federation in disrupting conferences and preventing free debate? At the December Conference of the National Union of Students a guide was produced on how to disrupt; and by putting up eight to 10 candidates for each elected post at the Easter Conference are they not still further pursuing disruptive tactics?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I answer for the Government and not for the Conservative Party; but the federation certainly have not embarrassed me.
Lord Bauer: My Lords, is it right for the noble Earl to belittle such matters as the expulsion of students from their courses for refusing to join a students' union, as has happened in Bristol and Manchester, among other places? Is this not a deplorable restriction on access to higher education?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes, my Lords, if this is so, I think that it is.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the Minister agree that it is not inconceivable to assume that many students belong to political parties other than the Conservative Party? Before anything is done, ought not the views of those and the percentage who do not belong to any political party be heard as well as Tory Party views before the Conservative Government indulge in any action on behalf of one political section of the National Union of Students?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, obviously this is true. It is a good thing that politics do have a place among students, and that is healthy and right. Yes, my right honourable friend is always ready to consider the views of any student body.
Earl De La Warr: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that recently the Essex University Students' Union voted against a Motion condemning the Brighton bombing?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, if they did so I think that they were probably mistaken.

Gas Appliances: Installation
2.57 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage those who use gas appliances to employ only trained and qualified personnel for their installation.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1984 prohibit any person, paid or unpaid, from working with gas unless he is competent. The Health and Safety Executive will be publishing a leaflet aimed at householders and all who use gas, drawing attention to the main points of the regulations and stressing that only people with adequate technical knowledge and experience of the type of work may work with gas.
The British Gas Corporation's own publicity campaigns also emphasise that only competent people shall install or service appliances or systems. Their craftsmen are all trained.
The Confederation of Gas Installers maintains a register of over 10,000 installers, approved to its standards of competence. This scheme is widely publicised, including by the British Gas Corporation.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for his helpful reply. The figures he has given are encouraging. Is he aware that, despite what he has said and despite the fact that installers are trained for the work they are supposed to carry out, there are a great number of people who not only instal their own appliances, but also change their appliances, thereby perhaps causing explosions?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the new regulations have extended a specific statutory requirement of competence to personnel working on all types of gas fitting work. Previously a statutory requirement of competence existed only for work with the installation of pipes and appliances. I think that we need to see how the regulations now work out in practice.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his helpful reply, but may I ask him two questions? In regard to the application of the regulations, is it not a fact that it can be found out that they have been breached only after the event, when perhaps somebody has been killed? Is it still the Government's intention, as was made clear during the progress of the Oil and Gas (Enterprise) Bill through this House in 1982, to introduce a stringent and strict licensing scheme for gas installers, as is the case in the United States, Canada and many of our European neighbours? Is it still the Government's intention at some stage to bring in such a licensing system?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, as I said, I think that the regulations are a step forward. They extend far more widely than the previous regulations and, notwith

1063
standing the noble Lord's comments, we must see how they work out in practice. In reply to his specific second question, I would say that licensing is one option for control; but as the 1984 regulations have come into effect only recently—indeed, part of them come into effect only during this month—we need to assess their effect before taking any further view on licensing.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, does the Minister accept that sometimes the safety aspect of this matter is carried just a little far? For example, this week in my own little flat I needed to have a small asbestos pad placed at the back of the gas fire. I went to the showroom to try to buy it and was told that I could not fit it myself but that it had to be fitted by a qualified gas engineer. He arrived a few days later. I got the bill this morning, which was for £1.15 for the little asbestos pad and £18 for five minutes' work by the qualified engineer. I think this is an aspect which should be looked into as well.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I think nonetheless that the noble Lord would agree with probably all other noble Lords in the House that qualifications are desirable. So far as the bill which reached the noble Lord is concerned, I wish him the best of luck with that.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, are the gas industry running into some trouble? They seem to be digging up the streets all over London at the present moment.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I think that that falls a little wide of the original Question.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister what publicity will be given to the regulations which I understand are coming into force this month?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, they will be given wide publicity through the Department of Employment and the Health and Safety Commission and Executive.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, could they not be asked to include that with the bill once or twice, so that everybody is aware of it in the easiest possible way?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I shall draw that interesting suggestion to the attention of my right honourable friend.

Student Unions: "Sabbatical Officers"
3.2 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many "sabbatical officers" of student unions in universities and polytechnics are in receipt of grants and what is the total cost to public funds.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, student union officers on sabbatical leave are not eligible for mandatory grants. They are paid by their student unions out of public funds allocated to the unions by the institutions concerned. There are no official statistics about the number of sabbatical officers in receipt of such payments or about the amounts in question. Material published by the student unions indicates, however, that university student unions have an average of four sabbatical officers each.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply, but is it not rather extraordinary that there are no precise figures for both universities and polytechnics? This question has been talked about for a number of years. Is it not the case that even if the money comes out of student union funds, it is still ultimately public money, which is reaching students who, by definition, are not engaged in study?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I think that there are a number of statistics which are not known and that is one of them.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, is it not a fact that the major part of the activities of the student unions are concerned with the provision of welfare and social facilities, along the lines which the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, suggested in an earlier question? That being so, does it not mean that those officers on sabbatical leave are having the opportunity to develop very important business and managerial initiatives? Is that not to be welcomed by the Benches opposite?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I would go some way, at least, towards agreeing with what the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, has said. I think that the proper work of student unions is in organising student services and facilities, and that this may well require the attention of full-time officers. However, whether there is a need for so many officers as there appear to be in order to manage unions efficiently is a question which the Government will raise in their consultations with higher education interests, to which I referred in an earlier Question.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that the figure of an average of four such officers per university gives the impression that there are not very many? Would he not agree that, in fact, the total number is about 300?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, these figures, I think, may not be very accurate, anyway, because they were collected by the Students' Association at Edinburgh University on behalf of the Student Union Senior Officials' Conference in 1979–80 and so they are slightly out of date. I understand that at the time the top end of the range—Manchester University (including UMIST)—had nine such officers in 1980, but 85 per cent. of universities had five or fewer and 60 per cent., four or fewer.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, would the noble Earl take account of what the noble Baroness behind me has said: that these students have not only to run their business end of the catering of the union

1065
and everything else, but also have to administer the funds for every form of society—athletic and otherwise—and this provides very valuable business experience? In Dundee University, of which I had the honour to be rector for three years, there were only two sabbaticals. They worked extraordinarily hard and, I am sure, were cheaper than employing salaried people from outside.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord is right and that the Scots, as always, show that they are fairly canny in these matters. I think that it is fair to say that some of these students on sabbatical gain very good experience. Some, perhaps, gain slightly less salubrious experience.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, if the noble Earl is agreeing that the original purpose in publicly funding student unions was so that students should learn democracy, does he really persist in his opinion that the failure to produce figures in regard to their accounts is unimportant?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I am not quite sure that I understand what my noble friend is getting at. Obviously, these accounts exist, but they are not collected
centrally.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether there is any student union or any student officers at the University College of Buckingham, with which the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, is closely associated?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I do not know the answer to that supplementary question. I shall have to write to the noble Lord.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I think that we have had enough of students for one afternoon. They are extremely important and the Questions are very important, indeed; but we have had two of them. I think that we should now pass on to the next Question.

Southern Lebanon: Peace-Keeping
3.6 p.m.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, with the Lebanese Government's support and with our European Community partners, they will take urgent steps in the Security Council to make the United Nations responsible for keeping the peace in those parts of Southern Lebanon where that Government's writ does not run, as Israel withdraws her occupying forces.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, we have emphasised to all the parties the need for agreed and effective security arrangements in areas to be vacated
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by Israeli forces. It is for the Lebanese Government to request further United Nations help on their territory.
Lord Chelwood: My Lords, is it not beyond doubt that Resolution 425 of the Security Council which the United States proposed, which was unanimous and which is mandatory, requires Israel's withdrawal from the whole of South Lebanon and also requires the United Nations, through UNIFIL, to give every assistance that it can to the Lebanese Government to restore its own effective authority? Is that not what the Lebanese Government wish to achieve and is it not understandable that they are nervous about an Israeli withdrawal only taking part so far as stage one is concerned, leaving the United Nations in a buffer zone which separates two halves of the Lebanon?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is right to point to the effect of Resolution 425. That resolution also refers to the wishes of the Lebanese Government and we regard their wishes as paramount in this matter.
Lord Shinwell: My Lords, will the noble Lord be kind enough to explain what is meant by the United Nations keeping the peace? Does that mean that they are going to organise a force? If so, from where? And who is going to provide the finance for it? Or does it mean that we are going to listen again over a period of time, far too long, to a series of platitudinous resolutions which have no effect whatever? Would it not be far better to encourage the Israelis to get out of there and leave them to fight it out themselves, to kill each other—which is what they are determined to do? Would it not be far better to encourage the Israelis to get out? The Israelis should never have gone in.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Government certainly made their views about the Israeli entry into the Lebanon clear at the time. We were very pleased to hear the announcement from the Israeli Cabinet (on, I think, the 14th January) that they intended to withdraw completely. I understand that the first phase is expected to be complete around 18th February. But, of course, there is already a United Nations force in Lebanon and we hope that they can be assisted to discharge their mandate.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, while we hope for a successful conclusion to the Israeli withdrawal, is it not possible that violence of the type described by my noble friend Lord Shinwell may occur in South Lebanon? In these circumstances, what action are Her Majesty's Government taking within the United Nations to secure a peacekeeping force, and would Her Majesty's Government be prepared to contribute to such a force?
Further, does the noble Lord recall the initiative suggested by President Reagan; namely, that talks should take place between the Soviet Union and the United States about the Middle East? Do Her Majesty's Government agree that the position and the stability of the Lebanon should be part of such talks?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I must emphasise that the responsibility for security in areas of Lebanon to be vacated by Israel rests with the Lebanese army and the

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Lebanese police. If there is to be a request for further United Nations assistance, that must come from the Lebanese. As for the United Nations force, that, of course, already exists in the Lebanon, and, as the noble Lord will be aware, we provide substantial logistic support for that force.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that the existing United Nations force, bearing in mind all the restrictions and difficulties, has succeeded in limiting the killing and disorder in southern Lebanon? Would he also agree that, while the strengthening of the United Nations force is urgently needed, it is important that its role should be extended to the southernmost part of Lebanon? Otherwise, it will remain as a kind of buffer betweeen the Lebanese army in the north and the Israeli-sponsored South Lebanon army in the south, and that would be disastrous.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I certainly agree that the United Nations force in Lebanon has achieved important successes during the time it has been there, but I think it would have been able to achieve more had it been allowed to extend its area of operations. However, that is a matter for the Lebanese Government and not for the British Government.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, while it is obviously right that any suggestion as to a UN force must come from the Lebanon, could the noble Lord not go so far as to say that, if it did come, we and the United Nations would agree to the reconstitution of a larger force; that we agree with present moves between the United States and the Soviet Union to talk to each other about the Middle East in general; and that we agree with the proposal for a United Nations conference on the future of the whole Near East?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, we should certainly want to agree to any proposal that contributed to additional security and peace in the area in question. We in fact provide important support for the United Nations force, to which I have already referred. I do not think I can go further than that.
Lord Molloy: My Lords—
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will not mind if I say that I do not think he should have a second innings today, and I think it would be reasonable if we brought these Questions to an end now. They have gone on for a considerable time.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lady Young will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement to be made in another place on Gibraltar. This will be followed by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, who, with the leave of the House, will repeat a Statement on RAF Molesworth. That will be followed by my noble friend Lord Avon, who, with the leave of the House, will repeat a Statement on local government practice and procedures.

Business of the House: Short Debates
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the names of the Lord Henderson of Brompton and the Lord Hunter of Newington set down for 20th February shall be limited to 2½ hours and that Standing Order 35 and paragraphs 10 to 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates set out in Appendix H to the Companion to the Standing Orders shall apply to each debate.—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business of the House: Arrangement of Order Paper
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Monday next to allow the Motion standing in the name of the Lord Trefgarne to be taken before the Second Reading of the Licensing (Amendment) Bill [H.L.].—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Civil Defence
3.14 p.m.
Lord Renton Lord Renton rose to call attention to the duty of central Government and of local authorities to deal with peacetime emergencies, and to provide Civil Defence in case of conventional, biological, chemical or nuclear attack; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. Your Lordships will realise from the light which is shed upon our proceedings this afternoon that it is a stroke of good fortune that this debate takes place so soon after the introduction of the noble Lord, Lord Chapple, who has himself shed so much light on industrial relations in this country.
This is our first full debate on Civil Defence for five years, although there have been others. It is a matter which is vital to all our people, and it is therefore gratifying that so many of your Lordships have indicated an intention to take part, including four noble Baronesses. It is a big subject, and all that I can hope to do is to outline it in a relatively short speech; but a number of noble Lords have told me of their intention to deal with particular parts of the subject.
There are, I suggest, three reasons why peacetime emergencies should be in the forefront of a debate on Civil Defence. The first of these reasons is that peacetime disasters occur in this world with increasing severity in our modern industrial society, and we want to know what is going to be done about it. Secondly, those who have to cope with peacetime emergencies are also responsible for Civil Defence in wartime. Thirdly, I say that if people are properly trained, equipped and organised to deal with peacetime

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emergencies they will be well on the way to preparing for wartime if by some mischance it should come.
Let us consider first the peacetime risks. Of course, most of the ordinary ones are familiar to us—fire, floods, blizzards, railway accidents, pile-ups on motorways and aircraft crashes. But some of these are on a pretty big scale so that our splendid fire, ambulance and police services which have to deal with them are sometimes very hard pressed and need help from well organised volunteers. May I give an example? Three or four years ago there were the most appalling blizzards in the West Country and the South-West of England. In Devonshire there were 2,000 Devon emergency volunteers, and they had members in every village. Nearly all the villages were cut off, but those volunteers were trained and organised for Civil Defence and were therefore there to help with first-aid, rescue, the care of the sick and the elderly, and so on.
Mercifully, we have so far escaped massive industrial disasters in this country, but one must bear in mind that they have taken place. In Bhopal recently, where 2,000 people died and 100,000 people became ill, thousands were made homeless and had to leave their homes, all through the escape of a lethal gas from one chamber in what appeared to be a well-run chemical works.
Then there was an occurrence at Mississauga in Canada, a town of 240,000 people. There was a railway accident in which railway tankers carrying chlorine were turned over and burst open, and a huge cloud of chlorine gas hung over the town. The place had to be evacuated, and within 24 hours 218,000 people were moved out, including all the people in the hospitals and nursing homes in that city. Then your Lordships will remember Seveso, in Italy—a most deplorable affair, where dioxin gas escaped from a chemical plant, causing lung trouble to many people who will suffer increasingly from lung cancer as the years go on. In that particular case crops and animals were also badly affected.
In the United States there was the Three Mile Island case—a serious threat of nuclear radiation which was prevented from becoming a major catastrophe affecting millions of people with only a few minutes to spare. We have had less serious peacetime nuclear accidents here; and there is quite natural anxiety about the transport and disposal of nuclear waste. Our worst industrial accident so far was at Flixborough chemical works in Lincolnshire, where a lot of damage was done but where, mercifully, it was contained without affecting very many human beings.
On occasions like that, and with all the natural peacetime disasters on a big scale, we need the massive support of trained volunteers. We have altogether, in those counties which have gone about it, 17,000 volunteers. That sounds a lot, but if one really thinks it out, in order to cover England and Wales satisfactorily we need not 17,000 but 200,000—and I shall come to more of that anon. With science and industry groping their way continually into the unknown, to say that disasters like those I have mentioned will not happen here because of our industrial safety legislation, which is pretty elaborate, would literally be courting disaster and, if we had a
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disaster on the scale of Bhopal or Seveso, our present emergency services would be swamped, even with the valuable help of the WRVS, the Red Cross and the St. John's Ambulance.
It will be interesting to hear from my noble friend Lord Elton whether the Government and the local authorities would be able to deal with very large-scale peacetime disasters. It will also help to know what they intend to do to encourage the recruitment and training of many more volunteers. Thousands of people would surely welcome the chance to become emergency volunteers, and (dare I say it?) especially would many young unemployed people welcome that opportunity.
In the Conservative manifesto at the last general election we promised to amend the Civil Defence Act 1948 to enable Civil Defence funds to be used for peacetime emergencies as well as for warlike preparations. No such legislation has yet been introduced. The Government want it to be done by a Private Member's Bill in one House or another; but we all know the hazards of getting Private Members' Bills through both Houses, even those which are relatively non-controversial, and I therefore hope that the Government will think again about that. It really is leaving too much to chance in an important matter. Again, if I may make so bold, I think there is some legislation—some very lengthy, somewhat controversial legislation—which is being introduced and which is less important than that which I have mentioned.
So much for peacetime disaster: let us now consider the wartime risks. There are some misguided people who suggest that a nuclear holocaust is the only wartime risk that we need contemplate. They then say, "No lives could then be saved; Civil Defence would be completely ineffective". I suppose that the most extreme attitude on that matter is the one expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, who I am so glad is to take part in this debate even though it rather looks from the list of speakers as if he may be a lone ranger.
We are accustomed to the noble Lord's quaint and somewhat endearing eccentricities, but I think that he excelled himself the other day when he swept away all thought of saving any lives if ever there were a nuclear attack and said that we should simply issue millions of suicide pills. Obviously, if there were a complete honeycomb attack covering the whole of the British Isles there would not be many survivors. I grant him that. But I say to him, and to those who think like him, that that is the least likely of the possible risks for which we should be providing. Consider the facts—
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I shall of course deal later on with the point that he is making, but there is one thing that ought to be said now, in view of what he has just said. The Government's own assumption of the major risk is that there will be a major nuclear attack. It is not my assumption that he is attacking: it is his own Front Bench's assumption. I shall oppose him on that later.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I very much doubt whether the noble Lord's interpretation of the Government's views is correct, but we shall no doubt hear from my

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noble friend about that. I say that the right approach in assessing the wartime risks is the "all-hazards" approach. We should consider every possibility. There are some risks which are obviously less likely than others, and, to my mind, the least likely risk of all is that the deterrent will fail to deter.
Let us just consider what has happened in the last 40 years, since the end of World War II. Believe it or not, my Lords, during those 40 years there have been at least 30 major wars or civil wars in various parts of the world, and they have all been fought with conventional weapons. About 10 million people have died in those 30 wars and civil wars, mostly civilians. For example, in Vietnam 150,000 military deaths took place, but 3 million civilians died. Although the great powers, including ourselves, have been involved in some of those conflicts in the last 40 years—for example, we were involved in the Falklands—there has been no direct confrontation between the United States and Russia, no war in Europe, no World War III, and not one nuclear weapon has been used, though goodness knows!, there have been plenty about. I say that we should bear in mind that all those wars have been fought with conventional weapons, and so, surely, the most probable warlike risk for which we should prepare in this dangerous world is the risk of conventional attack.
Other countries have taken this matter very seriously, and perhaps it is significant that it is the neutral countries, like Switzerland, Sweden and so on, who are not likely to be any more involved in warlike activities in the future than they ever were in the past, who have taken the need for Civil Defence most seriously of all. Of course, we all hope that there will never be another war. We should like to, "Ring out the thousand wars of old. Ring in the thousand years of peace." But to say that there could never be another war in which we were involved would be the triumph of hope over experience.
So much for the wartime risks. We need not dwell on them any more. I hope, for the moment, but what should we do about them? Surely it is prudent for us to insure against the consequences of being involved, to pay a modest insurance premium by having an effective nationwide Civil Defence, as we had until 1968. If we had that, lives could be saved if we were attacked by conventional, biological or chemical weapons, or even, if it were not too massive an attack, a nuclear weapon.
In fairness I must say this. The Government have already done a good deal to improve Civil Defence since our debate five years ago. But there is still a good deal more to be done, as the Government themselves acknowledge. Spending on Civil Defence, which one might say is the amount of the insurance premium that we pay, during those five years has risen in real terms from £22 million a year to £70 million a year—these figures, by the way, exclude the cost of central administration in the Home Office and other departments—and the Government have already planned to increase the annual premium beyond £70 million during the next three years.
We have the best early warning system in the world, and in 1983 the Government asked Parliament to
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approve the new Civil Defence regulations—they were new then, anyway—which require local authorities to make effective Civil Defence plans and preparations. But some local authorities, instead of doing so, simply declared their areas to be nuclear-free zones. That, no doubt, caused a big laugh in the Kremlin, but it was not so funny for the people in those areas, for it meant that their elected councillors were in breach of their statutory duties. It meant also that they were ignoring their humanitarian duty to reduce casualties, even in a conventional conflict. Also, incidentally, it meant that they were missing the chance to recruit volunteers who could be of such great help with peacetime emergencies.
I am sorry to have to mention that the nuclear-free zones include the Greater London area, Wales, and metropolitan counties with socialist majorities. The GLC has so neglected its duties as to turn the war-time control room into a museum, and its unwillingness to prepare to help the citizens of this great city is, I find, deplorable. The joint authority proposed by the Government to deal with fire services and Civil Defence in the place of present arrangements when the GLC is finally abolished would, I think, be an improvement—it must be an improvement—on the present situation, which is a non-situation.
We were told recently by my noble friend Lord Elton—if I may have his attention—that no local authority had actually refused to carry out duties under the Civil Defence regulations, but it is clear that many local authorities have simply not carried out their duties; indeed, those to which I am referring have scarcely even paid lip service to doing so. Lack of finance is no excuse for local authorities because the Government are paying on average 85 per cent. of local authorities' costs of all Civil Defence expenditure. In addition, that expenditure will be exempt from rate capping and from cash penalties.
The recruitment and training of volunteers is, of course, vital to success in rebuilding Civil Defence. Already there are, as I say, 17,000 volunteers—2,000 in Devon, 2,500 in Wiltshire, 800 in Surrey, and about 600 in Cambridgeshire—but some large councils have none, because their Left-wing councillors do not want them. There is a generous grant for the training and equipping of them and so there is no financial excuse for not getting on with it.
When we last had a good Civil Defence organisation industrial Civil Defence played an important part; and I hope that it will do so again because industry can do so much to help with rescue services, transport, canteens and in many other ways. I trust that the Government will take full advantage of the skills and equipment that industry can provide. But some incentive is needed and so if firms spend money on Civil Defence preparations, it should be tax deductible, as it used to be. In addition, the Industrial Advisory Panel, representing both sides of industry, should be revived.
In conclusion, my Lords, I hope that I have said enough to convince you of the actual risks we face in peace and war and of what needs to be done to provide reasonable protecton for our people if, by mischance, the risks should materialise. The "all hazards" approach is the only safe and sensible one. Some people say, strangely enough, that even to take

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precautions would frighten people; but the British are not easily frightened and they would rather be reasonably prepared for the worst, while hoping for the best. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the House, possibly the nation, will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for bringing before us this afternoon the question of Civil Defence—a matter upon which there has been much debate, much discussion, and considerable misunderstanding. Let me say at the outset that any Government, any responsible Opposition, who do not take to themselves the need to protect their citizens and to do so reasonably and sensibly are not worthy of the name of either the Government of this country or the Opposition in this country. I say that especially in regard to the first two elements of this Motion.
I listened with great care to what the noble Lord had to say about the question of peacetime emergencies and to the way in which he developed his theme with regard to some of the disasters that have befallen countries other than ours—obviously, we have the greatest sympathy for those people who are affected by them—and, indeed, some of the, thank heavens, comparatively minor disasters which have occurred in the United Kingdom. I thought it right that we should be reminded of those matters. I thought that the noble Lord was going to say—certainly with regard to this country—how in relation to each of those disasters we had such reason to be proud of our police force, our fire brigades, our hospitals, our nurses and the Red Cross, who went in and who assisted so valuably. I say that because this has indeed been one of the great strengths with which we have managed to face such disasters. Obviously any sensible person would say that there is room here for volunteers, too. Any invitation that was accorded, and any extension of those who are already gallantly serving as volunteers, must be welcomed by every Member of your Lordships' House and by all the citizens of this country. There can be no difference between us with regard to that.
Past Governments of whatever complexion have had to face the difficulties of conventional warfare—this is a phrase that has come into use after the dreadful inventions which have taken place and which mean that we now talk in terms of nuclear war and conventional war. Before the last great war, we knew of only one type of war—although we equally feared the gas and the germ warfare that was mentioned but which, by the grace of God, did not occur in the last war.
Again, in regard to conventional war, one realises that there should be and must be some kind of organisation to deal with threats of that nature. In my view, there is no need for a long speech from me on this occasion in dealing with this Motion because, except for a certain portion of his speech, I found myself in agreement with most of what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said.
Two questions arise. First, who are the proper people to deal with the threat of conventional war by way of Civil Defence? Secondly—and one cannot separate the organisation—who is to deal with the
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threat of a nuclear war? I found nothing in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, dealing with a national duty—except one, presumably, to bring forward public legislation instead of private legislation—other than concerning the supply of money.
It happens to be the case (and this is a little germane to our contemporary political scene in regard to local government) that generally speaking—and with only a few exceptions which I shall readily read out but I want to abbreviate my speech—there is a 75 per cent. subsidy to local government for Civil Defence purposes. Local government of whatever political hue must face the expenditure represented by that 25 per cent. of total expenditure, in the main, at a time when the Government have cut into the powers of local government in a way that has never been done before by any other Government of whatever complexion. The Government have done that at the expense of the care in peacetime—here and now—of old people, of children in schools, of the disabled, and of others who need help.
I am not debating this point on behalf of any particular local authority; but is it not extraordinary that in these times, with rate capping and all the rest, local authorities throughout the kingdom are being told, "You ought to spend money of quite a substantial nature on Civil Defence, when you cannot adequately and properly deal with the needs of your citizens, and the existing needs of your citizens. You have to set those considerations aside"—and I am not speaking here of emergencies—"because of the hypothetical and dreadful question of the possibility of war"?
I go on from the question of expenditure to the question of good organisation. The noble Lord—
Lord Renton: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the subject of expenditure, I had hoped that I would make it clear—and I hope to be forgiven for not doing so—that expenditure on Civil Defence is exempt from rate capping and exempt from cash penalties.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I had appreciated that point, as the noble Lord would have expected me to; I spoke of an era of rate capping. I was not speaking in terms of this expenditure being counted for rate-capping purposes. I am talking about the whole atmosphere in which this expenditure has to be envisaged.
I do not limit my case to expenditure but now go on to organisation. As the noble Lord has said very fairly, there are certain authorities who rightly or wrongly—and I am not arguing the case for that—regard their responsibilities here as being either beyond their capability or that they are responsibilities which local authorities should not be called upon to undertake. It is one of the two; whatever may be the reasons, they do not want to undertake those responsibilities.
If one views that situation nationally, it means that there are authorities which are taking very seriously their tasks in respect of Civil Defence in the event of conventional war or nuclear war; there are those which are acting moderately seriously, and there are those which are doing nothing al all, in spite of the

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mandatory nature of the 1983 regulations. Is that good organisation? Is the alternative that of sending in a commissioner at the Government's instance and representing the Government to look after the region concerned? Is the Director of Civil Defence at the present moment seeing to it that local authorities are not overlapping in their work; and that there is proper planning as between neighbouring local authorities, quite apart from a local authority carrying out its organisational responsibilities in respect of civil defence? Or is he not?
The answer is this—and I say this with all due respect. The Government are evading their responsibility by carrying on this debate—which the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has opened so adequately this afternoon—and are putting all the burden and blame onto local authorities. In this kind of atmosphere it is the Government who should take the responsibility for Civil Defence, and they should do that regionally. If that is thought to be an eccentric proposition, then I have this to say to the noble Lords, Lord Renton and the Minister.
We in this Chamber have heard debates about the abolition of local authorities. That has not yet been carried out by the will of Parliament but it has been debated in Parliament. The Government are content that fire brigades should go to regional authorities, as I understand it—
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, I must put the record straight. There is no such intention. The areas proposed for the fire brigades are no larger than those which now exist.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am not talking about their size; I am talking about whether or not they will be democratically controlled by local authorities as they are at the moment. I shall give way immediately if the noble Lord the Minister will announce to the House and the nation that fire brigades will now be controlled throughout the kingdom—and that it is the planning of his Government—by democratically-elected representatives. I give way to enable the Minister to make that statement.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the people who control the fire brigades will be democratically-elected representatives of the people. However, the noble Lord is referring to the organisation by which this will be done. That falls so wide of the Order Paper that I ask him not to stray in that direction but to restrict his attack to the Government's Civil Defence policy.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister makes his interventions with such courtesy that sometimes the subtlety of them is not appreciated by the House. The subtlety of that intervention is that the fire brigades will of course be indirectly controlled by people who are democratically elected—but not democratically elected to look after them.
This point is not wide of the Order Paper, and I am making it because the logical action to take if there is a problem with local authorities—but I would make the point even if there were not—is to ask this question. If the metropolitan authorities are to be abolished and there are regional authorities of the same size (covering the same territory, if one likes) to
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be put in their place, and they are going to look after emergency services, then what in heaven's name is the logical answer as to why they should not at the same time look after Civil Defence?
I now deal with the final point I intend to raise this afternoon. If I did not deal with it I should be shirking my responsibility. Indeed, I should not be open with the House, as I hope I always am. I refer to nuclear war. There is no doubt about it, there are some local authorities who say, "The Government have given us no plan upon which we can really work by way of estimates of the size of the problem, where in our area the danger is going to be, where we ought to have our buildings, and we say to the Government, perfectly frankly, 'We see no answer to the saving of life—and we wish we did—in the event of nuclear war' ".
There is a danger in this matter. The noble Lord paid tribute—it was right that he should do so and my noble friends and I do not differ from him in the slightest—to the courage of the British people. I should like to add to that tribute. You will not only find them courageous but you will find them answering to every challenge provided you are honest with them. That is the point. The fact is—and this is the danger—that the Government in their propaganda, differing from the BMA and other scientists, are letting it get abroad that there are answers to massive nuclear attack so that people, more than just the miserable few, could be saved.
In my concluding words I will tell your Lordships why that is dangerous. It is usually reckless to refer to the speeches that one has previously made in your Lordships' House, but I venture to do so on this occasion because I had the privilege of representing these Benches in the debate on the 1983 regulations. If I may be permitted this indulgence, I quote from what I said in this connection at cols. 528–529 of the Official Report for 1st November 1983:
"If the nations of the world realise, and if the peoples of the world realise, that not only in a nuclear war can there be no victory but there can be no survival except for the very few who may even suffer more than those who have been killed, the whole argument about the retention of nuclear weapons falls to the ground. We are not going to be part, as the Opposition, of pretending to the British people that regulations have come into existence, with duties cast upon local authorities, under which provision will in fact be made to deal in any practical form with a nuclear holocaust."
My Lords, I abide by those words as I sit down.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, may I ask one question? Does the noble Lord not agree that the relentless march of modern technology is going to make differentiation between so-called conventional weapons and nuclear weapons almost impossible, and finally quite impossible?
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I hope that that observation will mean that war at last will be abolished from the earth.

Gibraltar
3.54 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to repeat a Statement now being made in another place by my right honourable

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and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a Statement about the outcome of my meeting yesterday in Geneva with the Spanish Foreign Minister, Sr. Moran, about Gibraltar.
"As I foreshadowed in my Statement to the House on 28th November, our meeting marked the start of the restoration, after an interval of 15 years, of direct communications and the free movement of persons, vehicles and goods between Gibraltar and Spain. We have also started the negotiations which were envisaged by the Lisbon statement of April 1980. These are aimed at overcoming all the differences between us on Gibraltar, and at promoting co-operation between Gibraltar and Spain over a wide range of matters.
"In addition Spaniards in Gibraltar, and Gibraltarians in Spain, will enjoy European Community rights in advance of Spanish accession to the Community.
"Spanish, British and Gibraltarian officials will now be meeting to deal with a number of specific areas for practical co-operation. These include aviation, tourism and economic and cultural matters. The first such meetings begin this month. Sr. Moran specifically reaffirmed to me the undertaking set out in the Brussels communiqué that the Spanish Government will take the early actions necessary to allow safe and effective air communications in the region. Specific ideas for this are now under consideration.
"Sr. Moran raised the subject of sovereignty at our meeting. He was entitled to do so under the terms of the Lisbon and Brussels statements. He also outlined informally to me some ideas on this subject. He said that he will later make formal proposals. However, Sr. Moran also underlined the importance he attaches to the interests and feelings of the Gibraltar people when dealing with this issue. For my part, I made clear that the British Government's commitment to honour the freely and democratically expressed wishes of the Gibraltarian people, which is plainly set out in the preamble to the Gibraltar Constitution, stands unchanged.
"Sir Joshua Hassan, who has led his people so resolutely over many years of difficulty, participated at my side yesterday as a member of the British delegation. He subsequently described the meeting in Geneva as positive and constructive in every way: and expressed himself fully satisfied that the results are good for Gibraltar. I have greatly valued his wise advice. I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to his courage, steadfastness and statesmanship.
"The task ahead is to see that practical co-operation between Gibraltar and Spain develops in a way which will benefit both peoples and that Spain and the United Kingdom continue to manage our differences as befits friends and allies.
"In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make quite clear to the House that this result is good
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for Britain, good for Spain and, above all, good for the people of Gibraltar, whose wishes we are pledged to respect."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement and we also welcome the accord and the agreement which has apparently been achieved between Britain, Spain and Gibraltar. We note especially the reference to the remarks of the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Sir Joshua Hassan, which are extremely important: namely, that the meeting was a positive and constructive one in every way.
We also noted that in another place yesterday—reported in col. 744 of Hansard—the Prime Minister said it was the Government's intention to maintain their commitment to the,
"freely and democratically expressed wishes of the people of Gibraltar",
and that there would be no significant change without an Act of Parliament based on the,
"freely and democratically expressed wishes",
of the people of Gibraltar.
We noted those specific words. Can the noble Baroness say whether it is proposed that the wishes of the people of Gibraltar on this agreement and the implications of Spanish entry into the European Community are to be ascertained by a referendum among the people of Gibraltar? Is this not the only secure way of finding out their intentions? If not, how are their wishes to be made known?
On this point again, the noble Baroness will know that Gibraltar's 1969 Constitution contains a guarantee that there will be no change in sovereignty against the wishes of the population. Can she say what was the response of Sr. Moran at the Geneva talks to the question of the right of Gibraltarians to self-determination? I think it is very important to get this clear at an early stage, as sovereignty is beginning to mean different things in different parts of the world. Is it the case that Sr. Moran accepts that a transfer of sovereignty against the will of the people would not be in the interests of Spain?
Finally, can the noble Baroness say a little more about the economic implications of the new arrangements for Gibraltar? While it will obviously bring a tourist benefit, is there some danger that Spaniards, either unemployed or on a low wage, will swamp the labour market in Gibraltar? Again, can she say whether Spaniards will in future be permitted to buy land and other property in Gibraltar?
Lord Kennet: My Lords, we join with the Labour Opposition in thanking the Government for repeating this Statement, and are of course, as satisfied with it as the Government must be themselves. So far, so good. We await with interest the answers to the questions raised by the Leader of the Labour Opposition.
Is it not the case that, while the Foreign Secretary's remarks about sovereignty were obviously very sensible indeed, the Spanish Foreign Minister's remarks about sovereignty were also a great deal more sensible than other remarks about sovereignty in other

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situations with a superficial resemblance to that of Gibraltar, and that others could learn well from them?
Lastly, will the Government say a word about the Community rights issue which is mentioned in the Statement—that the rights of Gibraltar citizens in Spain and Spaniards in Gibraltar under Community law and arrangements will be phased into effect? Which rights will be phased in, and when? Can the noble Baroness remind us how long the transitional period is for Spanish accession? This is another way of putting the question that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, has just put, but what about the mutual right to work in each other's country? Does that come early in the accession period, or late, or what?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to thank both the noble Lords, Lord Cledwyn and Lord Kennet, for their reception of this Statement and for the welcome that they have given it. On the various questions that the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked, perhaps I may start by reminding him about the Government's assurances to Gibraltar on the question of sovereignty. The noble Lord referred to the statement of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in the other place yesterday. The relevant extract from the preamble to the 1969 Gibraltar Constitution reads:
"Her Majesty's Government have given assurances to the people of Gibraltar that Gibraltar will remain part of Her Majesty's dominions unless and until an Act of Parliament otherwise provides, and furthermore that Her Majesty's Government will never ever enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another State against their freely and democratically expressed wishes".
The noble Lord went on to ask me about the possibility of a referendum on this matter. There is no bar to a referendum being held in Gibraltar if at some future stage it is felt that that is the best way to gauge Gibraltar opinion. But, as I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate, it would be unsettling to hold referenda too frequently.
The noble Lord went on to ask about a referendum on the question of joining the Community, but, of course, Gibraltar is in fact already part of European Community territory by virtue of Article 227.4 as a country for whose external relations the United Kingdom is responsible.
On the question of self-determination and what has been the attitude of Sr. Moran, he said at a press conference last October:
"We accept the wishes of the people of Gibraltar to maintain their British nationality once the territory is re-integrated into Spain. If they gave me Gibraltar on a plate against the will of the Gibraltarians, it would not be a good deal for Spain".
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, also asked me about various transitional arrangements. Of course we hope that tourism will be one industry to benefit by the opening of the frontier. On the question of workers, the Community is insisting on a seven-year transitional period and that a joint declaration on free movement of workers should be annexed to the Spanish Treaty of Accession, as it was for both former enlargements. In fact, no one can come to work in Gibraltar without a work permit. On the question of the sale of land, the fact is that there is a very limited property market in Gibraltar and the right to purchase
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is linked to a Spaniard being employed or self-employed or rendering a service.
I hope I have answered most of the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, raised, too, but he asked me quite specifically about advanced Community rights. The arrangement for advance enjoyment of certain Community rights is an indication of the special dimension to the relations between Spain and Gibraltar. We agreed that Spaniards in Gibraltar should receive those Community rights that they would otherwise enjoy on the day of Spain's accession, and that Gibraltarians would at the same time receive corresponding rights in Spain. This arrangement has the full support of the Gibraltar Government. It does not of course affect the derogations and transitional periods agreed between Spain and the Community, which will be applicable to Gibraltar. The timing of these transitional periods will run from the day of Spain's accession.
On quite specific Community rights, the negotiations are well advanced on the main matters relevant to this arrangement. The rights of establishment chapter has been concluded, and we hope to see the social affairs chapter concluded very shortly.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, can my noble friend clarify one point in her most interesting and welcome Statement? Does the reopening of the land frontier with Spain also include the right to operate seaborne services across the bay between Gibraltar and Algeciras such as used to exist? Secondly, and on a different point, in the course of her right honourable and learned friend's discussions with Sr. Moran was any regret expressed on behalf of Spain for the damage done over 15 years by this wrongful act both to Gibraltar and to this country?
Baroness Young: My Lords, if I may take first the second of my noble friend's two questions, I think I would be correct in saying that at the discussions in Geneva all parties were looking forwards rather than backwards. On the first of his questions, the answer is: yes, the seaborne routes will be open, as indeed will the frontier be for traffic.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, can the noble Baroness give some indication, if at all possible, as to when the problem of flight paths and of air traffic will be solved? The present descent into Gibraltar is enough to put one off flying and to discourage tourism.
Baroness Young: My Lords, that will be one of the matters which will clearly be subject to future negotiations. We expect that experts will start to meet quite soon on a number of practical issues, of which aviation will be one.
Lord Somers: My Lords, can the noble Baroness give some really strong assurance that Gibraltar will not be offered a half solution such as self-determination, but that we shall maintain our sovereignty since, apart from the fact that the Gibraltarians all want it, Gibraltar is a small area bordering directly upon Spain, which is only too anxious to obtain control of her, and Gibraltar needs our protection?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I hope that what I said in answer to the first supplementary question from the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, made absolutely plain the British Government's commitment to stand by the preamble to the 1969 Constitution.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say what arrangements will be made for Moroccan workers who took the place of Spanish workers when they were not allowed to come in? Are they just going to go back to Morocco, will they be given redundancy payments, or what action will be taken?
Baroness Young: My Lords, as far as the future of the Moroccan workforce is concerned, I can tell my noble friend Lady Vickers that Sir Joshua Hassan has said that the public sector employers in Gibraltar are firmly committed not to discharge any Moroccan worker to make way for another worker from outside Gibraltar. There are approximately 1,700 Moroccans working in Gibraltar, and they make a valuable contribution. The arrangement agreed with Spain does not threaten those in paid employment.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that, notwithstanding this agreement between ourselves and the Spaniards for the future of Gibraltar, it would be extremely myopic if we did not acknowledge that at some time Spain is going to return with some vigour to the question of sovereignty? Does the noble Baroness agree that it might well be that there will be some activity emanating from Spain which would cause difficulties for the Gibraltarians? In that event, should that transpire, may we have an assurance that Britain will immediately give every assistance to the Government and the people of Gibraltar?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I hope that I have already given that assurance of the British Government's stand, in answer to two questions that I have been asked this afternoon. I would repeat it to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy.
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend this question? Between now and when Spain joins the Community, is it proposed to erect Customs barriers between Gibraltar and Spain so that tariffs will have to be paid each way?
Baroness Young: My Lords, my understanding of the position is that there will be completely free movement of goods and services, as pertained before the closing of the frontier. On the specific point about tariffs, I understand that under certain circumstances it might be that there will be some goods which will be subject to tariffs. However, perhaps I might write to my noble friend on this point.
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, it could be very important in regard to whisky on one side and sherry on the other.

RAF Molesworth
4.12 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne): With your Lordships' permission, I should like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence about the operation conducted last night at RAF Molesworth to clear the site of trespassers and to fence it. The Statement is as follows:
"The then Secretary of State for Defence announced on 17th June 1980 the Government's decision that Molesworth, a disused airfield in Cambridgeshire, had been selected as the second United Kingdom cruise missile base. The normal process of planning consultation was set in hand towards the end of last year against the requirement to begin major construction on the site this autumn if deployment by 1988 is to be achieved.
"As the House will be aware, RAF Molesworth is an unfenced and open site and has been the scene of continued trespass by individuals and groups opposed to its use as a cruise missile base. Their activities have given rise to much local anxiety. The anti-nuclear protest groups have made clear their intention to engage in a systematic programme of deliberate delay and disruption, not excluding unlawful means, in order to prevent this development. It would have been quite wrong to allow such a protest to build up on Ministry of Defence land and to accept that the serious inconvenience to local people would continue.
"I therefore directed that the necessary steps should be taken to end this as quickly as possible and with the least likelihood of danger to all concerned. To do so, it was necessary to act in secrecy and with speed in order to prevent the very serious problems which would have arisen from the reinforcement of the protesters that had been threatened. This could have led to a major confrontation, with all the risks that involved to both demonstrators and those responsible for the maintenance of law and order.
"This operation began shortly before midnight last night with the arrival of Ministry of Defence police to clear the site of trespassers and to take control of it. The civil police were responsible for policing outside the site itself. At the same time, 1,500 Royal Engineers began to fence off the whole site with dannert-type fencing. They are also providing observation platforms and perimeter lighting which will assist the Ministry of Defence police in their continuing task of guarding the site. In addition, members of the Property Services Agency and civil contractors moved heavy equipment onto the site to begin the construction of a permanent weldmesh fence for which planning agreement has already been given.
"Mr. Speaker, this House reaffirmed in October 1983 its support for the NATO twin-track decision on intermediate range nuclear forces. The Government very much hope that, now that the Soviet Union has returned to the negotiating table, it will be possible to make progress on the arms

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control element of that decision. But, until progress has been achieved which makes this unnecessary, we shall continue with preparations for the deployment of cruise missiles. That is a decision approved by Parliament. No responsible Secretary of State for Defence or Government could countenance such preparations being frustrated by a small, unrepresentative minority within our society.
"That is why the action I have described has been undertaken today. I have myself visited Molesworth this morning in order to pass on the Government's thanks to those concerned. The House will, I know, wish to join me in paying tribute to all those involved in ensuring that this major operation has proceeded so successfully".
My Lords, that is the Statement.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I wish first of all to thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating the Statement which has been made in another place. But is he not aware that this is an extraordinary Statement? Is he aware that he has completely failed to justify the massive use of civilian and military police to deal with this situation? To use 1,500 military police and an unspecified number of civilian police to deal with 100 peaceful, unarmed civilians is surely overkill in the extreme. What in actual fact has been the estimated cost of this operation? In his Statement, the Minister made a number of remarks which I invite him to substantiate. He indicated that these actions have been taken because it was unacceptable to continue the serious inconvenience to local people. Does the Minister care to spell out what inconvenience to local people has occurred which merits such an extraordinary use of military and civilian police?
The Minister told us that the operation began shortly before midnight. Does he not realise that this will be construed by many as a most sinister method of carrying out this operation? Is he not aware that this smacks of the "knock on the door in the middle of the night", of the jackboot and of the secret police? Is he not aware that the Minister has, quite frankly, overreacted in the extreme?
The Minister talks in terms of the hopes of the Government now that the Soviet Union has returned to the negotiating table. Would he not agree that, at this time of all times, it might have been advisable just to pause and reflect on this particular point in order to demonstrate that we are looking for all other possibilities of reaching the maximum possible detente?
The Minister talks in terms of action to frustrate a small unrepresentative minority within our society. Is the Minister aware that by actions of this kind he is more likely to make the small minority into a larger minority, and perhaps eventually into a majority? Is he aware that the manner in which this operation has been carried out is likely to do more than anything else to make sure that CND's advertised marches at Molesworth at Easter will be a bigger success than they ever have been?
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that my noble friends and I do not share the casual attitude to law-breaking of the Labour Party, nor their prejudice against the police and the armed forces?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Nonsense.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: Rubbish.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, neverthless, will the Minister give this assurance to the House: that there will be no restrictions whatever on peaceful, lawful demonstrations at Molesworth by whoever wishes to conduct them? Will he make it perfectly clear that there will be no harassing? May I ask the Minister this? If the Government were going to take this action, would it not have been wiser to take it earlier, before these protesters had dug themselves in as they did? I should be grateful for clear answers to those two questions.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords for their response to my Statement. I am sorry that the Statement did not please the noble Lord, Lord Graham. In conducting this operation, we were determined to ensure that we avoided some of the confrontational scenes that we have seen elsewhere in this country in recent months and years. I am happy to say that that has been achieved. The temporary fence that we have constructed has now been virtually completed without the confrontation that we have seen, for example, at Greenham Common in recent months. I do not therefore agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Graham, that we have conducted some form of overkill.
As for local inconvenience, there was very considerable local inconvenience. There had been a significant rise in petty crime locally, for example, which many people put down to the presence of these people in the area. If the noble Lord has any doubt on that point, I invite him to visit the local people. Only yesterday, as it happens, quite fortuitously, a petition had been submitted to the local council, signed by, I believe, no less than 90 per cent. or so of the local population and complaining about the presence of the so-called "peace campers" there. They are really nothing of the sort because the activities which they choose to pursue make no contribution to peace whatever.
The noble Lord referred to the Geneva negotiations which are to take place before long. Whatever the noble Lord may think about the prospects of those negotiations, the fact is that, while we have been conducting our comparatively slow modernisaton of INF forces, the Soviet Union has been increasing its INF forces at an alarming rate. The number of SS20 warheads now pointed at us is something approaching 1,000, a figure with which the noble Lord will be familiar.
The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, asked me for an assurance that peaceful and lawful protesting would not be interfered with. Of course I readily give him that assurance.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the noble Lord withdraw any aspersion that he may have made inadvertently in the course of his remarks suggesting that the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is not a body wholly devoted to protest within the law? It is

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true, of course, that when anything of this sort takes place, it is bound to upset and to offend local people in some degree. Nevertheless, having regard to that and having regard to what was made clear on the radio this morning by Bruce Kent, I should like to make clear on my own behalf that, so far as the CND is concerned, it is not its intention to upset or incommode local people. May I ask the noble Lord one question? Will he say what is the cost of erecting this enormous fence around Molesworth?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am happy to hear from the noble Lord that the CND has no plans for any unlawful activity. That would hardly square with some of the things that it has been doing in the past. Indeed, the very presence of members of the CND, if that is who they were, at the so-called peace camp at Molesworth was in itself unlawful because they were trespassing on Ministry of Defence land. However, the noble Lord perhaps regards that as of no account.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, may I have an answer to my question about the cost of the fencing?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for not answering that question. The cost of the materials, at any event, for constructing the fence around Molesworth is about £1 million.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, will the Minister accept that many of those engaged in this peaceful protest are members of the Religious Society of Friends, who have a long record of peaceful protest spread over 300 years? To suggest that these individuals were involved in increased local crime is hardly justified and is not likely to ensure an acceptance of the Government's case.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord disagrees with that assertion, but it is unhappily the case. I am happy to hear that they intend to be peaceful. However, if it was they who were at Greenham Common in recent months, they hardly lived up to that aspiration. As for being lawful, a number of breaches of the law have occurred at Greenham Common recently—not only breaches of the civil law of trespass but also breaches of the criminal law. I hope that we shall see an end to that.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, the Minister referred to the fact that besides 1,500 military personnel inside the perimeter there were civilian police outside. I asked him whether he could say how many civilian police were involved in the operation. I assume that he will be able to tell me that now.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I do not have the numbers of the civilian police who were involved. That is, of course, a matter for the local police. We left it to them to provide whatever forces were necessary.

Civil Defence
4.25 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, for introducing this debate and for doing so in such a thoughtful and unideological manner. Over past years, in this country, the subject of Civil Defence has attracted a wholly inappropriate amount of political controversy to itself. At the beginning, the blame was on the Government. Civil Defence, as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, showed us, is basically a humanitarian concept aimed at reducing suffering over a wide range of possible catastrophes. But, when the Government made their start, after coming to office, and decided rightly to increase Civil Defence capacity, they made the mistake of linking Civil Defence with their defence policy, even arguing that Civil Defence would increase the credibility of the independent nuclear deterrent and stressing that Civil Defence could make a contribution to saving life even in a nuclear holocaust.
Predictably, the reaction of CND and elements of the Labour Party was equally divisive and equally polarised. We had a situation typical of our confrontation politics. On the one hand, on the Left, we had non-co-operation, obstruction, rhetoric and hysteria, and on the Right, frustration, anger and attempts at coercion. Today, we heard from the noble Lords, Lord Renton and Lord Mishcon, a wholly different tone of voice and a wholly different substance in their speeches. I have no doubt that when the noble Lord, Lord Elton, replies he will say a great deal that will be generally acceptable on both sides of the House. If only Ministers had spoken in that tone and in that language from the beginning, Civil Defence might now enjoy solid and non-partisan support throughout the country which, by its very nature, it particularly needs and particularly deserves.
However, I must agree with the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that there is nothing very non-partisan about the attitude to Civil Defence of the GLC, of Manchester, of Sheffield and of some other socialist councils, which was not fully explained by the Labour spokesman, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. Those of us who are citizens of London live today in a nuclear-free zone as, during the war, did the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No doubt, there are Londoners who feel safer and who feel grateful to Mr. Livingstone and his fellow defence experts at County Hall.
On these Benches, we share the scepticism of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, about the antics of some of these extreme Left councils. However, I am bound to say, on behalf of my noble friends and myself, that we question the right of the noble Lord the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Renton, to complain about the antics of these councils. After all, it is they and their party who are responsible for them being there. It is they who have insisted on local authorities being elected by a system that enables them to be taken over by these small groups of crackpot Marxists. No other electoral system in the world could have produced councils against which noble Lords opposite so often flail.

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Of course, they will defend themselves. They will claim in extenuation that the same system enables their party to get a very large number of parliamentary seats with a very small vote. That will be their defence and a very strong argument from their point of view. But they must learn to take the rough with the smooth. An electoral system which produces twisted results in favour of the Right will also produce twisted results in favour of the Left, and they must take their medicine a little better than they have done so far.
My noble friends and I certainly deplore the attitude of certain councils to Civil Defence. Their indiscriminate attacks on anything to do with nuclear deterrence leads them to undermine essential elements of Civil Defence. I should like to quote to noble Lords a rather symbolic illustration of this point, reported in the Guardian yesterday. It is headed:
"CND men set fire to wrong radio mast".
It says:
"Three peace campaigners were yesterday gaoled for starting a fire at what they believed to be part of the Fylingdales nuclear early warning centre.
"The former military radio mast was in fact an important communications link for the civil emergency services across two counties.
"The night attack on the installation … succeeded in knocking out eight radio channels used by fire and police forces and caused over £228,000 worth of damage.
"The secretary of the Pocklington branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament … was gaoled for three years".
I think this picturesque tale illustrates quite well some of the characteristics of CND: blind fanaticism, disregard for law and order, and breathtaking incompetence.
However, it would be a mistake to think that opposition to Civil Defence from the extreme Left arises only from opposition to nuclear weapons. There are deeper reasons, too. For example, in the current journal of CND, called Sanity, there is an appeal to members to campaign against the latest Civil Defence exercise, called Wintex. It is in these terms:
"The systems which already exist for use in a 'civil emergency' were developed during the 1970s in response to industrial disputes; the Regional Emergency Committees … were first set up during the `winter of discontent' in 1978 to deal with the road haulage strike. The most recent example is the development of Police Support Units … at the moment being used in the miners' strike".
There is no mention at all anywhere in this article, this appeal for campaigning, of nuclear questions. Opposition to nuclear deterrence is one reason for CND's obstruction of Civil Defence, but support for strikes is another reason, as one would expect in an organisation which is so vulnerable to manipulation by the hard Left.
I now turn to the question as to whether the scale of the Government's proposals is sufficient. We shall listen carefully to what the noble Lord the Minister has to say, but, if I can make a prediction, it will be this. He will list a very large number of possible contingencies which he wishes Civil Defence to try to meet. He will list a very large, wide scale of duties imposed upon Civil Defence; and when he comes to the amount of money the Government are going to produce for these the amount that he names will bear no relation whatever to the tasks he has laid upon Civil Defence. I make this prediction. I do not know what
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the noble Lord the Minister is going to say, but he had better alter his speech quickly if he is not to make a very poor impression on the House for under-budgeting the tasks he is going to lay down for Civil Defence.
Of course, the Government must be given credit for increasing the scale of Civil Defence since they took over. From 1974 to 1978 the Labour Government actually halved, in real terms, the amount of resources devoted to Civil Defence in this country. When the present Government came in, of course they were right to see that a major increase was necessary. I agree entirely that it is difficult to estimate how much is needed in the way of resources. It is very true about Civil Defence that it is impossible to do nothing, and it is impossible to do as much as is necessary. That is the truth, unfortunately, about Civil Defence, but my judgment is that the £80 million or so we are going to have talked about by the Minister will be nothing like enough for the tasks which he sets himself.
Finally, I think I must pick up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. Frankly, while we wholly endorse the broad approach of the noble Lord, Lord Renton—the broad approach which says there is a large range of civil emergencies which we must be prepared to try to cope with; and also conventional war—I think my noble friends and myself would like it to be made clear that there is also a need to look at the nuclear side of Civil Defence. Obviously, in the case of a nuclear holocaust the effectiveness of Civil Defence will be vastly limited; nobody can doubt that at all.
But—I put this point to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in particular—suppose, much less improbably, we had a single nuclear bomb fall on this country, either by accident or by demonstration. Then an effective Civil Defence organisation could be immensely important in terms of limiting suffering: it must be so. I am sure that in those circumstances many people in areas which had not been hit would want to do everything they could to reduce the suffering of those on the fringe areas and to take the advice of Civil Defence organisations. I am sure that is so. What is more, I am sure that among those people who would want to help would be many members of CND and of the Labour Party—I am almost sure of that. But of course the tragedy is that nothing they did then could make up for the damage they would have done to Civil Defence before the emergency arose.
Civil Defence is essentially a humanitarian concept and it can be conscientiously supported by those who oppose as well as those who support the Government's defence policy. In my view, it is time the Conservative and Labour Parties took this point fully aboard and gave CD the unreserved, all-party support which it needs and deserves.
4.37 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, we are indeed all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton for introducing this very important subject in which he has himself such stature for debate in your Lordships' House. When he tabled his Motion, I was already committed later this evening to an engagement which in conscience I could not break. I felt, nevertheless, that I should take this

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opportunity of explaining in this House the Government's Civil Defence policy. I hope your Lordships will understand my difficulty. I assure your Lordships that I shall study with the greatest care all that is said in as much of the later stages of this debate as circumstances may compel me, regretfully, to miss.
The first thing that needs to be established in this debate, and to be understood without a shadow of doubt, is that Civil Defence is something which this country does need and must have. People put up a lot of clever and sophisticated arguments to try to prove the opposite. I do not expect your Lordships to be convinced by them because your Lordships will see through them to the stark and simple facts as they are; but there are others whom they seek to persuade, and they, too, should know the facts.
We do not in any way think a war is probable, let alone imminent, but the first fact is that no government—not this Government, not a government made up by the Labour Party, not a government made up by an alliance or two separate splinters of the Social and Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, not even a national government made up of all the parties—can guarantee that this country will never be at war. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has asked me to be honest with the British people, and the honest facts are these. You can guarantee not to attack other people, but even a child knows that that does not guarantee that others will never attack us.
This is not a military debate. I shall not talk about our military defences, except to say this. We trust in a balance of deterrence in Europe to keep the peace, and so far it has worked. But no matter what system you trust in, even if it is unilateral disarmament or total pacifism—whatever your system—the honest fact is that you cannot be certain that it will always work. There are various ways of fighting wars these days, though basically all of them fall into either the conventional or the nuclear class. But let me assure your Lordships again that, whatever clever and sophisticated people may argue to the contrary, we cannot control—no British Government could control—which sort of war a hostile government might choose to fight in Europe.
Next, there are some people who honestly believe that even if the system broke down and a European war did break out, we have only to say that we would take no part in it to make us absolutely safe. We are sitting on an island of unique strategic importance; but these people believe that the world would respect our neutrality.
For two reasons neutrality offers us no defence at all. I ask your Lordships which European country has the longest and most honourable tradition of unbroken neutrality stretching back through two world wars and beyond?—Switzerland. And which European country has the most elaborate and effective system of Civil Defence? Switzerland. And I could say very much the same things of Sweden. Switzerland and Sweden know that neutrality is no defence. It is a desperately uncertain and unsafe defence in conventional war. In a nuclear war it would be no defence whatever. You do not have to be under a bomb to be at risk; you have to be only down wind of it. It would not take even an
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accidental strike on this country to put us at risk; it would take only a change in the weather.
Therefore, one thing cannot, and must not, escape us. The risk is there. It is, thank God, remote, but it will not go away. We must insure against it. My noble friend is right: it is an insurance that we are talking about. Investing in Civil Defence policy does not make it more likely that there will be a war, any more than investing in a fire insurance policy makes it more likely that your house will burn down.
If we do not provide elementary precautions for the British people—and I am being honest with them—we take an astoundingly foolish gamble at the expense of every future generation. These precautions depend largely upon local agencies, local planning and local organisation. That is why Parliament has placed upon local authorities the duty of providing them. That duty is no less than the duty of taking simple precautionary steps to save the lives of the people who elect those authorities to power.
The nature of the precautions is of course determined by the nature of the threat, and your Lordships must at once recognise that it can take a very wide variety of forms. Some people say that we can predict it. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, thinks that we claim that we can predict it—I put together with his earlier intervention the Question that he asked me last week. We certainly do no such thing. The paper to which the noble Lord then referred was, as I then said and as I now repeat, not a document for planning policy; it was a document to illustrate a possibility. It was an example, not a criterion. I hope that the noble Lord will not seek to dilute the attention of this House further into what is, in fact, an illusion.
As I say, the nature of the precautions is determined by the nature of the threat. We do not predict, but some people say that they can predict that it will be on a scale which, even if it does not involve this country, will extinguish all human life in it. Unlike them, we do not have superhuman powers. We cannot predict the future. All we know is that we do not intend to be the attackers, and that therefore it would not be for us to choose what form an attack should take.
Certainly we acknowledge what is generally called the "nuclear winter theory". This is one of a series of theories that has come forward over the years, and your Lordships can be sure that we are paying close attention to the evaluation that is now being made of it. Scientific opinion is at present honestly divided on it. We shall take a view when more is known, and particularly when we have the opinion of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment of the International Council of Scientific Unions.
The future for which we must prepare presents us with many alternatives. There is, first of all, the whole range of emergencies that can arise from conventional war, and with most of them we are familiar. Those of us in middle age and above have actually had to face many of them in the past. Beyond those trials are the emergencies that could arise as a result of a nuclear war. In neither case can we know exactly what would happen. We would not choose what sort of weapons were used against us. Nobody would ask us how big they should be or how many targets they should be aimed at; nor can we even be sure that their owners,

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having chosen targets, would succeed in hitting them and would not accidentally hit something else altogether.
Therefore, the area affected by single nuclear weapons can now be so large and the unknown variable factors are so large that it is no longer possible to say that this or that part of the country will be safe, and move into it people from other areas that are thought to be less safe. We keep these matters under continous review. But as things stand at present, it is clear that no satisfactory system of mass evacuation is possible.
But other precautions are possible and are effective—not only in conventional attack, but under nuclear attack as well. The life of the country depends upon a complex network of essential supplies and services which would have to be repaired at the points at which they were broken; and before that, even, in a nuclear attack, very many lives would depend upon simple actions and arrangements that can be rendered infinitely more effective by planning them in advance.
That planning has to be flexible because, as I keep on saying, it has to prepare for what is not yet known. As your Lordships know—and as my noble friend Lord Renton has pointed out—Civil Defence provision is at present limited to provision against wartime emergencies. I shall return in a moment to what we are doing and what we intend to do in that regard.
But before I do may I take up my noble friend's extremely important point about peacetime emergencies. We have nothing but the highest praise for the regular emergency services, which we have recently seen so effectively at work. Having on the television screen seen their work so efficiently, so courageously and so compassionately carried out, your Lordships will readily agree that what we already have deals remarkably well with even pretty large and horrible emergencies. I readily acknowledge the efforts of the Devonshire Volunteers, to whom my noble friend, referred. Indeed, 1 must register our great admiration for, and real gratitude to, all the voluntary organisations, including the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, the St. John's Ambulance service and the Red Cross, which are forever on call. I do not suggest, nor does my noble friend, that the problems which local authorities have in planning to deal with peacetime emergencies are of exactly the same nature as those involved in planning to alleviate the effects of war.
My noble friend produced a number of very relevant examples and I agree that, for instance, those of Bhopal, Seveso, the west country blizzards and even the east coast floods in this country in 1953 all suggested that the two things have many aspects in common. That is why we put into our election manifesto a commitment to introduce legislation to make resources available for Civil Defence purposes to local authorities to safeguard against peacetime emergencies.
The expertise of the emergency planning teams and the industrial emergency services officers, the emergency plans for such things as emergency feeding and housing and other forms of care, the county and
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district emergency centres with their widespread communications links, the well-established liaison arrangements with the police, fire and ambulance services, and the involvement of volunteers already trained to act in grave emergencies, ought also to be available in time of peace, and we remain absolutely committed to legislation. I shall not follow my noble friend into the route by which we achieve it, but we are committed.
We first took office in 1979, 11 years after the old Civil Defence Corps had been stood down and Civil Defence generally was put on a care and maintenance basis. One of our first priorities was to see what needed to be done in order to make effective plans for the country's protection. Following our review, we made more money available for Civil Defence for both central and local government. At that stage, in 1980, we intended expenditure to rise by 60 per cent. over four years, but in fact it has now risen by 100 per cent. in real terms. Today we are spending twice as much in real terms as we spent in 1980—some £77 million. In 1984–85 the amount of grant that we have made available to local authorities has risen to £12·8 million, compared with £10 million in 1983–84.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, is looking at me with an expression which will shortly become smug as he realises that I have to some extent fulfilled his prediction. But I can tell him that even this money is not all being taken up. I assure the House that we intend to maintain the planned provision for Civil Defence over the next three years. The Government look to local authorities to take full advantage of these available resources.
As my noble friend has said, additional expenditure on Civil Defence will be disregarded for the purposes of grant abatement. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, might have gone further in what was generally and overall a restrained speech for one sitting on his Bench. He could well have recognised not only that but the range of Civil Defence provision that does now rate for 100 per cent. grant as well. If he did, I give him credit for it, and I have used the opportunity to put it on the record again.
When we took over, things were at a low ebb. This growth of expenditure marks a considerable advance. We would make swifter progress if the money we have made available was all being used. But in spite of our encouragement the response has been less than wholehearted and local authorities have often been slow to pick up the funds lying waiting for them on the table.
The Civil Defence regulations require local authorities to make plans for the protection of the civilian population in the event of war. Last May in order to find out how much effective planning had been done and what remained to be done, we issued a questionnaire to the authorities. It asked for detailed information on the state of their planning. A report by the Home Office Civil Defence Adviser analysing the returns to these questionnaires is in the Library of your Lordships' House. It shows that there are wide differences in what has been done by the authorities both in planning and in providing resources. Some authorities have full plans and have done much to implement them by providing emergency headquar

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ters, by setting up the necessary communications and other equipment and by training volunteers. Others have made varying degrees of effort but their arrangements cannot be described as satisfactory.
As the next step we have therefore written to each local authority requiring it to have completed its plans by the end of the year. The Civil Defence Adviser will visit individual authorities to discuss their planning with them, and we shall monitor progress extremely closely. When we see what is being done we shall consider carefully whether any further action is needed from central government to increase the pace.
As my noble friend has pointed out, an essential duty required of local authorities is that of organising, training and exercising Civil Defence volunteers. The role of volunteers is crucial. It is also traditional in Civil Defence. Indeed, it is traditional in this country. I mentioned some of those traditions a moment ago. It is vital that in Civil Defence the volunteers should be well-informed, properly trained and fully effective.
As a first step we have set up a Home Office Working Party which includes experienced county emergency planning officers. It has developed a training syllabus for volunteers and we shall issue it to local authorities shortly. It is now going on to work up in the next year or so a complete set of training material for the instruction of volunteers. Not only will the resources of the Civil Defence College remain available for developing volunteer training, but also by combining the post of Co-ordinator of Volunteer Effort in Civil Defence with that of Principal of the college we plan to give a new impetus to volunteer work.
If this country ever was to come under attack a warning of that attack, even if it was very short, could make a very considerable difference indeed to the number of survivors. It is for that reason that we have the United Kingdom Early Warning and Monitoring Organisation. It is largely volunteers who man that organisation through the Royal Observer Corps and the warning teams—over 11,000 people in all. They are a dedicated and efficient force, and I congratulate them and those full-timers who are responsible for organising the system.
The organisation exists to give public warning of an attack and in the event of a nuclear attack they would also give warning of the approach of radioactive fallout and subsequently monitor the intensity of fall-out radiation. I am glad to be able to tell the House that we are well on our way to completion of our programme of improvements to the organisation, and I welcome my noble friend's recognition of the strides in this direction. It is now probably at a better state of readiness than that of any other NATO country, and we are now considering how it could be adapted to give warning of conventional and chemical attacks as well.
If this country did suffer a nuclear attack on any scale, then disruption to communications would be very considerable. Just when we needed the most effective direction of co-ordination of effort they would be at their weakest. For a time it would therefore be either difficult or impossible to sustain central control of essential functions. Plans for the wartime decentralisation of the Government are therefore a necessary part of our policy. We have
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recently overhauled and improved them. We are therefore also improving the wartime broadcasting service which would be established to ensure the continuation of public broacasting facilities even after large-scale attack.
Beyond the emergency services themselves it involves arrangements for fuel and emergency supplies, housing and other environmental matters, health care, food supplies, and agriculture and so on. Virtually every major Government department therefore has an interest. In the past things have tended to develop piecemeal with emergency plannng representing merely part of what each department does. We have taken two important initiatives here. At the centre we have recently decided to develop a fully co-ordinated central plan embracing all government departments. The first step towards this will be the co-ordination of the Civil Defence expenditure of all government departments, and this will fall to the Home Office. Your Lordships will wish to hear that we shall put these arrangements into effect for the financial year beginning 1986.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, rightly pointed out that overlap is wasteful and gaps in provision are dangerous. Our second initiative is therefore at the regional level, and a pilot study in the North-West Region over the next 18 months or two years will explore the scope for improving regional coordination of Civil Defence planning.
A debate like this is useful because it informs your Lordships what is going on. But that is not enough. It is essential that full information is much more widely available. We have now therefore consolidated all the existing guidance on emergency planning to local authorities and will issue it shortly. It will be kept up to date as knowledge and experience develop.
In addition to this consolidated guidance, we intend to put out a number of other documents. These will include general information about Civil Defence, information about weapon effects, information and guidance about protective measures. This series of documents will be backed up by a film on which we are now working. The aim of the film will be to explain just what goes into planning for wartime emergencies, the professional and voluntary effort and skills involved, and the purpose behind them. The information process is a two-way one, and it is essential to involve, as we are doing, the emergency planning officers and the chief executives of local authorities who would have an important function in wartime. Only with their views will ours be complete.
I referred earlier to the 1983 Civil Defence Regulations. Parliament has now required local authorities to make effective defence plans and the Government have recently issued revised guidance. I have sought to show what should need no explanation, that Civil Defence consists simply of planning to save lives and assist survivors. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, accurately pointed that out, and that is only if in spite of the best efforts of this Government and any future government a war should break out.
Therefore, those who opt out of it are opting out of a humanitarian cause directed at helping British men and women and children. Those who do so because they do not like nuclear weapons are like people opting

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out of wearing safety belts because they do not like motor-cars. If the population of a borough which has preened itself on doing the minimum gets projected through the windscreen, who will then congratulate the councillors of the day for declaring a nuclear-free zone? It is one thing to play politics with the rules. It is another thing altogether to play politics with lives.
So I conclude that they would have achieved a terrible responsibility by declaring a nuclear-free zone and offering no protection to their citizens whatever. Let me make it clear that. whatever the attitude of individual local authorities, the Government are determined that those responsibilities which have been laid by Parliament on local authorities for emergency planning and provision of resources to protect and care for their people shall be carried out.
As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said in an address on 28th November to the annual general meeting of the Society of Industrial Emergency Services Officers—a body of which my noble friend Lord Renton is so appropriately the president—
"We seek no angry arguments or confrontations. We shall set about our task in an orderly, measured way. But we cannot accept that any of our cities or counties should be without the plans and the trained staff which would be necessary for their protection in time of war."
That is our policy and I urge your Lordships to support it.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the Minister courteously informed the House that he might not be available for the rest of the debate. May I, I hope with equal courtesy, say that I have a long-standing appointment at seven o'clock which means that I shall have to leave the House at that time? I apologise to your Lordships in advance and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington.

Local Government Practices and Procedures
5.2 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Avon): My Lords, with the leave and indulgence of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment in the other place on setting up an inquiry into local government practices and procedures.
The Statement is as follows:
"In the Debate on the Address on 7th November, I said I intended to set up an inquiry into various practices and procedures in local government. Following discussions with the Opposition parties and the local authority associations, I am now in a position to give further information to the House.
"The terms of reference for the Inquiry will be as follows:
To inquire into practices and procedures governing the conduct of local authority business in Great Britain, with particular reference to:
the rights and responsibilities of elected members;
the respective roles of elected members and officers; and
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the need to clarify the limits and conditions governing discretionary spending by local authorities,
and to make any necessary recommendations for strengthening the democratic process.
"Within those terms of reference, I am inviting the Committee to pay particular attention to the following issues:

—ensuring proper accountability for decision-taking to elected members and to the electorate generally; and examining possible ways of strengthening local democrary within the existing structure of local government;

—clarifying the status and role of party groups in decision-taking;

—ensuring the proper participation and accountability of individual elected members in the decision-taking process;

—examining any problems of propriety which may arise from members' conflicts of interest, particularly where officers of one council serve as councillors of another;

—considering the merits of the development of full-time councillors; and the related issues of the use of members' allowances and the remuneration of councillors generally;

—reviewing the system of co-option of nonelected members;

—studying officers' relationships, particularly in view of their legal and professional obligations, with elected members and political groups;

—clarifying the limits and conditions governing discretionary spending, including the use of Sections 137 and 142 of the Local Government Act 1972 (and Sections 83 and 88 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973), for political purposes in local government, or in relation to bodies set up, and largely financed, by local authorities.

"Local government franchise, finance and structure will be outside the terms of reference.
"In view of the growing public concern about the use made by some local authorities of their discretionary powers to engage in overt political campaigning at public expense, I am asking the committee to submit an early interim report on this question. As far as the report as a whole is concerned, I am asking the committee to aim to report within a year.
"It is essential that the inquiry should be both impartial and effective in dealing with these difficult issues. The best way to achieve this is to establish a small committee of people of judgment and ability, headed by a chairman of known integrity. The Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales and I therefore propose to appoint a committee of four or five members chosen for the personal contribution which each can make to the wide-ranging subject matter of the inquiry. I am glad to inform the House that Mr. David Widdicombe, QC, has indicated to me that he would be prepared to accept appointment as Chairman of the Committee of Inquiry. Further appointments to the committee, of

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which I shall advise the House, will be made shortly".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, may I first thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place and say that we on this side of the House feel that it is an important Statement and also a timely one? There has not been a full inquiry into local government, or even a semi-inquiry, since Redcliffe-Maud. Councillors and officers have an increasing burden to bear today which gets more difficult all the time.
The terms of reference are wide-ranging and generally constructive. But there are one or two points on which I should like to comment and questions I should like to ask. Among the terms of reference is:
"the need to clarify the limits and conditions governing discretionary spending by local authorities".
I hope the Minister can assure me that this will not exclude the inquiry from recommending the widening of powers in some areas if that is felt desirable. When discretionary powers under Sections 137 and 142 of the Local Government Act have been challenged up to now, the courts have always decided in favour of councils. I hope that that will be kept in mind by the committee of inquiry.
When we come to the issues, one of the issues particularly pointed out by the Minister's right honourable friend is:
"examining any problems of propriety which may arise from members' conflicts of interest, particularly where officers of one council serve as councillors of another".
I hope it will be generally recognised that this is a practice which has been going on for a considerable time and is nothing new. Indeed councillors could have conflicts of interest because of the work they do in their own professions. They could be estate agents, builders, farmers—a whole range of people. It is not the case that conflicts could arise only within the council.
It is a great pity that finance has been ruled out, because this is one of the most critical areas—the critical area—of local government. Many of the problems that this Statement sets out to deal with stem from the way local government is financed. We on this side, together with the Alliance, tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Government to agree to an inquiry into finance in local government when the rate-capping Act was going through and also during proceedings on the paving Act.
We are also concerned that the Committee has to concentrate on the issue of political campaigning at public expense so that it can submit an interim report on this. If the committee is to report on the whole inquiry within a year I fear that the political campaigning—an issue which is tied up with a very much wider problem—will have taken up too much of its time. It is rather a pity, although I know the reason, that it was pulled out in this way rather than being dealt with in the general terms of reference with other issues. If this is so, surely consideration should be given to allowing the committee to take another six months if its needs it, so that it can do a proper job. I am in
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favour of not allowing committees of inquiry to go on endlessly; but, at the same time, a committee of this sort must be able to do a thorough job and, if it needs another few months, that should be allowed.
The importance of this inquiry to local government—if it is to be, as stated, impartial and effective and, I hope, unbiased—could be very great. If its recommendations are generally accepted and welcomed by local authorities all over England, Scotland and Wales—as it is essential it should be—there could be an improvement in relations between local and central government for which there is a tremendous need today. Relations between central and local government are extremely bad. The problems with local government and central government have created an unfortunate climate of conflict and abrasiveness. If this inquiry is carried on along these lines and can also carry all parties with it, then the contribution to local government could be very valuable. The way in which the committee of inquiry goes about its job and the time and the flexibility that it is allowed are very important.
5.10 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, from these Benches we would broadly welcome the setting up of the inquiry, and I hope that all local authorities and their associations will play a proper part in it and will give their full co-operation. Like the noble Baroness, my only regret is that the request made so often from the Benches on this side of the House for a proper inquiry into the function, structure and finance of local government was not quite so readily accepted as this present one.
On the rights and responsibilities of elected members and the need for their proper participation and accountability as individual elected members in the decision-making, will this inquiry be able to cover the rights of all members, irrespective of party, to have representation on committees and to have access to all the committee documents with no opportunities for any majority party to lock them out of information and access that is necessary to enable them to do the job for which they were elected? Will the committee be looking, for example, at matters like the Hackney Council case as a possible precedent on which to work?
I believe that it is essential that we have a proper definition of the rights and duties of elected members to make policy and of the responsibility of the officers to ensure that those decisions are fully implemented. It is very important that local authority officers do not become the pawns of any majority party, because their political neutrality over the years has been one of the very great strengths of local government. Will the committee be asked to take a view on the need for political advisers, as such, in local government and how they should be paid? Will it also look at allegations that we have seen from time to time about blatantly political appointments being made in the officer structure?
I am glad that the committee is going to look at discretionary spending. Some of us have felt that some of the grants that have been made have been, to say the least, questionable; and we on these Benches have shown our concern over what we have considered to be gross abuses of power in some authorities. Will the

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inquiry be expected to come out with clear, unequivocal guidelines and proposals, perhaps, for limiting the range of discretionary spending?
On the question of co-option, I think we would remain open to persuasion if the committee makes a good case for it. We may not be averse to limited co-option of non-members for their specific expertise and for a limited time; but we should not want to see any means of co-option being used or abused to alter or strengthen the political control of elected councils.
My Lords, will evidence be invited from other people and other bodies and be taken by this committee of inquiry? The noble Lord has said that the report as a whole is to be completed in one year and that the question of discretionary spending is to be the subject of an interim report. Is that the only matter to be included in the interim report? Or are other items in this inquiry expected to be covered? And when may we expect to have the interim report if the full report is expected within one year? Has the Minister any idea at this time when the Government would be likely to be introducing any necessary legislation following receipt of the full report?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Baronesses for their support and particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for saying that the inquiry was both an important and timely contribution. To answer some of their specific questions, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked about paragraph (c) which covers:
"the need to clarify the limits and conditions governing discretionary spending by local authorities".
I think that my best answer to that is to say that I will certainly bring the inquiry's attention to her remarks so that they can have a look at that particular point. While there is nothing new, perhaps in the conflict of interest between an officer serving as a councillor on another council, I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that this has increased of late, which has put a slightly different emphasis on it.
Both noble Baronesses asked about the financial side of the matter and whether this could not be included. While questions of accountability and the respective roles of members and officers in financial matters will fall well within the scope of the inquiry, it is essential to maintain a clear distinction between the committee's primary concern with the practices and procedures of local government and the local government finance studies which are now being undertaken within the department. While I have no doubt that the committee will wish to keep in touch with the progress of these studies in so far as they are relevant to the subject matter of the inquiry, the manner in which this is done must be a matter for the committee itself.
Both noble Baronesses drew attention to the paragraph about the interim report. I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that I am sure that the committee, if they can produce a report in a shorter time than one year will do so and, similarly, I am sure that, if they find that they cannot do it within a year, they will come and say that they need another month or two. But the year is a guideline which I believe is about the right time. In this interim report the
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"discretionary powers to engage in overt political campaigning at public expense"
is the sentence from the Statement which shows what the committee has been asked to look into.
The noble Baroness Lady Stedman asked a series of questions. Certainly on the first one, about rights, the answer is, yes. To the political adverser allegations, the answer is, yes; to clear guidelines, yes. All this I think would be a, "yes". but I do not want to lead the committee into giving attention to things when it may not want to do so. I believe that we all in this House look foward to an impartial and effective inquiry which will he a real benefit to local government.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, may I ask him whether this committee of inquiry will receive evidence from other bodies?
The Earl of Avon: I think that the answer is to that is that it certainly may, rather than will.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for this Statement. Would he agree that this is the inquiry which is already known as the "abuses inquiry" and will continue to be known as that because it is the abuses that now prevail alas! in a very small number of authorities which have brought this about? Would he agree that this is, indeed, a tragic situation? Would he also agree that, as the noble Baroness opposite said, important as this inquiry is, the radical inquiry into local government finance which his right honourable friend has at last set on foot is even more important and that we shall want to hear about that before very long?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his welcome and also for his support in agreeing that the inquiry is necessary. I agree with him that unfortunately a small number of abuses in a small number of places have led to this rather sizeable inquiry. So far as local government finance is concerned, I can confirm that the studies on this are progressing. In fact, I attended a seminar on it only last weekend.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, on that point, I wonder whether I may say that the Minister would of course acknowledge that there is a difference between the internal inquiry into finance which is going on at the moment and the broader and external inquiry into finance in local government to which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman and I were referring.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, when I replied to the noble Baroness I very carefully read out the actual wording here so that I should not get it wrong. I hope that she will read Hansard and be happy with it.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I thoroughly support everything that my noble friend has said from the Alliance Benches. There is one specific area with which I should like the Minister to deal, if he can. That is the question of the local government ombudsman. The noble Lord sitting behind quite rightly said that there were a small number of authorities who abused their powers. One of them was referred to in your Lordships' House some time ago: that is Beverley. The

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case of Beverley Minster was debated some time ago on a Motion introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, as your Lordships will recall. In that case, the findings of the ombudsman had been ignored on two occasions by that council. Can we have an assurance that this inquiry will look into the role of the Local Government Ombudsman, with the possibility of perhaps giving him rather more teeth to act in those cases where his findings have been totally ignored?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I certainly would not preclude the possibility that the inquiry might wish to consider the role of the ombudsman in the checking of abuses, but I think we should leave that actually to the committee to decide.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, may I ask the Minister one question concerning Scotland? May I, first of all, say how much I agree with what has been said about the lack of any inquiry into the finance of local authorities. In the absence of that, I feel that this inquiry will be largely frustrated. May I ask the Minister whether it will be within the powers of the inquiry to inquire into the number of tiers of local government in Scotland? As he will be aware, there has been considerable criticism of the two-tier system in Scotland, not least from his own party. Do I take it therefore that it will be outwith the remit of the inquiry? If not, are they entitled to inquire into it and also into the relationship of the various local authorities in Scotland?
The noble Earl will also be aware that there has recently been a report by the Montgomery Committee regarding the powers of the local authorities and the islands councils. Presumably—may I have this confirmed?—the islands councils will be entitled to make representations to the inquiry on any matters which fall within its remit.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, it specifically says in the Statement that the structure will be outside the terms of reference.

Civil Defence
5.22 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, may I first congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Renton, on introducing a debate on this most important subject, and also thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for taking us through the Government's existing policy on Civil Defence. I am not entirely convinced that that policy is yet vigorous or comprehensive enough, especially in the context of whatever action needs to be taken to ensure that local authorities discharge their statutory obligations in the context of Civil Defence.
I shall be brief, as the debate is running late. I want to deal with two points only: they are the two points, I think, which lie at the heart of the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Renton. First of all, there is the need for an intelligent and adequate Civil Defence
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policy, especially in the context of defence against military attack, including nuclear attack. I am going to concentrate on that rather than on the important question of peacetime disasters. Secondly, there is the role and responsibility of central Government in all matters affecting national security and the relevance of the attitudes of local authorities to this special problem.
First of all, on the need for an adequate home defence policy, I think that some of the doubt for the need for this springs from the famous period of confrontation which was known by some as "mutual assured destruction"—that is to say, the balance of terror—in which both sides believed that they could destroy the other. Out of that came the somewhat curious theory that to provide, in that context, protection for your civilian population was an act of provocation and might destabilise the balance of terror. I never regarded that as a specially convincing or intelligent argument; but that is less important than the fact that the Soviet Union never believed in the balance of terror anyway.
The Soviet Union has always believed, and has said in every strategic work that has been published in the Soviet Union, that nuclear weapons would be used in war. They have pursued in their nuclear strategy a war-fighting doctrine. They have built up throughout the 1970s a massive force of nuclear weapons, a force which is regarded by some experts in this field as giving them the capacity, if they should wish to exercise it, to launch a first nuclear strike against the United States of America and the West.
Whether the first-strike theory is valid or not, the fact remains that in the face of the build-up of Soviet nuclear forces in the 1970s there was an underlined and increased need for the West to maintain a deterrent against such an attack. Deterrence, as your Lordships will be well aware, is nothing new: deterrence is as old as military force. It requires the country which feels itself threatened to pose a credible defence against possible attack in the hope and the belief that that itself will deter a potential enemy from attacking. And an essential component of any deterrent posture is effective defence. That means not only conventional military defence but home defence as well; and no deterrent posture, whatever one's views may be about the validity of nuclear deterrence itself, makes sense unless it contains provisions for protecting the civilian population of your country.
If there is anyone who is still in doubt about that in this country, I can assure your Lordships that there is no one in doubt about it in the Soviet Union, because at the time the Soviet Union was building up its offensive forces in the 1970s it was also engaged in a quite remarkable programme of improvements in its Civil Defence arrangements. In 1972 when General Altunin assumed the responsibilities of Civil Defence in the Soviet Union from Marshal Chuikov, he immediately set about revolutionising the Civil Defence arrangements of the Soviet Union. Between 1972 and today there has been a very systematic and effective programme of Civil Defence in the Soviet Union which has involved plans for the evacuation of essential personnel, the hardening—that is to say, the protection—of important and strategic factory sites, the provision of emergency headquarters, not only for

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the central government but in the regions as well, and the provision of population shelters. And anyone who has travelled on that magnificent underground railway system in Moscow will have been impressed by the size and nature of the steel doors that are provided there. Furthermore, there has been behind all that a programme of intensive training of the great mass of the Soviet population in what to do and how to react in time of attack.
Perhaps, with the indulgence of the House, I might simply quote one brief statement from General Altunin, made as recently as 1978. After he had been engaged for five or six years on this programme, he said in a speech in February 1978:
"The main purpose of our Civil Defence is, together with the armed forces, to ensure the population's defence against mass destruction weapons and other means of attack from a likely opponent".
He goes on:
"Nothing, no heartrending cries from idealogists of imperialism, no fabrications of the bourgeois propagandists, can distract us from solving this important task of State and of the whole people".
Whatever may be our failings in this respect in the West, the Soviet Union understands the realities and the uses of military power; and if we in this country, and indeed in the United States of America, tend—as I think we do—to take our responsibilities for the protection of our civilian population too lightly, the Soviet Union does not.
I come now to the second point, which is the role of central Government in all matters affecting national security. Since the early 17th century when Thomas Hobbes wrote his monumental work The Leviathan, it has been a matter of accepted doctrine that the principal role of the sovereign state is to protect and ensure the security of its citizens. It is the primary role of Government. Beside it all else is secondary. Her Majesty's Government are, I think quite rightly, deeply concerned with the problems of national security, and when they have made their arrangements for ensuring our security they have usually made them in the classic centralised way. We have armies, we have navies, we have air forces, we have a central budget, we have now nuclear strike forces, and they are financed and controlled entirely by the central Government.
But I think that the Government have been right in the case of Civil Defence, home defence, to accept that the best way of arranging our Civil Defence is to decentralise it; to make it, for all kinds of administrative and other reasons, the responsibility of local authorities. But this is very largely where the Civil Defence arrangements of this country have broken down, because, as has already been said in this debate, many local authorities have simply refused to discharge their statutory duties in this respect, whereas we have already heard that the 1983 regulations set out, and set out very clearly and in great detail, what local authorities are required to do in the field of Civil Defence, not only in the field of planning but in the field of actual preparation as well.
Many local authorities, as we know, have simply declined to carry out their statutory duties. Many have implemented this lunatic concept of the nuclear-free zone. This has already been referred to and I shall not spend too much time on it, except to say that of course
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these local authorities are not nuclear-free zones, except in the sense that those who run them have abdicated the responsibility of providing a defence for the people of their authorities against any form of nuclear or conventional attack.
Local authorities, it seems to me—whatever else they may wish to do with their money or with their people—should not have foreign and defence policies of their own. These are the responsibility of central Government and if these polices and attitudes lead, as they may well do, to a miscalculation by a potential enemy, if a potential enemy believes that we are so ill-advised, ill-informed and ill-intentioned that we will not provide ourselves with a defence against attack, the possibility that they might attack by miscalculation is measurably increased.
I should like to know what these people are going to say when, if our deterrence fails because of weakness and lack of resolution, the bombs begin to fall on Greater London or on some of the municipalities of Wales. Are they going to emerge and say. "I am terribly sorry. There seems to have been some mistake. This is supposed to be a nuclear-free zone"? It will be somewhat late in the day then.
At this stage, perhaps I could just take a moment to refer to something which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said. I am not quite sure whether he was reflecting his own opinion or quoting from someone else, or even from himself, but I seem to think that he was reflecting a view that, in certain circumstances of all-out nuclear exchange, any attempt to provide a Civil Defence, a home defence capacity, was not only useless but probably misleading and immoral. If he was saying that, I must take the gravest issue with this.
There may be, as the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, has said, many contingencies, many scenarios, ranging from the demonstration attack with a nuclear weapon, through conventional attack, through a limited nuclear exchange; and in certain circumstances, in certain scenarios, it has been calculated by people who have studied this matter with great care and closeness that the difference in the number of casualties in this country, even in the face of a substantial nuclear attack, if we have an effective defence system as against if we do not, may be as high as 16 million.
It seems to me that the insurance policy to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has referred is a premium well worth paying if it meant, in the tragic circumstance that our deterrence and our defence policies had failed and we were attacked, that we had taken precautions that would result in the lives of 16 million people being saved. It seems to me that to take that view—I am not suggesting that the noble Lord takes that view himself, but there are those who do—
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the noble Lord has very courteously allowed me to intervene. The point that I was trying to make was this. If it be a fact, as I believe it to be, and as others more knowledgeable than I am believe it to be, that a nuclear holocaust means, quite literally, the extermination of nations of peoples, then the sooner the truth be known and uttered by responsible statesmen the more chance we have of a sensible world seeing that nuclear weapons are destroyed.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I understand the point that the noble Lord is making. I return to my earlier point, that no one knows what would be the result of this or that nuclear scenario. I think it would be foolish if we simply assumed that there was only one scenario, which was universal holocaust and annihilation, and therefore took no action to deal with what might be lesser catastrophes.
That leads me to perhaps the one criticism that I would advance about the Government's attitude to these matters. Once the democratically elected Government of this country have made their views and their policies known about Civil Defence, there must be no argument from local authorities, and if there is argument about it then I believe that the Government have to be firm, resolute and even, if necessary, draconian. There can be no question of compromising with this issue. We cannot leave the defence of this country in time of war to people whose hearts and minds have become so enfeebled that they cannot see the need for protecting the citizens of their country when they are attacked by a hostile state.
Therefore, I think the least that we now have the right to expect from the Government is a clear and coherent policy in which there is the closest cooperation between central and local government in peacetime—not when the war starts, but now. In the contemporary strategic climate which I have described very briefly, it is no good assuming that there will be a comparatively leisurely pre-attack period, in which all the stoical qualities of the British people will be brought into play and we shall have plenty of time to prepare for the worst. There may not be that time, faced with the present Soviet military apparatus.
What we must now have in peacetime are comprehensive plans, centrally formulated and known to local authorities, for all matters such as control of movement, feeding, billeting, shelter, security and emergency powers and these plans have to be communicated clearly and unambiguously to the public. I hope, in passing, that in the information programme which the noble Lord outlined, we shall come out with something better than the pamphlet, Protect and Survive.
The important thing is that local authorities have a vital role to play. They cannot be expected to do so without guidance, but once they have had that guidance they must get on with the job. If they do not get on with the job, then whatever residual powers the Government have to do it for themselves must be exercised; and I suggest that there may even be more drastic measures to be taken against people who, for political ends of their own, are prepared to put at risk the lives of millions of people in this country.
Charles Bohlen, an American diplomat, once said, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". I hope now that the Government do know where they are going on Civil Defence; we have had no Civil Defence worth the name since 1968. I hope the Government know where they are going; I hope they will make sure that other people know where they are going; and I hope they know that, if they do not go there, they may be in quite serious trouble.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Murton of Lindisfarne: My Lords, it is five years all but one month since I first took part in a debate on Civil Defence in your Lordships' House and, in fact, Civil Defence was on that occasion the subject of my maiden speech. I think that we are all deeply grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton for bringing hack before our eyes and ears again this very important subject. I am also very grateful to the Minister, my noble friend Lord Elton, for the comprehensive review which he has given us.
In terms of history, when one thinks back to 1968 and the question of putting Civil Defence on a "care and maintenance" basis, one feels that at that time it was probably a sensible thing to do in as much as there seemed to be some possibility of a nuclear balance of power. From that arose what I understand was called the concept of mutually assured destruction—an unpleasant phrase, and, when abbreviated to the word MAD, even more alarming. But I am not arguing that such a military assessment was wrong at that time; my concern is that such little thought was then given to the fact that the military balance could swing away from nuclear parity, as in fact I fear it has done over the past five years.
Time has gone by, but the fundamental decision as to how best to protect the civil population in the event of war is one that has to be squarely faced. Moreover, weapon technology continues to advance and the time may soon be here when in fact there is little difference in destructive power between the nuclear weapon and the so-called conventional weapon. The obvious factor in this equation is the astronomical cost of providing fully comprehensive protection to face a contingency which might never arise. It is attractive to think that it will not; but, my Lords, is it wise to think so?
The present compromise reached is best described in the pamphlet Protect and Survive, which was produced in May 1980 and which remains the standard work on the subject. It can best be summarised as "Stay put, and build an improvised fall-out room and inner refuge in your own home". Such a policy, as has already been stated, does not compare well with the long-term action taken to protect their populations by the two neutral countries of Switzerland and Sweden. We are told that the Swiss already have underground public and private shelters to contain four-fifths of the 6·5 million population and that by the year 2000 all will be covered, even allowing for an expanded population of more than seven million.
The Swedes have been building shelters since the end of the last war. There are what are called "shelter obligation authorities"—a good name which we might well accept—which cover 70 per cent. of the population. Denmark has had a shelter programme since 1950 for both private and public use, and the latter alone are said to be planned to cater for 25 per cent. of the people.
Lest it should be thought to be provocative to a potential aggressor should this country embark on a shelter programme, please let it be remembered that Russia has not ignored the problem of Civil Defence. I need say no more about this because the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has covered the matter most

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adequately and extremely well. May it suffice to say that I understand that in Russia compulsory annual training in Civil Defence involves some 50 million adults and young people. The disturbing fact is that as successive governments have adopted what I shall call, without I hope being offensive, a "softly, softly" approach to this very difficult problem, all the running has, I fear been left to those whose views at best confuse the public and at worst are very much more dangerous and are destructive of national morale.
I am thinking in this connection of the CND movement which now has, I understand, a membership of more than 100,000. It is a manifestation in political terms which may be mostly noisy and tiresome, but which may nevertheless harbour among its idealists and pacifists forces much more sinister.
What is one to make—this is some time back, and things might have improved—of the policy of an inner London borough whose deputy leader, when asked how many of the borough's staff were engaged on home defence planning, replied, "One". When asked how much his borough spent on home defence, he said, "Between £250 and £300 annually". He then volunteered the information that in his borough people were more interested in social security and new roads than in any bomb. He personally was for peace. At what price, my Lords? Any price?
The most fatuous of all exhortations which I have seen—again, it has been referred to tonight—is that conceived by the GLC, on all of whose vehicles is the message, "Make London nuclear free". That attitude of mind would make the proverbial ostrich jealous for his position as the most stupid of all created beings, if only he could read the message.
Regretfully I have to say that the present Government must take a higher profile over this important matter and also take a firmer line with any recalcitrant local authorities. I was much encouraged to hear my noble friend the Minister say that this indeed was to be the case.
The 1983 Civil Defence regulations contain powers for directing local authorities to prepare evacuation plans. I think that we should look back to 1938 when the assumptions at that time by the Home Office about the behaviour of the population under direct attack proved to be totally inaccurate when war came; and there are very many in your Lordships' House who were witness to the calm courage and the orderliness that was then displayed.
If hostilities were to occur, would not the most likely course be, at least in the early stages of a European war, that our ports and centres of communication would come under attack from conventional weapons? Most of us know from practical experience that limited evacuation in an orderly manner from target areas is quite feasible, and indeed such plans existed until 1968. I wonder in fact what plans there are at the present time.
And, my Lords, Civil Defence is not only concerned with war. As the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has pointed out, there have been civil disasters—one in Canada, one in Bophal, and one in Italy. Nearest in our memories is the frightful tragedy last year in
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Bophal, where I understand 100,000 survivors had to be evacuated. So please let us not turn our backs on the possibility that, for one reason or another, evacuation might be appropriate in an emergency in this country. Let us have positive contingency planning of evacuation and reception areas.
I well know that the financial restraints of the past two decades have put into the background any thought of a comprehensive shelter policy. It is, however, little short of tragic in my view that, with so much commercial re-development taking place, successive British Governments have not followed the example of the Swiss and Swedish governments in whose countries it has been obligatory upon the owner of a new industrial or commercial building to provide a shelter at a cost shared between the owner and the state. For public shelters in Switzerland the local authorities pay 70 per cent. and central government the balance. I understand that rather similar powers were taken by Denmark in 1950.
I am not suggesting that there should suddenly be in the United Kingdom an enormous capital programme of public expenditure on bomb-proof shelters. Were I to suggest such a thing, I should be put to scorn and would probably be in severe trouble with my own party. Just to illustrate my point, to date the Swiss have spent £1.8 billion on shelters and still expend some £140 million annually. On the other hand, there is much that could be done and now should be done. The Government have the power to ask local authorities to identify buildings which could be used as public shelters, but I am told there has been some vagueness about specification and the numbers required. I hope my information is wrong, and shall be pleased to hear if that is so.
There should be earmarking of all underground transport systems, car parks, disused tunnels and basements of modem buildings for the protection of highway users. In residential areas, those houses which have cellars should also be earmarked. These planning precautions, so far as they are practicable, should not be confined to major urban areas but ought to include all localities, even in the countryside, which are perceived to be in a zone in danger from nuclear fallout. All these matters could be easily accomplished within the manpower establishment of local authorities as it exists at present, and I would suggest at comparatively small cost.
For the future, there should be a much more positive approach to the problem. I should like to see legislation which would require all new public buildings, factories, shops and blocks of residential flats to incorporate a shelter at a cost of not more than 5 per cent. of the total building, excluding the price of the land. If there cannot be a proportionate outright grant from the state towards the cost, then let there he at least an interest-free loan or a tax concession offered. It is sad to think that this opportunity was missed those 20 years ago.
The hard fact is that the official calculation on the basis of family units staying put in their homes with improvised shelters in a nuclear attack would be in the order of a 40 per cent. casualty figure overall. If, however, we have properly constructed bomb-proof shelters, the casualty figure would fall to 20 per cent.

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overall. Nobody can be certain about anything in such grim circumstances, but the general public will never have much faith in any policy which does not do all that is feasible to protect the individual.
I will end with a most solemn thought and question. If a nation has an adequate and efficient home defence in all its aspects, does not this knowledge, at a time of grave crisis, reinforce the will of a Government and enable them to take courageous, as opposed to appeasing, political decisions? As a nation we do not lack courage, but the quotation comes to mind:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".
5.53 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for introducing this important debate. He has drawn attention to the fact that, as at present conceived, Civil Defence in this country is an absurdity. The chaos stems from total confusion about the purposes of Civil Defence. At the beginning there was a pretence that Civil Defence could make a real contribution in protecting the population against the consequences of nuclear war. The purpose of that pretence was to persuade the population to accept Britain's participation in the nuclear war game. It was successful. Successive governments accepted—sometimes secretly, before they were discovered in one form or another—the hydrogen bomb, Britain's independent nuclear deterrent and the establishment of American nuclear bases in this country. So, as has been said, we have become an unsinkable aircraft-carrier attached to the United States of America and her military forces.
Those policies could not have been followed had it been widely appreciated at the time that there was no real defence against the weapons with which this country was arming itself; in particular, that there was no defence in a small country of our size and of our geographical position. It was only later, when we were thoroughly launched into the nuclear age and totally committed to it, that fatalism began to set in. People began to feel, "We are in it now, and there's nothing we can do".
Nearly 30 years ago I stood for election to the old London County Council for Stoke Newington and Hackney North. My election address contained a promise to get rid of the Civil Defence Corps (as it then was) on the grounds that it was part of the pretence to persuade people that nuclear war could be survived. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, may be interested to know—because we agree about this—that in the following LCC debate that I initiated I suggested in the wording of the motion itself, that the corps, instead of being abolished, should be converted into a civil emergency corps. I believe that proposal is precisely in accordance with at least one aspect of the noble Lord's remarks. That particular advice was not followed. I must say that that was not the only time in my career that my advice was not followed. Generally, those who have failed to follow my advice have been wrong, but there it is: in a democracy people have a right to be wrong as well as a right to be right.
Subsequently, Civil Defence was abolished in London. Later, after I entered the House of Commons
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in 1964, the Civil Defence Corps was abolished nationally. The actual words were "stood down", but it seemed to me to be pretty near abolition as far as I could judge. Certainly the corps was left no functions and no personnel—and that made it virtually nonexistent. But there was left behind a Civil Defence framework. Although it no longer had any manpower, it became almost a propaganda body; an organisation for officers without troops which had little function beyond pretending that it could carry out duties it had no means of fulfilling. It was this which helped to bring about the rebellion among local authorities.
Local authorities found themselves charged with the duty of pretending to provide protection which they had no means of providing; of erecting a framework without any substance and without any reality. It seemed to them—and I believe they were right—that they were employed and engaged to be part of a propaganda machine to keep the public quiet. But the removal of its own rank and file from Civil Defence was not followed by the banning of the bomb, as I freely admit I hoped it would be and advocated that it should be. Then we found ourselves in the present absurd situation, in which we are wholly committed to a weapon and are up to our eyebrows in a weapon which, on the other hand, we admit we cannot possibly survive if it is used against us.
Since the regional organisation of Civil Defence remained, however, they naturally began to search for some justification for their existence. People cannot be paid salaries for too long without beginning to wonder why they are getting that money. When the Conservatives returned to power in 1970, they strengthened the framework under the name of Home Defence and recreated a volunteer body of people to warn the rest of us of our nuclear fate—to give us advance warning, as it is called, though precisely what the purpose is of that advance warning is not entirely clear. Althouth we may be warned, it seems that there will be little if anything we can do, after we have received that warning, to escape almost inevitable doom.
Presumably, it is still hoped that there may be some people capable of being enthused about the bomb instead of the sad aceptance of forthcoming extinction, which is now becoming so widespread. I regret this widespread pessimism—to which I may have contributed to some degree, as much as anyone does—because I should like to see that pessimism directed towards an absolute determination for a tremendous growth of the CND and an absolute determination to rid this country, and eventually the world as a whole, of the threat of nuclear weapons. It is that direction in which we should move, as has been made abundantly clear from our own Front Bench by my noble friend Lord Mishcon.
Deprived of reality, the home defence assumptions have now turned upon themselves. Protection is out; it is no longer suggested that much is possible in that direction. Evacuation is out; it may well exist in the large spaces of the Soviet Union, as the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, suggested, but certainly no one is suggesting that bulk evacuation is possible here. But what is in are two words which are continually being used—"repression" and "mitigation". It is assumed that any attack will almost certainly be nuclear,

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although greater emphasis is placed on the need to plan for other eventualities. But the staff college assumptions—the assumptions of Sir Leslie Mayor—are nuclear assumptions. The other possibilities, in his mind, at any rate, are entirely secondary. Therefore, the staff college assumption is for a nuclear attack and, furthermore, a major nuclear attack. That is precisely the kind of attack which we can do very little about.
That is the nature of our dilemma. It is not an easy one. Substantial sums of money have been spent on creating an alternative subterranean government machine at all levels. There is an alternative government ready to take over in all parts of the country at national, regional and sub-regional levels. The emphasis is on penalty and punishment; on keeping the civil population—which is assumed to be in panic, and no doubt will be—under some form of effective control. I think that is understandable because, for example, the doctors have made it clear that healing will be impossible. Therefore, if one can do little to preserve the population, one must try to keep the remnants of it under some degree of control. The burial of the dead figures very substantially in the Home Office defence arrangements for the post-nuclear situation. Nothing much is said about the living or about the wounded, the injured. The concentration appears to be upon the dead.
The Royal Observer Corps (of which I was once a member when it was the Observer Corps before it became Royal) performed a most valuable task in the last war without which the Battle of Britain could not have been won. However, it is now mainly a warning service. If anyone wants to survive a nuclear attack and linger a little longer in the appalling conditions that would follow a major nuclear attack, I advise him to join the Royal Observer Corps because if he is in one of their units which are spread around the country, he will be able to survive underground in a bunker for a little longer. Personally. I would not envy him. I would not want to join the Royal Observer Corps today, even if I were young enough to do so.
In short, Civil Defence—home defence—can do little in a nuclear war. Those local authorities which are refusing to take part in what they regard as a farce are right. Let me say it again, and finally: our concentration should be on ridding the world of nuclear weapons, not on pretending that nuclear war is survivable.
6.5 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I find I can agree—and it is a pleasant experience—with at least one thing that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said in his speech. It is that not only the House, but also the country owes a great deal to my noble friend Lord Renton for raising this immensely important subject this afternoon. I add also that, as some of us know, my noble friend's concern with Civil Defence goes back many years. He did tremendous work, when he was a Home Office Minister, in trying to get that not always dynamic department—I hope my noble friend will not mind my saying that—a little more active in these matters. Over the years he has done much good work in drawing public attention to the needs of this very important topic.
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I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, is no longer here because I wanted to cast a bouquet at him. I was delighted at the adroitness with which he dragged into a debate on Civil Defence his wonderful King Charles's head of proportional representation. I confess that I am running a book with one of my noble friends on the number of occasions when Liberal spokesmen introduce PR in circumstances that are wholly irrelevant. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, has put me one point up this afternoon.
I come at once to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, who I have known, of course, for many years; not least when we represented, in different interests, adjoining constituencies to the south-west of London. He will no doubt recall how good Conservative workers from my constituency time and again made tremendous invasions into his constituency, with a view to eliminating him, while workers from his constituency made comparable efforts to oust me; but both groups of workers were unsuccessful.
However, I hope the noble Lord will allow me to say that his speech really reveals the nakedness of the line he has been taking with enormous persistency at Question Time. It is—and his argument has been perfectly simple—that because in a full-scale nuclear attack there would be enormous casualties, which nobody in this House wants, it is useless to have Civil Defence for any purpose whatever. That is his argument. Indeed, he went on to say—I took down what he said—that Civil Defence was introduced merely as a pretence, to persuade people to accept Britain's participation in nuclear war.
Let us analyse that. How does the noble Lord think that the provision of Civil Defence here is going to affect the Russian decision whether to use the massive armoury of nuclear weapons which, at enormous expense and at great cost to the standard of life of the population, the Russians have been accumulating?
What the noble Lord means, of course, is that he wishes to see—he used his famous expression "Banning the bomb"—the British nuclear weapon eliminated. He knows perfectly well that gestures of the kind he means will not for one moment affect the Russian decision to build up an enormous armoury of these weapons and to use it if it suits their purpose. I see the noble Lord wishes to intervene and I shall give way to him in a moment, but perhaps he will allow me to finish this line of thought, which will no doubt facilitate his intervention.
If Britain strips itself deliberately of any means of mitigating, however modestly, the effect of a nuclear attack upon it, is that not much more an encouragement to an aggressor to use it than a deterrent? Does it not indeed go further? If we in this country are seen, and manifestly seen, not to be preparing any means of defence against a nuclear exchange, will not even the simplest of the old gentlemen who govern in the Kremlin come to the conclusion that we would be soft: we would never in fact, however provoked, however attacked, retaliate in kind? Surely that is the important consideration here. If the noble Lord wants to intervene I am at his disposal.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I do not think that I shall

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take up the time of the House by dealing with any of the points that he has made, except just to make one point. He is entitled to say what I said, but when he tells me what I mean by what I said, what he is really saying is what he thinks I mean by what I said. None of the things that he thinks that I mean by what I said are those things which I personally mean by what I said.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, that is the most beautiful crossword, but it does not get the noble Lord off the hook. I have quoted what he said. I have tried to the best of my ability to see whether there is any logic in it at all. I think that the House on the whole is inclined to take the view that there is not; that this is really arrant nonsense. The motive that actuates the noble Lord in putting this forward is a matter for him. But the idea that by stripping this country of any means of mitigating the effect of a nuclear attack we are in some mysterious way discouraging, rather than encouraging, a possible aggressor who has many of those weapons from using them really seems to pass from the realms of human logic into at least the outskirts of insanity.
The same applies to these famous nuclear-free zones. There is the wonderful self-delusion, the childish, "Let's pretend". Let us pretend that there is not a nuclear bomb. Let us pretend that it could never be dropped on us. That is what declaring an area (a borough) a nuclear-free zone involves. Let us try to visualise the scenario in the minds of those who say that which they think takes place in the Kremlin. There in the operations room are gathered the chiefs of staffs of the Russian forces, men who control enormous armies, an enormous air force, submarines and nuclear weapons, missiles of every sort—intercontinental, shorter range, and so on. They see them gathered round a map of the United Kingdom, saying—this is apparently the illusion—"Oh, well, you see, we can't bomb Sheffield because Councillor Blunkett has declared it a nuclear-free zone"!
Is that really realistic? Does the noble Lord—does anybody outside Colney Hatch asylum, or even inside—think that the Russian mentality is like that? It is sheer self-deceit, and it is very dangerous self-deceit. It is designed by some people who no doubt have the wish—if I may slightly alter the quotation—
"Travailler pour le Roi de Russie."
It is designed to appeal to people who are genuinely, as we all are, horrified by the prospect of nuclear bombardment and make them think that in some way it can be put into non-being, into non-existence, by declaring Sheffield, Cleveland or the Greater London Council area a nuclear-free zone. That is absolute nonsense. In my view, people who adopt that line are unfit for any measure of public responsibility. Even if the noble Lord is right that an all-out nuclear attack would leave very little surviving—and even that is far from proven—there are so many other contingencies for which Civil Defence is required that to concentrate on this is irrelevant.
It is the whole of the noble Lord's attitude that struck a reminiscent chord in my mind. We have seen all this attitude before, We saw it in the 1930s with the
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Peace Pledge Union—with the people who said that the bomber would always get through, we could not resist, it was useless to arm; we saw it with a Labour Party which as late as April 1939 voted against compulsory National Service, with the Hitler menace looming ever larger over Europe. I thought that I should get the noble Lord up on his feet—
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, if the noble Lord is endeavouring to state history to the House, will he kindly remember his colleagues who were appeasing in 1939 in regard to the very Herr Hitler he has just mentioned?
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, the noble Lord knows that that is a travesty of the facts, and he knows that the fact that we had just sufficient arms to bring us through to ultimate victory was due to the Government of the day—still the National Government of the day, with Conservatives and, I am happy to say, many Liberals in it. Every measure that they put forward to increase the Air Force and to introduce, as I have said, compulsory military service only a few months before the outbreak of war, was opposed by those who then led the Labour Party—continually opposed. If they had had their way, we should either not have gone into the war then and been mopped up later on without difficulty by Hitler, or, alternatively, we should have gone in and been beaten. If the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, would wait a moment, I am dealing with his noble friend on the Front Bench. The less that members of the Labour Party decide to reminisce about their behaviour in the years preceding the war, or about anybody else's behaviour, the better for them, I think. Does the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, want to say something? No, he does not.
Lord Mishcon: But I do, my Lords. We must not continue this for too long. I only wish—and possibly it is a dream—that Sir Winston Churchill had been a Member of this House and at this time could echo his voice in the Chamber. He would not have been very happy, bearing in mind his attempts to convince his colleagues of what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has been saying.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am happy to hear any tribute to the greatest man I ever met, and, I am proud to say, served under, even from the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. But the fact remains that Mr. Churchill, as he then was, rightly pressed the Government of the day to go far further in the matter of national defence. I am happy and proud to say that my father, as a Member of another place, supported him in that—a fact which has given me pride all through. The Labour Party hampered the admittedly less than adequate efforts that the Government of that day were making—and I am no defender of Mr. Neville Chamberlain and his activities. I think he made many mistakes. But at least he did something to provide us with just enough by way of defence, and the Labour Party did its best to stop him—
Lord Beswick: My Lords—
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I promised to give way to the noble Lord, but I am not going to again—
Lord Beswick: My Lords, the noble Lord should not harp on this then.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, we have before been through the experience of those who say it is useless to provide for defence. Those of us who have lived through that before and seen the troubles that it brought on this country, do not, I think, want to see it repeated.
The provision of Civil Defence is to cope with every sort of possibility. There is the all-out nuclear defence attack that we have been talking about. Then there is the single nuclear bomb. Your Lordships will recall that the only time the bomb has been used in war was in Japan, when only two bombs were put down. If two bombs were put on this country, Civil Defence could do an immense amount to save life. Alternatively, it may be—and this is a rather horrifying thought, but your Lordships, I think, have to face it—that one day one of the international terrorist organisation, whether based in Russia, Libya, Cuba or wherever it may be, may place a nuclear weapon in some area in this country. If that were to happen, could not tremendous value be achieved by an effective Civil Defence service?
What about a chemical attack on this country—chemical warfare? It is well known that although we are not, as I understand it, making any preparations to undertake such a war, the Russians have spent a great deal of money on it. They might well use it, instead of a nuclear attack, in the hope that they would thereby avoid nuclear retaliation. Civil Defence could do a great deal in that contingency.
Or there is so-called conventional war. Some people in this country are apt to shrug off conventional war as if it were just an agreeable outdoor sport. Those of us who have lived through one—and there are one or two people in this House, including my noble friend Lord Stockton, who have lived through two—know that it is a very terrible thing and that great damage can be caused, as was caused in this country by ordinary bombing with high explosives by the Germans between 1940, when they started bombing, and the end of the war. In all these situations an effective Civil Defence organisation would be of priceless value.
Then we come to the final point, which I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Renton pressed, of making sure that the Civil Defence organisation is slotted into our preparation for general civil emergencies of whatever kind may arise. On this, I have a slight bone to pick with my noble friend and the Government. It was in our party's election manifesto at the last election that legislation would be introduced to amend the 1948 Act to enable the full apparatus of Civil Defence and the money spent on it to be used to deal with a civil emergency. With a subject of that importance, and now nearly two years into a Parliament. it really is not good enough to say, "Oh, well, if a Private Member's Bill comes forward, that would be a very nice way of doing it". The Government really must take responsibility for that legislation. As my noble friend Lord Renton rightly said, if there is pressure on Parliamentary time there are other measures now before us which are of considerably less significance and importance. If my noble friend wants an example, if he were to dump the
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Insolvency Bill, at any rate for this Session, I think he would probably bring about a great deal of relief in many quarters of the House and that would give ample time for this legislation, which is a measure of very great importance.
The only other thing I want to do is to echo something that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said in that absolutely magnificent speech of his, and it is this. We are dealing here with issues of national defence and with the protection of the lives, in certain contingencies, of millions of our fellow countrymen. If any public authority, any local authority, defies the law of Parliament, laid down by Parliament, as to its duties to make provision there, it becomes, I suggest to your Lordships. the duty of the Government to use every means and their fullest authority to ensure that that work is done. Even if it involved suspending that local authority and sending in a commissioner, I hope the Government would not hesitate. Parliament has placed this duty—and it is a major duty—upon the public authorities, but it is the duty of the Government and of nobody else to ensure that that duty is carried out, if not by those on whom it is imposed in the first place then by somebody else who will do it.
I hope that my noble friend, when she replies—and I know from experience that her replies are never lacking in vigour and precision—will indicate, first, that the Government are clear that a local authority which does not do its duty in this respect will be appropriately dealt with; and, secondly, that the Government will be introducing legislation to clear up the problem I mentioned as to the 1948 Act. We are discussing what in certain contingencies (not, I hope, likely, but no one can say they are impossible) could perhaps be the most important subject of all. Your Lordships' House, with its varied experience, speaks with very considerable authority, and I hope that the effect of this debate may be that something really effective will be done, and done quickly.
6.24 p.m.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, it is by no means as a matter of form or as a matter of course that I wish to add my congratulations and expression of appreciation on the achievement of my noble friend Lord Renton in introducing this debate. I wish to say something else about that, and it is this. If I did not know him to be a man of almost infinite patience and good nature, I should suspect him of resentment at the introduction into this debate of three totally unnecessary Statements.
Practically everything that I had it in mind to say has been said, and said a great deal better than I should have said it. Therefore, I do not propose to repeat it. It has been said very largely by my noble friend who has just sat down, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. It has also been said by almost everybody else, though not quite.
At the risk of seeming to introduce a slightly harsh note into what is meant to be (so far, anyway) a benign discourse, may I strike a very slight note of disappointment at the word used at the conclusion of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon? The noble Lord speaks always with the greatest of courtesy and, the greatest of fluency. He very often argues with

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a considerable closeness, and totally unable to be misunderstood. He does not (to use a phrase that he himself used about the speech of another noble Lord who spoke earlier in the debate) lack certain subtlety at times. No doubt he knows the value of having the last word—the tag, the pay-off. I cannot imagine any competent barrister who is not aware of this. not least one like the noble Lord himself. It seems to me a pity that the last word he used in his speech this afternoon was "holocaust". It is a pity that he should leave in some minds, I think, a suspicion that he regarded the ultimate fate of this country, if war should break out, as a nuclear holocaust. It is a pity because, if I may say so without impertinence, preceding this there was so much to be admired in the course of his speech.
I think it is a pity also because his noble friend who was sitting quite close beside him—I seem to recollect that there was a noble Lord sitting there—may have picked up this word and have heard nothing else. I do not think that noble Lord is here any more. I mean the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney. He has managed to get through this debate without apparently listening to a single speech. That is a very unusual feat. Apart from that, the noble Lord does not appear to have read the terms of the debate as written on the Order Paper. I need hardly read those words out to your Lordships. They refer to,
"the duty of central Government and of local authorities to deal with peacetime emergencies, and to provide Civil Defence in case of conventional, biological, chemical or nuclear attack",
and so on. The noble Lord did not notice any of that. He spoke of nothing but full-scale nuclear attack, which, according to him, is what the Government actually expect (and expect nothing else) and is what we are proposing to defend ourselves against.
What the Government have said recently in their latest emergency services note from the Home Office is:
"The United Kingdom must be prepared for a period of conventional war in Europe, but a war of this kind would probably last only a matter of weeks at most. It would not necessarily escalate into nuclear exchange because efforts to bring it to an end might be successful at the conventional stage",
and so on. The next paragraph begins with the words:
"It is expected that the main threat to the United Kingdom would be from conventional air attacks".
That is quite a long way from the total holocaust envisaged by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, and by his noble friend Lord Mishcon.
I do not know from where the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, got this idea, but he also said that there is no defence against the weapons with which this country is arming itself—the bomb, the machine gun and the main battle-tank. I join my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter in wondering what on earth one can say about such a man as the noble Lord. To be quite candid, I think that my noble friend was a little hard on the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins. There was my noble friend standing up and, in his beautifully-delivered manner, trying to find logic in what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, had said. We have known the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, for a long time now, and nobody seriously expects to find any logic at all in anything he says; it is unreasonable. Above all, it is unreasonable when it comes to what my noble friend (or I think it
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may have been the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont) described as the "lunatic concept of the nuclear-free zone".
I saw the words "Nuclear-Free Zone" not long ago in London written on the side of a railway bridge under which I was driving. They appeared to have been written by a man hanging by his ankles from the parapet, using a brush dipped in tar and held between his teeth. I wondered for a minute what the words "nuclear-free zone" were intended to mean. Had they been written perhaps by the mayor of the borough in an off-duty moment after dinner? I pondered upon what was the point of this curious graffito. What was it supposed to mean? I pulled myself up and realised, of course, that it means and is meant to mean nothing. It indicates an attitude of mind. I cannot help feeling that an attitude of mind that can express itself in this curious scrawl of meaningless words tends to verge upon the woolly.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, is not here. I shall, however, say these things whether he is here or not. That is his fault, not mine. We should not take seriously anything that people of his persuasion say. But, my Lords. such remarks are taken seriously. They are, in fact, dangerous. It is all very well for us to sit here and laugh because we can see what is funny, silly and stupid. But there is a great danger. Many people actually take such remarks seriously. It is quite wrong for anyone to get up and talk in this manner. Whatever I might say in a rather frivolous manner, the fact is that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, knows perfectly well what he is talking about and he has no right to do it.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, took exception to a remark made by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter which I cannot repeat verbatim. It was to do with what he thought he had said or what was going on in his mind when he said it and that kind of thing. I recall some remarks that he made on 31st January in this Chamber. In a supplementary question addressed to my noble friend Lord Elton, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, asked:
"My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, having been to Leningrad, I found that they had made no preparations whatsoever for Civil Defence, taking the view that no civil defence was possible in the nuclear age?"
I shall not say what I think the noble Lord meant in saying that. I prefer not to do so. It is very disagreeable. Does the noble Lord mean us to suppose that there is no civil defence to be found in Leningrad, which has the reputation of having the most advanced civil defence on earth? Is he telling us that he walked round Leningrad with his head in the air and happened not to notice it? Does he really believe that it is not there? Or is he simply trying to pull the wool over our eyes and pretend that things are not as they are? I ask the questions. I leave them floating in the air. I should also like to quote, for the guidance of noble Lords who wish to work it out, the next sentence of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins. He asked:
"Would it not be better if the noble Lord were to take a similar view?"—[Official Report, 31/1/85; col. 741.]
The noble Lord is using the argument that he did not see any civil defence arrangements in Leningrad in order to persuade the Government not to have them here. That is enough of that!

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I heartily applaud, as did my noble friend just now, the expressed intention of the Government of legislating to bring the provisions of the Civil Defence Act into a wider field so that the provisions contained in the Act can be used for the protection of the country and its people in times of peace. I am a little worried about the timescale envisaged in the circular issued by the Home Office, which states that plans must be capable of being implemented at seven days' notice. I should like to know from my noble friend Lady Trumpington when she replies what is the biggest and most elaborate plan that can be put into effect in that time. Can you organise, for instance, an entire auxiliary fire service? This short-time scale is a little disquieting. If services are to be provided at seven days' notice, those involved must be trained, organised and actually in being, ready to go into practice.
With that question and that proviso, I hope that the debate will be an encouragement to the Government to produce legislation of their own and to forget any idea of leaving it to private Members. Private Members depend on the Government for their safety and protection, and I hope that the Government will not be backward.
6.35 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for bringing forward this important subject. I should like to say a few words on the subject of food and agriculture in relation to Civil Defence. Although my waistcoat is not of such a gallant hue as that of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, I incline to agree with him that, probably, one of these days, the human race will blow itself to bits. All traditional cosmology tends to this view. Indeed, it may be a fitting end to the selfish and greedy society we live in. If, in the immortal words of that poet and philosopher Tom Lehrer, "We all go together when we go", there is no problem. But Civil Defence is, I think, concerned with a different scenario. The object of Civil Defence is to minimise human suffering and to save lives in a lesser disaster.
In the case of agriculture, localised disasters, even on the scale of the accident at Bhopal, are not very significant because activity in agriculture is so widespread. Similarly, disasters which are limited in time are not likely to affect agriculture too seriously. They might have a serious effect on intensive livestock units and dairies where the failure of electricity supplies could have an immediate effect, but in any case many such organisations have standby generators. It is, however, perhaps worth noting that even a short-term disaster could affect urban food supplies if there was no fuel for transport.
A shortage of electric power, fuel or transport would begin to hit agriculture within a week or two. Farming today uses an immense amount of power as well as many other inputs such as fertilisers and agrochemicals which come from outside the farm. Farmers need to think ahead and to be guided as to what they could do under circumstances of the cut-off of supplies from the outside world for a matter of weeks or even months. Dairy units would be particularly hard hit. A shortage of fuel at some critical
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seeding time or harvest might be very serious for the arable farmer.
The real problem would arise if food were to begin to run out in the cities, if the water supplies were to become polluted or if an epidemic disease were to break out among the urban population. Then, Civil Defence plans would become of paramount importance. Unless people were evacuated in an orderly fashion, they would just pour out into the countryside. Not only would they need to be evacuated but also they would have to be taught to survive in the countryside without destroying its capacity to produce food.
In any emergency situation where food could not be produced for a period of time, food stocks become critical. In contrast to some continental countries, a large proportion of the crops produced on British farms are stored on the farm. And since United Kingdom farms now meet over 60 per cent. of domestic food consumption, very active measures would have to be taken at short notice to identify foodstocks on farms, to protect them from pollution, looting, pilfering and profiteering, and to requisition and distribute them.
Professor Mellanby has shown us that Britain can feed herself but only if we turn over to a more or less vegetarian diet. In the context of any serious disaster in this country, supplies of food grain and other staple foods would be needed for human consumption and all livestock except those which feed off grass and fodder crops, and perhaps a breeding nucleus, would have to be slaughtered. Arrangements would have to be made for these slaughtered animals to be eaten as food or to be disposed of for hygiene reasons. If the nation's food supplies stored on farms are looted or polluted, then terrible and unnecessary starvation could follow. There would also be a need for dissemination of information and training for farmers and others as to how to produce food under conditions of limited or non-existent fuel and other inputs. Seed stocks must be preserved, and so must a nucleus of livestock for breeding.
A limited nuclear disaster would give rise to these kinds of conditions, but in a more extreme form. Inputs of power, fuel, fertilisers and agro-chemicals would probably be cut off for an indefinite period. There would be no transport or communications. Risk of pollution to food stocks on farms would be greatly increased because of the radiation hazard. Above all, the length of period during which people and nucleus livestock would have to be supplied from existing food stocks would be much longer. It has been suggested that two or three weeks in a fall-out shelter might be followed by a nuclear winter of up to three months or more; and after that there would be the time required to grow the next crop.
To make provision for these conditions is infinitely more difficult than to do so for a more limited disaster. Some effort ought to be made to provide a series of nuclear "Noah's Arks" for breeding stock and seed, and, above all, for instruction to farmers on what to do and how to grow crops without any of the inputs to which they are accustomed in modern farming. In my view, we in your Lordships' House have an obligation to satisfy ourselves that the Government have made adequate contingency plans

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to cope with these and other possible disaster situations.
What do we know of the present position? Responsibility for food and agriculture rests with the Ministry of Agriculture. Its most recent booklet on the subject, entitled, Home Defence and the Farmer, was published in 1958 and is out of print. A new booklet, entitled, Civil Defence and the Farmer, has been waiting in the wings for almost four years. It was on the brink of publication last year but has now been withdrawn again for further consideration. This scarcely inspires confidence. Are the Government for some reason afraid to publish it?
There are some hints of intended action in a Home Office draft consolidated circular to local authorities on emergency planning, dated last year. This circular is in the Library. It refers mainly to what will be done at some unspecified future date. How soon may we expect action? Plans outlined in this document envisage a centralised organisation and largely ignore the need to train people now at grass-roots level. Let us remember the Boy Scout motto: "Be prepared".
It appears that the plans include the appointment of farm wardens in each region to organise farmers, but it is envisaged that these wardens would only be appointed when the disaster starts. This is patently absurd. Wardens ought to be appointed immediately and trained so that there will be available a nucleus of people who know what they are talking about and what they are expected to do in an emergency. I submit that at the present time the Government's plans for Civil Defence in respect of food and agriculture lack credibility. I should like to ask the Government to make a clear statement of policy and to give a timetable for action. If this information is considered to be too sensitive for publication then surely a Select Committee should be appointed to look into the matter and to report back to your Lordships.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, noble Lords on all sides of your Lordships' House would of course wish to pay tribute to the courage, efficiency and dedication of the regular emergency services and the voluntary organisations. All noble Lords who have spoken—with an important qualification raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney; I am glad to see the noble Lord in his place—have welcomed the firm declaration of intent by the Government: Civil Defence is what we need and Civil Defence is what we must have.
But that is not the question arising in this debate. The questions arising in this debate concern the means of implementation of that declaration of intent. In that context, do we not have to ask ourselves: having regard to the scale of the problem, are these services adequate? Ought further immediate appointments in various spheres to be made? Ought there to be an overriding system of direct co-ordination and control which lies within the exclusive province of central Government? Is the existing system adequate or effective to ensure first of all that local authorities have adequate funds, and, secondly, that when they have them they use them for the purposes for which they are intended? Ought the Government to devise and maintain a new structure for the effective organisation
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of Civil Defence on a regional basis, and is the dissemination of information to the public about Civil Defence adequate?
Such were the matters which I should have raised at the outset, but, having heard speeches from your Lordships—in particular the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont—it would be not only otiose but tedious to detain your Lordships in regard to such matters, however important they may be, and I do not propose to do so. However, it is plain (is it not?) that we cannot just continue as we are and say, "Some local authorities have done very little or nothing. Some local authorities are not taking their grant. Some further action may be required by central Government if the local authorities fail to take appropriate action". We cannot go on like that, can we? The Government must take an urgent initiative to direct, to co-ordinate and to fund. On this railway there is no next train that calls at the station. We owe this urgent initiative, in the name of humanity, to the next generation, and even (dare one say it?) perhaps to our own.
The Motion which my noble friend Lord Renton has moved has, I am sure, done the Government a signal service. It is well conceived. It is particularly well conceived because it recognises a fact which seldom seems to have been recognised: that the emergency against which we have to prepare may arise as a result of armed conflict in the public international law sense, as a result of a domestic catastrophe, or as a result of the intrusion of a weapon by mistake, without any hostile intent at all.
As we debate tonight, there are now, whatever they have been before, no neat categories of emergency such as enabled the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney—I am afraid he has gone now, but I shall refer to him in his absence—to mock the Government policy as an absurdity. Both central Government and local authorities, each within their own respective sphere, have to direct, plan, co-ordinate and organise on the basis that there is no longer a division of category of emergency. Why?—because in the aftermath of such an emergency communities may well be isolated for three weeks or more without any police presence or without any system of criminal justice. Therefore, I, as a lawyer, shall select the aspect of law and order and confine my speech to it.
However, I listened with the greatest possible interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, on the aspect affecting agriculture. In one's own small way one has to look at the problems which one understands, and to anticipate them. It is not enough for Her Majesty's Government to say, as they have been saying, that law and order are the responsibility of Government and the police, and shall remain so. The question is: how shall short-term, temporary delegation of such responsibility operate in such circumstances?
What sort of structure shall the Government devise and maintain to preserve law and order in one or more of the stricken isolated communities? How shall the temporary and lawful delegation of authority be achieved? What sort of direction and co-ordination will be given by the Government? What will be the role of the local authorities? What steps will be taken by Government to ensure, within the province of Government, adequate training, instruction, field

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exercises, training in police duties and training in the administration of justice? What provision will be made as to identification of the lawful authority to carry out such duties?
We understand that when the Civil Defence Regulations 1983 are fully implemented there will be about 200,000 Civil Defence volunteers. But will that be sufficient? How will they be disposed? Will they be sufficient at all events to man the main cities as well as the country areas? One asks these questions because one does not know the answers. But the point surely is that we should all know the answers and fully understand how this emergency system will work. Hence the importance of this debate as an exercise in public relations between the Government and the people.
The fact that Her Majesty's Government have only signed, but not yet ratified, the two additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention, which was opened for signature in December 1977, concerning Civil Defence workers is perhaps neither here nor there in view of the situation which we face today. Those provisions strictly relate to armed conflict as defined in public international law, and, as my noble friend Lord Elton said, we cannot preclude war.
The prospect of perfect or near-perfect defences is negligibly low. Some warheads will always get through, whether by accident or design, and any warhead would cause immeasurable damage. There can be no effective defence of our cities as we move into a new dimension far more dangerous than nuclear deterrence.
As to the warning system, to which my noble friend Lord Renton referred, with the leave of the House perhaps I may quote from the marvellous speech of the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, last week on the debate on the Strategic Defence Initiative. On 30th January, at col. 697, the noble Lord said:
"The stand-off environment of mutual nuclear deterrence is infinitely safer than what would happen if we entrusted our security to an automatically-operating imperfect complex of artificial satellites, lasers and computers, in which there was neither place nor time for the exercise of human judgment".
Can there be little doubt that we are about to enter this new dimension? Is this not the reason why the USSR has returned to the negotiating table? If that is so, does not this call for an urgent and comprehensive reappraisal of the type of structure that we must both devise and maintain to cope with, at all events, the maintenance of law and order in isolated and stricken communities?
In conclusion, may I say that although, of course, this is not the occasion on which to seek to condescend to any form of detail—only to deal with matters of broad principle—I would wish to use any occasion to try to help the unemployed. Let us think of those 1.2 million long-term unemployed, 60 per cent. of whom have no manual skills. I wonder whether some of these people could be employed on Civil Defence to cope with all categories of emergency in context with the maintenance of law and order until normal procedures could be restored. Could they be employed on terms and conditions of service which include not only instruction and training, but also practical field exercises in all three types of emergency? Perhaps we
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should think again; perhaps all Civil Defence volunteers should be put on an employment basis—full-time or part-time—until the age of 60.
All too soon the "hot line" will become an irrelevance for there shall be, to quote the words of the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman:
"neither place nor time for the exercise of human judgment".
I support the suggestion made by other noble Lords that Her Majesty's Government should introduce their own legislation.
6.58 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, because he has said that we should each look at the problems that we understand. I shall attempt to do that. As a general practitioner I have a special responsibility, not only to treat my patients to the best of my ability should they be involved in a disaster, but also to scrutinise plans for medical care following disasters and to try to make constructive comments on them.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who is a great humanitarian, for calling attention to the need for planning for emergencies. Although I apologise for missing the beginning of the debate, I have read the noble Lord's useful introductory speech. He referred, as did several other noble Lords, to the Bhopal disaster. It reminds us of the potential for disaster which is a risk which we bear as a price for industrial development. In spite of greater attention being paid to safety, we certainly bear some risks in this country. Less than 30 miles from here is the biggest complex in Europe of oil refineries and liquid storage tanks of highly toxic substances, such as hydrogen fluoride and ammonium nitrate. This complex is on Canvey Island. An explosion of ammonium nitrate caused 550 deaths in Texas in 1947: and the Health and Safety Executive's second report on Canvey Island realistically estimated risk up to a level of 18,000 casualties, about half of which would be deaths and half injuries.
The accident and emergency units of even the best equipped hospitals in the country—in any country—are stretched to the limit by an accident which causes only 40 to 50 serious injuries. If any noble Lord or noble Baroness doubts this, he or she should ask to see the major accident plan which any hospital with a consultant casualty surgeon must draw up, and that is what will be found. Our preparations for major accidents are woefully inadequate for an industrial nation in an age of rapid transport and of terrorism. One constructive recommendation made by the Central Committee for Hospital Medical Services of the BMA was that the DHSS should fund training and practice for the public in major accident procedures.
There is also a need for improved quality of care even in the case of less severe emergencies. At present our hard-pressed casualty surgeons and nurses attend almost exclusively to the injured person. The more dire his state the less time will there be for the distraught spouse, parents or children. Planned care for close relatives at such crises can prevent later nervous disorder. It is a growing practice in the United States to have one specially trained nurse allocated to the relatives, yet to my knowledge this is only provided

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to any significant degree at one hospital in this country, the Leeds General Infirmary.
At the terrorist bombing in Regents Park in 1982 children saw bandsmen of the Royal Green Jackets literally blown to pieces, and those children received no trained help. The benefit, for children especially, of skilled help at the right time can be enormous, but with present stringencies on the NHS children who lose parents or witness carnage will forgo this.
Turning to the need to protect the population from conventional high explosives in time of war, the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is surely right to emphasise the duty of central Government and of local authorities to provide this, bearing in mind that with evacuation from major target areas it was so successful in the last war; but with the speed that events move now, is evacuation feasible? Present day conventional military weapons are more lethal than they were, but we must be mindful of the steady rise in the ratio of civilian to military casualties in this century from one civilian to 20 soldiers killed in World War I to one to one—that is, equality—in the last war and 20 to one in the Vietnam war, as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has pointed out. Any failure of Government not only to plan but also to provide a realistic shelter programme against conventional high explosives would be either a dereliction of duty or a tacit assumption that any conventional war would rapidly lead to nuclear war, an assumption with which many military experts agree.
Do we see here a change in Government policy rather than mere backsliding? If so, the Government should state it. Ministers have the benefit of scientific studies on the limitation of casualties, and it would not be reprehensible should they decide that the policy of 40 years ago could not work today. At present, the Government really only pay lip service to Civil Defence. If, on the basis of expert advice, they assess that Civil Defence measures would afford a significant degree of protection to the population, they should put their money where their mouths are.
Plans cost little, but they also protect little. A realistic shelter policy would be enormously expensive, but it might be worthwhile. The Swiss seem to think so. However, in my view adequate major accident provision for civil disasters, which we still do not have, comes first. We get a measure of probable military casualty figures from the United States construction and plans for construction of 15 contingency military hospitals in Britain, with a total of some 8,000 beds, as well as many other hospitals in NATO countries. Many people are unaware of these plans, but I have seen the United States congressional record in which the plans for them are discussed.
These hospitals are being built on the assessment that military casualties would build up faster than they could be evacuated to the United States. The first of these hospitals is already equipped to receive patients. Some of these hospitals might well survive a limited strike against Britain. Will planners know the conditions under which these beds might be available for injured British servicemen, or even injured civilians?
I gave notice to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that I
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was going to ask this question, and I shall be interested to hear what the noble Baroness who has to reply to the debate says in answer to it. Many people find it highly disturbing that these hospitals are to be built here. They might feel a little easier in their minds if they felt that British casualties might be helped by their presence in time of war.
In the last few years, with the growing public concern about nuclear war, doctors have often declared themselves sceptical of Government Civil Defence planning. They have equally often been berated for indulging in politics. A doctor's duty, we are told, is to care for his patients, not to reason why. But is it not within the ambit of their professional duty to their patients that many doctors have turned their endeavours to the reduction of risks which could lead to a nuclear war?
The British Medical Association's Board of Science and Education, after taking evidence from the Home Office, the Department of Health and Social Security and many specialists, delivered its report on the medical effects of nuclear war, which was endorsed by the association in 1983, nearly two years ago. The report found serious errors in the Home Office's estimates of injuries and fatalities from nuclear explosions due to confusion between the effects of conventional and nuclear explosions, and, believe it or not, a failure to include burn injuries in the estimates. The report recommended that the health service requirements for conventional war be separated from those for nuclear war and that planning for nuclear war should concentrate on problem-solving skills since the massive number of casualties would rapidly exhaust the largest stockpiles of drugs and equipment.
After studying this report, and a shorter, simpler one prepared by the Royal College of Nursing (which reached similar conclusions), the Department of Health and Social Services issued a revised circular for consultation with the BMA and the RCN. This circular separates conventional from nuclear war. However, both the BMA and the RCN recognised serious inadequacies in the circular and the Home Office strategic assumptions which accompany it. In particular, it does not give any assessment of likely numbers and types of casualties which would follow a nuclear attack, and it does not give advice on what resources should be provided by health authorities.
The circular justifies planning for nuclear casualties on the presumption that a "demonstration" bomb might be used, or some areas of the country might escape devastation. Clearly this may well occur, and planning for these eventualities is desirable; but health authorities need to know the likely scale of casualties and what resources should be devoted to contingency plans.
In a recent issue of the Health and Social Services Journal emergency planning officers are quoted as implying that they are not expected to plan anything which would involve substantial expenditure. No wonder Civil Defence planning is, to say the least, in a state of some confusion. I believe that the British Medical Association is presently discussing the new draft circular with the DHSS, and I hope that a clear, rational document will soon be produced.
Since the draft circular was written the nuclear winter hypothesis has been shown to have a real basis

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by the committee of investigation of the American National Academy of Sciences. The possibility of a nuclear winter should be assimilated into advice on the consequences of a major nuclear war, since health authorities would need to know the likely duration of the extreme Siberian cold. Nuclear winter makes it vital that, while nobody claims to be able to disinvent nuclear weapons, we at least try to return to deterrence at levels of explosive yield below those which would have such a catastrophic effect.
In trying to comprehend the devastating effects of nuclear weapons we are stopped far short of reality by the limits of the human mind. Either we envisage explosions comparable merely to those of World War Two or we brandish numbers for explosive yield which rapidly become too large to comprehend.
T. S. Eliot once wrote:
"Human kind cannot bear very much reality".
Our ex-servicemen who witnessed the tests in Australia and the South Pacific have no such difficulty. Some were at close quarters to 23 nuclear explosions, increasing from the kilotonne to the megatonne range and coming in rapid succession as the atmospheric test ban treaty approached. These men, like Hiroshima survivors, have difficulty not in imagining destruction but in imagining survival.
7.11 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Renton on introducing for debate this subject which raises to many issues of vital national importance and is timely to the point of urgency. Such urgency is illustrated by this headline, which appeared not long ago in a Lancashire evening newspaper. I quote:
"Bolton Town Council last night decided to take no action over the fact that its one nuclear fall-out shelter had been destroyed by vandals".
It is because of attitudes and decisions such as these that my brief contribution to this debate will join those of other members of your Lordships' House in offering wholehearted support to the Government in promoting and developing policies for the Civil Defence of the nation in the event of war.
While also supporting very strongly any policy which provides for peacetime emergencies, my concern will be with Civil Defence, because there is a serious danger that members of the public may be influenced by the negative attitudes of many vociferous pressure groups and even by those of some of the teachers in our schools. Also, to the extent that local authorities are defaulting in their obligations, Civil Defence should become the responsibility of national government, because it is an essential part of the moral basis of the Western strategic position.
NATO is built on the twin premises of defence and deterrence. Civil Defence is, as its name implies, essentially defensive. There is nothing offensive about it. It is also a crucial counterpart to military defence, especially in a conventional war, for, however good and well-equipped the armed forces may be, their effectiveness is drastically reduced by a civilian population which is defenceless.
Effective civilian defence is also an important ingredient in deterrence. Although one approach to
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deterrence in the past may have favoured mutual vulnerability of populations as essential ingredients of the balance of terror, that argument has now been superseded by the fact that other nations are taking Civil Defence seriously. If Britain leaves herself asymmetrically vulnerable, this diminishes the policy of effective deterrence.
Therefore in maintaining our NATO philosophy of defence and deterrence it is crucial to consider what other nations are doing by way of Civil Defence. As the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has already made clear, the Soviet Union has well-established policies starting with the training of every school pupil from the age of eight in Civil Defence matters. Every factory, hospital, institute and farm has to have a Civil Defence programme. There is also systematic training for industrial workers, with well-established techniques for ensuring that factories can start producing goods again very soon after a nuclear explosion, except, of course, in the case of a direct hit.
This quotation from the official in charge of Civil Defence in the town of Lvov contrasts starkly with the attitude of Bolton City Council that I quoted earlier. Speaking on Lvov radio in December 1981, he said that in 1982 the emphasis in the town of Lvov would be on:
"the practical training of the population in ways to protect themselves against weapons of mass destruction … there should not be a single installation in Lvov without a Civil Defence Training point".
Given such developments in the Soviet Union, it is surely irrational and dangerous to fail to develop a national policy for a coherent system of Civil Defence in this country.
Such an argument ought to appeal even to those who advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament. CND campaigners often accept retention of conventional arms as an alternative to nuclear weaponry. They should, therefore, be prepared to support appropriate Civil Defence measures. But instead and all too often they are prominent in decrying Civil Defence as pointless because they argue that if war occurs it will inevitably be nuclear and will result in all-out destruction.
That argument is fallacious on at least two grounds: first, because it is arrogantly confident in its prediction of the form which any war will take, and, secondly, because it fails to consider any contingency other than total annihilation.
The first argument which assumes that any future war will inevitably see the use of nuclear weapons is mere assertion and ignores the fact—which has already been mentioned in the debate—that although all the major powers which possess nuclear weapons have been involved in military conflicts since 1945 not one has used those weapons. History is littered with examples of people who were convinced that impending war could take only one form. For example, prior to the First World War military commentators were almost at one in failing to predict that the war would consist of a static war of attrition. The dread of a war involving aerial bombardment, which haunted so many writers in the 1930s, proved to be more accurate although not the whole story. Their dire predictions resemble much current writing about

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the likely effects of a nuclear holocaust. There were these words of Bertrand Russell:
"London for several days will be one vast raving bedlam, the hospitals will be stormed, traffic will cease, the homeless will shriek for help, the city will be a pandemonium".
Without in any way devaluing the horrors of the London blitz and while recognising that a nuclear war would be horror of a different order of magnitude, the points need to be made that war does not necessarily lead to total destruction; that it is possible to envisage warfare below the all-out strategic nuclear level; that societies may be more resilient than could be imagined and that such forecasts of horror in no way exonerate a Government from doing their utmost to prepare as effectively as possible for all eventualities; and to try to ensure some protection against any kind of attack which might be envisaged and some means of succour and support for those who may survive.
This leads to my conclusion, based upon a constructive example—in contrast to the negativism and irresponsibility of policies often associated with so-called nuclear-free zones. I refer to a publication of the Royal College of Nursing, to which the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has already referred. It is entitled Nuclear War Civil Defence Planning: The Implications for Nursing. It is sober reading. Critical of the current under-provision of Civil Defence facilities, it offers as a case study an analysis of the effects on health care provisions of a one megatonne airburst over Bristol. But it is exemplary in its willingness to confront possibilities, in the practical information it provides concerning the conditions and requirements of survivors, and in the challenge it poses for government to give a lead in developing a comprehensive policy of Civil Defence.
So I finish by adding my own support to this position but not as a counsel of despair, rather as the only rational and responsible way forward in a world in which we are inevitably set within a sea of troubles. By opposing we may not end them, but we can at least minimise them.
7.20 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, my thanks go to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for giving us this opportunity to debate the most interesting and very undervalued subject of Civil Defence and the responsibilities of central and local authorities for it. I shall concentrate my contribution mainly on Civil Defence in London with only general reference elsewhere. I wish to illustrate how, in spite of the law, the hard Left has successfully thwarted the intentions of Parliament for nearly four years and is continuing to do so.
First, let us have a look at the GLC Left-wing tactics. The story of the GLC and its irresponsible attitude towards Civil Defence is an object lesson of how a politically motivated and obstructive local authority can drag its feet if it wants to do so. Following the May 1981 GLC election, and within 24 hours of their coming to power, the socialists stopped all Civil Defence planning. They claimed a mandate from the electorate, but by no stretch of the imagination could this irresponsible action be claimed to have the endorsement of Londoners. It did not appear in the
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general public manifesto at all. They also had an internal, only technically public document manifesto, their Plan for Action, and in that the GLC socialist intentions towards Civil Defence were a mere 12 words out of 1½ million words. And they were concealed not under the heading of "Public Safety" but under the heading of "Finance".
Within three months of the election three senior Lef-wing GLC members were staging a well publicised visitation to the Minister of State at the Home Office, putting the case for removing the GLC's statutory obligations for Civil Defence. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, earlier said that some local authorities did not feel that they wanted to undertake things. This is not a question of whether you felt that you wanted to undertake it; this was a statutory obligation; and those same authorities that did not feel that they wished to undertake the statutory obligations undertook all sorts of things that had no relevance at all to their duties and responsibilities.
Now, when the GLC is facing abolition, the whole story of Civil Defence is changing. They are now claiming that it is a very important, strategic, local government function. In fact, it is being used as one of the reasons why the GLC should continue. When they got a dusty answer from the Minister they changed their tactics. They appointed a Civil Defence adviser, Mr. Duncan Campbell, a journalist with the New Statesman, who had been convicted at the Old Bailey in 1978 for an offence under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act. At the time of his appointment he was just completing five years' research for his 500-page anti-Civil Defence book called, War Plan, U.K.
His appointment as a GLC Civil Defence adviser was compared at the time by some of the more popular dailies with making the "Yorkshire Ripper" resident warden at the Chiswick Refuge for Battered Wives. No one was surprised about the effect of Mr. Campbell's advice. From the day he was appointed—and I might add that he is a co-opted member of the General Services and Fire Brigade Committee, with full voting rights—the GLC carried out no Civil Defence planning whatsoever. The GLC socialists were pleased that their cynical obstruction and so-called creative interpretation of the 1974 regulations defeated the whole purpose of those regulations and brought Civil Defence in London to a halt. Indeed, the Government had to produce new regulations in 1983 and they became law in December 1983. Here we are now, 14 months on, and what has the GLC done in the way of defence? Nothing at all.
This is no reflection upon the officers of the GLC in the emergency planning division, who under very difficult circumstances have continued doing their best for Londoners within the constraints imposed upon them. While protesting, of course, that they have every intention of obeying the law, the GLC then told the Government that unfortunately they could do nothing because the planning assumptions issued by the Home Office were not sufficiently clear. They would, therefore, commission their own study, at a cost of over £400,000 to London ratepayers. This, indeed, was one of those elements of expenditure that they rushed through in great haste to prevent it from being cut. It was a wasteful expenditure. I say "wasteful" because this whole study is an entirely bogus exercise

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designed to ensure that Civil Defence inactivity continues. As the leading light of this commission, the GLC found a retired US Navy admiral, Noel Gaylor. He is quoted in the October 1983 issue of the American Journal of Civil Defence as saying that civil defence is bad policy, has no military utility and is wasteful.
Since 1981 this charade has been orchestrated only one mile from the Home Office, the responsible department of state, and only 500 yards from this Parliament whose intentions are being so blatantly thwarted. What can be going on in the other Civil Defence planning authorities more remotely situated and less visible to us? I would say the short answer is, not a lot. I have before me here a very recent Home Office survey dated 21st January 1985 conducted to see what is happening nationwide as a result of the 1983 regulations. Of the 54 local authorities concerned, plans of some kind exist in 45; only four local authorities say they have, or shortly will have Civil Defence plans in accordance with the 1982 regulations; 41 authorities have old plans based on the obsolete 1974 regulations, and, of these, 24 claim that they are updating them. My calculations make this 17 local authorities say they have, or shortly will have, Civil Defence plans in accordance with the 1982 total is 26 authorities who are defaulting on their responsibilities. That is almost half. My noble friend Lord Elton was technically correct when he said here today (and also earlier in answer to a Question in this House on 25th January) that no authority is refusing to carry out its Civil Defence duties. In this case, refusal means nothing. These 26 authorities have not formally refused but the effect is exactly the same. By sheer inactivity there is no need to refuse.
But this Motion is not only to draw attention to the duties of local authorities. It is also to bring up the matter of the duties of central Government. There is clearly more that the Government can do. I believe that there should be an inspectorate of Civil Defence. I was interested in the Minister's statement earlier that they were to have a Civil Defence adviser, but I would go further and suggest an inspectorate similar to that under Section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947, so that someone would actually go round and see what is being done.
While this would stop backsliding, it would not go to the root of the reasons for the hostility with which the socialist local authorities view Civil Defence. They have done great damage by misleading and confusing genuine people—even exploiting them. People have real concern over nuclear issues and this has been exploited. I was amused at the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, mentioning how confused were people. Confusion of the public, he mentioned; and I think that he has done so much to help it.
The Government's defence strategy rests on the principle of deterrence and the effectiveness of that deterrence rests, in turn, upon its credibility. No potential aggressor would believe in our own response to attack if our own actions show that we do not even believe in the possibility of attack. The problem for those of us who want to see an effective Civil Defence is how to encourage support for this activity while rebutting the argument that Civil Defence is in some
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way provocative. It is not provocative, and the facts speak for themselves.
We have heard mentioned in this debate the massive programmes in the Soviet Union. True, there have been massive programmes organised in the United States after the 1950 Federal Civil Defence Act and flowing from the United States national shelter plan commenced after the 1961 Berlin crisis. But these acts of Civil Defence have not been considered provocative by the Soviet Union; nor has Civil Defence in the Soviet Union been considered provocative by the United States.
Peace movements, of whatever period and for whatever motives, have always had an over-developed conception of what constitutes "provocation". The late Lord Noel-Baker—well known, of course, to Members of this House as a leading pacifist—wrote in the 1930s:
"the existence of the Royal Air Force obviously creates the danger which they are supposed to guard against; if it did not exist the danger would be non-existent".
The best definition of Civil Defence that I have read comes from my noble friend Lord Elton in a speech he made to your Lordships' House on 23rd June 1982 at col. 1099. It bears repeating. He said:
"Civil Defence is an entirely peaceable activity designed solely to save lives and make those lives liveable under extremely difficult conditions It is conducted without weapons and without malice, and by many it is conducted without any reward … It is a pre-arranged organisation of unarmed, non-combatant civilians to rescue, succour and protect our unarmed, non-combatant compatriots".
This is the message we have to get across. We have to change attitudes, so that people will appreciate that Civil Defence is not provocative, but is very practical and essential. I believe that this, together with further regulations to introduce an inspectorate, would do much to improve the positon.
7.32 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, I may say that we have just listened to two very powerful speeches from two noble Baronesses, and before I begin my speech I should like to congratulate them. I should also like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Renton on raising this subject. I think that it is high time it was raised. The last time I took part in a debate on Civil Defence was in 1968; and I shall come to that later.
My sole qualification for speaking on this subject is that for three years prior to 1968 I was involved in Civil Defence and I was trained, if that is the right word, as a member of a headquarters section in the town of Castle Douglas, in south-west Scotland. What follows is a cautionary tale. There were about six of us and we assembled every Wednesday evening during winter in the town hall. We were in the town hall because there was no headquarters building, though we were continually assured that such a building would shortly be provided. There was a large and genial gentleman who, from memory, was dressed in a sort of boiler suit—the kind that your Lordships will recall, if you were in the Army, were worn by sergeant majors in the PT Corps, who used to lecture us for about two hours on fall-out situation reports and other things connected with Civil Defence. We then received our pay from Her Majesty's Government, which was a cup of tea and three biscuits.

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As I said, we were being trained to become a headquarters section. After a while I realised, to my terror and consternation, that I was, for some reason possibly connected with my Membership of your Lordships' House, being singled out to assume the office of controller. We even held an exercise on Sunday when, for the purposes of the exercise, I was the controller. I do not remember a great deal about it, which is probably just as well. For a considerable part of the day I was rushed about by some very cheerful young men from the Territorial Army, who communicated by intercom with other cheerful young men in the Territorial Army. It seemed to me very efficient, but I do not think it can have been, because we drove right through the centre of Annan, which was supposed to have received a direct hit, and I think that had that been reality we would probably all have been dead.
We ended the day in the county town of Kirkcudbright. My principal memory of that was of the WRVS who were very busy dealing with refugees from Glasgow. They were actually feeding some people, although I do not know who they were; I think they were probably locals who had heard that a free meal was available. In Kirkcudbright I received a rather rude but probably perfectly justified note from the head of the WRVS, asking me—if I remember rightly—what on earth I thought I was doing. My Lords, I did not know, and I do not remember my answer. But the WRVS did know what they were doing, and in that they were alone. I have always had a very high opinion of them ever since.
In 1968 the Labour Government got rid of Civil Defence and there was a debate in your Lordships' House in which I took part, on 27th March, when we were told that the international situation no longer warranted maintaining such an organisation. The theory was that the Soviet Union would be good enough to give us at least three months' warning. That, we were informed, gave plenty of time to organise. Apparently, NATO ministers had agreed in 1967 to the following: that we should receive timely, and possibly prolonged, warning of any change in the political situation that might make a war in Europe more likely.
I hope that the present Government are still not acting on that absurdly complacent assumption. I do not myself know how long it would take for the Soviet Union to mobilise and launch an all-out attack on this country or on the West, but by no stretch of the imagination can I think it would be as long as three months; and from what I have read and heard, and from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, today, the USSR is in a highly organised state of readiness and could attack with very little notice.
I do not think, in relation to Civil Defence, that Her Majesty's Government should plan on the assumption that the possibility of war in Europe is remote, because that is not what Civil Defence is about. It seems to me that the whole basis of Civil Defence ought to be, first, that such a war is possible; secondly, that the warning may be very short indeed; and, thirdly, that the Civil Defence organisation, as a consequence, ought to be in a high state of readiness at all times.
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So I would ask Her Majesty's Government the following questions. As it is probable that most inner-city areas would be devastated by an all-out attack, are there any plans to have some organisation in place in remote and rural areas to deal with refugees? My noble friend Lord Elton said there was no such place, but I cannot believe that there can be no remote area in the whole of the United Kingdom which could not be prepared for this.
Also, are there plans for fall-out shelters in those areas? Are there emergency stocks of food and, if so, does anyone know where they are? At this point I cannot help but refer to a pamphlet I obtained from the Printed Paper Office, entitled Civil Defence and Why We Need It. I quote:
"Most senior Ministers, Government officials and Service chiefs would have to remain at their desks and take their chance like anyone else".
My Lords, I was going to say that if their desks were here or in Whitehall, they would be of even less use to everyone than they are already. That would be unkind; but they would be likely to be dead, and someone else would have to know where the stocks of food and so on were.
I have read this pamphlet and I can only say that I find it very depressing. It is like some of the things that one got in the Army a long time ago. We are told that to revive the old Civil Defence Corps would be too costly. Can my noble friend give an estimate of how much it would cost? The old corps was manned mostly by volunteers, who were not paid. All I got, as I have told your Lordships, for the undistinguished part that I played was a cup of tea and three biscuits per session; and, as in your Lordships' House, I had to turn up to collect that. It cannot have cost the Government very much, compared to its value.
I do not see that we would need all that many full-time people. I tried to discover how much the Government saved in 1968 by getting rid of the Civil Defence Corps. I cannot find a definite figure, but it does not seem to have been much more than £3 or £4 million, and that does not seem too much to pay for a centrally organised corps with the authority and drive which is needed to ensure that an efficient and coordinated Civil Defence is operational in all areas of the United Kingdom.
It seems to me that the present plans which we have heard of here are too muddled, too theoretical and too much based on the a priori assumption that they will not be needed anyway. Everyone hopes that he will not be needed, but the whole point of making any plans at all is that we ought to act on the assumption that people will be needed. If the time comes for action, it will be far too late for post mortems about why we had backed the wrong horse.
It also seems to me—and other noble Lords have taken up this point—that far too much emphasis is being placed on local government co-operation. We know quite well that there are local authorities which have no intention of co-operating. Some authorities, including the GLC, seem to imagine that when a nuclear rocket is about to land it will observe a notice saying "Nuclear-free zone" and will change course and devastate a Tory area instead. Government wrangling with Labour local authorities—and I do not mean to blame the Government in saying this, because

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in my view the fault is that of the local authorities—should not be allowed to obstruct the essential task of organising Civil Defence. This is a very good reason for reconstituting the old Civil Defence Corps. Finally, it is my view that successive Governments have been grossly negligent in their Civil Defence preparations and organisation, and I hope that this Government will break out of this complacency as effectively in this area as they have in others.
7.41 p.m.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I join in this debate to give full support to my noble friend Lord Renton. Also I speak as someone who has had Civil Defence experience. I want to mention a part of that service which I hope the Government will be able to revive before long and which I hope has not been forgotten, even though it has not been mentioned.
I am very disappointed by the attitude that is taken by the GLC, because for 20 years I was an employee of theirs and of the former LCC at County Hall, and a little over 20 years ago their attitude was not only different but quite exemplary. During my early years of service in County Hall, notices went around the departments asking for volunteers for the County Hall unit of the Industrial Civil Defence Service. My noble friend Lord Renton mentioned what industry could do, and that service or corps was a subsidiary of the Civil Defence Corps.
The service enabled offices and factories to have their own units, so that they had men and women trained and ready for any national emergency. A certain time each week was allowed to the volunteers, of whom I became one, for training sessions which were both theoretical and practical. From time to time, there would be a practical exercise. One site for this was in Esher, where a series of buildings was constructed to look like part of a town damaged in an air raid. I was assigned to the rescue squad and the lessons that I had there were infinitely valuable because, in addition to the theory of what to do in the case of a nuclear attack, the work of rescuing people was such that it could be applied to any accident.
I went through various stages, getting up to what is known as heavy rescue, where I had fun learning how to work an acetylene cutter. All this experience has made me regret the discontinuance of Civil Defence training. I learned a lot and I should have liked to go on refresher courses, because although I can remember much of what I was taught I might find my knowledge somewhat rusty if I were now suddenly involved in helping at an accident. Our training gave us great help and encouragement because we were taught a lot about nuclear warfare, particularly how to combat the fear of it and how to relieve people's worries about what might happen. For example, I found it extremely interesting to learn how much shelter from radiation could be got from the ordinary person's house, particularly if the house had a basement.
We also learned about the co-operation of another service which has not been mentioned—except by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and I am very grateful that he mentioned it—the Royal Observer Corps, which could supply information about the degree of
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radiation in each area. I was an airman in the war with the ground staff of the Royal Air Force and I learned a lot about the Royal Observer Corps because I married a lady who was a member of it then. If the Royal Observer Corps could also be encouraged into reactivation, the community would enjoy it.
As regards the protection of buildings, it is a pity that the building in which your Lordships' House is enclosed is probably so near a direct target. But when I was down below trying to find the shooting gallery, I noticed the thickness of the walls and cellars and how much protection a building like this could provide. Critics of our Civil Defence say that the devastation would be so terrible that the service would be useless, but the service could prepare. You never know where a bomb will hit. Preparation would be no good if there was a direct hit from a bullet, a shell or a bomb. But it is vital to establish a controlling authority where the survivors are, which can try to get people well again so that they can lead a totally useful life.
Ever since men began fighting each other, the fear of war has lurked in people's minds. Today it is fear of what will happen to a whole city if it is hit. Way back, it was fear of what would happen in the area where a battle might be fought. The peasant living where a battle was fought knew that, whichever side won, he would be the loser. Again, whichever city is hit the survivors know that they will have to struggle hard to get back to any form of normality.
As regards the possibility of employment in Civil Defence, so many people who are unemployed, particularly young people, could be encouraged to volunteer so as to do something useful, learn how to tackle the job and have an interest. I remember a clerihew: the chief difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys. We men have our interests of hobbies which we jump into with childish delight. Perhaps Civil Defence will have a very ardent recruit if a man can be taught how to help his community through his hobby and interest.
For example, there is the kind of person who is often referred to in a rather sneering way, but who could be immensely useful in restoring civilisation—the radio ham. The radio ham probably has his own supply of electricity. Communication will be vital and a man or a woman with a battery and a portable radio set which could communicate would be of extreme value. I hope that the Government will be able to show how such people could be helped to be prepared. I fully support my noble friends Lord Elton and Lady Trumpington and I have intimated my readiness to play my part. Any action taken by Government or Parliament to get Civil Defence out of the hole of abeyance into which it has, unfortunately, had to creep will get my full support.
7.49 p.m.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Renton for initiating this debate. Last Saturday, I found myself in an extreme situation; a two megatonne bomb had just exploded over Napton and had destroyed the city. It had destroyed a large part of the county of Naptonshire. I was actually at the Civil Defence College at Easingwold and with me were some 80 elected representatives of local authorities. We were trying to deal with this nightmare,

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which was fortunately hypothetical. They came from all over the country; from Warwick, Dover, Manchester and Merseyside. They came from nuclear-free zones. They were of every political persuasion and they were all pulling together. This was a point made very well earlier on by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew—when it comes to the crunch everyone, even CND, is going to get out and try to save lives.
Indeed, the aims of the Civil Defence College are simply spelt out; first, to maximise the number of people surviving an attack, whatever that attack might be; and, secondly, to enhance the chances of their continued survival in the long term. There are no politics at Easingwold; there is just a sense of duty and compassion. During the question time period at the college the issue of the nuclear winter arose. I learnt to my surprise that, after a really horrendous attack, a nuclear winter is by no means certain and that there could equally be a nuclear greenhouse effect. Both, of course, would be quite awful but it would be quite foolish of the Civil Defence College to make any contingency planning for a fall in temperature when there could indeed be a rise in temperature. Either would be catastrophic, but the whole point of Civil Defence is to minimise the catastrophe; and even in the worst catastrophe imaginable, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, Civil Defence could save perhaps 15 million people.
As for life not being worth living after the bomb, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney stated, that is fine for him; that is an individual decision; but it is not fine for a councillor to decide that on behalf of his electorate. It is not fine for him to say, "I know that after the bomb has dropped life will not be worth living. Therefore you will not live."
At the college in Napton we were in real Armageddon territory. They put you into that very catastrophic situation because they argue that if you are prepared for a very major disaster you can also equally well deal with the second worst type of attack, the third worst, the fourth worst and so on—down through a spectrum of nuclear attack, through chemical attack, conventional attack and even to a civil disaster such as Flixborough.
I must confess that I was rather heartened by what I found at the Civil Defence College. We are better prepared than I had thought. I did not know, for instance, that we had a good British Telecom emergency network. I did not know anything about the wartime broadcasting service with its 80 modules. I did not know anything about the food stockpiles.
The principal of the college is Mr. Bettridge. He is pleased that the numbers attending his courses have risen from about 1,300 a year in 1974 to 3,200 a year today. Despite the fact that he has three times as many courses on now as then, there is still a waiting list. But there is no room for complacency. There used to be four Civil Defence Colleges, not just one. The courses used to run for a month; now they run for two and a half days. I believe there are 30,000 people in this country who have had some training on how to deal with a national disaster—that is about one in 1,500 of us. I noticed, however, that my noble friend Lord Renton put the figure even lower, at, I think, 17,000.
Lord Renton: My Lords, what I said was that there are now 17,000 volunteers. That is in addition to those who are more fully involved.
Lord Parry: My Lords, as the noble Viscount has given way, perhaps he would not mind sitting down for a moment longer while I ask him this question. How many bombs fell on Napton on the day he was on duty?
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, the scenario was a two megatonne bomb and it was an air burst.
Lord Parry: My Lords, were any other bombs falling on Britain on that day?
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, I feel that I shall go over time if we get into this.
Lord Renton: My Lords, the noble Lord has not been here.
Lord Parry: My Lords, I am here now.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, the thinking was regional. The country is broken down into regions in the event of the ultimate catastrophe—a massive nuclear war. Our concern was to do the best we could for Naptonshire. That is very much what is envisaged in a massive catastrophe—each region trying to do the best it can for that region.
I mentioned the figure of 30,000 trained people in the country, which I thought was too few. If I were to suggest to the Government that they should reopen some of the Civil Defence Colleges—perhaps the one at Sunningdale—that might be a little extreme, but I do have some practical suggestions which would greatly increase the effectiveness of Easingwold, because Easingwold has been criticised.
It is said for, instance, that the Easingwold tutors are too dogmatic; that they are "all mouth and no ears"; and that this stems from their military origins. The pay at Easingwold is not very good and it seems to me almost essential to have another source of income. That accounts for the high proportion of retired servicemen who, of course, have military pensions. So if the Government want to attract tutors from all walks of life they should increase the salaries at Easingwold.
It is also said that the tutors are insular; that they would benefit from secondment to local authorities to see how they really work. For that, you need a surplus of tutors. At the moment they are three men short at the college. They cannot spare one man away for a single day. Therefore I say that Easingwold needs more tutors.
A further benefit to Easingwold would be secondment the other way round—firemen, policemen and military men seconded to the college. Above all, there is need for the secondment of Home Office scientists with knowledge of radioactive fall-out. That would cost little or nothing, and surely the Government could do something about that.
The reason that there is need for so much expertise among tutors is that the people attending the courses from all walks of life are bright and ask expert

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questions. The principal, Mr. Bettridge, listed for me the many fields in which each tutor has to be expert. There are nine such fields, the workings of local government; other Ministries and what they are doing; emergency planning; stress; transition to war; effects of nuclear weapons; effects of chemical weapons; effects of conventional weapons including fire storms; and effects of speznaz troops. Therefore my suggestion to Government is that there should be a larger, better qualified, better paid, tutorial staff at Easingwold. There is money to do this, I suppose, from the shortfall in expenditure by some local authorities, which stands at £2 million. My information is—and I hope the Government will correct me here—that a cut of 5 per cent. is proposed at Easingwold.
When I went to Easingwold I thought that the whole issue was rather political. I honestly think that the debate in this House has been a shade too political and not humanitarian enough. I certainly left finding the issue compassionate. In Civil Defence, compassion means co-ordination; that is, co-ordination between the military, the fire service, the police and ambulancemen. One example quoted to me of bad co-ordination—this rather worried me—was the Aberfan disaster where, I was told, there had been no proper co-ordination for the first seven hours. Civil Defence is certainly just as much about collapsing spoil heaps as it is about H bombs. Surely government do have a duty to increase expenditure at the one training college we have left and not to cut it. I hope that I shall be proved wrong, so to speak, about that cut. My information is that the Government are proposing a cut of 5 per cent. I would say to noble Lords in all parts of the House, and hope they agree, that whatever one's views on defence policy may be, the argument for an effective Civil Defence policy is morally overwhelming.
8 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Renton on both initiating this debate and getting a pretty good statement out of my noble friend the Minister. Some of us may consider that the Minister could have said a little more in some respects, but on the whole he made a very good and comprehensive statement. I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate my noble friend also on the tremendous pressure he has been keeping up on the Government for the whole of the past five years, to persuade them to think seriously about Civil Defence. The fact that we reached the 1983 regulation was in large part due to the efforts of my noble friend Lord Renton.
I must add that I am concerned about a point which many noble Lords have raised: that so many well-meaning people, such as local councillors, doctors and possibly even the majority of supporters of CND—perhaps even including the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney—have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into thinking that Civil Defence is synonymous with full scale thermonuclear attack. They have been hoodwinked also into thinking that to encourage reasonable preparations for peacetime emergencies and for Civil Defence in war somehow condones the use of nuclear weapons by our side.
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I believe that such hoodwinking has been cleverly initiated by the Soviets and by their fellow travellers in this country. I shall not say any more about that point at this stage because I hope that we will be debating it in the not too distant future. However, if any noble Lord had doubts about this aspect, he had only to listen to what my noble friend Lady Gardner had to say about the activities of the present Administration of the Greater London Council. Suffice it to say now that the provision of plans and trained volunteers for civil emergencies in peace and war are necessary, whether or not a full-scale nuclear war is ever fought. As has been said, particularly by my noble friend Lord Renton, but also by others, such a war is far and away the most unlikely disaster to which mankind might be subjected.
I propose to concentrate my remarks on the need for trained volunteers to be available at all times to supplement the skills of the police forces, fire brigades, ambulance services, the medical services of the NHS, and the full-time staff of the county emergency planning officers. After the Munich crisis in 1938, when the Government initiated the enrolment of ARP volunteers—and I must mention in passing that some 1middot;4 million people were enrolled, which gives some idea of the number which ideally might be required—they were able to draw on a large number of men and women who only 20 years before had been accustomed to wartime discipline and training.
In 1968 when, most regrettably, the Civil Defence Corps was stood down, for reasons of economy, the Government of the day could even then feel that in the 10 years or so ahead of them, if their forecast of emergencies was proved to be wrong, they, too, could call upon at least a hard core of people who had experience of discipline and training in wartime or in National Service. The vital problem now is that such persons are dwindling to an unacceptable minimum; certainly, such persons as are physically active and able to do some of the heavy jobs—not to mention those who can think more quickly than perhaps can many of us in your Lordships' House.
I believe it to be vital to recreate a strong backbone of volunteers in all parts of the country before the necessary expertise is lost. By expertise, I do not mean just having expert skills, but also being accustomed to discipline and training. If one has not been used to such discipline and training—and this I have noticed in my own children—it is something that one does not understand. This is a very important aspect.
In 1968, former Civil Defence Corps workers in some local authority areas banded together to form independent volunteer units. As we have heard from several noble Lords, more recently and in total contradistinction, there are now local authorities which have gone completely the other way and have endeavoured to stamp out, as far as one can see, all vestige of Civil Defence volunteers. They have even adopted the ridiculous stance of declaring their areas to be nuclear-free zones. I shall not enlarge on why that is so ridiculous, because the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has already explained it very clearly.
As was mentioned by my noble friends Lord Renton and the Minister, a particularly good model of how best to organise emergency volunteers is to be found in

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that practised in Devon. The adoption of their practices by other local authorities has been encouraged positively by the Government appointed co-ordinator of volunteer effort in Civil Defence. It has that blessing as well. In Devon the emergency volunteers have a constitution giving them the right to elect their own officers and to administer themselves. The county council retains overall and training control, appoints certain key persons, and accepts responsibility for funding and insurance. That arrangement has been wholly successful. The Devon emergency volunteers have regained their enthusiasm and pride, and the council has gained a remarkably cost-effective Civil Defence capability. Above all, the experience of training and discipline necessary in a volunteer emergency force has not been lost by default.
In 1983 the Government issued regulations requiring local authorities, among other things, to recruit, organise and train Civil Defence volunteers. As my noble friend the Minister has indicated, response has been very patchy. I had some figures to quote to indicate just how patchy, but my noble friend Lady Gardner produced even better figures in that they were more accurate and more up to date. Suffice it to say that it is quite appalling the number of local authorities which are just thinking about those requirements. I do not mean only those local authorities which are taking the rather extraordinary action of declaring nuclear-free zones and which have been hoodwinked into believing that Civil Defence is a wrong thing to do; there are others as well. It is very important that this particular requirement should continue to be pressed for by the Government. I shall say more about that in a moment.
I should mention at this point that it was suggested by my noble friend Lady Cox and by another Member of your Lordships' House that it may be a good thing if Civil Defence at local level was all centralised and run from the centre. Like the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, I do not agree with that, certainly in relation to the volunteer force; it must be a county affair. Perhaps I misunderstood my noble friend; perhaps she was talking about other matters—
Baroness Cox: My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to intervene. I was making the point that where local authorities have defaulted the responsibility for making sure that they do not continue to default should be with national Government—not that Civil Defence should be centrally co-ordinated.
Lord Mottistone: When they are defaulting, my Lords, yes; but the Government might appoint a special person to do that, though at local level.
Baroness Cox: Precisely, my Lords.
Lord Mottistone: Yes, my Lords, that is important.
As has been explained by many noble Lords, especially by my noble friends Lord Renton and Lord Elton, there is a whole range of emergencies in peace and in various possible types of war, with full-scale nuclear attack being the least likely, to which the local authority voters may be subjected. Under most
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emergencies some people will be killed and others gravely wounded, but many will survive. The recent chemical disaster at Bhopal in India, which has been mentioned, is a good example. Another example is Hiroshima, which I visited in February 1946 and where I was able to see what had happened.
As has been said clearly by many noble Lords, the very least the local authority can do for its citizens is to have in being a trained and disciplined force ready and willing to take emergency action and to give guidance to helpless survivors. All local authorities must, without delay, respond to this need and stop fussing about whether or not it has any bearing on the likelihood of a full-scale nuclear war, which it will not. I welcome the Government's determination in this respect and trust that they have the will and the enthusiasm to give effect to that determination.
I agree with those noble Lords who said that there comes a point at which it is not fair to the citizens, the voters, people in local authority areas, to be left without this potential help in the event of a disaster, which may occur in peace or war, just because they have a blinkered administration running them locally. The Government must step in at an appropriate time. If they are in doubt as to the appropriate time I would say it is not later than the autumn of 1985. Thus I implore all local authorities to take the necessary action to implement the regulations which they have been charged to put into effect and which (as a final point that was in fact made earlier) are heavily grant-aided by central Government. They are in some respects 100 per cent. grant-aided, so these local authorities have no excuse on financial grounds for not doing their duty by the country in the way that we all expect.
8.13 p.m.
Earl Cathcart: My Lords, I must start by apologising for not being able to be present at the start of this debate. I therefore failed to hear the opening speech by my noble friend Lord Renton and the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I must also say how grateful we are to my noble friend Lord Renton for giving us this opportunity to debate this sometimes overlooked and often misunderstood subject of Civil Defence.
A great deal of what I had intended to say has been admirably said by many other speakers, and it is getting late, but I am particularly glad that the Motion we are debating so clearly includes peacetime emergencies. Living, as we do, in a temperate climate we are inclined to assume that a national disaster, when our normal public services might be overwhelmed or exhausted, will never happen to us here. Many noble Lords have already referred to the frightful disaster of Bhopal, and the point has been made that the unexpected can happen. It is common sense to make sound plans and preparations.
It is unfortunate that Civil Defence has been given a bad name by the CND, which, in its natural horror of nuclear warfare (a horror which, of course, we all share with it), argues that since the use of nuclear weapons will eventually lead to the total destruction of mankind—the holocaust argument—it is no good wasting time or money in trying to survive. If the horror of war ever came back to these islands it could

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take many different forms, as my noble friend the Minister said in his opening speech. But whatever form it takes the resultant suffering among the civilian population could be alleviated by sound preparations and training.
In particular, one must emphasise the fearful suffering which would occur if these islands were ever subjected to a chemical and biological attack. These fearful weapons, which we do not possess but which are manufactured and stockpiled by the Soviets, while resulting in no damage to property would inflict untold horror on our civilian population and, of course, on our armed forces. However, we are not discussing how to prevent war occurring but how to protect ourselves in the event of war. Civil Defence would not prevent chaos and casualties, but with proper planning and training much of the suffering could be reduced and many lives saved.
In the rest of my speech I want to emphasise two aspects in particular: the co-ordination of Civil Defence planning, and training. First, the coordination of Civil Defence planning at central Government is made much more difficult by the enormous number of agencies and Government departments involved. Therefore, it was particularly good to hear my noble friend the Minister say that a central planning committee is being set up designed to embrace all Government departments and to coordinate all details into a centralised strategy. I fancy that this new committee will be replacing the former Cabinet Committee, which met only spasmodically and then only to deal with particular issues.
It was good also to hear that not only will this central strategy be disseminated down but that it will also be monitored to ensure that proper action is being taken at all levels. Besides the large number of Government departments involved there is also a very large number of agencies. They have been named by so many noble Lords that I shall not go into them—the police, fire services, transport, food supplies, ambulance services, and so on. None of those agencies can expect to do its task in a severe emergency or war without a very considerable backup of volunteers. At present it seems to me that, with a certain few exceptions, these agencies are attempting to produce their own plans within their own scope and without sufficient coordination. Almost certainly there is a need for a level of group co-ordination between central Government and the local authorities. The Home Office's pilot scheme for a level of regional co-ordination is to be greatly welcomed. I believe that we shall hear the result of that at the end of this year.
I do not entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, or my noble friend Lord Mottistone that the Government were right to decentralise Civil Defence planning and action to local authorities. I feel that up till now over-decentralisation down to local authority areas, without adequate guidance, has been a cause of much of the trouble and doubt that has occurred at the lower levels. I feel that if Civil Defence strategy is fully implemented at Whitehall level, to be co-ordinated by this Civil Defence planning at regional level, if it is to be put into effect, it will give a much greater encouragement and guidance to the local authorities.
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This leads me to the important subject of training. I was particularly glad, again, to hear my noble friend the Minister stress the importance which the Government attach to the training and exercising of volunteers and the new impetus they intend to put into that training of volunteers. The urgent need for new and comprehensive Civil Defence training manuals is well known, and I hope that the Minister's promise that these will shortly be available will be strictly honoured.
Perhaps the area where training and practice in peacetime is most urgently needed is the manning of Civil Defence headquarters or command posts. There will need to be many of these at all levels right down to village and town level, and even districts within a town, manned day and night, to control, administer and maintain the flow of the normal requirements of life, to deal with casualties, clear roads, and so on. Many of the staff at the small headquarters, or even the large ones, will be volunteers. Anyone who has worked in a command post at a busy time will know what an enormously difficult task it is and that with training enormous improvements can be made. I believe that that is one of the main aspects of training that we need.
I should like to end on a more positive and possibly more cheerful note by drawing your Lordships' attention to the responsible and positive actions of two famous and caring volunteer organisations which have given full support to the national plans for Civil Defence. Although I am involved in a very modest way with one of those organisations, I should like to try to outline the combined efforts of both organisations, which work together in a spirit of harmony and close co-operation.
I refer to the Red Cross and the St. John's Ambulance Brigade, which between them have a large number of volunteers deployed all over the country highly trained in first aid, basic life-saving and nursing skills. Those two organisations, working in close cooperation, formed in 1980 their joint emergency committees to support Civil Defence at both national and county levels.
Their role, for which their peacetime voluntary work and training make them ideally suited, is to form on mobilisation medical reception centres for service casualties at ports and airfields and to staff hospital trains and rehabilitation centres. Furthermore, they would be able to support the National Health Service by setting up and manning first-aid posts in hundreds of towns and villages throughout the country to receive casualties from enemy action so that those people can receive initial treatment before evacuation to hospital or discharge back to their own homes.
The voluntary auxiliary support which those two great organisations can provide would apply to an emergency in peace or war alike and to any form of attack, conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear, which might unhappily assail us. The training and preparation for that task since 1980 has been considerable. A large number of individuals from both organisations have attended four-day courses at the National Civil Defence College at Easingwold in Yorkshire, which we heard about from my noble friend. During the same period, over 100 combined St. John's Ambulance/Red Cross exercises have taken place in conjunction with the Territorial Army, the

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police, the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, the National Health Service and also some local authorities. Those exercises have been devised by the Joint National Committee of those two organisations, and I think that it is a remarkable tribute to their dedication and initiative.
As far as I can find out, the cost of this training at local level is met by the Home Office, while the secretarial, printing and postage costs of the national committee of those two organisations are met, for some reason, by the Department of Health and Social Security. Perhaps this is an example of the lack of co-ordination leading to confusion—which I referred to earlier—at the national level of Civil Defence planning.
What I have described is the private enterprise efforts of those two voluntary organisations, which specialise in first aid and nursing. But in an emergency there are needed elsewhere many other skills and services which can be provided by volunteers, supervised by professionals. What we must ensure is that there is proper co-ordination and planning at Government level down to regional and local government so that that enormous potential effort is not wasted.
Finally, I must say a word, as so many noble Lords have done already, about those local councils which fail to do their duty. It is utterly irresponsible for any local authority to dodge its responsibilities in this matter, in my opinion. Those which declare themselves a nuclear-free zone in total isolation, and as a result opt out of all emergency planning, are only marginally worse than those which do nothing. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter referred to the idea of local nuclear-free zones as childish. I would use a like simile. I would liken it to the childish games of "Touch" or "Catch-me-if-you-can", but played in a confined space; or like a child playing hide-and-seek by taking cover behind an inadequate tree and thinking that he really is hiding.
8.25 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I should like to say a few words in this debate. I should particularly like to thank my noble friend Lord Renton, who has given me the privilege of serving on his Committee. He has introduced a wonderful debate today and has attracted many people to join in.
I wish to make a couple of points. I wish to discuss the question of research and development and to find out how much money is actually being spent on R & D. I should like to see more academic research. We want to know about the wider aspects of Civil Defence. I suggest that such research would be complemented by our NATO partners. They already have programmes of this kind, and we should bring ourselves into line with other members of NATO. Our NATO partners also involve their academic institutions in Civil Defence research.
What are the kind of things that they research? They include options for economic Civil Defence programmes, the viability of a long-term shelter programme, measures to protect the civilian population from aspects of chemical warfare and the value of limited evacuation. Is there a stay-put policy
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in the Government in regard to spending money on having academics brought into this work? Also there seems to be a great shortage of leaflets. Only about 750,000 leaflets are on hand. I come from Wiltshire, and I am glad to say that I have also worked in Devon, where we have very good organisations, as has been mentioned by one or two noble Lords. I should like to know whether more literature is available.
At the present time no research is sponsored at universities. Does the noble Baroness consider that the 1983 regulations for local authorities are sufficient to attract recruits and to train and exercise volunteers? Has the Home Office made an estimate of the numbers in areas where people are at the greatest risk and considered to where they might be evacuated?
As previous speakers have said practically everything that I had thought of saying, I end with only one suggestion. Forty years have now passed since the end of the war. I suggest that in this year in celebrating the ending of the war in Europe we try to make it a civilian occasion. Many cities, towns and villages are twinned with others in Europe. Is it possible to invite representatives from the twinned areas to attend the many memorial services that will be held in Great Britain? That would promote a real feeling of friendship. It should be remembered that in the 1939 to 1945 war, as well as the 26 million service people who were killed, 24 million civilians were killed. The courage of the civilians and the splendid support that they gave the military should never be forgotten. I should very much like it if we could do something to include the civilian population in the celebrations this coming year.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, like other speakers in this debate, I want to begin by acknowledging the debt that we owe to the noble Lord, Lord Renton. Lord Renton is not merely a noble Lord, but, as far as I am concerned, he is also a noble friend. In another place over a number of years, he has joined with me, or I with him, in projects which we in common saw as serving the best interests not only of our constituents but also of the nation. I refer particularly to the national heritage aspects of our work.
Therefore, I listened very carefully to what he had to say. As other noble Lords have said, this is not merely a topic for debate tonight: it is a subject which the noble Lord has pursued, I think to the benefit and advantage of this House. Also, as my noble friend Lord Mishcon has said, he has pursued it certainly to the benefit of the nation, because, owing to the publicity we received earlier today, many more people will understand the importance that this House attaches to the topic. Therefore we are very grateful indeed.
The words of the Motion on the Order Paper are well understood. I certainly appreciate the care that was taken by the noble Lord in trying to maximise the support—if there were a vote—for the genesis of the whole raison d'être of the Motion. Various people have used bits of it to their advantage. That is, of course in the way of debate. I should also like to draw the following to the attention of the House. I want to use it to illustrate the sympathy that I have with the noble Lord in his Motion. I should like to draw

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attention to his response to the question of the Civil Defence Act 1948, on 14th January.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton, said, in an intervention on a question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Murton, who is in his place, as I would expect, and who made an earlier contribution on this matter:
"My Lords, is my noble friend aware that peace-time emergencies are occurring on an ever-increasing scale and that the people responsible for dealing with them are also responsible for civil defence?"
Therefore, in preparing for this debate with the responsibility of responding on behalf of these Benches, I immediately began fully to understand that we can see a great deal of common accord. I refer particularly to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. In making a point, he wanted to stress that when one talks in terms of Civil Defence, it is not merely a one-issue, one-happening event.
I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, is not in his place. Again, I saw a great deal of sense in the way he illustrated the fact that preparations that might ostensibly be for one purpose can nevertheless be fully utilised for a great many purposes. The most terrible event at which these preparations are aimed might be the event for which people say we are not prepared to be prepared. However, as we have gone through the debate, we have had many illustrations of our dependence upon being ready. One of the noble Lords earlier reminded us of the Boy Scouts' motto "Be prepared".
My noble friend Lord Mishcon apologised for not being able to be here at this time. I want not only to recognise the value of his contribution to this debate, but also to use one or two of the points that he made and to re-emphasise them. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, who is to reply, may very well take the view that there is insufficient time to give way in her winding-up speech. Therefore, I think it is right that at this time we read the questions that we may be asking later, in order to provide her with an opportunity of giving some of the answers.
One of the points that my noble friend Lord Mishcon made was on the need for co-ordination, the need to look at the responsibility, if not nationally and if with some reluctance locally, perhaps to get some major regional responsibility. These are interesting points. They illustrated the sadness of the abolition situation. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, pointed out that when abolition does take place arrangements are to be made. I want the House to listen to what the Government say will be the situation after abolition of the metropolitan county councils. This is what is said:
"Under the police and fire services, who will run the fire service? In future, the service will be run by joint fire authorities made up of elected councillors".
That is elected councillors from this council, from that council and from the other council. In other words, it will be a joint board.
Thee are some people in this House, with more experience than myself—and I have some experience—who will agree that a joint board of councillors of different political persuasions and, in the way of things, of different geographical imperatives is, if not a receipe for continual quarrelling, a most unsatisfactory way of trying to reach the maximum
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agreement. So I think the Government have to address themselves to the question as to whether that is the answer to, of all things, the need to maximise and strengthen Civil Defence.
Then, on Civil Defence itself, the document says:
"What will happen to Civil Defence? Most of the MCC's responsibilities will be taken over by the metropolitan districts".
Therefore, the London districts—that is, the London councils—will have the responsibility devolved upon them. I think the Government have a responsibility to treat this question seriously. When abolition takes place, will these responsibilities be left to joint boards in some cases or to the London boards in others—in which case, I cannot see that as being a very happy situation?
Then my noble friend raised the point about the 75 per cent., and the 25 per cent. He was chided about not having made reference to the number of events that could be 100 per cent. grant-aided. I have not checked it, but I think the record will show that what he said was that he had here a number of items that ranked for 100 per cent., which of course he will have available. I have them here, too. They are as follows: Provision and maintenance of Civil Defence communications; training of staff and their participation in training exercise; repayment of expenses etc.
Reference has also been made to the commitment in the Conservative manifesto. It was not my Manifesto but again I can subscribe to the premise upon which it rests. I will read it to you:
"We propose to amend the Civil Defence Act 1948, to enable civil defence funds to be used in safeguarding peacetime emergencies …".
I can see common ground, not only politically, but from the point of view of reception by the populace, to realise that inevitably most of the disasters will be of civil emergency kinds—thank goodness, terrible as they are. They will realise the nonsense of having prepared machinery and paraphernalia which is, as it were, cocooned for the ultimate of a war situation.
That was the Conservative commitment. Yet 1983 has gone by and nothing was done. Nineteen eighty-four has gone by and nothing was done. More than one member has asked the Government about this. The Minister has said well, of course, it is possible for it to be done by private legislation. The House must judge the seriousness of the Government and their ability to put their money where their mouths are, in saying in this context that we cannot afford a slot. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who said that if he had to find a slot, there was some legislation which he would get rid of to facilitate this. I am sure that it was the abolition of the GLC he had in mind; that he would not wish to proceed with that legislation—
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I believe the noble Lord does not wish to misrepresent me. He knows that I regard that measure, which will take a great deal of time, as being quite irrelevant to this issue. Something much smaller could go. I did actually, I thought, make a constructive suggestion—the Insolvency Bill.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, we come to the realm of priorities. Some people attach more importance than others to Civil Defence. Some people attach more importance to spending public money,

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ratepayers' money, on Civil Defence, as opposed to housing, roads, or something of that kind. The Government have made their priority pretty clear in this matter. Civil Defence has not a high priority. If they cannot find the time or the money, the Minister must answer for that here in the debate tonight.
We have had a number of calls for compulsion if councils do not carry out statutory provisions. Again, Members of this House are more selective. There are other statutory provisions that are not complied with, but I cannot recall Members opposite saying that unless they are complied with we should send in commissioners, as one noble Lord said, and so on. The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act was not proceeded with for very good reasons. At one time there were hundreds of councils involved, but the figure gradually came down. There are provisions in housing and in education, and in the provision of assistance and homes for the elderly. There is a shortfall in maintaining the statutory provision on a range of issues.
This Government are not inexperienced in telling local councillors what to do. Local councillors have been elected on a manifesto. People choose to interpret manifestos, after they are elected, in certain ways. This Government are a champion of that approach. I say simply that one needs to be very careful before saying to the Government, when they have got their act together, that on Civil Defence there is no argument. It was, I believe, the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, who said that there should be no argument in regard to a certain level of compliance by the autumn of 1985. If the Government wish for ever to persist in their confrontation with local government, as they have done, in my view, over the last four or five years, that is the road down which they should go.
The Government have to come to terms with the art of trying to persuade not merely local councillors but those who elect local councillors that they are right in this matter. I do not believe that they are. I am, however, prepared to acknowledge that they may be. There has to be persuasion in that way.
I plead in aid a body that is not my favourite, the London Boroughs Association—not the Association of Labour Authorities, but the London Boroughs Association. This is what that association tells me in respect of Civil Defence and emergency planning. It wrote recently to the Minister saying:
"individual boroughs, in order to fulfil the proposed new statutory duties, will probably require to appoint additional staff".
The association speaks from experience. If we are making a political point, it is not mine. It refers to the need for additional staff. As the Minister knows, if there is anything that the Government are proud of, it is their manpower-watch exercise—to cut, to cut and to cut. There is not a single department in any council that cannot wring its hands over what the Government have done to staffing levels. I am not arguing about efficiency or cost. What the councils say is that if they are to fulfil what the Government want them to do, the question of staff arises.
The letter goes on to say:
"the Association firmly and strongly believes that all expenditure on civil defence finance incurred by Boroughs, whether for control rooms or equipment, should qualify for 100 per cent. grant-aid".
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It adds that the association has yet to give a formal view on the training of volunteers but again registers its concern at the apparent increased demands placed upon local authority resources.
Time presses, my Lords, but there is an enormous number of responsibilities laid upon councils already. There has been reference to the kind of disasters that could occur. Quite apart from the argument about Civil Defence preparations which some councils are not prepared to undertake, there is an enormous range of activities. Yet this Government—and, indeed, I suspect, every Government, including mine—do not seem to appreciate the weight of extra money that is laid upon councils as a result of legislation passed here in Parliament.
There has been reference to some backsliding councils. I should like to mention Enfield. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, entertained the House with remarks based on her experience at the GLC. She is more knowledgeable than anyone here about the GLC because she serves upon it—
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I did not say that I was more knowledgeable than anyone else.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am prepared to say so. I say that, ipso facto, if you are a member of the GLC you must be more knowledgeable of the activities of the GLC. The noble Baroness also has the honour, the privilege and the pleasure to represent Southgate, which is part of the London borough of Enfield. There has been mention of councils failing to carry out their duties. The sad fact for Enfield is that it wants, I believe, to carry out its duty. The civic centre was built in 1961. In 1971 plans were created in order to equip the basement for the kind of purpose we are discussing. Last year, in the light of the new remit, the Enfield Council met to discuss a plan—this was all published in the newspapers—to equip the basement for a sum in the region of £100,000. Told that it would get £75,000 from the Government, which meant that it had to find £25,000, it was unable to find that amount. You have to believe that, with a budget ranging between £20 million and £30 million, it is impossible to find £25,000! I applaud Enfield's priorities. It spent the money on something else, which I believe might have been more worthwhile.
However, the dilemma for councils is that so long as grant-aiding leaves something for a council to find, and so long as they have the responsibilities and the priorities that are theirs, there will be difficulties of this kind. It may be that the situation has changed. I am describing what was the situation last year. I am aware that these matters are reviewed. A properly equipped basement of the civic centre at Enfield could serve to meet emergencies such as a motoring disaster on the M25. Enfield is also near Stansted Airport. Whatever happens about the airport, disasters could occur. Enfield also has a small arms factory within its boundaries. Disasters could happen there. There is a good case beyond the political argument for having a command centre, a place which could co-ordinate the hospital services and others.
We live in troubled times. In a perfect world, we would not need to make plans of this kind we are discussing. The peacetime emergencies that have been

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mentioned are real. They are here; they are horrific. I can see enormous common ground enabling the Government to re-orientate their policies in order to convince councils, councillors and the people that there is a real need to be ready. In this way they could project the matter properly, although discussion will be required, and also finance it.
The Motion calls for certain action from central and local government. The duty for which it calls is clear. It wants a review; it wants action; it wants money; it wants plans. Above all, it wants appreciation that we need to be ready for the kind of disasters mentioned in it. The Government's response has been criticised from all sides. Nor have local authorities escaped criticism. In my view, so long as the Government pay so little attention to the decline in relations between central and local government we cannot look forward to what has been asked for by more than one noble Lord—a national response to potential national disasters.
8.49 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, we are most grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton for giving the House the opportunity to discuss Civil Defence in all its aspects. I echo tributes paid by my noble friend Lord Mottistone and also by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, in what, if I may say so, was a very statesmanlike speech. As my noble friend Lord Elton indicated, the Government fully accept the need for emergency planning both in peacetime and wartime. His speech made clear that we are actively encouraging local authorities to discharge their statutory duties and assisting them by making appropriate funds available.
My noble friend spoke of improvements in training and the enhancement of the capacity of the United Kingdom warning and monitoring organisation by seeking ways to improve co-ordination both of contingency arrangements on the ground and at Government level, by improved consultation arrangements and by keeping the public informed of what is being done. All of this is an on-going process and a very great improvement on the poor situation which we as a Government inherited. In fact, my noble friend's speech was so comprehensive that he greatly eased my task. However, I shall now attempt to deal with individual points raised by noble Lords, and I shall of course write to any noble Lord whose question I omit to answer.
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, in a splendid speech, argued that Civil Defence is necessary to make military defence, and that makes credible the prospect of military retaliation. I shall not answer that assertion except to say categorically that that is not the reason we are creating a credible Civil Defence cover for the whole of this country. Our motive is the simple, humanitarian one of giving protection and succour to our people in the event of war of any kind. If I can go on to consider another aspect of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont—really this is the most important point in the feelings of many noble Lords; I quote my noble friend Lady Cox, my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, and many other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Graham of
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Edmonton—I have to say that effective Civil Defence must be a partnership. This is because central Government cannot command the detail and local government cannot command the sheer scope of all that is needed.
This affects my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and others who want central Government to pay 100 per cent. of all Civil Defence expenditure. We believe that if this partnership is to be real and motivated on both sides some local authority contribution from local government is essential; otherwise partnership will dwindle into dependency. We ask for only 25 per cent. of only a part of the total, and additional expenditure is disregarded for grant abatement purposes. It is not very much and it ought not to stop any local authority from doing its duty; and duty it is, and every local authority knows that it is a duty, because we have told them so. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont—and, as I have said, he is not alone—wants us now to force them to do that duty in full. We prefer to begin with persuasion and help, in the way my noble friend Lord Elton has described, but we do intend—mark my words—to keep in reserve our statutory position of formal direction and our default powers. We do not wish to use them, but they are there if we have to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, made his usual robust speech. He is entitled to his views on the present programme of legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, also made this point about the manifesto. I can assure both of them that we have every intention of fulfilling our manifesto pledge with regard to amending the Civil Defence Act 1948.
In regard to the evacuation of port areas against conventional attack, and shelter and evacuation policy generally, my noble friend Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, my noble friend Lord Belhaven and my noble friend Lady Vickers asked about central planning for evacuation against such an attack. The effects of conventional attack are limited, and any evacuation required can be dealt with locally. The sort of area bombing of civilian populations that we saw in the blitz would serve no purpose in modern circumstances. In a nuclear attack a very large number of people would be at risk from fall-out, not from blast. As my noble friend said earlier from this Box, we do not know either where any bombs would be aimed or where they would fall; nor do we know which way the wind would carry the radioactive dust cloud which fall-out would cause to descend on the countryside, and no part of the country can therefore be called safe. Our plans are therefore diverted to advising and assisting people to use and improve the protection already afforded by their own homes. The Home Office issues guidance to help people to do this, including shelter designs. Further guidance is in preparation. For those whose houses are unsuitable, local authorities have a responsibility to identify buildings suitable for public shelter, and guidance to help them is to be issued shortly.
My noble friend Lord Murton's final point was about the distinction between casualty rates with and without purpose-built shelters. There can be no clear-cut answer to the numbers, or the effectiveness, of such shelters. It would depend entirely on the pattern and

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scale of an attack, the weather, and other such factors which cannot be predicted.
My noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery reminded us that the plans which the Government are requiring local authorities to make will have to be put into action in not more than seven days. He asked what could be done in so little time. Arrangements for feeding and housing those made homeless, the setting up of communications and the opening of emergency shelters are all examples of things which, if proper planning and proper training has been done, should take only 48 hours. The extra five days could be used to improve the basic provision made in those first few vital days. The total level of preparation that could be achieved, in whatever time is available, will, I must repeat, depend on what has been done not only centrally but by local authorities to plan, to prepare, to provide and to train.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in a most interesting speech, asked me for some information about the farmer. I apologise for the brevity of my reply. I shall write to him if he wishes. The text has been prepared by MAFF officials and is substantially complete. It needs to take account of the latest work by Home Office scientists on the blast and radiation effects of nuclear weapons. This is expected to be ready in the spring, when the MAFF booklet will be finalised.
I have listened to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway and those of my noble friend Lord Gainford about employing the unemployed and paying all those involved in Civil Defence work. I do not think my noble friends would expect me to answer in this debate those very interesting speculations, but I shall see that my right honourable and learned friend is made aware of them.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway also asked about the role of the police and about law and order. As I said in the House in answer to a Question on 12th December, responsibility for the enforcement of law and order in wartime will remain with the police. We are considering, with the police, how information can usefully be made available to volunteers about police wartime duties and the maintenance of law and order. Guidance on the police role is included in the new consolidated circular to local authorities. They of course have no direct responsibilities for law and order. The police will of course aim to respond as quickly as possible to law and order problems wherever they occur, in urban or rural areas, as they do in peacetime. I cannot predict how effectively they will be able to perform their duties but we should expect the law-abiding citizens—the vast majority—to take a commensurate approach.
If I may return to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, I would say that he is so right, when no one knows what the scenario will be. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, during his speech asked me many questions which anticipate that scenario. I could not give him answers just like that. However, the noble Lord did ask me about the United States contingency military hospitals. I am very grateful to him for advance notice of his question. The answer I have is that the United States contingency military hospitals are designed for use by military personnel and will be financed,
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equipped and manned by the United States Government for this purpose. They would not come under direct United Kingdom national control, but their use would be based on joint plans set out in close consultation with the Department of Health and Social Security and the Home Office.
My noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes of course said it all in her knowledgeable and amusing comments on the machinations of the GLC. With regard to the £475,000 study on Civil Defence which she mentioned, the GLC has submitted a renewed application for grant aid in respect of this study, which is being considered. My noble friend referred to the recent survey and the plans made by local authorities. The Government have responded to this by asking local authorities to complete the plans required by the 1983 regulations by the end of this year and to submit them to the Home Office. The new Civil Defence adviser, who was appointed last October, will help local authorities in this work and at the same time monitor progress. We do not believe that an inspectorate is necessary at the present time.
The noble Lord, Lord Belhaven, asked about stocks of food. As part of its plans, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food does indeed maintain strategic stockpiles of flour, sugar and other foods for use after a nuclear attack. Those stockpiles are dispersed across the country, although their locations are not made known in peacetime.
My noble friend Lord Gainford raised the question of amateur radio hams. The Home Office encourages local authorities to involve amateurs who form part of Raynet in their planning for communications, as well as other radio networks in the area.
My noble friend Lord Mersey referred to his visit to the Civil Defence College. He is right to acknowledge the excellent work done by the college. The staff are drawn from both the military and other walks of life, and the Home Office has no evidence that the pay is inadequate to attract the right quality of staff No cut in the resources available to the college is planned at present.
My noble friend—I cannot remember which noble friend—commented on the possibility of a biological-chemical attack. Perhaps someone will confess to this?
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I have the germ of an idea.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I might just as well tell your Lordships that we have no chemical or biological weapons and that the Government are playing a leading part at the conference on disarmament at Geneva to achieve a comprehensive, verifiable ban on the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Although we do not regard their use as likely, this cannot be completely ruled out—particularly against military targets. We are, therefore, actively considering how the present warning arrangements could be used for the detection and warning of the danger presented by chemical weapons and what protective measures might be taken.
My noble friend Lady Vickers asked me questions about research, particularly research on Civil Defence, which takes place largely within the scientific research

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and development branch of the Home Office. This branch has a complement of 13 people and I shall write to my noble friend with the financial details. My noble friend also asked about leaflets. The Home Office has produced a number of booklets on Civil Defence and my noble friends have mentioned some of these, which are being revised, including Protect and Survive, and they will be re-issued later this year. We do not keep a record of leaflets issued locally.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, asked me what would take place after the abolition of the GLC. The Government are confident that new arrangements to be made for Civil Defence in the GLC area and in the areas of the metropolitan counties following abolition will provide a sound basis on which to build. But we shall watch carefully how the work progresses.
I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Mottistone in his desire for a strong body of volunteers. Those of us who are old enough to remember the last war will recall Dad's Army and the ARP. Those among us who were not then alive may smile, but when the chips were down both of those voluntary groups played a vital part by fulfilling the role allotted to them.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, has said that Civil Defence is unnecessary. I am absolutely sure that he is wrong. Just as the Home Guard, because it was a trained unit, was important—and I realise that today's weapons are very different—so the same criterion applies to Civil Defence. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, said—and I heard him—that Civil Defence can do little in war; that those authorities who do nothing are right. That is a disgraceful philosophy, thoroughly impractical, and a pessimistic view, and one with which the Government could never agree. The first duty of a Government is to keep the peace. Our policies for defence and for multilateral disarmament from a position of strength have helped keep the peace in Europe for almost 40 years, and should continue to do so. In this uncertain—
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way?
Baroness Trumpington: No, my Lords, I will not.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, no.
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am not giving way.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way?
Lord Denham: My Lords, if my noble friend does not wish to give way, she is entitled not to. The noble Lord must not hold her up from making her speech if she will not give way.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: Very well, my Lords; I accept the noble Lord's ruling, but I think I am entitled to say—
Lord Denham: No, my Lords, the noble Lord is not entitled to say if my noble friend will not give way.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, very well. I shall accept the noble Lord's ruling under protest.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, as I was saying, our policies for defence and for multilateral disarmament from a position of strength have helped to keep the peace in Europe for almost 40 years, and should continue to do so. In this uncertain world there should be no argument about the need for Civil Defence in case defence policy were to break down. Much has already been done, but much remains to be done, as it always willl. If there is to be a Civil Defence, it should be effective, and that is the aim of this Government.
Lord Renton: My Lords, as the mover of this debate a long time ago may I say, rather boldly perhaps, that I think that it has achieved its purposes. The first purpose was to enable as many noble Lords and noble Baronesses as possible in all parts of the House to give us the benefit of their experience, their judgment and their expertise, and I am so grateful to all of them who have done so.
Secondly, I must confess that a purpose of the debate was to try to achieve a consensus across the Floor of the House, and that has been achieved to, I think, a reasonable and good extent. I was very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, for making his position clear as the all-party approach. If I may say so, the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, was quite unequivocally in favour of that approach.
At this late hour your Lordships will not expect me to say very much. but I think that I should quickly draw attention to some conclusions which must be drawn from this debate. The first is that the all-hazards approach appears to be generally acceptable. There is the one exception of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and we understand his lonely position. But that has been accepted. Secondly, the Government's position has been clearly stated: they wish to go on improving Civil Defence; and we have been given in some detail an indication of the ways in which they intend to do so.
Thirdly, I must point out to my noble friend Lady Trumpington—I am so grateful to her, as I am to my noble friend Lord Elton, for the trouble that they took to go into considerable detail—that Lord Elton's statement about the unfeasibility of evacuation plans in the event of a possible nuclear attack is something about which the Government will have to think again. In the way that he stated it, and my noble friend lady Trumpington stated it, I rather have the fear that the Government do not even intend to have plans for evacuation in the event of a conventional attack, and that would of course be quite inconsistent.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I rather hesitate to ask my noble friend to give way, since I did not give way to somebody else. However, I think that that is a question of law and order taking over, as they always do with evacuation.
Lord Renton: My Lords, with deep respect, that is an entirely separate issue. I must leave that as it is. I shall not take up further time.
The crux of this debate has really been seen to be the part to be played in future by local authorities. A number of speakers—in all parts of the House, it is fair to say—have rather indicated that this depends upon finance. Well, it must depend upon finance to some extent, but let us remember that there are some local authorities already playing a very full part on the basis of the present financial arrangements. I would hope that all local authorities will come round to that point of view. But if we find that we do not get enough volunteers on the basis of the present financial arrangements, then the Government will indeed have to think again. That, I believe, is one of the major lessons from this debate.
The Government will wish to study everything that has been said and to take it on board; and I hope that they will do so. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Milk (Cessation of Production) Bill
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the certificate of the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill; read a first time, and to be printed.
Shipbuilding Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Town and Country Planning (Compensation) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

NHS: Drug Prescribing
9.13 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock Lord Kilmarnock rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of their answer to Lord Kilmarnock's Question on 15th January (cols. 867–870), and of the widespread professional support for the Greenfield Report on Effective Prescribing, they will now seek to obtain general agreement to revised proposals, taking into account the recommendations of that report.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in rising to ask the Question standing in my name I want first to thank all noble Baronesses and noble Lords who have stayed here so late in order to participate in this debate. I think I am right in saying that not a single person has "scratched", which seems to me to be very creditable. This Question stems from the Starred Question I asked on 15th January. I asked whether, in view of the widespread opposition to their proposed limited list for National Health Service drugs, the Government would reconsider generic substitution by pharmacists
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with the consent of the doctor, as proposed by the department's own internal committee chaired by Dr. Greenfield.
The noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, replied "No" to that question. But he seemed to recognise later that day, at column 870, that the list would have to be substantially amended. It is also common knowledge that the Government invited submissions from interested parties to the new internal committee chaired by Dr. Acheson. January 31 was the deadline, and the committee is presumably sifting the responses now. It is therefore my hope, indeed my aim, that what is said here this evening will play some part in that process. This Question is less tightly drawn than my earlier one because it is not intended to box the Government into a corner. It invites them to make a constructive response to the many criticisms that their plan has attracted.
We on these Benches are in favour of reducing the drugs bill as a proportion of National Health Service expenditure to release resources for other pressing needs in the service. We made this quite plain in a policy document we issued in 1982. But we are not in favour of the Government's way of going about this, and their friends on this issue seem to be few and far between. In 1982 we advocated generic substitution where feasible, unless there was an express wish from the GP to the contrary. We also thought that new drugs should only be adopted by the NHS if they were safer, cheaper or more effective than the drugs already available—a form of limited list, if you like, which would discourage the "me-too-ism", as I believe it is popularly called, and would encourage genuinely innovative products whose patent life we thought should be extended.
But what are we presented with? We are presented with a draft list of breathtaking incompetence. When doctors came into the National Health Service as independent contractors, preservation of their clinical judgment was part of the basic understanding. If they were state employees the Government might be in a stronger position to give them orders, but even in that situation it is to be doubted whether a wise Government would try to impose such an amateurish list with so little technical rationale. Even if the Government were only flying a kite this would be disturbing.
Let us take a few items from the list. Benzodiazepine prescribing is already on the decrease, and yet we are to be restricted to three out of over fifty. Two of these are long acting and one slightly shorter, but the spectrum of pharmacological possibilities is not remotely covered by this selection. There is no provision for someone who needs a short-acting sedative to "get off".
Let us take the case of laxatives. None is allowed that is effective for cancer patients whose medication induces severe constipation. Let us take aspirin. No enteric-coated aspirin is to be allowed, yet this is essential in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis as normal aspirin in the required quantities would damage the stomach lining. If it is suggested that such patients should get their supplies from hospitals, they will have to be taken to the hospitals by ambulance for many of them are crippled, involving far greater expense than anything saved by banning enteric-

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coated aspirin from the GP's list. Hospitals are now required to restrict the drugs they issue to patients in the community, so where is the rationale, where is the sense of all this?
We have to recognise that there are a number of interests in this rather complex field. First, and most importantly, we have the patients, by whom I mean the vast majority in this country who are NHS patients. It is obvious that their interests are not best served by limiting their doctors' ability to treat them adequately or even competently. This would bear with especial harshness on the exempt categories—the elderly, the young and the poor—whose prescriptions are now exempt from charges and who would have to pay the full price, not for only the over-the-counter products but for the many painkillers, laxatives and so forth that suit them—or go without.
This is to introduce first, and second or third class medicine with a vengeance. Some say it would be tampering with the foundations of the National Health Service. It will undoubtedly encourage a drift back to private medicine by those who can afford it, thus diminishing the general support across class and income barriers which the NHS enjoys and upon which it depends. This could be seen as a break-up of the GP's side of the National Health Service by the back door. If that is what the Government intend they should say as much.
People recall the Prime Minister's pledge that the National Health Service is "safe in our hands". They are frankly bewildered, and that is why they sign petitions such as the one I hold in my hand from 300 people who live in Barnsley which says:
"We the undersigned petition against this Government's National Health cutbacks on medicines and tablets".
I believe that 300 good citizens of Barnsley all signed in one afternoon.
That is the case for the patients. Now we come to the doctors, to whom the patients' interests must also be paramount. They are understandably furious over the lack of consultation. The Greenfield Report lay on the Government's table from 1982 and on the public table from 1983. On 8th December 1983 the Government said that they accepted the Greenfield Report other than paragraph 24 on generic substitution, which presumably meant that they accepted the recommendation in paragraph 25 against a limited list. There was no further discussion of the matter with the profession or the BMA before the announcement on 8th November 1984 of a limited list. Perhaps the BMA were ill advised to take such umbridge as they did at this U-turn, but it is understandable. Now, they again have offered positive collaboration with the department on policies for rational and effective prescribing, which should of course be accepted by the Minister.
Not all doctors, the Government may say, speak with one voice. Of course, there are different degrees of tone, emphasis and volume in which one can express concern. The Royal College of Physicians supports the principle of limited prescribing, but subject to important safeguards set out by Sir Raymond Hoffenburg in his letter to The Times on 15th January, in which he stresses that drugs must be available,
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"to meet the full range of desired therapeutic activity",
and calls for an appeals mechanism and regular reviews of the list. These are important qualifications to the Government's present proposals, and would all cost money.
The Royal College of General Practitioners have usually spoken in gentler tones than the BMA, but on this occasion they, too, condemned the Government's proposals as not well founded" and "clinically inept". I think that their letter to the Chief Medical Officer is particularly well balanced.
"There are",
they say,
"some well recognised anomalies in the supply and payment for drugs available through the National Health Service which are inequitable and should be removed. It is therefore time for all concerned to adopt a purposeful and constructive approach in order to establish a comprehensive strategic policy.".
Then they go on to describe their own approach to responsible prescribing on the basis of local practice formularies, generic prescribing and limiting the quantities of drugs supplied. In a letter to me on 29th January their chairman. Dr. Irvine, wrote:
"We are firmly committed to the broad lines of Greenfield underpinned and reinforced by clinical performance review.".
In this the Royal College of General Practitioners is encouragingly at one with the BMA, whose information manager, Pamela Taylor, has also written to me—I have the letter here—saying:
"You ask whether the GMSC could associate itself with an approach based broadly on Greenfield, together with the self-monitoring proposals advanced from several quarters. The answer is, Yes".
My Lords, who else is involved?—obviously, the community pharmacists, represented by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee. They say that they,
"support a limited prescribing list which ensures value for money"—
Wait for it!—
"provided that a sufficient range of drugs continues to be available to meet the full range of clinical needs".
They would accept,
"the introduction of generic substitution where the proprietary medicine has exceeded the patent protection period and where the therapeutic effect and availability of the generic drug are assured".
They have some other useful suggestions on the role of the pharmacist and for reducing waste by triple prescriptions and dose-related quantities, and things of that nature.
That leaves us with the pharmaceutical industry, which has mounted a very high-profile campaign against the limited list. I do not underestimate the contribution of the industry to research and to exports, but, frankly, I think they went a bit over the top—and I told them so when I addressed a symposium that they recently held in the Barbican. After all, the National Health Service represents only 4 per cent. of the world's drug market and research done in the United Kingdom is reflected in world-wide sales. I do not believe that a great industry could not absorb some change, notably in promotional expenditure. The "complete dismay"—to use Dr. Griffin's words—with which they regard generic substitution seems to me to be somewhat exaggerated. I do not see why they could not manufacture high quality generics over here.
Yet, my Lords, the industry certainly has some valid points on parallel importing, quality control and patent protection. Also, the Government's total change of course between late 1983, when a limited list was absolutely "out", to late 1984, when it was suddenly and pugnaciously "in"—with no intervening discussion or consultation whatsoever—has obviously taken some companies by surprise and could have serious investment and job implications. Fortunately, we shall have the opportunity to discuss these rather complex matters in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, on the pharmaceutical industry on 20th February, and so I shall not pursue them here. The important thing for the moment is that the industry, according to the latest APBI News, which I have here, would be,
"happy to join in a working party with the department and the medical profession to discuss possible economies in a fair and constructive way".
So, my Lords, that is the field, excluding of course the Government. If there is not total consensus on what ought to be done, there is certainly convergence of all parties other than the Government. There are differences of emphasis, but I do not believe they are so great as to make impossible an agreed solution if—and this is a big "if"—the Government have the political will to bring it about.
Let us now be very realistic. The Government aim at £100 million, knowing they will not achieve that. As they have already said, their list is negotiable and it is presumably being negotiated at this moment, or tomorrow. The more it becomes a workable and clinically adequate list, the less it will save. Perhaps a more realistic figure would have been £50 million. My proposals (broadly those supported by both the BMA and the Royal College of General Practitioners), involving some degree of generic prescribing, some generic substitution, local formularies and searching self-audit, along with some of the pharmacists' ideas, would easily build up to an equivalent figure and beyond, with the added advantage of wide support and a fair wind in their sails.
There is another important consideration. The encouragement of good practice involves no additional bureaucracy. Have the Government thought through the administrative nightmare of their scheme?—assessors, new applications, an appeals tribunal, monitoring, policing, to say nothing of the threat of legal action, which I understand to be a distinct possibility. No, my Lords, that is not the right way. A rigid statutory list can only diminish a doctor's personal sense of responsibility. Indeed, faced with a therapeutic gap, he may simply prescribe upwards: for example, an antibiotic for a linctus or a knock-out sedative for a mild one. He may be forced into expensive overkill. The Government are keen on voluntarism and self-regulation in other walks of life: indeed it is the core of their philosophy. Why do they deny it to the medical profession? The threat of a limited list can always be held in reserve if the measures I suggest fail to deliver the goods.
Finally, I genuinely want to get the Government off the hook of bringing unpopular and unworkable regulations to Parliament, for there will be further storms if they do. I therefore want to ask the Government seriously to consider taking the following
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five steps. First, to defer the introduction of a statutory limited list for, say, two years; secondly, to widen out Dr. Acheson's committee to include representation from all those bodies which have now publicly indicated a readiness to reach a sensible and workable agreement; thirdly, to facilitate and encourage the adoption of the various measures supported by the Royal College of General Practitioners and the British Medical Association, along with the anti-waste proposals of the pharmacists; fourthly, to set target savings in real terms, against which progress can be monitored by the expanded DHSS committee in the noble Lord's department; and, fifthly, if the experience is good, to stick to this course. If it is disappointing, the limited list weapon is always ready to hand, always there in the armoury.
This, I believe, is a solution which should appeal to all people of good sense and goodwill, in and out of the Alliance—for this is not a party matter. I repeat that this is not a party matter and it is in this spirit that I offer it to the Government. I realise that the noble Lord cannot say "yea" or "nay" from the Dispatch Box tonight, but will he commend it to his right honourable and honourable friends? And, in so doing, will he hear in mind that we are not talking only about the various professional and commercial interests involved—important and legitimate though they may be—but above all about patients' interests? And will he also hear in mind that the Government's actions will ultimately be judged against the Prime Minister's pledge that.
"The National Health Service is safe in our hands"?
9.29 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I think we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for introducing this dicussion and for the way in which he did it. I must say that I agreed with almost all that he had to say. I think that perhaps to ask the Government to delay for two years may be going too far, but I would certainly join in his plea that the present method which is proposed should not be proceeded with and that there should be effective consultation.
In April 1981, shortly before the DHSS established the Greenfield working group, my successor as Secretary of State for Social Services, Patrick Jenkin, said:
"In Britain, in contrast with many other countries … we have resisted any system of limiting the freedom of a doctor to prescribe whatever he thinks his patient needs. Not for us are such devices as limited lists, black lists … We talk about the doctor's freedom to prescribe, but what we should really talk about is the patient's freedom to be treated as his doctor recommends".
I thought that that was a very good statement. I thought that it was pretty clear. I thought that it stated absolutely without peradventure that the Government were not about to do, and were not considering, what they have now said they are going to do.
I accepted, and I think that the professions and those who were interested in this subject accepted, the assurance given by the Minister that he meant what he said. If he did not, what did he mean? This is what we are talking about tonight—the right of patients to obtain medication regardless of their financial situation. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, touched upon this, because those who

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would suffer most as a result of the first proposed limited list would undoubtedly be the elderly, the disabled and those suffering from arthritis, etc.
All right, my Lords, maybe the list will be much improved in the course of consultation, but the proposals which were announced by the Secretary of State in November 1984 were, in my view, quite contrary to the whole spirit of the National Health Service expressed in the principles repeated by successive Governments: first, that the patient's interests must come first—clearly, that is ignored in this proposal; secondly, that there is no restriction on the doctor's clinical freedom—that I believe successive Governments have stood by and I think that they should stand by it; and, thirdly, that we do not create a two-tier National Health Service, one for those who can pay and an alternative for those who cannot.
Let us get it quite clear that, if the Government have their way, whenever a doctor prescribes a medicine from one of the therapeutic groups that are listed, patients will have to pay the full cost of the medicine prescribed whatever their personal circumstances, unless the medicine happens to be on the limited list. There will be no exemptions. Inevitably, the ability to pay will determine the patient's treatment, prescribing patterns will be distorted and effective prescribing made more difficult.
The proposal, whatever the contents of the limited list, however much it is revised in the present consultations, runs directly contrary to the principle of the National Health Service that the individual's ability to pay determines his tax, but not his medical treatment. Once the principle of a limited list is conceded, a two-tier system of care within the National Health Service's general practice is established and the way is open for further restrictions whenever political expediency demands. I believe that these proposals open the door to things that could be even more dangerous.
What I have just said are not my views alone. They are the views of Dr. Michael Wilson, the chairman of the General Medical Services Committee of the BMA. It is interesting also that the Government's own advisory committee dismissed the present proposals—I will not say out of hand, but after careful consideration.
Perhaps I may refer very briefly to the Greenfield Report and to what they had to say. I am quoting from paragraph 25, when they said:
"it is our view that a limitation on prescribing at NHS expense would be interpreted by some doctors as an attempt to curtail their freedom".
I think it will be interpreted by all doctors as an attempt to restrict their clinical freedom. It goes on:
"Since we have not received any convincing evidence that suggested financial benefits would outweigh the administrative problems in drawing-up and maintaining the list we have concluded that such a move would not be justified and we do not recommend any measures to introduce nationwide a Limited List".
It is because of that statement that I was staggered when the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, said in answer to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, that the proposals that were before the House, before the Government and before the country were proposals that sprang from discussions ever since 1981. We
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knew what the Minister had said in 1981 and we know what the Greenfield Committee concluded when it reported in 1982. The department's own evidence to the Greenfield working party opposed the introduction of a limited list.
What sort of consultation has there been? Virtually none. There is consultation about what is on the list, but there has been no consultation about the method devised; namely, a limited list. The Government put forward their plan without prior consultation with the medical of pharmaceutical professions, with patient representatives or the pharmaceutical industry. Their goal is simply to cut public expenditure on health care by £100 million, not to reallocate spending within the NHS.
The Government's proposals have been condemned by most of the royal colleges, by the BMA, by the Government's own Standing Medical Advisory Committee, by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, by patient groups, by charities such as Age Concern and Help the Aged, and by many individual experts. But somehow or other Ministers remain intransigent. Although they will probably permit some extension to their limited list of NHS medicines on the basis of the consultation that is now going on, they apparently intend to stand by their original, arbitrary and unfair intention to withdraw a large number of NHS medicines. I do not want at this stage to go into the particular medicines that are on the list. One could have a long debate about this, but I shall not do so in what will be a short contribution.
I have had a very careful discussion with doctors, with pharmacists and with the pharmaceutical industry, and all agree that the Government believe that it is in the interests of the National Health Service to save £100 million on drugs. I agree that there are savings to be made in the drugs bill. I am not saying that the Government are wrong to seek to make a saving in the drugs bill. All of those whom I have consulted have said that they are prepared to consider with the Government alternative ways of doing this, and that includes the pharmaceutical profession, the British Medical Association and the pharmacists.
The pharmacists' charter, which was published last summer, made a series of proposals which they thought would lead to a saving in drug costs of well over £100 million out of a total drugs bill of more than £1 billion. Among the things they proposed were the introduction of generic substitution where the proprietary medicine exceeded the patent protection period and where the therapeutic effect and availability of the generic drug were assured. I agree with the noble Lord. I am in favour of generic substitution provided only that the GP has the opportunity to say, "It must be what I have put on the prescription sheet". I would not interfere with clinical judgments as the Government now propose to do.
The pharmacists' charter also recommended advice to GPs on the choice of drugs, on the encouragement of generic prescribing, and on the introduction of triple prescriptions so that a patient would receive three prescriptions each for one month rather than three months' supply, thus saving excessive supplies of drugs for patients who do not need to be treated for so long. It recommended the introduction of dose-related

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quantities, eliminating the wastage of repeat prescriptions for high dosage pills when low dosage pills are still available. In my view this is a very good agenda for consultation. But for the life of me I do not understand why the Government have not been prepared to sit down with these organisations, all of which are essential to the good operation of the health service, and consult with them.
As the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, has said, this is not an occasion to go into any detail on the problems of the pharmaceutical industry, but I think it is perfectly fair to say to the noble Lord that a qualified firm of accountants has studied the likely effects of the limited list proposal. They consulted more than 20 leading pharmaceutical companies operating in Britain. Some of those companies were British and some were foreign. Some were multinational firms and some were entirely British-based. That study related to the value of investment plans deferred or cancelled as a result of the Government's limited list proposal. It estimated that such deferment and cancellation could be valued at 138·2 million. That is a very large sum of money. It also accounts for a very large number of jobs—some 2,000—if that estimate is correct; although I cannot say whether or not it is correct.
At this stage I urge the Government to think again. I believe that they have created a great deal of anger because of their failure to consult. The opening paragraph of an article by David Fletcher in yesterday's Daily Telegraph stated (and I quote):
"The row with the Government over its plan for a limited list of drugs has brought relations between doctors and Ministers to their lowest ebb for years".
Later it states:
"Ministers admit privately that they had not intended or expected to stir up such a hornets' nest of controversy. Why all the fuss?".
I put the same question. Why did the Government enter into this without some form of consultation?
I will conclude by putting two questions to the Minister. First, will he urge his right honourable friends to think again?—to postpone the 1st April date to enable there to be effective consultation? Secondly, will he comment on the article which appeared in the Guardian today, which suggested that there should be both a black list and a white list and that pharmaceutical companies not only would have to apply to the Committee on the Safety of Medicines but would then have to apply to another committee to ensure that their drugs were available on the National Health Service. This is a very serious allegation and I hope that the Minister will answer both questions when he replies.
9.42 p.m.
Lord Porritt: My Lords, when first I saw the Question put down by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, I wondered whether he planned to discuss only generic drugs. But when I examined the Question more closely and saw its reference to the Greenfield report, it became quite obvious that the discussion this evening would be more general and would deal with the different methods by which money could be saved in the prescribing of drugs in the National Health Service; in other words, a comparison of other methods with the limited list—a matter in which I personally am more interested.
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I must declare a double interest. First, I am an ex-medical man, albeit a surgeon. But as noble Lords will know, today anaesthetics (which are drugs) and preoperative and post-operative drugs are taking an infinitely greater part in surgery than they did a few years ago. Secondly, I am a director (although, quite frankly, very much a non-executive director) of a well-known pharmaceutical company.
Having made that declaration, I want to say first and foremost that I greatly regret the limited list concept because it destroys an ideal. That ideal existed long before the NHS came into existence but in fact was vital to its inception: the right of a doctor to treat his patients as he thought best for that patient; and, perhaps even more importantly, the right of a patient to expect that treatment from his doctor. This is a point which the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, has already made but I wish to repeat it because we are discussing here an important primary principle.
Some noble Lords with long memories will be able to recall the beginning of the National Health Service. In itself, surely, it was an ideal—even if it has proved rather expensive and impractical in the many years since. Nevertheless, when that service started, GPs refused en masse to follow Aneurin Bevan's ideal. Until he gave them the status of an independent contractor they were determined not to join his National Health Service. This status of independent contractor they still hold today, as your Lordships know: at least, they hold it until the limited list comes on the map and that is where we come to the death of an ideal; The institution of the "black list", as the profession prefers to call it. It is a suggestion which has been so bitterly and unnecessarily antagonistic to so many people.
The list has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, but I want to refer to it again because I think that we should realise the enormous antipathy to this idea. Many of the people against it are very good friends of this Government: not only the medical profession, the pharmaceutical industry and the Pharmaceutical Society but also practically all the Royal Colleges and their Faculties and specialist associations have all lined up against it. As has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, the DHSS's own Medical Advisory Committee has come out against it, to say nothing of a mass of ordinary people; by which I mean patients and charities, which groups will include, I imagine, a number of MPs and, I hope, a number of people in this, your Lordships' House. Surely that is a formidable opposition to create and I think that it merits serious rethinking.
Personally, I never thought that I should live to see the day when a Government department undertakes the treatment of a patient. That is putting into simple terms what is being done. I think that probably most people would agree that a saving on the National Health Service drugs bill is a very good thing. There is no harm in that. That is practical politics. It is, however, very relevant to say that our expenditure on drugs in this country is lower per capita than for most of our European neighbours, and is considerably lower than that of Japan and America. So it is not as outrageous as people say. It may be a heavy bill for us, but nevertheless it is not as excessive as peope like to make out.

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There is the question of the much-maligned profits of drug companies. They have not, as is frequently stated in the press and in the media (and seemingly, judging by the financial raids made on it by the Government), increased very much in the past 10 years: in fact very little more than that which can be accounted for by ordinary inflation. By far the greatest part of those profits goes back into developing the industry, into research and development, and into the making of new drugs for patients.
It was stated by the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, in answer to a Question a week or two ago, that circumstances had changed since the publication of the Greenfield Report in 1981. No one would deny that, but let us remember that that report (as the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said) came down firmly at that time against any form of limited list; so this is a major change. At that time he said that a study of the whole subject of prescribing medicines, in great depth, had taken place—hence, the present project of a limited list.
But what study is involved? Who took part in it? Certainly not the BMA, the ABPI or any pharmaceutical society. Who drew up the painfully inadequate list of prescribable drugs—the very exclusive "white list", as it is described? All this was not disclosed. It is a radical change without any reason at all. This project has nothing to do with medicine or pharmacy. It is entirely political and financial—the DHSS's seemingly blinkered response to the Treasury's request—or, should I say, demand?—for savings of £100 million. That is putting it crudely, but that is what it seems to all of us who are thinking straight. It is a classic example of the dictum that principles and politics make very uncomfortable bedfellows.
The so-called consultations that have taken place—more or less at the point of the gun—since the publication of the limited list have clearly shown that there are many alternative ways of saving this kind of sum. Both the BMA and the ABPI, while very reasonably refusing to discuss a totally inadequate list of which they had had no warning whatsoever, have brought forward a number of alternative constructive propositions, and they have done that without jeopardising the basic principle of clinical practice and without doing irreparable damage to the flourishing British pharmaceutical industry.
Where does this kind of restrictive practice end up? I was told on the highest authority, which I am not permitted to quote, that if the list as originally set out had to be modified after consultation, the Government would expand the scope—that is to say, the number of categories to which limitation applied—until sufficient drugs were proscribable (as against prescribable) to produce the required savings in departmental expenditure. That is where we are going.
What is to prevent the further spread of this limitation-by-diktat policy? Are we to see only "Elephant and Castle" instruments used in operating theatres; only "Fowler" pacemakers supplied to heart patients; only "Kenneth Clarke" prostheses used for hip replacements? This may seem a joke, but it is
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extremely serious. That is the policy. If we start doing that sort of thing in one part of the country, it will spread all over the country. It is a risk that is too great to take. The whole idea is so contrary to British medical practice that it merits one description only—sinister.
This is probably not the time or the occasion to enter into details, but I would say just this. The "Black List" is a negative approach to the problem, it is a therapeutially inadequate measure and an inflexible way to cope with an essential part of medical practice—the treatment of the individual patient and the individual disease.
That brings me finally to say a few words on the other side of the picture—the dangerous situation into which the British pharmaceutical industry will be forced as a result of this short-sighted plan. As I said originally, my personal knowledge of the industry dates back a mere 10 years or so, but I have been increasingly impressed by the results that it has achieved and the way in which it has achieved those results.
My view—and I can assure your Lordships that it is not a biased view; I came to it from nowhere at all, I just learnt like any kindergarten pupil, and it has been a very interesting education—is quite unbiased. Of course, one knows that in every industry, in every business and even, one can say, in every profession, there is an odd bad apple in the basket. I do not think that anybody would deny that there is probably an odd bad apple in the pharmaceutical basket. But I would suggest that they are few and far between. I have never been able to understand why Governments, and especially this Government, do not give more active and positive support to what must surely in their book in many ways be an ideal set up.
Here is an industry whose prime purpose is to produce substances to prevent and to treat the ills of the country's population and to reduce and to ameliorate its discomfort and distress. It is an industry employing 70,000 people with minimal industrial disruption—almost negligible. It is an industry earning more than £12 million a year in exports, and, at the same time, attracting very considerable foreign investment. It is an innovative industry responsible for at least 10 per cent. of all the research work done in the world, and probably respected to a far greater extent than that percentage indicates.
Why does it not receive more support from this Government and the backing of the media and the public? It seems extraordinary to me. It has done nothing but good—good medically, good financially, good nationally. The limited list would do irreparable harm to the industry that I have just described. It is so discriminating and so inequitable that, while some companies would lose 50 to 75 per cent. of their profits because their drugs were on the black list, others would be completely untouched by the list as it stands. This is the arbitrary selection of drugs without sufficient knowledge. There is no doubt it would severely restrict research. What self-respecting company will spend thousands of pounds and waste thousands of hours of its highly-skilled scientific staff to produce a new drug which may not achieve the bogus popularity of the white list?

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Already the Treasury has, from 1983, through the PPRS scheme, cut the industry's profits to the tune of £100 million. It is now apparently engaged in the process of imposing another major cut. This would seem a classic example of the "goose and golden egg" scenario. Taking all this into consideration, can we not
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persuade the Government, as the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, has said, seriously to think again? This is an ill-thought-out scheme and, to many people, an offensive scheme. One hopes that the Government will see these matters as sufficiently important to have another thought on the subject.
9.57 p.m.
Lord Perry of Walton: My Lords, I start by apologising in advance to the House because I have to leave before the end of the debate. This is because I have to catch a train. May I also say that I have listened to my noble friend Lord Kilmarnock, to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and to the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, and I have agreed with every single word that they have said, from beginning to end. I do not want to say it all over again, probably much less well than they have already said it; but there are one or two aspects of generic substitution about which I want to say a word because I can claim to speak with a little authority.
The first reason I say that is because I spent 15 years as a member of the British Pharmacopoeia Commission. I well remember, month after month, agonising over lists of approved names for new drugs. There were certain conventions that had to be followed. One did not give a name that described the action of the drug because a little later another action might be found which was much more useful. One did try to give an indication, in the official name, of the chemical structure of the compound. It was quite extraordinarily difficult to satisfy these conventions and to find a name that was euphonious and tripped readily off the tongue.
We were up against branded names which did not have to obey any of these conventions, and which were chosen solely because they were memorable. I understand that some of them were even trademarked before a drug had been invented for the name. If I give your Lordships one or two examples, I am not at all denigrating these particular compounds. If we take librium, the name is a very easy name. It conjures up liberation from tension and stress. We found that the best name we could give it was chlordiazepoxide. It has six syllables compared with three. Going back a few years before that, a very common barbiturate went under the brand name of Soneryl. I do not know what that conjured up, whether it was somnolence or someone who snores, but it was certainly easier to describe than butobarbitone.
I would remind your Lordships that unless there had been the First World War, we would not be able to prescribe aspirin as the official name. It cannot be done in Germany. It would have to be prescribed as acetylsalicylic acid because it is a Bayer trade mark. That is bad enough. However, when one comes to drugs which are mixtures to two active ingredients, some are all right, but most that I used to teach are wrong. One example is given in the blacklist put out by the ABPI. That is distalgesic. To give distalgesic its proper name means writing down paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene. That is a pretty big mouthful. My point is that it is very difficult to get official names that will be remembered.
The second point on which I claim to speak with some authority is that I taught pharmacology in Edinburgh to medical students for 10 long years. I tried hard to persuade them to prescribe using the official names of drugs in order that there should be generic prescribing. I have to confess to total failure. Within a year of leaving my tender hands, they had
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learned what all the consultants in the wards did. That was to use the brand name. While that is all right in hospital because the consultants can agree with the hospital pharmacy to dispense the generic form, it is not all right when they go out into practice.
I am saying all this because many statements have been made in various papers over the last few weeks indicating that doctors should be educated to use generic prescribing. It is hopeless to expect that to happen. Official names are too difficult to remember. Even if one does remember them, they are too long to write down even if one can spell, which not all doctors can. Even if the official form of the drug is prescribed, it is still perfectly open to the pharmacist to dispense the very much more expensive brand equivalent. So it works that way round to the cost of the taxpayer. It does not work the other. That seems very odd. If we want to save money on the drugs bill, the answer was, I think, given in Greenfield. It is not generic prescribing. It is generic dispensing. It is certainly not, as everyone has said, in the limited list.
Greenfield's proposals and those that have come forward since suggest a box on the National Health Service prescription form which the doctor would tick if he wanted to allow the generic form. I do not like ticks in boxes. One never knows whether one is opting in or out unless one reads the small print. I believe that nearly all doctors, when prescribing brand names, do it for the reasons that I have outlined. They are easier to remember and quicker to write. They do not care a two penny toss whether the brand drug is prescribed or whether the generic form is prescribed. I believe that if they want the brand form they should be asked not to tick anything but to underline the name twice. Some people underline it once. If they underline it twice it will mean "I want this and nothing else". It would not cost anything. It would save far more than any limited list could possibly save.
In addition to what the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, said, I should like to refer to damage to the drug industry. The limited list will certainly damage the drug industry indiscriminately and unfairly penalising some firms. There is no doubt that generic dispensing could also damage the drug industry unless steps were taken to prevent that. But steps can much more easily be taken to protect the British drug industry, which I agree does a good job on the whole, for instance by extending the patent life of a drug before the generic form becomes available.
I should like to end simply by adding my small voice to those of noble Lords who have already spoken and pleading with the Government to think again. I believe that a generic dispensing proposal would receive general approbation if the safeguard to the industry were taken from every single branch of the professions engaged in medicine, and from the general public; but I think the limited list is being received with general odium.
10.6 p.m.
Lady Saltoun: My Lords, after so much medical expertise I am shaking with fright at the thought of speaking at all; I really think I need valium! I am not

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altogether opposed to generic prescribing, provided that the drugs used come from a reputable manufacturer or supplier who can be identified and against whom an action could be brought for any damage to the patient caused by that drug. The Greenfield Report mentions this in paragraph 21. It does not seem that the present situation is entirely satisfactory, even within the EEC; and what about outwith the EEC? I find this slightly disquieting.
My principal anxiety is about the limited list. I understand that it is being reconsidered in consultation with the professions—medical, I presume—and the pharmaceutical industry. I am very glad to hear this because it really is far too restricted. People are not all the same, and a drug or remedy which may suit one person and be effective may be quite useless or even counter-productive for another. To many of us that does not matter, because if what is available on National Health Service prescription does not suit us we ask for something else, and in many cases we go out and buy it at the chemist without ever going near the doctor; and often it is cheaper than the prescription charge.
But what about those who are exempt from the prescription charges—children, pensioners and some of the disabled? It is certainly not cheaper for them to go and buy what they need, even if it costs less than the prescription charge; and most of them really cannot afford it. I am truly concerned that they will suffer unless either the list is considerably extended or some arrangement can be made by which the limited list would not apply to people who are exempted from prescription charges. I know how important it is to cut out wasteful prescribing—and I know there is a lot of wasteful prescribing—but, please, not at the expense of children, pensioners or the disabled.
10.8 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I had intended to start with a few rude remarks about the Government's action, using such phrases as, "Elected dictatorship" or, "Democracy isn't a ballot-box exercise to be indulged in once every four or five years"; but I think that might he regarded as party political, and I think also that the noble Lord the Minister who is to reply has already had quite enough criticism on that front.
I merely want to say that the medical profession is as concerned as anyone with the problems of prescribing; this has been alluded to by all speakers so far. Cost is only one of the problems of prescribing. We have had much responsible opinion that there is far too great a reliance on drugs—a pill for every ill, if you like. Doctors are under great pressure to prescribe. Limited time, and sometimes an unwillingness to listen, or inadequate training in getting to the bottom of patients' problems, may result in a prescription being given instead of the explanation and advice that is needed. As the Greenfield Report says:
"In our view a little extra time spent listening and talking to patients on their first visit will usually benefit both patient and doctor in the longer term".
Unfortunately, the prescription sometimes becomes the symbol for the fuller doctor-patient transaction
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that did not take place. But with the best will in the world, it is not always possible to change people's expectations. Sometimes patients will say to me, after I have listened to their problems at some length, "Well, I feel very much better now. Thank you for listening to me. By the way, before I go can I have my valium?"
Changes in attitudes take place, and I can understand the Government's reluctance to wait the decade or so that it might take before better medical practice and changed public attitudes have a measurable effect. We fully accept that more urgent measures are necessary now. But that is exactly why the Greenfield working group was set up. It consisted of representatives of all the major branches of the medical profession and the DHSS. There were five GPs, three consultants, and four DHSS officials on the informal working group. They recommended not only generic substitution, which would have had an immediate cost-cutting effect, but also much longer-term measures whose effects will increase with time. The Government say that they have accepted these other recommendations, but so far there has been very little evidence of that.
One of the most important recommendations was the provision of detailed prescribing information to general practitioners. They said:
"General practitioners should have available to them frequent detailed analyses of their own prescribing for self-audit purposes. These should form part of a continuous educational process and research is needed into the method and style of presentation".
A very important piece of research on the effect of this kind of approach is described in Prescribing: A Suitable Case for Treatment—some might say a well-chosen title—suggesting that "prescribing" is in a bad way and needs attention. But I wonder whether amputation is the right method of treatment. This report was produced by a team from St. Mary's Hospital and is published by the Royal College of General Practitioners. Here a group of 28 general practitioners in North London were given detailed computerised analyses of their prescriptions over a period of a single month on four occasions separated by six-month intervals. Each month's analysis was followed up by detailed discussions of the findings, at which groups of doctors met a clinical pharmacologist.
At the end of a two-year period it was found that the proportion of generic preparations had risen from 16 to 23 per cent. and relative costs had fallen by 12 per cent. compared with a controlled group who did not have the benefits of this information and discussion. If these results were extrapolated nationally £61 million could have been saved. This saving was partly made up of the change from proprietary to generic products and partly by better prescribing, often using cheaper alternatives of equal efficacy. It is interesting to note that this saving was achieved with only a small shift towards generic prescribing. Considerably greater savings could have been achieved with full generic substitution.
Noble Lords might be interested in another example of self-audit; this time an example from my own group general practice. As a development of an inquiry into antibiotic prescribing we decided to look at all the

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drugs we prescribed over a five-week period. There were 523 different preparations; of these, generic preparations made up 29 per cent. of the total, which your Lordships may note is already considerably higher than the national average. We thought that it would be useful to try to develop our own limited list or "practice formulary" of drugs which we would try to stay within, both for economy and good clinical practice. After several meetings, much redrafting and discussion with an eminent clinical pharmacologist we reduced our list to some 280 drugs, of which 80 per cent were generic preparations.
As the noble Lord, Lord Perry, has said, to discipline oneself to write out the generic title of every drug requires some effort. The list was chosen to the exclusion of brand name products. Noble Lords will be interested to know that we have described this exercise in a paper which will be published in this week's edition of the British Medical Journal. The article is entitled "Prescribing: The Power to Set Limits". This is not the first effort of this kind; several similar articles in the journals have been published over the past few years, and hospitals have for many years used their own formularies which have been drawn up and agreed by the doctors and pharmacists working in the hospital. These lists are flexible; the effects of limited drug lists depends on how and by whom they are compiled, and how the doctors' compliance is maintained. Compliance is most likely if the prescribing doctors have been actively involved in constructing the list, and this is where the Government have gone completely wrong.
Quite apart from creating the two-class system and undermining the basic philosophy of the National Health Service as the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, has pointed out, doctors are going to feel profoundly annoyed at having their judgment overruled without consultation. Some, as has been mentioned, may even consciously or subconsciously sabotage the Government's intentions to save money by, for instance, prescribing a more expensive drug from a different category which is not on the restricted list. An example might be to prescribe Tagamen, which costs £14 for a hundred tablets, instead of Asilone or Gaviscon, which cost £4 per 100 tablets. All three are useful for acid indigestion but Tagamet alone can heal a duodenal ulcer. It can also have unpleasant side effects: a healed ulcer is worth the risk, but the cost and the risk are certainly not worth it if there is no ulcer.
Changes in prescribing will profoundly affect patients and the process of constructing a formulary, or limited list, needs to be linked with the provision of information and advice to patients about the changes in prescribing that are going to take place, and should include a method of incorporating patients' response. In our practice we plan to ask our Centre Users' Group—this is a consumer group composed of patients—to consider the formulary and in their routine surveys of patients' views of the service to inquire about their views on the use of this limited list of drugs. These views will have been taken into account when the formulary is revised, and we intend to do this from time to time.
Finally I should like to give your Lordships the concluding paragraph of the evidence given by the
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Department of Health and Social Security to the Greenfield Committee when commenting on whether a limited list would be useful.
"It is almost impossible to establish whether the introduction of a limited list of drugs will in itself produce any financial saving for the NHS. What does seem apparent is that any attempt so to do is likely to arouse hostility, result in higher administrative costs, affect the pricing of drugs and the industry, generate unwelcome pressures for GPs and pharmacists, and possibly cast some doubt on the Government's intentions towards the standard of provision of general medical services in the NHS."
Some of these powerful comments have already been shown to be true, and it is highly likely that time would show the other objections to be equally valid. I do most earnestly ask the Government to reconsider their mistaken step in suggesting this list. I am sure—and other medical Peers have pointed this out—that the profession will readily agree to the introduction of all the measures suggested in the Greenfield Report, and more, which will preserve a greater freedom of action and eventually lead to greater savings and more responsible prescribing if the Government will stay their hand on the limited list as all noble Lords who have spoken have requested.
10.19 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for enabling us to debate an issue which has caused concern right down the line. I should also like to apologise to him for not being in the Chamber to hear what he said, but I look forward to reading it tomorrow.
I welcome any attempt to avoid waste, and it certainly seems that the area of drug prescription is one where there is waste and in which savings can be made; but it must not be to the detriment of the consumer. As the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, has already said, among the most worried consumers are the terminally ill, the elderly, the chronically sick and the disabled, many of whom need regular drugs and are on pensions or low wages. I am going to concentrate on the needs of people with spinal cord injury, paraplegics and tetraplegics, and this will also include people with, for example, spina bifida and, to a certain degree, people with multiple sclerosis.
People with other disabilities also have essential needs which must be met, but their problems are rather different. Here I should like to ask the Minister whether he can assure me that Brompton mixture, which is diamorphine and cocaine, will still be available on an ordinary National Health Service prescrition as it is invaluable for treating severe terminal breathing problems. I believe he has already had a letter on this from the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox.
I welcome the news that the limited list is to be enlarged with regard to laxatives and pain killers, which are two of the three groups of drugs which are vital to paraplegics, the third being the benzodiazepine group. Neverthless, I am still worried, and the Spinal Injuries Association—the SIA, of which my noble friend is the president—is worried. The Scottish Council on Disability and many individual paraplegics and tetraplegics are worried, and I should like to explain why.

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First, laxatives. Paraplegics have no control over their bowels, and therefore it is extremely important, if they want to get around and lead normal lives, that they get the bowels right. The SIA, in its response to the proposed limitations, give some examples (but I should like to stress that they are only some) of the drugs used. I quote:
"Many members must use Dulcolax, Deogex or other products such as Dulcolax Rectal solution, perhaps combined with oral laxatives, because their paralysed bowel will not work without additional drug action. The balance between good bowel action, constipation or accidents during the day requires fine tuning for each individual often by the daily use of oral laxatives such as Senokot, Syrup of Figs, Dorbanex, Regulan or Fybogel in addition to suppositories".
During the exchanges on the Starred Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, on 15th January, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said that she had had letters from people who were extremely worried by the exclusion of Dorbanex from the list. The individual person's needs vary enormously, and in the case of paraplegics they really need access to the whole range of available laxatives. It is no good suggesting that paraplegics change their diet or their lifestyle, take exercise and do without laxatives, like many able-bodied people, because their system has been impaired. I am lucky and, like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, I get by on bran, but most do not.
I should like to read an extract fron a letter which a very worried and otherwise healthy and active paraplegic wrote to her Member of Parliament. She said:
"I personally am a 'health food' believer, but my bran-and-fruit-juice breakfast is not sufficient and my digestive system cannot cope with quantities of raw vegetables or nuts. I have spent 5 weeks in hospital during the last year in an attempt to clear and regulate my digestive system and bowels. Laxatives are essential. They always have been. The laxatives which my GP now prescribes for me have restored my health. 'Laxoberyl' and 'Fybogel' (or 'Regulan') are essential for the maintenance of my good health and my paralysed body. I cannot live without them. I cannot afford to buy them. They are on the 'hit list' and there is no generic substitute".
Before I move from this area of the anatomy I should like to ask the Minister about disposagloves, which I presume are not in a group subject to limitation; but the SIA and my noble friend fought long and hard to get them on prescription because the standard issue of glove could and did damage the bowel during manual evacuation. I would welcome assurance from the Minister on that point. In her quest to try to get disposagloves accepted on the list, I believe my noble friend waved a glove in this Chamber at the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who was then the Minister. Anyway, she succeeded.
I now move to analgesics. The SIA states:
"Pain is the single most debilitating side effect of paraplegia for many members. Aspirin and Paracetamol tablets are usually ineffective with chronic pain and the hard-core of members who suffer intractable pain may need Distalgesics or a combination of powerful analgesics to make life barely tolerable".
I very much hope that a wider range will be made available to control pain that may occur every day in the life of a person with spinal cord injury.
Finally, the benzodiazepine sedatives and tranquillisers. These are used by paraplegics and tetraplegics (the latter have broken their necks and so are paralysed
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in all four limbs) to lessen muscle spasm, which can be a severe problem. One can have a severe spasm of the muscles in the legs, the back, the bowels and in the stomach, and even, in the case of tetraplegics, in the arms and in the neck. These can be so severe in the case of a tetraplegic that they can throw you out of bed or out of your chair. Some people even have to be strapped in. A spasm can prevent you from driving a car because your legs may spasm up under the steering wheel. You can burn yourself drinking a cup of coffee because you have a sudden jerking spasm and you throw the boiling coffee all over your legs.
I had, with great reluctance, because it had adverse other effects, an operation to lessen spasm because mine became so strong that I used almost to fall out of the chair when I was getting dressed and I had great difficulty in transferring and I really thought that I might lose my independence. So I felt that it was worth having this operation.
The Spinal Injuries Association say that while Diazepam (which is on the list) is suitable for some members, the newer benzodiazepines can often offer better control with fewer side effects. As with laxatives, the individual paraplegic will find one particular drug that suits him and he really needs to be able to choose from the whole range.
Personally, I would prefer that there was no limited list. I believe that great savings could be made by generic prescribing, as suggested in paragraph 24 of the Greenfield Report, and I am even more convinced now, having heard the noble Lord, Lord Rea, who I thought made a very interesting speech. I think that to a lesser extent you could cut costs a lot by limiting the quantities of drugs prescribed for long-term treatments to one month's supply, as suggested in paragraph 27. When people are encouraged by chemists to return unused and unwanted drugs some bring back supplies worth hundreds of pounds. I believe that there was a case in a south coast town where someone brought back unwanted drugs worth between £2,000 and £3,000. I am also worried that if a limited list is introduced, it could be extended to other groups at some time in the future. I am worried even more so now, having heard what the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, said.
I very much hope that the Government will reconsider their decision to introduce a limited list, but if we are to be stuck with it, we must see that the various disability groups in general, and those with spinal cord injury in particular, get what they need. The SIA submit that the revised list must initially include all drugs required by its members and must be reviewed regularly, so that new drugs can be added and that, furthermore, consultants should be able to authorise a special free prescription for an essential drug excluded from the list. A consultant in spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville Hospital says that he thinks that paraplegics should have free access to the whole range of laxatives and all the drugs to treat spasm because the treatment of spinal cord injury is so specialised that one needs the whole variety to choose from.
Whichever way it is done, my Lords, I think that all the drugs necessary to treat the consequences of spinal cord injury should be freely available for they clearly

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are not being used to treat minor or self-limiting ailments. We are not talking about very expensive drugs, but they are in many cases needed daily and for the rest of the paraplegic's life, which may well be for 20 or 30 years, and could be more. Most paraplegics are exempt from prescription charges. Many more are on low wages or pensions or are unemployed and so it would cause hardship to have to pay for these drugs.
Nor do I think that those who can afford it should have to pay this additional cost of disability. British paraplegics are treated in National Health Service hospitals, not as private patients, because it is in the NHS hospitals that the best treatment is available. The management of paraplegia is, in fact, one of the great success stories of the National Health Service and it would be inappropriate to have to pay for the consequences of paraplegia.
10.29 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, it will be a serious reflection on the wisdom of the Government if we do not have a significant response to the appeals which have been made in this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, himself, and by the noble Lords, Lord Ennals, Lord Porritt, and the others, up to and including the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth). It will be a serious reflection if we do not have a significantly positive response from the Government—perhaps not tonight, since that might be too much to expect, but certainly before the matter is finalised.
It is customary courtesy of this House to express appreciation to those who initiate these debates; but it is no mere courtesy to my noble friend Lord Kilmarnock tonight, because but for his success in obtaining this debate no opportunity might have presented itself at all. It seems to me a very great pity indeed that a debate on a matter of such great public importance should take place starting some time after 9 o'clock and finishing around 11 o'clock. There are a dozen or two of us on this side of the House—and when I say "on this side of the House" I mean on these Alliance Benches, on the Labour Benches and on the Cross Benches. There is not a single, solitary soul that I can see on the other side of the House, apart from the two Members of the Government; and I think that is altogether regrettable.
Are the Government going to brush aside and pay no attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, said? For example, he talked of the destruction of an ideal. Are they going to laugh that off and smile about it, and think it does not really mean anything, coming from Lord Porritt, with no political axe to grind—as they might accuse me, or the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, of wanting to do?
The noble Lord, Lord Porritt, also said that the thing was so contrary to British medical practice that it merited the description "sinister"; and he was right. It was very much the same as the view expressed by my own general practitioner—a view expressed to me in somewhat blunter and more graphic language. Here we are dealing with it tonight. Are the Government going to respond or not?
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It is a great pity that we should deal with it tonight, because of course no one will hear about this. I do not suppose the media will repeat what the noble Lords, Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Porritt, have said about this matter. And the great British public, who will be affected by this as much as by almost any other single domestic issue that we have discussed in this Parliament since I have been a Member of it, will hear nothing about it. I think it is a great pity that the Government should get away with this. But governments, of course, of all parties—and I have been a member of one that got away with more than it deserved to get away with—nowadays seem to get away with an enormous number of sins, at least in this way.
Of course, no sensible person would deny the importance of keeping public expenditure, including expenditure on the National Health Service drugs bill, under control and of avoiding waste. But, surely, when they reflect seriously upon it, many will share my feeling that there is something absurdly but profoundly pathetic in this attempt—which will no doubt prove as ill-fated as have other attempts of this Government before it—to bring public expenditure under control by denying the elderly and aged poor their Dorbanex under the National Health Service. This feeling will be all the more acute if you share my view that the competence of successive Labour and Conservative Governments over these last two decades or so in avoiding wasteful or unnecessary expenditure has scarcely been exemplary.
However, away back in the 1930s there was a popular song whose refrain was.
"It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it".
I remember it because I was interested in those matters in those days myself. The way in which this Government handle a wide range of the nation's affairs reminds me from time to time, with increasing frequency, of the words of that old song. There is, however, a problem—and I speak of this of course purely as a layman—relating to the achievement of effective, including cost-effective, prescribing.
To me as a layman—because I do not fully appreciate some of the more technical aspects of the matter—it is the way in which the Government have approached this problem that is open to serious criticism. Indeed they have been thoroughly incompetent. So far as the Greenfield Report itself is concerned, it is not just that in paragraph 25 the committee came out against a limited list. In the face of that alone, I could understand the Minister saying, as he did on 15th January at Question Time at col. 867 of Hansard:
"Times have moved on since then."
But that is not good enough, for in his covering letter presenting his report to the then Minister, Dr. Greenfield said, as your Lordships will remember,
"Because of having to work to a tight time-table we have not been able to look in depth at all the topics which arose in discussion. In the last paragragh of our report we therefore express a willingness to continue our work if you wish us so to do."
What should a competent Government have done? The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, will forgive me for touching on this aspect, because he dealt with it himself very fully. But I think it is worth re-emphasising that, in the concluding paragraph,

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paragraph 39, of the report, Dr. Greenfield, in effect, invited the Government to come back to them and ask them to look at it further and explore the whole situation in depth. Why on earth, may I ask the Minister, were these offers not taken up? A competent Government would have followed them up.
Is it the case, as I understand it to be, that the Government accepted the report and, having accepted it, took no action, as stated in various publications by the British Medical Association? And, worse than that, having let matters rest on the Greenfield report, out of the blue comes the Secretary of State's Statement in another place on 8th November, which so upset the British Medical Association and everyone that I know in the medical profession, including my own practitioner. Is it true that the decision to issue this list was taken within the department, without any preliminary discussion or consultation with the profession? If that is so, I think it is unanswerable. The Government are damned for incompetence. If that is so, we can only assume that the responsible Minister is sadly lacking in an appreciation of the importance of having the active co-operation of the profession in this context.
I do not believe that Aneurin Bevan would have treated the profession like this. He had his differences with them but they were resolved, and the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, touched on this. I do not believe that Aneurin Bevan would have treated them with such contempt, but if he had I will bet that the Benches opposite would not have been empty. You would have heard the howl going up about it and the Government, in the face of that howl, I should hope, would have shown some humility, some understanding, of the serious mistake which they had made.
It would be a great thing if the Government were to take a leaf in this matter out of the book of the late H. L. Mencken, the American journalist about whom some of your Lordships may have heard Alistair Cooke's story the other day. He was a terrible unbeliever and he was asked what he would say if, when he died, he went to Heaven, and there were the Lord of Hosts and all the angels and disciples waiting to pass judgment on him. What would he have done? He said:
"I would have said, Gentlemen, I have made a mistake and I have made a serious one."
I think that that is what the Government should do in this context.
10.39 p.m.
Lord Greenhill of Harrow: My Lords, it is very late and I shall speak for only a very few minutes. I do not want to anticipate the debate that the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, will provoke later this month but I must, perforce, repeat some of the points that have been made this evening although, no doubt, I shall do so far less eloquently than the speakers who have already had their time.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, I must declare an interest. I am not a physician or a surgeon but like him I have for the past 10 years been a director of a research-based British pharmaceutical company. This
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company, in addition to its plants in this country, has a manufacturing capacity worldwide in developed and developing countries. It has a research and development budget of more than £100 million per annum and in the United Kingdom employs 2,000 persons in this particular function. These are people with high qualifications whom we would wish to retain in this country.
The company exports from this country more than £.150 million-worth of goods. It has one other unique characteristic; its sole shareholder is a charitable trust which supports medical research only in a wide variety of fields to the tune of about £17 million per year; and this at a time when the Medical Research Council has failed to get even a small advance in additional funds from the Government.
I draw attention to these matters not for the purpose of advertisement but as one example from the industry and to remind the House that it is one of several enterprises which should be supported and applauded rather than impeded. And at a time when we have an unprecedented deficit on our manufacturing trade, we cannot afford unnecessarily to put obstacles in the way of those who are contributing so much. We should in no way degrade industries in which we excel.
That the Secretary of State should seek to reduce the size of the NHS drugs bill is understandable. He has a clear duty to try, if only in the interests of good administration. No doubt it is a very attractive step politically; and I do not blame him for pursuing it. But leaving aside for the moment the interests of the patients, to which we must all attach the highest importance, are the savings which he is claiming to make going to be as significant as he said? Indeed, are there savings at all? If, by cutting the NHS drugs bill by x million pounds, he creates unemployment not only on the shop floor but in the laboratory for which other parts of the Government have to pay, what has been achieved? If he damages an industry which is successful not only financially but often more importantly scientifically, the wisdom of the Secretary of State's action must be further called in question.
The budget of the NHS is only one part of the equation. It is surely doubtful, even in terms of Government expenditure, whether the proposed cuts make sense; and it is even more doubtful if it is looked at as a balance struck overall in the national interest. When we come to the interests of the patients, the views of the medical and associated professions must be given appropriate and, indeed, overriding weight. Is the Minister satisfied that there has been adequate consultation with those best fitted to advise? I know that the medical profession does not always speak with one voice, but what profession does? It is to my mind hard to avoid the conclusion, which other Members of the House have drawn tonight, that the department has in this instance acted hastily and is now rather belatedly seeking further consultation. On the relative merits of the limited list and the alternative proposal in the Greenfield Report there is obviously urgent need for further thought.
The original limited list is, I believe, a mistake; certainly for the patients, possibly for the doctors, and certainly for the industry. Many authoritative people have rubbed in that point tonight. I understand that

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the list is already undergoing significant modification. It is clear that if it is modified and retained, it will require an expensive review and appeal system, with additional expensive bureaucracy.
On the Greenfield proposal, I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and many others who have spoken tonight; further consideration is necessary, taking full account of the report which is indeed the work of qualified people. My recommendation, which is the same as others', is that the Minister should hold his hand until further discussion has taken place, and then come forward with a new, well thought out proposal which suits patients, doctors, and an important industry.
10.46 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords the hour is late but the Minister, when he replies tonight, has an important and difficult job to do. First, he will have to explain why the Government are prepared to ignore the recommendations of the Greenfield Report. The Greenfield Committee consisted of six members of the DHSS, four GPs, one consultant physician, one consultant anaesthetist, one clinical pharmacologist, and one official of the BMA who was a former GP. Therefore, we had the Government and the profession together.
The committee made certain recommendations as to how we should achieve effective prescribing. Several were positive and one was negative. The recommendation that was negative was that for the limited list. The Government have not implemetned the positive proposals; they have gone straight for the negative one. I believe it is necessary for the Minister tonight to explain to the House why the Government preferred to overturn the negative proposal rather that act on the several positive proposals.
The negative proposal was soundly based. There are many problems involved in having a limited list. There will need to be a central bureaucracy to keep the list up to date and ensure that it is not to be frozen at today's level of drugs. Also, new drugs are regularly being produced and there must be machinery for making them part of that limited list.
In addition, and as has been said before, the limited list will introduce a double service; a service which is unlimited for people who can afford to pay for the drugs they need, and a service which is limited in the case of people who are too poor to pay for the drugs they need. Now, automatically, you have that. As the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, pointed out, we do not know where it will end. You start with controlling laxatives and tonics, and so on, but what you move on to next is a different matter. Therefore, it is necessary for the Government to explain to the House tonight why they chose that particular course.
I want to say one or two things about that. I spend a lot of my time debating the issue of socialised medicine with people who are opposed to it. One of the things they invariably say is that if you have socialised medicine the Government determine what you should do and how you should treat your patients. Up till now my reply has always been the same: "It is not true. In Britain we have a comprehensive health
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service in which the doctor treats the patient as the patient needs; and the advantage of that service over yours is that he does not have to take into account what the patient can afford". That has always been my answer.
I do not know how I can face my friends in the United States after this. They will say to me, "We have always told you so. Once you accepted socialised medicine you gave up clinical freedom. You have accepted that a bureaucracy can tell you how to treat your patients and you jolly well will have to conform because you have accepted being part of that system". That is what they will tell me because that is what they have been challenging me with every time I have had discussions with them.
Therefore, I want the Government to take very seriously the consequences of what they are doing. It may well be—and, frankly, I do not put it beyond them—that the Government want two services and that they see this as the way that they can get the two services. They start by undermining the National Health Service, by encouraging people and making it possible for them to go in for paying for their services, and the Government will get their two services. That may well be what they want. I do not imagine that the Government will tell us in those words that that is what they want. I hope it is not. I rather suspect it is not what they want, but that they thought they were doing something which would enable them to save money and they have done it clumsily and foolishly. I hope that they will accept that they have made a mistake and will withdraw.
I hope that the Minister listened to the noble Baroness and that he is in a position to answer her. That is a serious issue: whether or not people who are handicapped will be restricted in the sort of treatment that they can have. Every patient does not respond in the same way to every drug. There is a difference. I hope that the Minister, and the Government, will understand that there is a difference between local formularies. There is a difference between what I call a recommended list and an enforced limited list.
When I have had discussions with people who try to defend limited lists they have often come forward with the fact that hospitals have local formularies. The local formularies are really recommended lists. If a doctor in the hospital wants to prescribe something else, he does it. He will have to explain himself to his colleagues when they next meet, but he can do it. That is not what the Government are recommending. If the Government recommend a limited list, and there is no way that a patient of mine can benefit from anything on that list and I prescribe something else, the patient will have to pay for it out of his or her pocket; or, frankly, I should have to give the patient the money to pay for it because that would be the only way that he or she could get it.
I hope that the Government will think about this issue. The form of generic dispensing—and I like the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Perry, put it—recommended by Greenfield is practical. If we combined that with local formulary, we should be well away. There is no need for this draconian action that the Government are taking.

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I hope that the Government will think again and study what has been said tonight; in particular what has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth). I do not really believe that they want to harm patients, and because I believe that, at this stage I am prepared merely to appeal to them to recognise the error of their ways and withdraw the proposal.
10.56 p.m.
Lord Winterbottom: My Lords, I am not in a position to speak with the professional expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, or from personal experience as did the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), but I want to make one point which I do not think has been stressed this evening and which I believe is of importance in simple terms of administration. I have been encouraged to speak tonight by a friend of mine who is a doctor in a four-member group practice in a remote part of England. It provides an admirable service, looking after many people spread over a wide area, even extending into Wales. Because they work over a very large area, they have their own dispensing facilities. The medicine is provided in such a way that the patient drops in one day and gets his medicines the next.
I believe that such practices are banded together in an organisation called the Dispensing Doctors' Association, in which there are 3,225 members. That group of doctors will be inhibited under the present proposals from providing drugs which are not on the approved list, or rather they could provide them but they would not be allowed to sell them. That will be a great problem in such a remote area.
I have been gathering information from two articles in The Doctor. It has done a small survey of the problems of people in such areas. If the dispensing facilities of the medical group are not available, such people will have to travel eight or 10 miles to obtain the medicines which they would have to buy, because the doctors in the group will not be able to sell them these medicines. The small study shows that no fewer than 48 per cent. of patients who came to the small sample of doctors cannot afford to pay for their medicines.
I wish that the Government could give undertakings that the inhibitions which would be placed upon dispensing doctors will be removed, so that somehow or other they can supply people who cannot afford to pay or to travel 10 miles to get the medicines that they require. Those patients could then continue to be served in the way that they are at the moment by an excellent organisation, conducted by competent people. I believe that that is of very great importance.
For that reason, I should be grateful to the Minister if when he winds up he can, first of all, tell us whether the Dispensing Doctors' Association has been consulted, and, if not, why not? If it has been consulted, what action will be taken by the Government to ensure that people are able to obtain products that are not on the approved list from these small dispensaries scattered throughout the country, such as the one that I have mentioned, where I live?
11 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for giving us this opportunity tonight to debate the recommendations of the Greenfield Report. As the report did not recommend a limited list of drugs, this is my reason for taking part. Also I have had many letters from GP doctors and consultants and I should like to bring some of their comments to the notice of your Lordships. I applaud the recommendations in the report that there should be greater emphasis on the teaching of therapeutics, the science and art of healing and the treatment of disease, and the education of patients.
Some countries, including the United States of America, are far ahead of us in the education in health through schools, TV and the media. The report states:
"The role of the doctor as educator of his patients is paramount".
How many doctors are good counsellors? I do know a few. The good doctor should look after the whole patient. Here, I should like to stress how important are the correct diet and finding out from patients what are the real problems. So often it is easier and quicker for the doctor to put the patient on a tranquilliser and leave it at that.
The food in hospitals varies considerably. Some health authorities do not have a food policy. If more thought was given to correct, healthy food being given to patients in hospital, I am sure the drugs bill would be less expensive. The patients would be educated as to what was good for them and would get better sooner and keep fitter longer. The waste of food in some hospitals is appalling. Large plates of heavy, unappetising food are put in front of patients who often cannot bear to look at it. It is then thrown away. I wish the Government would look at diet as vigorously as they have looked at drugs. Maybe the members of the Greenfield Committee were not thinking of diet but I am sure it has a great deal to do with therapeutics.
When the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, asked a Question on 15th January, I asked a supplementary question, asking the Government to look sympathetically at the special needs of disabled people in relation to the limited prescribing of drugs. I do hope the Minister will be able to give some assurance tonight that their needs will be carefully examined and that the views of specialising doctors will be heeded.
The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, visited the Southport Spinal Unit during the Summer Recess. His visit was greatly appreciated. Because of that visit he will understand the kind of patients about whom I shall now speak. I should like to quote from a few of the letters received. The first is from a consultant in spinal injuries from the north of England. He says:
"With regard to the limitation of drugs proposed, paraplegics are rather a special category. The vast majority have their bowels regulated using Senakot, Phenolphthalein and paraffin emulsion and Bisacodyl tablets, rectal solution and suppositories. It would upset the whole management of their bowel care if such drugs were not available on prescription to them and I would urge the Government to allow these drugs for paraplegics after April".
From another letter I quote:
"I have read in some detail your Memorandum CMO (84) 13 sent out on the 14th December, 1984. As a consultant urological surgeon

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working in the spinal injuries unit, I am extremely worried by the implications of this document both for our prescribing within the hospital and for our patients when they leave hospital.
"Ninety per cent. of my patients are neurologically disabled. This applies both to their locomotive system, bladder and bowel. Many also have a pain problem. In a list of drugs which would be available for prescription, there are three groups which, if limited in the way described, would cause severe upset to our patients. Laxatives: A variety of suppositories are now used, with recently Dulcolax rectal solution and laxatives, which are taken orally. There is only one type of suppository on the proposed list".
In regard to analgesics, I quote only part of what he says:
"There is a considerable variation in the response of patients to analgesics. Many of the compound tablets may suit some patients better than others".
Many doctors have told me that if the middle group is not allowed, they might have to put patients on to a stronger analgesic, which would be unnecessary.
In regard to Benzodiazepines, many neurological patients suffer with severe somatic muscle spasms and although Diazepam is suitable for many patients to help control such spasm, many find the newer Benzodiazepine tablets are better for their spasm than the simple Diazepam; for example, Ketazolam (Anxon) is of considerable benefit if given to the patient at night, getting rid of spasm at night and during the following day, with the maximum sedative effect being present only during the night, leaving them wide awake during the following day.
The surgeon concludes:
"I firmly believe that such a limited list of drugs would be a complete disaster for the management of the neurologically disabled patient and that, if such a list is necessary, then it be radically changed to take into consideration the problems that I have mentioned".
As my noble friend Lady Darcy (de Knayth) has stated, the Spinal Injuries Association is also alarmed for the sake of some of its members whose lives can be full of worries and insecurities. The National Health Service is a life-line for many.
From a GP in Essex, I received a letter which says:
"If laxatives, for example, Lactulose and Dorbanex, are withdrawn, the elderly and disabled who cannot afford to buy them will need far more enemas from the nursing staff".
He says about Diazepam that if it is the only minor tranquilliser which will be available on prescription, patients can become addicted to it more easily than other minor tranquillisers which they will have to buy. Also, Diazepam interferes with the reaction time more than other tranquillisers. So there will be more road accidents if Diazepam is the only one available.
I have also been told that cough linctuses, which are potentially addictive, have been included on the proposed list. If limited, this could be a problem as one in every three people are at risk of being addicted to something. Think for a moment, my Lords, of a child with an anal fissure. It can be so agonising that they do everything to stop opening their bowels, with dangerous results. I hope very much that a stool softener for all who need it—and this includes cancer patients—will be included.
I do not expect that the Government will retract, but I hope that they will look again at the advice of doctors now practising with patients. Patients with long-term illnesses and disabilities need protection and the greatest sympathetic consideration; otherwise, their
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quality of life, which may not be very good, could be made unbearable. I realise how expensive everything is; and the message is getting through. However, with patients leaving hospital early and the pressures of modern society being what they are, if patients vary in their reaction to drugs—and some have complicated allergies—the correct prescription can be a case of a stitch in time saving nine.
Some years ago the health district in which I live did a collection of unused drugs. It was a revelation to many as sacks of drugs of all sorts were collected. In these days when there is a need to be economical such waste is shocking. Careful prescribing is necessary, and, above all, education is necessary so that the patient finishes his treatment, as long as it suits him.
I hope the Government will augment their list to make it more acceptable to doctors and their patients. Perhaps there could also he a different coloured prescribing pad so that the doctor has total freedom to prescribe a drug which is not on the limited list for patients who have allergies, reactions or particular needs; and he would have to justify this action. I look forward with hope to the Minister's reply.
I end by saying that there is a growth industry in alternatives to medicine. All sorts of weird and ineffective potions might start appearing on the market. Some might even be dangerous. I also thought the Conservative Government stood for freedom of choice. Are they not going against their own principles? If patients cannot afford the unlimited drugs they will lose their doctors' freedom to choose what is best for them.
11.11 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, at this time of night none of us is in need of any of the benzodiazepines, whether on the restricted list or off it; though I note that my noble friends seem already to have taken their mogadon and retired to bed. I hasten to say that mogadon of course reveals my age. I am one of those doctors referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Perry, who can speak only in brand names; but it is of course true that the generic equivalent of mogadon is still on the permitted list. I am of the generation of doctor who find it a bit easier to talk about Cetab rather than cetyl-trimethyl ammonium bromide, which is of course its generic equivalent. I hope that the new generation of doctors will learn to prescribe in a bit more effective terms than I have done for some 30 or 40 years. I also hope noble Lords will stay awake long enough for me to make a few short points.
It falls to me to try to draw together the various threads of what has been a fascinating discussion on a most important topic, so admirably introduced to the House by my noble friend Lord Kilmarnock. I have no wish to go over old ground or retread paths already covered by other noble Lords. I shall try merely to focus attention on what seem to me to be crucial points which have emerged from speeches of noble Lords and noble Baronesses, and to put a number of specific questions to the noble Lord who is to reply, in the hope that in due course I shall receive some specific answers.
My noble friend Lord Kilmarnock said a great deal about the inadequacy of consultations before the so-called restricted list was made public; and that indeed

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has been a matter which has appeared prominently in the press and has been mentioned by other noble Lords. I do not entirely disagree, and I think that perhaps one might have seen better consultations before the so-called restricted list was finally leaked and before everybody suddenly got upset about it. I do not yet know whether or not there were consultations. I personally suspect that perhaps the British Medical Association did have opportunities to play a more constructive part in the formulation of the present policy than it actually has done. But we do not yet know; no doubt the Minister will tell me when he comes to reply.
I have spent many years in your Lordships' House, in another place, in medical practice, and, as the British Medical Association's press officer in the North Region, trying to persuade doctors that it was perfectly possible to make very substantial savings in the nation's drug bill. Here let me digress for a moment to say that I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, who reminded us that in relation to other countries we do not spend overmuch on drugs. Indeed, I think the last time the World Health Organistion did an analysis of the expenditure per head of population throughout developed nations we came about nineteenth.
How nice it was to hear the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, speaking. As a student, when I took my finals in medicine, I had to study the noble Lord's textbook on surgery. It was an excellent book, but I had to study it because the noble Lord happened to be the external examiner at my university, so it was very important indeed to be entirely familiar with his book. I shall return to some of the noble Lord's points in a moment.
I merely make the point that it is my view, and has been for very many years, that it should be perfectly possible to make very considerable savings in the nation's drug bill without detriment to the patient and without doctors having to sacrifice their clinical freedom in any unacceptable manner. I have been saying that for a very long time, and were I to be the Minister of Health—which I accept now seems unlikely, although I must hasten to say that, should the appointment be offered, I would not necessarily reject it—I would be looking for savings far in excess off £100 million. I believe that they could be made without detriment to the patient and without doctors forfeiting their clinical freedom.
However, those savings can be made only with the full co-operation of the medical profession, and I am not entirely satisfied that every possible effort has been made at the appropriate time—and the noble Lord will tell us this in due course—to obtain that co-operation. I think that if the profession has withheld that co-operation, then the profession itself should indeed be criticised, because all doctors know that it is possible to make savings and, indeed, we ought to be making these savings. I want to ask the noble Lord—and this point has been raised in a number of speeches—where on earth we are in this long-running saga. We have heard all sorts of rumours about restricted lists. I think that the back page of today's edition of the Guardian talks about "new white lists" instead of "black lists". Which are we to have—a white list, a black list, or both? From the admirable speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de
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Knayth), it has been made utterly clear to us all that, if we are to satisfy patients and fulfil our responsibilities to patients, we must have an almost unlimited number of lists. We cannot treat individual patients with a list; we want a lot of different lists in order to treat different circumstances.
The noble Lord the Minister, and indeed his right honourable and honourable friends dealing with this matter in another place, have been told over and over again, and have said, that the hospitals have had restricted lists for many years. They have all had different restricted lists, and for perfectly good reasons. They have required different restricted lists in order to cope with different conditions in different areas and with different patients. A single restricted list is no way in which to practise medicine effectively.
I should like to know precisely where we are in the present discussions. With whom are the Government negotiating at the moment? When the so-called restricted list first appeared I seem to remember that the British Medical Association said that they would not talk about it. They had to talk about it, and I hope that they are now talking about it. I know that the General Medical Services Committee, which is often referred to as a BMA committee—it is not, of course; it is a so-called autonomous body of the British Medical Association which is elected and appointed by all general practitioners working in the National Health Service, whether or not they are members of the British Medical Association—has been having discussions, and I hope that the British Medical Association is now having discussions. I also hope that the Royal College of General Practitioners, which I think has made some very sensible remarks on this whole matter, is having discussions with the Minister at the moment. However, I should like to know from the noble Lord the Minister what is the present situation, precisely what is happening?
I think that I am right in saying that we all believe that an acceptable solution could be found, a solution which, first, would save money; secondly, would not be to the detriment of patients; and, thirdly, would be acceptable to the doctors. But we shall not find that solution unless effective consultations are taking place at the moment. I hope that when the noble Lord replies, he will be able to tell us precisely what is the present state of play, what is being discussed, whether we are to have a black list, a white list, two lists, or several different lists. I should like to know with whom consultations are taking place.
On this point, the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, in his very interesting speech asked: where does this kind of thing end? Do we finish up with the Government telling surgeons which instruments they should use? I am not saying for a moment that the Government should start telling surgeons which instruments they should use. But I am bound to say to the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, that from my personal experience there have been elderly and somewhat irascible surgeons who have sometimes persisted in using instruments which have long since been superseded merely because somehow they feel they must have that particular kind rather than another kind.
I am sure that there could be substantial savings for the National Health Service from a variety of

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reductions in fields other than that of drugs, but I am saying that those savings must be made by the doctors themselves. I believe that the time has long since passed when people in all branches of the profession should have got down to this job. On drugs in particular it has always seemed to me ludicrous that a pharmacist should have to stock on his shelves 120 different anti-histamine tablets and hundreds of different varieties of iron tablets because conservative and irascible old doctors go on prescribing things which have long since become superseded.
On that question let me return to the list. Who has drawn it up? It is an extraordinary list which has on it, as permitted, things which nobody in his right mind ought to be prescribing nowadays, and which has omitted many things which any sensible and responsible doctor would be prescribing every day of the week. Where did this list spring from? If we are to have a list, let us hear more about it and where it came from.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, made an admirable speech, and as a former Secretary of State he is clearly aware of all the circumstances here. He reminded us that since the National Health Service started on 5th July 1948 the general principle has always been that there were no restrictions on what a doctor could prescribe.The noble Lord will forgive me if I say there always were restrictions. Doctors could always prescribe whatever they wished and the chemist had to dispense it; but if it was later found that the substance prescribed was not a drug within the meaning of the Act, then the cost of that prescription was surcharged to the doctor who had made the prescription.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, knows, the procedure was that where a prescription was intercepted by the then Executive Council, now the Family Practitioner Committee, then the doctor was required to justify his prescribing to a medical services sub-committee. Where the medical services sub-committee held that the substance prescribed was not a drug, and therefore the doctor had to pay rather than the patient, then the doctor was entitled to appeal. Many doctors did appeal, and they appealed to a succession of Secretaries of State.
What is the position of substances which are not now on the list but which have been prescribed by doctors, have been questioned by the Family Practitioner Committee, have been considered by a medical service sub-committee and then on appeal have gone to the present Secretary of State, Mr. Fowler, who has said, "Yes, this is acceptable, and a proper substance to have prescribed"? Surely all those substances which have gone through that procedure and which have finally been approved as being drugs within the circumstances in which they were prescribed must be on the list. Otherwise, somehow, one is undoing a whole judicial process which has been gone into in the case of a whole number of drugs over many years.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), made clear, what is an essential drug for one patient may not be essential for another. This matter has occurred with many conditions; for example, with children who have to have a gluten-free diet, or whatever. The question has arisen: is this substance
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which has been prescribed a drug or is it a food, or whatever?—and a final decision has had to be made by the then Secretary of State. When the present Secretary of State has made the decision on appeal in relation to a number of substances, are we to assume that all those substances will at some stage be added to the list?
All noble Lords in this House, and certainly all those noble Lords still here tonight, believe that our pharmaceutical industry is of vital importance to our nation's economy. It is one of our most important exporters. At a time when our balance of payments situation is not a very satisfactory one, none of us would like to see actions which might in any way imperil the pharmaceutical industry.
I am bound to say that I was not unhappy when the Government decided to take certain steps which reduced the amount of expenditure on promotional activities, sending literature to individual doctors and so on. I supported that, though I regret the fact that a number of important educational magazines, which were supported by the pharmaceutical industry, have gone to the wall. That has been a disadvantage for postgraduate medical education. If further difficulties were placed in the way, such as VAT on typescript and print, that would have a further effect on postgraduate medical education.
In a Written Question, which the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, answered, I asked whether the Government would ensure that generic equivalents of named drugs were, wherever possible, available from British manufactured sources. The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, raised the question of satisfactory generic substitution. I must make it clear that I wholly support my noble friends on these Benches in believing that we should have adopted the Greenfield Report and gone for generic substitution. I wholly support what the noble Lady said about our need to know whether the generic substitute is entirely satisfactory.
I should also like to know whether the generic substitute has been manufactured in this country. The answer I was given was somewhat emollient. It said that everything was all right and that most of the drugs were available. But the fact remains that for many commonly-used named drugs the generic substitute is available only from foreign sources. I hope that, as we are moving towards generic substitution, which we shall have in the end, the Government will do what they can to try to assist the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that British firms manufacture generic substitutes for commonly-prescribed named drugs. That is certainly not always the case.
In many ways this raises the question of patents. I am going on for longer than I meant to, but many of the discoveries of new and very valuable drugs are made by accident—not all, but many. It necessarily follows that the company which has discovered the new and very valuable pharmaceutical substance is not always the best possible company to manufacture and market that product. I hope that some day we shall find the means of enabling companies that have discovered new and valuable therapeutic substances to recoup their research and development costs without necessarily having to manufacture and market the drug, while other people who are in a better position to manufacture and market it are enabled to do so.

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I wish to come to a final question that I regard as of the utmost importance. I hope that in his reply the noble Lord will tell us, if the Government are to proceed along the present path—with possible modifications in the light of discussions with various bodies—with lists, whether they be white lists, blacks lists or any other sort of lists, what kind of parliamentary procedures will be required to make that possible?
It is clear that the terms of service of general practitioners do not enable them, do not permit them, to issue private prescriptions for certain drugs. It seems to me that probably we shall have to have some primary legislation. I should like to know whether all this is to be done by orders subject only to the negative procedure, with the faint hope of a Prayer against them, or whether, in both Houses of Parliament, it will be possible to discuss these matters in more depth before the necessary legislation is finally passed so that the Government can take these various steps.
Finally—and this really is finally—if the Government are able to arrive at an agreed solution with the medical profession whereby we can move over to generic prescribing and make substantial changes in our prescribing costs so that we can cut the size of the drug bill without detriment to patients, the Government will have the fullest possible support from noble Lords on these Benches. But if they are to persist in a scheme which will in some ways reduce still further the provision for the elderly and the sick so that they have to pay for things which they may need, then we shall not support them along that road.
11.30 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, I join with others who have thanked the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for raising this important issue tonight. It has certainly been an interesting debate and it warrants a full reply. There has been a great deal of misplaced anxiety about the Government's proposals to limit from 1st April the range of some types of drugs available for prescription on the National Health Service, much of it rehearsed again this evening, so that I welcome the opportunity to dispel some of the myths that have arisen and set out once more the realities of the subject.
Matters have not been helped by the pharmaceutical companies' advertising campaign. I hope that many of your Lordships would join me in condemning what amounts to little more than a crude attempt to frighten the poor and the elderly into believing they will be denied essential medicine. This is simply not true. And, if that was not its intention, it certainly has been its effect. The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, called it a "high-profile campaign". He can certainly say that again!
Let us remind your Lordships of the background to our proposals. In 1983 some 334 million prescriptions were dispensed through the Family Practitioner Service in England: almost one million every working day. Current levels of prescribing are 40 per cent. higher than they were 25 years ago. Over that same quarter of a century, the range of medicines actually
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prescribed by general practitioners, as recorded in the pricing authority's master index of drugs, has doubled from less than 8,500 different items to some 17,000. The drugs bill now stands at £1,400 million a year in England—about £2,000 million in the United Kingdom as a whole. It has been rising by an average of 5 per cent. a year in real terms over recent years.
These are staggering figures, and while they reflect enormous advances in drug therapy, this alone cannot account for the full scale of the increase. The Government have a responsibility to consider whether this increasing expenditure can be justified. The question we set ourselves was: how could we best ensure that the taxpayer was getting real and lasting value for money—and this was certainly a theme of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, when he was in office—spent on medicines while maintaining a fully effective service to patients? This theme is not new and obviously has general support from your Lordships, judging by the comments that have been made tonight. Your Lordships will be aware that our policies on the National Health Service in general are similar in this respect, that the principles are applied to all areas of the health service; and it is only sensible management and administration to do so, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, said.
The plain fact is that the need to contain the drugs bill has been on the agenda of every Government since 1948. There have been reports, inquiries, educational programmes, promises of co-operation and many more. But while many GPs have responded by more careful prescribing practice, I am afraid to say that there are still too many doctors who are guilty of slack and excessive prescribing. The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and others have suggested that a solution to the problem—which everybody seems to acknowledge—may lie in the Greenfield Report.
There were 14 main recommendations in the report. Only two of the 14 were about limitations on prescribing. The report recommended that generic prescribing should be encouraged, by providing a box on the prescription form which the doctor would initial if the proprietary form of a drug was required. In the absence of the prescriber's initials, an approved name or generic version of the drug would be dispensed if it existed.
The Government accepted all the working group's recommendations except this last one when the report was published in February 1982. Recognising that generic substitution was a contentious issue, we undertook full and widespread consultation on the proposal before coming to a decision. Given the British Medical Association's apparent enthusiasm now for generic substitution, as was expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, it may surprise some of your Lordships to learn that the BMA was then against the Greenfield Report's recommendation. The GPs on the BMA's General Medical Services Committee, whose then chairman was actually a member of the Greenfield Committee, voted it down. They foresaw problems of divided responsibilities for the treatment of patients if substitution was introduced. They felt that, unlike the limited list, doctors would never know what had actually been provided to their patients, making monitoring of side effects and adverse reactions more difficult.

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The noble Lords, Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Porritt, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, accused the Government of a U-turn. I cannot conclude that I find the attitude of the BMA on this issue convincing or consistent. It is a fact that the BMA rejected the Greenfield proposal on generic substitution.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson, chided us for failing to follow up Dr. Greenfield's offer to do more work but, as Dr. Greenfield said, the committee he chaired had not looked in depth at some of the issues on which it made recommendations. The Government decided to rectify that on some of the key points—particularly limited list versus generic substitution. They looked very carefully at schemes in other countries and concluded that a limited list would work. There was, frankly, no point in asking the Greenfield Committee to carry on. Its recommendation on generic substitution, as I said, had been rejected by the BMA, and there was no reason to suppose that it would come up with any certain way of making savings that would be more acceptable to the BMA. The Government decided that the time had come to act, and acted they have.
I cannot accept, either, that doubt has been cast on the quality of generic drugs. There is no doubt about their quality at all. They are subject to exactly the same stringent licensing and quality control arrangements as branded drugs and, indeed, are often made by the same firms. They are already prescribed by general practitioners and widely used in limited lists in hospitals. Such minor differences as do occur are a matter not of quality, but of precise formulation and method of manufacture and are just as likely to arise between different branded versions of the same drug as between branded and generic ones.
When the BMA rejected the Greenfield proposal it suggested a scheme of its own, which would be entirely voluntary. The doctor would have to take a conscious decision to permit substitution by initialling a box on the prescription form, as the noble Lord, Lord Perry of Walton, described. But any doctor who wishes to can already write a prescription generically; indeed, we encourage him to do so. The alternative suggested by the BMA would most likely be used by doctors who already see the value of generic prescribing. I have to say that there is little reason to believe that it would have had any significant effect on those who, despite years of advice on these questions, have failed to alter their prescribing habits. Nor do I see that such a voluntary scheme is likely to save worthwhile amounts of money. Even if compulsory and across the board, it could not save more than about £35 million a year, because comparatively few branded drugs actually have direct generic equivalents. A voluntary scheme confined to the same categories of less essential drugs as our limited list proposals, so as not to damage research and important life-saving drugs, would be unlikely to save more than a few million pounds a year. Such a sum is no doubt worth having, but had we taken it, we would have precluded the possibility of alternatives such as the limited list, with its savings of up to £100 million a year. In return we would get an entirely voluntary scheme under which GPs could carry on prescribing exactly as before.
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If we strip away the rhetoric, what is the real issue? Should we continue to spend enormous sums of money on any new product which the industry cares to bring on to the market and promote, irrespective of price and therapeutic value: or are there areas in which sensible economies can be made without harm to patients? We believe there are, and we have concluded that there are two major areas in which sensible economies can be made and through which there will be no risk to patients. To suggest that we are advocating a two-tier system, as the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, suggested, really is not true at all. In the group of drugs to be covered by the limited list an adequate range of drugs will be available under the National Health Service to meet all clinical needs. There is no question of this being any sort of second-class service.
On the question of harm to the pharmaceutical industry, which was a point raised by a number of your Lordships, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Porritt, Lord Greenhill of Harrow and Lord Winstanley, I do not think it would be right for me now to go into the PPRS in any detail; but there is no reason why exports should suffer and there is no reason to suppose that research and development will be affected in the way that some people seem to think they will be. I do not believe that the list will result in the decline of the industry. The industry is a strong one, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, indeed described it so. The fact remains that the United Kingdom has about 4 per cent. of the world market in these drugs. The limited list accounts for less than 15 per cent. of the United Kingdom market. Therefore, we are talking about 0.5 per cent. of the world market for these drugs, and that is hardly a basis on which to talk about the total decline of research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.
The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, was concerned, very rightly, about the elderly, children and people who might be affected in the way that she described. The scheme does not affect the prescription charge exemption arrangements. The elderly and other eligible persons will, of course, continue to be protected as at present. The medicines which remain available under the National Health Service will still enable doctors to prescribe all necessary treatment, and I suggest to the noble Lady that that is the key phrase there. All this list will mean is that in the groups concerned other drugs from the list, but perfectly suitable drugs, will be prescribed.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I should like to take the Minister up on what he has just said. If I decide that one of my elderly patients needs Dorbanex, which is not on the limited list, and that particular patient gets his prescriptions free of charge, is he not affected?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I understand the point which the noble Lord makes, but it does not detract from what I said just now. The fact is that if somebody has to be prescribed something, for whatever reason, whether he is getting a free prescription or one which has to be paid for in the way that prescriptions are paid

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for, a suitable drug of whatever type it is will be available. But I do not think that I can develop that theme any longer, because I have a lot of ground to cover.
The point which I should like to take up next was made by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, who indicated that this might lead to what I think is called trading-up. It is possible that these proposals might result in some increased prescribing of those medicines not affected by the limited list. However, medicines should only be prescribed when they are essential, as he himself will know, and in all cases the benefit of administering the medicine should be considered in relation to the risk involved. For example, indiscriminate use of antibiotics for minor ailments could well encourage antibiotic resistance; and he will be more aware of that than I am. Doctors do, of course, take a sensible approach to their prescribing to ensure that the safety of their patients is paramount, and I am sure that this approach will continue. The present system of prescription monitoring is likely to confirm this.
The noble Lord, Lord Perry, raised a question about long and approved names. It is a pity that he is not here to listen, because I would have asked him whether it was he, in the days when he considered such matters, who came up with the name Pericyazine. I hasten to reassure him and anybody else that this product is for the relief of anxiety. But I had better deal with him in correspondence.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, raised a question about the Guardian article today, and black and white lists. The Guardian article is a complete misunderstanding of the position. When the limited list is in operation there will need to be, as several of your Lordships have pointed out, a mechanism to keep its contents under review and to advise my right honourable friend on whether or not new drugs within the categories covered by the limited list should be available on the National Health Service. That is all that we have in mind. There are no proposals for separate assessments of safety and efficacy, which are already fully considered by the Committee on the Safety of Medicines in the context of applications for product licences.
There will be a statutory black list—this answers the point of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley—of drugs that cannot be prescribed on the National Health Service. It is more useful for doctors to know what they can prescribe, so there will be for the guidance of doctors an administrative white list (a list of what is not on the black list) to help them choose which of the medicines available on the NHS they should prescribe.
I turn now to the areas in which we feel economies can be made. First, there are the more minor remedies which many people already buy from their local chemist and could have had prescribed by their doctor. These less important medicines include a wide range of cough and cold medicines, indigestion tablets, vitamins, tonics and the like. The noble Lord, Lord Porritt, accuses us of interfering in clinical matters. I really cannot agree that in this context our proposals hold up to the label "sinister" which he put on to them and which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, supported.
Lady Saltoun: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will give way for a moment. These minor remedies may be of considerable importance to pensioners and people who cannot afford to buy the varieties, which may be necessary to them, out of their own pockets. They are not able to obtain them under the National Health Service on prescription in respect of which they are exempt from paying. That is my point.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I understand the point of the noble Lady, but the fact is that the taxpayer cannot afford to pay for every single item that is readily available over the counter of the local pharmacy. The point I made earlier about people who really need medicines being treated in a way in which they will certainly get their medicines still holds good.
The British National Formulary advises that many of the enormous range of medicines in these categories are of no proven value or are inappropriately formulated. This covers some of the points which the noble Lady might like to consider. This is the BMA's own advice. I therefore find it difficult to understand its insistence that in the case of all these drugs of no particular value, doctors should have an absolute right to prescribe at the expense of the NHS.
The second group covered by the limited list are the benzodiazepine tranquillisers and sedatives. Many doctors are rightly concerned about the readiness with which these are prescribed and the length of time they are prescribed for. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, says, the many letters that we have received from patients have not allayed these fears. To put it bluntly, there are still too many of these pills, given to too many patients, for too long.
When we published the provisional list of drugs—I stress the word "provisional"—to remain available for National Health Service prescription in these categories our intention was always that it should simply provide a framework for consultation.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, the noble Lord made a most important statement when talking about certain of these drugs. He said that the Government's view was that many of these patients have been prescribed too many of these drugs, for too long. Is the noble Lord saying that as a general statement, or is he saying that some particular patient has been prescribed too much of a particular drug, for too long? The noble Lord has made a very general statement and it is a very damaging one.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, it was certainly not intended to be damaging or to relate to any particular patient. But the fact is that there are many doctors who accept that a great many of these sleeping pills—the benzodiazepines—are given out, too many patients forget them—one cannot be specific about individual patients—and they have been given them for too long. It seems from what I hear that it is a very widespread practice which really ought to be stopped. That is why we are setting about this particular proposal. As the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, will realise, we are just removing from this particular list certain drugs and leaving perfectly adequate drugs for people who need these items.

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I was saying that the basis of the provisional list was a framework for consultation with all interested parties to ensure that drugs which are essential for the treatment of particular conditions are not accidentaly removed from NHS prescription. There is no question of treating people with contempt, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, suggested.
The fact is that the provisional list certainly had a medical input to its formulation and was simply a basis for consultation. Obviously one has to consult upon something: the proposed list was it. I hope that will reassure the noble Lord and also the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. It is a fact that has been widely misrepresented.
The response from those consulted has, apart from the BMA and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, been generally constructive. Even individuals in the drug industry have in the end been realistic about the limited list, for while the ABPI is gloomily prophesying the end of the National Health Service, individual companies are urging us to accept their products onto the list. They see that they have a future in this country, just as much as they have a future in France, Germany, Switzerland, or in any other country that does not allow every medicine on the market to be prescribed at public expense.
From the medical profession, more than 1,000 individual doctors across the country have given us helpful ideas and comments, despite the BMA's resolution that they should not co-operate in any way.
Their views, together with those of other interested parties, have been carefully considered by an expert group of advisers under the chairmanship of the Chief Medical Officer, and the final list to be introduced on 1st April will be based on their advice.
Obviously I cannot tonight comment on the contents of the final list, but I shall certainly ensure that the Chief Medical Officer is made aware of the comments made on individual drugs, particularly by the noble Baronesses, Lady Darcy (de Knayth) and Lady Masham. The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), asked particularly about the "Brompton Cocktail". This will be all right. It is a major analgesic containing controlled drugs and is not affected by our proposals. It contains morphine or diamorphine, cocaine and alcohol. It is potent and dangerous, I am assured—and it certainly sounds it—but no doubt it is extremely effective.
So far as the question of one month's supply is concerned, we shall certainly look again at that point, but so far no real evidence that would save money stems from it. We would have to pay three times as many dispensing fees for patients on long-term therapy who now obtain, say, prescriptions for three months at a time. It is interesting that the BMA has been vehemently opposed to this suggestion in the past. Has it really changed its mind, or is it simply playing for time on the limited list? I do not know. Anyway, I shall certainly consider the point which the noble Baroness has raised
The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, asked whether the Dispensing Doctors' Association had been consulted. No, it was not consulted. The association is a small, breakaway group in opposition to the BMA
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and is not recognised as representing the medical profession. It did, however, submit its views in writing, and these have been taken into account. So far as dispensing doctors are concerned, we intend the limited list to meet all clinical needs. If, with the advice we have received, we succeed in that, then there will be no reason for a general practitioner to issue a private prescription to an NHS patient. That said, we have taken note of the many representations made on behalf of patients in rural areas, and we are still considering their position.
At present ours is the only country in the developed world where the state will pay for whatever drug a doctor wishes to prescribe. It is certainly very rare nowadays for a doctor in private practice to feel free to prescribe any expensive brand that he wishes and to expect his patient to pay, regardless of the cost.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, made five suggestions and I shall study those again from the Official Report. I should like to pick up now one suggestion—
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, as there is no right of reply on an Unstarred Question, perhaps I may intervene. I believe I am right in saying that 12 speakers in the debate this evening have asked the Government to think again. I, as the Minister has acknowledged, submitted a five-point programme. Will the Minister undertake to convey that programme to his right honourable and honourable friends, and also to the Acheson Committee, which is actually studying the list at this moment?
Lord Glenarthur: My right honourable friend certainly studies all that transpires on this kind of issue in your Lordships' House, and this particular debate will be no exception. On the noble Lord's third point, we certainly welcome all proposals for savings and hope that we may have constructive talks with all interests when this particular issue has come to a conclusion. These talks will be additional to the limited list and not an alternative to it.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, in explaining the significant advances in prescribing practice which he and his partners have achieved has shown that there is much more to be done. As the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and others, were keen to stress, of course there is much that can be achieved through co-operation between Government and the profession on prescribing issues. Agreed measures could lead to a further significant saving in the drugs bill. With our encouragement, and as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, 40 per cent. of our hospitals have already drawn up their own limited list, different though they may be from one another, and some National Health Service practices do it as well.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, asked me one important question: how would the new rules be brought into effect? I can tell him that regulations will be laid to amend the terms of service for doctors and pharmacists which are at present set out in Schedules 1 and 4 to the NHS General Medical and Pharmaceutical Service Regulations of 1974. Those will come forward in due course, and they are subject to the negative procedure.

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The fact remains that generic substitution alone would not encourage doctors to think more carefully about their prescribing, nor would it achieve the very necessary and immediate savings in the drugs bill that we must have in order to protect essential developments in other parts of the health service. Our limited list proposals do. They offer no threat whatever to the safety and wellbeing of patients. That is why we are so firmly committed to them and why we believe them to be fully justified.
Lady Saltoun: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether this House will have a chance to see and discuss the revised limited list before it is adopted?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the list is under consultation at the moment. It is much more important, I think, for doctors and experts to discuss it. That is what we entrust the Chief Medical Officer and his panel of experts to do. They will complete it in due course and then the list will be published.

Cinemas Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at three minutes before midnight.

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