Sitting of 11 July 1985

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

  BERKSHIRE BILL [Lords] (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Tuesday 16 July.

  BRITISH RAILWAYS (TROWSE BRIDGE) BILL [Lords] (By Order)
  Read a Second time, and committed.

  YORKSHIRE WATER AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Tuesday 16 July.

Oral Answers to Questions
  NORTHERN IRELAND

    Security
    Mr. Proctorasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the current security situation.
    Mr. Yeoasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the security position.
    Mr. Molyneauxasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on security in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. William Rossasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the security situation in Northern Ireland.
    Rev. Ian Paisleyasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the current state of security in Northern Ireland.
    The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Douglas Hurd): Since I last answered questions in the House on 13 June two police officers have died in incidents arising from the security situation in the Province. The Provisional IRA claimed responsibility for both murders. I know the House will join me in condemning these brutal murders and expressing our sympathy and sorrow to the families of the bereaved.
    So far this year 275 people have been charged with serious offences, including 21 with murder and 26 with attempted murder, and 116 weapons, 6,021 rounds of ammunition and 4,0101b of explosives have been recovered. The explosive devices neutralised since 13 June included an 1,8001b bomb dismantled by the security forces in Newry on 2 July.
    Mr. Proctor: My right hon. Friend will be aware that in the aftermath of the security incidents to which he referred there have been disturbing reports of cuts in police resources. Will he assure the House that no cuts have been made and that, although a limit has been imposed on the amount of overtime worked by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the total number of police man-hours worked by the RUC has been maintained?
    Mr. Hurd: Yes, Sir. Overtime is a bad guide. The RUC and its full-time reserve is now reaching a strength of 11,000 and has doubled in little more than nine years. The total number of man-hours worked by full-time officers during 1984–85, which is the best indicator of police effort, rose to its highest ever figure of 23·1 million hours.
    Mr. Yeo: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the new extradition treaty with the United States represents a significant blow to IRA terrorists who may be looking for a bolt hole?
    Mr. Hurd: Yes. The new supplementary treaty which we have negotiated and which will soon, I hope, be coming before the United States Senate and this House will be a substantial help to us in dealing with terrorism, particularly in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Molyneaux: In view of the indispensable role of the part time element of the Ulster Defence Regiment, will the Secretary of State advise his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to maintain the part-time element at its present establishment?
    Mr. Hurd: The exact figures and deployment are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of Suite for Defence and the General Officer Commanding, but l have made clear from time to time, including in this House, the importance that I attach to the continued existence of the UDR.
    Mr. William Ross: Given that the Secretary of State has to exercise a political judgment whenever we are faced with the problem of the routeing or the banning of parades which have an impact on the security situation, will he tell the House why it is that his political judgment has now created a situation in which there is disruption between those who normally support the police and the police force?
    Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman is wrong on a point of fact. I do not exercise a political judgment about the route of marches, nor have my predecessors. The law places that operational responsibility upon the police. That is how it is being handled this year, as in past years.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: What progress has been made concerning the murder of 69 Protestants in County Fermanagh, for which no one has been made amenable in law?
    Mr. Hurd: The figures for those convicted of terrorist offences in the Province as a whole this year so far show a marked increase on the figures for last year. There is always difficulty in bringing terrorists to justice. That is one reason why we are anxious to build up our security cooperation with the Republic and the United States, which was referred to in an earlier supplementary question. There are continuing real difficulties in bringing to justice those guilty of terrorist murder, but the figures show that we are tackling that problem.
    Mr. Nicholson: Will the Secretary of State tell the House what progress he has made in improving the conditions in border police stations, especially for the RUC personnel going to and coming from those police stations?
    Mr. Hurd: There is a large spending programme designed to do that. It is designed to catch up with the backlog of work created by the rapid expansion of the RUC, for which I have already given the figures. We have some way to go, including in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, before we can be satisfied with the outcome. As he will know, in Newry in particular and other border areas, a good deal of work is going on.
    Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Does my right hon. Friend accept the terrible depression felt on both sides of the House, and indeed in the country, as more and more police are assassinated by the IRA? Does my right hon. Friend agree that we regularly see a shocking chronicle of photographs in the police magazine each month? Would it not be helpful to publicise those photographs in American magazines and daily newspapers to show the tragic way in which many brave members of the RUC have been murdered?
    Mr. Hurd: That is a useful idea. It is very important that Americans, and particularly Irish Americans, realise that if they contribute funds that find their way into the pockets of the IRA, they are contributing to the murder overwhelmingly of Irishmen, particularly the gallant police officers to whom my hon. Friend referred.
    Mr. Archer: Does the Secretary of State understand that the one proposition on which both traditions in Northern Ireland are agreed is that the authorities are incapable of making a decision and seeing it through? The bullying and violence are effective because Governments respond to them. I appreciate the difficult matters of judgment with which the police are being confronted, but will the Secretary of State urge upon senior police officers the fact that people in both traditions will watch events tomorrow and over the weekend to see whether lawlessness and the threat of lawlessness will pay off, and that the Government and the Opposition will give them every support in resisting it?
    Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The RUC is well aware of the point that he makes. The Chief Constable and his colleagues have my full support in the difficult decisions that they continue to have to make.

    Marches (Government Policy)
    Mr. Bellasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will now make a definitive statement of Government policy on marches in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Hurd: The Government recognise the right of people in Northern Ireland to parade peacefully. Many such parades are held each year with no significant risk to public order. But a few are deliberately provocative and calculated to cause trouble, and others can cause difficulty because of the preferred route. In such circumstances, it is for the police to discuss the route with the organisers and if necessary for the police to order a change in the route on public order grounds. That is a decision for the RUC alone. If after considering the advice of the police it
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    appears to me that, with or without re-routeing, a parade is likely to cause serious public disorder, I may ban it. I fully support the Chief Constable's approach and I urge those who are involved in organising these parades to cooperate with the police and, of course, to obey the law.
    Mr. Bell: We welcome the Secretary of State's definitive policy on that issue and the fact that there is a mix of political judgment and operational responsibility. The difference between the two has given the impression, as we have seen today, that the Government are dithering on the issue. We are grateful for that explanation of the Government's policy. However, can the Secretary of State give us any idea of the magnitude of police resources that have to be committed to controlling marches and parades in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. During 1984 there were more than 2,240 parades, at which some 39,000 police officers were deployed. The estimated cost of that policing effort was more than £2 million.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: In the light of the statement that the right hon. Gentleman has just made, will he explain why on 3 February, 5 May, 15 May, 16 May and 23 June this year there were five illegal Sinn Fein/IRA parades through Toomebridge, yet no action was taken? At that time a shot was fired from the hotel, but because of the thinness of the police on the ground, the police were held back by an unruly mob, and it was only later that the gun that was used to fire at the police was recovered.
    Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that these matters come under the enforcement of the law and are for the RUC to deal with. I am sure that he has already given his version of the events of those days, or has encouraged other witnesses to give their versions, to the RUC.
    Mr. Hume: Does the Secretary of State agree that the police handling of parades in Northern Ireland at present reveals many contradictions in policy? For example, why is it right to re-route a parade in Portadown tomorrow and on Saturday, whereas it was wrong to re-route last Sunday? Why was it right to prevent an Orange parade going through a Catholic housing estate in Cookstown last week, and why will it be allowed to go through that estate tomorrow? Why is it right to ban a parade in Castlewellan —and rightly so—because it is 95 per cent. Catholic, but not to do so in Pomeroy, which is also 95 per cent. Catholic? What is the basis on which these decisions are taken? Is it, as it should be, the susceptibilities of citizens along the route, or is it simply a question of which side will cause the most trouble, which is how it appears? If that is the policy, that is surrendering the ground to the men of violence on all sides.
    Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman's question illustrates one of the difficulties. People in both communities sometimes find it difficult to recognise a reasonable compromise when they see one. The RUC must make decisions on re-routeing place by place and parade by parade after taking account of all the local factors. That is what it is doing, and it is increasingly recognised that the RUC is handling the situation with much common sense.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: I support the comments made earlier from the Opposition Front Bench, but should not

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    the message go out from both sides of the House that those responsible for organising marches in Northern Ireland, from whichever side they come, should abide by the decisions of the RUC and the Chief Constable? If necessary, the Secretary of State should tell them that that is what we expect this coming weekend.
    Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The more I listen to views, particularly private views, on this subject, the more sure I become that in Northern Ireland it is possible to celebrate a battle or a tradition without provoking or humiliating those who do not belong to that tradition. That must be the right way to handle the matter.
    Mr. Proctor: When my right hon. Friend defended the highlighting of re-routeing the last time he answered Northern Ireland questions, he referred to the amount of police time used to protect marches which could have been released for other security functions. Following the highlighting of re-routeing, has police time involved in marching activities increased or decreased?
    Mr. Hurd: I gave the very substantial figures for last year. If, when the Chief Constable re-routes a parade or, as in the case of Castlewellan, I ban it, and the organisers in some way defy that, police resources must then be deployed to apply the law. The right answer is for the police and the organisers to reach agreement on a sensible route. That is done in a very large number of cases, and when that happens police resources and the expenditure on policing such a parade are greatly reduced.
    Mr. McCusker: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that when the men of north Armagh tomorrow try to walk into Portadown over the route which they and their forefathers have traversed since 1796, they will be motivated not by any desire to break the laws of their country but by a sense of historic necessity to express, as they have always done, their legitimate pride in the possession of their lands and liberties? They know instinctively that they survive only by their solidarity and determination. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that unless that is understood, the people who will be dealt with tomorrow will be dealt with, not in a manner likely to maintain the peace, but in one likely to lead to a breach of it?
    Mr. Hurd: Solidarity and determination are admirable qualities, but if the hon. Gentleman is saying that they can be expressed in Northern Ireland or in Portadown only by the attempt to assert, against the law, the traditional route which originally ran through green fields and now runs past houses occupied almost overwhelmingly by Catholics, he is making a case that is incomprehensible, to use a mild word, everywhere outside the Unionist community?
    Mr. Flannery: Does the Minister agree that if we all insisted on doing precisely what our forefathers had done, all kinds of frightening things would be happening in the world? Does he remember that when I spoke in the debate on the renewal of the emergency provisions I pleaded with the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) not to engage in these provocations? Is it not a fact that when a leading figure makes it clear that there is an issue at stake in whether a parade goes through an area and then provokes the people in that area, the Member concerned is deliberately trying to provoke trouble when we are trying to stop it?
    Mr. Hurd: Yes, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will apply the same morals and lessons to those whose company he frequents and favours in the North. The respect for the law, the sensitivities, the rights and the lives of others whom he exemplified in his question is not always evident in their actions.
    Mr. Beggs: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the sight of a Union flag, a poppy or any other expression of British identity is seen as provocative by many supporters of the SDLP and Sinn Fein? Does he recognise that the banning or re-routing of traditional, Orange and Loyalist peaceful parades can contribute only to the establishment of anti-British ghettos, where the forces of the Crown are unwelcome and people are unable to express their loyalty to the constitution and the Crown?
    Mr. Hurd: One of the problems is that there are many symbols in Northern Ireland and many people in both communities who are determined to provoke and be provoked. However, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman, with his record and his view, believes that Northern Ireland can make progress out of its many difficulties if, in either community, it is felt that the only way to preserve identity or solidarity is to do and say things designed to humiliate others.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Do the figures which the Secretary of State has given us show how much police time was involved in dealing with parades that were not notified? Is any record kept of unnotified parades? Will he acknowledge that the interference of self-appointed protectors outwith the United Kingdom have done more than anything else to inflame the attitude of Loyalists, at this time of the year, towards parades?
    Mr. Hurd: I understand that point. I do not have the figures for which the hon. Gentleman asked. By definition, it is difficult to have figures on meetings or gatherings that are not notified, but I shall look into the matter.

    Terrorism (Evidential Proof)
    Mr. Maginnisasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what consideration he has given to the difficulties faced by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in obtaining evidential proof sufficient to satisfy the courts of the guilt of individuals believed by the police to be involved in terrorist activities.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Nicholas Scott): My right hon. Friend and I are aware of the difficulties which the Royal Ulster Constabulary has in obtaining such evidence, but we remain convinced that it is right that alleged terrorists should be brought before the courts for trial against an evidential standard of "proof beyond reasonable doubt".
    Mr. Maginnis: Is the Minister telling us that he will take no new steps to ensure that known terrorists do not continue to avoid justice in Ulster, are able to continue their murder on our streets and, indeed, to bring murder to the streets of Great Britain, as some recently have intended? Does the Minister admit that since the Bennett report that which in Great Britain has been accepted as a normal interpretation has been substituted in Ulster for a process more akin to the cosy interview?
    Mr. Scott: I do not agree with that last comment. The figures given by my right hon. Friend earlier show the

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    success which the security forces have had in arresting and charging people and bringing them before the courts. We must understand that terrorists are determined to undermine law and order. That is their principal objective. If we move away from strict standards in enforcing the law we shall be doing their job for them.
    Mr. Dickens: Does my hon. Friend accept that as surely as night follows day the House will in the fullness of time have the common sense to reintroduce capital punishment for terrorism in response to public demand? When that day comes, will it not be necessary to ensure that the people concerned have a proper trial? Is my hon. Friend aware that nothing will convince me that those who have escaped from the Maze prison have not struck and killed again?
    Mr. Scott: On recent evidence I see no possibility that the House will be prepared to reintroduce capital punishment for murder, even for terrorist offences. To give a personal view, I do not believe that its reintroduction would increase stability in Northern Ireland.

    Lear Fan Project
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a further statement about the winding-up of the Lear Fan project.
    The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): Since the events described in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Arnold) on 3 June, the company has filed under the appropriate United States bankruptcy code and the United States courts have appointed an interim trustee to administer the company's assets in the United States.
    The receiver appointed by Her Majesty's Government has not yet completed his review and assessment of the assets of the company. Until he has, it will not be possible to estimate how much might be recovered.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: From that answer, should I conclude that something might be salvaged from the company's liquidation? In view of the large sums of public money lost in De Lorean and now in Lear Fan, what lessons can be drawn from these unhappy stories, and in particular how can we improve monitoring the use of public money?
    Dr. Boyson: About £4 million was saved through the company going into liquidation at that time. We trust that more will be saved. That money would have been spent if the company had continued to trade.
    Mr. Skinner: The old story.
    Dr. Boyson: It is a new story as well as an old story, and the hon. Gentleman should listen to the new story. Any Government of any colour investing in Northern Ireland must make two decisions about helping companies from abroad. The first is to assess how much private money is involved or whether it will all come from Government.
    Mr. Skinner: Market forces.
    Dr. Boyson: If the hon. Gentleman will listen, he will hear about market forces. At first Lear Fan operated largely with Government money, then, for every £2 of
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    private money, £1 of Government money was used. At the end all the money was private. It is vital for more private money to be invested at the beginning of such projects.
    We should be careful when dealing with risk enterprises at the frontiers of technology which no one wants to back in their countries of origin. We should look for blue chip companies which already have good products. That is what we want in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is not the appalling unacceptable embarrassing, unpalatable and terrible truth that violence does pay in Northern Ireland when Governments insist in backing projects such as Lear Fan and De Lorean for which no commercial plan works? Is it not about time that the Government reviewed their policy? Why has the Minister refused, despite repeated requests from the Opposition, to come to the Dispatch Box to make a full statement and to stand hon. Members' questioning? After all, £50 million of public money is involved.
    Dr. Boyson: I enjoyed the exercise in adjectives at the beginning of the hon. Gentleman's question. He certainly deserves a CSE grade 1. The answer to the second part of his supplementary question is that much Government money has helped companies, including—in the far past —when the Labour party was last in office. That has continued under the present Government, and about three quarters of new jobs in Northern Ireland last year resulted from the activities of companies owned abroad which had been encouraged by the Government of Northern Ireland to invest in the Province.
    Mr. Couchman: Will my hon. Friend reassure the House that, notwithstanding the polemics of the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), his Department will not lose sight of the fact that money will have to continue to be poured into Northern Ireland's industry to regenerate the economy there and to provide the employment which will, more certainly than anything else, take the gunmen off the streets?
    Dr. Boyson: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is vital that outside investment comes into Northern Ireland. It is similarly vital that small businesses there should grow, and we shall give every encouragement to that. I remind the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) that a reduction in violence encourages people to invest in the Province.
    Mr. Bell: Has the Minister been able to resolve the question whether the assets of Lear Fan Jet, by way of blueprints and plans, are vested in the United States corporation and can, therefore, be developed by another American company, to the detriment of the British taxpayer?
    Dr. Boyson: That matter has concerned us all, and lawyers are looking into it. I cannot, therefore, give the hon. Gentleman a straight yes or no answer. It has been obvious for some time that the patent rights are ours and will be for a time. As soon as I can give the House a definitive answer on that, I shall be delighted to do so.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Is the hon. Gentleman happy about the role played by the nominees of the IDB on the boards of such companies? Surely, if these men are doing their work properly, they can raise the alarm sooner about companies going wrong.
    Dr. Boyson: There were two nominee directors on the Lear Fan board, appointed by the Government through various Departments. Warnings were given. However, if we had pulled the skids from under Lear Fan and not put the money in, we could have been sued because there was a tight agreement for every penny. We could also have been sued for breaking our word, and that could have cost us a lot more. We were warned about that and we told the directors about it. Eventually the decision was made by the company to cease trading, and that saved us much more money than would have been the case had we come out and had to pay for nothing at the end.

    Devolution
    Mr. Hunterasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what further consideration he has given to rolling devolution for Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hurd: The Northern Ireland Act 1982 continues to offer a flexible and practical framework for devolving powers to representatives of the Northern Ireland constitutional parties. The crucial requirement for any scheme for a devolved administration is that it should command widespread acceptance throughout the community.
    Mr. Hunter: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. May I ask him to clarify matters still further, first by refuting the charge that, in relation to rolling devolution, he is merely paying lip-service to the ideals of his predecessor, and, secondly and more positively, by asserting that the concept and implementation of rolling devolution is central to his overall strategy for the Province?
    Mr. Hurd: Yes, and we must not lose sight of the aims of the 1982 Act. If the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland could bring themselves to reason together on these constitutional matters, they would be doing Northern Ireland a great service, and I shall use what weight I have to move them in that direction.
    Mr. Maclennan: Is there the slightest evidence that the constitutional parties share the Government's view as to the desirable objectives in this matter?
    Mr. Hurd: Yes, there is the slightest evidence if one reads their published documents. We must now turn that slight evidence into something more positive and definite.

    Cross-Border Co-operation
    Mr. Parryasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on cross-border cooperation between the Province and the Irish Republic.
    Mr. Hurd: The two Governments are on good terms and seek to co-operate closely on matters where their interests coincide. Cross-border co-operation on security is particularly valuable. There is certainly scope for improvement, and such improvement must be one of our main aims.
    Mr. Parry: Will the Secretary of State accept that the recent re-routing of Protestant marches in Catholic areas will be a setback to British-Irish relations in Northern Ireland? Will he also accept that such action is the best recruiting sergeant for the Provisional IRA and Noraid in
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    America? In future, will he consider banning such provocative marches, rather than backing down to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley)—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is concerned with cross-border co-operation.
    Mr. Stanbrook: If we can persuade the Government of the United States to deprive terrorists of immunity from extradition, why cannot we similarly persuade the Government of the Irish Republic?
    Mr. Hurd: The courts of the Irish Republic have shown in the McGlinchy case and the Shannon case a greater awareness than in the past of the argument that my hon. Friend is advancing. We would like to move further in that direction.
    Mr. McCusker: Does the Secretary of State recall the controversy that arose a few weeks ago when the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary alleged that explosives used in the bomb that killed four police personnel at Kileen originated in the Irish Republic? Has co-operation between the police forces of the two parts of Northern Ireland established whether that explosive originated in the Irish Republic? Did the large amount of explosives found in Newry a few days ago also originate from the Republic?
    Mr. Hurd: The investigation into the Kileen bombing is continuing. The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on one of the main areas of cross-border co-operation, as I see it. The Provisional IRA has large quantities of home-made explosives available to it. Some of the material is converted into explosives in the North and much of it is converted in the South. This is an area where co-operation and concerted action essential.
    Dr. Mawhinney: Does my right hon. Friend accept that cross-border security is causing a great deal of confusion? We are told that co-operation is valuable and close, but we are also told that the heads of the two police forces will not talk to each other and that Dublin politicians reject any suggestion that Northern Ireland terrorists are enjoying refuge in the Republic-. Can my right hon. Friend help to throw some light on this confusion?
    Mr. Hurd: I do not know whether there is a great deal of confusion. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have often said, the experience is a mixed one. Security co-operation between the two countries is valuable and it should be improved. One form of improvement would be for meetings to take place between the RUC and the Garda at the most senior level as a matter of course.

    Newry
    Mr. Holtasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much public money has been invested in Newry in each of the last four years.
    Dr. Boyson: Public expenditure within the Northern' Ireland block is not determined on a geographical basis, and it is not possible to identify separately all expenditure in Newry.
    I will, with permission, Mr. Speaker, provide my hon. Friend with a tabular statement in the Official Report of certain expenditure over the last four years which has gone to Newry town and Newry and Mourne district.
    Mr. Holt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his answer, as far as it goes. However, on the evidence that I saw, there are many new buildings, including arts centres, theatres, sports stadiums and swimming pools, in Newry. Does he agree that towns of a similar size in the north-east of England, such as Guisborough in my constituency, could well do with some resources directed towards them and away from Northern Ireland?
    Dr. Boyson: If my hon. Friend is concerned about expenditure in his area, he should take up the matter with the relevant Ministers. There is a separate Northern Ireland block and that is the basis on which decisions are made. Newry is an area of high unemployment. The last check revealed an unemployment rate of 31·5 per cent.—
    Mr. Holt: That is not as high as in my constituency.
    Dr. Boyson: There are many other difficulties in Newry and we have given priority to law and order in

    £000

    1981–82

    1982–83

    1983–84

    1984–85

    Selective Financial Assistance to Industry*

    633

    865

    5,063

    3,935

    IDB Factory Building*

    105

    833

    673

    562

    Newry Government Training Centre (New Works and capital equipment)*

    55

    129

    21

    79

    Tourism*

    —

    —

    —

    21

    Roads†

    2,752

    3,187

    4,531

    5,282

    Water & Sewerage‡

    2,724

    2,932

    3,316

    3,614

    Historic Monuments & Buildings†

    24

    29

    24

    72

    Works Service*

    —

    4

    96

    198

    NI Housing Executive*

    3,500

    5,600

    4,800

    5,400

    Grants to Housing Associations*

    —

    —

    —

    297

    NI Railways*

    —

    —

    —

    223

    Ulsterbus Limited*

    —

    —

    —

    55

    Education & Library Board Capital Expenditure†

    327

    870

    678

    367

    Voluntary Schools†

    724

    1,088

    1,466

    1,829

    Voluntary Youth Projects†

    —

    54

    239

    15

    Sport, Recreation & the Arts†

    421

    439

    626

    287

    Health & Personal Social Services (Capital Expenditure)*

    158

    113

    162

    1,125

    Newry & Mourne District Council Capital Expenditure (Gross)†

    1,227

    1,474

    2,606,000

    1,650

    * Figures for town of Newry.

    † Figures for Newry & Mourne District Council Area.

    ‡ Figures for Newry sub-division of Water Service includes Newry & Mourne and Banbridge DC areas.

    IRA (American Assistance)
    Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if, when he last met the United States ambassador, he discussed assistance from American citizens to the Irish Republican Army.
    Mr. Hurd: I saw the ambassador on 28 June and our confidential discussion ranged widely.
    I have no doubt about the United States Government's opposition to those who support terrorism. They have discouraged Americans from contributing funds to organisations supporting terrorist groups and have shown themselves ready to see action taken against those who break the law.
    Mr. Bruinvels: I thank my right hon. Friend for confirming the views of this country that no funds should be given by Irish Americans to the IRA. Will he make it clear that the attitudes and activities of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) in effectively supping with the devil in attending many meetings with supporters of the IRA in America and seemingly enjoying the hospitality of Noraid do not help this country? Does my right hon. Friend agree that these activities bring the
    1254
    Northern Ireland. I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that that is the right policy. Expenditure has been directed also to promote industrial development and to replace bad housing.
    Mr. Nicholson: Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to condemn the Provisional IRA and other terrorists for continuing their attacks on human life and property in the Newry area? The necessary investment in the Newry area cannot take place while the attacks continue.
    Dr. Boyson: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. On 28 February nine people were killed in Newry as a result of a mortar attack. If we can extend law and order more effectively throughout the Province there will be a considerable saving of expenditure as well as of life.
    Following is the statement:
    views of Parliament very much into ill-repute? Will he condemn that behaviour and confirm that the rest of the country will not tolerate it?
    Mr. Hurd: I have no knowledge of or any responsibility for the activities of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short). Anyone who goes to the United States and is in any way beholden to Noraid should be well aware of the connection with Sinn Fein and the IRA.

    Health and Social Services Boards
    Mr. A. Cecil Walkerasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to the answer given to the hon. Member for Belfast, North by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten) on 19 June, Official Report, column 146, if he will give the reasons for not placing the full accounts and auditors' reports for the health and social services boards in Northern Ireland in the Library.
    Mr. Chris Patten: I have nothing to add to the answer I gave to the hon. Gentleman on 19 June, but if there is

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    any particular matter about which he is concerned I shall have it followed up if he will let me have the appropriate details.
    Mr. Walker: In view of the disquieting reports of the serious malpractices in the Royal Victoria hospital, especially in the laundering, quartering, transport, security and catering divisions, does the hon. Gentleman agree that by not taking action to publish the health and social services reports he will arouse suspicion that there is a cover-up in his Department?
    Mr. Patten: There is no question of any concealment. We follow exactly the same practices as the rest of the United Kingdom. The auditors' report on each of the health boards is made available to the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and he reports to Parliament on the summary of accounts.
    Mr. Archer: Does the Under-Secretary of State have any plans for dealing with the crisis which now obtains at the Royal Victoria hospital through staff cuts and especially in relation to medical reports—which cannot be traced because they are lying about on the floor—and security, which is so starved of resources that the staff are physically in danger.
    Mr. Patten: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had had the courtesy when he visited the Royal group of hospitals the other day to agree to meet the chairman of the board as well as the NUPE shop stewards, he would have heard that the Royal Victoria hospital has a budget of £84 million a year, that it is one of the most expensive hospital sites in the country and that we are doing a good deal to try deal with the records. For example, the board has appointed summer relief staff. Unfortunately so far, the organisation and methods study into medical records, which could bring about a great improvement, has been blocked by the trade unions.
    Rev. Martin Smythasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he proposes to take following the report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General for Northern Ireland on the health and social services board accounts, about financial procedures in the north and west Belfast districts of the eastern board.
    Mr. Chris Patten: The north and west Belfast district is now reorganised into three units of management, new senior staff are in post and new systems are being introduced. The board is providing regular progress reports on these matters to the Department. I note in the Comptroller and Auditor-General's report for 1983–84 that he accepts that a determined effort has been and continues to be made to improve the position.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the information that those steps have been taken. Is he satisfied that such steps will deal with the misuse of overtime and other abuses at the hospital? Will this release more funds for patient care? May we assume that the clique of Republicans, who have been using the system in the royal to deny this money to the patients, will continue?
    Mr. Patten: Those are the objectives of the management which is attempting to ensure that the Royal Victoria, like every other hospital in the United Kingdom, lives within its budget.
    Mr. Archer: Is it in order for the Under-Secretary of State to mislead the House by suggesting that I
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    discourteously refused to see the chairman of the eastern health board, when the contrary is true? I was anxious to see the chairman, but, understandably, he was not in a position to see me. I tried to see him.
    Mr. Patten: If what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says is correct, I shall certainly withdraw what I said. I understood that the chairman of the board had turned up at the hospital to meet the right hon. Gentleman, but that the right hon. and earned Gentleman had failed to meet him.
    Mr. Archer rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The same rules must apply to everyone.

    Terrorism
    Mr. Dubsasked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he has any new proposals to defeat terrorism in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Hurd: Terrorism can be eradicated only by steadily applying firm security policies operating under the law. This needs the support of the whole law-abiding community in Northern Ireland and the co-operation of the police forces of the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. The measures taken need to be flexible and constantly adapted to stay one step ahead of the terrorists.
    Mr. Dubs: Why will the Secretary of State not accept that what would undermine the IRA in Northern Ireland and its political supporters more than anything else is a successful conclusion to the talks between London and Dublin and for the Republic to have a significant say in the affairs of Northern Ireland? That is the possibility that causes so much apprehension in the minds of the IRA, so why will the Minister not accept it?
    Mr. Hurd: It is wholly naive to suppose that those who are killing their fellow citizens will be turned into decent citizens just because some agreement is reached between London and Dublin. There is everything to be said for an agreement, but the hon. Gentleman does the case no service by exaggerating it.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Ql. Mr. Thurnhamasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 11 July.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Thurnham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to reduce unemployment is to lighten the burden of taxes and interest rates on employers and employed alike by sensible and firm control of public spending? Is she aware that the success of Government policies is evidenced by new factories and shops as well as a new road, a new railway and a new hospital to be built in Bolton?
    The Prime Minister: I agree wholly with my hon. Friend and I am very pleased that our firm policies have borne such excellent fruit in his constituency.
    Mr. Kinnock: Did the Prime Minister remind her colleagues at this morning's Cabinet meeting that, since she came to office, public spending has risen by a record 16·5 per cent., and did she tell them whether they should complain or boast about that record, as they do not seem to know?
    The Prime Minister: At this morning's meeting the Cabinet confirmed the public expenditure totals published in the Red Book of £139 billion for 1986–87 and £144 billion for 1987–88. Our objective is to try to reduce public spending as a proportion of national income. Public spending as a proportion of national income hit a peak under the Labour Government.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does the Prime Minister intend to achieve that by cutting investment, or by cutting current expenditure on, for instance, benefits? Does she intend to continue the course which, depite the pleas of the CBI, has brought cuts of 6 per cent. on repairs, 6 per cent. on roads and 54 per cent. on housing, while running a budget that has increased taxation as a proportion of gross national product from 36 to 42 per cent.? Which of those records is she proud of?
    The Prime Minister: Public expenditure this year is £134 billion. As I have said, it will be £139 billion next year. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, within the totals certain programmes have priority. Health and pensions, in particular, have had priority. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, we have protected capital expenditure. When the Labour Government had to reduce expenditure enourmously at the instance of the International Monetary Fund the then Chief Secretary, now Lord Barnett, said that
    "it was politically easier to cut capital than to cut current expenditure".
    and that under the Labour Government.
    "The misery was shared out although the cuts disproportionately affected capital rather than current expenditure, as was invariably the case."
    The Labour Government cut capital expenditure. We have increased it.
    Mr. Kinnock: The right hon. Lady is misleading the House, even on her own figures. If she will look at her own White Paper on public expenditure, she will discover that the overall capital programme in real terms is down from £20 billion to £19 billion over the past six years. Will the right hon. Lady now tell us the answer to the question whether the Conservative party should be boasting or complaining about the 16·5 per cent. rise in public spending? Should it be complaining or boasting about the 6 per cent. rise in the share of GNP on taxation? Is the right hon. Lady proud of spending, or is she proud of cutting? Is she an Iron Lady—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Kinnock.
    Mr. Kinnock: Conservative Members are only delaying things. I was asking the Prime Minister whether she is proud of her record as a spender, or as a cutter. Is she an Iron Lady or is she a closet fiexi-toy?
    The Prime Minister: Compared with the Labour Government's record, all members of my Government and Back Benchers should be proclaiming this Government's record with great pride. In practice, the last Labour Government — [Interruption.] In practice —[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the House to hear the answer.
    The Prime Minister: In practice, the last Labour Government cut expenditure on hospitals by 35 per cent. Capital expenditure on hospitals is now up by 23 per cent. Labour cut expenditure on roads by 33 per cent. The Conservatives have now put it up by 25 per cent. Labour cut capital expenditure on water by 29 per cent. Last year we put it up. The Labour Government's record was appalling.
    Sir Peter Tapsell: Do not the last two questions by the Leader of the Opposition indicate that, to his usual gift of loquacity, he has now added economic schizophrenia?
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his astute observation.
    Mr. Dalyell: When the Prime Minister talked of flexitoys, which of her distinguished colleagues did she have in mind?
    The Prime Minister: None of mine; some of those on a certain Bench below the Gangway who are prepared to attune their policies to every by-election, whatever constituency it may be.
    Mr. Doverasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 11 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Dover: Will my right hon. Friend take the opportunity today to pay tribute to those involved in the repair work to the M1 in Hertfordshire, and particularly the contractors? Will she respond positively to the calls by the TUC and CBI for more road repair work?
    The Prime Minister: I gladly congratulate all those who have virtually completed the repair work on the M1 ahead of time. I congratulate those who did the work, and my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Transport who arranged it so excellently.
    May I point out that spending on major motorway repairs is up by more than 50 per cent. in real terms. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member who asked the question has a right to hear the reply.
    The Prime Minister: The M1 is a splendid example of the fact that, since 1978–79, spending on major motorway repairs has increased by more than 50 per cent. in real terms.
    Dr. Owen: Does the Prime Minister have any idea of the consequences for district health authorities of the Government's failure to meet the full bill for the desirable increase in nurses' pay? Does she accept that it will involve ward closures, cuts in services and the postponement of equipment purchase on a massive scale? Does she agree that if we will the end of increasing nurses' pay, we should provide the means for the NHS to meet the bill?
    The Prime Minister: This Government have provided far more in real terms than did the Government of whom the right hon. Gentleman was such a proud member. The Labour Government cut the National Health Service budget in real terms in two years. The expenditure must be met either from the enlarged budget during this Administration, or through increased taxation. Which would the right hon. Gentleman choose? If it is met by

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    increased taxation, we would be taking money out of people's pockets and losing the jobs which the expenditure of that money would have created.
    Dr. Michael Clark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the decision by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to require foreign diplomats in this country to pay their parking fines should be welcomed? Does she also agree that it should be extended so that diplomats in Britain either obey the rest of our laws or are sent home?
    The Prime Minister: I share my hon. Friend's views and congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary on the very firm stand that he has taken.
    Mr. Dubsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 11 July
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Dubs: Can the Prime Minister say whether, after six years of her Government, the British people have derived any benefit from North sea oil?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, of course. First, they have derived a great deal of benefit in income, which has been pumped straight out into services such as the National Health Service and law and order. The money has gone straight into the annual budget and straight out again. The income has enabled us gradually to replace that asset with overseas assets, which will continue to bring in income long after North sea oil has gone. When we came to power, overseas assets were worth £12 billion; now they are worth £76 billion. They regularly produce income in interest and dividends and give us a high invisible surplus to add to our balance of payments.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: In view of the remarks of the Lord Chief Justice this week about the role of television and television news reports in perpetuating violence, does my right hon. Friend believe that there is now a case for a broadcasting council?
    The Prime Minister: Of course, I am always prepared to consider that. I very much welcome what the Lord Chief Justice said and I hope that the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority will take note of it. The amount of violence that is seen on television is bound to have an effect on those least able to adjudge it.
    Mr. Leightonasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 11 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Leighton: Can the Prime Minister explain why all the pundits and commentators now say that she is no longer an asset to the Conservative party?
    The Prime Minister: In that case, I wonder why the hon. Gentleman attacks me so fiercely.
    Mr. Adley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that she is much better off relying on the views of the thousands of paid-up members of the Conservative party in my constituency than on her reputation among what the hon. Gentleman calls the media pundits? Now that we can look back at the Brecon and Radnor by-election dispassionately, does she agree that the MORI poll —although that company is now discredited—undoubtedly had a considerable effect on the outcome? Notwithstanding the fact that media hype is part of the stock in trade of the Liberal party, should we not reconsider, as do other European countries, the role of opinion polls in public elections?
    The Prime Minister: Doubtless hon. Members will wish to consider that policy. As my hon. Friend is aware, it has never been any part of my policy to put undue constraints on those matters unless there is considerable reason for doing so.
    Dr. David Clark: Has the Prime Minister had time today to read the report of the bombing and sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland? I realise that Greenpeace has embarrassed many people, but it has harmed none. Will she cable Prime Minister Lange and tell him that if he wishes we shall offer them all the facilities of the British services to try to track down the people who perpetrated that crime?
    The Prime Minister: I appreciate the anxiety that the hon. Gentleman expresses. It is a matter for the New Zealand police. We await the outcome of the inquiries. If they ask for help, of course we shall consider giving it.
    Mr. Parry: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Does it arise out of Question Time?
    Mr. Parry: Yes, Mr. Speaker. As I was not called on question No. 3—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I know that the hon. Member was not called on question No. 3, but he was called on question No. 7. I think that he asked the supplementary question that he intended for question No. 3. I cannot help him. He was out of order.
    Mr. Parry: As I received no reply, I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment as soon as possible.
    Mr. Faulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, arising directly out of Prime Minister's Questions. You are renowned for your generosity and kindliness. [Interruption.] I am not after a job. In view of that, I wonder whether you could arrange for the Prime Minister to be sent on a long sabbatical, because she is obviously tiring. She would then have a chance to rethink all her policies.
    Mr. Speaker: Thankfully, we are all going on a long sabbatical soon.

Business of the House
3.32 pm
Mr. Neil Kinnock: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 15 JULY — Opposition Day (18th Allotted Day). (Second part). Until seven o'clock there will be a debate on the funding of pay awards in the National Health Service, on a motion in the names of the leaders of the Social Democratic and Liberal parties.
Remaining stages of the Oil and Pipelines Bill. Consideration of Lords amendments to the Trustee Savings Banks Bill.
TUESDAY 16 JULY—Motions on the Rate Support Grant Supplementary Report (England) (No. 3) 1982–83 (House of Commons Paper No. 504); the Rate Support Grant Supplementary Report (England) 1985–86 (House of Commons Paper No. 478); the Welsh Rate Support Grant Supplementary (No. 2) Report 1983–84 (House of Commons Paper No. 448); and the Welsh Rate Support Grant Supplementary Report 1985–86 (House of Commons Paper No. 449).
WEDNESDAY 17 JULY — Remaining stages of the Administration of Justice Bill [Lords].
Motion on the Rate Reduction (City of Edinburgh District) 1985–86 Report.
Motion on the Revaluation Rate Rebates (Scotland) Order.
THURSDAY 18 JULY—Estimates Day (4th Allotted day). Until seven o'clock there will be a debate on Estimates relating to export promotion. The Question will be put on all outstanding Votes and Estimates.
Remaining stages of the Insolvency Bill [Lords].
FRIDAY 19 JULY—Motions on the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Northern Ireland) Order; The Nursing Homes and Nursing Agencies (Northern Ireland) Order; and the Gas (Northern Ireland) Order.
MONDAY 22 JULY — Consideration of Lords amendments to the Social Security Bill and the Interception of Communications Bill and any Lords amendments which may be received to the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol, Etc.) Bill.
Remaining stages of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Bill [Lords].
Motion on the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975.
It is expected that the Chairman of Ways and Means will name opposed private business for consideration at seven o'clock.
The House will wish to know Mr. Speaker, that subject to progress of business it is hoped to propose that the House should rise for the Summer Adjournment on Friday 26 July until Monday 21 October.
Estimates to be considered Thursday 18 July:
Class IV, Vote 4 (Export Promotion, Trade Cooperation, Corporate and Consumer Affairs):
Section A (Export Promotion) and Section B (Trade Cooperation) so far as they relate to United Kingdom trade with China.
Mr. Kinnock: Yesterday, on a point of order, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr.
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Kaufman) raised the fact that the Home Secretary had slipped through in a written answer an announcement on the Government's changes in the immigration rules. As a parliamentarian himself, does the Leader of the House agree that it would be much more appropriate to make a full statement to the House so that the Home Secretary could be questioned immediately on a matter of major constitutional and human concern to many thousands of people in Britain. Will the right hon. Gentleman make up for the omissions of the Home Secretary and arrange an early debate in Government time so that we can give full consideration to a matter which is shabby and unjust and a cause of great anxiety to thousands of families in Britain?
Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that we have an early statement from the Secretary of State for Education and Science on teachers' pay as we are at the end of school terms and the Secretary of State has not been effective in dealing with an increasingly grave matter?
May I press the right hon. Gentleman to provide time for a debate on the Government's attitude towards South Africa? Does he agree that the mounting domestic repression in that country, the change in the attitude of the United States Congress, the recent revelations about the behaviour of the South African arms industry in this country and the attacks on Botswana are matters that would benefit from consideration in the House?
Why has the debate on the Scottish rate rebates order been tacked on to the end of a long and busy day next Wednesday? Have the Government a guilty conscience about the missing £20 million—the amount by which the promised £50 million has been reduced since the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Prime Minister made that promise at the Conservative party conference? Should not the House be accorded a much better time of day in which to consider this major matter of general importance which is of special importance to the people of Scotland?
Mr. Biffen: Perhaps I might take the right hon. Gentleman's points in the sequence in which they were presented. I dissociate myself totally from his strictures against my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary concerning an announcement about a change in the immigration rules, but I agree that there is a good case for a debate on this matter. Perhaps we could pursue it through the usual channels.
I shall of course make known to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science the right hon. Gentleman's anxiety about a statement on teachers' pay. The right hon. Gentleman will realise that at this very moment discussions are taking place, the conclusion of which will probably condition how we should proceed.
I note the right hon. Gentleman's interest in a debate on South Africa. Again, I in no sense underwrite the language he used, but it is a valid request which we could consider through the usual channels.
I know that we are in that rather delicate stage of the session when political motives are invested with all kinds of lurid characteristics, but I do not think that there is any reason for taking the motion on the Revaluation Rate Rebates (Scotland) Order at the proposed time on Wednesday evening other than the crowded condition of the order of business which I have announced this week, which is related to what I believe is a universally welcome aspiration—to rise by Friday 26 July.
Sir Frederic Bennett: The Leader of the House will have noted that on the Order Paper there is a number of motions expressing different points of view about the strategic defence initiative, but all of them have in common a request for a debate as soon as possible on the subject. Does he agree that, as the other place has had no fewer than four debates this year on the matter, that every Western European Parliament except ours has had a similar debate and that the Western European Assembly has also had a debate, he should consider providing an early opportunity for a debate when the House reassembles so that we are no longer the only Western European Parliament not to have discussed this important subject?
Mr. Biffen: I understand the importance that my hon. Friend attaches to this subject, but I would point out to him that it was available for discussion during our recent two-day debate on the Defence Estimates. Nevertheless, I shall bear his remarks in mind.
Mr. Sydney Bidwell: May I reinforce the plea of the Leader of the Opposition for a clear statement by the Home Secretary on the change in the immigration laws? Because of a reply to a written question the situation is obscure. This matter should not be lost sight of during the normal feverish activities of July.
Mr. Biffen: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. That is why, through the usual channels, we are considering providing an opportunity for a debate.
Mr. Fred Silvester: May I remind my right hon. Friend that not only is the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg a matter of hot dispute but that it is to be the subject of another decision in January 1986? May I also remind him that the matter has never been debated or voted upon in this House? Is he able to give an undertaking that the Government will ensure that a debate takes place before a substanive decision is made?
Mr. Biffen: I cannot give an undertaking that such a debate will take place in Government time, but I note my hon. Friend's interest in this topic. It is not the first time that he has mentioned it. I very much hope that he will be successful in pursuing the matter.
Mr. James Molyneaux: Because the Nursing Homes and Nursing Agencies (Northern Ireland) Order has not yet been laid and was unheard of until 24 hours ago, does the Leader of the House feel that we can be expected next Friday to debate this order upon which there has been no opportunity whatsoever for consultation?
Mr. Biffen: I am advised that the Nursing Homes and Nursing Agencies (Northern Ireland) Order which was laid today has been made under the urgent procedure, following representations by interested persons in Northern Ireland. Because the order was made under this procedure, no proposal was drafted and circulated. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is today writing to the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly to explain why the urgent procedure was used. [Interruption.] There is no need for the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) to point as though he were on the other side of the Western oceans. I understand the susceptibilities that have been raised in this House, and I shall discuss the matter with the right hon. Gentleman through the usual channels.
Sir John Page: As the Water (Fluoridation) Bill has passed through all its stages in another place and will presumably return here fairly soon, will my right hon. Friend ensure that its passage will not be unduly delayed? Whatever may be one's views on this Bill—and I am neutral—it is important to the water industry and a decision should not be unreasonably delayed.
Mr. Biffen: I note my hon. Friend's question. His observation is relevant, not least in the context of the time that is still available for debate.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Has the special branch reported to the Prime Minister that in Liverpool, Bootle and elsewhere unemployed people are being recruited to fight as mercenaries in Nicaragua? Has the special branch also reported that those who are recruiting these people were also involved in recruiting mercenaries to fight in Angola? What kind of surveillance—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must ask for a debate on this matter.
Mr. Roberts: I am asking for a debate on it, Mr. Speaker. I should like to be told in a statement next week what surveillance the special branch has kept over those people who are still in this country who were involved in recruiting mercenaries for Angola. This is not a laughing matter. Many of the young unemployed people in my constituency have been approached. If they are on heroin, they are easy prey to this kind of recruitment. A statement is necessary.
Mr. Biffen: I shall refer to my relevant right hon. Friend that request for a statement. As to a debate, I think that the hon. Gentleman will be disposed to take the opportunities offered by the recess Adjournment debate.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: As I assume that Her Majesty's Government continue to feel constrained by the wise provisions of the United Nations charter, which prohibit us from looking at the domestic affairs of sovereign states, and as I assume that our interests in countries abroad is mainly confined to the influence of events there on our investment and trading interests, and if, as seems likely, my right hon. Friend concedes a debate on South Africa, may I ask that it include civil order in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole?
Mr. Biffen: I shall take that request into account when any arrangements are concluded for such a debate.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: In view of the trenchant all-party criticism by the Public Accounts Committee report published today on the future of the royal dockyards in Rosyth and Devonport and the financial basis of the Government's options, and the Committee's statement about the inadequacy of the information provided to Parliament on those options, will the Leader of the House undertake that the Secretary of State for Defence will make a statement to the House setting out the financial thinking before he takes any decision on the matter, certainly before the recess?
Mr. Biffen: All reports from the Public Accounts Committee are subject to a proper and measured response from Government Departments. I am sure that that will be the case in this instance.
Mr. Harry Greenway: If it is possible to have an early statement on the teachers' pay dispute,

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may it be broad enough to take account of meetings such as the one that took place in outer London last week? It was addressed by the Labour party's spokesman on education, somebody from the National Union of Teachers, members of Militant Tendency, and sacked miners. It was a small meeting, at which a spokesman said that he was delighted that strikes were taking place at 14 schools in the area, including two special schools. Should not we look hard at the damage that is being done to children's education by the Labour party and such statements?
Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I understand that he is requesting a statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. I shall draw my right hon. Friend's attention to his observations.
Dr. Jeremy Bray: Is the Leader of the House aware that a very important meeting of the Council of steel Ministers in Europe is scheduled for 26 July and that the Government expect to receive the British Steel Corporation's corporate plan at the end of July? Does he agree that it would be most unfortunate if we were to go into the recess with any doubt hanging over the future of Llanwern, Port Talbot and Ravenscraig? Will he make sure that a Minister makes a statement before the House goes into recess guaranteeing the future of those great works?
Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly represent that point of view to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
Mr. Gerrard Neale: Does my right hon. Friend accept that in the west country there is considerable doubt and confusion resulting from the decision of the Select Committee of both Houses on the Okehampton bypass, which continues to frustrate the decision made by the inspector in a full and fair public inquiry? Will he press upon my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport the urgent need to make a statement so that the doubt and confusion are brought to an end immediately?
Mr. Biffen: I happily comply with that request.
Mr. Brian Sedgemore: In view of the widespread concern that has been expressed about the conduct of Treasury Ministers and civil servants in the Johnson Matthey Bankers collapse, will the Leader of the House guarantee that there will be a debate before we rise for the summer recess?
Mr. Biffen: I am in no position to make such a guarantee in respect of Government time. Other opportunities are available to the hon. Gentleman. Knowing him as I do, I expect him to take advantage of them.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page), and as the Water (Fluoridation) Bill has been extensively debated, in every aspect and at interminable length, may we have an undertaking from my right hon. Friend that when it returns to the House from the other place it will be guillotined, in the interests of the majority?
Mr. Biffen: At this stage all that I can say is that I note with great interest the silent majority now becoming rather more vocal.
Mr. Kevin Barron: Can the Leader of the House rearrange the timetable for next week so that we may have a debate on the Select Committee of Employment report about the National Coal Board's dismissal of employees? This matter is very pressing. At least 80 per cent. of those people sacked by the board are not in the category that the Prime Minister and other Ministers shout about from the Dispatch Box—that they are in a position to be found guilty of violent crimes. Some of them have never been in front of a court. This House ought to debate the report on the dismissals as soon as possible, and certainly before the recess, because the situation has given rise to a lot of hardship and low morale in the coal industry.
Mr. Biffen: I cannot undertake to rearrange next week's business to accommodate a debate upon the Select Committee report. That is not because of any unease about the Committee's report; it is primarily because the programme we have already announced is drawn tightly with a view to the House rising on 26 July. There is simply not room for endless additional debates.
Mr. Roger Sims: Several weeks have elapsed since my right hon. Friend reacted sympathetically to my request for a debate on the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs about the plight of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. Will he give the House an opportunity to discuss this matter? May I also draw his attention to the increasing interest in the country about the establishment of family courts? Will he give the House an opportunity to consider that important issue?
Mr. Biffen: I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend, but there is no prospect of Government time being made available for those two topics in the near future. As he knows, we will have the recess Adjournment motion and the subsequent Adjournment debates, and those could well give rise to consideration of those topics.
Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: May I press the Leader of the House further on two aspects of the change in the immigration rules? Does he agree that it is important to have a debate before the House rises for the summer recess? Secondly, could he give an undertaking that such a debate would be separate from the problem of the Tamils on which there is a prayer in the names of my right hon. Friends? It is a totally separate issue.
Mr. Biffen: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. I hope that I will be able to satisfy him on it.
Mr. Greville Janner: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the fact that the wages council regulations which the Government are proposing to repeal contain about the only statutory minimum rights to holidays which exist in our law? Are we to have a debate on those regulations before the House rises, and will we have a debate on the deplorable lack of holiday rights of people in this country?
Mr. Biffen: I regret that there is no prospect of Government time being made available for a debate on those topics.
Mr. Robert Parry: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen early-day motion 791—
[That this House applauds the local councils of Liverpool, Lambeth and Edinburgh, and other local authorities, who are prepared to struggle to defend jobs and services on behalf of ordinary decent people; recognises that Government legislation and policy leaves these local authorities with no alternative but to conduct a campaign to defend working people, existing in hopeless conditions; and, in acknowledging the enormous advances being made in places like Liverpool, in house building and urban renewal, thus creating employment in the public and private sector, calls on the Government to draw back from its attacks on these local authorities.]—
and early-day motion 847—
[That this House condemns the Government's policies towards local authorities, with their centralised controls and financial penalties, and therefore fully supports those councillors like the Labour councillors in the Liverpool City Council who have made a rate, based on the needs of the people of Liverpool, but who, in the process, are forced to make a stand against Government policy; points out clearly that, if the Government's policies were supported in Liverpool, it would mean cuts in local services and create increased unemployment amongst council workers, in an urea which already has extremely high levels of unemployment; and calls on the Government to restore the rate support grant that has been taken away from the Liverpool City Council, to increase the housing investment programme which has been cut, and to urge the district auditor to drop his present action against councillors.]
Motion 791 is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mr. Fields) and motion 847 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer).
In view of speculation in the media that the House may be recalled because of the situation in Liverpool and that emergency legislation has been prepared, will the Leader of the House allow an emergency debate as soon as soon as possible, and will he state whether legislation has been prepared and whether the commissioner is ready to go to Liverpool?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman has touched on an important point, but it would not help if I were to speculate on the use of legislation. I fear that there is such a shortage of Government time for debate over the next couple of weeks that, if the topic is to be raised, it will have to be raised by the hon. Member using such opportunities as he possesses.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will the Leader of the House try to accommodate a number of the Members who have raised matters of importance so that they may be dealt with before the recess? One fairly easy way out would be to reduce the three months' holiday that Members of Parliament have just been allocated. That is not the most popular suggestion around, but if we were to reduce it we could have a debate on the Tamils, a debate on the National Health Service, a debate on an amnesty of miners who have been sacked, and a day or two-day debate on that squalid business about Johnson Matthey and all the fraudulent activities within it. We could have a right old time, even if we had only another week.
Mr. Biffen: I am slightly concerned at the prospect of a Bolsover benefit week when all these topics would be poured on us, particularly as we now learn that the hon. Gentleman views the three months in prospect as holiday time. There are very few hon. Members who pack up and go on holiday for three months at the end of July. The hon. Gentleman may make an annual pilgrimage to Skegness, but for most of us it is back to our constituencies, and we see very little of the rest of the world.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Could some room be found for the Foreign Secretary to make a statement on his return from South America? If such a statement were possible, could the right hon. and learned Gentleman deal with the question of serious over-fishing in the South Atlantic by virtually every country in the world except the British and the Argentines? For example, the Taiwanese, Bulgarians, Koreans and Russians—virtually everybody except ourselves—are running riot in relation to fishing stocks. Will he also react to the statement in the second item of today's BBC news, of which admittedly we do not have the full text, to the effect that predictably and predicted, foreseeably and foreseen, the Argentines have said "No" to the initiative that has been taken in relation to imports in the absence of any discussion on sovereignty?
Mr. Biffen: I take note of the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, and I shall certainly refer them to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: In view of the impropriety, immorality and, indeed, illegality of the prime purpose rule, and in the light of the Prime Minister's unconcerned and superficial response to me on a question to do with this matter the other day, may I back the Leader of the Opposition's insistence that the House have an opportunity to debate this whole matter before we go into the recess?
Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly look into that matter.
Dr. Brian Mawhinney: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for the Home Secretary to make a statement next week so that he can inform the House when he intends to introduce legislation to deprive drug traffickers of their ill-gotten profits?
Mr. Biffen: I shall refer that point to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.
Mr. Roland Boyes: Has the Leader of the House had an opportunity to read the comments of Mr. Robert Caton, the chairman of the Association of Charity Officers, that the Government's new regulations for payments for the elderly and disabled in residential accommodation are leading to a shortfall of £20 a week in rest homes and £70 in nursing homes? Has he also read the comments of Christian Wolmar and Jonathan Foster in The Observer last week that the Prime Minister's recent answer to the Leader of the Opposition showed that she did not fully understand the regulations? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to withdraw these terrible and damaging regulations until Ernst and Whinney, the management consultants, have had an opportunity to look at the levels of payments?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman returns to a subject that on several recent occasions has featured in his requests. I shall of course refer his points to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Last week the right hon. Gentleman intimated that before the House rises for the summer recess there would be a debate on the position of Tamil asylum seekers and refugees as well as the visa restrictions. As far as I understand, he has failed to give a categorical assurance of a debate on the immigration rules announced in yesterday's statement by the Home Secretary. Will he now give a categorical assurance that before the House rises there will be a debate which will include the question of the Tamil asylum seekers, the unprecedented visa restrictions on anyone wishing to leave Sri Lanka and the implementation of yesterday's announcement by the Home Secretary in relation to a European Court decision?
Mr. Biffen: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, which is a repeat of what he said last week. I can best help him by referring to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft).
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Why should the Leader of the house suggest that the debate on Johnson Matthey take place in Opposition time when the Government are £200 million on risk? Surely the debate should take place in Government time. Is it not fair to say that over the past three months the Government have deliberately set out to engineer a failure to debate this matter because they have so much to hide?
Mr. Biffen: I find the innuendo not appropriate to these exchanges. I think that Hansard will reveal that I said that there would be no opportunity for debate in Government time until the end of July.
Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that information has come to me that an action of interdict is to be commenced in the Court of Session in Edinburth tomorrow against the sale of the trustee savings bank? In the circumstances, what plan has he for the debate he has announced for Monday evening?
Mr. Biffen: I received a letter to that effect just before I came into the Chamber. I will look at the matter as a matter of urgency and get in touch with the right hon. Gentleman.

ESTIMATES DAY
[3RD ALLOTTED DAY]—considered
ESTIMATES DAY
  Estimates 1985–86
    Department of the Environment

      Class VII, Vote 1
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      That a further sum not exceeding £1,151,288,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on subsidies, the option mortgage scheme, improvements and investment, grants to housing associations and the Housing Corporation and sundry other housing services.— [Sir George Young.]
      Mr. Speaker: I understand it will be convenient for the House to discuss also the following Estimates: class VII, vote 2, class VIII, vote 2; class VIII, vote 3; class VIII, vote 5; class XIV, vote 1
      4.3 pm
      Sir Hugh Rossi: Last year and again this year the Select Committee on the Environment has produced two reports, one commenting on the main Estimates of the Department of the Environment and the other on the main Estimates of the Property Services Agency. I wish to draw the attention of the House to those reports, published on 22 May, which are noted on today's Order Paper. In preparing them the Committee has scrutinised closely the whole range of Estimates concerned and taken evidence from officials. The work is laborious but necessary and we have been charged to do it by the House because of the way in which, in the past, vast amounts of public money have been voted annually without debate.
      The results of our scrutiny may not attract widespread public interest and are the reverse of sensational. Nevertheless, they are of value in Parliament's work of scrutiny of expenditure by the Executive.
      I shall start with the Department of the Environment. We looked first at some matters on which we commented in our two reports of last year. The Government have not yet remedied the situation that dog licences cost substantially more to issue than the revenue that they raise. The net cost is still in the order of £3·4 million a year. There has been a consultation paper following our last year's report but no action has so far been taken. We consider that the House should not be asked to vote further Supply for this wasteful purpose next year, although we are giving the Government a little more time this year and do not seek a reduction of the vote. The Government must make up their mind to abolish the licence or to introduce a new cost-effective system for the care and control of dogs along the lines of the working party paper produced in 1976.
      The Committee returned again to our criticism that some expenditure is being incurred on a regular basis by the Department under the sole authority of the Appropriation Acts. This situation has not been remedied. For example, £850,000 is being paid to various international bodies without any specific statutory authority, and this seems to be a common practice in most

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      Departments. The Committee regards this as unsatisfactory, and if corrective action is not taken before next year's Estimates the House should consider very seriously whether or not it is prepared to vote money in this way.
      Last year we also drew attention to the considerable over-claiming of housing subsidy by local authorities. We are pleased to learn that the Department has made changes in this sector which should have the effect of reducing over-claiming of the kind of levels unavoidable in any system of paying in advance. We feel that to abate claims where audited returns are not submitted in a reasonable time is a correct way forward.
      We were not happy as a Committee about the state of housing maintenance. It seems certain that there is a very large backlog both in the private and in the public sectors. The level of local authority expenditure in improvement grants is falling. It is true that the Government have issued a consultative paper upon which comments were due last Tuesday, but the time has been further extended. It is not clear what the position is in the public sector from any of the evidence we have been able to adduce. In fact, there is a lack of information about the precise dimensions of the whole problem.
      It is true that there is to be a house condition survey in 1986. I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that the information collected will be in a form that can be compared with the results of the last survey. If we have to accept that resources available for renovation are limited, it is all the more important to have a clear picture of the problem and to deploy the resources available to the best possible advantage.
      We commented in our report upon the provision of sites for gipsy caravans. Such sites are provided for 65 per cent. of caravans, so there is a substantial shortage. Most of us are familiar with the kind of problems that this gives rise to. We also felt concerned that some local authorities were using the grant, which has a heavy Exchequer reimbursement element in it, not for true travellers but as a cheap means of rehousing families who would otherwise have to come off their general housing waiting list. I hope that the Minister will look into this much neglected area of his Department's activities.
      Also of importance is the inadequate provision made by the Department and local authorities for those who are prepared to move their homes in search of work. At present local authorities make available only 1 per cent. of their new lettings for people coming into their areas from other parts of the country. That does not encourage mobility of labour. We have therefore made a modest proposal that the figure should be raised to 2 per cent. I realise the difficulties for local authorities in giving increased priority to one group as against another in allocating their housing resources, but 1 per cent. is a very pathetic figure at a time of high unemployment. Perhaps the Government could provide some financial inducement to authorities which are prepared to do more and penalise those which are not.
      We have some comments to make upon the development corporations in Liverpool and London. In Liverpool, no evaluation seems to have been made of the imaginative experiments of the Liverpool international garden festival, and this should have been done. We need to know whether money spent in this way is the best way to help to regenerate areas of urban blight.
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      In London, we were disturbed by the evidence that the administrative costs of the London Docklands development corporation appear to be 20 per cent. of its total costs, while the comparable figure for the Merseyside development corporation was only 8 per cent. There may be good reasons for this disparity, and if so they should be spelt out. We hope that the Minister will be able to give us further enlightenment or promises to carry out an investigation into this discrepancy.
      I shall now deal with the Property Services Agency. There is another backlog of maintenance in the public estates administered by the PSA, and that is expected to grow in the coming year. The danger is that neglected work will give rise to greater expenditure in the future than if it were tackled immediately. No doubt the Minister will plead a lack of resources, but in that case it is necessary to ensure that the available money is being spent in the most effective way.
      In accordance with the current practice in the Civil Service of giving local managers more responsibility for expenditure on the resources that they are using, the PSA has been delegating maintenance work to individual Departments. At present, Departments can spend up to £1,000 on a job without reference to the PSA. This figure is too small, and it is indicative, we felt on hearing the evidence, of the reluctance on the part of the PSA to relax its monopoly on the facile excuse that Government Departments are incapable of supervising contract work in excess of the derisory figure of £1,000 a job. We are convinced that much more value for money is to be obtained by increasing local managers' responsibility in the various Government Departments.
      The main observations in our report are concerned with the relationships between the PSA and the Departments. Under the two-year-old property repayment services system, Departments are now charged a rental by the PSA for the accommodation they occupy, whether the property is in the Government's direct ownership or belongs to a private landlord to whom the PSA pays rent. An oddity is that the rentals collected by the PSA are paid straight into the Consolidated Fund and are not credited to the agency in the Estimates. If they were, a more realistic profit and loss account would be produced and surplus rents could be put into reserve to finance further acquisitions when appropriate.
      I appreciate that the purpose of the property repayment service system is essentially to encourage Departments to appreciate the value of the accommodation that they happen to occupy and therefore make any appropriate economies which that knowledge can bring about. However, there are shortcomings in the way that the system operates in practice, if only in the great amount of paperwork that it seems to generate. The Committee came to the conclusion that it would like to see a civil accommodation account for the PSA, set out on commercial lines with past capital expenditure, current expenditure and revenue all taken properly into account. This would enable a far more accurate assessment of the Government's property portfolio.
      The Government have continued their policy of transferring design work from the PSA to outside consultants. As far as the Committee could tell, the change is resulting in increased costs. We are told that this is a short-term phenomenon and that the introduction of fee competition between consultants that took place in 1984 will reduce the costs entirely. Clearly, this part of

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      expenditure calls for continuing close scrutiny. I hope that the Minister will assure us that he is not allowing consultancy firms to take him for a ride.
      Mr. Richard Alexander: My hon. Friend has given us an excellent resumé of the Committee's views and I do not wish to add much. However, does he agree that too narrow a range of consultants is being asked to make tenders, and that only large organisations are being asked? Are there not many people operating on a much smaller base who could do the work just as well, and probably a great deal more cheaply than the big boys are doing it at the moment?
      Sir Hugh Rossi: My hon. Friend is a member of the Committee and has taken a close interest in this aspect. There is a great deal of merit in his proposition. I anticipate that my hon. Friend the Minister may take the view that it is necessary to maintain the balance between firms of proven worth and whose which are unknown but nevertheless may offer services at a reduced fee. The Department could well examine that more carefully with a view to widening the range of people with whom the PSA is prepared to do business.
      The Committee had several comments about our examination of the PSA's expenditure on major new works. I am glad that, despite the criticisms that we have made in other parts, we were able to congratulate the agency on the much better presentation of this year's material than last year's. However, we still have reservations as to the way in which the Treasury makes money available for purchasing properties when they come onto the market on advantageous terms.
      From the evidence that we received from officials, it seems that, practically, this can be done in current circumstances only if the PSA has an unexpected shortfall on expenditure on other works. This is a hit and miss way to buy property that comes on the market on good terms, and not an intelligent way to operate a property portfolio. To this extent, my previous remarks about a civil accommodation account on a proper commercial basis, giving credit for all rents payable by Departments, would be a way in which a fund could be built up, as happens in the private sector, in order to buy a property at the right time.
      We feel that Departments should be strongly discouraged, when giving new contracts, from altering their specification for new projects after the time when financial provision for them has been made in the Estimates. Failure to discourage them makes the original Estimates presented to the House meaningless, and that is one of the criticisms that the Committee had to make strongly.
      Mr. David Alton: The hon. Gentleman is advancing his case eloquently. I underline what he just said by reiterating our experience when we debated the Estimates last year. We were much concerned about possible corruption in the PSA, but are now concerned with incompetence. If accounts are badly presented and if people have written into those accounts estimates that fall well short of the final figure, is it any wonder that people misrepresent that as corruption?
      Sir Hugh Rossi: The PSA itself talked about corruption, which caused it concern and which was the
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      subject of investigation by another Committee of the House. Steps are being taken to deal with any corruption, but much still remains to be done about the presentation of the Estimates. Perhaps the PSA is a prisoner of Treasury conventions, some of which we criticise in our report.
      The Select Committee is glad to have had the opportunity of examining the Estimates. It has been of value to us to range across all the Department's activities. We hope that the results of our work will also be of some value to the House and, of course, to the Department.
      4.21 pm
      Mr. David Alton: I am pleased to follow the excellent presentation by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), the Chairman of the Select Committee. All members of the Select Committee, from whichever party, would commend to the House his diligence in chairing the Select Committee and his taskmaster approach.
      I shall deal with four matters, starting with the Property Services Agency. There is undoubtedly a need for continuing close scrutiny of the PSA. I trust that the Minister will be able to give us the assurance that he was unable to give last year—that the many shortcomings in the PSA have been put right.
      PSA officials appeared before the Select Committee and it was clear to all of us that its accounting methods were unsatisfactory. We discovered many examples, if not of bad housekeeping, of bad presentation. That is why the memory of Sir Geoffrey Wardale's report, which dealt with corruption in the PSA, still hangs over that organisation. He concluded that the organisation of the PSA had not been put right and that many defects and examples of inefficiency and incompetence still existed. He also said that he could not be sure that corruption had been ended. That is clearly a matter for the Department of the Environment.
      The contrast between the retaliatory measures which the Government take against local authorities and against the PSA is considerable. Within their own house, the Government are often not as scrupulous about obtaining value for money and dealing with inefficiency and incompetence as they are when challenging local authorities, which, on the whole, have given far better value for money than the PSA.
      I commend to the House the recommendation on the civil accommodation account. This method of presenting accounts would ensure that some of the criticisms of the PSA that we have made over the past two years would not need to be made again.
      The Chairman of the Select Committee talked about gipsy sites. Many local authorities have failed to implement the terms of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. The reason for that is that the legislation is not mandatory, and many local authorities do not implement it. Those local authorities which have chosen to implement it have attracted travellers and gipsies to their areas. This allows other local authorities to pretend that they have no problem and that there is no need for them to make provision.
      Many authorities which have provided sites also have many other pressing social issues to deal with. On Merseyside, the Liverpool city council with all-party agreement, provided a site at considerable public expense, while other adjacent authorities, such as the Wirral and Sefton, made no such provision. Liverpool's problems in connection with travelling people have increased as a

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      result of its attempts to tackle the problem, whereas other authorities which have done nothing do not attract the problems.
      Mr. Robert B. Jones: The experience on Merseyside appears to be different from that in my area. Those authorities which have achieved designation are able to control the problem, but those which have not yet provided sites end up with a flood of gipsies who have been moved on from designated areas. Perhaps the situation is different in different parts of the country.
      Mr. Alton: I was about to make that point. No clear lines can be drawn and the problem does vary in different parts of the country. Merseyside and other areas with ports of entry, especially from the Republic of Ireland, have particular problems.
      It is clear that the legislation is not being uniformly implemented throughout the country and that some local authorities are getting away with making no provision, while others have to bear the brunt. That is clearly unsatisfactory.
      I agree that more needs to be done to evaluate the work of development corporations. I admit that I was sceptical about establishing development corporations. I was nervous that the Merseyside development corporation would simply try to take the place of the local authority and that it would lead to the further erosion of local democracy. I am glad to be able to say that the work done by the development corporation on Merseyside, especially in connection with the international garden festival, has been spectacularly successful. I pay special tribute to all those involved, including Basil Bean, the chief executive of the development corporation, who is soon to move to another post. He has been a driving force, like Sir Leslie Young, who, as chairman, was the corporation's local anchor. He understood local commerce and problems and tried to take into account local political sensitivities.
      If the development corporation is to continue to be successful, we must broaden the board to ensure that all local political opinion is taken into account. I am pleased that Mr. John Smith has accepted the deputy chairmanship of the corporation, but I emphasise that some people on Merseyside are worried because the political weight of the corporation does not take into account the views of people outside the Conservative party. That could bring discredit upon the corporation.
      Apart from improving democratic accountability and ensuring that political opinions are properly represented, I agree with the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green about the need to evaluate the work of the development corporations. I should like to know how many jobs have been created on Merseyside as a result of the garden festival. Much was said in advance about it providing a stimulus to employment. In that sense, the garden festival has not been as successful as it was in terms of being a major land reclamation project. About £30 million of public money has been spent. We should be given some idea of the cost effectiveness of such projects and of how useful they are in stimulating local commercial recovery.
      I hope that the development corporation will be encouraged to continue its work in redeveloping the south dock area of Liverpool and to establish the northern Tate
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      gallery at Albert dock. I hope that adequate funds will be made available to enable the corporation to complete some of its imaginative projects.
      Dealing finally with direct labour organisations, many do not provide value for money. That was made clear to us by witnesses from the Department, the PSA and local government. In the two years that I have served on the Select Committee, I have become ever more convinced —even more than when I served as chairman of the housing committee in Liverpool — that we must find other ways of managing large areas of municipal housing.
      I was brought up in a flat on a council estate and I am well aware of the way in which council property can meet the needs of those who come from the poorest backgrounds and cannot afford to buy their own homes. There will always be a role for public sector housing, but the way in which that housing is managed and maintained should be further considered by Parliament and by the Select Committee of which I have the privilege to be a member.
      Mr. Chris Smith: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should reflect carefully on what he just said. He implied that council housing was appropriate only for the poorest section of the community who cannot afford to buy their own homes. Surely a major principle of council housing is that it is based on need and not on income. Rather than going for the ghettoisation effect of public housing as in the United States, which the hon. Gentleman implies, we should be going for a broader spread of social background for council housing.
      Mr. Alton: I was implying that there should be as much diversity in housing as we can achieve. If people do not have a need, I would prefer that they were not reliant on public sector housing. I want to see the dismantling of municipal empires, with control being handed over to tenants living on estates, particularly through housing cooperatives. I want to see more opportunity for self-build and for low-cost homes for sale. As many people as possible should be able to enjoy the comfort of decent housing.
      Some of the worst housing conditions in my city are, I am afraid to say, in municipal housing, and that situation has pertained under all administrations. That has happened because those who live in that housing often do not feel that they have a stake in the community. In other words, they do not feel that their homes belong to them.
      That is why we must hand over as much property as possible, to the tenants on council estates through a radical system of decentralisation, especially supporting housing co-operatives. Indeed, the best clerks of works, as it were, who are able to get value for money, are the people who live on those council estates.
      The Government's present policy of simply selling off council houses is not the answer. Equally, the action of Labour authorities in cities such as mine in preventing people from forming housing co-operatives is diametrically opposed to the best interests of the people. I want diversity, coupled with value for money. That is why I say that the best clerks of works are those who live on council estates. If they are given control of their homes, they will get value for money when they hire labour for maintenance purposes.
      I am depressed by the present state of much council accommodation, not only in my city, but throughout the country. People are often obliged to live in damp, squalid

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      conditions, and that can have an enormous effect on family life. People can be driven to the depths of despair because of the conditions in which they are forced to live. The Government should provide more resources to tackle these problems. They should also encourage the establishment of housing co-operatives and the dismantling of large corporations.
      It is clear that, in this sphere, bigger is not better. Of the 70,000 council properties in my city, 6,000 are currently lying empty. I have in the past highlighted examples of houses — fortunately they have now been demolished—which had stood empty for 23 years. I believe that the local authority had even forgotten that it actually owned those properties. That is what can happen when council ownership grows like Topsy and direct labour organisations and municipalities decide what is best for the people living in their houses. We need a more radical approach.
      Too much emphasis has been laid in the past simply on the problems of the public sector, as the Select Committee points out. In many parts of inner cities the challenge will come in housing action and general improvement areas, where progress has come largely as the result of progressive legislation enacted by the last Labour Government and as the result of grants provided by the present Government.
      The Minister frequently tells us about the amount of money that has been made available for improvement grants, but because of the reduction now being made in improvement grants, the work done in the 1970s and early 1980s is being put at risk in housing action areas. We shall end up with a patchwork quilt of housing renovation and decay. In other words, by being pennywise and poundfoolish we are wasting a great deal of public money that has already been invested in those areas.
      About 400,000 building workers are today languishing on the dole. Public money is being paid to them to remain idle. The cost of leaving people unemployed, of paying benefit and of lost income tax which they would otherwise be paying, coupled with the cost of private and public sector housing, is enormous. I cannot understand the logic of such economics and I hope that the Government will reconsider their approach both to public and private sector housing. They must stop using housing as an economic barometer for their monetary idealogies.
      I again pay tribute to the Chairman of, and my colleagues on, the Select Committee. It is vital work to examine public accounts. It is important for Select Committees to act as the watchdogs and guardians of the public purse. We have discharged that responsibility in the way that the House would expect.
      Hon. Members must one day give serious consideration to improving the powers of Select Committees so that they can do more, perhaps by way of directly stimulating change and initiating legislation. I hope that at some future time it will not simply be a question of the Chairman of our Select Committee putting points to the Minister, but that he will have a chance to initiate the changes which both he and we know are necessary.
      4.38 pm
      Mr. Norman Miscampbell: The point that I wish to make, while specific, might be felt to be narrow. However, for those who are affected, it is a point of great importance.
      We referred last year to the cost of dog licences, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) commented on the subject in his remarks today. I congratulate him on the quality of his speech. He said that nothing had been done about the matter, and it is true that, while we have had a consultation paper, nothing appears to be happening in relation to dog licences.
      Nor is it simply a question of revenue, although it seems ludicrous to raise only a fraction of the cost of providing the licences. However, I should have thought that, if for no other purpose than that of revenue, the course that I shall urge would commend itself to the Government.
      There is more to it than finance. In recent weeks in Blackpool there have been two cases of toxocariasis, a disease which causes blindness. It arises through dog dirt. Almost inevitably, and tragically, children come in contact with it in the parks and elsewhere, although it can affect anybody. Of the two cases in Blackpool, one resulted in total blindness, and in the other a child lost an eye. When a parent sends his or her children to play in the park and finds that that is the result of what is considered to be an innocent occupation, the trauma is difficult to overestimate.
      It is essential that a proper licence fee is charged that induces some responsibility. That would help in large measure. Secondly, the Government should bear in mind that the burden of policing parks rests firmly upon the shoulders of local authorities. A substantial proportion of the new sum that is raised should be given specifically to the authorities which have the responsibility, the difficulty and the expense. The sum should be additional to any other moneys that they receive. It should be given to them specifically to assist them to meet their difficulties. That will help them properly to police and control the parks.
      When a licence is granted, we cannot say to the dog owner, "You must produce a veterinary certificate which states that your dog has been wormed." Perhaps that would be too expensive a requirement to put upon dog owners, although it might be a sensible course to take. I have a dog, and I would be only too pleased to give such an undertaking. However, when a licence is issued there should be a requirement that the owner produces a receipt to show that he has bought the appropriate powders. If he has bought them, it is almost inevitable that they will have been used. That requirement would not impose an onerous obligation.
      First, we should introduce a licence fee that will make people responsible for their dogs. It is often the dog that is straying that causes trouble. Secondly, a proportion of the revenue so raised should be given to local authorities to assist them to control their parks. Thirdly, there should be some proof that a dog has been properly wormed. If these steps are taken, the tragedies that we have experienced in Blackpool will not recur.
      4.42 pm
      Mr. Chris Smith: I agree with much that the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) has said, but I shall

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      not take up his remarks because I wish to refer to two other matters and I do not want to waste too much of the time of the House.
      The Select Committee questioned officials of the Department of the Environment about the right-to-buy scheme for tenants of charitable housing associations. The scheme was introduced under the terms of the Housing and Building Control Act 1984. It involves tenants of charitable housing associations who are not able to purchase the accommodation in which they currently reside being able to purchase accommodation on the private market with a grant from the housing association which is equivalent to the discount which they would have received if they had been council tenants or the tenants of a non-charitable housing association exercising their right to buy their present dwelling.
      I asked the officials to tell me how much money was laid aside in the Estimates for the cost of the grants and where the money was to come from. The response from the officials was unsatisfactory. I have it in print in front of me. It reads:
      "The cost of the discounts under this scheme is met by Exchequer grant in the form of a housing association grant paid to the housing association through which the tenant arranges his purchase. Provision for it forms a small part, not specifically identified, of the overall provision for housing association grant in subhead El of class VII, 1."
      That means that the provision of money for grants to tenants of charitable housing associations exercising their rights under the scheme comes directly from the pool of money that is available to housing associations for the development of new and improved property to rent. In other words, the amount of money is crucial. We are told that the cost of the grants is only a small part of the overall provision, and it appears that no specific estimate is made of the cost of the scheme. This is a crucial issue, because the cost of the scheme will be deducted from the overall sum that is made available for association grant purposes by the associations for the development of new and improved property.
      I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some rather more satisfactory answers than those which were given by his officials. I invite him to tell us how much money is expected to be paid under housing association grants to tenants of housing associations who are not able to purchase the accommodation in which they are living and who purchase on the private market. I hope that he will give us the total for this year and the sum that is expected to be paid next year. The issue is crucial for the purpose of housing association development this year and next.
      Mr. Robert B. Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that everyone who moves out of a charitable housing association flat or house creates a vacancy by taking advantage of the scheme? Each vacancy is created at much less cost to the Exchequer than the building of a new flat or house. In creating lettings for the associations, the scheme provides a cheap alternative that offers value for money.
      Mr. Smith: I accept some of the premises in the hon. Gentleman's intervention, although he leaves out of account the calculation of mortgage tax relief, for example, which will become available to the person or family who move into the private sector. The person who moves out will obtain a mortgage and will be entitled to the relief which he is not receiving currently. The equation
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      is rather more complicated than the simple formulation which the hon. Gentleman presented, but his basic proposition is correct.
      If a family, an individual or a group of people move out of a unit of accommodation and that unit becomes available for letting by the charitable housing association, a vacancy will be created at less cost to the Exchequer than the building of a new flat or house. However, money will have been taken out of the overall pool that is available for the development of new accommodation and new schemes. That worries many housing associations and those who are waiting for association accommodation. I hope that we shall have some serious and sensible answers in response to this small but important issue.
      The Government have riot been spending very much money on housing over the past few years. I tabled a parliamentary question about a year and a half ago seeking comparative figures. My question asked the Government to use a base date of 1977. I accept that the trend has been similar under Governments of both political persuasions, as I am sure the Minister will hasten to remind us. Nevertheless, the graph has steepened under the present Government. I asked the Government to start with a base date of 1976–77 and to state, against a figure of 100, what had happened to elements of Government expenditure from that base date. The answer revealed that under almost all headings public expenditure was within the 90 to 110 level. Some items of expenditure had decreased slightly and some had increased slightly.
      There has been a dramatic increase in public expenditure on defence and social security. The social security increases are a direct result of the amount of unemployment benefit that is paid out. In one respect alone there has been a dramatic fall from 100 to 30—a cut to less than a third. That was housing.
      The record of the past 10 years is not a proud one. We can see the results throughout Britain. Houses and fiats are in an appalling condition, with people having to live in damp, mouldy, difficult, overcrowded accommodation without any hope of being able to move out into something better for themselves and their children. Many people throughout Britain, including my constituency, are having to endure those difficulties.
      About a month ago the Minister for Housing and Construction went to Islington to see some of the housing conditions for himself. He saw what the local authority, against all the odds—in the face of continuing cuts in the housing investment programme and constraints on capital expenditure—has assiduously been trying to do. In many cases it has been producing good accommodation, but it is able to do far too little in the face of the enormous problems of those who need accommodation.
      Even if the Under-Secretary of State and his civil servants are not prepared to admit that the overall levels of HIP allocations are too low—they have consistently not been prepared to accept this—and to admit that the constraints on the spending of capital receipts are an economic absurdity and a cruel deceit for the people living in inadequate and insubstantial accommodation, perhaps they will accept that some specific problem areas need a specific allocation of funds.
      Mr. Tony Banks: I note what my hon. Friend is saying about housing stock in his borough of Islington. His borough has partnership status and is the seventh most deprived local authority area in

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      England, whereas my borough of Newham is the second most deprived area and has neither partnership nor programme status. Is that fair?
      Mr. Smith: I would certainly not advocate swapping Islington's partnership status for Newham's position. I know Newham well—of course, not as well as I know Islington—and am well aware of the urban dereliction there, the difficulties that face the people and the need for special Government attention and assistance. I look forward to the day when we have a Government who are more clear-sighted and humane than the present Government and who will not only pay attention to those problems in Newham, but will pay more assiduous attention to the problems in Islington, despite its partnership status.
      I draw the attention of the Under-Secretary of State to five specific problem areas where housing subsidy is inadequate and where the Government could undertake to give special assistance without necessarily breaching their overall approach to the HIP allocation system. I have tried so often in the past to convince the Government that this is a good cause, and failed, that I am rapidly giving up any hope that the Government will bend on this matter.
      First, the Government have been happy to rush legislation through the House to deal with housing defects in non-traditional blocks which have been badly, inadequately and dangerously built, to protect the interests of those tenants who have availed themselves of the right to buy and bought flats in such blocks, but they have not been prepared to recognise the difficulties and needs of the tenants in such blocks. Perhaps the Government are now giving some consideration to their needs and wishes.
      Secondly, the Government have consistently refused to acknowledge that asbestos in large quantities in large blocks, many of which were built during the 1950s and 1960s, is dangerous and should be removed, in the interests of the safety and health of the residents. They have refused to acknowledge that local authorities face a special difficulty in ensuring that the asbestos is removed properly and quickly. The Government have not been prepared to consider an ad hoc system of special grants for the removal of asbestos where it is found by the local authority. I am sure that local authorities would be prepared to have a system of Department of the Environment approval when the Department deems that to be necessary. Surely it would be more sensible to do that rather than leave local authorities with the job of having to meet the removal costs from their overall existing housing programmes. A special system should be implemented as quickly as possible to remove asbestos where it is dangerous.
      The third problem area is the inter-war estates. During his visit to Islington the Minister for Housing and Construction visited some of the inter-war estate blocks which have been renovated and transformed under the council's imaginative programme. I think that he was impressed. In assessing the housing needs of a particular area, the Government should recognise the considerable cost incurred by local authorities in transforming old blocks into better accommodation.
      Fourthly, the Government should consider the number of homeless people who apply every year to the local authorities for housing. The Government will say that this
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      is taken account of in the general needs index. The pressure on many inner city boroughs to provide housing is becoming so acute, especially in those boroughs which have resorted to using sordid and inadequate bed-and-breakfast accommodation, that they are often able to deal with only the problem of the homeless and not the needs of the other people in their areas who need better housing conditions. I hope that the Government will pay attention to that problem, which affects some parts of Britain more dramatically than others.
      Fifthly, I hope that the Government will give some recognition, not just to the non-traditional blocks but to the blocks that were constructed in concrete in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, where people are living in damp conditions and condensation is running down the walls. As any hon. Member who represents an inner city area will know, people are living in inadequate, poorly heated and poorly insulated accommodation which needs major renovation work if it is to be made a decent place in which to live.
      The Government are taking no account of those problems in the housing investment programme allocations, in their capital restraints or in any of their housing policies. Even if they want to keep the lid on public expenditure, they must realise that there are specific problems and that people are suffering tragically and need the concern, care and attention not just of their local authority, but of the Government, who control the nation's purse strings. I hope that the Government will give us some mileage today to show that, for once, they are awake to the fact that hundreds of thousands of families with children are living in appalling, substandard, inadequate and degrading accommodation. These people need something better and they are waiting for the Government to take action.
      5 pm
      Mr. Sydney Chapman: I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute briefly to the debate. I am glad to speak after the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) who always makes challenging speeches with great authority. I also join in congratulating the Chairman of the Environment Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), whose diligence is exceeded only by his qualities of chairmanship in the scrutiny of these Estimates, which are a less glamorous but vitally necessary part of the work of the Committee.
      I should like first to deal with that part of class VIII vote 3 which relates to urban development corporations and specifically to refer to the London Docklands development corporation. Under class VIII vote 3 there is an allocation of approximately £50·7 million for the corporation. That is one of the best possible investments of public money. It is marvellous to behold the regeneration taking place in this eight square miles of our capital city. It is not simply a matter of redeveloping land or converting warehouses or building new homes. The corporation is making superb environmental use of the greatest natural asset of the area —the Thames and its docklands.
      Mr. Tony Banks rose—
      Mr. Chapman: I shall give way shortly. I will continue with what I hope is not a peroration but a few facts. I will then give way to the hon. Gentleman as he is

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      the leader of our county council. The LDDC development must be seen in the context of the great public service infrastructure. The docklands light railway is a most interesting enterprise and £15 million is to be provided for that from the Estimates, towards a total cost of about £70 million. I am pleased that rapid progress is being made on that enterprise and I acknowledge the Government's commitment in giving the go-ahead for the STOLport.
      Mr. Tony Banks: The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) has touched on a subject that is very close to my heart and close to the interests of the residents of Newham. He mentioned that the LDDC was building houses. He must be aware that the majority of people living in Newham cannot afford to buy houses in the LDDC area. The Government have used the resources invested in the LDDC area as a reason for not allowing the borough of Newham partnership status. The 6 per cent. of Newham residents who live in the docklands area reap no benefit from the LDDC's activities.
      Mr. Chapman: I think that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is being slightly shortsighted. I bow to the hon. Gentleman's authority and knowledge of the area, but in my view the whole thrust of the provision of housing in the docklands is to cater for all income groups as far as is practicably possible. Various docklands trust schemes have been set up, as well as the more conventional and recently introduced concept of equity sharing, and these provide opportunities for people to start the process of home ownership on quite modest means in that part of our capital city.
      The hon. Gentleman's intervention gives me the opportunity to stress that what is taking place in the LDDC area is a classic example of what should happen in redevelopment—a marriage between private enterprise and public authorities. I am sure that co-operation is also happening in the Merseyside development corporation. Both private enterprise and public authorities bring their own special skills to the benefit of one another and to the satisfaction of the community.
      Although the estimate for the next year's public expenditure programme for the LDDC area is £50·7 millions, there is little doubt that previous expenditure, with this expenditure and future expenditure, is primarily responsible for bringing in private development. Private companies have already committed themselves to commercial and industrial development to the value of £140 million in the LDDC area. Four thousand homes have been started or completed and 180 new firms have come into the area since 1981, creating 4,000 new jobs.
      I have one query — not a criticism — about the relatively high level of expenditure allocated to administration and salaries for administration staff—20 per cent. of the £50·7 million total. I am told that those figures may not be correct. If they are not, someone must be held to account for providing misleading figures. Administration costs will necessarily be high because of the area in which the development is taking place. That £10 million of public money for administration should be seen in the context of private investment as well as public commitment.
      Mr. Alton: The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) has highlighted the argument by the Chairman of the Select Committee about the need to monitor and evaluate the success of the LDDC and the
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      Merseyside development corporation. An important difference between the two development corporations is that private enterprise has been successful in building homes in the LDDC area whereas no home provision has been made in the MDC area. Would it not be practical for the MDC to follow in the footsteps of the LDDC and to build houses?
      Mr. Chapman: I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) has greater experience of the MDC. I can speak with more authority about the LDDC than about the MDC. Home provision has proved to be a staggering success and that concept should be extended to other conurbations. I once wrote a very modest paper—so modest that it received little attention —pointing out that 15 years ago there was a case for earmarking certain areas of, for example, London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, to create special priority areas and so concentrate resources to redevelop and renovate and show what can be done.
      My second point relates to the housing subsidies mentioned by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury. Class VII vote 1 relates to housing improvement grants. It is not all gloom and doom in this sector of housing subsidies. I took the precaution of checking the figures. In 1978–79—I do not know why I chose that year—£90 million was spent on housing improvements grants. By 1983–84 the total outturn was £933 million. Last year it had gone down to £778 million. Nevertheless, these figures show that there has been a massive increase in resources devoted to one type of housing subsidy. Improvement grants are, by any criterion, a most cost-effective way to renovate, refurbish and rehabilitate our housing stock—and they provide jobs.
      I welcome the publication of the Green Paper, not because I think it has the complete answer or is an end in itself, but because it will create a framework for a better system for the most effective use of the significant resources devoted to this part of housing subsidy. There is a great case for ensuring, far more effectively than we have hitherto, that those resources go to the households that need them, rather than right across the board, irrespective of need.
      I turn finally to the whole question of capital expenditure, which covers all the classes and votes which are the subject of the various motions. According to what I was told recently, under the present Government, whereas current expenditure has increased in real terms by 8 per cent., capital expenditure has decreased by 4 per cent. in real terms. I know that capital expenditure decreased even more dramatically in the previous period, but that shows that the Government were starting from a low base.
      We must have a much more intelligently planned rolling expansion programme for our capital investment. We have managed to do it in defence and in the Health Service, so I cannot see why it should be beyond the wit of Government to try to isolate capital expenditure programmes from the general thrust of demand-led current expenditure in particular.
      The capital investment in the nation's infrastructure is cost effective, and I do not see why the Government cannot announce that next year there will be an increase of X per cent. in real terms and the following year a further increase of, say 1 per cent. beyond that, and stick rigorously to it.
      Mr. John Mark Taylor: I wonder whether my hon. Friend, in his well-intentioned enthusiasm, is losing sight of one point. The capital expenditure programmes to which he is referring are often assumed to be labour-intensive and therefore helpful in regard to unemployment. Will my hon. Friend accept that most of the capital expenditure programmes in construction and environment are anything but labour-intensive? Will he concede that point?
      Mr. Chapman: I concede it partly, in the sense that I withdraw the remark if I made it, but I do not think I said that I was advocating an expansion of capital investment programmes in the construction industry in particular because it was the most cost-effective way of providing employment. I am sorry if my hon. Friend thought I said that; I do not think that I did. What I said earlier was that increasing housing improvement grants is one of the most effective ways of providing employment in the construction industry.
      But I go further and suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) and, respectfully, to the House that what is important is not only the level of investment in the infrastructure programme of the construction industry but that the construction industry should know what it is so that it can plan ahead to try to achieve it.
      The House will know of my particular interest in construction and in the environment. I hope that the Government will find a more intelligent way of dealing with the programme for the construction industry, which is still our greatest industry, whether measured in terms of output or manpower.
      5.13 pm
      Mr. Kevin Barron: It is not often that I am able to say that I agree with part—if not all—of a speech by a Conservative Member, but I agree with the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) in regard to housing improvement grants and their consequential effect on employment locally. I am pleased that it is not only Opposition Members who are calling the Minister's attention to that matter. Great difficulties are being encountered in the attempts to improve housing in my constituency and in the area of the Rotherham metropolitan borough, and at the same time there is tremendous pressure on the housing investment programme.
      I wish to refer to two matters in the Estimates, one of which relates to housing. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) spoke about the way in which the Housing Defects Bill was rushed through the House last year. I should like to draw attention to the plight of people living in defective houses. They have seen the Government introducing legislation to deal with the problem which has arisen when people have bought a pig in a poke, but the Government have done nothing to give local authorities the ability to repair such houses, if indeed they are repairable.
      Hundreds of people in my constituency have bought housing direct from the Rotherham metropolitan borough council or from other public bodies in my constituency, such as the National Coal Board. They are still waiting for the Minister to introduce a proper reinstatement programme for Reema and Tarran houses, or alternatively to give money to my local authority for the repurchase of those houses if they cannot be reinstated.
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      The local authority is incurring expense in finding out exactly the plight of people and whether they would like to have their houses repurchased. I have in my hand six A4 size pages which were sent out in desperation by Rotherham metropolitan borough council, in May of this year, to tell the people who bought houses which are designated under the Housing Defects Act 1984 that at present very little can be done for them, apart from asking them to write to the council describing their circumstances, so that the council can decide whether such cases can be deemed to be emergencies and bought back.
      When the Act was passed, Rotherham council was told that there would be money available, although the assurance was not very specific. The Government's role in making money available for housing in Rotherham in the past five years has been a diminishing one. This year, the council has been able to build only 60 bungalows. That is in an area with a population of over 250,000. In the late 1970s, Rotherham was in the proud position that within a fortnight people could move into new homes if they were unable to buy on the private market. Since public authorities started to sell houses, the vast majority of people in my area have been unable to buy them.
      Not only has the council had to reduce its house building programme, but under the housing investment programme it cannot repair council house stock that needs repair. In addition, the council has not been given any money for the repurchase or reinstatement of houses designated under the Act.
      I understand that in May of this year the local authorities submitted information on what they deemed would be the cost of implementing the Housing Defects Act. I urge the Minister to tell the House whether any decision has been taken in relation to Rotherham and other areas which have a large number of defective houses on their hands. Can he tell my council when it will get the money, so that it can write to the people concerned and tell them exactly where they stand?
      In introducing the Housing Defects Bill, the Government, to put it mildly, put the cart before the horse. Hundreds of my constituents still do not know what is to happen. Some of them have had "For Sale" notices in their front gardens for over two years. Some people have been trying to sell houses and move up the housing market, but they have been denied the opportunity to do so. Although there is an Act, there is still no money for my local authority to carry out the legislation. I hope that the Minister will move quickly.
      Class VIII, vote 2, relates to grants to the British Waterways Board. For the first time since becoming a Member of the House, I have had to write to the board this week because of a decision that it has taken. I give credit where it is due, and I give it to the Government for their decree that all uses of canals should be reviewed. The board has said that, for 12 months, it must remove the rights of Kiveton Park angling club to fish in the Chesterfield canal in the south of my constituency. The club has had that right since 1909. It has received a letter from the board stating that the review must be enforced, even though fishing rights may be restored after 12 months.
      When aid is given to the British Waterways Board, the fact that the canals are not only used for transport but are a source of recreation should be taken into account. The South Yorkshire canal, which flows into Rotherham, has been used for many years for transport. but other canals,

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      such as the Chesterfield canal, are used for fishing. I ask the Minister to realise that recreational facilities on canals are important for many organisations and people. I hope that the Minister, under the aid given in the vote, will ensure that the recreational facilities and the need to improve canals are taken into account.
      Mr. Tam Dalyell: It is not just a matter of improving canals, but of maintaining them. In Scotland, canals are deteriorating quickly. Farmers in my constituency took me round last month to see the number of leaks in the deteriorating Victorian puddling. A huge amount of work is required to keep them in their present condition, let alone to improve them. Is the same problem developing after 150 years in my hon. Friend's constituency?
      Mr. Barron: My hon. Friend has raised a good point. I am not always in favour of them, but many voluntary organisations and canal societies have been working for generations to stop the natural erosion of canals. When money must be spent and there is a lot of work to be done, that work cannot be done by voluntary organisations. The Minister must recognise that any provisions for expenditure must cater for the leisure side as well as for transport, which is already well catered for.
      I would hate to suggest that all that the unemployed in my area have to do is to go fishing. There is a massive problem of youth unemployment in my constituency. If we cannot find them work, we have a responsibility to find them something to do, even if that means providing leisure pursuits on the canal. When the Minister is considering aid to the British Waterways Board, he must keep that in mind at all times.
      5.23 pm
      Mr. Frank Cook: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I draw your attention to column 1079, of yesterday's Official Report, where some singularly ill-founded remarks seek in rather pathetic fashion to wax critical of a Labour authority in the north-east. The fact that they are critical does not disturb me unduly, even though they are unjustified. However, they are attributed to me. I seek your guidance on how to have my name removed from such a pathetic effort.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there has been an error in the report of what he said?
      Mr. Cook: No, Sir. The statement is attributed to me, but I have no association with it. I was present at the time, but seated on the opposite side of the Chamber.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall make inquiries into that, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention to it.
      5.24 pm
      Mr. John Mark Taylor: For many environmentalists this year has been the year of the badger; for others, the focus has been on ancient monuments and the heritage, with anxious reference to Stonehenge. My remarks will relate to derelict land and urban renewal.
      It is the contention of many of us from the provincial conurbations that the control of urban sprawl into the countryside is merely the converse of the more serious problems of deprivation, demoralisation and evacuation of
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      the older central urban areas. The interests of those who would wish to see a denial of green field development as a soft option, and the interests of those who wish to see new resources put into inner-city areas converge. They are the same interests. In all the big provincial conurbations, an enormous consensus of political will is available to the Government should they wish to draw the fairly simple conclusion that has been circulating for some time: the political interests of the periphery of our provincial conurbations, usually in the hands of the Conservative party, and those of the older urban centres, usually in the hands of the Labour party, are the same.
      In my constituency, there is a sincere and genuine desire to halt the sprawl into the green field countryside. There is a genuine belief that if resources are denied to constituencies such as mine, they should be made available in the central Birmingham and the central midlands conurbations, where the fabric is badly rundown and those resources are needed. When the Minister considers class VIII, vote 3, I hope that he will bear my points in mind. He will have a ready audience if he does SO.
      The green field soft option is easier for the developer than the hard, difficult urban site, such as the Saltley gasworks in Birmingham, which has underground, broken-down brickwork and poisoned earth to a considerable depth. Clearly, that site is the harder option. Initiatives must be taken to make the difficult site an attractive proposition to the developer. In this context, as other hon. Members have said, the development corporations have been an outstanding success. Development corporations have cut through and succeeded in difficult urban sites such as Merseyside and the London docklands. Even those of us who have spent a long time in local government are driven to the conclusion that development corporations often succeed because they can override local government and do not get clogged and fettered by its traditional mechanisms, which, although well-intended, are sometimes leaden-footed, negative and unhelpful.
      In terms of ownership, much of the redundant land and demoralised sites in the urban conurbations are languishing in public ownership at unrealistic book values, which could have been designed to repel any interested inquirer. Such sites may be on the books of the British Waterways Board, public service undertakings, British Rail or even local authorities. People are inhibited by those unrealistic book values from putting such sites on the market. Would the Minister give some thought to a more enlightened or cavalier technique? If that brought results it might be worth the effort. Why do we not get the local authorities to acquire those sites compulsorily, at whatever price, and award comprehensive planning permissions to the sites? They could spend some money making them attractive and auction them for whatever price they will fetch. There would be only one proviso to the purchaser — whatever he chooses to do within the umbrella planning permission he should put the work in hand within a limited time. I cannot see who would be the loser from such an initiative. There would be some loss of money on the book values of publicly owned property, but those are unreal assets and perhaps the sooner they are written off the better. If what I have suggested is practical, so much the better.
      I shall conclude by explaining my intervention in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet

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      (Mr. Chapman). I am anxious that we should not raise false hopes. Every right hon. and hon. Member is naturally anxious about unemployment and would like to think that there is a connection between spending more money on construcion and alleviating some unemployment. It would be irresponsible for any Member to raise false hopes. We should all take account of two important discounts. The first is that many major construction programmes are not labour intensive. The second — I am afraid that this example is anecdotal and a rather cautionary tale — relates to a conversation that I had recently with a major civil engineering contractor from the Wolverhampton area. He had one of the final stages of the M54 contract, the Telford motorway, just north of Wolverhampton. He advertised in Wolverhampton where unemployment is high for men to work at good pay on the final stages of the motorway. There was no take up from that advertising campaign. That civil engineering contractor was puzzled and anxious about the reasons for that lack of response.
      In the closing days of the West Midlands county council, I should like to say that its forays into healing derelict land has been one of its successes. I contrast that with one of its more recent initiatives when it decided to go to Dublin to discover why Irish tinkers come to Britain. That decision was given some publicity recently. The matter comes within the ambit of the debate. The authority did not have to go so far to find the answers. I am sad that in its late stages, that authority should approach the difficult problem of tinkers and gipsies in that far-flung and self-indulgent way.
      The Minister may not be competent to address that matter, but I am looking forward to his reply. I am sure that I shall enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), the Chairman of the Select Committee.
      5.32 pm
      Mr. Tam Dalyell: Those of us who are not members of the Select Committee are probably in a better position than those who are, to thank our colleagues of all parties who are members. The House does not pay sufficient attention to the hard work that they do. Whatever their conclusions, it behoves those of us who benefit from the work to say thank you.
      It is normal to excuse oneself for not following a previous speaker, but I should like to follow the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor). We are discussing matters quietly, and I believe that there is an important and serious point to be made about what he said. I must concede that there is some truth in the fact that it is easy to say, "Yes, let us have public expenditure. Let us spend on infrastructure and there will be many more jobs." That case is rather spoilt by exaggerration, but I believe that there is a great deal of potential work in many projects.
      One or two colleagues and I were told last year by the Institution of Civil Engineers that for every £100 million spent on sewers at least £55 million would return to the Exchequer in one form or another. The point relates to social accounting. The Severn-Trent water authority representative argued that although one had to take with a pinch of salt the amount of employment that would be created—I agree with that—by sewer reconstruction, if more people were employed that would result in less unemployment benefit being paid, more people paying
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      taxes and more prosperous firms. That catalogue is familiar to the House. Less would also be paid in national insurance, housing benefit and various other benefits. A major sewer programme is needed, because hardly a week goes by without us reading in our local newspapers of major roads crumbling over Victorian sewers. If one takes account of the social cost, is a major sewer reconstruction programme as costly as is made out?
      I should have liked to be a fly on the wall at the Cabinet meeting this morning which discussed the Government's public expenditure problems. I hope that some Ministers—I do not like to put it this way—had the wit to ask what the cost of a major programme would be. I agree with the hon. Member for Solihull that a case can be brought into disrepute by being over-egged, but, nevertheless is there not something to be said for major capital programmes? How much do they cost? How much will doing something about the waterways cost?
      I am one of the few Labour Members who represent a large number of farmers. During the rainy weather last month I was taken around some waterways by friends of mine who are farmers. Mr. Sandy Manson of the Pardovan farm near a canal between Edinburgh and Glasgow showed me point after point where the canal was leaking.
      The time has passed for minor repairs or patching. Civil servants at the Scottish Office or the Department of the Environment who are involved with the environment must understand that sooner or later the problem must be tackled. Every five years that passes, the problem worsens. The clay and the puddling deteriorate. The Victorians built well, but the canals cannot be expected to last for ever. At some time, someone, somewhere, will have to do something about them. What is true of Scotland is true of south Northumberland and north Durham, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans) knows well. I suspect that the problem is repeated in south Yorkshire, Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
      Mr. Chris Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a further point, which is perhaps rather better illustrated by the analogy of motorways than canals? If we spend 2 per cent. more on motorway construction than is being spent at the moment, motorways will last for considerably longer. If we put more money into quality construction, it lasts longer and therefore less has to be spent on repairs.
      Mr. Dalyell: I endorse that point strongly. Last Friday week, Scottish Labour Members were guests of the RAC and AA in Glasgow. They made the point that there had been skimping—I shall not bore the House with the details—on some of the motorway foundations. We are reaping endless trouble from that. This raises the issue of road repairs and potholes and the fact that if repairs are not done roads will deteriorate.
      I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) on the question of housing. The city of Glasgow has worked miracles in the past five years. When people see what can be done to raise the row by relatively small sectors that are "outstanding", to use the word of the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, great advances can be made.
      Mr. Harry Cowans: I have listened to my hon. Friend, and surely he agrees that the converse is also true. Local authorities are unable to complete the clearing of an area to build better houses because of

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      Government cuts in housing. People are left in limbo because they cannot pay the compensation necessary to clear the area, and instead of making improvements the area is left like a battlefield.
      Mr. Dalyell: It is awful when the job of clearing cannot be finished. My hon. Friend knows more about housing policy than I do, so I simply endorse what he says. When there is not the money to finish the job, it is extremely wasteful over a period of time.
      I represent a fairly small local authority, West Lothian district council, with which I have an excellent relationship and for which I have the greatest respect. Even a small authority such as that needs £190 million to £200 million for necessary repairs. That does not include luxuries or frivolous work, as was confirmed by the director of finance, Mr. Stanley Stirton, and others. Those may seem staggering sums, but I return to the social calculations. Such repair work will take people off the unemployment register. Bearing in mind the cost of unemployment and housing benefits, and the potential income from national insurance and extra taxes, how much does it cost to employ people when we have 25 per cent. or so unemployed and the possible withdrawal of British Leyland, Bathgate and the closure of the Polkemmet pit?
      These are urgent issues for a community such as I represent. I hope that during this quiet debate we can have a reflective answer from a reflective Minister, who has not been afraid to speak his mind on other matters.
      The work that could be done if more funds were given to the Historic Buildings Council for Scotland is also labour intensive. I am told that if the £22 million for the national heritage memorial fund under class VIII, vote 4 were doubled, contractors could employ far more young people in the traditional crafts such as stonemasonry, lead piping, lead roofing and the rather difficult plumbing in an old building. Moreover, a great deal of the money which would be paid out would return to the Exchequer.
      I went on a brief visit with the Historic Buildings Council to Methuen castle three weeks ago. The contractors I met there explained at great lenght the need for a little more money and said that they could then go ahead with more projects. That would create a difference in employment in rural areas.
      Mr. John Mark Taylor: I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) that many of the heritage and conservation programmes are indeed labour intensive. I make that intervention to balance what I said earlier.
      Mr. Dalyell: In a sense, there is cross-party agreement on this matter. I hope that Ministers will note that and reflect on it.
      Class VIII, vote 4 relates to redundant churches. Something must be done, and quickly. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) and I have been on heritage visits together. He knows exactly what the problem is. Time is often not on our side when the fabric is deteriorating.
      Class VIII, vote 2 refers to the additional responsibilities taken on by the Nature Conservancy Council. I have asked this question before. Because of what has been learnt at Halvergate and elsewhere, has not the time come when, rather than pay out money to people who are doing
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      what they ought not to be doing, we should consider listing sites of scientific or special interest in relation to nature reserves, such as we automatically accept for buildings?
      It is difficult to make the point properly during Question Time, but the matter came up yesterday during Environment questions. It is all very well for the Minister to say that £50 an acre is being paid out all over Halvergate, but that represents quite a bit of money if it is repeated throughout Britain. Is this really a proper thing to do? Is it not time that the Government considered listing?
      Class VIII, vote 3 deals with derelict land. It is extraordinary that, so long after 1945, and unlike any other country in Europe, there seems to be derelict land in all of our constituencies. I am a passionate believer in local authorities. Could not some policy be worked out with them to enable them to do something about the problem? Here again, the solution is labour intensive.
      I shall not trespass on the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser), but those of us who have the problem of travelling people in our constituencies feel that more could be done to provide them with sites. It is an extremely sensitive issue. The attitude in my constituency is, "Yes, we must have facilities for travelling people, but not next to me." That is a familiar feeling. Problems are created, however, by the failure to provide facilities.
      The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave) came on board the royal research ship Charles Darwin—I was glad to see him there—when some of us were invited to do so by the Natural Environment Research Council. It is just by HMS Belfast in the pool of London. Although I am relating the problem to class VIII, vote 5, the problem is that many Departments are involved. Professor Sir Malcolm Brown, the head of Keyworth, explained that his work is made difficult because it depends partly on the Department of the Environment, partly on the Department of Education and Science and partly on the Ministry of Defence, so consideration goes all around Whitehall.
      If the Minister says that my question must be answered by the Department of Education and Science I shall not quarrel about it, but I would like to know about the ocean drilling programme. It is a matter of shame to our country if we cannot afford the candidate membership of that programme. We were to have been partners with the United States, Canada, Japan, France and Germany. We have a great deal of expertise, and all those who went on the Charles Darwin must have been impressed by the well-known international calibre of British scientists working in this area of activity. Something should be done.
      The Wildlife and Countryside Act features in the Estimates. Endless time was occupied in Committee discussing marine nature reserves. Having recently visited the marine biological laboratory at Plymouth and talked to the director, I understand that there are problems at Penzance and Lundy. I suspect that the marine nature reserves have not got off the ground, partly because of the resistance of fishermen. They are afraid that the inspectors are connected with Her Majesty's inspectors of taxes. The last people the fishermen want to see are tax inspectors. Has the Department of the Environment any view to offer about the delay at Lundy and in the Scillies and, as a Scot, more urgently for me, about the fiasco of St. Abb's Head? Furthermore, it is most important that something should be done fairly soon about Loch Sween.

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      I put down a question yesterday about the Property Services Agency:
      "To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, if he will give a breakdown of the £89 million required for the progress of the Mount Pleasant airport in the Falklands after 1 June."
      In his reply the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment said:
      "It is not the practice to disclose rates for particular components of Government contracts, but I can say that essentially the sum covers the balance of work to complete the secondary runway, aircraft apron, roads, buildings and services, together with the site clearance of temporary facilities when construction ceases and the usual provisions for retention pending the expiry of maintenance periods on work already completed."—[Official Report, 10 July 1985.]
      I wonder, as my hon. Friends on the Front Bench may wonder, what would have happened to Liverpool, Lambeth and some of the other local authorities in London if they had suddenly decided to spend £89 million? Yet this happened without a cheep. The Falklands expenditure is sacrosanct. No local authority could get away with expenditure of that kind.
      Mr. Cowans: They would have been rate capped.
      Mr. Dalyell: As my hon. Friend says, they would have been rate capped. What is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander. Time after time I used to bore people stiff—[Hon. Members: "Never."]—by asking about the cost of the airport. Even those civil servants who should not be here are laughing. Every time the answer, carefully costed, was that it would cost no more than £215 million and that there would be absolute cost control.
      Mr. Tony Banks: My hon. Friend never bores the House by drawing attention to the peculiarly perverted values of the Government about Falkland Islands expenditure. Does he accept that if the money that was spent on the airport in the Falklands had been used in the London borough of Newham, it would have solved its housing problems?
      Mr. Dalyell: This has come to be known as the Margaret Thatcher international airport. Its financial history is revealing. It started at £215 million. Time after time the cost was said to be £215 million. Then it edged up to £240 million. By some alchemy, it then rose to £360 million. From 1 June another £89 million had to be added. We also find that the "wide awake" airport at Ascension Island is to cost another £49 million. The cost is already over £500 million and it is edging steadily upwards. What has happened to the monitoring of PSA expenditure? All that the Under-Secretary of State, who is a nice man, can do is to give a watery smile. If I were talking nonsense, he would be down my throat. There is one law for military expenditure and another for local authority expenditure. It is not a sensible way to run a country.
      5.54 pm
      Mr. Robert B. Jones: Tempted though I am to follow in some detail the breadth and depth of this debate, I shall return to some of the issues that were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi).
      On the Department of the Environment Estimates, the mobility ratio of local authority housing is very important if we are to encourage those who might wish to seek jobs in the more prosperous parts of the country to move. It is
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      not just a question of increasing the percentage of stock that is put aside from 1 per cent. to perhaps 2 per cent., important though that is. What worries me is that many authorities do not participate in the mobility scheme. I single out in particular Scottish local authorities. Scotland has higher than average unemployment. One might think that there would be a ready willingness to co-operate with other local authorities by asking them to make available a percentage of their stock. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will consider how the mobility scheme could be strengthened.
      My second point, on improvement grants, was mentioned not only by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green but by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) and the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith). There has been a massive increase in expenditure on improvement grants. A more discriminatory policy in terms of need is appropriate but it is a much more complex problem than that. In the prosperous parts of the south-east it is common for the price of houses that need to be improved to be inflated, in the sure and certain knowledge that the purchaser will be able to secure an improvement grant. In such areas as north-east Lancashire, however, where the average price of a house is much lower, an improvement grant may result in an even lower price being obtained on the open market. A loan system may work in some areas but not in others. I hope that this point will be taken into account during both this discussion and subsequent discussions on the Green Paper.
      As for canals, I have to declare an interest as a member of the amenity advisory council of the Inland Waterways Association and as the chairman of the all-party waterways group. Having press-ganged the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) into becoming secretary of the group, I am pleased that he has spoken on the subject so soon after his appointment. I hope that we shall hear often from him on the subject. It is only fair to say that the Government have increased substantially the resources of the British Waterways Board. That has enabled it to clear up the backlog of work and make improvements. This is already evident in many projects. However, the BWB could do much more to help itself.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) referred to the use of redundant land. That is true of other under-utilised assets. An example is Lock Cottage at Cow Roast in my constituency which is tenanted by Mr. and Mrs. Kent. When it offered to sell the cottage, the BWB's valuation was £65,000. I sought three other valuations from professional valuers in the area. The average valuation was £45,000. As my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull said, that is typical. The BWB did not want the valuation to be carried out by an independent valuer. I suggested that somebody should be appointed by the Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers. However, the BWB was determined not to realise that asset.
      Finally, I wish to refer to the thorny and vexed question of gipsy sites, which is not as easy as has been suggested. I have served on a local authority — Chiltern district council — which sought and obtained designation. As soon as the expenditure on the sites had been put in hand and we had bright, new and clean gipsy sites, the so-called gipsies moved in and vandalised them and demolished

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      everything that was there. It was totally wasted expenditure. I wonder what value for money we get from some of those schemes.
      On the other hand, my own local authority in Dacorum is being flooded by travellers not just from boroughs and districts that have obtained designation but by some people who have been evicted from the Molesworth protest site. We are trying in vain to achieve designation but are frustrated time and again by the changing criteria which reflect the fact that people see our area as a transit camp on the way to getting a site at one of the new official gipsy locations. The whole system of gipsy sites needs to be carefully examined.
      With regard to the Property Services Agency Estimates, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green referred to the inadequacy of the local discretion given to managers. A sum of £1,000 is a small sum over which to have jurisdiction when putting out work. That would not be so bad if, as a result, there was not duplication. A local manager, given the opportunity to put out a project for under £1,000, may discover later that, because it has been many years since the application was made and it has only now reached the end of the pipeline, it is being let as part of a major contract. Such duplication occurs far more frequently than the PSA is prepared to admit.
      The PSA is a notoriously slow payer and thus it is difficult to attract competitive bids at the local small or major level. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will give the PSA a firm kick up the backside to make it pay more promptly for the services that it commissions.
      Perhaps at this stage the existence of the PSA should be considered and a decision reached on whether it should be divided among other Departments or eradicated. Even if the PSA remains in existence, there is some merit in placing it under an obligation to follow the rules and regulations that govern local authorities under the Local Government, Planning and Land Act. For example, why are local authorities obliged to put out to tender a cross-section of one third of their ordinary maintenance work but the same obligation does not apply to the PSA? That is certainly food for thought when the Minister considers the PSA.
      I should like to add my voice to that of many of my colleagues in congratulating our Committee Chairman on the way that he leads us. It is always pleasant to serve on a ship where the captain has a firm hand on the tiller and where he shows such clarity of thought as the present incumbent. In saying that, I am sure that I speak for those of all political parties.
      6.3 pm
      Mr. Peter Pike: I wish to refer to a few items within the Department of the Environment's Estimates. Dog licences, which are referred to in the Select Committee report, were also mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell).
      There is a need to remove the present crazy anomaly whereby the collection of the dog licence fee amounts to more than the revenue from the licence. However, from my own experience in Burnley I have learnt that much controversy surrounds dog issues. I strongly advise that it should not be left to local authorities to determine the amount of the licence fee. There should be a nationally
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      based fee to avoid the inevitable comparisons which would be made if authorities were allowed to set the fee themselves.
      I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that the revenue should be used to provide services such as dog wardens, and certainly Burnley would like an additional dog warden. Due to the present Government restraint, it has been unable to employ another warden. Despite the controversies arising in Burnley from the dog ban in certain parks — I stress "certain" because only a relatively small area has been affected by the ban—it is a reasonable compromise which has been overwhelmingly accepted. I believe that the Department of the Environment should consider the matter and give more advice to other authorities that wish to follow in that direction. The advice given could be based on the experiences and problems that we encountered in Burnley, which I believe can be blamed on both the council and the people who opposed that ban. In certain parks children can play on the grass without fear of being covered in dog dirt, which is welcome to many parents, yet in other parks, usually in close proximity, dogs are allowed.
      Canals have been referred to in the debate. That is an item of great importance to a constituency such as mine, through which the Leeds and Liverpool canal runs. Lancashire Enterprises Ltd., a subsidiary of Lancashire county council, has formulated a programme to improve the canal and bring it back to standard. That applies only to the section of the canal in the Lancashire county area. The cost of the scheme to revitalise it is the staggering figure of £81 million. The company hopes to fund certain sections of the canal, depending on the areas that it goes through, through urban development grants, the urban programme, Manpower Services Commission schemes and other assistance from the Government. If we are to deal with the important problem of canals and waterways that need urgent attention, we have to ensure that the British Waterways Board and other bodies involved have the necessary resources to tackle it.
      Many difficulties arise from all the different aspects of the urban programme. Some of those items are now being considered by the Government. There are many anomalies under the traditional urban programme. Many people are disappointed this year at the allocations that were given to them. It seems a bit of a nonsense to invite all authorities to apply to the urban programme when there are insufficient resources to allocate. It might be more appropriate to concentrate resources on areas of urban deprivation if they are limited.
      There are programme authorities, partnership authorities and designated authorities. There are many anomalies among them, too. I, for one, cannot see why expenditure arising under the urban programme can be disregarded for penalty purposes for programme or partnership authorities, but not for designated authorities. To me it is only a matter of degree.
      I was surprised when my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) said that his borough was not a partnership authority whereas Islington is. That shows the great uncertainty about how authorities are designated. The Under-Secretary will say that there are different categories of local authorities and different headings of deprivation, and one has to be classified under so many of those headings to qualify. However, when one looks at some of the authorities, one stands back and says, "I wonder why that one has managed to achieve that status

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      and the other one has not." Burnley is a designated authority, yet two authorities on either side, Pendle and Hyndburn, which are very similar, do not have that status.
      Mr. Tony Banks: I endorse my hon. Friend's comments. It does not make sense to Newham borough council. We look at those authorities close by which are partnership authorities or programme authorities. I do not want anyone to think that I was suggesting that Newham wants to take something away from the surrounding borough, which we know is also deprived. It is very difficult for us to explain to the people of Newham why Tower Hamlets, Islington and Hackney and other nearby boroughs get special support while we do not.
      Mr. Pike: My hon. Friend has made the point very well. I take exactly the same view of Blackburn, which is close to Burnley. Those of us in Burnley would not wish Blackburn to lose its higher classification. It is extremely strange that Pendle and Hyndburn have no classification. We need to see whether this programme is catching all the authorities as it should be doing.
      On the matter of grants, the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) referred in particular to north-east Lancashire. I referred to that subject in the Select Committee when we were discussing the Estimates. The Government will have to consider carefully the implications of their Green Paper. Too often the Government look at housing as it is in London without looking at valuations and other factors in the provinces. In Manchester and Liverpool, the problems are very different from those only 24 miles away in Burnley, in north-east Lancashire, where property values are much lower. In those areas, if a person improves his house, the selling value, after his own share and the contribution from grants, will be less than the value for which that property could still be sold. That is one reason why council house rents are far too high. We had to increase them because of Government policy, and now semi-detached council houses are empty because people can buy terraced houses far more cheaply.
      The Government should consider carefully before making changes in grants. There is abuse, and when the Minister for Housing and Construction came to Burnley last year he saw the problem for himself. He did not go on the exact tour that we had planned, because when we were driving round the streets of Burnley he suddenly said, "Stop the car, I want to get out." He went to the nearest person on the street and said, "I want to see your house." The house he want into proved the very point that the Government should look at closely. It was a house that had been improved on a grant; the grant was insufficient, and the house needed another grant to bring it up to scratch.
      The Government should give councils the authority to inspect all work to make sure that contractors carry it out to the proper standard, and they should give councils the financial resources, powers and staff to do that work. Hon. Members on both sides of the House must be anxious to ensure that we get value for money. If the grants system is abused, whether by contractors or by anybody else, we should be concerned about it because it is a waste of public money which could be better used to make sure that other houses are brought up to standard. I accept that this may not be a major problem, but in my area the problem does exist. As I have said, the Minister for Housing and
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      Construction saw it for himself, not through any planning by Burnley borough council, but purely because he stopped the car and wanted to look at a house immediately.
      The Opposition have a right to argue about insufficient resources—and resources are insufficient—but I have always accepted that the Government have the right to limit the amount of money available whether we like it or not. My biggest objection is that this Government seem to believe that councils should not have the additional rights to determine at local level what they wish to spend and what additional resources they want to put in. Whichever political party is in government and however much I might disagree with the figure that the Government have fixed, they have a right to say what money they will put in. But councils should be given the freedom to raise money locally to tackle the jobs and problems that they were elected to tackle.
      6.15 pm
      Mr. Tony Banks: It is always a pleasure but a daunting task to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike), whose knowledge of local government matters is unrivalled in this House. He was a distinguished leader of Burnley council.
      For obvious reasons I should like to speak about the Government's housing policy in London. There must be something wrong with their policy on housing, because the Duke of Edinburgh, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) have all said at different times that the Government have got it wrong. That is a most distinguished trinity of Establishment noses to get up. I hope the Minister is thinking carefully about the critics of housing policy among the Establishment, and not just among the Opposition.
      It is arguable that the Government have not one housing policy but two — one for votes and one for public spending. Their votes policy appears to be to spare no expense to encourage or woo people into becoming owner-occupiers in the belief that home owners vote Tory. The policy is matched by a number of Labour Members who seem to think that all council tenants vote Labour. Both concepts are mistaken.
      Changing the legal terms under which people occupy their homes does nothing to solve our housing problems. Put simply, there are not enough homes to go round and the homes that we have are decaying rapidly. The Government's public spending policy is to concentrate cuts on public investment on housing in order to compensate for their failure to keep other areas of public spending under control. Since 1979–80 London has suffered a cumulative loss of more than £3,000 million, and provision for public investment in London's housing has been chopped by two thirds.
      London's housing problems are enormous and grave. The fabric of houses is deteriorating and 640,000 London homes are unsatisfactory. Many of them are in the private sector. Homelessness is increasing. Last year, there were 25,000 homeless families in London, with 3,000 of them in bed and breakfast accommodation. Waiting lists are lengthy; there are 500,000 people on the waiting list in London alone. In 1982 the Government stopped keeping separate figures for unemployed construction workers, but then there were about 40,000 such workers on the dole in London.

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      Building figures are heading for new lows. Only 4,000 new council homes were started in London last year compared with 25,000 in the mid-1970s. The forecast is that performance will drop still further. The Government are now trying to hush things up hoping that nobody will notice how bad they are. In mid-June, The Guardian reported that, although the Government were committed to another survey in 1986 of the condition of the nation's housing stock, they intend to fiddle the definition of unfit property to make it appear that the situation is not getting worse.
      In the Department of the Environment the Minister is seen as the personification of a human punchbag because of the way in which he keeps getting put up to deal with these unpopular subjects. I hope that he will confirm or deny that story which appeared in The Guardian in June. In the six years since the Prime Minister came to office, her Government have made no attempt to discover what the real housing need is, despite repeated requests to do SO.
      Indeed, it has been left up to the Royal Family. I admit at once that the Duke of Edinburgh is not a person I have always associated with housing need. However, the inquiry into British housing, chaired by the Duke of Edinburgh, found that housing need is a national scandal. On all the international comparisons, we come out bottom of the league. On the number of homes produced per 1,000 inhabitants, we are bottom; on housing investment as a percentage of GDP, we are bottom; on gross fixed residential construction as a proportion of GDP, we are bottom. That list emerged from the Duke of Edinburgh's inquiry, and in each case we came below countries such as Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Iceland and Ireland as well as the richer western economies.
      In 1983 the Conservative manifesto claimed that the Government would make Britain
      "the best housed nation in Europe".
      It is about time that they explained what happened to that commitment and why that promise has apparently been abandoned.
      Class VII, vote 1, relates to general subsidies to local authorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) pointed out, this item has been reduced drastically since 1979 when general subsidies to local authorities amounted to £1,300 million. This year they have been cut to £400 million. But in real terms the cut has been that much greater, and the mechanisms have been draconian increases in council house rents and savage cuts in housing programmes that have reduced the rate of creation of new debt.
      In a surprisingly frank piece of drafting in the introduction to class VII, vote 1, it admits that the purpose of driving up rents and slashing investment was to drive people into becoming home owners. It states:
      "The underlying downward trend of entitlement to section A subsidies reflects the emphasis on increasing home ownership through the sale of council dwellings and lower capital expenditure on new public sector provision."
      There is no other justification for that than an ideological one.
      Mr. Chris Smith: Will my hon. Friend also note that one of the results of the way in which the Government have forced public sector rents up over the past three or four years has been that throughout the country most housing
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      revenue accounts are now in surplus? That means that rent payers are subsidising the ratepayers. Is not that a gross misuse of rent funds?
      Mr. Banks: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.
      The figures in the Estimates are only gross Exchequer subsidies. But according to some sources, services on council houses in many areas result nationally in council housing making a net profit and receiving no subsidy at all. Will the Minister confirm or deny that? A number of Conservative councils — Wandsworth is one — have pushed up rents as a way of transferring money from the publicly rented sector to subsidise those in the private sector as well as ratepayers generally. That is a gross abuse of housing revenue accounts.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley said that council rents have been forced up. Since 1979, rents have risen by double the rate of inflation. In that year, average rents in London were £7·93, but by 1984 they had risen to more than £17—an increase of more than 125 per cent. Rising rents contribute to inflation, but that does not seem to concern the Government because in their mind it appears that inflation is unimportant when its effects impinge mainly on council tenants.
      The Government will no doubt say that the increases were necessary to catch up on the Labour years when rents fell behind, but they have gone much further than that. Until there was a marginal fall in the last couple of years, they pushed up rents so far that they accounted for a higher proportion of male manual earnings than at any time since the war.
      The Government's traditional response has been that rent increases do not matter very much in the council sector because the poor are protected by housing benefits. A total of 65 per cent. of council tenants in Newham receive housing benefits, but the shambles of that system means that the poor have never been protected. Still less will that be true in the future because the Secretary of Slate for Social Services plans to take £500 million of that benefit away from the poor and the old.
      General subsidies also include help towards the cost of managing and maintaining council estates. The effect of cutting back, combined with block grant penalties and rate capping, has been to pressure councils into reducing the number of caretakers and the regularity of maintenance — the very factors that the Department of the Environment has identified as being central to good management. Indeed, the Secretary of State for the Environment had the gall to stand up at the Institute of Housing conference in Harrogate last month and tell local authorities that they had failed their tenants. He announced that he was setting up a new unit, to be called the urban housing renewal unit, to privatise the estates. In fact, the Government have set up a self-fulfilling prophecy.
      The Government are obsessed with home ownership at the expense of everything else. They are fond of quoting surveys that show that most people want, and expect, to be home owners. That is hardly surprising, given the choices on offer. Many people now see home ownership as their best bet, and no one denies that owner-occupation has a dominant role to play. However, those who are excluded from home ownership, of whom there are large numbers in London, should riot be made to pay such a heavy price.

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      I never miss the opportunity to draw the Minister's attention to the housing problem in Newham. The council, together with the Newham Chamber of Commerce, the Newham Voluntary Agencies Council, the Newham Council for Racial Equality, the Newham health authority and the GLC, wrote on 5 July to the Prime Minister and the Secretaries of State for Trade and Industry, the Environment, the Home Department, Education and Science, Employment and Social Services. They made out an undeniable case for partnership status for the London borough of Newham. Indeed, the Minister knows that we have an undeniable case, So why does his Department still deny us the undeniable?
      There is a severe shortage of homes in my borough. It is currently estimated at almost 3,000. Homelessness is now higher than ever before. More than half the privately owned homes in Newham are unsatisfactory, either through disrepair or a lack of bath or inside toilet.
      One tends to associate Labour boroughs with high concentrations of council tenancy, but in my constituency more than 50 per cent. of people are owner-occupiers. However, the houses that they occupy are in grave need of repair — and that terrible problem is being exacerbated by Government policies.
      Nearly a quarter of council accommodation is situated in the 112 tower blocks, and more than 800 families with young children who live in those blocks are waiting to be rehoused. We desperately need assistance from the Minister. He knows what is going on in the borough of Newham. He knows the problems associated with Ronan Point and the TWA blocks. What extra assistance will he give to the Newham council to deal with the problems that he knows exist? He has been to the borough and has seen them for himself. When may we expect to be given the partnership status that we so desperately need?
      My last point is on class VII, vote 2. It is only a small amount in terms of overall subsidies, but it brings me back to a point which came up during the passage of the Local Government Bill on Monday—when the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) said that he supported the guillotine motion because he wanted to brush out of the way the embarrassment of the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. Let me bring it straight back to the House. In class VII, vote 2, section B1(2) deals with
      "Discretionary grants and loans towards the cost of arrangements to facilitate public sector tenant mobility under section 46 of the Housing Act 1980."
      It provides £75,000. This is the code of the national mobility office — four and a half persons in a semi-quango running the national mobility scheme — which the Government propose should take on the Greater London mobility scheme and the seaside and country homes scheme.
      The Estimates show just how absurd that is as a proposal from a Government who believe that the national mobility office is the appropriate body to take on these major functions. The cost of the two GLC schemes is at least 10 times that of the present office of the national mobility scheme. Can the Minister tell us what will be the cost of section B1(2) in 1986–87, since the Government have already made it clear that they will pick up the bill
      1302
      for the Londonwide mobility scheme and for the seaside and country homes scheme. How does that square with the Government's claim that abolition will save money?
      6.31 pm
      Mr. John Fraser: We are all very grateful to the Select Committee for picking out a number of matters and I do not intend to comment on more than a few, but perhaps I could start with gipsy sites. We all know that gipsies arouse strong feeling. When I have visited a gipsy site I have been given advice in what might be described as unparliamentary language. I thought I had to put my camera in my case rather than somewhere else. When one talks to the neighbours one is often approached in unparliamentary language as well. Nobody denies there is a difficulty about gipsies and travellers, but we need to get it in proportion.
      As the Select Committee points out, there are roughly 10,000 travellers — about 20 traveller families per district or borough—in England and it should not be beyond the will of the boroughs to make provision for gipsy sites. Many authorities which are very hard pressed—I include my own in Lambeth—have honoured their responsibilities and some have neglected them. But there is no longer any excuse for dereliction of duty because gipsies are not popular. The fact that sites are not provided does not make the problem any easier. It simply shifts it somewhere else and in an unplanned way. The seasonal pattern of settlement by travellers needs to be looked at. My observation in Lambeth is that they tend to come into the city in winter and move out during the summer. There may be seasonal variations in other parts of England. It would be worth while looking at whether seasonal camp sites for travellers might meet part of the problem. I hope the Government will get the recalcitrant local authorities to do their duty, particularly since the Government are paying 100 per cent. of the cost.
      I make no apology for mentioning a constituency point about the urban programme. I represent a borough which is in an inner-city partnership. Last year we had a net benefit, because the Government pay 75 per cent. of the cost of the inner city partnership, of about £10 million. That seems generous, but of that £10 million half went to voluntary organisations. My borough disperses a good deal of money among voluntary organisations. Only half of it went to what might be called statutory schemes. The net benefit to Lambeth council, which is in an inner city partnership, was £5 million.
      Last year, penalties imposed on Lambeth council amounted to £15 million. For every pound that was being put in the collection plate, £3 was being stolen from the vestry. This borough is one of the third most deprived in the country and it is now engaged in a battle with the district auditor as to whether its conduct of affairs in Lambeth has been in order. I hope the Minister will have some regard, even at this late stage, to the financial responsibilities of boroughs such as Lambeth.
      The urban programme imposes a very heavy burden as programmes become time expired and need to be picked up by the local authority. I hope the Minister's department will recognise the great burdens that are placed on these authorities and the fact that they are being fined. Last year my borough was fined £3 for every pound net which went into its coffers. If one sets this against the aid which one sees in the Estimates going to the London Docklands development corporation—£50 million with 20 per cent.

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      going on administration expenses—it does not appear that the same discipline applies there. The same kind of discipline does not apply in Islington as in Lambeth. I am sure that the results of expenditure by the local authority within the inner city partnership in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) are that houses are selling at £250,000. The contrast between the expenditure which the docklands corporation is liable to undertake and the penalties imposed on almost every single partnership authority shows that there is no justice as between the two.
      Mobility means being able to move from one part of the country to another, which is a matter close to the hearts of many local authority tenants. When people talk about the right to buy and own their own homes, they are talking not merely about ownership itself but about the incidence of ownership, the freedom to be able to move from one part of the country to another in order to be near a relative or to obtain a job or simply because they choose to move. I have every sympathy with them, but the Estimates show that there is very little consistency in the help offered.
      Last year there was a one in 450 chance of a local authority tenant moving under the two mobility schemes mentioned in the Select Committee report. The average Government contribution per move was £28·92 for local authority tenants. If one were a housing association tenant and that housing association was not a charity, the contribution to mobility costs would be nil. If, on the other hand, one was a tenant of a charitable housing association and was able to claim the discount and buy a house in another part of the country, the maximum contribution to the tenant of the charitable housing association would be £24,000, 60 per cent. of the maximum cost of £40,000. There can be no justification for such wide inconsistencies as between one group of occupants and another. Bearing in mind that people attach great importance to being able to move from one part of the country to another, I hope that the Government will see what can be done to improve the chances of transferability.
      We have an enforced mobility time bomb ticking away when, towards the end of July, many thousands of young people in London in receipt of help with bed and breakfast from the Department of Health and Social Security will be forced out of accommodation because the Government are intent on saving money by abolishing this benefit.
      I turn to class VII Vote 1 and I take as my text part of paragraph 14 of the Select Committee report which says:
      "It seems certain that there is a very large backlog of housing maintenance at the present day and, against that background, it seems to us imperative that the available resources are appropriately distributed between the private and public sectors. No one knows at present if that is being done."
      We do know something about what is being done. First of all, we know that the Estimates before the House are wholly inadequate to preserve, let alone improve, the housing stock in both the public and private sectors. The Department of the Environment has engaged on a policy of economic lunacy. Those are not my words but the words of many Government Members used in debates on capital expenditure. That Department and its Secretary of State has become a housing Nero fiddling while Britain crumbles.
      I use the word "fiddling" because that is exactly what it has done with capital receipts. The Government introduced a right to buy. They argued that the money could be reinvested in housing, that money gathered in was
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      the local authority's own funds. Now we find that £6,000 million at least stored in the coffers of local authorities cannot be spent in order that the Chancellor may balance his books. That money belongs to the local authorities, and was provided from private funds. I can give some examples of the idiocy of the Government's policy.
      A couple of weeks ago, with my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts), I went to Sefton, which is a Conservative local authority which takes its housing responsibilities seriously. In parts of the borough, the local authority is selling houses to Barratt and Wimpey to try to get some help from the private sector, as the Government have urged, to improve some of its housing stock. It is not always the older housing stock that needs improving most —sometimes the newer housing stock needs it more.
      When the work is done by one of these firms, that is private expenditure and the Government are in favour of it. When the local authority sells some of its property or sites, the money has come from building firms, banks, insurance companies and institutions and is therefore private. However, the moment that it passes into the hands of the council, it becomes subject to a surcharge of 80 per cent., so that 80 per cent. of it cannot be spent. That is economic lunacy.
      I can give another example, this time of a Labour authority that I visited recently, Gateshead. It is an inner-city partnership authority, recognised for its needs in housing and for its area's dereliction and unemployment. It receives no housing subsidy from the Government but it does receive money for environmental improvement. The people of Gateshead cannot understand why the Government are giving them money, through a vote for environmental improvements such as putting up trees and putting in colour paving, projects of which I am in favour, while, because of the restriction of the housing investment programme, they cannot spend money on properties. The council can put down pink paving stones but it cannot put roofs on houses.
      The Government have an economic rain dance, but the only economic effect is that the rain is coming through peoples' roofs. Gateshead authority has £30 million tied up in capital receipts. What on earth can be the justification for urging an authority to engage in environmental improvements and then preventing it from spending its money on problems such as those at the Newcastle flats where there is the particularly difficult and expensive job of providing bathrooms and internal WCs?
      I can give yet another example, this time the Tory-controlled Rushmoor council. It is one of the councils that opposed the abolition of the GLC because it has such a large stock of ex-GLC homes that are in need of major renovation. I have the minutes of a council meeting. There is now a new classification of the housing investment bid. One can make a bid for what one thinks one needs, and one can make a second bid for what one thinks one can get. One is called the proposed programme and the other is called the constrained programme.
      I shall take Rushmoor's proposed programme because it seems a fair estimate of what needs to be spent on the renovation, construction and insulation of dwellings. The programme for 1986–87 would cost £12 million. The minutes say:
      "The constrained programme would not allow the Council to carry out its policy of carrying out the Prospect Estate remedial work to 100 units per year for 1986/87".

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      It says that there is no way that it can discharge its responsibility under the present constrained programme arrangements. However, there is a way that it can do so, because it has £12 million locked up in capital receipts. There is a Tory local authority that, given the chance, would be able to spend money and undertake its responsibilities but is prevented from doing so. Therefore, my comment that the Government are fiddling while the housing stock crumbles is justified.
      The Select Committee said that it was not sure of the scale of the problem in the private sector. However, I have a fair idea. I now know that there are 250,000 private owner-occupiers who are mostly poor and with very few capital resources, and who were left in the lurch once the Government ended the pre-election boom in improvement grants. We know their needs. We do not have the English figures, but we know from the Welsh figures that most of the people who pick up repair and improvement grants have little money in the bank and no income. That boom has come to an end. There is little opportunity of those people being able to get improvement grants even under the Government's new means-tested and mean scheme, which has had a pretty widespread thumbs down as to its possible success.
      I am sure that every hon. Member has people coming to his advice bureau every week, and some of the circumstances are tragic. Last week, a retired man came to see me. Simply because he is an owner-occupier, he is not entitled to supplementary benefit. He gets only his retirement pension. He has suffered a stroke, and water is pouring through his owner-occupied house. That case is not untypical and there is no way in which we can help that man and many like him, given the present constrained state of the housing investment programme. That is not just bad policy but immoral, particularly in the case of those who were led to believe that they would get grants from Government.
      The Government's policy is not merely a fiddle but is incompetent, as the Controller of Audit put it in his speech at the Institute of Housing conference. He put
      "a price on the waste and inefficiency resulting from present controls on local government capital spending. The figure is a staggering £50 billion … If I were asked to design a system that would produce more waste and inefficiency to control capital expenditure, it is not immediately certain what additional complications I would build in".
      The system is not just dishonest, it is inefficient. The Government sometimes say that they do not know how much money there is in capital receipts. I have an answer to a parliamentary question yesterday. I asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what the total of capital receipts from the sale of council houses in the last financial year was, and I was told £1·3 billion.
      Last year, local authorities were not allowed to spend that £1·3 billion, which was taken from private sources. They were allowed to spend 40 per cent. of it and £600 million of it was sequestrated — sequestration has become not merely a function of, but an obsession with, the Government. If the same rate of capital receipts continues in 1985–86, local authorities will be denied £1 billion in capital receipts, from the payment of mortgages and the sale of council houses, which they could spend on improvement and repair. That is equivalent to 100,000 jobs for a year being thrown away by local authorities not being able to spend their own money. That figure was
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      arrived at without trying to use the additional figures of the extra jobs that would be created as a result of the multiplier effect.
      It is illogical, a breach of faith, and a denial of the use by local authorities of their own funds, to use capital expenditure in this way and at the same time to cut the allocation of money from central Government and the housing investment programme. The Minister gave the House some figures yesterday. I have calculations of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. In real terms, we are getting about 30 per cent. of the capital expenditure of the local authority housing programme that we were getting in 1979–80. For the first time in over a century, we have a Government who disown their general housing obligations.
      I found some election material for battles between Disraeli and Gladstone. At one election in the 1870s both campaigned about sanitary housing. They recognised that they had an obligation to attend to general housing needs. Since then, almost all Governments have recognised that responsibility. They have not always discharged that obligation but they recognised it. Harold Macmillan recognised it; Wheatley and Nye Bevan recognised it. Last year the Government pretended that they recognised that obligation when they said in a Public Expenditure White Paper that they had three policy objectives:
      "to increase the level of home ownership; to encourage the repair and improvement of existing stock; and to concentrate public resources within the housing programme on capital provision for those in greatest housing need."
      This year the Government's main aim in housing policy is to increase home ownership so that more families can achieve their ambition of owning their own home. Good luck to them, but nothing is being done about other housing responsibilities.
      Cuts in improvement grants and in the general funds available for capital spending have been made and the Government say that they intend to carry out a survey of local authority needs. We do not need a survey because plenty of material has already been provided by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. I have three well documented reports containing the figures. Paragraph 7.10 of the document "Defects in Housing: Part I: 'Non-traditional' dwellings of the 1940s and 1950s" published in July 1983 states:
      "We estimate that the average cost of works to non-traditional dwellings, for both repair, or in severe cases demolition and replacement, will be £10,000 per unit. This results in a likely total cost £5,000 million."
      A second report was produced in March 1984 called "Industrialised and system built dwellings of the 1960s and 1970s" which said in paragraph 7.15:
      "The cost of dealing with the defects problem is obviously difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, judging from the regularity of which certain items appear for different types and systems, it seems that the average unit cost will be around £5,000 … the total cost could therefore be up to £5,000 million."
      In March 1985 the AMA produced another report. It produces them every year so the Government do not have to digest too much at a time. That report was about the repair and modernisation of traditional-built dwellings. In that, the association says that the total cost for England —not for Great Britain—is £6,000 million.
      The figures may seem large but they illustrate how people have to live with damp, water dripping through the roof, far too expensive heating systems and cockroaches breeding. When the Government impose a moratorium on spending they cannot freeze the condition of the housing

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      stock. A house is not like a crashed car that one can put in the garage until one has enough money to repair it. Houses rot, the cockroaches breed and the condition of the properties becomes worse. They become more damp. Not only the houses but the society which occupies them disintegrates.
      The Select Committee says that no one seems to know what is being done. It is nearer the truth to say that everyone knows that almost nothing is being done to the publicly owned housing fabric.
      It is not that the Government are ignorant of the problem. Ministers visit housing estates and talk to local authority representatives. As the Minister for Housing and Construction is so fond of saying, the Opposition do not have a monopoly of compassion. We do not say that the Government do not care, but that they have the means to tackle the problem. The greatest indictment of them is that while having the ability to solve the problem they refuse to budge because of their monetary obsession.
      6.55 pm
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young): I begin by adding to the visible embarrassment felt by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) by complimenting him on his report and excellent speech. The Government welcome the debate which he initiated because it gives us the opportunity to review in detail my Department's expenditure. As the details of administration become more complex, it becomes harder for hon. Members and Ministers to scrutinise in depth all the figures in the Estimates. It is of enormous value when a Select Committee with its special knowledge and expert advice takes on the task of preliminary scrutiny and examination. As my hon. Friend said, the work is not sensational, but it is important because the sums involved are substantial and are spent in sensitive areas.
      I propose to concentrate on the Select Committee's recommendations. I am aware that I might not reply to all the points. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), for example, fired a metaphorical 12-bore shotgun at my Department from a considerable range and the scatter was broad. I shall have to answer many of his questions by letter. Some of the questions, although aimed at my Department, hit other Departments and it is for them to reply. I shall say a word later about the macro economic issues which he raised in a reflective passage of his speech.
      I shall deal briefly with what the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) said in his closing remarks. Last year a record sum of £1 billion was spent on renovating public sector housing stock in addition to the £1 billion from the revenue account which was spent on repair and maintenance. The hon. Gentleman did not mention that. The main difference between the two parties is that the Opposition see a predominantly public sector solution to the acknowledged difficulties, whereas Conservatives are anxious to harness private sector resources. We think that by that means we can make faster progress in tackling the problems.
      Ministers and others have to tread carefully on the subject of dogs. I share the Select Committee's anxiety that a solution should be found quickly to the current absurdity of dog licensing. As the Committee and my hon. Friend said, we have consulted widely about the alternatives to the present system. The response has been wide and varied. Some argue that it would be best to
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      abolish the dog licence. Many others are worried about the nuisance caused by dogs and believe that a higher licence fee would encourage more responsible dog ownership and finance measures to deal with the problems caused by the irresponsible.
      Some who favour the retention of the licence fee want the fee to be determined nationally—the view expressed by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike). Others agree with the view in the consultation paper that there should be some local discretion.
      The Government have been considering the response to the consultation paper. We shall announce our conclusions as soon as possible. We shall take on board comments made in today's debate. I know that hon. Members think that we are taking too long to make a decision, but the issue is both complex and emotive. It is easier to criticise the present arrangements than to establish a new system. The Select Committee did not come down in favour of any of the options under consideration.
      We are anxious to find a sensible and lasting solution, but I emphasise that any option, apart from the straightforward increase in the fee, needs primary legislation before it can be implemented. We are aware of the Select Committee's anxiety that expenditure which they rightfully describe as wasteful should end.
      A question has been tabled to the Home Secretary about details of a pilot scheme testing new byelaws to reduce the nuisance of dog fouling. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is considering a pilot project to test the effectiveness of byelaws requiring people to clear up excrement deposited by their dogs in certain public places. Appropriately, the experiment will begin in the London borough of Barking.
      I leave dogs for animals in general, the London zoo and the question of grants to voluntary bodies. My Department agrees with the view of the Committee that it is bad practice that payments should be undertaken without specific statutory authority, except when a sudden need arises and in respect of which legislation will shortly be introduced or when the requirement is short-lived.
      For the Zoological Society of London, the Government fully accept that statutory cover should be provided for the short and long-term financial assistance which, it has recently been agreed, will be offered to the society. An early opportunity will be taken to introduce legislation seeking parliamentary approval to authorise this, but the House will be aware of the pressures on time, particularly those of us who have been up late for two nights on the Finance Bill. Although I hope that some progress will have been possible by the time that the Select Committee considers the Estimates for 1986–87, I can give no guarantee of that.
      As for the Department's grant-giving to voluntary bodies, the Committee recognises that the range of departmental responsibilities to which grants relate poses a difficulty in drafting suitable legislation, but we are now confident that most, if not all, of the Department of the Environment grant-giving could be covered by a widely drawn power and, again, a legislative opportunity is awaited.
      With regard to payments to international bodies, my Department is discussing with the Treasury what action is needed to give cover to this expenditure and how it might best be obtained. I note the warning of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green about what might happen if the position continues to be unresolved.

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      A number of issues were raised about housing. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) asked me to give figures for expenditure on the scheme for home ownership for tenants of charitable housing associations. The estimate of the cost in 1984–85, the first year of the operation of the scheme, was £10 million and the outturn was £3·45 million. When we announced the corporation's ADP on 21 January, the Minister for Housing and Construction gave the estimate of the likely cost in 1985–86 as £17 million. The scheme is now going well and we are currently considering whether any more resources can be carried forward from last year's underspend. We have given no figure yet for last year.
      The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) asked when a decision would be made on allocations in respect of the Housing Defects Act. Additional allocations to authorities which have particular difficulties in meeting their obligations will be made shortly under the Act.
      I was asked a number of questions about home improvement grants. The Committee attaches consider-able importance to ensuring that resources for the improvement and repair of the nation's housing stock should be appropriately distributed between the public and private sectors. We accept that it is important for available resources to be directed where they are most needed. This involves making some decision about distribution between the two sectors.
      It is up to local authorities to divide the resources that are available to them and, with their statutory responsibility for housing in their areas and the knowledge of local circumstances, I believe that they are best placed to decide on local needs and priorities. That is why we allocate the capital resources as a single block to each authority, which they can then allocate as they think fit. In allocating resources between authorities, we consider, among other things, the condition of the housing stock in the public and private sectors.
      We already have a good deal of information from the English house condition survey, which is scheduled to be repeated in 1986, and I can confirm that information will be available on a comparable basis to the proceeding survey. As the hon. Member for Norwood said, we are in the process of supplementing—by means of a special inquiry into the repair and improvement needs of the housing stock in local authority ownership — our information on this subject. We expect the first results from that inquiry to be available at the end of the month.
      We shall then have a more up-to-date view of the national need for improvement and repair in the two sectors. However, while that may inform our decision on the allocation of resources between authorities, the individual authorities will continue to be best placed to decide on distribution at a local level.
      In our allocation procedures, we shall take into account the different roles of local authorities in the two sectors. For their housing, authorities have the same responsibility as any landlord to make sure that the property is kept in good repair and that necessary improvements are carried out.
      In the private sector, the primary responsibility rests with owners. They clearly recognise that, as the great majority of the more than £9 billion a year spent on home improvements is already financed largely by savings or by
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      borrowing from the financial institutions. An important effect of the 1982 Budget initiative was that householders were made even more aware of the benefits of improving and repairing their homes and securing the value of their property.
      The private sector organisations have also realised that there is much that they can do to encourage and assist owners to carry out repair work. For example, the National Home Improvement Council has set up neighbourhood revitalisation services in several areas, and the Anchor Housing Trust's "Staying Put" schemes are especially geared to helping elderly people to maintain and retain their homes. We want to encourage the private sector to help itself in that sort of way.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr Chapman) reminded the House of the growth in expenditure on home improvement grants — up from £200 million in 1981–82 to £900 million in 1983–84 and about £730 million in 1984–85. More than 250,000 grants were paid in 1983–84 and about 200,000 last year. There has been a shift in priorities, both for local authorities and individual home owners, who are giving greater priority to maintaining the housing stock.
      I am glad that the Committee recognises that it is not easy for local authorities concerned to find suitable gipsy sites. As the Committee rightly says, proposals to establish a site arouse considerable opposition from local residents. There has been a gradual increase in site provision since the grant aid was introduced in 1979–80, and a number of studies have been carried out within the Department to consider whether any other steps may be taken to speed site provision.
      These have enabled us to produce booklets on the management of gipsy sites and on the question of defining a gipsy. Copies have been made available to the House when published. We are also preparing a leaflet about private sites. However, we shall certainly take another look at the problem on the lines that the Committee recommends
      It has been said that authorities have shirked their duty in that respect. There is a remedy in the courts and some local authorities have been taken to court by representatives of gipsies who believe that the Act should be upheld. The duty to provide sites is mandatory, not discretionary. The record shows that we are prepared to take account of unfair trading on conscientious authorities in the discussions that we have with individual authorities about the designation of their areas.
      The Committee considered the difficulties people living in rented accommodation have in moving from one part of the country to another. The Government provide assistance to those who need to move, through the national mobilty and tenants exchange schemes. These two schemes are shortly to be brought together, providing opportunities for increased rationalisation and effectiveness.
      Under the national mobility scheme, local authorities make available I per cent. of their annual lettings for people moving into the area from outside the county, plus one more letting for each of their nominees who is housed elsewhere. The Select Committee commented that the 1 per cent. of lettings available was unduly low and thought that consideration should be given to raising the figure to 2 per cent. or more as a contribution to helping those moving for employment.

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      I share the Committee's concern about the difficulties that people have in obtaining housing when they move for work. Indeed, last year I asked the national mobility steering committee to consider increasing the 1 per cent. proportion, but the local authority associations opposed the proposal, and it was rejected. The steering committee agreed, however, to reconsider the proposal in a year's time, and I hope that it will take note of the Select Committee's views.
      The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) asked what our proposals were. I believe that it would make sense for the national mobility office to assume responsibility both for the Greater London mobility scheme and for the seaside and country homes scheme. As he will be aware, a committee is looking into that. When that committee has reported and a decision has been taken, we shall be better placed to take decisions about financial responsibility for the scheme.
      My Department is informally exploring further ways of encouraging local authorities to meet the present 1 per cent. target, but any move to make the scheme statutory would be stongly resisted by the local authorities, and I fear that it would disrupt the present smooth running of the scheme, which operates by consensus and co-operation.
      Mr. Robert B. Jones: On the subject of mobility, it is all very well for the Minister to point out the difficulties involved in moving to a statutory scheme, but so long as large numbers of authorities, particularly in areas such as Scotland, fail to participate, it cannot help but lack effectiveness. Has he any proposals to apply a little more persuasion on those authorities?
      Sir George Young: I know that the Chairman of the Committee this year is devoting considerable time persuading the relatively small numbers of local authorities which have not joined to join. We are talking of a handful in England and relatively few in Scotland. We hope to make progress by persuasion and consent.
      A number of comments have been made about the urban programme and about the desirability of targeting the programme. The Government's intention is to concentrate the help provided by the traditional urban programme on the areas with the greatest need. Included will be some areas that are not designated under the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978, but the programme should not be seen as a long shot for grant aid by every undesignated district. I accept that as we concentrate resources more effectively we should avoid abortive work by discouraging from bidding areas that are unlikely to be successful. Part of the problem is that the programme operates through a circular which is sent to all authorities. This becomes a less appropriate way in which to operate as the number of authorities receiving approval falls. It may be that we should offer invitations explicitly to priority areas rather than issuing a circular to every authority. We shall be announcing proposals for consultation with local authorities in the last couple of weeks.
      The designation of Newham has been referred to on several occasions. The previous Labour Government did not designate it, so the crime, if there is one, has been committed equally by both the Labour Government and the present Government. Newham has within its boundaries the London Docklands development corpora-tion, which is injecting substantial sums of public money into the infrastructure. That is an advantage that other London boroughs do not have.
      Mr. Tony Banks: The Minister knows that only 6 per cent. of Newham's population live in the docklands area. There is a distortion of the local economy that is of no great assistance to the remaining 94 per cent. of the population, which badly needs the resources that partnership status would provide.
      Sir George Young: The LDDC is providing jobs, which I hope are of interest to the hon. Gentleman's constituents. It is providing housing as well. About 40 per cent. of the houses that the corporation builds go to those who live in the area. The fact that very few live in the LDDC area at present is irrelevant. Very few people live there because the area comprises mostly docks. The one thing that I can say about the speech of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West is that for once he resisted the temptation to have a dig at the LDDC. I regard the fact that he did not mention it this evening as a cause for hope.
      The Select Committee commented on the international garden festival. It rightly observes in its report that the financial outturn did not meet expectations. I accept that conclusion and I can assure the House that we have already begun our own assessment of the project. When our inquiries are complete, we shall report the findings to the Committee. It is important that the lessons are properly documented to provide guidance for similar future projects.
      I think that everyone will agree that the festival brought new life and newfound confidence to Merseyside. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet for his remarks about the festival. The development corporation is worthy of the highest praise for the way in which it mounted the project. When I visited the festival last summer I found it difficult to believe that such a high quality environment had been created in such a short time from dereliction. I shall report to the Select Committee in due course on the lessons to be learned.
      What did we get for the money which was expended on the festival? Liverpool now has an area of landscaped parkland of which it can be truly proud. It has a festival hall that can be converted to leisure and sports use as well as a riverside walkway. There are landscaped sites that are ready for high quality residential and industrial development. A number of jobs were created during the two and a half years of construction. Expenditure by visitors to the festival amounted to about £9 million, which benefited local hotels and guest houses.
      Now that the festival has ended, I hope that the corporation will succeed in persuading the private sector to take on and develop the site. Whatever happens, Merseyside will have had the benefit of hosting a unique event and of gaining the many assets and benefits which came from it.
      The administration costs of the London Docklands Development Corporation have been referred to during the debate. This issue must be placed in the context of the task that is faced by the corporation. Anyone who has visited the docklands recently, will, I am sure, have been impressed by the progress that has been made, especially on the Isle of Dogs. The area has been transformed. Work on the structures for the railway is everywhere evident.
      The first phase of the distinctive Heron Quays office development has been completed. Construction of the Daily Telegraph's new printing works is well advanced

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      and many other formerly derelict sites are now alive with construction work. I congratulate Christopher Benson and his team on the corporation's excellent record.
      Mr. Tony Banks: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Sir George Young: No. I must make progress in fairness to those who wish to participate in the next debate.
      At the same time, I share the Committee's view that we must keep a close watch on the LDDC's administration costs. The corporation, in conjunction with my Department, has started work on a review of its administration costs. The work started before the Committee's report was published.
      We must take into account the fact that the LDDC must have regard for about 40,000 local people, whereas very few people live in the Merseyside docklands area. The LDDC has provided a marketing effort and the business support and advice necessary to attract more than £820 million in private investment to the docklands, whereas the MDC is only just beginning to gear up its activity. A substantial part of the corporation's broad definition of administrative costs goes to areas which other bodies examined by the Select Committee do not include as administration. This covers business development and support services, site marketing, community sport and estate management.
      The hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) addressed himself to the Property Services Agency and fraud and corruption. I assured the House last year that Ministers were determined to enforce the highest possible standards, and that remains true. The PSA has given top priority to implementing the Wardell-Touche Ross recommendations and those on other maintenance matters that have been raised by the National Audit Office in reporting to the PAC. The PAC took evidence earlier this year on progress and detailed in the evidence, which has been published, is the action that we have already taken.
      As for the maintenance of the Government's estate, I share the Committee's concern about the backlog and the need to ensure that the funds that are available are used as economically and effectively as possible.
      I accept both of the recommendations which the Committee has made on increased delegation and standards. We must ensure that common standards are applied throughout the area for which the PSA retains responsibility for maintenance. We have introduced a uniform classification of maintenance priorities and have started a programme of district management reviews, which will consider all the activities of the district works office. These measures will ensure that consistent standards are being applied.
      I accept in principle the recommendation that we should increase the amount of delegation to Departments, though the way and extent to which this will be done needs to be
      1314
      considered carefully. In the current review of our relationships with other Departments we are trying to find a clearer definition of roles. The starting point is that the PSA has a clear task to fulfil as central manager of the civil estate. That means retaining responsibility for the structural maintenance of the properties on the estate. These are valuable public assets, and the PSA has the staff with the necessary technical expertise to know what needs to be done and how to specify and control the contracts so as to secure the best value for money.
      We recognise that there is a good deal of sense in not merely making local managers and Departments aware of costs, as the property repayments system does, but giving them an appropriate share in the decisions that have to be taken between conflicting priorities. We hope that some of the experiments that have started on internal decoration will show that it is sensible to delegate this task to Departments where they do not affect the structure of the property or require technical expertise. Whether increased delegation will of itself produce better maintenance standards is another matter, because Departments are subject to the same constraints as the PSA. However, it will make for a more logical division of labour.
      We shall pursue the issue of purchase of freeholds with the Treasury in the light of what the Committee has said.
      The Committee dealt with the property repayments system at some length. As the report states, the system has been operating for two years. It is, however, such a major change in the way that Government accommodation is handled that it is still a comparatively new system and subject to review and development. It has been helpful to have the Committee's ideas during the formative stage of the process. It involves substantial operating costs, but the Government expect these to be more than offset by extra value for money.
      The first area to which we should look for results is in the figures for the areas occupied. These have been reducing in recent years as staff numbers have been cut. The PSA has been seeking to rationalise the estate to reduce holdings to a minimum. However, some broad issues are raised about the role of the PSA by the Committee and it is not quite clear whether introducing commercial accounts would be in the interests of the PSA as it has been set up. We accept the Committee's recommendation that this matter should be considered and that the Treasury should be involved, but the Committee should not expect a quick solution to what I fear may be a rather difficult set of problems.
      I shall deal by correspondence with the other issues that have been raised. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their comments on my Department's expenditure.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): The Questions necessary to dispose of the first group of motions stand over to half-past eleven or at the conclusion of the debate on the final Estimate, whichever is the earlier, under the Order of the House of 4 July.

  Health and Personal Social Services

    Class XI, Vote 1
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That a further sum not exceeding £5,168,144,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of Health and Social Security on the provision of services under the national health service in England, on other health services including a grant in aid and on certain other services including research and services for the disabled. — [Mr. Kenneth Clarke.]
    7.20 pm
    Mrs. Renée Short: I am glad to have the opportunity to debate the report of the Social Services Committee on the care of the mentally ill and mentally handicapped, as, I am sure, are other members of the Select Committee. I am disappointed that, although the report was presented four and half months ago, we have not yet had a ministerial response. I hope that that gap will be filled. The Committee was well served by its expert advisers. I should like to thank David Plank, John Wing and Joy Young for all their work, help, advice and enthusiasm. The Committee is most grateful to them.
    The Select Committee is now engaged on the social security reviews. We do not yet know about the effects of the reviews on the mentally disabled. Paragraph 147 of the report states that the analysis should show
    "the benefit entitlements of mentally handicapped and mentally ill people."
    I hope that the Minister for Health will fill that gap.
    The Committee paid tribute to the great care given by doctors, nurses and other doing a multiplicity of jobs in the huge hospitals, often in isolated positions, during the last century. We saw huge hospitals in the United States with 20,000 patients. It is possible to move ahead too quickly. It is easy to move patients to cheaper, less well-motivated and less well-staffed places. If community care is to work, there must be locally based facilities which are well staffed by redeploying thousands of skilled, partly skilled and unskilled staff, as well as money. Unless that happens, community care will fail. If it is to work, there must he locally based psychiatric care, workshops and a rejigging of the social security system and taxation to encourage people if they find work. The clear lesson to be learned from our American visit is that we cannot close down one set of facilities, however imperfect, until the alternatives are firmly established.
    It is fairly easy to shift patients from a state hospital to a less well-motivated and well-staffed "community facility", whatever it is. Large mental institutions can then he closed, but that does not help the patients. As the committee's report states:
    "Any fool can close a hospital but it depends how you do it." That statement has been widely reported in the press.
    The Minister for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): In case the hon. Lady gives a misleading impression, will she give one example of where we have closed a large mental hospital without providing alternative facilities? I think the hon. Lady will agree that there is no such example in this country, although there may be examples in the United States or Italy, to which the Committee travelled.
    Mrs. Short: If the Minister has the patience to bear with me, I hope to give some examples later.
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    Our present provision for mentally ill and mentally handicapped patients is underfunded and understaffed. If we are to transfer patients to the community, local authority expenditure will have to increase. That is the point that we are trying to put forward in this debate. Expenditure on housing, education and transport must increase. Unless we do so, an even greater burden will be imposed on the voluntary services. The only money that many patients will have will be their social security entitlements.
    We must understand that many mentally ill and mentally handicapped people are already being cared for in the community in their own homes, or, if not, they are being cared for in group homes, hostels and lodgings. Better facilities will be needed for them. The Committee heard of many parents who were coping with their mentally handicapped children. These parents criticised the present inadequate provision. The careing professions made known their great concern during every visit that the Committee made.
    There are, of course, day centres, group homes and sheltered workshops run by immensely dedicated people, but there is also great concern. We must bear in mind that mental illness hospitals scheduled for closure some years ago still have patients in them, some of whom are very old and frail. Some of those hospitals contain 1,000 or more patients. There is a danger that the Government are putting pressure on hospital authorities to close mental illness hospitals within certain time limits. This makes it difficult for psychologists, nurses and community mental health nurses to think about what should be provided for their patients.
    The Committee's report states that the community psychiatric nurse is a key pail of the new mental illness service. The director of the Health Advisory Service calls the CPN
    "probably the most important single professional in the process of moving care of mental illness into the community".
    I am glad that there are now more CPNs in primary health care teams. During the Committee's visit to Blackburn and Tiverton we heard of general practitioners' increased confidence in referring patients to CPNs and of the confidence of CPNs able to work relatively independently. That is a very good development.
    The Royal College of Psychiatrists favours that, but is anxious that it should be achieved by expanding the service rather than by redeploying those nurses who are already caring for more disabled psychiatric patients in the community. In 1977, the Trethowan report on the role of clinical psychologists recommended the employment of a minimum of 1,100. There are now 1,300, but they are unevenly spread throughout the community. There are half as many proportionately in Trent, Oxford and Wessex as in the north-western region. Those people should be training the therapists, nurses, care officers and assistants. Indeed, they should be training the relatives, giving them help and guidance when careing for their relations in their homes. In some areas the clinical psychologists are doing that, as Committee members saw on some of their vistis. I hope that the Committee will review the Trethowan report and encourage the leadership and potential of clinical psychologists.
    The Committee has drawn attention to the fact that general practitioners are not always willing or able to care for mentally disabled patients. The Royal College of General Practitioners agreed that general practitioner

    1317
    training was inadequate for the job which the doctors were expected to do in caring for mentally disabled people in the community. I understand that the Royal College of Psychiatrists would be happy to help with general practitioner training. If the Minister for Health is willing to provide encouragement, this link between the two branches of the profession could be developed, and that would be helpful.
    The president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists told the Committee:
    "during the period since the 1950s, there has been a very radical change in the way in which psychiatrists have come outside the mental hospitals and have become more heavily involved with the community in a variety of ways"—
    notably with the concept of treatment and rehabilitation close to the patient's own home.
    Not enough time is being given to the psychiatrists to plan acceptable alternatives. Public attitudes in the community must be considered. We are saying that the Minister for Health cannot turn people out of hospital before adequate community services have been provided for them. On discharge too many patients rely on seedy bed-and-breakfast lodgings, doss houses, park benches or even prison. The Select Committee is about to start an investigation into prison medical services, and I suppose that we shall come up against this problem again during that inquiry. Many private homes are springing up. There is no proper inspection, many charge large fees and no follow-up is provided by hospitals or social services. That is a serious gap in the present system of transfer from hospital care into the community.
    It is possible to provide good care in ordinary domestic surroundings with sufficient resources and one-to-one staffing as the Committee saw in Nebraska as well as in Cardiff and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The best form of accommodation is ordinary housing with staff with the necessary expertise providing for small groups of mentally ill people in the community. If the mentally ill are to be housed in the community, there must be a change of heart by their neighbours. We learned how to tackle that problem in Cardiff. It is important to talk to the neighbours about the project before the patients arrive.
    Sheltered village-type communities can also provide an excellent environment for certain mentally ill patients. We visited a splendid Rudolf Steiner community overlooking the sea near Belfast where 60 mentally handicapped children and 30 mentally handicapped adults are cared for in a self-supporting community. They performed various interesting activities and ran a productive farm, breeding cattle and growing crops.
    How will the Government carry out such a massive and diverse exercise in their present mood of cutting and skimping on the social services? The method of financing a successful programme of community care is crucial. The Minister for Health seemed confident when he told the House that the Government had sufficient financial mechanisms to encourage the discharge of long-stay patients and to establish matching services in the community, but the Select Committee for Social Services, health authorities, local authorities, voluntary organisa-tions, parents and clients do not share the Minister's optimism.
    Regional strategic plans for the next 10 years are now appearing. Many of the regional plans for mental illness
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    and mental handicap are sound. They are full of the right sentiments. The real action, however, takes place in the districts. There are many vague proposals for National Health Service community mental handicap units and mental health centres, but there is little evidence that the districts have any clear notion of how the new long-stay chronically mentally ill will be cared for. Some patients will remain in the big old mental institutions which look as though they are to be closed, but which will close only in the sense that the Italians close their hospitals by changing their names.
    Those Victorian hospitals will lose many of their staff, but they will retain a core of patients. Mapperley hospital in the Minister's area has 350 beds and is supposed to close by 1991. There will be a large 150-plus bed district psychiatric centre on that site. Middlewood hospital in Sheffield has 775 beds and is to close, but a new 120-bed unit is proposed on the edge of the existing site. The fear is that those patients will be conveniently forgotten. People will think that St. John's, Mapperley, Middlewood and Powick have been closed and attention will be concentrated on the more interesting community services.
    The Select Committee recommended that at least the same proportion of resources should continue to be devoted to the most severely mentally disabled in the future. It also discussed the new long-stay provisions—the asylum function—in hostels or refuges rather than in new units built in the grounds of the old hospitals. It is essential that we do not neglect the chronically mentally disturbed.
    Paragraphs 161 to 167 of the Select Committee report give the numbers of mentally disabled people in prisons or who are homeless or living in shelters. The Committee recommended a departmental inquiry into the care of homeless mentally ill people. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether that is to take place. Over the past few months we have been monitoring the Government's policy on resettlement units and we intend to examine Ministers on that in the autumn, but perhaps the Minister will tell us today what consultation has taken place on replacing the local units and how far Camberwell will have been replaced when it closes its doors in September. In the autumn we shall also be examining the prison medical service. The British Medical Association has warned us that prisons could become the "sump" for caring for the mentally disabled.
    With regard to mental handicap, it is disturbing to see the extent to which some of the old hospitals are being retained to an undesirable extent and that new institutions are being created. Barnsley is building a new mini-mental handicap hospital. Oxfordshire and Berkshire authorities are planning to build more than 12 large new units, generally of 25 beds, but including a 50-bed unit in Reading. The Government are not closing the large hospitals. The Select Committee went into this question in detail in paragraphs 55 to 58 of the report and concluded that new units on this scale were to be deprecated. Ministers must use the accountability review process to discover why authorities are still building so-called "Wessex units", which were a great advance in their day, when Wessex is moving rapidly towards the use of ordinary houses for six or seven people at a time.
    Some plans show proposals for the transfer of patients from one institution to another. This is sometimes called relocation. In America it is called "transinstitutionalisation"—a marvellous word for Scrabble players, but a

    1319
    barely acceptable practice, as paragraphs 153 to 156 of the report observe. We warned that traffic of dependent people between institutions was in danger of developing. We believe that to be undesirable. We saw examples of this when we visited Powick outside Worcester. As it is European Music Year, I remind hon. Members that Powick was the hospital where Elgar had his first job as a music master. Powick was supposed to have closed, but we have been to see it and have seen the patients there. There are approximately 100 patients left at Powick. They will be dumped elsewhere to enable the authority to make millions of pounds from the sale of that beautiful site overlooking the Malvern hills for private development or whatever.
    Trent is planning to move 100 Saxondale patients to the site of Ransom mental handicap hospital. Northampton is planning to move 100 St. Crispin's patients to Princess Marina mental handicap hospital and 45 patients from St. John's Aylesbury to Manor House mental handicap hospital. It would be possible on this basis to close all long-stay hospitals, but they are not really being closed —the patients are simply being juggled around.
    The nub of the problem is resources. The Select Committee's first and broadest conclusion is that at present mental disability services are underfinanced and understaffed. It is impossible to achieve the level of community care that everyone wants without some increase in resources. The Select Committee is not just asking for more money. If there were no community care policies, we could not continue for much longer with the kind of hospital service that we have. The Victorian asylum type of hospital is now inadequate. The Select Committee saw some very grim conditions, as I have described to the House. The press is understandably more interested in exposing the shortcomings of community care —the lodging house problem. We should not forget the alternative. The Select Committee report states in paragraph 21:
    "The relative neglect in mental illness and mental handicap hospitals has only been tolerable (if barely so) because of the promise of a major shift in the locus of care."
    The particular problem to which I want to draw attention in the context of an Estimates debate is the difficulty of transferring resources from one area of public expenditure to another, from one ministerial Department to another. We spend over £2 billion on health and personal social services, a further considerable sum on social security payments for mentally disabled people, and there is further expenditure by education and housing departments. Money does not flow as easily between those structures as it does between patients.
    The Committee expects to see an eventual reduction in NHS expenditure and an increase in local authority expenditure, as we describe in paragraph 22, flowing primarily from our recommendation that while the National Health Service should not be constrained in the short term from providing community residential services for mentally handicapped people, in the long term all social care—that is, non-clinical care—mental handicap services should be financed and administered by local authorities. That is already happening in some districts, but not in all. It is a question of the transfer of resources.
    The Committee looked at the Government's care in the community initiatives, and they are very welcome. We look forward to their evaluation by the personal social services research unit in Kent, so long as that unit
    1320
    concentrates on what happens to patients and not just on the book-keeping exercise, because it is what happens to patients that is important. The Committee concluded that they did not at present offer a persuasive solution to the permanent transfer of resources. The very fact that the DHSS is funding them with bridging money means that they cannot easily be repeated. What is more, because they quite properly concentrate an getting specific people out of hospital, there is no certainty as to who will fund the services once those people no longer need them. Also, the services concentrate on getting people out of hospital rather than on the maintenance of the majority of mentally disabled people who are already in the community anyway. We must not overlook that.
    The Committee made several recommendations in that connection and in paragraph 68 we recommend
    "that Ministers create means of bringing about the necessary permanent transfer of resources to local authorities so that by the end of the century they will be in a position to take over prime responsibility for non-medical services for mentally handicapped people."
    That is a clear recommendation.
    We also make several recommendations which are designed to improve joint planning between health and local authorities and to toughen up regional and departmental oversight. We think that the recently published strategic plans are rather thin on the nitty-gritty of joint planning. Perhaps the Minister will say what he intends to do about that.
    We call for a central bridging fund to enable resources to be released to build up a new style of mental illness and mental handicap service before the hospitals are fully closed, with the resultant savings. In paragraphs 111 to 116 we explain why we think that is necessary, as do most experts. Much of the per capita cost of a patient is tied up in fixed costs and ancillary staff, so that the discharge of a few patients does not itself produce any savings, because the staff who are already there have to remain to look after the patients who are left behind.
    Mrs. Major of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, who gave us some very good evidence, put the matter well when she said:
    "Patients should not be removed until the alternative facilities actually exist in the community. It seems to me that it is like asking a passenger to jump off an elderly ship into the stormy sea with the assurance that the lifeboat will be along in a few months' time."
    By then, of course, there will not be any patients to pick up.
    Some regions have apparently managed to close long-stay hospitals, or at least to run them down. We say in paragraph 115:
    "the fact of discharge, of bed reduction does not reveal anything of the quality of community services provided. Some authorities have followed a path of either racing ahead and damning the consequences or of simply dismantling their existing services and rebuilding them in local wards still under NHS control."
    Somewhere new buildings are to be put up to do precisely that.
    Some regions do not have anything like sufficient funds for such reserves. We gave as an example south-west Thames and the huge Epsom cluster. The same is likely to be true of north-west Thames and the Hertfordshire hospitals. The Committee has just received a very useful and full response from west Lambeth health authority. That is a district authority which is a RAWP-losing district within a RAWP-losing region. Its budget is being severely cut over 10 years. It is obliged to race ahead with the

    1321
    closure of Tooting Bec. We refer to that in paragraph 218 of our report. The local authority is rate-capped, penalised and generally restricted.
    The Committee visited Friern hospital in the Prime Minster's constituency. It serves districts which are also RAWP losers, and boroughs in north-east London which have no funds to spare. No doubt some authorities can manage more easily. The Committee concluded, in paragraph 116:
    "There are excuses as well as reasons for the lack of action."
    But for many some sort of centrally provided short-term funding is essential to bridge the gap. The Minister and the Government have to find some ways of getting over that problem.
    Between 1979 and 1984 a financial gain of over £101 million has been made by the sale of hospital land. Much of that may well have been land attached to mental illness or mental handicap hospitals. What does the Minister intend to do with that money? What has happened to it so far? I know that the figure is correct, because the Minister gave it to me in reply to a parliamentary question.
    I see from today's evening press that we have won over the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the view expressed from the Opposition Benches that defence expenditure should be reduced, and a figure of £500 million is being suggested. Perhaps the Minister will get his eye on some of that money.
    The message from the Select Committee is that resources must be found if the Government's declared policy is to succeed. It cannot be done otherwise. I hope that the Minister will bear in mind the good advice that we give him.
    7.47 pm
    Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: May I add my thanks and tribute to the Select Committee's advisers and say what a pleasure it was to serve as a member of the Committee, under the urbane leadership of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short). As I have experience of only one Select Committee, I have nothing with which to compare it, but if the experience of members of the Social Services Committee is anything to go by, I suspect that the Select Committee is a useful and helpful part of our procedures and our democracy in this Parliament.
    The report of the Select Committee is unanimous. There was an intense effort to ensure that what we reported was supported by all members of the Committee. The membership of the Committee covers a wide spectrum not only of politics but of personalities. It ranges from the quiet, genteel members to the not so quiet and genteel. [HON. MEMBERS: "Which are you?"] I think that I join hands with the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton).
    It would be discourteous to other hon. Members to concentrate on more than a few aspects of the subject in the time that is available, so I want to emphasise one or two of the points that appear to me to be significant in the various visits that we made and evidence that we took.
    Throughout our work, I was interested to find that what one area told us was impossible was being done in other areas. On many occasions we were told that it was impossible to move certain patients out of an institution, but the next day one found that it was being done at some
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    other place. There is a terrible danger that not only the patients in institutions but the staff become used to what they have and, without malevolence, cannot see beyond that. Those who are charged with the political responsibility for policy-making in the Health Service and the social services, as well as in the House, must grapple with the problem of what level of paternalism should be allowed.
    The type of paternalism that seems to be beneficial is when experts say that they know what is best for their elderly mentally handicapped patients, and that is to show them what it is like outside the institution. Unless that is done, patients will be unable to decide what they want; they will always decide that they want what they already have. That sort of paternalism can be valuable. The worrying side of paternalism is when patients are guarded because, it is said, it is too frightening for them to leave the institution. Again, that is done not out of malevolence but from a desire to care for those who are fragile and vulnerable.
    In our inquiries, the matter of philosophy of risk was very striking. I have come to realise more and more that the risk that we allow, not only to the patients, but to those whom they might harm, is a political decision. Too often, we shelter behind the experts charged with the care of those people. If something goes wrong, we turn our back and ask, "Why did the social services allow this to happen? Why did the health authority not do more?" We must realise that if we are to encourage the flow into the community of those who have disorders, are vulnerable mentally, or perhaps have behavioural problems which may influence others, there is a risk attached.
    We must grapple with the problem of risk. I was impressed by the director of a mental health institute in America, who said that he could sedate the patients for 12 months of the year and remove all risk. However, he also said that we would lose the benefit to the community of many of the patients, who are splendid members of society for nine months of the year and have much to contribute, but who are disturbed for perhaps three months. He said that it was our choice and that we could decide.
    At the lowest level it applies if we wish people to live in as normal conditions as possible. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) said earlier, the best option is an ordinary house in an ordinary street. But fire officers insist that if there is a group of people living communally, the fire regulations require that extras such as fire doors and fire escapes must be added to the house. The property ceases to be an ordinary house in an ordinary street. That is a vivid aspect of the problems of normality and risk. We must be shrewd and decide whether to put up with the risk and not shelter behind authorities when something goes wrong, because somewhere at some time something is sure to go wrong.
    Although some would say that we were brave or perhaps foolhardy, we touched on the delicate matter of sexuality. We tend to shy away from the problem of the rights of those who cannot guard their emotions and vulnerability in the same way as others. We asked those with legal minds to consider carefully the responsibility of those who care for such people and to consider the rights regarding contraception and other matters relating to sexuality.
    There is a danger in thinking that if only we get all the practical steps right, people will enter the community without problems. The longer I remain in politics, the

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    more I become convinced that we cannot change people's hearts and minds simply by changing policies. The context in which we develop policies is just as important as the pragmatic decisions. Although we should discuss the practical points to which the hon. Lady drew attention and which the report details at great length and, I hope, powerfully, it is just as important for us to argue with our constituents and our communities about the need to accept people whose behaviour may seem to be abnormal and who may appear to pose an extra burden on the community. Their behaviour should be regarded within the very broad spectrum of behaviour and personality. Without that understanding or acceptance, policies are empty and might, in some respects, be provocative.
    It is important to recognise that the stress may be greatest in our urban communities, where many such people are sent to live because of the tremendous care that can be offered by urban organisations. Those who are struggling to survive on old estates or with unemployment— or whatever social conditions impact greatly upon them—may believe, alas, that they could do without the extra burden of having people in the community to whom they must give more attention. It behoves us all to recognise that the context of the community is desperately important if the good policies outlined in the report are to succeed.
    Although the hon. Lady rightly drew attention to the need for more resources, I would not wish the House to believe that that is the only solution. We do not always consider the links between the voluntary sector and the different aspects of the Health Service, social services and the social security system. The total resources that can be provided by all those organisations may mean much less to an individual than institutional care. We cannot say that one solution—perhaps that of social security income support—is better than drawing the services together. It would be unwise to believe that the report asks only for vastly increased resources. We need a host of other services, too.
    I should emphasise to the Minister that the bridging facilities between institutional care and the community are expensive. We cannot make large savings by closing an institution and disposing of the buildings and land until it is entirely closed. There is a serious problem in providing a bridge between what we have now and what we want. I hope that the Minister will take on board the crucial point that each area may need funds to provide such bridging facilities.
    An adviser to the Committee drew to its attention an interesting paradox in the financial resources committed to this area of care. Although we are anxious to close some institutions, because the concept of the asylum is now completely anachronistic, paradoxically, the people of 100 years ago committed more resources to those buildings, in real terms, than we are committing today. They were splendidly built; they would not have survived for so long if they were not. Many of them are situated in vast acres of beautiful land. We saw an institution in Surrey that was advanced for its time. It had separate buildings with wonderful facilities among them, and the resources committed to it were probably more in real terms than the resources about which we are talking today.
    If we consider the cost of keeping an individual in an institution or caring for him in the community, the difference may not be as significant as we might have
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    thought. Roughly, it costs about £11,000 per person a year in an institution, and £13,000 to £14,000 a year outside. Community care is dearer, but not much more so.
    We should commend the organisations that have not waited for the Government's response to the report or for this debate, but have used the report as a lever in their areas to do something about the problem. They have used the report's recommendations to set up a dialogue with the health authorities. I was interested to hear that, on Merseyside, MIND has already entered into a contract with the health authority, under which, for each individual that MIND takes into its care from an institution, the health authority will pay £14,000 for his or her place. So far as I am aware, the scheme relates to places rather than to people. As the Minister is aware, there is a problem with the money ending with the death of the patient, because the organisation has a continuing expense, so I commend that type of deal. We should be seeking to ensure that organisations can undertake different forms of individual care, innovation and experimentation.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: May I refer the hon. Gentleman to my area health authority, which is closing the Mary Dendy hospital for the mentally disabled? It has first-class facilities such as a hydrotherapy pool. The care which will be available once the hospital is closed will not include such facilities nor those available in the Parkside hospital which is due to close during the next 10 years. Those two hospitals have sheltered workshops and many other excellent features which will not be replaced when they are closed. Will the patients have as good a standard of living and accommodation when they are discharged into the community as they had in the hospitals? Is that factor riot important? Is it not vital that additional resources are made available to ensure that the facilities now provided in hospitals are provided when those patients go into the community?
    Mr. Meadowcroft: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments. I recognise his interest and his anxiety about the difference between facilities available in institutions and in the community.
    The problem is whether we should consider the quality of life as opposed to freedom, which cannot necessarily be measured by objects. That is a difficulty. In some ways it is not dissimilar from the way in which some people consider facilities for prisoners when they ask why they have four-star hotel accommodation while we suffer outside. None of those people would wish to be locked up behind doors. In a sense, people prefer the poverty of freedom to the wealth of slavery. People may prefer the quality of life in the community to the facilities provided for them in institutions. I accept what the hon. Gentleman said. We must find a balance. We have the task, which at times is not easy, of finding the right solution.
    It was a pleasure to serve on the Select Committee. I hope that the Minister will take note of the fact that the report was unanimous. I am glad to see that it has been hailed as valuable by nearly all the specialist organisations. I hope that we shall see the proper, caring and sensitive dispatch of people with proper support out of the institutions into the community.
    8.2 pm
    Mr. Steve Norris: Although I was a late joiner to the Select Committee, I should like to join in

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    congratulating the Committee's advisers, who, I think both sides of the Committee felt, provided an excellent service.
    I take as my starting point the definitive statement by the Select Committee in paragraph 29:
    "Community care for mentally ill and mentally handicapped people is not a subject for partisan politics."
    I believe that you will have observed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that is the spirit in which the debate has taken place so far, and I hope that it will so continue.
    I congratulate the Government on having, first, endorsed and supported the concept of community care and on having devoted substantially increased funds to that principle. Since 1978, 51 per cent. more funds in real terms have been made available for the joint finance which is vital to the transfer of facilities from the hospital service to the community. The fact that year-on-year increases in schemes to which the health authority is also contributing are disregarded in terms of grant holdback is of additional benefit to hard-pressed local authorities. Those are useful steps towards financing community care.
    Local authorities' personal social services expenditure has increased, not just in cash terms, but in real terms. In contrast to what is often held to be the case outside the House, the reality is a 15 per cent. increase in real terms on home helps, 9 per cent. in real terms on meals served in the home, more than 25 per cent. extra day centre places, not for the elderly, but for those who fall within the category of people with whom we are dealing, and a 26 per cent. increase in the provision for adult training centres. Those are achievements of which the Government should be proud.
    The increases in expenditure are mirrored by service improvements. In 1983, 10 per cent. more people were visited at home by district nurses and health visitors, and nearly 25 per cent. more elderly people were treated by district nurses than when the Government came into office. What is more important, there are 51,000 places in day centres for the category of patient with whom we are dealing this evening. That is an increase of 18 per cent. since the Government took office. There are more places for mentally handicapped people at adult training centres.
    The Government have provided special intiatives for community care. They have made £16 million available for a programme of special projects to provide alternatives to long-stay hospital care. The "Helping the Community to Care" initiative has been provided with £10·5 million. This is designed to help people care for elderly or handicapped people within the community. Local services for mentally ill elderly people have been given £6 million extra.
    Support for the voluntary sector has increased from £7·5 million in 1978 to well in excess of £23 million. We must frame our observations to the Government in the light of an acceptance that they have devoted real extra resources to community care.
    Having said that, we must acknowledge that the standard which the Government have set themselves is high. When the Select Committee sought a definition of community care which would describe what was meant by the concept, which is often quoted differently, it said:
    "Appropriate care should be provided for individuals in such a way as to enable them to lead as normal an existence as possible given their particular disabilities and to minimise disruption of life within their community."
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    That is no easy task. It is no cheap task.
    Having acknowledged what the Government have already done and are continuing to do, I believe that we should all be aware of the warning that the Select Committee sounded in paragraph 21, when it said:
    "A decent community-based service for mentally ill or mentally-handicapped people cannot be provided at the same overall cost as present services. The proposition that community care could be cost-neutral is untenable."
    The Committee continued, I believe correctly, more strongly when it said:
    "Proceeding with a policy of community care on a cost-neutral assumption is not simply naive: it is positively inhumane. Community care on the cheap would prove worse in many respects than the pattern of services to date. The Minister of Health admitted— 'If you have some hospital facility in the past which has been greatly underfunded, if you transfer the function to community care, the cost will go up.'"
    Surely that is the background against which we must consider what community care means for the Health Service and social services.
    We must beware of a number of pitfalls which potentially lie before us. I speak as a member of a health authority and as one interested in advancing the concept of community care. Other hon. Members will no doubt deal with other aspects of the report. I suggest to my right hon. and learned Friend that we should, for example, be careful to ensure that in the process of returning to the community those who are clearly able to return, we do not leave the worst disabled as a rump of patients in hospital, thus in a sense dedicating our asylum facilities, not by design, but by accident and by a process of attrition. That would be unfortunate and unhelpful. We should also beware that we do not become obsessed with those who are in hospital whom we are trying to get out.
    One of the most significant observations made by the Select Committee was that we tend to think of the subject in terms of closing long-stay hospitals and putting people into the community. The speeches that we have heard so far have taken that course and talked about the closure of large institutions. The Committee noted an observation, which struck me at the time as singularly appropriate and important to remember—that 90 per cent. of the care is being provided in hospitals while 90 per cent. of the patients are living in the community.
    We will have misunderstood the concept if we think that community care means only closing down the big long-stay institution to transfer people into the community. Community care is about the care of those who are already out of hospital and those who have never had the opportunity to be catered for even within the National Health Service.
    We should be equally concerned to respect the concept of asylum. I was worried when the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) suggested that it was wrong for a health authority to say that it would close a long-stay institution but leave a facility on site for a reduced number of people. It would be wrong to leave a rump of patients who are difficult and for whom it is not convenient to make arrangements, but we have to come to terms with the concept of asylum for a limited number of people.
    In west Berkshire we make a point of holding our health authority meetings in our long-stay mentally handicapped hospital because we are conscious of the fact that it is a Cinderella service. It is important that we go there. It is a good discipline because, once a month, we are able to walk around and see what is happening. I know the

    1327
    christian names of patients who could have walked out of that hospital 20 years ago to start the process of becoming members of society with occasional outpatient visits. As it is, they are incapable of ever making that transition. There are patients in that hospital, Borocourt hospital, who under no circumstances could be returned to the community.
    Mrs. Renée Short: I said that.
    Mr. Norris: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for clarifying her earlier remarks. We must not assume that community care means that nobody is allowed the protection of genuine asylum in the literal sense of that word, which the National Health Service ought to be able to afford.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: As my hon. Friend serves on a health authority, can he give us an assurance, from his own experience or from his experience of other authorities, that such provision is being made for the future and that there will be long-stay care and asylum care for a limited number of mentally ill patients?
    Mr. Norris: My hon. Friend must direct his comments in another direction. I cannot give him any guarantees about what my right hon. and learned Friend may offer us at the conclusion of this debate. My authority recognises that the concept of asylum is vital, but we do not allow that to become a convenience for not making every effort to return the obvious patients, and perhaps the less obvious, to the community. I suspect that that is where the decision is important and where the veil needs to be parted. I am speaking about only a small number of people. I am convinced that, for the vast majority, the general thrust of the community care philosophy is right.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but does he agree that there is a danger that the more we talk about the people who are unable to be returned to the community the more we exaggerate their number? When the Select Committee went to see a project called Nimrod in Cardiff, we were told that people are selected for community care from a list and not according to their condition. We saw people who had been in an institution for 28 years and who are now living in the community. Nobody was prepared to admit that there was anybody in the institution who was not capable of being returned to the community. Intellectually, however, I accept the hon. Gentleman's contention that there must be some people who cannot be returned to the community.
    Mr. Norris: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's observations. He is right constantly to re-examine the criteria used for retaining patients in an institution. It is possible to treat any patient, in any circumstances, in a private house if that is the aim. That cannot be the aim, however. It is vital that we get away from the idea that the private house is some kind of end in itself. We can use the private house for the vast majority of mental illness and mental handicap patients in the normalisation process, but the asylum concept remains valid for a small number of patients.
    We have got past the easy side of community care. When it is obvious that patients can be returned to the community, most health authorities have developed plans to do that. We are now discussing the more difficult cases, and there are two things of which we must be extremely careful. The first is that we must not close facilities before
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    we open others. My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister has rightly reminded the House that that has not happened. I am worried that as large institutions begin to have fewer people the pressures on health authorities to speed up the process to get the last few dozen patients out will increase. We must protect those patients against the economic advantages of closing a facility too early.
    When my right hon. and learned Friend gave evidence to the Select Committee, he spoke of the bridging arrangements in regard to the closure of our large institutions. My idea of bridging arrangements is not confined to capital bridging—the purchase of a house or several houses before selling the land and buildings of an institution. That is the conventional concept of a bridge, and I am most grateful for the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend recognises the need for such a facility.
    More important for community care, however, is the following process. If a facility houses 400 patients and costs £400,000 a year to run, that represents £1,000 per patient. If one takes away 200 patients, that makes it £2,000 per year for each patient. If one is left with 20 patients, the deduction is obvious. It is also clear that my mathematics are at fault, but one adds many more noughts to the cost as the number of patients declines. The lesson is that as the number of patients retained in an institution drops, almost the same amount of money has to be spent as when a greater number of patients were housed in there. A major increase in resources is needed to tide us over a transitional period which will not last for one year, or two years, or even for 10.
    Hospital care for the mentally handicapped and those who are mentally ill has not always been as good as it ought to be. If community care is to succeed, it must be done well. It is better not to do it at all than to do it badly. To do it well means that long-term extra expense will be involved. Extra costs will be incurred, not because it is more expensive to maintain a series of private houses than it is to maintain one large institution, but because we are saying that we will not allow Cinderella services to exist. Staffing ratios will have to be improved. A massive increase in resources will need to be allocated to day centres, adult training centres and occupational therapy departments.
    Paragraph 28 of the Select Committee's report praises the staff of hospitals for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. It says:
    "There are not words powerful enough to praise the dedication of thousands of people who care for their mentally disabled fellows."
    I have the privilege of seeing them just once a month. I am also privileged to be able to walk in and then walk out again. They are unable to do that. They have to stay in the Borocourt, Fairmile and Wayland hospitals in my constituency and in similar hospitals in the constituencies of right hon. and hon. Members.
    In this unglamorous specialty, on very many occasions doctors work many more hours than their contracts stipulate. The nurses, both male and female, provide constant care, despite the almost intolerable frustration of lack of progress in their patients. Progress is usually made centimetre by centimetre. In many cases they work in less than ideal conditions. The Select Committee salutes them. They are an example to us all. They are entitled to know that this House cares about them and about the patients in their care. This debate is to be welcomed for this group of

    1329
    people, if for no other. I look forward to hearing what right hon. and hon. Friends have to say on this important subject.
    8.23 pm
    Mr. Ken Weetch: The Select Committee has provided a valuable service to the House, for its report contains a great deal of constructive thought and comment upon some difficult policy issues and it throws light on mainly difficult and sensitive areas. Since I am the first hon. Member who is not a member of the Select Committee to speak, I should put it on record that the Committee has provided a valuable source of reference on this subject.
    My remarks will concentrate upon mental illness and the psychiatric services in which I have a special interest. In the East Suffolk district health authority there are two large, old-style mental hospitals: St. Clement's and St. Audrey's. How to deal with these matters often comes full circle. In the 1870s, the person in charge of St. Audrey's hospital wrote down his thoughts on mental illness and the way in which the service should be organised. In a thoughtful memorandum, which officially has not seen the light of day, he said that he believed that psychiatric services and services for the mentally ill should be dispersed in the community and that professional services should be dispersed in local areas, because this would be of far more benefit to those whom the services are designed to help. That only goes to show there are no new ideas and that old ideas are revamped.
    I have to declare an interest as a sponsored member of the Confederation of Health Service Employees. Many of its members are in the front line of the provision of those services. It recruits heavily from ancillaries and nurses in the psychiatric sector. My comments are the result of what I have seen and heard. I recommend to the House a recent working party report by COHSE: the Mallinson report on the future of psychiatric services. It is a very important piece of research into the subject.
    The term "community care" is not defined. A number of reports on community care have been published but none of them defines community care in detail. The professional recommendations about the best way forward vary greatly. There are major differences of professional opinion about the best way forward and about the ultimate shape of psychiatric care. However, a rough and ready definition involves the phasing out of the large, long-stay, old-style mental health hospitals. They have come in for a great deal of flak, but the work that is being done in two large hospitals in east Suffolk is of a very high order. It is often done in daunting circumstances.
    On the other side of the coin, community care means that most people who need appropriate long-term care can and should be looked after in the community. I am advised that other features of community care will include multidisciplinary community support, the relocation of specialist services in local settings, and the co-operation of the local authorities and personal social services. Of course, the whole structure will be underpinned by a framework of joint financial arrangements. However, I want to express some reservations about the concept of community care.
    On the one hand a good deal must be said for such policies because the aim of all psychiatric therapy is to
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    equip the individual to cope in the community. The ability to cope in the framework of everyday life is the measure of whether the person is improving and whether his mental condition is improving. That is an important principle, which I wholeheartedly accept. The other assumption is that the needs of the individual are best catered for in the community, within an integrated network of different professional services. Another advantage is that the support of families and voluntary support groups can be harnessed, and I think that that is a very valuable princple.
    I think that most hon. Members will accept that far too many people have spent far too long in institutions of one sort or another. If one cannot cope very well and one goes into an institution, that institution and its framework become a crutch as time goes by, and people who have been institutionalised for a long time find the transition back to community life difficult.
    While I have every sympathy with the aims of community care policies, and while I accept the proposition that, as a society, we must mobilise community resources in a structured way to help those who are mentally ill, I have reservations on the way in which they are being put into operation. In the first place, community care is not a cheap, but an expensive option. To provide a framework of support services is potentially expensive. There were certain economies of scale—if I can put it in economic terms—in having people under one roof in the old-style mental hospitals. That cost option is no longer available as the old hospitals are closed. To echo the words of the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris), who served on the Select Committee, there is no possibility that the Government will be able to get away with that policy at a reduced cost. In my view that is not possible. Such a view has long been on the record. For instance, the Nodder report of 1980 said that the advantages of community care were doubtful if no extra resources in real terms were to be provided. That has long been realised by people in the profession.
    An important point is that when people are released into the community they then become the partial responsibility of the families concerned and there is sometimes an intolerable strain on family life if the support services are not properly organised. I have encountered cases in my constituency where families are having a job to cope. I notice from paragraph 45 of the Select Committee report that a general practitioner said:
    "I have never been asked for my opinion in 27 years of practice as to whether somebody's family could cope with them if they were discharged, let alone invited to a case conference."
    That is a serious point to make. There is no point in discharging people into the community if the burden on the individual families is intolerable.
    If the responsibilities for those services are divided between local authorities and the NHS, there is a very great danger of a confusion of responsibility and no clear line of authority as to the development of those services. I accept what the Minister of Health said when he challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) to quote an example of a hospital having been closed too quickly before the existing services could take over and cope. Nevertheless that danger should be borne in mind. If there is any rush to close those large hospitals before the framework has been adequately prepared in the community, significant problems will be thrown up.

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    In my view, if we are looking at the future shape of the framework, psychiatric services and services for mental illness should continue to be an NHS responsibility. In 1979 the Royal Commission on the Health Service said:
    "The capacity of local authorities to develop services and in particular residential accommodation for those who are considerably mentally disturbed may have been overestimated."
    In the polite diplomatic language of a Royal Commission, that meant that it is casting serious doubt upon the capacity of some local authorities to take the strain of that problem when the difficulties start to accumulate. I believe that the Royal Commission was right. Leaving the responsibility with the NHS is the only way to prevent considerable variations in the quality of community services up and down the country. That is a well-established point. When services are left to local authorities, they vary considerably in quality from place to place. We should not take such a risk with mental illness and psychiatric health. Therefore, I should be most doubtful that in some cases that was the right way forward.
    I did not stand up to speak in the debate prepared to argue about finance. I am simply not an expert on that, so I could not sustain the argument. Even on a prime facie observation, local authorities themselves have been the object of quite complex financial constraints. I am not debating the merits of that one way or the other, but the point must be made that fundamental objections can be made to a system of finance for psychiatric services that depends on a redistribution of funding between the NHS and personal social services. I do not see that as a coherent financial way forward.
    Funding community care can be too easily disguised so that one is not increasing real resources but merely shifting current resources through complicated book-keeping and
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    the mechanism of joint funding. If we are not careful, community care can turn into community neglect where people get lost.
    Already there is great concern among those who have spent a lifetime with mentally ill patients—people who are mentally ill to one degree or another—that there might be dire consequences if mistakes are made in the policy. At time of rate-capping, financial targets, and financial penalties, together with the progressive reductions in the rate support grant, is not a good time to be talking of increased local responsibility for the critical service for the mentally ill.
    The burdens of mental illness will increase as elderly people form a bigger proportion of the community, and the psychogeriatric services will come under much strain. A few years ago the audit inspectorate reported that there were wide variations between one local authority and another, and their abilities to cope with the problems that I have described are in many cases limited. Local authorities are too proud to abdicate their responsibilities to private institutions which are often of a doubtful quality.
    The needs of patients and those who suffer from mental illness should be paramount and should not be subject to considerations of lowering costs and closing old hostels as quickly as possible. The services should be firmly and emphatically under the control of the National Health Service because only that kind of control can ensure equality of provision and, I hope, a high standard of provision between one area and another. These services should not be left to local authority backwoodsmen. There should be a fully integrated service within the context of the National Health Service. One hopes that in the long run the psychiatric service can lose the stigma and, indeed, the reality of having been for too long a Cinderella service.

  Health and Personal Social Services
  8.42 pm
  Mr. John Hannam: I welcome this important debate on a subject with which I have been associated for some 10 years. I congratulate the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) and her Committee on their work in producing such an excellent report.
  I recall an occasion in the early 1970s when the present Secretary of State for Education and Science, who was then Secretary of State for Social Services came down to my constituency to open the Tree Tops centre for mentally handicapped children. It is a wonderful centre which has developed over the years. What sticks in my memory is that, when he entered the hall with all the dignatories and people gathered there, the music being played was Gilbert and Sullivan. As he came in, the song from the Mikardo which started up was "Behold the Lord High Executioner". I have reminded him of that on several occasions since. My right hon. Friend was responsible then for the launching of a major Government initiative for the mentally handicapped, and much of the progress made since then is due to his initiative at that time.
  I should like to pay tribute to the record of my local health authority, Exeter health authority, because it is probably one of the leaders in the country in the progress being made in moving patients out of the old institutions and into new staffed hostels and local support units. The latest progress report which the authority has just sent me reads:
  "All programmes are on target and entering a most interesting phase as the new community services open, offering a greater variety of help and support than was ever possible by the central hospitals."
  I am very proud of the authority's record and I keep in close contact with it. It is one of the authorities we can look to, and I am sure that the Select Committee found that when its members went there. I do not want to dwell on the overall situation and go back over points which have been raised by other hon. Members. However, I stress that there is a good working relationship between the health authority in Exeter and the local social services department. That seems to be why the financial resources and the staff can be switched across the resource fields. That has happened there, and it ought to be possible to achieve the same benefits and progress elsewhere.
  I should like to raise three separate issues which concern us in the all-party disablement group and which require urgent answers and action from the Government. The first concerns children in long-stay hospitals and institutions; the second relates to emergency alarm systems, which are important to those who come out of institutions and require help in their own homes; and the third is my concern about board and lodging payments. Only a small number of children are in long-stay mental hospitals, but the matter is urgent in terms of the lives of those involved.
  At a recent meeting of the all-party disablement group, representatives from Exodus came to speak to us. That is an organisation concerned entirely with getting children out of long-stay hospitals. Exodus has just produced a report called "Still There" which shows that in England and Wales 450 children are still living in hospitals with 25
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  beds or more. Not only are children still living in the hospitals, but new admissions to those hospitals are still taking place. There were four admissions this year, and the last one was in May in the west midlands. Surely children should be receiving child care and not medical care in the sense of being in hospital institutions. It is quite wrong for them to be in hospital beds under institutionalised care.
  Tremendous success has been achieved in recent years in moving children out of hospitals. In 1980 the then Secretary of State said that there were more than 2,000 children in long-stay hospitals. We are now down to 450, so I am not cavilling at the progress which has been made. One of the principal reasons which makes the statistics appalling is that many of the children have reached the age of 16 and are no longer counted in child statistics. The question must be asked, what happens to them when they reach the age of 16? Many of them have no alternative but to go back into hospital.
  If we look at the statistics for those under the age of 16 living in hospitals with 25 or more beds, it is clear that there is a wide disparity between the regional health authorities that have successfully taken children out of hospitals and those that have not. For instance, Wessex and the North-West regional health authorities have all but completed the removal of children from their hospitals. On the other hand, the authorities in the west midlands, southeast Thames and Oxford each have more than 45 children living in hospitals. A number of health authorities have more than 10 children living in hospitals.
  I should like to see a final onslaught by the Minister to remove the remaining children, to get it all over with. At the same time, we must look at the type of care they will be going into. The all-party disablement group accepted the recommendation by Exodus that there was a need for the Government to add emphasis to circulars already issued requesting action in this area. Prime responsibility for the care of children must lie with the Social Services Department, and the first step is to ensure that each child is reviewed by the social, health service and education authorities, and the second step is to ensure that the results of their reviews are implemented.
  I should like to draw attention to early-day motion 844 which calls upon regional health authorities and the Government to take urgent action to remove these 450 children from long-stay mental handicap hospitals and to find them appropriate accommodation in the community. We want an immediate end to the admission of children to hospitals. The Government have achieved a great deal in the last few years, but in his summing up, I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will agree that the Government must take such action and add some impetus to the action which requires to be taken by the regional health authorities.
  Another problem referred to the all-party disablement group concerns emergency alarm systems. Here I have a specific point to raise concerning the legislative provisions governing the grants and allowances for the installation and planning of alarm systems. For many people, particularly elderly people, an alarm system might prevent them from being rehoused in alternative accommodation. I should like to raise a number of points and ask my right hon. and learned Friend to look at them. However, I do not necessarily expect detailed answers tonight.
  For example, do the housing benefit regulations of 1982, which allow for benefit to be paid to cover rental and running costs of an entry phone or intercom system for the

  1335
  proper enjoyment of the dwelling, include emergency alarm systems? Do the provisions in the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 to allow local authorities to make financial provisions for "aids to daily living" cover emergency alarm systems?' Under the Supplementary Benefits (Single Payments) Regulations a benefit officer is able to grant a single payment if it is the only means by which serious damage or risk to health or safety can be prevented. Is there a case for giving more guidance about this regulation, as the typical user of an emergency alarm system would satisfy it?
  These are just some of the areas that need clarification. I hope that they will be considered tonight and that answers will be given in due course.
  The vexed question of board and lodging payments gives rise to concern because of the effect that they will have on residential care and nursing homes, and the implications of that for the provision of care in the community for the mentally handicapped and mentally ill. Many homes are finding it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to priovide good care within the new financial limits.
  A number of glaring anomalies in the new regulations have led to the situation whereby those who require the most special care are unable to pay for it within the existing limit. The two anomalies are, first, that local authorities do not have the power to top up payments to people over pension age or in nursing homes and, secondly, that, while the new level is £170 a week for a person disabled under pension age, it is only £110 a week for someone who becomes disabled after pension age.
  As to people over pension age who suffer from either a mental disorder or a mental handicap, it is not clear from the regulations whether they qualify for a slightly higher limit. I should be extremely grateful if the Minister would clarify that point. Even if they qualify, the rate for someone suffering from a mental disorder but not a mental handicap is £120 a week, but for someone suffering from a mental handicap it is £140 a week. These limits do not account for the additional care that many mentally handicapped and mentally ill people require.
  If a home is unable to provide care for an elderly person at £110 a week, that person is unable to look to the local authority for topping up. Such people are therefore faced with a number of options. If they have been living at home, they can continue to live at home but presumably in inappropriate accommodation. Alternatively, they can look for a home that can accommodate them at the given price. That home is most unlikely to be able to provide them with the care that they require, and it is likely to be well away from where they have always lived. The third situation arises for someone who has been living in a hospital for the mentally handicapped. Those people have no alternative but to continue to live in the hospital because they are unable to pay to live in a residential or nursing home. The result is that appropriate care in the community is not being provided.
  As to the different limits between those disabled before pension age and those disabled after pension age, it is highly likely that someone becoming disabled after pension age will have to remain in hospital much longer than should be necessary. Alternatively, such people may find a second-rate home, but again that is likely to be away from where they have always lived.
  The limits are proving difficult anyway, but they are penalising most severely those homes that provide special
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  facilities and place emphasis on rehabilitation. Their costs, and consequently their fees, are inevitably higher as they provide physiotherapy, occupational therapy and general welfare facilities. Basically, they are providing more than just board and lodging, and if we are looking for good practice for care in the community, we must look towards the provision of these additional facilities.
  As well as hitting hardest the most severely disabled people, these regulations also hit the voluntary homes, because in the main the voluntary homes provide care for the most severely disabled people. Generally speaking, such care is not something that private homes wish to take on. The regulations are clobbering those homes that are providing genuine care at a genuine price for the sake of putting an end to those other homes that have been guilty of abusing the regulations in the past.
  The regulations present us with a complete overhaul of the whole system of payments to people in residential and nursing care. It appears that very little consideration has been given to the mechanics of the system. The general understanding of the regulations is that local authorities will pay for residents and then claim back from the resident what he or she has claimed in supplementary benefit from the DHSS. For people under pensionable age, the difference in the charge and the money from the DHSS will be paid by the local authority, and that is the topping up to which I have already referred.
  Reports have been coming through—in the last week such a report came through to the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation—that local authorities are totally unable to work out exactly what their responsibilities are. They are reluctant to pay for a resident unless they can be sure that they will be able to recover the supplementary benefit from the resident. Therefore, the resident must apply for supplementary benefit from the DHSS, which will not award it until that resident has a place in a residential home. That is a bureaucratic nightmare that is most certainly slowing up the whole process for the person who needs to go into a residential home or nursing care.
  I fully understand that these changes are being monitored very carefully and that the payments limits are being kept under review, but I cannot stress too emphatically that this is an extremely urgent problem. I know that the Minister is looking at representations from various organisations and that a number of them are collating information on how these residential care homes will be affected. But unless some immediate changes are made—and very soon—it will be too late, and many horrifying and distorting stories will reach the press, just as we have seen with the effect that the changes have had on young people under the age of 26.
  I know that my right hon. and learned Friend is aware of these problems and that he and the Government wish to correct them as soon as possible. Until they are corrected, and until these other anomalies are wiped out, we shall not achieve our objective of real care in the community. I hope that these points will be taken seriously by my right hon. and learned Friend and that he will deal with some of them when he replies.
  8.58 pm
  Mr. Tony Lloyd: The reference to Exeter by the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. M. Hannam) were accurate, because the Select Committee, which visited that

  1337
  area, was impressed by the standard of care and facilities provided. But that contrasts markedly with some of the other things that members of the Select Committee saw.
  My experience of that Select Committee was one of great personal learning, and to some extent profound horror, about some of the things that still exist, especially in our large and older mental institutions. It has been said on many occasions, and it is worth repeating, that as a society we have condemned many people to conditions that ought to be unacceptable in this day and age.
  The Minister and all those who gave evidence to the Committee accepted and re-emphasised those comments. As a Parliament and as a society we have to shape up. We must not pay lip service to the idea of getting away from these institutions. We must first make sure that this is done in a proper and acceptable fashion. It must be recognised that we are talking about individuals coming out of institutions and not statistics. Secondly, we must ensure that we do not move people into new and smaller institutions which offer nothing in the spirit of community care. That is probably the single most important thing that I gained from the Committee's deliberations.
  The point was hammered home time after time that there are many extremely worrying examples. For example, attempts have been made to establish structures which were not appropriate to the enhancement of the lives of individuals. The whole ethos of community care is so individual that it is virtually impossible to find global solutions or to operate from outright diktats from the centre. The Minister for Health has said on different occasions that it is necessary to give that type of discretion at local level. It involves a whole new ethos of attitudes to community care.
  There is a need, for example, for very close coordination by different agencies. I am concerned, despite the comments of those who feel happier, that there is still dislocation between the health authorities and the Department of Health and Social Security and others who are the professional carers, such as general practitioners and those in society with responsibility. That sentiment was echoed by the response of the directors of the social services to the Select Committee report in which they drew attention to what they felt was a lack of co-ordination. I am worried that if that lack of co-ordination is allowed to continue and develop we shall end up, 40 years on, with everybody saying that we have failed as a society to cater for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped and that it was not our fault but somebody else's.
  A dispute has arisen between the North-Western regional health authority and almost all others concerned about the level of funding passed from the health authority to the local authorities when individuals are transferred from the care of one to the other. The North-Western regional health authority has been using the figure of £11,300 as the amount which should pass with each individual placement. I was interested in the comments of the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft), who pointed out that on Merseyside £14,000 was transferred from the health authority to MIND when it undertook such a task.
  The city of Manchester has calculated that a figure of £19,000 would be more reasonable. The Minister raises his eyebrows, but the regional health authority is insisting upon a figure which the local health authorities and others
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  concerned feel is inadequate. I know of a case within the Trafford local authority area where a considerable delay ensued before a person was accepted for transfer from an institution to a community-based structure. The result was that the quality of his life considerably deteriorated. The local authority could not afford to develop its own facilities fast enough because of lack of money from the health authority, which is also not happy with the situation.
  When I raised the matter in a written question, the Minister made a very fair point and one which I would concede completely. He said:
  "I am not convinced that the production of a centrally compiled account of funding arrangements within individual regions would be helpful without an equally detailed account of the service developments proposed."—[Official Report, 4 July 1985; Vol. 82, c. 246.]
  I accept the Minister's point about something that, by its very definition, if it is to be adequate community care, has to be so individually based that prescriptions cannot be given from the Elephant and Castle or any large area health authority.
  Nevertheless, we have to accept that, even dealing with individually based services, it is necessary to take account of the central funding of resources. The difficulties of which I have spoken will show that the funding is inadequate. It is not satisfactory to allow one authority to blame another. In years to come, we should not be saying that it was a good change of concept but in practical terms had no impact because the different approaches would not, or could not, work together.
  Health authorities feel themselves to be constrained by financing problems, and for obvious reasons are reluctant to pass across any more money than the minimum with which they can get away. That is not surprising, but it runs counter to the concept of community care. We should be asking about the individual, not whether he should be transferred out of the institution and into the community but what resources and facilities need to be made available within society to allow him to live an adequate, independent and fulfilled life. Inevitably, that means that we, as a society, have to accept the high resourcing cost. I fear that, the way that the funding of both local authorities and health services is going, we shall not see that.
  It is important to draw attention to some of the things that the Select Committee said. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) spoke of the important matter of families and the resources given to them. He spoke about the needs of the family and the need for adequate support for family members caring for others in the family. One witness to the Committee pointed out that professional carers are caring within professional working hours, but members of a family care for 24 hours a day, seven days a week and even, sometimes, 52 weeks a year. We must do much more to make the role of family carers more simple.
  Recommendation 36 says:
  "We recommend that local authorities give priority to providing respite care sensitive to the varying needs of different people."
  They specifically means respite for those caring within the family structure.
  The hon. Member for Exeter touched on the important new board and lodgings regulations. When the Minister attended the Select Committee's meetings, he was questioned closely about the position of people who were

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  moved out into various hostels and houses in multiple occupation. The Committee pointed out that local authorities should be given power to designate as residential care private homes with more than a given proportion of dependent residents.
  Many people move to such places from institutions. The standard of care, as far as the Committee could make out, is grossly inadequate. It is necessary that there should be some means of checking and some responsibility on the local authorities to guarantee that the interests of people in such accommodation is protected. That means that there must be adequate licensing and adequate inspection and monitoring arrangements to make such places work properly. The Committee said that community care is not a cheap option, as many hon. Members have already pointed out, and it is important that we recognise that.
  I have quoted figures and the Minister might quote different figures. It is certain that the lower cost individuals— if that is not a too inappropriate way to describe human beings—are transferred from institutions first. However, the cost of care in the community is rising. If we are not merely to give lip service to the spirit of the report, we shall have to rethink our attitudes to social provision for all those who live devalued lives. I am referring not only to the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped, but to the homeless and young disaffected people. We shall have to rethink social provisions.
  We have no cheap option. We cannot simply say, "Yes, we have a big heart." We must make resources available to ensure that we provide local services. The needs of individuals are not cheap to provide. Society will not find it cheap to provide facilities for all those involved in community care and community living—the families, the professional carers and the extended carers.
  We have to make a commitment. I see no evidence of a movement towards making that commitment and I find that sad. If the Select Committee report is left to gather dust we shall miss a massive opportunity.
  9.12 pm
  Mr. Roy Galley: The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) gave a competent précis of the Select Committee report. I began to wonder whether there would be anything left for anyone else to say. However, the hon. Lady used a slant of her own, with that brusque charm which we have come to know and cherish. In her exposition she did not start at square one of the Select Committee's deliberations.
  I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) referred to the definition of community care. One must first define it and then ask whether as defined it is right. There was much debate in the Select Committee, which has not been illustrated in tonight's debate, about whether the concept of community care was right. The debate continues in the country.
  The oral and visual evidence given to the Select Committee overwhelmingly stated that the principles of a community-based, flexible response policy to the needs of mentally ill and mentally handicapped people was right. That is not a matter of administrative convenience or of cost, but a matter of the quality of life.
  In the more personal nature of smaller treatment units, particularly family-sized units, there is a degree of self-reliance and responsibility which has a curative effect
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  upon the majority of mentally ill and mentally handicapped people, and gives them a better quality of life.
  In the last 15 years enormous strides have been made in the quality of life of physically disabled people, although much more remains to be done. We must now start to do the same for menially disabled people. Two or three years ago the Government set the ball rolling by giving priority within the Health Service to the mentally handicapped and mentally ill. The Select Committee report is another milestone in a crusade to improve the lot of mentally ill and mentally handicapped people.
  Two key factors in the Select Committee report are vital — flexibility and individualism. Individual needs are important, and when one considers discharging a person from hospital and changing the method of care an individual care plan must be developed. This requires a host of alternative approaches, as we discovered as the Select Committee travelled in the United Kingdom and the United States. It may be a core and cluster arrangement—rare in practice, but common in theory—of extended family dwellings, small staffed homes, hospital-type establishments with 20 to 25 beds, or even larger establishments. That is why I say that there must be flexibility. Each area must develop its own policies, and it would be wrong to rule out the idea of a 50 or 100-bed unit, because in certain circumstances that may be an appropriate way of dealing with the problems of the mentally ill and mentally handicapped.
  Mr. Weetch: The hon. Gentleman has made some interesting comments about the quality of life for the mentally ill. If it is to be a community-based policy, he must accept that the community is still suspicious of the mentally ill. If, therefore, a mentally ill person is discharged into a community in which suspicion is abroad, to put it no higher than that, because there is insufficient understanding of mental illness, his discharge may mean the reverse of increasing his quality of life.
  Mr. Galley: From the units which he Select Committee visited, the weight of evidence seems to be that going into the community and having some self-reliance has a curative effect on the individuals concerned. There may have to be, at least initially, a large measure of staff support, cushioning the effects of a community which may not react well. However, as one sees, for example, wth drug misuse clinics and rehabilitation centres which are closely associated with the community, those barriers can quickly break down.
  My right hon. and learned Friend may be bored with the same point being made to him. It is, however, important that points relating to discharge are made by hon. Members in all parts of the House, because it is among the most important issues that the Select Committee considered. There is no evidence from this country that people have been discharged into the community and then not properly looked after. In the United States, however, there was substantial evidence that that had happened there.
  We must make sure, therefore, that an imaginative and flexible range of alternatives—from the small, family-sized unit to the larger unit — are available in the community before hospitals are closed. In other words, proper care plans must be developed before people are discharged into the community.

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  Much has been said abut bridging finance. Joint finance, with people being taken into the community with a cost tag, as it were, attached to them, will not solve all the problems that will be presented as we develop the policy of discharge into the community.
  It will be possible in my area of Calderdale to carry out an imaginative response to the discharge of such people only by the provision of considerable central finance. That finance, welcome though it will be, will not be available in all areas. Considerable capital consequences will arise from each change as it takes place, and that will arise before any savings are realised from closing large, impersonal hospital complexes.
  Some flexible arrangements for bridging finance are helpful. They will have to be developed into a system with a more formalised central bridging fund, and that will involve initial money being provided by the Department of Health and Social Security. Out of such a fund, money can be donated for immediate needs, and gradually assets will accumulate which, in time, can be used to build up a network of community care facilities. In due course that network will be completed and the money that has accumulated will be available for other Health Service provision. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will give considerable and detailed thought to that approach.
  There is a small proportion of the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped for whom radical change may not be appropriate. Some are suffering from multiple handicap or are so ill that they would not be able to cope with any sort of community facility. Such people form a small minority, but we must recognise that they exist. There are others who are old, and a change in their environment would be counter-productive. There may be a requirement to move from a large building to a small building, but we are discussing individuals for whom there cannot be change. These people will be unable to move from an environment that is essentially institutionalised to one that is community based.
  As the process of change gathers pace there will be lessons to be learned. There will be a need for small adjustments to policy as time passes. In developing the strategy, the advice of the Select Committee is, "We agree that this approach is right, and let us get on with the job, but festina lente. Let us do so with sensitivity and care."
  There is a need for radical change, but it must be accompanied by careful thought and full preparation. The growing pace of community care provision will mean changes for staff in many disciplines. The staff will need new skills and attitudes. The change of focus from the hospital to the community will not always be easy. The development of multi-discipline approaches and the breaking down of rigid demarcations will be extremely important. The evidence suggests that the dedicated staff who run our mental illness and mental handicap services have embraced change with considerable enthusiasm. However, there are small groups that will be resistent to change. The Select Committee met a degree of resistance from psychiatrists and from other sources as its members visited various parts of the country. However, in practically every instance the professional bodies were supportive of the new policies and the change of focus.
  Undoubtedly an element of caution is proper, especially among psychiatrists and the various shortage specialties
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  that are involved in dealing with the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. We need to balance the airing and resolution of anxieties with the need to make progress with successful change. The trend towards community care will be only one of the pressures that will lead to change in the work of general practice.
  The presence of the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped in the community will place greater pressures on general practitioners. It is right that they should be involved closely in the treatment of people once they have been discharged from hospital. General practitioners must be deeply involved in the treatment of those who have never been in a hospital. One senses that at times general practitioners have been resistent and reluctant to be involved closely in the care of these people, but they have to co-operate with many others. The involvement of GPs will mean that they, the GPs, will need to manage their time more efficiently and optimise the use of their skills. They will need to free themselves from more minor asks that can be dealt with by nurses, or pharmacists, for example.
  There will need to be flexibility. For example, GPs will have to be prepared to refer patients to community psychiatric nurses, and the role of the nurse will need to develop within a team approach. An excellent service is currently being provided. It is just beginning to grow and to make an impact upon us and we must give it considerable assistance. If we are to make the best use of CPN services, it will be necessary for more staff to move into that area. That will create a need for proper training and deployment and a more coherent approach to their terms and conditions of employment as compared with hospital-based staff. Within the development of CPNs and community nursing services, more parts of the country must place emphasis on developing community mental handicap teams.
  The Select Committee was impressed by the amount of co-operation between a range of medical, nursing and social service professionals and stressed the need to strengthen that co-operation. Gone are the days when different professionals worked in their own tight little boxes. There is an increasing need for the co-operation of equals.
  It is too easy to become involved in sterile arguments about administrative structures, but there may come a time when, as these services develop and barriers are broken down, we need to provide administratively as well as practically a combined health and social service system.
  Greater co-operation, a reduction in barriers and increased sensitivity are needed by DHSS staff dealing with social security, because they become increasingly important when the mentally ill and mentally handicapped live in the community. The benefit entitlement of people moved out of hospital into local authority or NHS regulated accommodation is an important consideration. There seems to be an inconsistency in the operation of the various regulations when people change from one type of accommodation to another. Significant changes in accommodation may not be dealt with sensitively by social security staff.
  Rigidity, whether in social security, social service or medical matters, is the wrong approach towards the mentally ill and mentally handicapped. I hope that we shall develop a flexible, individualised system. I was encouraged by the suggestions in the social security reviews that the social fund could be used flexibly to meet

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  the need for community care as people are discharged into the community and that a sensitive evaluation should be made of the needs of the mentally ill and mentally handicapped to give a new quality to their lives.
  9.27 pm
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I compliment the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) on the sense of the points that he made which were drawn from his experience as a member of the Select Committee. I was not a member of that Committee, so my comments will be brief.
  The Committee's report is excellent, featuring a number of practical challenges that face us and bringing us face to face with the question whether we have the commitment to carry out the programmes leading to the integration in the community of the mentally handicapped or mentally ill. I shall concentrate on mental handicap, because I have more knowledge of that aspect, but many of my points will relate to mental illness as well.
  The Committee's brief was geared mainly to the position in England, but the Committee also went to Cardiff. The success or failure of the Welsh initiatives with respect to policies for the mentally handicapped is relevant to the thrust of the report. A few years ago, the "All Wales Strategy for the Development of Services for Mentally Handicapped People". suggested not long-stay hospitals but 36-bed or 48-bed hospitals as a means towards integration in the community of the mentally handicapped. The horrified reaction of many people not only in Wales but elsewhere led to the good strategy which we now have which was described in the November Mencap conference in Madrid, which I attended, as the best theoretical plan in western Europe. Unfortunately, theory and practice are not always the same, and we are experiencing considerable difficulties in turning many aspects of the plan into reality.
  In the context of the Select Committee's report, it is worth noting three main principles of the "All Wales" strategy. It is important to note that it is written into the strategy that
  "these general principles apply to all mentally handicapped people, however severe their handicaps."
  The first is:
  "Mentally handicapped people should have a right to normal patterns of life within the community."
  That is also the main thrust of the Select Committee report. Secondly:
  "Mentally handicapped people should have a right to be treated as individuals."
  This means that they and their families must play a full part in decisions intended to help them. Clearly, it is easier for the less acutely handicapped to take a meaningful part in decisions affecting them and to practise self-advocacy. For those who are not capable of personal direct involvement, the advocacy service must be developed to ensure that their needs and requirements are taken fully into account. In due course, we may need to address our minds to developing a structure to ensure that.
  Thirdly, the strategy states:
  "Mentally handicapped people require additional help from the communities in which they live and from professional services if they are to develop their maximum potential as individuals."
  That them has emerged time and again in today's debate. We are not talking about cut-price options. We are talking about what is right and gives people dignity and a meaningful life as opposed to the terrible existences that
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  they have led in long-stay hospitals over the years. Making this system work is thus likely to require greater rather than smaller resources, especially during the interim period, and I am glad that the Select Committee report addresses itself to that aspect.
  As the long-stay hospitals move out into the community, the patients most capable of doing so will go out while those who remain are likely to be those with the most problems and in need of the greatest resources. In any case, the overheads will remain to be met for a considerable period. Regrettably, some patients may never move out into the community, although we should aim to get as many as possible out of the long-stay hospitals and into suitable care.
  There will thus be a parallel demand for community-based services and for continuity of the hospital services and it is important that the Government clearly accept that. The morale of many people in the Health Service is low because they are uncertain about what is to happen to the hospitals and to their own involvement as the emphasis shifts to the social services. I am sure that the Select Committee is right to state in recommendation No. 55:
  "In the long-term, this inquiry has confirmed that the separation of health and social services for mentally disabled people is illogical and inimical to joint services. Some means of eventually bringing the two services together is desirable, which would not destroy the present degree of integration of social services with other local authority services, nor diminish the priority given by either the NHS or local authorities to mental disability services."
  It is important that that should be placed on the record. We must work towards that end, not by drawing social services away from local authorities but by bringing the Health Service at the sharp end — the local, consumer end — closer to the local government structure. If we are to make care in the community meaningful, we must develop locally based domiciliary services because the kind of service that is provided on an institutional basis in long-stay hospitals will be equally needed by people living in small groups or in their own homes. The services will be much more difficult to arrange, but they must be provided if people are not to miss out.
  I take the example of medical services. Many general practitioners have no training and very little experience of handling mentally handicapped people, who occasionally become ill just as anyone else does. General practitioners may need some specialised knowledge to treat and respond to those patients. The same applies to nurses in ordinary hospitals into which mentally handicapped people may need to go for a few days. There needs to be an awareness of the training available for the staff who are dealing with them.
  We heard from the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) of the need to turn off the tap as a first step towards integration, and to ensure that no young people under 16 go into long-stay hospitals. That has been the objective of successive Governments, but regrettably we are a long way from achieving it.
  We heard some disturbing figures in the all-party disablement group last week. I subsequently tabled a question relating to Wales. I asked how many young people under 16 are resident in long-stay hospitals in Wales, and I find that there are 43 such persons there now in 20 long-stay hospitals or units to which they may go. I now have an update on the figures that were given last week, and apparently 10 such people have been admitted

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  during 1985. If we are not getting things right at that end, we shall never get the integration into the community that we seek.
  I am glad to say that integration is happening in some places. In my constituency last Friday, the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Conwy (Mr. Roberts), was present with me at the opening of a community-based facility. I think that the Minister and other hon. Members will be interested to hear about it.
  A constituent and good friend of mine, Gwynn Davies, and his wife Mary, who have a mentally handicapped son who is now in his twenties, had determined to get a community-based facility for mentally handicapped people in their own village. They set up a non-profit-making company, with trustees, and with 200 villagers as shareholders in the company, to develop a small community home for three mentally handicapped people, a shop in which they can work, and a few acres of land in which they can do agricultural and horticultural work. They are getting the financial support that is necessary from the public sector through the Welsh Office and the "All Wales" strategy.
  That is an example of enthusiasm on a voluntary basis within the community being tied together with the resources that are available only through the public sector and the state, to get development on a human level on a scale that is meaningful to the people that will benefit from it. Unfortunately, not every village in Wales or in England has a Gwynn and Mary Davies, but many of them have the boys and girls and the men and women who need that sort of initiative.
  The challenge is, how do we get community-based services integrated into the community to grow with the enthusiasm and the flair that is seen in the sort of project that I mentioned without becoming bureaucratic on a small scale, in the same way that the long-stay hospitals are bureaucratic on a larger scale? It is not an easy aim to achieve, but it can be done. Three or four years ago I saw how people had succeeded in doing it in Sweden by making sure that the resources, the commitment and the determination were present.
  If we are to turn the theory into practice, we need a tremendous commitment. We have to avoid the pitfalls of bureaucracy. We have to avoid putting people into jobs and thinking that by appointing more theoretical people behind desks we shall succeed. We must have people who are enthusiastic at the sharp end. It is a challenge to every Government, and one that is worthy of the effort.
  9.39 pm
  Mrs. Edwina Currie: I think it would be wise to pay tribute to the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short). She will be leaving the House at the end of this Parliament and she will be greatly missed. She has held together in the Committee a very disparate bunch of people. Whatever our arguments and disagreements, we owe her a great deal for her deeds and commitment to social services and to the welfare of our disabled people thoroughout the country.
  The hon. Lady said that the nub of the question is resources, and I hope that the House will recognise that the
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  chance of getting those resources for the National Health Service and local authorities is much better under this Administration than under any previous one.
  In the last decade, the cash allocated to the National Health Service — for example, the current money for England—has gone up by three times, but in real terms we have seen a steady rise since this Parliament took office in 1979, compared with a fall in real terms in the mid-1970s.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) produced many figures. With everyone else, I have done 60 hours work this week already and, like him, I tend to find that figures start to become a little peculiar when one has not had much sleep. Therefore, I shall merely draw attention to the trends. The fall in real terms in the mid-1970s took place when the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) was the Labour Minister for Health. One wishes to put that on the record and say, so much for his comments about nurses during Prime Minister's Question Time this afternoon.
  During Prime Minister's Question Time, questions were raised about whether the Conservative Government want more public expenditure and what our attitude is. The Prime Minister said that the key factor was the percentage of GDP represented by this public expenditure. We should put on record the fact that the allocation to the National Health Service under this Administration has consistently been about 2·9 per cent. of GDP, which compares with 2·5 per cent. or 2·6 per cent. under the Labour Government.
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: On a falling total.
  Mrs. Currie: It was not on a falling total — [Interruption.] I invite the hon. Gentleman to intervene.
  Mr. Corbyn: The hon. Lady is talking about maintaining expenditure on the Health Service, which is not true. There have been significant cuts in many areas of the Health Service. Secondly, there have been massive cuts in other areas of public expenditure, which increase the proportion of expenditure on the National Health Service without improving patient care where it matters.
  Mrs. Currie: I am talking about current expenditure in the National Health Service in England. My figures come from the Library. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to do as I did and ask the Library to give him the objective figures for expenditure. In real terms, in cash terms and in the percentage of GDP, this Government have done a great deal better than the Government of the party to which he claims to belong.
  Mr. Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to say that I claim to belong to a political party when I have been a member of that party for 19 years and intend to remain so?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): I have heard nothing that is out of order so far.
  Mrs. Currie: We often hear silly comments from the Opposition, and perhaps one might comment—
  Mr. Corbyn: The hon. Lady should know all about silly comments.
  Mrs. Currie: The hon. Gentleman has not been here for most of this debate. He is never here for other debates on the Health Service and social security matters. He might do better to listen to somebody who is.
  Mr. Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member to mouth inaccuracies? I have been here for most of this debate and I attend almost every debate on health and social services as a spokesperson for my union, the National Union of Public Employees.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Inaccuracies seem to be part of the daily diet here, although I must say that the hon. Gentleman has been here for most of the time that I have occupied the Chair.
  Mrs. Currie: Apart from the rather silly comments that we have heard during the past few minutes, may I draw attention to the comments of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) in the Daily Telegraph last Saturday. He said that the real growth in the NHS that has been provided by the Government is not real growth because it has been swallowed up by demography and by the increased costs of equipment and of pay. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman—who has not graced us with his presence today at all—that no rules said that we had to provide the extra money for demography. No rules say—
  Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. Currie: In a minute. Sit down.
  There are no rules which say that any Government must provide extra money for extra pay, for increased prices or for demography. The fact is that this Government have and the previous Government did not.
  I have also heard it said that the percentage of GDP spent on health care in other countries is higher than it is here. Indeed, so it is in countries that finance their health care either privately or through the insurance system. They have to count into their GDP on health care the costs of the people who send out bills and invoices, the people involved in credit control and the credit ratings of those who must pay for the service, and all the people who must chase up the poor souls who cannot pay. As long as we have a Health Service financed through taxation, the percentage of GDP is likely to be lower in this country. Long may it remain financed in that way. Does the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) wish to intervene now? No; he is busy writing his speech.
  May I now turn to the specific topic of community care, in which I have a special interest, because there are eight hospitals in my constituency, of which seven are long-stay, dealing with mental illness, mental handicap and geriatrics.
  It used to be the practice that Nottinghamshire dumped its long-stay patients in Derbyshire, particularly in south Derbyshire, and that Derbyshire dumped its long-stay patients in Nottinghamshire. I have a large number of constituents who are effectively rootless and completely cut off after many years in hospital from their communities. The regional health authorities plan to close most of those hospitals over the next 10 years and transfer the patients in one way or another to the communities around. All these hospitals have done excellent work over the past century. I single out Aston hall hospital and the Pastures hospital at Mickleover in Derby. Aston hall is blessed with £800,000 for a demonstration project to show the work that can be done with community care. It has got that money because it has a first-class record of moving
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  people with dignity and compassion into the community and having them accepted in that community. I am glad to see that.
  I have no doubt whatever that the staff, with the co-operation of local people, can ensure a smooth transition to more normal life styles for many of those patients and, perhaps even more important, for potential patients who might otherwise be obliged to go in. The health authorities' activities therefore have my full blessing. I shall do everything that I can to help them. Governments for many years have made the Cinderella groups of the elderly, the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill, a top priority. At least, that is what they have said. In the case of the elderly, I suspect that such a declaration has been almost unnecessary because the growth in numbers alone and the needs of the elderly have meant that they take up the bulk of the services. In the National Health Service, for example, they use about half of all the acute beds. We should recognise that this Government have consistently accepted the demographic imperative—if I may put it like that — and have made resources available.
  As for the mentally handicapped, their status has improved dramatically over recent years. My right hon. and learned Friend will remember the battle of Amesbury road in Moseley in which I tried to construct an adult training centre for the mentally handicapped within a stone's throw of his house. The objections came, not from my right hon. and learned Friend but from one of his neighbours who was a surgeon at a local hospital. We managed to shame the man into accepting it. It was some years ago.
  Even in 1970, mentally handicapped children were regarded as ineducable. Now, they are found all over the country in little units attached to normal schools and they are doing very well. I believe that once they, their families and their neighbours are used to their being in the community, that is where those children will tend to stay. Once this generation of mentally handicapped hospital patients has gone through the hospitals, I doubt if we shall ever again fill up the hospitals by "putting such people away".
  The specific problems that 1 think we face and have not solved are those of the mentally ill. Mental illness is not a nice topic. It is not an easy topic to discuss. The main reactions that one gets in this area of work are ignorance, apathy, prejudice and hostility. I became aware of this problem of acceptance when I was chairman of the central Birmingham health authority. I was obliged to close a ward in the Queen Elizabeth hospital. It was a psychiatric ward, and it was on the top floor of the hospital and our patients started throwing themselves out of it. We eventually reopened it as an out-patients' department.
  The first question that I asked was, "Why on earth did we put an acute psychiatric ward on the top floor of the hospital block in the first place?" The answer was that the professor of psychiatry had a battle royal to get psychiatric patients regarded by his own colleagues as ill, treatable, curable and appropriately placed in the teaching hospital, and therefore, the fifth floor ward which no one else wanted was the only one available.
  Most psychiatry in the United Kingdom—the Select Committee saw this on its visits—does not take place in teaching hospitals; it does not take place in acute hospitals; it is not glamorous; there are vacancies for staff

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  and very often the staff are untrained or undertrained. They are overworked, unsupported and unappreciated. That is a matter of fact.
  What is missing is not so much resources. What is missing is not so much the Government commitment. What is missing is public understanding and the acceptance of mental illness. Just as the professor had no end of trouble persuading his colleagues in the medical profession to accept the presence of his patients in their hospital, so those of us who take an interest have a major task ahead of us persuading constituents and colleagues that the mentally ill are not different people to be segregated as if they have some disease that is catching. They are part of our community. Appropriate treatment, rehabilitation and research facilities are not an option but an absolute necessity.
  Serving on the Select Committee on this topic was a depressing business in itself. The National Schizophrenia Fellowship presented us with many pages of evidence and I challenge anybody to read those case histories without feeling desperately sad. It is a heartbreaking business. The most noticeable feature of much of the evidence received was the anguish and bewilderment of many of the families, including families with the NHS in other contexts—such as those where the head of the household was a doctor — that there was no help available for such patients. They have found that, 40 years into the NHS, too often the attitude of public authorities consists of a mixture of stonewalling and buckpassing so that precious little progress can be made.
  Mental illness is no respecter of persons. It is now just about three years since an hon. Member committed suicide. I hope that sufficient time has passed for us now to look at the matter a little objectively. Jocelyn Cadbury was my Member of Parliament. I was his senior councillor and twice running a member of the selection committee which invited him to fight the seat. I attended the inquest and we found that he had twice before tried to commit suicide. I do not think that it would have mattered very much if we had known because he had fought the illness successfully for 16 years and had no particular reason for feeling depressed. There was no reason, as far as we could discover, why he eventually succumbed.
  I believe that, if Jocelyn Cadbury had suffered from a physical illness, he would readily have admitted it, sought help and expected to receive, and received, sympathy. Because it was a mental illness, he feared the stigma and was unable to ask for help in time.
  We still have a desperately long way to go to change attitudes towards mental illness. The Government have shown themselves willing to face the expectations that we all put on the NHS. My right hon. and learned Friend has shown his capacity to follow public opinion and to lead it. I hope that he will take to heart the remarks of the Select Committee on this difficult area and continue his efforts to improve the care that we offer all of our people.
  9.51 pm
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: This is a timely and useful debate. I congratulate the Chair and membership of the Select Committee on producing a report which allows a debate such as this. Several of its observations are valuable and some of its recommendations should be taken up. As I am sponsored by the
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  National Union of Public Employees, which has many members in the Health Service and local government, I must observe that they will be at the sharp end of any programme of continuing closure of large psychiatric institutions and the transfer of resources to borough councils.
  As I was a borough councillor in Haringey, I am well aware of the enormous pressure on resources on a borough council's social services budget and the difficulty of arguing for sufficient funding for the mentally ill. Although I welcome the idea behind the Select Committee report and the work that it has put into the subject, we must remember that community care as many members of the Select Committee envisage it is extremely expensive. I am not convinced that the Government are prepared to put in the necessary sums of money. Nor am I convinced that they are prepared to lift restrictions on borough or county council expenditure to enable them to make provision for the mentally ill. I am alarmed that the Government are proposing community care on the cheap. That would entail grave dangers of privatisation, private homes and all that goes with them.
  Many Conservative Members hold up for praise the great virtues of the north American health service. They often quote the alleged efficiencies of health care in the United States. Many studies have been done of the process which is known as deinstitutionalisation in the United States. They have found that deinstitutionalising the mentally ill and putting them into privately run and privately owned institutions does not guarantee their safety, a cure or help, but means that somebody makes a great deal of money. The motive is different: not to look after people but to make money out of them. The American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisation conducted a survey on private care for the mentally ill and the concept of self-regulation. Its report said that self-regulation was
  "inadequate, unworkable and unacceptable as a substitute for strict government enforcement of standards."
  Although Conservative Members praise the American system as an example of the unfettered, free market economy, they should remember that there is another side to the coin.
  There is severe understaffing in the institutions which provide care for those who are mentally ill or who need psychiatric care and insufficient resources are made available. Vast needs are not met by the large institutions. The Minister for Health should tell us how much money the Government are prepared to put into community care. Inadequate resources are being provided. Community care is far more expensive than institutional care, so much more money will be needed to enable a smooth transfer to community care. In 1979, the Jay committee reported that the number of staff working with the mentally handicapped needed to be more than doubled to 60,000. The Government have not responded to that recommendation and the number of places has decreased. Guidelines for local authority residential provision for the mentally ill suggest 0·33 places per 1,000 of the population. The present provision is one third of that number. Although the provision is increasing in some areas, there is still a long way to go.
  Those who are physically or mentally handicapped are cared for not only by institutions, the social services and the National Health Service but by a large number of people who are forced to give up their jobs to look after

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  relatives who are ill. Although Conservative Members praise the concept of community care for relatives and neighbours, in many cases it forces women to give up promising careers. The reason is that inadequate funds are made available. The Labour party is determined that they should not be forced to give up their careers. It will ensure that adequate public resources are made available. I know many people whose careers have ended because they have had to look after mentally or physicall ill relatives. It is a very serious problem, and I am surprised that Conservative Members are smirking.
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman said that the Labour party would provide more resources for the care of the mentally and physically ill. How would it provide help for those people?
  Mr. Corbyn: The hon. Gentleman has made a perfectly reasonable point. Financial remuneration could be provided for those who are forced to stay at home, and there could he more community nursing facilities and home helps. Nobody should be forced to give up a career simply because a relative is seriously ill. Nobody should be forced into financial hardship as a result.
  There are many recommendations in the report. The principle of the financial atmosphere in which the report has been produced has to be examined. While some Conservative Members may choose as their bedtime reading Conservative Central Office or Department of Health and Social Security propaganda, the fact is that there is serious underfunding of the Health Service in general, serious underfunding of the social services and serious underpayment of many manual workers in the hospitals or social services departments.
  The report refers to a serious problem in recommendation No. 55 — the relationship between the National Health Service and the local authorities. While the report is careful and specific in saying that there has to be a close relationship between the institutions in ensuring that community care is properly carried out and that individuals who are being looked after by the community are properly looked after and not put at risk, the report begs the question about the relationship between the Health Service and local government — with the democratic nature of local government and the essentially undemocratic and rather patronising nature of the Health Service structure.
  In areas such as care for the mentally ill where there is a close overlap between the role of social services departments and that of the NHS, both institutions must be looked at again. I would favour bringing things closer to the local authority where there is a greater possibility of democratic control, or democratising the Health Service. The relationship between the two institutions must be brought closer together.
  I should like to refer to several recommendations — [Interruption.] If Conservative Members cannot be bothered to listen, there are plenty of bars in the building that they can go to to continue their conversations.
  The first recommendations to which I refer is where the report rightly refers to the high cost of community care. It states that it cannot be done on the cheap. If the Government pay lip service to the report, I hope that they will respect that recommendation and make the necessary financial provisions available.
  The report also refers to individuals leaving mental institutions and making sure that an individual care plan
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  is available for such people so that they are not lost in society or some plethora of so-called community support, but are genuinely looked after individually. That is extremely important.
  Another important point concerns the need for a central bridging fund to ensure that sufficient money is available for the cost of closing psychiatric hospitals and the increased cost to the local authorities. Another particularly important recommendation, which shows that a great deal of work has been put into it, concerns the design of buildings for the mentally ill and the need for consultation on it. As one who has been involved in examining building design in the past, I believe that far too often architects' ideas tend to run away with them, as do local authorities, ideas. They do not take into sufficient account the needs of the people who will have to use the buildings.
  There are social security problems for the residents in psychiatric institutions or mental hospitals. I hope that the Department is prepared to examine that seriously. Many relatives of people in mental hospitals have come to see me, who have been concerned about the way in which benefit payments are made to patients in those institutions and their understanding of the benefit payments to which they are entitled and which are being paid to them.
  Recommendation No. 90 is about the disposal of sites after the closure of mental hospitals. People in my constituency are concerned about that. The regional health authority is proposing to close Friern Barnet hospital, which is in the Prime Minister's constituency. The Select Committee suggests that before such an institution is closed and the land or the buildings sold it must be offered for the maximum use of the service for which it was built. Many people are sceptical about the motive for closure and sale. They believe a lot of it is asset stripping and that sufficient funds are not being made available to the local authorities to undertake the necessary care for the psychiatrically ill.
  I should like to make some specific points about the effect and thrust of the policy proposals on London from the DHSS. Virtually every social services department in London has been told by the Government that it is about 30 per cent. over the grant-related expenditure allocation formula. It must, therefore, be fairly obvious that if those social services departments are to have far greater responsibility for the mentally ill, they will require more resources.
  I hope that the Minister will say tonight whether the GREA formulas will be adjusted to take account of the needs of those people who are to be cared for by the community, or whether the same punitive measures will be taken against those social services departments as have already been taken against eight London authorities through the rate-capping proposals last year. The operation of the resource allocation working party formula on Health Service expenditure means there is a continuing and long-term outflow of resources from inner city areas. Those of us who represent inner city areas are acutely aware of that every day. We are aware of the long-term plans for the closure of many hospitals and of the centralisation of health facilities in individual boroughs or health authority areas. I hope that the Minister will recognise that there has to be a serious change of attitude on this matter.
  In my constituency, Islington borough council, as part of the local authority partnership agreement, is in discussion with the regional health authority and the Government about developing care in the community, and

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  on the effects of the closure of the Friern Barnet institutions. At the present time, 300 Islington residents are patients at Friern Barnet. Of those, 100 are psychogeriatrics, 100 need medium to long-stay accommodation and 30 are acute psychiatric cases. The local authority has cut forward a detailed set of proposals on how those cases can be dealt with.
  The real problem is whether there will be sufficient money available from the regional health authority to the local authority to meet the needs of those patients. It has not been made clear how much it will cost to care for a patient who is no longer in a mental institution but in some form of community institution. I know of no figures made available on this matter and, as I said earlier, the local authorities are still being penalised by the grant-related expenditure formula. The Government should come clean on this matter.
  Many local authorities are in the same position as my own borough of Islington where a local institution is being closed. There will be an influx of mentally ill to that area, and enormous responsibility will fall on that social services department. If sufficient funds are not available, the effect will be further cuts in the social services received by other people or inadequate care for people leaving those mental institutions.
  Many people are extremely worried and suspicious about the motives of the Government in promoting community care. They do not know whether it is to be a cost-cutting exercise or a genuine attempt to improve care for the mentally ill in our society. Exactly the same problem is faced by the neighbouring borough of Haringey where about 400 patients will be coming from Claybury Friern hospitals when they close. Exactly the same problems apply there about the operation of the GREA formula and the costings they have worked out for it.
  Mental illness in society requires more discussion. A matter of importance that is completely missing from the report, which could perhaps be studied at further length by the Select Committee, is the causes of mental illness. Any cursory study will show that the incidence of mental illness is greater in areas of high stress, intense poverty and high unemployment, and if we return people to those communities we must be clear about what we are doing for them.
  The growth in, and causes of, mental illness require serious research. It is not good enough simply to say, "We will do our best to look after the mentally ill." That is obviously the case, but we should also look at the causes of mental illness, its patterns and the possibilities of cure of the conditions and symptoms.
  Many people who work in mental hospitals such as Friern Barnet and Claybury which are threatened with closure feel a sense of injustice and anger at what is happening. They have worked very hard for many years in those institutions often under-staffed and in very difficult conditions. They are doing jobs for which they are not paid enough, and quite often they have not received proper training because of the way in which those institutions have developed. Therefore, it does not seem fair that closure should be proposed when it is not clear what will happen to the staff. It is not clear what the staffing implications will be for the borough councils that will receive the patients from those hospitals, nor is it clear what will be the long-term future for those people.
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  We require from the Government sufficient funding to pay for genuine community care, not care on the cheap. We also require a public education programme so that people understand the causes of mental illness and have respect for those who suffer from it. The mentally ill should no longer be put at the back of the queue either in terms of resources within local authorities or resources within the Health Service. If that continues, the mentally ill will continue to be shoved to the back, as a result of which we forget about them and pretend that they do not exist, as has happened for far too long.
  10.12 pm
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: I feel as if I am bringing up the rear before the House listens to the replies from the Front Bench.
  I was not a member of the Select Committee that produced this commendable report on community care. However, it has been interesting, informative and educational to listen to the debate and, as it were, to have flesh put on the report. After all, this was a unanimous report, and hon. Members have tonight given their own views on various aspects of it.
  As I have said, I take an interest in health matters, but in this case I represent a Scottish constituency in which this is an important issue. The two hospitals there — Craig Phadrig and Craig Dunain — are greatly affected by the thrust of the policy which the Select Committee has been examining.
  The debate has been notable for its lack of partisan flavour, with the exception of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), who in characteristic rumbustious fashion gave a spirited party political defence of the Government's spending programme and disciplines in relation to the Health Service. She seemed to antagonise several hon. Members in a quiet way, but I could not help but feel that with the recess approching we are about to implement our own form of care in the community. We are going to shut down this central institution and move Members round about the country back into the community. Perhaps the old adage is true that MPs are more effective and less like manure when they are not all piled up together in an odious group but when they are spread round the country and there is a chance that they might do some good.
  Mrs. Edwina Currie: I am sorry if I hurt the hon. Member's feelings by being critical of his party leader in his previous incarnation as Labour Minister of Health. I merely wish to put on record one or two facts. Would the hon. Gentleman admit, having heard me speak many times in social services debates, that I can be exceedingly critical of the Government when I feel like it?
  Mr. Kennedy: If so, it is in exceedingly coded terms. It is usually well padded by glowing remarks about the Minister, his spending record and his general demeanour. In fact, everything he is going is good, but.
  We are getting off the subject, but on the point about spending, it is interesting to look at the figures when my right hon. Friend was Minister for Health. During that time the NHS had the largest ever sustained, in real terms, growth pattern.
  Mr. Frank Dobson: He was a filthy Socialist.
  Mr. Kennedy: I think he was practising some of the principles which still guide him in politics today. It has been agreed all round that the basic issue of concern is that of funding. It will come as no surprise to the Minister, speaking in the luxury of the Opposition Benches, when he hears me say that I am firmly in favour of more funding for community care.
  There are some fairly cruel contradictions or some dilemmas for local authorities in this policy. They have been encouraged to enter into joint funding agreements. They now find that, because of another arm of Government policy, namely, rate capping, they are faced with the dilemma of perhaps having to maintain the statutory financial obligations, particularly as the taper effects begin to move the burden for joint funded projects away from central Government and back to the local authority. As they have to consider how they meet the challenges or the obligations, it is likely that they will fall foul of Government policies in other sectors.
  I think the Minister, being reasonable, would agree that dilemmas are presented for health authorities and local authorities. The point made by several speakers on bridging finance is particularly pertinent in that context. The hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) quoted the Minister as saying that if some hospital facility has been greatly under funded and the function is transferred to community care the cost will go up. That is without doubt the case. There is no doubt that bridging finance and real pump priming are extremely important and additional pump priming is also important to make this whole shift in the balance and in the nature of care more effective and less crippling financially to local authorities than it has been or will yet be.
  I should like to move to the role and position of the support services within the community. One of the commendable features about the report is the scope and the breadth with which it adopts its examination of the subject matter. There are two areas of particular concern. I mentioned the hospitals in my own constituency, but I am sure this applies to every Member who is in the Chamber. One is housing and one is transport. The Committee has done a good job in pointing to the need for more housing. It is right to look to the housing associations in particular as leading the way in the development of more housing geared specifically, certainly sympathetically, towards the needs of those with various forms of disability or handicap. That is welcome, and will obviously feed in well to a care in the community programme.
  Some of us in the alliance have been spending a considerable amount of time in Wales recently. It made me laugh to hear everybody say what a big constituency Brecon and Radnor is. It is about 1,000 sq miles, whereas my constituency is 2,000 sq miles and involves several islands as well as the coast-to-coast mainland in the north of Scotland. Therefore, transport is close to our hearts. I was glad to see that the committee spent some time concentrating on transport. It said:
  "Desperately little attention would seem to have been paid to the effects on transport services of community care policies."
  Everything should be done to examine that problem, particularly in the rural areas with scatttered populations. With the exception of the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland, I could claim the constituency with the most scattered population. Not only is public transport essential
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  in such areas, but the car is not a luxury but a necessity as well. Anything that can be done to focus on transport and its place in the community care policy is welcome.
  The report is extremely interesting and points the way to the future when it recommends that
  "voluntary bodies be approached with the idea of piloting service-contracting."
  That is just one aspect. There is an immense potential for the voluntary sector to be harnessed still more. I appreciate the anxieties of the hon Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). That need not mean that one is trying to offload on to the voluntary sector, much of whose work is unrecognised and unsupported, what should be the rightful duty of the state or the local authority. However, voluntary bodies have an enormous amount of good will and ability, and can make a big contribution to the community, as the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) made clear from his local example. The voluntary sector could and should be more involved.
  Sometimes, the various statutory and professional groups tend to approach the so-called Cinderella services somewhat hesitantly. They do not wish to involve voluntary bodies too much because it might lead to additional difficulties. I appreciate that there may be problems with professionalism, but much more can be done.
  If I am lucky, I may learn, more about the role of the voluntary and informal carer at Social Services questions next Tuesday. Assuming that the supplementary questions are somewhat shorter than the speeches that have been made tonight, we may reach try question. I shall be asking the Secretary of State whether he has any intention of introducing a specific carer's benefit which, if it were introduced, would go a long way to overcoming the problems that we have been discussing.
  More can be done to encourage the local benefits office, the local housing office, the local social services departments and the local health authority to try to come together. This does not necessarily involve extra finance. We should try to provide some help for the person caring for the lady next door or the young couple keeping an eye on the mother-in-law or the elderly or dependent parent, uncle aunt or whatever. They should have a central point of access from which they can get more information about how they tap what is often the mystifying range of benefits that should be available to them but which they do not pick up. It could also tell them how some of the services, both statutory and voluntary, can be delivered in a more organised, cost-effective and professional way. Money could even be saved.
  The report is generally welcome. I learnt a great deal from it and from tonight's debate. We can only hope that, after the publication of the report and tonight's debate, these ideas will circulate further, and stimulate more discussion and response. Whatever our differences in degree or on policy issues, we would all agree that this sector will become increasingly important as we go into the next century. I congratulate the Committee, and I look forward to the Minister's speech.
  10.25 pm
  Mr. Frank Dobson: It is normal to pay tribute to those who served on the Select Committee, and in particular to the Chairman of that Committee. Sometimes the compliments are nominal, but hon. Members throughout the House will agree that my

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  hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) has made a significant contribution over the years to the development of decent policies for health, social services and social security. The report is yet another of her contributions, and we look forward to many more.
  We must pay tribute those who work in the old-fashioned, clapped-out, long-stay hospitals. They are usually overworked, underpaid, unappreciated and frequently unrecognised. Any criticism of those institutions is levelled, not at them, but at society in general, because we have allowed those institutions to fall into disrepair. We have not provided sufficient funds for the encouragement necessary for those workers to do their job properly. A major characteristic of the old institutions is that the people working in them are frequently out of sight and out of mind. That suits society. Most people agree that properly funded and organised care in the community is better for most people than care provided by the old institutions. Subject to a number of reservations expressed by the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris) and others, we all look forward to the day when most people are cared for outside institutions.
  Before we can care properly in the community, we must ask why people were first cared for in the old institutions. We have all been shocked by spectacular mistakes. Some people should never have been housed in institutions, but once they were there they were not allowed out. Primarily, people were put in long-stay institutions because they could not cope outside on their own or because those who tried to look after them could not cope. Any change in the arrangements for people in those institutions must ensure that they can cope outside and that the people looking after them can cope with the problems. If we proceed willy nilly to move people out of the old institutions, those involved will not be able to cope. The danger is that we shall empty the old institutions and do nothing more. That will not be satisfactory.
  To be realistic, we must accept that there is no evidence that "the community" cares. It has never cared much about people in institutions. We must ensure caring for the future, but that will not just happen. We must create the machinery. People living in the community now — people who are vaguely living and vaguely in the community — are not being cared for. For example, we do not know how many homeless people live in London. Estimates vary from 5,000 to 20,000. At least several thousand people are homeless in London. Many of them have medical problems. Many are addicts of one sort or another. Many suffer from physical or mental illnesses. "The community" has left them to doss down wherever they can, leaving the police to move them on, when they want only to settle down for the night. If the Government and society want to prove that they have the capacity to provide care in the community for people who are at present in institutions, the best way to carry conviction is to do something about the people who are not being looked after properly in the community now.
  To cater for those concerned we shall have to provide many smaller units, some of which will have to give the full-time care — 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year — which the old institutions have provided, but in a smaller and better environment. We shall need better places where people can go for shorter stays. We must make provision
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  for day care and outpatient care. There will have to be a massive increase in domiciliary visiting, with improvements in primary care of all kinds. From most available evidence, it is clear that we shall have to provide much more training for general practitioners in mental health and mental handicap, which is not their forte at present. We shall need a vast structure of support for families, neighbours and friends, by whom a large part of the burden of community care will be carried.
  In my view, a warm-hearted instinct has produced the revolution in thinking about the problems of the mentally handicapped and mentally but we must be practical and ask whether the resources to sustain the development of a high standard of care in the community are being provided. From an examination of the present position, or from a reading of the Select Committee's report, the answer is that the resources are not being made available to make care in the community work as well as it should.
  Almost everybody agrees that the old institutions should go and that we need new units, but there is not much evidence that they are now being built on a sufficient scale. There is little evidence that sufficient additional day care units are being provided in places convenient to people living in the community. There has been some improvement in outpatient psychiatric treatment, but much remains to be done on that front, and we need much more training for doctors and others. I could give a litany of requirements, but if I did the answer would probably be, "No," "Not very much," "Not likely" or "Not on your life." We must change that situation.
  In view of the resources that are being provided, it seems that the Government have not appreciated the scale on which they will be needed. In a speech to the Richmond Fellowship in July last year, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, in my prescence, said:
  "It may be the case that care in the community will be more expensive than care in the large institutions."
  There is no question but that it will be more expensive if good quality care is to be provided. The old institutions are being phased out because they do not provide care to a high enough standard. If we provide care to a higher standard, wherever we provide it, it is bound to cost more.
  The old institutions provide bulk care, and the best parallel of which I can think is an old motor coach. It carries large numbers of people, it has not had enough spent on it over the years and it needs to be replaced. The only alternative that would be cheaper than the old, clapped-out motor coach would be for everybody to get out and walk, because no alternative provision has been made. If the old coach is replaced by small or individual forms of transport, that will cost more in total than squeezing everybody into the big old coach. So it is with new provision that will need to be made for care in the community. If we are talking in terms of individualised, tailor-made care for everybody who comes out, that is bound to be more expensive than the old institutions.
  I find it difficult to obtain evidence that the additional resources will be provided. On 8 December 1983 I asked the Secretary of State for his estimate
  "for the current year and each of the next two years of the increased costs to local authorities of providing care in the community for people spending less time in acute hospital beds, the closure of convalescent homes, and homes for the elderly, the mentally-sick, the mentally-handicapped and disabled persons."

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  The Under-Secretary of State replied at some length, ending with the following:
  "the information needed to make the requested estimates is not available centrally." — [Official Report, 8 December 1983; Vol. 50, c. 233–34.]
  I asked a further question on roughly the same lines on 16 July 1984. The question was directed to the number of people involved, and not finance. Again, the Department did not have estimates of the number likely to be moved out. In October 1984 I asked the Secretary of State what increase in joint finance allocations to certain London health districts he estimated would be required to promote the closure of old long-stay institutions and the development of community care. The Under-Secretary replied:
  "No such estimates have been made centrally."—[Official Report, 23 October 1984; Vol. 65, c.573.]
  As I understand the British system of government, it is not possible to get money from the Treasury unless Estimates are produced. A Government who are not producing Estimates on the cost of community care are clearly not seriously into the business of getting the necessary funding. Underfunding will have two effects. First, it will bring the concept of care in the community into disrepute. Much worse than that,if community care is practised on the cheap, there will be disaster for those who need the care and also for the unofficial, unpaid carers —in other words, family, friends and neighbours—who take on the great burden of looking after those who come out of the institutions. We all know that the bulk of the burden will be borne by women. Unless we make adequate provision, a great burden will fall on many women who are not equipped to carry out that task of caring. Being born a woman does not necessarily provide the full equipment to look after a member of the family who is physically or mentally sick, despite our traditions.
  Even if the additional resources are provided, many women will carry out the task because women have always done so in the past. I suspect that everyone present in the Chamber knows families where an amazing amount of love — there is no other word for it — is poured into looking after a mentally ill, mentally handicapped or physically ill relative. When I come across that in my constituency, I feel humble. That is my feeling when I come into contact with families who treasure one of their number in that way. It can be a terrible burden, and it is our duty in planning care in the community to ensure that the community does not consist of one family or even one person. Genuine care in the community means us all getting together and sustaining the carers as well as the cared for.
  Members of the Select Committee will know that one of the greatest reliefs for a family that is caring for one of its number is respite care, when the person being cared for can go into a hospital while the rest of the family have a holiday. I am not saying that I have come across an example of that respite provision being withdrawn for the mentally handicapped or the mentally ill, but within my constituency I have encountered examples of the withdrawal of respite care for the physically handicapped because Stoke Mandeville hospital, which had formerly provided respite care, could no longer afford to do so.
  Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide for the mentally ill, but they are allowed to make their own assessment of the level of need. The latest figures that I have been able to find show that, of the 32 London
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  boroughs, seven provide no special accommodation and seven others provide no day care places for the mentally ill. They cannot claim that there is no need, because nearly all 14 place people in facilities which are provided either by other boroughs or by voluntary organisations. Even in what the Minister regards as relatively well resourced London, local authority provision is lacking.
  The problems are shown by the figures on after-care for patients discharged from mental hospitals. I have not been able to obtain any national figures, but the latest figures for Greater London show that only 3 per cent. of the people discharged into inner London had definite arrangements made with their local social services to provide some care for them when they came out of hospital. That is a staggeringly low figure, yet these are the very local authorities which have been rate capped, which have already lost a gigantic amount of rate support grant and which can expect to lose even more when the arrangements are announced next week.
  The Government will claim—I am sure that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) will back them — that spending on social services has risen by more than 12 per cent. in real terms during the Conservative party's term in office. By subtracting the increases in spending which have been made by those councils which the Government vilify as prolifigate overspenders, we can see that there has been practically no increase. Many local authorities have scarcely increased their spending.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) referred to the relationship between poverty, a poor environment and the incidence of mental ill health and mental handicap. I think that every one accepts that there are social, class and income relationships. That means that, as the big old institutions are closed down, people will be discharged to the poorest parts of Britain, especially to our big cities. On the whole, the health authorities most likely to be affected by the discharges are those which, under the changes of the past few years which were so proudly introduced by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), lost most funds and suffered most cuts. The four Thames authorities which serve Greater London are the most significant.
  In October 1984 I asked the Secretary of State whether
  "the resource allocation working party formula for capital allocations reflected the cost of replacing large long-stay institutions in outer London as part of the move to community care."
  The Minister replied:
  "No. The RAWP formula does not specifically take account of the cost of replacing obsolete buildings."—[Official Report, 23 October 1984; Vol. 65, c. 572–73.]
  In other words, this magic formula which certain people think is so fine does not make any allowance for the need for inner London health authorities to provide new buildings to replace the old institutions in which the mentally ill, mentally handicapped and old are housed. I suspect that the effect is similar in other large cities.
  Successive Governments have failed to find the resources necessary to bring about care in the community. "Care in the community" has a potent political appeal. It breaks down the concentration of care, as represented by the hospitals, and redistributes it over a much wider area. This redistribution does not solve the problem, but from the Treasury's point of view it has inestimable value in that it makes the problem harder to identify and consequently easier to ignore. One reason why the Government are so

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  keen to mouth phrases about care in the community is that it allows them to adopt an attitude of "Out of the NHS accounts and out of mind". It is more difficult to identify the amount being spent in the regions through agencies, local authorities and voluntary organisations, than it is to make a simple check on the spending figures of a centraliesed National Health Service.
  The old institutions will be with us for some time, even those that are gradually being emptied. One of our duties is to remain aware of how these institutions are functioning. It is generally accepted that institutions which are being run down find it extremely difficult to provide even their previous standard of service. There is a fall in morale among the staff and an awareness of the running down, which makes things difficult. We must ensure that the people still in the institutions do not suffer even more than they did in the past as a result of the run down.
  I have written to every district health authority about attitudes to privatisation and the contracting out of ancillary services. The most significant response was anxiety that privatisation might spell danger for people in long-stay institutions. Many of the district health authorities replied that the domestic staff, especially in long-stay institutions make an essential contribution to life in the wards. They are able to spend time with patients and get to know them. They become familiar with the patients and the patients familiar with them. They will make cups of tea in their spare time and help old men fasten their flies when they come back from the lavatory. That is a contribution towards humanising the wards.
  The health authorities are aware of the danger that once the clipboard and stopwatch approach is applied to domestic services on the wards that high standard of care will either disappear or nurses presently occupied with other duties will have to provide it. If that happens, more nurses will have to be appointed or some of the existing functions will not be carried out.
  The Opposition strongly support the idea of care in the community, but we do not believe that any of the big old hospitals should be closed before people in the hospital and in the area that it serves and those who wish to provide care in the neighbourhood are satisfied that satisfactory alternative provision has been established. My experience suggests—this applies not just to mentally handicapped people—that some of the people who have been moved out of the big old lodging houses into homes of their own or group flats have suffered in the process because insufficient provision was made in advance to support them during that transition.
  Mr. Corbyn: As there is declining provision of acute hospital beds in inner and city areas, and a great demand for geriatric, psychogeriatric and psychiatric provision, the long-term problem is often longer waiting lists of people trying to get acute beds because there is insufficient overall provision.
  Mr. Dobson: I accept that, although I suspect that the Minister will not agree, and I shall deal with that aspect in a moment.
  We should accept that the disappearance of the old institutions in any geographical area must not take place unless we are satisfied that adequate provision has been made in advance for those to be transferred. The important point is that it should be made in advance. If people are
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  not caught by proper after-care arrangements from the moment they leave the old institutions, they will be lost to the system and will never by retrieved. It will be almost impossible to track them down and many people will actually die as a result of being moved out of the old institutions. For those who have been in institutions for a long time, the trauma of coming out will be the worst part of the process and we must look after them very carefully during the transitional period.
  Many genuine mistakes are also likely to occur during the transitional period. It is vital that the people organising these things do not take an ideological view about moving people from one part of the spectrum of care to the next. They should not regard themselves as having failed if the part of the spectrum which they most favour turns out to be unsuitable for some of the people for whom it has been provided. Everyone involved must keep an open mind, or we may end up expecting some people to function in facilities which are still too institutional for them, while demanding that others survive in a non-institutional climate with which they cannot cope. If the Victorians did not have the moral right to put everyone in big institutions, no more have we the moral right to put people in any particular part of the new spectrum of arrangements if it does not suit their needs.
  I do not believe that proper care for the people moved out into the community can or will be provided by people making money out of it. That has been one of the major thrusts of the Government's policy on care in the community, but we do not believe that the standards laid down are adequate or that health authorities have the resources or the will to do the necessary monitoring. When, predictably enough, the profiteering became too obvious even for the present Government, their response was not to step up control of standards and to distinguish between good and bad providers, but to introduce new lower limits on DHSS support, which has hit high quality voluntary and charitable provision as well as the profiteers who were allegedly the target.
  In view of the time, I shall not take up any more of the points raised in the debate. I make just one final point, which no doubt will not commend itself to the Conservatives. I do not believe that care in the community can really work in a society based on he stressful and competitive philosophy of the modern Tory party. The Government believe that the engine of society is selfishness and competition, that life is a race in which the prizes not ony do but should go to the strongest, the fastest, the cleaverest and the most aggressive. That view is ultimately irreconcilable with the idea of looking after the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill.
  The Victorians, who, as we all know, subscribed to the values which the Prime Minister claims to like, resolved the dilemma by taking the mentally and physically handicapped out of the race altogether and putting them in large institutions, partly to cocoon them from the struggle. People with handicaps cannot be cocooned in the same way in the community if the community is based on competition. Besides the requirements for proper care in the community which have been outlined by hon. Members on both sides of the House, there is one overwhelming requirement — to base our society on a recognition of our mutual dependence and our obligations one to another. That is not the Government's philosophy, but without that philosophy characterising our entire society, care in the community will never prosper.
  10.54 pm
  The Minister for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) was his usual quiet and attentive self for most of the debate, but he perked up a little and his beard began to bristle when my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) began to inject some of the red meat of partisan politics into the debate. When he replied, he carried with me for most of the time as he made a reasoned and considered speech, but he ended with one of his slightly over-the-top pieces of party philosophy, which took him a little away from the subject.
  I wish to begin — I hope that I shall end in more or less the same mood — by agreeing with as many of the hon. Gentleman's sentiments as I can. I join him in congratulating the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) and all the members of the Select Committee on the work that they put into producing this report. I agree with most of those who have spoken in the debate, including the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, that we should support the policy of care in the community, which the Select Committee report carefully defines, to make sure that we do not start using it as a slogan. I am especially glad that the Select Committee members managed to secure a debate on the report, so that we have had a protracted discussion on an extremely important subject. I have come to believe that this is an extremely important part of current health policy. It is also the part of health policy that is least understood by many members of the public, and it still arouses much unnecessary' controversy when authorities attempt to put it into practice.
  When I became Minister for Health, I knew a fair amount about the care in the community policy, but I had little direct experience of the problems of putting it into practice. When I came to my present job, I shared some of the public's scepticism about some of the things that had happened in the past. I was certainly sceptical about some of the consequences of the so-called upgrading of mental hospitals which began more than a decade ago, which led to patients being turned onto the streets, because they were described as non-treatable, to reduce the numbers in the wards. Not long ago, I visited a Salvation Army hostel where the people there told me that they remembered ambulances corning up outside the hostel and turning out patients who had just been declared to be non-treatable by a psychiatrist at a nearby large mental hospital.
  I knew when I started, and still know, that mistakes can be made. I know that people discharged from hospital can lose touch with the services that are meant to support them and can fall sometimes into sad and unpleasant conditions. I always have a fear that we should not add to the population living under the railway arches at Charing Cross and elsewhere by finding that, accidentally, we put discharged mental patients into that position.
  However, having said that, and being aware of all those problems, I must say that, after only three and a half years in the job, I have become an enthusiast for the policy which underlies this changeover to care in the community. That is because I have seen good examples of what is happening as health authorities tackle the changeover that is required.
  For instance, I have seen the enthusiasm, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) said, with which the leaders of the health authorities and the local
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  authorities in that part of the country are making the change, and how they are collaborating to achieve it. My hon. Friend praised his health authority, and most hon. Members who have visited Exeter will agree with him that it has done much in this area. In other parts of the country, I have made a point of trying to see care in the community policies and have asked health authorities to show me what they have achieved. I have met patients of all ages and the staff who care for them, and I have heard first-hand descriptions of improvements in the quality of patients' lives that are being achieved now. I do not wish to generalise too much from the examples of individuals whom I have met, but I shall cite two which relate to long-stay patients who might be thought difficult to transfer out of an institution. In Eastbourne, I met a mentally handicapped man who I should say was in his 60s. He had spent 40 years in a nearby hospital for the mentally handicapped. For about 30 years of that time he had been mute and a disruptive patient — not seriously, but setting off fire alarms and fire appliances in the hospital. I met him in a converted couple of houses where he lived. He talked pleasantly in a relaxed way. He described his life in Eastbourne and was plainly enjoying it. He was clearly not highly intelligent, because he was mentally handicapped. He was able to talk and was enjoying a much fuller life than he had for all those years in his hospital.
  In Derby I met a man who had been diagnosed as mentally ill. He had spent 40 years in a nearby large mental hospital. I met him living in a converted terrace house with a great deal of close support from the local social services department and the housing association which had provided the housing. He was slightly reticent, but he was not an unusual man. If I had met him outside the house I should never have realised that he had been a patient in a mental hospital. The only curious thing about his conversation was that his recollections of Derby all revolved around the second world war when he had worked making aircraft engines in the nearby Rolls-Royce factory. He had plainly been cut off from ordinary life in Derby from the second world war until a year previously, when he had gone into that new accommodation. I mention those cases, firstly, because it is always encouraging to meet such improvements being achieved in patients' lives, and, secondly, because they led me to the conclusion to which the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) came. I agree with him that one goes to one part of the country and finds that there are many patients whose transfer into the community is regarded as impossible and yet one goes to the next place and finds that that has been achieved successfully.
  There is plainly no way in which we can discharge all the acute mentally ill patients into the community, but with mentally handicapped patients the position is rather different. I do not see a future for large ward and large hospital care for them at all. A great deal can be achieved. It is easy to exaggerate the difficulties of moving long-stay patients into the community.
  I do not just have the experience of this country. I attended a meeting recently of Ministers of Health from all the countries in the Council of Europe. I heard them all agree that a community-based model of care should replace an institution-based model. All those countries were adopting policies similar to ours. I am glad to say that in such an international gathering the United Kingdom is seen as something of a pioneer. That relates not just to this Government but previous Governments. We were also.

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  regarded as having avoided so far some of the worst dangers of going too fast in an ill-considered way, as I fear has happened in Italy, or scarcely moving at all, as appears to be the case in Greece.
  Despite the mistakes and the difficulties, by and large the process of change has been reasonably well managed here.
  It is rather unfortunate that the Select Committee went to the United States and that it cites the United States and Italy as the international comparisons because—with no disrespect to the general health care in those countries—they are widely regarded as two of the poorest examples, with especially unfortunate mistakes having been made in Italy. I do not think they resemble anything that has happened here.
  We should realise that we are achieving a great deal and that we are in line with international practice. I hope that the few hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), who say that many people suspect that the change is just part of saving money, realise that they are out of step with the majority of Members of the House who realise that our objectives are shared by the vast majority of those genuinely interested in the mentally ill and mentally handicapped patients.
  We must restate the aims of the policy to a sceptical public. We ought all to agree about the need to change from an old-fashioned and unsatisfactory pattern of care in which most of the patients were unwilling long-stay patients in large wards in large hospitals. We must replace that with better, more civilised and humane care for patients that keeps them in closer touch with the community and allows them to live in their own homes or near centres of population.
  We need smaller units of all kinds, including small hospital units, with nursing staff trained in community skills. We need sheltered housing with resident staff. We need day services and domiciliary help for family carers, to whom the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) paid tribute, and for those patients who are capable of self-sufficiency in their own homes.
  In my visits around the country, I have seen remarkable cases of severely disabled people living alone in their own house or living in twos or threes. With the right support, people who the average layman would think could not possibly cope are living in their own homes. That is the objective of the policy. It ought not to be controversial.
  I cannot emphasise too often that the Government are not changing the pattern of care to make cuts or to save money. That is not our objective and it would be a mistake for anyone to think that it is a credible objective. We are shifting resources with the patients. We will have to retrain and prepare staff. Sometimes it will cost more on balance and sometimes it will cost less.
  I quite agree that, in changing to a more modern and humane pattern of care, we must concentrate on the needs of patients. Each patient will require individual assessment of needs. The transition for each patient, as well as for whole blocks of the service, will require careful joint planning, joint approaches from health and local authorities and co-operation between all the health care professions. It is a pity that, in just one or two speeches today, hints of rivalry between the professions began to creep in. There were suggestions about which authority
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  might dominate in the provision of care and which unions or professions might get the bulk of the staff and provide care.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye that it is important to take advantage of voluntary bodies and what they can contribute. Care must be provided by those who are best able to provide it. That might be the health authority, the local authority or a well-run voluntary body. We must not discriminate between the three, but decide in patients' interests which of those bodies will get the finance and deliver the service.
  Our aim is to improve the quality of life of the patients in our care. We want to improve their environment. We must put them in a less frustrating setting than large wards, give them more stimulus and less boredom, protect them and retain the best elements of the word "asylum". That policy has the backing, as I am sure the Select Committee found, of most of the leading interested voluntary bodies.
  MENCAP and MIND — the largest bodies with an interest in mental handicap and mental illness respectively — are fully committed to this approach. I try to keep in touch with both as frequently as possible. The only criticisms that I get from them are that we are not going fast enough. They also always argue about finance. The Select Committee report endorses that policy and praises what has been achieved in some places.
  I must say, however, that I find the report a little like the curate's egg. Although I welcome its support for its less institutionalised approach, if I am allowed to criticise the members of the Committee, who have fairly criticised the Government in various ways, I must say that the report lays heavy emphasis on the difficulties, having described its support for the policy. The report shows signs of having been influenced by many complaints, and on one or two occasions it proposes some curious arrangements. The Select Committee has paid far too much attention to those who say that it cannot happen until larger additional resources are made available to a particular witness's department in his locality.
  The report acknowledges that sometimes excuses are made, but in each locality community care has got to be made to work, sometimes against the grain of local prejudices and by changing local practices, within realistic expectations of resources. The state priorities of the local authorities and the regional health authorities match those of the Government and of successive Governments on health care and social policy. Those priorities are the former so-called Cinderella services for the elderly, the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped.
  One should find that, when increased resources are made available, generally they go to the priority areas. One is considering the activities of statutory bodies whose spending has increased briskly during the last six years. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South reminded us of the figures. The spending of those authorities which provide hospital and community health services has increased by 15 per cent. over and above the general level of inflation during the last five years, and the spending of the social services committees of local authorities has increased by 17 per cent. over and above the general level of inflation in the same period. As they are spending so much money, they should pay more than lip service to the priority services. That is where the bulk of the money should be going. We give growth money to the health authorities to enable them to make changes in practice and meet rising demand.

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  Whenever a debate is held either about finance or about policy in the National Health Service, the Government are able to point to the vastly increased amounts of money that are given generally to the authorities, which we leave them to disburse, and to the policy priorities. The debate is then turned round on the Government. We are asked: if those are the priorities, where is the extra money? The point of providing more money for the coffers of the health authorities is to enable them to improve their services in the stated priority areas.
  Given that we are not devoid of resources for this priority area, one looks at the pace of change, upon which the report placed much more emphasis than any of the speeches to which we have listened today. The Select Committee's report urges a substantial slow down in the pace of change. It suggests that any idiot could close a large hospital. If so, during the last few decades we have been rather short of successful idiots. No authority has ever succeeded in carrying out its stated intention of closing a large hospital. This is not a new idea, anyway. The report refers to the 1962 hospital plan when the Minister of Health became quite lyrical about the need to close down large numbers of mental hospitals. Twenty-three years later, not a single large mental hospital has been closed. Therefore, I cannot agree with the emphasis that the Select Committee has placed upon the Government avoiding undue haste.
  Although the aim of the policy is not to close hospitals — that in itself is a pointless aim — nevertheless it is worth considering whether we can replace some of these institutions with something better. Most regions have one or two hospitals that they ought to have closed many years ago. I fear that some of them are a disgrace to a modern, civilised country. They are very old, and since the hospital plan was published they have become older, more expensive and emptier. The hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) described his experiences of visiting some of our larger mental hospitals. I have been as moved as he was by some of the conditions that one sees there. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras described some of them as clapped out. Some are dank, inhospitable dumps as buildings. I agree that the amazing thing is that the quality of care has been raised so much by the dedication of all the staff wo have to work in those inhospitable surroundings. I join the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras in paying tribute to the staff who have done so.
  One has to ask: why have many of those hospitals, long earmarked for closure, never closed? One of the main problems is the difficulty of planning the replacement services and making sure that thy are there for the patients to move out. There have been other reasons as well. We all know that there have been if we have local experience of trying to plan that change. Once the closure of a large hospital is proposed it is usual to encounter resistance to that proposal from friends of the patients and the staff. Friends and relatives tend to fear any change from a setting that they may think is not attractive, but where the problems of the patient appear to be relieved to some extent.
  Whatever the Confederation of Health Service Employees say nationally — it is in favour of the policy generally — locally, trade union leaders and large numbers of the staff tend to resist the loss of jobs. The local population often receive an inadequate expiation of what is likely to replace the hospital, so they are induced
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  to campaign against the closure, which is presented to them by the National Union of Public Employees or other unions as all part of a policy of health cuts. That slows down the changes and adds to the difficulty of making them.
  No doubt the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), who has joined us, if we ever succeeded in closing the large mental hospitals, would add the lost beds to the ludicrous figures that he produces to try to show that bed closures are a measure of the state of the Health Service. That all underlines the difficulties that are faced in practice in closing large hospitals. I have my own experience. Saxondale hospital was cited by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East. It was first mooted for closure when the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) was the Minister responsible for health. We still have not got round to it. Most local people will believe it when it happens and will accept it once they are satisfied that better services will replace the hospital.
  Mrs. Renée Short: Does the Minister accept that during our inquiry we did not have representations from any hospital union, from either individual workers or groups that we met, complaining about the possible loss of jobs if large mental institutions were closed? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman put that out of his argument? We said in our report that after the closure of the large institutions staff would be deployed, working with smaller groups of patients in different circumstances and different settings, but the jobs would still be there.
  Mr. Clarke: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. It is the same point that I made. I have encountered leaflets issued by local union branches trying to organise resistance to a closure on the grounds of resisting health cuts and saving jobs. I accept that the hon. Lady may not have encountered that, but I have done so, not least in my part of the country.
  We therefore have decided to set early dates — we have already set some — for the closure of those redundant hospitals. The reason for setting dates is that that will provoke the start of the serious planning process, and where that process is well advanced, it will concentrate people's minds on maintaining a set timetable in implementing it. Provoking the planning process sets in train a difficult series of measures that the authorities have to handle if mistakes are not to be made or kept to a minimum. Those involved need to explain to relatives that by the date set better care will be provided. They need to explain to the staff the retraining that they will require and their future in the system, as the hon. Lady said. They need to explain to the local population the type of patients who will move into the community and avoid planning rows and unreasonable fears. I am tempted to defend my neighbours against the attack of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South; but I am glad to say that there were no objections in the part of the world that she described. Objections can be avoided if the nature of the movement into the community that is taking place is explained to the population.
  We must provide better services outside before anyone is transferred. Everyone is agreed upon that. Every patient must be individually assessed and moved to a setting that suits his or her personal situation. That is an extremely difficult process, but it is important for the Government to keep up the pressure to make sure that people concentrate

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  their minds on it and accept it is going to be necessary to do those things, because the large hospital is finally going to be closed. I do not regret the pressure we are putting on to make everything proceed.
  Not all hospital care will be replaced. Many of those suffering from mental illness will need some hospital care. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Norris), who said that there is a slight danger, if one is not careful, that people will concentrate on community care, which is easily arranged for the mildly neurotic, and forget that the first call upon the hospital service must be, in the case of mental illness, to care for the seriously disturbed and acutely ill patient. From time to time schizophrenics certainly may need hospital care.
  For the future, the small local unit on the district general hospital site is the best model. A few months ago I attended the opening — not the formal opening, but very nearly the actual opening — of one in the Queen's medical centre in Nottingham. There I met staff members who were extremely enthusiastic about what they were going to do, and they were nurses transferring from Saxondale. they could see they were moving into a better hospital environment. We also need hospital hostels; small homely units.
  We must guard against hospital units being provided which are merely transferring patients from one hospital institution to another. It I had time, I would answer the complaints made about Oxford. I will go away and find out again about the situation in Barnsley about which I have heard complaints before, and try to make sure that hospital authorities are not going to reproduce institutions.
  These things are going on at the moment. It is good practice and it is working up and down the country. It is being assessed and spread by the Health Advisory Service, Good Practice in Mental Health, the National Development Team for Mentally Handicapped People, and Kent Community Care Project Assessments. Those are various groups which know an great deal about what has been achieved already and are disseminating good ideas to those who are getting started.
  Having tried to persuade all those who have spoken, except for the hon. Member for Islington, North, who insisted on carping about community care, that the objectives are common objectives, I will turn to the matter of finance, because the other message for the Select Committee is that we will support this policy with more enthusiasm so long as we are satisfied that the finance is going to be there to provide better services.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East said that he did not believe this was going to be a cost-neutral policy. I am not sure why it is believed that cost-neutral is really the basis upon which the change is being made. In our detailed evidence to the Social Services Committee on Public Expenditure, we showed that expenditure has increased in real terms on the mental illness and mental handicap services. Spending by health and local authorities on these services rose by 19 per cent. in real terms between 1978–79 and 1983–84. Unit costs have risen more substantially, and in this area I accept that unit costs can be taken as reflecting rising standards where previously one had low-cost hospital facilities.
  The figures now no longer reflect the total resources employed in the care of these groups because they are going over increasingly to general community health
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  services expenditure and the amount going on mental illness and mental health cannot be precisely identified. But there is more money going to this area all the time and that is not cost-neutral expenditure. When it comes to transferring the hospital to community, one cannot always tell whether one is going to spend more in that locality or less. I will not go in great detail into the engaging description by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras of the old coach being replaced.
  Before assuming that it is automatically more expensive outside for the great majority of patients, I ask hon. Members to remember that about 40 per cent. of the expenditure in a large hospital is not in direct patient care. That percentage is the cost of the maintenance of the buildings and support services and so on. If the ratio of one to one staff attention required in the community is going to be greater, a certain amount of money which may have been wasted on old fabric, will be released to finance personal care.
  Mr. Norris: Given that 40 per cent. of the cost of institutional care is not directly related to patients, surely the relevant point is that bridging finance is not merely the provision of capital to buy small houses before the receipt from the old institution. It must also take account of the fact that diminishing numbers in a large institution will still have to be catered for while adequate services are provided in the community, and that will be a substantially longer bridging operation which will have a substantial ramp on both sides.
  Mr. Clarke: The bridging argument entered my exchanges with the Select Committee and is again reflected in the report. I accept that in the loosest sense of the term, bridging must look at the capital and revenue needs. We need a mechanism that can cope with that.
  I know that the Select Committee feels strongly about this, and I should like to explain what the regions are now doing about it. The role of the regions is to allocate resources to the change in policy. The purpose in allocating resources should be to enable the health authorities to close down the institutions, disperse the patients and to buy the service required for those patients from whichever area is best. One must therefore decide how much money will be transferred with each patient.
  In a sense, that will be a patient's entitlement to cover care in the community. One will have to decide how much money will be transferred to another district health authority, if that is where the patient comes from; to a local authority, if its social services department is to provide the care; or to a voluntary body, such as MIND. That will enable those organisations to buy the service required.
  As far as I can see, all regional health authorities are now beginning to build up their own arrangements for precisely that mechanism of transferring funds in order to buy the services that patients require. I do not have time to describe what each and every region has done, but the hon. Member for Leeds, West cited the example of the £14,000 per place being given to MIND.
  The hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) criticised the amount being contemplated by the north-west region. That region appears to have an extremely good system of transferring funds with the patient, and it will pay a local authority, such as Manchester city, for providing services. At the moment, it is paying £11,300 for each patient, because that is the average cost incurred. That may not be

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  right, and the average cost may not be sufficient for a heavily-dependent patient. What is needed — I believe that the north-west region will look at this with the local authorities — is a more sophisticated mechanism for deciding how much each patient will cost in each place.
  That much is already being done by regions. If we have a central bridging fund, and given that the Government will build it up presumably by putting money into it out of the total Health Service allocation, one is really saying that centrally we shall try to achieve this bridging over and above what the regions are already doing. I am not sure whether that is desirable.
  I did not close my mind about that, and I do not do so now. For the last three or more years since I have been Minister, I have been saying that I would look at any cast iron proposal that demonstrated that bridging finance was required for capital or revenue. But that must be a well thought-out scheme requiring genuine bridging finance where money was needed up front to complete the closure of an institution. That would release the funds which would pick up the finance in the future, thereby enabling central finance to go down.
  I more or less told the Select Committee and others that by some means or other we would find the finance for such a well-presented scheme. No such scheme has ever been presented to the Government, and no locality is cited by the Select Committee where such a proposal is thought to be necessary or possible.
  I shall look at any such proposal to see whether the claim is justified or excessive, but it is important that the central contribution should fall away at the end just as it builds up at the front. I shall also see why the present regional mechanisms are not coping with this, although I believe that most regional health authorities would claim that they could cope over the strategic planning period. I do not reject the idea outright.
  I remain to be persuaded that a worthwhile use for such a scheme is likely to be forthcoming. I have not left myself time to deal with all the other finance we are providing: the huge increase in the funds going to joint finance; the opportunity we have taken to enable care-in-the community money to be transferred timelessly to local authorities; our initiative on getting mentally handicapped children out of hospital, a matter on which I feel as strongly as the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter. We must complete the job on which there has been a great deal of achievement over the last three years.
  I remain enthusiastic about care in the community. I trust that the Select Committee will propagate the policy, point out its advantage to the public, campaign for it with enthusiasm and combine that with their criticism and their scepticism. I think we will all find that we will make worthwhile advances on behalf of the patients in our hospitals.
  It being half-past Eleven o'clock, the Question was deferred, pursuant to Order [4 July].
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the deferred Questions and the other Questions necessary to dispose of the remaining Estimates appointed for consideration this day.

  Health and Personal Social Services

    CLASS VII, VOTE I
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £1,151,288,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on subsidies, the option mortgage scheme, improvements and investment, grants to housing associations and the Housing Corporation and sundry other housing services.

    CLASS VII, VOTE 2
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £19,505,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on housing administration, including rent officers, rent assessment panels, and grant in aid to the Housing Corporation; housing management and mobility; grants to voluntary organisations concerned with the homeless; and contributions towards the work of the National Federation of Housing Associations.

    CLASS VIII, VOTE 2
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £86,176,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on other environmental services including grants in aid and international subscriptions, on grants in aid to the British Waterways Board and Development Commission, on bridgeworks and on developing Civil Defence water services, and a contribution to the Lord Mayor of Bradford's Appeal Fund.

    CLASS VIII, VOTE 3
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £176,464,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on derelict land reclamation, the urban programme and grants in aid for Urban Development Corporations.

    CLASS VIII, VOTE 5
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £86,300,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of Me Environment on central administration, including royal commissions, committees etc.; payments in connection with licence fees and environmental research and surveys including housing, building and civil engineering research.

    CLASS XIV, VOTE 1
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £367,125,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure (partly recoverable), including loans by the Property Services Agency of the Department of the Environment on acquisitions, public building work and accommodation services, etc., for civil purposes in the United Kingdom.

    CLASS XI, VOTE 1
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £5,168,144,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1986 for expenditure by the Department of Health and Social Security on the provision of services under

    1373
    the national health service in England, on other health services including a grant in aid and on certain other services including research and services for the disabled.

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

      SEA FISHERIES
      That the Fish Producers' Organizations (Formation Grants) (Amendment) Scheme 1985 (S.I., 1985, No. 987), dated 1st July 1985, a copy of which was laid before this House on 1st July, be approved. — [Mr. Mather.]
      Question agreed to.

  Housing (West Lewisham)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. — [Mr. Mather.]
  11.32 pm
  Mr. John Maples: I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Minister for keeping you up late to discuss certain aspects of the housing problems in West Lewisham. My hon. Friend understands how important they are. From a previous incarnation as a Lambeth councillor, he will understand many of the problems in Lewisham. It is a fairly typical inner London borough which combines the leafy suburbs of the south with serious problems of urban decay and deprivation in the north. A lot of the housing is old, certainly pre-war, built in the 1930s, some of it in the 1940s and quite a lot of it even before 1919. We also have problems with multi-occupation estates and high-rise blocks built in the 1960s.
  In the time available, I should like to look at the capital housing budget for the borough. The basic HIP allocation for Lewisham has fallen from £29 million in 1980–81 to just over £20 million this year — a fall in real terms of about a half. If one looks at the total capital spending, which includes receipts from sales and one or two other balancing items, one finds a similar picture. It has fallen from £32 million in 1980–81 to £30 million last year and £21·6 million this year — a fall of more than 50 per cent. over five years and of nearly one third from last year to this year.
  The aspect to which I ask my hon. Friend to address himself is the biggest problem presented by the capital repairs and improvements needing to be done to many council properties in the 1960 estates-and pre-war houses. Reductions in the budget have meant that those essential works are not being done. To some extent, the position has been ameliorated by the proceeds from the sale of council houses. They contributed £5 million to Lewisham's capital expenditure last year, but this year the contribution will be only about £2 million, despite the fact that the council has about £8 million in the bank from sales in previous years.
  There is no question but that Lewisham council has dragged is feet over the right to buy and has not been an enthusiastic seller. It is also fair to say that much of its remaining stock will not be sold without some inmaginative new initiatives on the part of the Government rather than on the part of the council and that the restrictions on being able to spend 20 per cent of those proceeds will remove what little incentive there is to a council like Lewisham to sell its properties.
  I should like to spend a few minutes on the question of essential repair and improvement work that is not being done. The council in Lewisham owns about 43,000 houses and has sold about 2,000. I think that it would be fair to accept that for the foreseeable future it will remain a major landlord. It is therefore incumbent on it to keep its housing stock at a reasonable standard. It is in duty bound, surely, to protect the value of public assets by maintaining those values, to maximise its income from them and to reduce the number of difficult-to-let properties which arise, not always but sometimes, through a lack of capital expenditure. Essential work on both capital repairs and rehabilitation is being postponed. Roofs needing replacement or renewal, houses that have not been rewired for 50 years, and concrete cladding that is crumbling on

  1375
  tower blocks are all examples of capital repairs that need to be done. Rehabilitation accounts for some of the empty properties. More importantly, some of the environmental improvements to an estate can make it easier to let and maximise its income and can encourage people to buy their flats.
  There are revenue consequences to these capital savings. The capital expenditure reductions appear to be a saving, but often the result of not doing a capital repair is that current repairs have to be done. If the roof is not replaced, it has to be patch repaired, perhaps once a year, until the capital repair is done. That costs money, and on top of that is the inescapable fact that if a capital repair is not done this year it will cost more to do it next year, and if it is postponed next year it will cost more to do it the year after. There are some false economies in what appears to be happening.
  All of this also militates against the desire of tenants to buy their own property, because they are less likely to do so if the capital repairs that should be done are not being done. If they are asked to buy places that are in a bad condition, they are unlikely to do so, whereas if their estate has environmental improvements, or housing that has been brought up to standard, they are more likely to buy.
  Lewisham has many houses that were built in the 1930s and 1940s, and many 1960s estates. A proper repair and improvement programme would maintain the value, maximise the income and facilitate sales of such estates.
  In the owner-occupied sector, the picture on improvement grants is not encouraging. Although in this year's capital expenditure there is a provision of about £2 million for improvement grants, it was committed last year. Since then, 3,000 applications for discretionary grants have been turned down. The Government and their supporters rightly pride themselves on the enormous advance in the home improvement programme, but it is worth bearing in mind that one of the consequences of the Budget is that there will not be a single new discretionary grant this year.
  The problem is even worse on some of the transferred GLC estates, because of the repairs that need doing to those and the consequences of the HIP allocation for the GLC. Lewisham compulsorily took on 13,400 GLC properties, one of the largest numbers. It did not want to do so, but it got them under a statutory instrument that was passed by the Government. It contained a repair and improvement guarantee by the GLC to put those properties at a certain standard by 1992.
  The boroughs that took those properties did so without surveys, but relying on the guarantee, which was a major and vital element in the transfer. It is clear that the base of the financial arrangements for making the transfer was to be that no undue disadvantage should fall on the ratepayers or the tenants of the borough that was taking the properties. Surely it was implicit in the imposition of a guarantee such as the one imposed on the GLC by that statutory instrument that the GLC would financially be able to fulfil that commitment.
  The GLC's renovation strategy for its properties identifies £1,000 million worth of work in the next seven years—about £140 million a year. This year, the GLC's HIP allocation is £67 million, and in Lewisham one can see the results of this in a repair programme that is clearly behind schedule. The stock that was taken over in Lewisham was worse than the average GLC stock. Urgent repair and health and safety work is being postponed.
  1376
  Worse than that, some of the costs that should be falling on the GLC are falling on the borough's HIP allocation, because it has had to do emergency programme repairs that are not being done by the GLC. This year, the GLC will spend about £6 million on capital improvements in the borough, whereas it is clear that the figure needs to be nearer £12 million if that programme of improvements is to be fulfilled, and the guarantee redeemed by 1992.
  Of the 1,605 GLC properties transferred to Lewisham in my constituency, 470 are on the Sydenham Hill estate. It is a well-situated estate in a nice area, is well landscaped and looks good from the outside. Five or six years ago, if one had asked the tenants what they thought of it, they would have said that it was a pretty nice place in which to live and work. However, as a result of the way that the estate was built in the 1960s, almost all of the fiats inside are miserably cold and damp in the winter.
  People are living in cold, and unattractive conditions. Outside the crumbling cladding is dangerous for people walking below it. The GLC consultants identified £4 million worth of capital repairs that needed to be done to the concrete, heating, window frames and so on. The proposal for this year's spending is about £1·8 million—nearly half the sum.
  In fact, the GLC will spend £100,000 on repairing the concrete and £75,000 on the heating, and the Lewisham council will make up the spending with another £200,000 which will enable central heating to be installed in 138—or just over a quarter—of the units. That is a total of £375,000 against £4 million worth of work which needs to be done.
  Not only will tenants continue to suffer and have to put up with their cold, damp flats for another winter, but it will affect the possibility of selling the flats, the let-ability and the income to be derived from them. It will also affect revenue expenditure. In the long term, it will cost more to install central heating, to renew the windows and to deal with the falling concrete in two or three years' time when conditions are worse.
  Tenants are worried about what will happen after the abolition of the GLC. We are told that the GLC's HIP allocation will be divided between the boroughs, but it is not yet clear upon what basis. It would be unfair to divide it on the basis of the general needs index, which is how the London HIP allocation is generally divided. Lewishani took nearly 10 per cent. of the GLC houses stock when it took 13,500, whereas Sutton took none. It would be unfair if Sutton received part of the GLC's HIP allocation.
  The fair way is for the GLC's HIP allocation, whatever it is, to be allocated to those boroughs which took GLC stock specifically earmarked to fulfil the GLC's commitment. The current GLC HIP allocation will not be enough, however it is divided, to redeem that commitment to put the properties into a proper condition by 1992.
  How will the residuary body's ability to generate capital be utilised? Will it have the power to utilise capital receipts to repair the properties by 1992? Will it be able to enter the equivalent of the GLC's HIP allocation, or will those capital receipts not be able to redeem that promise?
  Capital spending on housing in Lewisham has fallen by 50 per cent. in real terms in the past five years. A major result is the postponement of major work. That has affected sales, let-ability, repair costs and the income from properties. Repairs will cost more in the future.
  The GLC has special problems. The HIP allocation is not sufficient to redeem the promise made in the statutory

  1377
  instrument to put properties in a proper condition. Considerable problems might emerge from the abolition of the GLC and the reallocation of HIP money to the boroughs.
  I cannot help concluding that once again current overruns have resulted in capital cuts. That is a false equation. The potponement of essential work is a false economy and will cost more.
  11.39 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples) for giving us the opportunity to discuss housing in West Lewisham. I know from correspondence how deep is his interest in housing. He has rightly raised a number of issues about his constituents, not least about the arrangements after the GLC is abolished on 1 April next year. This evening my hon. Friend gave a perceptive analysis of some of the issues, and I should like to respond to some of his anxieties.
  I shall comment first on the general level of capital spending and the provision that we have made for capital expenditure by local authorities, which in the current year will be over £4 billion, a considerable sum by any standards. I need not re-emphasise to my hon. Friend the importance of the Government keeping within their overall figures, which are central to the Government's economic strategy. If expenditure were allowed to rise significantly above the level that I have outlined, pressure would be put on interest rates and there would be the risk of growth and investment in the private sector being impeded. In the long run nobody would be advantaged if there were any interruption to the recovery.
  Within the figures, the initial housing investment programme allocations made to local authorities for the current year amounted to almost £1·6 billion, and London's share was almost £483 million. In addition to the initial housing investment programme allocations made for this year, those authorities which complied with our request for voluntary restraint on expenditure in 1984–85 are eligible for 5 per cent. supplementary allocations. On top of that, authorities facing particular difficulties because of the implications of the Housing Defects Act have been invited to make bids for supplementary allocations.
  As my hon. Friend said, Lewisham's allocation for the current year is £20·3 million. It has made no application to us in connection with the Housing Defects Act, but it could be entitled to a 5 per cent. supplementary allocation when the final figures for 1984–85 are known. As my hon. Friend pointed out, Lewisham can supplement its HIP allocation through the use of the prescribed proportion of capital receipts. While this year we have had to reduce it to 20 per cent. generally, it is still possible for authorities to augment their allocations in that way by significant amounts.
  There has been some misunderstanding about what that reduction has meant. I hope my hon. Friend recognises that we have not deprived local authorities of their capital receipts. We have simply spread the use of such receipts over a longer period.
  Within the overall system, local authorities are free to determine their own capital programmes in accordance
  1378
  with local needs and priorities. Lewisham must, therefore, determine its 1985–86 programme in that way. I do not deny that the reduction in the prescribed proportion, and the allocation that Lewisham has, means that the council must take some difficult decisions about priorities. However, those are decisions which Lewisham is better able to take than are the Government.
  One must move away from the idea that throwing public money at Lewisham's problems will solve the issues to which my hon. Friend referred. He displayed a keen interest in the idea of getting private sector finance to make faster progress in tackling the problems that he described, and any private finance is additional to the council's allocation.
  The council can sell empty properties, either improved or unimproved, and it can initiate low-cost home ownership schemes. If existing council tenants are given access to such schemes, rented housing is then released for those who need it. My Department's urban housing renewal unit, which I shall describe more fully, will be happy to help.
  It is crucial that Lewisham manages its stock properly. At the end of March 1984, Lewisham's rent arrears, of almost £6·75 million, represented 21 per cent. of the total rent collectable. In the last few years, not only has the council not increased its rents in line with increases recommended by the Department to take account of inflation, but it has not made any rent increases at all since 1982–83, although I understand that it has recently given notice that there will be a small increase from August. That means that the local authority has been denied resources of which other authorities in London have availed themselves.
  From the point of view of other indicators of management competence, on 1 April 1984 Lewisham reported that of the 42,000 council-owned dwellings, 7,000 were difficult to let and 2,123 were empty, of which 637 had been empty for more than a year. I see in his place my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Moymihan), who, I know, has serious reservations about the competence of Lewisham's housing department.
  The number of empty properties —5 per cent. of the total stock — must be a source of concern, as is the number of properties empty for more than a year. Recently, my Department issued a circular to all local authorities giving detailed guidance on measures to reduce the numbers of their empty dwellings, and I hope that my hon. Friends will use what influence they have with the local authority to persuade it to adopt some of those initiatives. There has been a substantial increase over the previous year of properties in Lewisham which are difficult to let. The total now represents about one sixth of all the council-owned stock in the borough.
  The Government are concerned about the growing number of difficult-to-manage estates in Lewisham and throughout the country. We are worried about rising rent arrears and the number of council houses standing empty. For that reason we have established recently within the Department the urban housing renewal unit to help local authorities tackle rundown estates. The problems of these estates are becoming increasingly varied and intractable and the unit, by drawing on the experience and expertise of local authorities, the housing services advisory unit, the priority estates projects and consultants, will be able to offer expert, independent and individual assessments of local authorities' difficult estates. The unit will be able

  1379
  also to suggest a package of measures to deal with them and seek to encourage a variety of different approaches, including disposals to the private sector and locally based estate management initiatives.
  We have already made an approach to Lewisham suggesting a meeting with the unit. I hope that my hon. Friends will be able to persuade the council to respond positively and to put aside any political dogma in the interests of making real progress with the tenants whose interests both my hon. Friends represent. The unit will help the authorities to maximise private funding opportunities. In addition, it will be able to influence the direction of public sector resources where this proves to be necessary.
  The figures that I have outlined of Lewisham's 42,000 stock show that 1,550 units were unfit, that 5,260 while fit lacked basic amenities and that 865 had amenities but needed renovation. This is serious. To get more detailed information on the condition of the housing stock generally and the expenditure that it is necessary to put it into good condition, my Department has written to all housing authorities. Lewisham has been unable to supply complete estimates, but the council has provided some useful information which we are processing along with information from other authorities. At a national level, this information will enable us to get a better understanding of the resources that are needed to tackle the renovation problem and will inform the continuing discussions about the public infrastructure. These discussions are taking place within the forum of the National Economic Development Council.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West mentioned improvement grants and the policy adopted by Lewisham council. Local authorities are able to approve discretionary grants in such circumstances as they think fit. They have complete discretion in these matters. They can decide whether to make grants and, if they do so decide, at what rate they should be. At one time we understood that Lewisham was thinking of making no new discretionary grants in the current year. That would be regrettable, because, of almost 50,000 privately owned dwellings in the borough, over 5,000 are unfit, over 1,000 are fit but lack basic amenities and almost 11,000 are in need of renovation. I understand that the council has decided recently to introduce a small discretionary grant programme for special cases where, for example, there is financial hardship. Applications are now being received from disabled residents.
  I take up my hon. Friend's remarks about the transferred stock and the position that will arise after 1 April 1986. He referred to the housing that was transferred from the GLC to Lewisham council, which comprised 13,415 units, and the arrangements for renovating these properties after the GLC's abolition. I understand his concern and the concern of those who live in the blocks. There has been a good deal of propaganda from the GLC and its friends implying that the GLC's programme to renovate this stock will not continue after abolition.
  Much of the propaganda has drawn a veil over the GLC's track record. My hon. Friend will know that his constituents on the Sydenham Hill estate are alarmed about the poor housing conditions there. The Government's contention is that the boroughs, as the primary housing authorities in London, will be better able to carry through this programme of repairs successfully. Much of this
  1380
  alarmist talk fails to recognise the arrangements that we are to introduce to allow the boroughs to renovate this stock when they inherit this responsibility on abolition.
  My hon. Friend referred to some guarantees. I am not sure who gave the guarantees to the tenants of the GLC transferred stock. The Government made it clear that they could not underwrite any GLC commitment to bring the stock to a satisfactory condition by 1992. We have made it clear that the GLC's housing investment programme allocation would be allocated to the boroughs after abolition. The resources will not be lost to London. London's entire housing capital allocation will be distributed among the boroughs, including the share which would otherwise have been given to the GLC.
  My hon. Friend suggested that some of the allocations should be earmarked, and my Department is considering this. We have already asked Lewisham and other boroughs to make a bid for 1986–87 which will reflect the responsibilities which they will inherit from the GLC. The distribution of the allocations will take account of the expenditure liabilities. It is also our intention that virtually all the prescribed proportion of housing capital receipts will be distributed in proportion to the housing capital allocations including the receipts associated with the mortgage account.
  It may be that the London Residuary Body, which will be responsible for the GLC's mortgage account, will be able to unlock further resources to London by re-financing ex-GLC mortgages. There will be no net loss of resources to London as a result of abolition. The boroughs will have the advantage of receiving those resources directly and accordingly will be able to manage their own programmes according to their own priorities.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham. West spoke mainly about capital. We do not intend that the boroughs should suffer the loss of the revenue assistance which they currently receive from the GLC on the transferred stock. We will ensure that the broad financial effect of these payments is maintained after abolition by adjustment to Lewisham council's entitlement to rate support grant.
  These arrangements will cover the obligatory payments; currently made by the GLC and will take account of the revenue consequences of future renovation works to transferred stock which would otherwise have fallen to the GLC. It is important to recognise that these arrangements will apply irrespective of authorities' current spending position in relation to their grant-related expenditure assessment or their targets — should we continue to have targets.
  I hope my hon. Friend will see that the housing investment programme allocations and the changes made to the capital receipts rules for 1985–86 were essential to ensure that capital spending did not exceed the public expenditure plans and that the level of public sector borrowing was kept on track. In the longer term, we are looking again at the system and at possible improvements. We would like to achieve a better match between our duty to control the overall level of capital spending and borrowing in the national economy and the need at local level for a firm basis for future planning. Consultations with the local authorities have already started.
  Within the constraints on resources, the best use must be made of what is available. We are improving our knowledge of the condition of local authority housing stock and the need for expenditure on it. The recently issued advice on empty dwellings and the establishment of

  1381
  the urban housing renewal unit are positive steps forward as are our proposals for a new approach to home improvement, which were outlined in a recent Green Paper.
  My hon. Friend has argued forcefully in support of Lewisham's housing investment programme submission for 1986–87. The council's bid should be with my Department shortly and officials will meet representatives of the council — probably in the early autumn — to discuss the submission in detail. Before the allocation for 1986–87 is made, we shall give very careful consideration
  1382
  to everything that Lewisham council has to tell us and anything that my hon. Friends have to say. Full weight will be given to all the points that have been made tonight, including the need for continuing investment on the former GLC estates. I hope that my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham, West and for Lewisham, East will use what influence they have to persuade Lewisham council to broaden its horizon and to look at some of the innovative solutions which are already being adopted by other London authorities.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Twelve o' clock.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
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  Objects in Lieu of Tax
  Objects in Lieu of Tax
  Exchange Rates
  Exchange Rates
  Interest Rates
  Interest Rates
  Official Reserves
  Official Reserves
ENVIRONMENT
  Local Authorities (Services)
  Local Authorities (Services)
  GLC (Press Officers)
  GLC (Press Officers)
  Newham
  Newham
  Liverpool
  Liverpool
  London Docklands Development Corporation
  London Docklands Development Corporation
  Major Precepting Authorities
  Major Precepting Authorities
  Capital Works (Grants)
  Capital Works (Grants)
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Chile
  Chile
  Argentina
  Argentina
  Falkland Islands
  Falkland Islands
  Human Rights
  Human Rights
  Namibia
  Namibia
  Departmental Broadcasting Responsibilities
  Departmental Broadcasting Responsibilities
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Nephrops
  Nephrops
  Vitamin E Information Exchange
  Vitamin E Information Exchange
  European Community Agricultural Budget
  European Community Agricultural Budget
  Sugar Prices
  Sugar Prices
  Agricultural Expenditure
  Agricultural Expenditure
  Milk Quota
  Milk Quota
SCOTLAND
  Hospital Beds
  Hospital Beds
  Geriatric Care
  Geriatric Care
  Health Boards (Expenditure)
  Health Boards (Expenditure)
  Edinburgh City Council
  Edinburgh City Council
  Police Vehicles
  Police Vehicles
  Primary and Secondary Schools
  Primary and Secondary Schools
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Sinn Fein
  Sinn Fein
  Housing (Category 3 Repairs)
  Housing (Category 3 Repairs)
  Agriculture
  Agriculture
  Home Improvement Grants
  Home Improvement Grants
  Departmental Staff
  Departmental Staff
  Gas and Oil Exploitation
  Gas and Oil Exploitation
  "Come On Northern Ireland"
  "Come On Northern Ireland"
  Heavy Vehicles
  Heavy Vehicles
  Bomb Attacks (Newry and Killeen)
  Bomb Attacks (Newry and Killeen)
  Flags and Emblems Act
  Flags and Emblems Act
  Criminal Injuries (Compensation)
  Criminal Injuries (Compensation)
SOCIAL SERVICES
  LD50 Test
  LD50 Test
  Social Security Review
  Social Security Review
  Retirement Pensioners
  Retirement Pensioners
  Benefits (Uprating)
  Benefits (Uprating)
  Prisons
  Prisons
  Natural Medicines
  Natural Medicines
  Unemployment Benefit
  Unemployment Benefit
  Health Visitors
  Health Visitors
  Ex Gratia Payments
  Ex Gratia Payments
  Abortions
  Abortions
  Private Patients (Sheffield)
  Private Patients (Sheffield)
  Waiting Lists (Sheffield)
  Waiting Lists (Sheffield)
  Nurses
  Nurses
  Woodgrange Park House (Ministerial Visit)
  Woodgrange Park House (Ministerial Visit)
  Mrs. Maria Shah
  Mrs. Maria Shah
  Broadmoor
  Broadmoor
  Mental Health Review Tribunals
  Mental Health Review Tribunals
  Supplementary Benefit
  Supplementary Benefit
  Diabetes
  Diabetes
  Social Security Review
  Social Security Review
  NHS (Private Contractors)
  NHS (Private Contractors)
  Medicines (Ingredients)
  Medicines (Ingredients)
  Housing Benefit
  Housing Benefit
DEFENCE
  Cruise Missiles
  Cruise Missiles
  Chemical Weapons
  Chemical Weapons
  Exercise Brave Defender
  Exercise Brave Defender
  Annual Awards
  Annual Awards
  Explosives and Ammunition
  Explosives and Ammunition
  Soviet Weaponry
  Soviet Weaponry
  Engagements
  Engagements
Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Leicester): The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.

Wages Councils
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: 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, and if so when, they propose to give notice to the International Labour Office of their intention to terminate or reduce the wages council system in the United Kingdom.
The Minister Without Portfolio (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, the Government have made known their proposal to deratify International Labour Convention 26 on minimum wage-fixing machinery subject to the outcome of consultations in conformity with International Labour Organisation rules. No decision could be taken before completion of these consultation.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that somewhat inconclusive reply. I should like to ask him whether it is not a fact that, if the Government are either to abolish wages councils—as many of us would prefer—or even substantially to moderate them, they are bound under the convention to give the notices referred to in the Question fairly soon.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his question. I believe the position is that there is a window of 12 months from 1st June this year.
Lord Jacques: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind that the Auld Committee strongly recommended that the wages councils should be maintained in retail distribution?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment engaged in consultation on the matter. He is considering those consultations. I am sure that he will bear them all in mind, including the deliberations of the Auld Committee.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I think that there is cause for some rejoicing because the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to judge from the way in which his Question has been framed, appears to have been flirting with the dangerously moderate concept that wages councils may merely be reformed rather than abolished altogether. Should not the Minster take the noble Lord aside and have a little word with him to see whether this is just a temporary aberration or whether
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the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, is now beginning to see the light?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, it is not for me to speculate about the thought processes of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Capenter. However, perhaps I may say that I for one have always found him extremely moderate.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I do not need instruction in aberrations from the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, but that my Question was, I thought, framed with the statesmanlike moderation which I had hoped would appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, in particular?
Lord Bottomley: My Lords, having had battles with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in the past, I suggest to the Government that on this occasion, however wise the noble Lord's guidance, it ought to be resisted. I ask the noble Lord whether, if he does persist, he will consider suggesting a minimum national wage.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am sure that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment, when he announces the result of his deliberations, will be shown to have acted not only with moderation but also with wisdom.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that, since it is always right to be moderate, moderation is of course the normal hallmark of the right?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, yes.
Lord Sainsbury: My Lords, many years ago I was chairman of the employers' side of a wages council. I should like to ask the Minister whether he will confirm that the Low Pay Unit, the TUC, the CBI, the Institute of Personnel Management, the Co-op and the Retail Consortium, which represent 90 per cent. of the retail trade in this country, are all against the abolition of the wages councils.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the results of the representations which were received by my right honourable friend showed that many were in favour and that many were against, but the quality and the quantity of those for and against have yet to be assessed. I am quite sure that when the results of those deliberations have been received all will be satisfied with them.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, does not the noble Lord agree that the formidable list which has just been given by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, of people who have a vested interest in this particular problem and who are against abolition, indicates that the situation would be well left alone and that the usual procedures for dealing with salaries should continue? It is a fact of life that the particular sections of the community covered by those particular agreements have been some of the most industrially peaceful communities in our society, and as such they ought to be left alone.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships would agree that the most preeminent matter before us today is employment. Anything which can help to increase employment should be looked at and studied. I am sure that that is the guiding principle underlining the deliberations of my right honourable friend and I am also sure that all will be satisfied with what he will have to say.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the contrast which is posed in the Question? It is proposed radically to alter, if not to abolish, the minimum wage of shop workers, which stands at £71 a week; whereas for four attendances in your Lordships' House a Member of this House can claim £72 a week. Is that not nauseating hypocrisy and humbug?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, that is for the noble Lord himself to judge.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, has it not been proved over and over again and beyond doubt in our industrial history that it is fallacious nonsense to assume that employment can be increased by lowering wages?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, no. If one thing has been shown and demonstrated it is simply that, for example, in the field of youth employment, the lower the starting wage of young people, the more young people price themselves into employment. It is the very process of negotiating upwards the entry level of wages into our system which has been one of the preeminent causes of unemployment in the last decade.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does not the Minster accept that it is a rather pitiful political policy that the only practical suggestion—if you can call it practical—for dealing with unemployment is that of cutting workers' pay? Is not that a rather pitiful political policy?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I find it rather curious to regard as pitiful anything which succeeds in increasing employment. Employment is the cause before us. If there are statutory arrangements in being which inhibit employment, then it is the duty of this Government—the duty of any Government—to ensure that they are removed. If there are no statutory inhibitions, then of course the arrangements should remain.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the German apprentice wage is much lower, as a percentage of the skilled man's wage, than is the case in the United Kingdom and that consequently the Germans have a higher percentage of entry to apprenticeships than we do? Does he not agree that that therefore shows why the German economy is better than ours?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, this afternoon we are discussing wages councils. They do not of course cover apprenticeships, although I am well aware of the point which my noble friend is making, Nor, indeed, do they cover all young people. They
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concern one sector of our society. The matter is being examined and I hope that it will soon be decided and that the consultations will reveal that we are taking the right decision.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, is the Minister aware that wages councils have saved thousands of people from being driven down to a wage below a living standard? I speak on this matter because I participated in their formation. Can the noble Lord possibly justify the destruction of this means of preventing wages dropping below a living standard, when at the same time the salaries of managers of industries are rising by hundreds of thousands of pounds?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I regard it as unfortunate that we should compare wage levels at both ends of industry, and I say that for the following reasons. First—and this deals with the first part of the noble Lord's question—wages councils, whether they exist or do not exist, are not there to stop people being driven to accept wages at below subsistence levels. That is the purpose of social security. It is a system which we have looked at and which we guard and cherish. Those in our society who engender greatness in our companies and drive the economy forward must be given a proper reward. We must try to give employment to all. Let us never forget that.

European Airlines: Competition
3.10 p.m.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: 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, further to their answer to the Baroness Burton of Coventry on the 13th of June (col. 1349) concerning the European Commission and European airlines, what decisions were reached by the Council of Transport Ministers at their meeting on the 24th of June.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, the Transport Council was unable to deal with the question of increased competition for European air transport at its meeting on 24th June because of pressure of other business, including aviation security, on which the council issued a helpful declaration. We are pressing the council to return to the question of increased competition at the earliest opportunity.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, while no reasonable person could object to that order of priority at that time, can the Minister give us a date when the Council of Transport Ministers is likely to meet? Does he recall that on 13th June he said that the Government believed that it was the right course for the Council of Transport Ministers to reach a conclusion on this matter?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I assure the noble Baroness that that remains our view. The council is to meet again on 14th November, which I agree is a

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disappointingly long time ahead, but we hope very much that it will be able to move forward on this matter then.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, is it not possible for the Government to use their influence to advance the date from 14th November, as that seems rather a long time ahead?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that is a matter for the presidency; it is the Italians at the present time and it will be the Luxembourgers at the turn of the year.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, will my noble friend do what he can to ensure that the competitive fares are particularly relevant to the northern airports so that they will gain and that more transport will be available from the northern airports to relieve those in the south-east?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the sentiments of my noble friend have a familiar ring about them, but I agree wholeheartedly with him to the extent that we want to ensure a much more competitive regime in these matters.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, may I make a helpful intervention? Can the Minister say whether it is correct that the British Government have at last persuaded the French Government to enter into discussions on greater competition, with the possibility of cheaper fares? If that is true, may I congraulate the Government?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am always ready to receive the congratulations of the noble Baroness. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary had some useful discussions with his French counterpart last week.

Fish Farming: Alien Species
3.14 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: 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 which alien marine species have been brought into the United Kingdom for fish farming, where they have been placed, and under what licence.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I am aware of no non-native marine fin-fish species which have been introduced into the United Kingdom for fish farming purposes.
In recent years the Pacific oyster is the only marine shellfish species which has been brought into the United Kingdom for commercial farming, although trials of other species have been conducted. I have arranged for a list of the locations where these species are known to have been placed to appear in the Official Report. No licence is required for these shellfish to be brought into the country, but their deposit in coastal areas must be licensed under one of the relevant deposit orders.
Following is the list of locations referred to above:

Known Deposits of Non-Native Shellfish in the United Kingdom since 28th September 1982

Species

Location

Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas)

Cornwall

River Camel

River Helford

Carnsew Pool, Hayle

Low Lee, Mounts Bay

River Fowey

Devon

River Exe

River Teign

Salcombe Estuary

Frogmore, Kingsbridge

River Avon

Taw Estuary

Dorset

Christchurch Bay

Essex

West Mersea

Falkenham Creek

Isles of Stilly

Porthcressa Bay

Norfolk

Trowland Creek

Wells next the Sea

Blakeney Harbour

Brancaster Straithe

Eastern Creek, Thornham

Suffolk

Bulcamp Marshes

Dyfed

River Cleddau

Kilgetty

Gwynedd

Menai Straits

Brynseincyn

MAFF Fisheries Experiment Station, Conwy*

Dumfries and Galloway Region

Loch Ryan

Highland Region

Loch Ardbhair, Sutherland

Loch Eiseart, Isle of Skye

Orkney

Storage facilities, Ayre Road, Firth Bay

Strathclyde region

Loch Fyne, Cairdnow, Argyll

Tobermory Bay, Isle of Mull, Argyll

West Loch Tarbert

Isle of Luing, Argyll

The Strand, Isle of Colonsay

Loch Creran, Argyll

Western Isles

Little Lock Roag, Isle of Lewis

Co. Down

Strangford Lough

Dundrum Inner Bay

Manila Clam (Venerupis semidecussata)

Cornwall

River Helford*

Devon

River Exe*

River Teign*

Essex

West Mersea*

Hampshire

Emsworth Yacht Harbour*

Suffolk

Bulcamp Marshes*

Strathclyde

Loch Creran, Argyll*

Ormer (Haliotis rufescens)

Hampshire

Laboratory at Hayling Island*

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Species

Location

Ormer (Haliolis tuberculata)

Devon

Laboratory at Plymouth*

New Zealand oyster [Ostrea Maria)

Cornwall

Helfort River*

Essex

Walton on the Naze*

*Trial or experimental work.

Baroness Nicol: My Lords, am I right in thinking that the reason for the Minister's assumption that there is no need for a licence is that he believes that the shellfish cannot breed in our waters? I believe that that is the answer he gave to me on an earlier occasion. Is he aware that at least two species of clam have adapted to breed in the lower temperatures of our coastal waters? This clearly shows that there should have been a licence under the 1981 Act. Can he say whether the NCC has been consulted in any of the cases to which he refers and does he not agree that it should be consulted in the future, if it has not been?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I think the noble Baroness is referring to a licence to release into the wild. Indeed, if fish of non-native species are to be released into the wild, a licence is needed. The noble Baroness asked me for an example of this. The rainbow trout, Pacific and Japanese oysters and Portuguese oysters were released or allowed to escape into the wild under a general licence in 1982. I am advised that this was with the agreement of the Nature Conservancy Council.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the cohoe salmon was originally brought in for fish farming on an experimental basis, but is now banned?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am sorry I have no information on that. I shall write to my noble friend.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, how good is the isolation of these fish if they are put into coastal waters? It is very difficult to isolate fish.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, we had a question on this. We are, of course, talking about shellfish because, as I said at the beginning of my reply to the noble Baroness, no non-native marine fin-fish species have been introduced for fish farming purposes into the United Kingdom. We are, therefore, talking about shellfish. We had a question from the noble Baroness on this about the Manila clam and in answering for the Government I made the point that these are kept under mesh or in containers. We believe, contrary to the belief of the noble Baroness, that in those circumstances they cannot escape to establish themselves in the wild.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that the marine species shellfish which are the subject of the question will not be placed and have not been placed in those areas which are intended to be designated as marine nature reserves?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am sorry, I cannot give the assurance for which the noble Lord asks without
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looking at the very complicated map of the coasts of the British Isles which shows which places are designated areas and which are not. But perhaps I may come back to the noble Lord privately on this point after looking at the map.
Lord Melchett: My Lords, is it not a little unrealistic, given our experience with terrestrial species such as mink and coypu, to make the assumption that species will not escape when they are being kept for commercial purposes? Should not the Nature Conservancy Council therefore be asked to issue a licence in every case, whether the purpose is to release them into the wild or to keep them for farming purposes?
Lord Belstead: No, my Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord on that point. It is right that we should not have a blanket ban on original importation. Indeed, I was surprised at the question which my noble friend Lord Kinnoull asked because we do not have a blanket ban on any fish coming in. However, once the fish species is in there is the mechanism of deposit orders which ensure that when shellfish or any other fish of a non-native species are being moved from one part of the coast of the British Isles to another part it is possible to control that. I think those are the mechanisms we need, except that we also need the mechanism under the Wildlife and Countryside Act to prevent escape into the wild. We have that mechanism. As I understand it, we consult the Nature Conservancy Council when such a licence is issued.

Nuclear Power Programme
3.17 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: 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 additional nuclear power stations they expect to be commissioned or commenced between 1985 and 2000, and what proportion of the total electricity load is expected to be met by nuclear generation in the year 2000.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, the ordering of nuclear power stations beyond those currently under construction and hence the proportion of nuclear generated electricity will depend largely on the outcome of the Sizewell Inquiry
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is that not a totally unsatisfactory Answer? Bearing in mind the speculation which has been rife over the last two or three weeks about the nuclear power programme, anything up to 12 nuclear power stations have been envisaged by the turn of the century and figures given to the Nuclear Energy Agency imply that 43 per cent. of electricity will be generated by nuclear power by the year 2000. Those are the projections which have been given to the agency. Can the noble Lord say why it is that Parliament and the people cannot be given similar projections? Can I also ask the noble Lord—
Lord Denham: No, my Lords.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Yes, my Lords, this is an important question. I am usually very short in my questions, but I have a further question to ask and I hope the Chief Whip will allow me to ask it.
Does the Minister not agree that there is an urgent need for a long-term energy strategy and a properly thought-out energy policy for the next two decades? Will he press his right honourable friend the Secretary of State to produce a White Paper or a Green Paper on energy, so that Parliament and the country can properly and rationally discuss this policy, into the next century?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I do not think that there has ever been any difficulty about Parliament having the opportunity to discuss energy policy. Energy has been a popular subject in both Houses, and has received a fair share of their attention. The Government cannot be held responsible for journalistic speculation and it is not unusual for articles to appear in the press giving particular views as to the amount of generation which we might have by the end of the decade or the end of the century from nuclear power or from any other source of power. The Government cannot be held responsible for these speculations. I have stated in my Answer that much will depend on the outcome of the Sizewell inquiry. The inspector at the inquiry has heard evidence on the merits, for example, of the AGR system. We shall have to wait and see what conclusions he draws in his report in due course. It would he inappropriate for me to comment at this stage.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend say when we will get this report and, having got it, how long the Government will take studying it and making up their mind? Is he aware that there is a real anxiety in many quarters that we are going to run out of generating capacity within the next 15 years unless replacement is put in hand now?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, as my noble friend is aware the inquiry closed on 7th March. The timing of the report is a matter for the inspector. However, the inspector has informed my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy that he hopes to be able to deliver his main recommendations before the end of this year.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, will not the Minister agree that the level of ordering of plant, whether nuclear or conventional, depends also on what is the expected maximum simultaneous demand in the year 2005 when plant ordered up to the end of century may come into commission? Do the Government now have up-to-date estimates of the rate of increase of maximum simultaneous demand and is any new plant required over the period covered by the Question?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, the Government have made clear their endorsement of the CEGB's proposal that the pressurised water reactor should be established as a valid option for the United Kingdom and that the next nuclear power station order should, subject to the necessary clearance consents and safety
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clearances, be a PWR. The CEGB's case for building a PWR is being examined by the Sizewell inquiry. The inspector has heard the evidence on alternative reactor systems, and the decisions as to when or how many future stations may be built will depend on the result of the inquiry. At this time, it is not possible to give an accurate answer to the supplementary question that the noble Lord has raised.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, could the noble Lord confirm that, whatever may eventually transpire, the question of building 12 new nuclear power stations over 15 years is quite beyond the capacity of the industry, and the suggestion that we are going to do so must be nonsensical?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, it may be nonsensical, as the noble Earl suggests, but it has not been made by the Government.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, can the noble Lord give some indication to the House as to whether the Government have any plans for the closure of uneconomic nuclear generating plants?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I am afraid that this supplementary question goes rather wide of the Question which has been tabled. I feel that when one is answering from the Dispatch Box one must draw the line somewhere. If the noble Lord cares to put down a Question to that effect I shall do my best to answer it.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, in the meantime, would the noble Lord tell us what the Government are doing to try to stimulate the improvement and the efficiency of coal-fired power stations, bearing in mind that coal represents our largest source of primary energy in this country? Furthermore, what is being done to complete the investigations into pressurised fluid combustion which will enable coal to be used with the minimum of pollutants?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, rightly points out, coal plays a major role in the generation of electricity, and will continue to do so for many years. However, it is prudent for the country to have a range of supply options and I do not think that that has ever been brought home quite so forcefully and forcibly as it was earlier this year.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend add one other thing to what he has said? In view of his references in his answers to the AGR, can he assure the House that the Government will not allow AGR technology to die?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that the Government would be sad if AGR technology were to die. The Government are open minded on the question of the AGR. As I indicated earlier, the Government believe that a range of options must be maintained.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we are aware that the Government have not said that they are going to build 12 nuclear power stations but that their projections have fuelled

321
this speculation? What I am asking for is some proper information to Parliament and to the country to enable us to see exactly what the Government are up to.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, the noble Lord really does speak as though there were some great secret plot—
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: There is, my Lords.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I can assure him that there is no secret plot and that we shall continue to give as forthright and as forthcoming answers to his questions as we always do.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, will the noble Lord be good enough to read the answer he gave to my supplementary question earlier and, if he agrees, having done so, that he did not answer me, will he write to me in due course?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I am always very happy to write to the noble Lord.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that to ordinary people like myself the important thing is that our fuel arrangements should be such that never again—I repeat, never again—should the country be held to ransom by the coal miners?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, my noble friend is correct. Indeed, I have already suggested that it is the Government's intention to keep a range of options open; and we certainly shall.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he recalls that on two occasions he made reference to "PWRs"? What is a PWR? Can I buy one anywhere?
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, it is a pressurised water reactor.

Housing Bill [H.L.]
3.27 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I understand that no amendment has been set down to this Bill or to the following three Bills which stand in my name on the Order Paper, and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee on any of these Bills. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I propose to move successively that the order of recommitment of each of these Bills he discharged, beginning with the Housing Bill.
Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Housing Associations Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that the order of recommitment of this Bill be discharged.
Moved, That the order of recommitment he discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Landlord and Tenant Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords. I beg to move that the order of recommitment of this Bill be discharged.
Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that the order of recommitment of this Bill be discharged.
Moved, That the order of recommitment be discharged.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Bill
3.30 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This Bill has arrived in your Lordships' House with unusual speed—some may say with unseemly haste—having left another place only a week ago. I appreciate the genuine concern expressed that the timescale within which your Lordships are invited to consider the Bill should be so short. It was of course to have been shorter; but, as I am sure your Lordships will understand, the reason for the unusual haste is to have a measure on the statute book before the start of the next football season on 10th August; a measure which will go some way towards meeting the very proper concern—concern which we all share—expressed about behaviour at football matches.
On 3rd June, shortly after the dreadful events in Brussels, your Lordships heard my noble friend the Lord President repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. That Statement described a number of measures being taken by the Government to tackle problems of order and safety at football grounds. This Bill is one of those measures. Your Lordships made plain then the feelings of anger, shame and sorrow which that night at the Heysel stadium stirred, not only in your Lordships' House but throughout the nation. Your Lordships indicated support for the measures being taken by the Government and, in particular, our proposal to introduce legislation increasing controls over drinking and drunkenness at and on the way to football grounds.

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My right honourable friend the Home Secretary said, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill in another place, that it was a matter of deep regret that such measures should have to be considered. It is indeed a sad reflection on the state of a great national game—a game the world considers to be truly British. A football ground ought to be a safe place for decent people and their families. A football match ought to be an occasion for good, honest enjoyment for everybody. People ought to be able to walk about their town on a Saturday afternoon without fear. Some clubs, I am happy to say, still provide good, safe entertainment with a peaceful, even a family, atmosphere. They deserve every credit for maintaining the finest traditions of the game. But over much of the country football all too often means trouble. That trouble may not be on the scale of the despicable actions of the thugs at the Luton-Millwall match, which were on the television screen for all of us to see. But some degree of drunkenness or vandalism or intimidation or disorder has come to be expected in many of our towns and cities when there is a home match. That is appalling, and something no one should stand for. British football used to be respected across the world. Now it has reached the humiliating and shameful position whereby English clubs have been banned from competing in Europe.
The need and the urgency are such, as I said, that the Government want this Bill to be in force before the beginning of the next football season. We have had to get the Bill ready quickly to meet this timetable, and I know that there are, quite properly, reservations about hasty legislation. But in this case the Government decided that it was necessary to act quickly. Moreover, we have been assisted by the fact that the current Bill is based, with variations, on the tried and tested legislation in Scotland. There both the Scottish football authorities and the Scottish police believe that it has made a considerable contribution to improving the standard of crowd behaviour. Of course there are differences between the situation in Scotland in 1980 and that in England and Wales today, and we have tried to reflect these differences in the legislation.
Moreover, although the legislation has been brought forward quickly, we have consulted those concerned: the Association of Chief Police Officers, the football authorities and, not least, the official Opposition and the Alliance. The Bill takes into account the comments we have received, though I fear that we have not satisfied, and indeed would not be able to satisfy, everyone. In particular the football authorities are concerned about the effect on their revenue. Nevertheless the Bill, although prepared quickly, is a reasonable piece of legislation and I believe that it will prove practical and effective. It is certainly not a panic measure. My right honourable friend has characterised it as "tough but fair". I believe that this is right. We have tried to set a proper balance, and not to go over the top. There will be an opportunity in the Committee stage later to discuss particular amendments. On some points we may possibly need to look at the Bill again when we bring forward new public order legislation following the review of public order law. In the longer term, if English football is successful in rehabilitating itself we may be able to consider possible relaxations in the controls in this
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Bill. But I am afraid that looks like being some years off. Meanwhile I believe that this Bill represents a reasonable compromise between the need to eliminate violence and hooligans and the interests of respectable clubs and respectable supporters.
The Bill applies to sports grounds and sporting events designated by the Secretary of State. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that his immediate intention is to designate only soccer grounds and matches. These will include the grounds of all football league clubs; Wembley and any other stadiums which might be used for international fixtures; and non-league grounds when they are used for matches with league clubs, for example, in the FA Cup. It would be possible for the Secretary of State to designate other sports if the need arose. In that respect the Bill follows the Scottish legislation. The Government believe it is right to take such powers, because drunken hooliganism in connection with any sport is equally unacceptable even if less likely. But I assure your Lordships that we most earnestly hope that it will never be necessary to exercise them.
I shall now briefly describe the main provisions of the Bill. Clause 1 concerns travel to and from matches on coaches, minibuses and "football special" trains. It creates three new offences: first, it will be an offence to possess alcohol on the vehicle or train; secondly, it will be an offence for the hirer or operator or his servant or agent knowingly to cause or permit alcohol to be carried; and thirdly, it will be an offence for a passenger to be drunk. The Association of Chief Police Officers considers that the main problem of disorder at football matches stems from supporters arriving at the ground already under the influence of alcohol. The Bill will make it more difficult for supporters both to get drunk on the journey, and to gain entry to the ground if they are drunk.
Clause 1 will catch travel in England and Wales not only to English and Welsh grounds, but also to designated matches abroad and to matches in Scotland which have been designated under the 1980 Scottish Act. Your Lordships will be aware that the Government have tabled an amendment in order to bring the liabilities of hirers and operators of public service vehicles and trains and their agents and employees into line with the position under the Scottish Act, and I shall explain that point more fully when your Lordships come to consider the amendment.
Clause 2 concerns behaviour in the ground and on entry to it. It will be an offence to be drunk while entering or trying to enter the ground or in any part of it. It will be an offence to possess alcohol or a "controlled container" on entry to the ground or in any part of the ground from which the game can be directly viewed. The throwing of missiles, especially bottles and cans, is all too common and can cause serious injury. This provision in effect bans all bottles and cans from the stands and terraces. Concern was expressed in another place that the present definition was too wide and would catch items which it was unnecessary or undesirable to catch. I shall in due course be inviting your Lordships to approve an amendment which would catch (if that is not an inappropriate term in this context) a narrower range of

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containers and exclude articles which are unlikely to be used as missiles.
This clause prohibits the possession of alcohol only in areas which afford a view of the pitch. In this respect it departs substantially from the Scottish Act, which in addition bans alcohol in all areas of the ground which are open to the public. I know there is concern about this, and perhaps I may briefly set out the reasons for this departure.
Even before the 1980 Act, no Scottish club was licensed to sell alcohol. Their problem lay solely in people taking in drink which they had bought outside, or arriving at the ground already drunk. But a considerable number of English clubs have for many years sold drink in their grounds—in many cases to no evil effect. It has been argued forcefully by some that nothing short of a total ban will do. But that is not the argument which has been clearly put to us by the Association of Chief Police Officers. Their view is that strictly controlled drinking inside grounds is easier to police than increased and more dispersed drinking in pubs and in the streets away from the ground. We propose, therefore, that clubs which keep their house in good order, and where drinking inside the ground presents no problem, should be able to apply to the magistrates for an order permitting the sale of alcohol in certain areas of the ground. The sizeable revenue which clubs receive from the sale of alcohol will serve as a powerful incentive to them to keep up to scratch.
Clauses 3 to 5 and the schedule concern the sale of alcohol in licensed or registered club premises inside the ground when a match is being played. That includes a period of two hours before the start of the match and one hour after the final whistle. During that time no alcohol may be sold unless the magistrates' court has granted an exemption order. In granting an order the court must be satisfied about the likely consequences for public safety and orderly behaviour. The order may be revoked or varied by the court, either generally or for a particular match. There is power for a police inspector to suspend an order at short notice for a particular match. This would provide for the situation where, for example, the police received information on a Saturday morning that troublesome supporters of the away team were on their way to the afternoon's match.
Clause 4 provides that the normal duration of an exemption order is five months. This means that clubs will need to apply for an order, and therefore satisfy the court about their arrangements for ensuring safety and good order, at least twice every season. Clause 4 and the schedule lay down procedures for the making of applications for orders.
There is one immediate practical consequence of these procedures which I should bring to your Lordships' attention. While clubs will be able to apply for exemption orders as soon as the Bill comes into force, it will take some time for applications to be dealt with. There will therefore be a period after commencement during which no club whose ground has been designated will be able to sell alcohol at a match. For a short time at the beginning of the next football season all league and international fixtures will therefore be "dry". It is not possible to say exactly how long it will take for an exemption order to be issued in
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any particular case, but it cannot be less than 28 days, which is the minimum period laid down in the Bill between the application to the court and the hearing of the case. It is therefore likely to be September before any sale of drink at designated grounds can be resumed.
Clause 5 provides for a right of appeal to the Crown Court against a decision by a magistrates' court in connection with an order. Clause 6 empowers any constable in uniform to close bars in the ground if trouble breaks out or is threatened during the period of a match. Clause 7 gives the police the necessary powers to enforce the provisions of the Bill. Clause 8 prescribes penalties. Imprisonment is available for the most serious offences. Clause 9 sets out definitions. Clause 10 amends Part V of the Scottish Act. It extends controls under the Act to trains (which are not caught at present under the 1980 Act) as well as public service vehicles; it enables the Secretary of State for Scotland to designate matches overseas; and it applies the Act to matches designated under the present Bill, so that travel in Scotland en route to designated matches in England and Wales and abroad would be caught.
I shall have the chance to pick up detailed points raised at the end of this debate. But in closing my opening remarks can I say this: this Bill is intended to curb drunkenness and so help to prevent violence and disorder at football matches; behaviour which has been seen the world over on television screens; behaviour which has brought the game as played by the British into particular disrepute—and deservedly so; behaviour which we ought to be ashamed about; behaviour which we must take effective and rigorous steps to stamp out. Inevitably it will also place restrictions on genuine peaceful football supporters. That is in the nature of things, and is a matter of regret. But in the long run it is in everybody's interest—everybody but the drunken hooligan that is, and even him if he can be made to realise the damage he does—to restore the once good name of British football and to bring back the law-abiding supporters and their families who have been driven away from football matches by fear.
We must face up to whatever measures are necessary to achieve that aim. Violence and hooliganism, the behaviour of a minority, must never be allowed to triumph over the legitimate peaceful enjoyment of our national game. Let no one doubt the Government's determination to play their full part. This Bill is one illustration of that determination. If all others concerned, the clubs and the football authorities especially, will play their part with equal vigour, we can together rid the game of the scourge which has afflicted it and which has cast it into such disrepute. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, that the Bill be now read a second time—(Lord Glenarthur.)
3.45 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the House will be grateful, as it normally is, to the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, for the manner in which he has moved the Second Reading of this Bill. I believe that the House will also agree with the unexceptionable sentiments that the noble Lord has expressed. This will be a

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debate, I hope, which will cover the provisions of the Bill which has been brought before us very properly as an emergency measure, and I wish to make it abundantly clear that the official Opposition in your Lordships' House not only agree with the general provisions of this Bill, but they furthermore agree that it is of an urgent nature and ought to pass through Parliament in good time to allow its provisions to be brought into effect before the commencement of the coming football season. That means that nothing that I shall say from this Front Bench is meant in any way to block the passage of this Bill, or indeed to impede its progress. But your Lordships have a duty to discuss, at all events, various issues, and if the Government find that any such discussion is useful or any amendment moved in your Lordships' House ought to have their consideration, I am sure that course will be adopted.
It is a personal delight to me that in the course of this debate my noble friend Lord Donoughue will be making his maiden speech and I am sure that we shall all listen to it with the greatest of interest.
Against that opening remark of mine about the official Opposition wishing to assist in every way it can in the passage of this Bill, our minds obviously go back to the sense of national shame to which the noble Lord the Minister referred and which was unfortunately our lot after the scenes in Brussels; it followed on Luton; it followed on Birmingham; and of necessity steps have to be taken in order to try to deal with this slur upon the name of football and also of Britain. I do not think anybody ought to think that by passing this Bill through your Lordships' House and speeding its way on to the statute book we are providing a panacea for football violence or any violence at all. What we are doing is trying at least to deal with a part of that matter and it is our obvious duty so to do.
It is right that not for the first time we borrow something from north of the Border; in the same way that they have from time to time borrowed useful things from south of the Border. It is a fact that similar legislation passed in 1980 in Scotland has, so we are informed, brought a great improvement in the conduct at football matches in Scotland. On that matter, I am hoping that the House will have the privilege of hearing something from my noble friend Lord Ross.
Violence is not confined only to football grounds and it is appropriate, when dealing with a measure of this kind, that one reflects for a moment in Parliament about this positive curse that appears to have hit many countries in the world, and certainly not ours alone. We ask ourselves questions when we are dealing with the prevention of alcohol at football grounds, in large measure, by an enactment of this kind. What are the causes of this extreme violence which our generation has inherited? One wonders whether there ought to be a deeper inquiry than a debate on the Second Reading of this Bill. Is it just alcohol? Is it drugs? Is it unemployment? Is it economic deprivation? Is it lack of discipline in the home? Is it lack of discipline in certain schools? Is it the absence from many more homes than was usual of religion and of religious discipline, if one may put it in that way?
It was interesting to read the report of NACRO, the National Association for the Resettlement of
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Offenders, who looked at the statistics for criminal damage. The figures were referred to in the other place in the debate on this Bill and they are somewhat alarming. They show an increase over five years in matters of criminal damage of more than one-third. Those figures show that of the convictions and cautions the preponderant majority of the offenders were under 21, and in the case of minor offences nearly 90 per cent. were under 17. So this is a matter that concerns the nation fundamentally, because it looks as though it is something with which our youth is in some way afflicted.
That means only a minority of our youth. Of the majority of our youth we can well be proud, but we have a problem in regard to that minority. I shall not carry that discussion further than to say that they can also fall a very easy prey to any political party, so-called, that wishes to attend by its representatives at football grounds or elsewhere, to try to encourage our youth to join their ranks and join the violence and the frightening behaviour in which that certain political party believes.
Having said that, I pass to the measures in the Bill itself. As I said, it is the view of my noble friends that we must do nothing to impede the passage of this Bill; and, as has correctly been said, this is an agreed measure between the representatives of the various political parties in another place. Therefore it is my intention—and I wish to make this clear to the House at Second Reading—to refer only briefly, I promise, to certain major amendments where my name occurs on behalf of my noble friends, and in regard to them I shall say why I think that those amendments would be good amendments and would provide improvements to the Bill.
However, I tell the noble Lord the Minister immediately, because I believe in good faith and in agreements, that if he indicates to me that in his view any one of the three matters to which I shall refer breaches an agreement which has been reached between the official Opposition in another place and the Government, I shall tell the House that I personally will not from this Front Bench dream of moving the amendment when we get to the Committee stage.
Having said that, perhaps I may refer to the items that are involved. The first is that vehicles are defined in the Bill as vehicles upon which there ought to be no alcohol, no drinking and no drunkenness. Under Clause 1 of the Bill, that applies to a vehicle which
"is a public service vehicle or railway passenger vehicle".
The clause goes on to say that the vehicle,
"is being used for the principal purpose of carrying passengers for the whole or part of a journey to or from a designated sporting event".
The immediate thought occurs to anybody who wants this Bill to be effective: why choose only public service vehicles narrowly defined under Clause 1? Why not all vehicles which are going to or from the designated sporting event? It would be very easy to get over the provisions of this Bill, if one chose to have some vehicle other than a public service vehicle to convey people to the ground or to take them away from the ground.
The second matter is of much greater importance. If it be decided to try to eliminate at least one of the

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factors—namely, alcohol drinking—from our football grounds, why should it not be a total ban? Why should there be exceptions for executive suites or for other parts of the football ground, provided that one is not in sight of the football field itself?—a difficult matter to define, one would have thought, in any event. Why have these exceptions?
The exceptions are supposed to be there because it is thought that people might not come as guests of sponsors of the football event if they were deprived of a glass of wine or a glass of beer. They must be poor lovers of football and not very gracious guests if the invitations are refused on the ground that no alcohol is available, though in any event it will be available at a certain time before the start of the game and at a certain time after the finish of the game. One would have thought that a little patience might be exercised, even if there was such an avaricious desire for the consumption of alcohol as a guest.
So I put down an amendment and gave notice that I would oppose Clauses 3, 4 and 5 standing part of the Bill, because those are the clauses which deal with the exemption provisions, under which one can apply to the magistrates in order to get an exemption for a certain part of the ground which is not within sight of the field and where the applicant club has the merit of a good record. Again, I repeat that if these are deemed to be matters which contravene the agreement reached, I have no intention of moving my amendments and of saying that those clauses should not stand part of the Bill. But I am anxious that this vital matter be discussed at least at Second Reading.
I go to the next point. The Bill is expressed to be a Bill for all time. I use those words because I noticed that in another place they were the words that were used by my right honourable friend Mr. Howell. The Minister did not dispute, when he answered an intervention by Mr. Howell, that this Bill was intended for all time. I say to myself—and I say it especially when one looks at the provisions concerning the power of the Secretary of State to make an order subject to the negative procedure for these provisions to be carried to other sports grounds; not just football, but to be made applicable to other games such as cricket, rugby and so on—if you are experimenting (and we are), and if you are moving this as an emergency measure (as we are), and if you are hoping that this is going to improve matters and that you are going to have less hooliganism in the future on football grounds, why have it as a permanent Bill on the statute book?
Why not deal with it almost as though you were dealing with terrorist legislation? Why not have it for, say, a period of five years, renewable for another five years if Parliament by an affirmative resolution in both Houses so decides? So I have put down an amendment to that effect. I repeat that if the noble Lord the Minister tells me that that is an amendment which in his view has a wrecking effect on the Bill and is contrary to the terms of the agreement, I will not move it; but I hope that your Lordships will at least discuss it in the course of this debate on Second Reading.
In conclusion, I ask only three questions of the Government. First, please, when are we going to get
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the interim report of Mr. Justice Popplewell? I know that that deals with the safety of football grounds. and so on, but we could be given many hints in regard to the whole beastly plague of violence on football grounds if we could get that interim report. So I ask the Government, bearing in mind that the learned judge has had some months in which to consider what is, I know, a very complex problem—I am sure it is being done with his usual care—when is it anticipated that we are going to receive that report?
My second question is this. When we are dealing with the question of violence on football grounds it seems to me as a layman in these matters that the installation of closed-circuit television is a vital element and one essential, one should have thought, for supervision by the stewards and the police. Can the Minister tell us what progress is being made with regard to the arrangements for closed-circuit television, and what arrangements are being made, too, for financing it from whatever source that may come?
The third matter, in view of the fact that I have just talked about resources, is this. We are going to need a lot of policing under this legislation. We are going to need all the money that can be spent on improving football grounds and safety. Please, can the Minister indicate, after the discussions that have taken place with those involved, what is the likelihood of there being funds sufficient to cover the policing that will be necessary under this Bill and the vital matter of safety at football grounds? Having said that, on behalf of my noble friends I hope that this painful Bill—painful to all of us and painful to the nation, but necessary—will be speeded on its way.
4.4 p.m.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, in my approach to this fascinating Bill I want to make two preliminary observations. One is to say how much we look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue; the other is that I should say from these benches how much we congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, on his speech. I have never before seen anybody fight quite so effectively with both hands tied firmly behind his back.
As we approach this topic, my mind goes back about half a century, to my school days in Manchester, when I used to go on alternate Saturdays to Old Trafford and Maine Road, wearing the appropriate United or City scarf and mingling freely with the supporters of the opposing team. I never had a moment's worry and knew perfectly well that my parents never had a moment's anxiety, either. Half a century later the position is very different. I am hound to say that I would never allow my children now, assuming that I had any control over them, to go to a football match wearing their Manchester United scarves at almost any ground in this country or, to be fair, at almost any ground in Europe or South America, either. I do not think we ought to delude ourselves into thinking that this is a peculiarly British problem.
What has caused the decline in our standards of fooball match behaviour during that half century? The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has indicated some of the

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more deep rooted causes. There is material, I think for many debates in your Lordships' House as to why the standards of behaviour have declined over that half century. I doubt whether at the end of those debates we would find any very satisfactory answer. But I venture to say that I do not believe there is any one of your Lordships so naïve as to suggest that the decline in football match behaviour, the increase in thuggery and hooliganism over the past half century, is due primarily to the increased consumption of alcohol. There is no evidence to suggest that for one moment. If that conclusion is right—and I am sure it is—at least we ought to recognise for a start that this Bill is not significantly going to affect, not materially going to affect, the basic reasons for the misbehaviour that we see at our football grounds.
The fact is that at those matches there are today what might be called "professional thugs". They are professional hooligans. They are not football club supporters; they are not football supporters—to call them that is an absolute mockery. They are people who turn up in the hope and the expectation that they can take part in violent activity. Indeed, it is not unknown, and your Lordships may well know this, for many of them to turn up in order to have a good fight outside the ground without even bothering to waste their money and go inside and watch the match.
I have no doubt at all that this was part of the trouble recently in Brussels. Many people must have gone over there looking for trouble. That is why, of course, it is so desperately important that the opposing supporters should be effectively segregated. That that course was not followed was the principal cause of that terrible tragedy on that day. The other tragic outcome of that day's events is that it is not those thugs who have been penalised as a result—it is the fooball clubs themselves, which are perhaps not substantially to blame, and, more than that, it is the footballers themselves, who are not in the least to blame, who are going to suffer most as a result of the ban, a ban which I am sorry to have to say the Government appear to have welcomed when it was first imposed, although when the matter was raised the other day the Government hastened to say that it was not really a matter for them at this stage.
I do not want to suggest that alcohol plays no part in this misbehaviour. I believe that the part that alcohol plays is simply this: when the professional thugs and the professional hooligans start on their violence in or outside football grounds, there are other people there who, because they have drunk too much, join in who otherwise would not be tempted to join in. There is therefore a purpose to this Billl, although it is a much more limited purpose than that which the Government pretends.
As your Lordships know, this Bill creates a number of new criminal offences. When it is passed, it will be an addition to the criminal law of this country. I am bound to say that I am appalled when I read the debates in another place and infer from them an unpleasant undercurrent which the two principal parties have between them read into the provisions of this Bill. That is not the way in which criminal legislation should be enacted in Parliament. Over and over again in another place there were indications that
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an amendment might be put forward, but then it was suggested that such action was outside the terms of the agreement, and the proposal was therefore abandoned. I am sorry to have to say that that has been the case.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I interrupt the noble Lord only to make the position of those on these Benches entirely clear. There are some emergencies which are national emergencies and where, by the grace of God, and with common sense, the three parties combine in order to benefit the nation. This was deemed by the official Opposition one of those instances. I understood that the Alliance also were a party to that agreement. If the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, cares to say that there was no such agreement with his party, no doubt he will make that clear.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, certainly there was no such agreement. There was consultation with one of the Whips of one of the Alliance parties, who never even saw the Bill and who said that the matter appeared to be sufficiently urgent for its passage through another place to be facilitated. That is as far as the matter went.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, if the noble Lord will give way again. I do not know whether he has read what was said in another place, but the Home Secretary stated quite clearly that he had the support of all the parties in another place. He named the two people who represented the SDP and Liberal Alliance, in the persons of Mr. Beith and Mr. Maclennan, and he thanked them for the support they had given.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, I repeat what I said earlier and which I understood to be correct; that at the time when the Alliance representatives said they would facilitate the passage of this Bill, the Bill was not produced to them. There the matters rests.
I am certainly not going to suggest that I should be hampered in my criticism of various clauses of this Bill, or that I or my noble friend Lord Hams of Greenwich should be reluctant to put forward various amendments, because of any such agreement as was entered into in another place. I believe that your Lordships have a role to play as independent Members of Parliament. If we have views about certain matters to do with a Bill of this nature, particularly a Bill that is adding to the criminal law of this country, it is our duty as legislators to put forward those views and not to say, "I am terribly sorry, but somebody somewhere else has said that I ought not to do that and so I am not going to do so".
Viewing the Bill in that light, I am bound to comment that I regard it as a somewhat muddled Bill. Well meaning it undoubtedly is. Muddled it certainly is. Indeed, without being unduly cynical, I could perhaps suggest that it is one of the most muddled Bills that we have had from another place for several days now.
Let us start with the provisions to prevent drunkenness before arrival at the ground. This is an important aspect, and I agree that it is important. I welcome such part as this Bill will play in controlling the consumption of drink on the way to the ground. However, I agree entirely with the noble Lord. Lord Mishcon, that there are loopholes in Clause 1, and I

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believe that they will be very effectively exploited unless they are sealed up at this stage in your Lordships' House.
I next come to the provisions which claim to stop people drinking at the ground and getting drunk at the ground. I wonder whether we are not exaggerating this problem. I speak as someone who has been to a great many football matches, who has stood on the terraces and sat in the stands, and who on one or two red-letter days has even sat in the directors' box. I doubt whether there are very many occasions on which football club supporters arrive at the ground sober and then proceed to get drunk because of the amount of alcohol they consume at the bars in the ground. I do not believe that is a serious problem.
The real problem is that dealt with in the earlier part of this Bill—the problem of stopping people from arriving at the ground drunk or very much under the influence of drink. As to the provisions relating to containers, they were, if I may say so, made to look ridiculous in the course of the debate in another place. I shall await with interest the proposals which the Government have put forward by way of amendment, to see whether they have been able to close some of those loopholes.
The other matter to which I want to refer at this moment, because I regard it as being of great importance in this Bill, is the whole question of executive or sponsored boxes. These are boxes which are provided at a number of clubs, and to which companies may invite their guests, their staff, their employees, or whoever it may be, to watch the match in comfort and in seclusion. Meals are served there, and a drink is available before and during the match and, indeed, at half time.
I have two observations to make about that facility. First, such boxes are the source of very substantial income for the clubs which offer them. I do not wish to suggest that money is the be all and end all of this argument; of course it is not. But such boxes produce substantial income, and that income is very largely used to improve the safety of the grounds, the amenities of the grounds, and the police protection provided at the grounds.
The second obvious comment is this. There is no reasonable possibility of any act of thuggery or hooliganism being committed by anybody sitting in one of those boxes. As somebody said in another place, it is unknown for someone, having been invited to a match in those circumstances, to leave such a box and go downstairs and there to thump some opposing supporter. That simply does not happen. In those circumstances I am bound to ask this question: on what basis are the Government now seeking to say that the people in such boxes should not, if they want to do so, enjoy themselves in the way they customarily do?
I can understand the argument for saying that it might irritate other spectators who themselves are not allowed a drink to see people apparently enjoying a privilege that is denied to them. I can understand that argument—but that is not the way the Government have chosen to deal with this matter. What they have chosen to say in Clause 2(1)(a) is that drink is to be barred in any area,
"from which the event may be directly viewed".
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I am bound to say that I find that totally illogical. I begin to suspect that the draftsman was one Lewis Carroll. What difference can it make whether or not it is possible to view the event? Surely the point which the Government should be considering, on the basis that there may be an irritation caused to onlookers, is whether it is possible to view the drinking of alcohol from other parts of the ground. I venture to suggest that the Government should look at that point again before Report stage.
I had thought of tabling an amendment to Clause 2, but I have not done so because, for purely personal reasons, I am not able to be present for the Committee stage this evening. It would be wrong to put down an amendment and then not be present when it is moved. But I suggest to the Government, with a view to considering this matter at Report stage, that an appropriate amendment ought to he made to Clause 2(1)(a) in that to the words,
"in any area of a designated sports ground from which the event may be directly viewed",
there should be added,
"other than an area to which the public are not entitled to have access, whether on payment or otherwise, and which cannot be overlooked by other spectators".
A corresponding amendment should be made to Clause 4(1)(a).
That would enable those clubs who have existing executive boxes to continue to use them if people in them cannot be overlooked by other spectators. If they can be overlooked it is a simple enough matter to put in a one-way glass screen and to proceed in that way. To say that in some extraordinary way the use of executive boxes is out for the purpose of the consumption of alcohol if the pitch can be viewed is, I repeat, a total illogicality. A moment ago I referred to a corresponding amendment to Clause 4(1)(a) I am sorry; I should have said Clause 3(3).
I suppose that it will be said by some people that this is discriminatory and allows some people to drink and prevents others from drinking. I suggest that the answer to that is that it is not discriminatory to provide that where there is any possibility of thuggery taking place people should not be allowed to drink and where there is no possibility of thuggery taking place people should be allowed to drink.
My final observation on this Bill at this stage is that the provisions for the making of orders, bearing in mind that this is important criminal legislation and that we are entering largely uncharted seas, ought to be by way of affirmative resolution rather than negative resolution. It will still give Parliament some control over the working of this Bill. I hope that I have indicated that my noble friends on these Benches will not oppose the Second Reading of this Bill, but we believe that it must be substantially improved in Committee and on Report before we can give it our support at Third Reading.
4.21 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, perhaps I may begin by saying that it is a very great honour and a pleasure to join this House, which is making such an outstanding contribution to the national debate on public affairs and to the scrutiny of legislation. It is also a privilege

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to participate in today's debate, which although perhaps a little removed from my own central interests in economics is, being non-partisan and yet very important in terms of social policy and behaviour in this country, particularly suited to the thoughtful and measured style of this Chamber.
The problem to which this Bill is a response is undoubtedly serious. I think that the kind of violence which we have seen brings shame upon all of us, whether it takes place in Luton or in Brussels. The British public looks for something to be done before the next soccer season, and this measure does something. If I have any reservations they relate to whether the measure quite matches the scale and the nature of the problem. I wonder whether the Bill is perhaps both too wide and too narrow; too wide unavoidably in its implications that the problem of football violence is extremely widespread. As we know, there are over 2,000 league and cup games in a British season and the problem afflicts only a few dozen of them. So much of football remains unblemished.
At this point perhaps I should mention that, over the years, I have been privileged to play football at the very highest level—that is, for the Houses of Parliament soccer team, as a guest. I am sure that noble Lords will be relieved and reassured to know that on those occasions at least I witnessed absolutely no violence or inebriation (among spectators at any rate), so the problem is not universal. It is localised, but it is serious and it is appallingly terrifying for the innocent citizens who are involved. It is also ruinous for the finances of soccer because the family spectator, upon whom the game depends, is being driven away.
The Bill is a step in correcting that situation and I am sure that, having heard the impressive statements from noble Lords on the Front Benches, this House will give its support. I also wish to add support for what my noble friend said about the problem of the political extremists who normally are involved in this kind of violence. These political hooligans see the football ground as a very convenient theatre for their activities, with quick access to the media and a large crowd available to give the security of anonymity. I hope that the authorities will pursue that problem very closely indeed.
I make one final point. The measure, being in a sense too wide, is in fact also too narrow relative to the nature of the problem. Violence in our society is not confined to football grounds. What we are considering here is the quality of our whole leisure environment. I hope that the Government will give great and perhaps higher priority to that question in the future. As far as football is concerned we know—and Bradford is the most recent illustration—that the quality of many of our sporting facilities is poor; and I believe that slum stadia produce slum behaviour.
I was privileged to be a member, some 20 years ago, of the Chester committee of inquiry into association football. Its report identified many of these problems and made recommendations, including one for a football levy board, which I hope will still be considered. Very little has been done, and that is true of Governments of all parties. As I said, I hope that the Government will give greater priority, when
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considering expenditure, to the quality of our leisure environment.
If I may extend our vision just a little wider, to me that leisure environment is not just sport. It contains the whole of the conventional arts, theatre and music, in which I declare an interest, being associated with a great symphony orchestra. I believe that the diminishment of funds in any of those areas is a threat to the quality of our leisure environment. As to the Bill itself, I conclude by saying that it is a useful step. It is a commendable step, and as such I am happy to support it. I look forward to much more.
4.28 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, it is a real privilege to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, on his maiden speech. It was modest but self-confident, witty, brief, enviably spoken without a note, and well-informed. I must confess that his own experience as a footballer was very different from mine. I was discouraged at the age of about 12 by kicking the ball into one's own goal. I only hope that the Chief Whip does not think that I do that too often these days. I hope, and I am sure all your Lordships hope, that the noble Lord will find it possible to take part in our debates very often. The fact that he is primarily an economist—a distinguished economist—but decided to speak non-controversially on this social problem is, I trust, an indication of his breadth of vision of which we may witness more in the years to come.
I was fascinated by the contrast between the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, because on this occasion I find myself in agreement with nearly everything that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said and in disagreement with nearly all that the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said, which is a most unusual situation. I do not say that it is one to be repeated, but I must record it for this occasion.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, posed a question which is in all our minds: what is the cause of this football violence? The Government have made the underlying assumption that the excessive consumption of alcohol is the main cause. Certainly in my opinion that is justified by experience in recent years here, and to a less extent in Europe as well unhappily, especially when British teams have been there. From my own experience this does not surprise me because, though I have but rarely attended a first division football match, I was appalled when I used to sit as a Recorder, often trying cases in which a few young men, young wage-earners, were involved in offences of violence, burglary and robbery, to find that these offences were caused by drunkenness. One used to hear evidence, often given by the men themselves, sometimes, they hoped, in mitigation of the offence, of the amounts of beer that they had consumed in the evening when they committed the offences; one heard about anything from six to 10 pints.
Why was this? I suppose it was what is broadly called social drinking. They were not alcoholics in the sense that they could not resist drinking. They drank because they were "out with the boys". It was social drinking at its worst; they were competing with each other as to how much beer they could each drink or

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they were showing off. They did these things in the mistaken belief that it would enable them to have a good time. Sometimes, of course, the worst of them, having mustered Dutch courage, would egg the others on to commit the most awful crimes, invading people's homes and so on. Certainly their drinking had a most shocking effect upon their behaviour. I used to think, and told them, that it was a damnable waste of their hard-earned wages.
In my opinion it is when such drinking habits are pursued at football matches or on the way to football matches that they cause the violence. I am sure the Government are fully justified in legislating to try to stop this situation before it becomes an even greater and more widespread social evil than it is already, causing injury, death and damage. As the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, so eloquently put it, it is a curse on football and a slur on the name of Britain. He was quite right.
So much for the need for the Bill, which I do not
think can be doubted. As to the method, in my opinion the Government are right to make it largely an enabling Bill, though as a matter of drafting it is done in a rather obscure form. One does not really discover that it is an enabling Bill, believe it or not, until one reads the interpretation clause, Clause 9. It is there that one finds that the Secretary of State has power to make orders. I should have thought that sometimes the orders should be fairly peremptory orders, but as a safeguard the Government in their wisdom have provided that they should be subject to annulment by either House. It would be sheer nonsense to make them subject to positive resolution, but they can be annulled within 40 days, within the parliamentary definition.
I think we need to know a little more than my noble friend has been able to tell us so far about the way in which it is envisaged that the Secretary of State will exercise these powers, because they are at the heart of the Bill. Of course, they could be used in such a way as to make the provisions of the Bill apply to Wimbledon, Lord's, the Oval, Trent Bridge, Henley and to every football ground in the country to which people pay to have access, but I hope and believe that the powers will not be used as widely as that. I should expect them to be very selectively used, but I hope that we may hear more about that.
If I have any doubt about the Bill, it is as a lawyer who for four and a half years had responsibility for police matters under the Home Secretary, as my noble friend now shares responsibility in the Home Office. My doubt is as to the enforceability of some of its provisions. For example, take the last lines of Clause 9 on page 7:
"This Act does not apply to any sporting event or proposed sporting event—

(a) where all competitors are to take part otherwise than for reward, and

(b) to which all spectators are to be admitted free of charge".

That admission free of charge is something that I think people would find fairly easy to get round. Suppose the suggestion, which is very widely put forward, is that no spectators who are not members of a football club should be admitted, suppose the entrance fee for joining that club is pretty high, and suppose it becomes
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a condition of the sporting events of that club that admission should be free to members—that would possibly be a way of getting round that particular provision. It would be for the courts to decide.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, would the noble Lord, Lord Renton—only to help us, as he always does—explain his point, if you take (b) with (a) and you remember that (a) and (b) have to be joined together?
Lord Renton: My Lords, I had not overlooked that. I had read (a) as well as (b). Indeed, I have attended football matches which were of the ordinary sort hut in aid of charity, and where none of the players received any reward at all, but there were large crowds there. I mention it only as one of several ways in which we ought to consider the enforceability of the Bill, because it is very important that we should not pass these laws unless we are reasonably convinced that they are enforceable.
This is not an occasion for long speeches. I conclude by saying that yet again we find ourselves having to add to the criminal law of this country, not because the citizens as a whole need to be governed by it, but because of the curse of another minority. Nearly all our criminal laws are forced upon us because of the behaviour of one minority after another. This is a very unfortunate minority, in the sense that its troubles are caused by social drinking within the herd.
One hopes that one day the habit will change. Social habits do change. The habit of drinking in pubs over the country has changed a good deal in my time. One hopes in a sense that what the noble Lord. Lord Mishcon, said about the Bill being temporary and an experiment will reveal itself. But in the foreseeable future we have to legislate on the assumption that the operation of the Bill may have to last some years. I shall be interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, says about its being made a five-year experiment. There is something to be said for that. But all our legislation is experimental, except perhaps Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. So let us, meanwhile, leave it at that.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Willis: My Lords, it falls to me to be the first from these Benches to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, and welcome him to these Benches and to the House. I congratulate him most warmly on his interesting and witty maiden speech. I know that we all want to hear him at greater length—not too great a length!—on the subjects on which he is a real expert. That is not to say that he knows nothing about football, because he was a distinguished member of the Chester Committee. I for one have admired his work in those other fields for a great many years and I look forward to hearing him in more detail.
I find myself in a curious disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I disagree with practically everything that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, says and agree with practically everything that the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, says. In parentheses I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, who to me made an astonishing statement. He said that if there was some kind of deal in the other place between

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Opposition and the Government, we should not press certain matters in this House if that agreement had been reached. I find that astonishing. This House is independent. We have absolutely no ties with the other place, and nobody should be bound by anything that is said there. Let us by all means have respect, but we are not the lap-dogs of anybody.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I know that my noble friend will forgive me. I promise only this one intervention in what I know will be an outstanding speech. My intervention is upon this basis. I emphasised that such a practice in my view was only in a national emergency. Where that occurs and the Government are taking steps, it is always hopeful, and I think useful, that parties can agree to see that an enactment is passed through both Houses with great speed. I hope that that will be the position very shortly when we take office. I said no more and I meant no more.
Lord Willis: I accept that explanation, my Lords. Like many other noble Lords here, I approach the Bill with tremendous sadness. I have been an enthusiastic supporter of soccer in general and of Tottenham Hotspur in particular for over 50 years. I understand as well as anyone the high feeling that can run on the terraces. I can watch any good soccer match and enjoy it with a degree of objectivity. I love the skill of the game and the patterns that can be weaved by skilful players. But I was born only a mile from the Spurs ground and the blue and white of Tottenham is in my blood. When Tottenham is playing it is different. I can hear and feel the old tribal rhythms beating in my brain. So it grieves me, as it does others, that this wonderful sport should have reached the shameful position which makes some parts of the Bill so necessary.
We can all look back and remember—oh, the brave music of the distant drum! Fifty years ago or more we had a situation in this country which had several features in common with the one that we face today. At least one matching feature was the existence of mass unemployment. Millions could find no work. Hundreds of thousands of young people were either unemployed or trapped in dead-end jobs, with no future except the dole queue or the possibility of joining the Armed Forces, and many of them were rejected for the services because malnutrition had made them physically unacceptable. I know because I was one of them. I was unemployed for about a year during that period, and I understand only too well the hardship, bitterness and biting sense of frustration that is felt by those who believe that society has no need and no thought for them, and they therefore sometimes kick back brutally, ruthlessly and even mindlessly at that society.
Football, whether playing or watching, was one of our greatest joys, our main outlet. For a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon, standing on the terraces in all weathers, it was possible to forget the grinding poverty and seeming futility of our daily lives. It became possible to identify with other people in a common enthusiasm; to taste success even though it was second-hand; to commiserate with each other in defeat; and to live again on Sunday and Monday the
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magic moments of each match, praising the consummate skill of our heroes and denigrating the consummate skill of the team up the road.
I say all this because at this dark time it is important to remember that football, like the theatre, the cinema and the other arts that the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, mentioned, plays a positive part in our national life, providing relaxation and entertainment of a high order for millions of people. We should be the poorer without it. It was born out of a need and it still satisfies that need.
What was interesting about football in my youth was that although the crowds were much greater and more tightly packed together, there was little or no violence, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said. Today, the crowd limit at White Hart Lane is around 40,000, I believe; but as a boy I went to matches where there were 70,000-plus crowded into the same ground. Even when we played our arch-enemies, the Arsenal, there was no violence. Good-natured banter was the limit of our rivalry. Perhaps the absence of violence was because we could not afford alcohol. I do not know. Perhaps we had a greater regard for authority and a deeper respect for the police than have the present generation. But I do not recall one serious act of violence at a football ground during my first 40 years as a spectator.
I can remember on more than one occasion as a small boy arriving late at the ground and finding my view blocked by a mass of adults in front, and the cry would go up, "Hey, there's a kid here", and I would be lifted up and ferried by one pair of friendly arms after another, over the heads of the crowd, until I arrived at the front and had a perfect view of the pitch. Perhaps the whole thing was encapsulated some years before at a Cup Final, when the crowd was so large that it burst the barriers and flooded on to the pitch. Those thousands of spectators were shepherded back to the terraces and sidelines by one good-humoured policeman on a white horse. One policeman controlled those thousands of people. Indeed, looking back, the only violence that was associated with a sporting event in my youth usually took place on Boat Race night. I can remember how shocked we were at the "yobbish" behaviour of people who were supposed to know better.
I do not believe that the majority of spectators at football matches have changed all that much. They love the game as we did. They love their teams; they abhor violence. If the Bill can help to return the game to that majority; if it can provide the conditions in which friendly rivalry can replace moronic violence; and if it can bring back the true spirit of football, it is deserving of our support.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, touched on the basic reasons for this upsurge of violence in our society, and, as he said, this is not the time and place to go into that. But it is true that violence is now endemic in our society; and few would dispute that. Therefore, there arises a problem with this Bill, for this is an attempt to identify and remove some of the symptoms of violence in one area. Let no one be under the illusion that it will cure the disease. Indeed, there is a very real danger that it may contain the virus at one point and force it to surface elsewhere.

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Whether we agree that violence is endemic—and few would dispute that—it follows that if we succeed in shutting it out of A, it will find another outlet, like water, in B or C. There were alarming indications of this at one of the recent test matches. How long will it be before the hooligans turn their attention to other sports or to other activities if they are forced out of football? I have the feeling that here the Government are simply diverting the flood and not stemming it. I do not blame them for dealing with this particular problem immediately; in fact, I welcome it. However, they are only stemming the flood, or, to use another analogy, they are seeking to check an outbreak of smallpox by sticking a couple of band aids on the spots. As the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said, we must hurriedly try to study the real basic causes of this violence in our society and root it out from there.
We have to remember, too, that football has become a victim of the plague: it did not begin it. It has now become too easy and too fashionable to blame soccer for the violence in our society. Perhaps the FA and the Football League dragged their feet, particularly in regard to the Chester Report, but in this respect they were no better and no worse than successive Governments. As Gerald Kaufman said in the other place, there is no such animal as a football hooligan: there are only hooligans at football matches. That point needs to be pondered. We must not simply push this Bill through, heave a sigh of relief and then sit back on our hands as if all has been accomplished.
There is one other general aspect of the Bill before us that concerns me. In the last few weeks, particularly since the disaster at Bradford and the tragedy at Brussels, we have repeatedly heard the demand that football must put its house in order. Clubs are being asked to close or rebuild stands, shut off parts of the terraces, introduce closed-circuit television and membership cards, and reshape or shut private boxes and bars. Fine: I am sure that the clubs and football authorities are only too anxious to comply. However, the costs will be staggering, the loss of revenue immense. Indeed, there is a grave danger that this Bill will tip the baby out with the bath water—or, in this case, with the alcohol.
I have heard it said that football can afford it, and the very large transfer fees are quoted in support of the argument. This is a fallacy. In the first place, only the richest clubs can afford the large fees and the money they pay quite often goes to the smaller, poorer clubs and helps them to survive. The money circulates within football. It is not invested outside the game.
In the second place, it has to be remembered that the main asset of a club lies in living human beings, in its players. They are its stock, just as a business has stock. They have to keep topping up that stock, renewing that stock, replenishing that stock, and getting the best stock. Without this, there would be no football, and consequently no crowds. No one criticises a large company when it spends millions on a takeover to extend and improve its assets, and football should not be criticised for doing exactly the same. If one takes the money away and prevents transfer fees, one will not improve conditions at clubs, one will lessen the crowds, lessen the income and lessen the opportunity to improve grounds.
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There is not a bottomless pool of money in football. This Bill will put an enormous strain on the finances of the game. Yet the Government are doing little or nothing to help. They take over £200 million a year from soccer through the pools tax and VAT and they are proposing to give nothing, or virtually nothing, to help football through this crisis. A sum of £500,000 from the Football Trust to help provide closed-circuit television is welcome; but it is a mere drop in the bucket. Last year, for instance, it cost 11 London clubs almost three-quarters of a million pounds to pay for policing at grounds. This year it will cost more. Why can the Government not help, at least for two or three years, with this enormous liability?
It can be argued that the citizens of this county are entitled, since they pay taxes, to police protection whether they are inside a football ground or outside it. Yet the Government are handing the clubs a double penalty: "Pay your rates and taxes and pay for police protection as well". I think this is unjust. I think in this emergency, since the Government recognise that it is an emergency, some help should be given with the cost of policing.
In other respects, the Bill as it stands inflicts unnecessary financial suffering on football. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, spoke about private boxes, and I entirely agree with him. Many clubs, anxious to improve the image of football and to generate extra revenue, have installed private boxes and suites. Most of these boxes are leased by companies and individuals who use them to entertain friends, clients and families. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said, the usual practice is that one turns up, one has a drink before the match, a drink maybe at half-time, or a cup of tea or a bowl of soup and a drink afterwards, and maybe a bottle of wine with one's meal—exactly the kind of thing that happens at Ascot, Lord's or the Oval, with the only difference that Ascot and Lord's can carry on entertaining, but apparently football cannot.
Not surprisingly, as again the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said, there is not one single case upon record of a riot taking place in a private box at a football match. Yet, by a single stroke of the pen, the Government propose to rob the clubs of much of the income from these suites, to so restrict their use that most of them will become white elephants. Thus, much of the £4 million annually that is generated by leasing these boxes will be lost to the game. How do the Government justify on the one hand taking away nearly £4 million in revenue from private boxes, and on the other demanding that the football clubs should spend much more money on improving facilities at the grounds and improving crowd control? The two things do not make sense.
We are told that drinking may go on in such boxes if they do not have a direct view of the ground. How absurd can one get? What company in its right senses will hire a box at a football pitch if it does not see the match? At Tottenham, for most of the season, the spectator sits in a private box and watches the match through a plate-glass window. The sounds of the game are fed in through amplifiers. It is a very civilised way to watch football. I stood for 30 years on the terraces and I love sitting now in the boxes on the stands. But there is no area in those boxes at Tottenham which does not have a view of the pitch. The suites at

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Tottenham were constructed three or four years ago. They are small—too small to be altered. Under this Bill they will be rendered virtually useless, and Tottenham will lose an income of nearly three-quarters of a million pounds a year from leasing those boxes.
Absurdity piles upon absurdity. In another place it was suggested, I think by a nember of the Government, that the occupants of a box could always leave and go to a bar, which does not have a view of the pitch, for a drink. The scene boggles the imagination. Imagine the Prime Minister entertaining guests at Downing Street and announcing that drinks can be obtained only at St. Stephen's Tavern! One can see the guests nipping out for an aperitif, then smartly back up Whitehall to No. 10 for the hors d'oeuvres and a glass of white wine, back to St. Stephen's for a glass of red wine, back to No. 10 for the main course and the coffee and back to St. Stephen's for the brandy. It is absolute nonsense. The boxes are there at these matches. They are secluded. They hold only a few people. Most people cannot see inside them from the pitch. It seems to me ridiculous to penalise the people who receive great enjoyment from sitting in those boxes and the clubs who receive the revenue from them.
The Government say—I think it was said in another place—that one could not have one law for the rich and another law for the poor. That to me is a populist argument. Why cannot there be one rule for the people on the terraces and another for those in private boxes, if those on the terraces tend to misbehave with drink and those in the boxes do not? Why penalise those people who have not caused any trouble whatsoever? Why take away the money that could be used to pay for the new stands, the extra policing, the closed circuit television and matters like that?
I hope we shall come back to all these matters at Committee and that the Government will see the folly of their position, particularly on that issue. Football needs sympathetic support and help, not needless restrictions which in themselves will inhibit further improvements. While welcoming the broad thrust of the legislation, I urge the Government to think again about some of the deeper implications in this Bill.
4.59 p.m.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, I rise to give my support to this Bill. If ever there was a need for a revising Chamber, we have demonstrated it by our example this afternoon. I should like to raise a matter upon which great urgency is laid.
I was astonished at one thing the noble Lord, Lord Willis, mentioned—that is, the help that he pleaded for from the police. The police are already a very expensive service and men and women are called out at very short notice. During the winter few of them have undisturbed weekends. Such an operation deprives other areas of the fair number of officers on which the establishment is calculated. We must not pass over this too lightly. There are many difficulties involved in moving about large numbers of police.
We are considering an urgent case in this Bill. But the urgency is, I believe, exaggerated. Why should there be this surprise? About six years ago we were
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debating these very questions day after day when discussing clauses on a certain Scottish Bill. In fact, both Scottish and English issues were being considered and there were hopes that they could be brought closer together. But at the time the Home Office was not keen. So we had nothing to compare with the Scottish legislation. In the end, however, this House did succeed in getting through amendments to the British Railways Board by-laws. We achieved the important step of providing for the "dry" train.
I should like to ask what will be the effect upon those useful by-laws if this Bill becomes law. We are not in a simple situation. It is rather the reverse. Three Government departments concerned never makes for smooth and rapid action. We have the Scottish Office and its Scottish law. We have the Home Office concerned with English law. We have the Department of Tranport responsible for the British Railways bylaws which contain a great deal of what a police constable might reasonably want. These powers can be used by all constables but are used much more frequently by the British Transport police. However, every constable, if he so chooses, has these powers to hand under what are called, to use the jargon, 3A charges. Yet they have not been mentioned during the debate.
While we were discussing the big Bill last year, great emphasis was given to the rights of individual citizens. This aspect has not been mentioned so far, but I can see a number of problems that will arise in the proposals for upholding the law that we shall be considering shortly. As always, it is difficult for the police to fulfil their role of upholding the law when fans are milling around and, even if not making trouble, looking as if they will make trouble in the next few minutes.
There is, too, the question of identification. All of us can put ourselves in the position of a PC trying to identify, especially in poor light. We cannot take in everything we see. But, on the other hand, we cannot arrest by the dozen when trouble arises. When lads are pulled in this reduces the number of officers left outside on duty. How is an officer to remember the colour of a man's jersey or distinguish between two shades of blue? It means that the ringleaders often avoid trouble and others get away scot free.
The tradition of the British police is to take trouble slowly and carefully. They hope that the trouble will evaporate. Often, because of their skill and dignity, this approach succeeds. Today, however, we have violence of a different sort. One cannot simply wait for those involved to disperse. We have to meet violence with force. Too many officers are at risk.
Again, there has been no mention so far in this debate of the ever-increasing number of police officers and their families who have suffered from incidents arising from this football duty. I should like to see small highly-trained task forces in different parts of the country. These admittedly small elements must be well equipped and highly trained. They must be able to offer a speedy response to the violence they meet. A long and rather drawn out operation such as we have seen on television probably results in just as many casualties as may occur in a sudden and rapid clash. I would like your Lordships to consider this matter. We should consider that a number of police officers are

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exposed unnecessarily to risk. There is need, too, to study how we can achieve a smaller call on manpower. It is my hope that in a week's time this House will have greatly improved the Bill.
5.5 p.m.
Lord Ross of Marnock: My Lords, it is much to the advantage of the subject and to the wellbeing of Parliament itself that we, in this House, have taken it upon ourselves to insist upon our right to discuss the Bill fully and also to have time between one stage of its progress and another to consider its proposals. That is only right and only fair.
The Bill is based on Scottish legislation. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, had to say. It is nearly six years ago that we discussed the matter. I do not recall the noble Lord being present. It was virtually a dialogue at that time between myself and the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield. I am glad to say that I had legal help on that occasion from my noble friend Lord Mishcon, who is always helpful to a novice. It was one of the first Bills with which I had to deal after arriving in this House.
There was nothing unexpected about the Scottish legislation. It did not come as a surprise. There had been discussions and an inquiry in Scotland headed by a Scottish Office junior Minister, the late Frank McElhone. He met the clubs, the players, the police and the administrators as he travelled round the country. Eventually a report was produced and the aspect we are now discussing was only one of the items within it. Other matters included the issues of segregation and the standards of the stadia. The reference that has been made to slum stadia is right. It is not worthy of our national game that we should have such antiquated places and complete lack of comfort for people who want to see it.
We did more. This leads me to one of the most important issues. How many people were charged following the Luton-Millwall game? Certainly the offenders seem to get away while the innocent suffer, both from the actions of the offenders and from what we do in Parliament to circumvent the violence. We decided in Scotland that people offending at a football match, instead of going to the lower court, should automatically go to the sheriff court—the equivalent of the county court. Our administrative policy in relation to the law has matched the seriousness of the offence.
I was saddened to hear the noble Lord, Lord Renton, with his Scottish connections, and even one of my own colleagues, talking about the great slur on British football. It is English football that is in the dock—and, sadly, innocents among English footballers. What harm did Everton or Norwich do that they should be robbed of an element of glory that they gained for themselves in the last year? There has been far too much instant judgment. Instant judgments tend to be wrong, and the innocent suffer.
Everybody jumped on the penal bandwagon after the Brussels events and not everything was done in a fair way. I am very glad that FIFA today has retracted in some way from what it had done in relation to English football, but in my view it should still go a bit further. Why should the pre-season "friendlies" between Scottish clubs, English clubs and Irish clubs
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be banned so that an English club cannot come up to Scotland? It is beyond all reasonable thinking.
However, let us consider what we did in Scotland. We had trouble with coaches, buses and in some cases with trains being loaded with drink. I remember seeing a television film of, I think, a Scottish-English game. There were crates and crates. They could have floated to London on the amount that was taken on the train. You can imagine the state which they were in by the time they arrived there. That was the cause of the trouble. There is no drink available for sale in any Scottish ground and so they brought it with them, and how they brought it! In fact, I should have declared my interest. I am and have been for some years the Honorary President of the Scottish Football Association and that is why my ears ring when I hear people talk about the "British" when they really mean the "English".
Lord Renton: My Lords, surely we Scots are such generous people that we would not wish to single out the English for ignominy?
Lord Ross of Marnock: Yes, my Lords, but I am afraid that that was what UEFA and FIFA did, and we had better face the facts. The Scottish position is that we stopped the carrying of these things on buses, minibuses and so on, but we did not mention trains. However, if the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, had been here, he would have heard that we discussed the matter and suggested that it ought also to apply to trains.
However, what were we told by the Government? The noble Lord, Lord Gray, was not here; he was acting in another sphere, probably supporting Inverness Thistle or something. We were told that it was outside the scope of the Bill; that the matter could be dealt with only by British Rail by-laws. Let us be fair. British Rail introduced the by-laws. If there is a big game in Glasgow or in Edinburgh where there is likely to be trouble, in all the stations round about there will be notices saying, "No alcohol on all trains" to such and such a place. It has worked. There has been a response from the clubs and a response from the public. The difference in the behaviour at the games has to be seen to be believed.
Only yesterday I asked Mr. Walker, the Secretary of the Scottish Football Association, what he thought about the Bill. I shall not tell you what he replied. However, one of the pieces of information which he gave me was the fact that when there was a big game at Hampden it used to take 10 large industrial skips to take away the bottles, the cans and the containers which were left behind. One could hardly, with safety, walk around the area. However, the last international game which took place there was against England. On that occasion over 70,000 people attended, but there were only a few hundred of those containers left lying around. Mr. Walker was able to tell me that the reason for that was that the administrators are still conscious of the fact that we must keep up the pressure to ensure that the law is obeyed. Indeed, this is where the police come in. The police have done a first-class job. Your Lordships must not believe that this particular Bill will go all the way to solving the problem. There are all the other matters, about which we have already spoken,

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which we have done in Scotland and which we are continuing to do.
However, we still experience violence in Scotland. There was a Scottish international against England, but I think it was the Prime Minister who felt that it should not take place in London and so it was put off. We volunteered to hold it on a Saturday in Glasgow and show her that we could behave ourselves up there and have a good game. Indeed, we did so. However, there was one incident in which a group of English supporters—some of them supporting an insignia to which I am perfectly certain my noble friend was referring today—got themselves among the Scottish supporters and it looked like there would be trouble. Within 10 minutes the police were in there and the supporters were shepherded out of the park and, I hope, out of Glasgow as well. We now have experience in how to handle and deal with this type of situation and that is what is lacking in Europe apart from in this country as well. It is sad that we have to segregate and that we have to have all-ticket games and so on. However, we must face the fact that violence is there and we must deal with it. There is not the slightest doubt that that violence is exaggerated by or even brought about by alcohol. I shall not interefere with Clauses 3, 5 and 6. All I would say is that I am very glad that there is no weakening of the Scottish position.
There is only one other point about which I should like to ask the noble Lord. When the Bill was printed—and of course at the moment it is unamended—there seemed to us in Scotland to be a conflict between the Scottish position, which is supposed to be very good, and what was being proposed in respect of rail passenger vehicles under Clause 1. The Government's attention was drawn to that matter by, I think, Mr. Harry Ewing and then by the leader of the Scottish Labour Members in another place, and I understand that the Government amendments cover the situation. The Scottish position is preserved and is being applied to England, rather than an untenable English position being applied to Scotland under Clause 10. By the way, I think that it was my noble friend Lord Mishcon who suggested that there was no reason why we should not learn from Scotland in this respect because sometimes Scotland learned from us. Mind you, I have been puzzling my brains for half-an-hour to find out on what occasion we have learned something useful from England. I have not discovered one!
I do not want to speak for very long. I certainly wish the Bill well, but let no one think that it is the answer to violence, be it on football grounds or anywhere else. This is only a start. I know the difficulties. The traditions in Scotland, the drinking habits and the attendances at football matches are entirely different from those in England. Therefore, I am prepared to let the English handle the matter in their own way and I shall not vote against the clauses which provide certain exceptions and weakening of the bans. I know that conditions are very different down here. However, please do not weaken the position in Scotland, My Lords. If you want to know any more, I am prepared to lead a delegation of English noble Lords from this part of the world up to Scotland to see how to handle
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matters properly. Please do not refer again to the behaviour of "British" teams in Europe, when you really mean "English" teams.
I was very proud of the fact that though when we went to the World Cup in Spain people were horrified at the thought of these wild Highlanders coming and living around Sotogrande, Malaga and Marbella, by the time the Scots were going away we were the home team and they were out cheering us even when we lost. I was even prouder of the Scottish supporters. When we played Brazil in Seville and were beaten—not inevitably, but we were beaten narrowly—the Scottish defeated supporters marched through the streets of Seville with the victorious Brazilians. It was a joy; it was a game which had been well played. The sooner we get back to that feeling in football—a feeling that we can enjoy ourselves—the better I shall be pleased, and I am sure that that is true of the rest of the country.
5.20 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I commence by congratulating my new friend and colleague the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, on his cogent and concise maiden speech, delivered in a first-class manner. I know he has a great deal of expertise to offer your Lordships on certain subjects. We can look forward to hearing some first-class contributions from him in the future.
What is this Bill about? I support the sentiments expressed within the Bill, but one part of the Bill will not be so workable. That is Clause 3, which was extensively referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. But what has triggered the necessity for this piece of legislation? It was the awful and awesome tragedy at Brussels. I go some of the way with my noble friend Lord Ross when he spoke about an overdispensation of justice. I do not know when it has ever been acceptable to us as a nation, whether English. Scots, Welsh or Irish, that we need to have a blanket judgment where the overwhelming sufferers from the bans imposed are people who are totally innocent.
My noble friend Lord Ross referred to the fact that FIFA had today lifted its ban on English clubs playing abroad outside Europe. Some noble Lords present will recall that twice in the last fortnight I have asked Her Majesty's Government whether they would support the FA in its application to lift what many fair-minded people who have spent their life in football considered to be an unnecessary ban. The ban has now been lifted. It is sad that the Government at this moment could not have gone along with the request in an attempt to re-establish or get football moving in the right manner and in the right atmosphere again rather than appearing to be wanting to act in a punitive manner. I am not for one moment trying to defend what happened in Brussels. The behaviour of the people who caused that disaster was appalling. Most noble Lords will have read on Monday of this week a report from the Belgian Parliamentary Committee. While there is no question at all that the Liverpool supporters triggered off the whole thing, many things that contributed to that disaster could have been avoided. I do not think that type of thing could have occurred on any first-class ground that I have been on in any part of Great Britain.

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I do not know whether any noble Lord has been at a match and very close to where violence has erupted, but I have. I have to tell my noble colleague who has just spoken that the first time I was frightened at a football match was on my first visit to Hampden Park some years ago, in the balmy days of Tom Finney and people like that. It was obvious that a large percentage of the people entering that ground had about as much interest in watching a football match as the people who stayed at home, judging from the state in which they attended the match. However, that has been put right. But, almost ten years ago to the night of that terrible happening in Brussels, I was in Paris at a final of the European Cup between Leeds United and Bayern Munich. There was a riot at that match when the players had to be taken off the pitch and brought back again.
Most noble Lords who have spoken today have come to the same conclusion as that which obviously manifested itself that night. None of the drinking had taken place at the match. In fact, supermarkets within two or three miles of the ground had been wrecked by people who were drunk on the way to the match.
I support completely and wholeheartedly the proposals contained in the Bill which will stop the carrying of drink and that type of behaviour that leads to this problem at football grounds. But I do not see, and cannot for the life of me see, why there is this stringent approach suggested in the Bill that will be applied to the guest or VIP boxes. I have put down a simple amendment that may draw forth the Government's views on this, but I do not think I could put it any more cogently or better than the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, who put forward a marvellous case. It could be laughed out of' court to say that because the people on the terrace will not be allowed to drink beer, people in a box which is totally secluded cannot have the enjoyment and fulfilment of taking a drink in an appropriate manner and in a private way. It has been said, and quite rightly, that these boxes provide a substantial sum of money for ground improvements in other respects.
I should be one of the first to criticise some of the astronomically high transfer fees that are paid, often for rather under-talented players, and some of the salaries that are paid to managers today, Nevertheless, there has to be a big input into football as our national game if we are to keep pace internationally, to blood the players and bring them through properly. It is true to say that even the richest of clubs here, such as Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United, who have substantial crowds every week, cannot survive these days without sponsorship from outside. That is why one sees players wearing shirts with commercials on them, because it is a necessary input of finance.
I understand that in the debate in another place one honourable Member referred to the fact that the ban would probably result in a loss of about £4 million. I believe that was mentioned a little while ago by a noble Lord. If £4 million is removed from clubs of that sort, it is true to say that it is being taken out of football in general because players move about. The man who has become an expensive player tends to move for a much reduced fee, perhaps into lower leagues, when he is over the hill or when he is on his way down past his
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peak. This is the way that football has to be run, on the basis of good players moving up to the top and then moving to one side or moving downwards. It costs a lot of money to run a football team.
I was present when the Statement was repeated about the tragedy at Bradford. I think I raised the point then that most of the teams outside the First and Second Divisions would not be in existence if they had to exist on their gate money with perhaps a little sponsorship. Most of the Third and Fourth Division clubs, to my knowledge, exist only because perhaps they find somebody in the area who is a successful business person either in industry or in commerce and who pumps a great deal of his own money into the club in an attempt to keep it afloat. I should have thought that at this time—I believe the noble Lord. Lord Willis, mentioned this—there is a case for asking the Government for some money for football, in an objective sense. It has had more taken out of it by the Government pro rata than any other sport, and little money is siphoned back into the game.
While we are discussing this Bill, there is no point in us sitting back and thinking that we are the only, ones suffering from football violence. I do not know whether any of your Lordships saw scenes on the television and in the press at the weekend of a football match in Australia. No one could accuse any British supporters of being present at that match: but the match was total mayhem. Nobody could accuse British supporters of being present at the football match in China where it became so violent that the Chinese Government banned their international team and disbanded it. We are dealing with a worldwide phenomenon.
I hope that because of the money that has already been lost UEFA may want to reconsider what they are doing to clubs which are totally innocent. The Liverpool club has been severely dealt with because of the actions of people over whom it had no control whatsoever. The sad part is that we have to accept that as a nation because of what happened.
I should like to put one point to the Minister before I sit down. I think that he said that whatever the form of this Bill when it is enacted, there would be about a 28-day lapse before the clubs would be completely dry because of the legal necessities required to enact the Bill; and then there is the licensing. Having been in another place for quite a while, it is not the first time that I have seen Governments of both major parties who have anticipated that legislation would become law. I do not see any possibility of this Bill being greatly changed; it may be that it is going to be altered a little; I do not know. We will learn more about that on Committee stage. I do not know anybody who would not predict that in the next few days or the next few weeks this Bill will become law. I cannot see any reason why the Government could not give consideration to people being able to apply and to anticipate that; because it is not the first time, as I have said, and it will not be the last time, when a Government, in order to fulfill their political objectives, tell people that they can act in a certain manner because the thing is going to become law. There is the matter of the 28 days' loss of revenue to some of the clubs. Some of them, the very successful ones, will be able to carry it, as will those who have

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quite substantial financial backing. But that 28-day ban will be a very severe blow to some of the clubs, and I hope that the Minister may be able to look at it—and he may not want to give an answer today—to see whether it can be anticipated legislation and then the matter can start to roll forward.
As I have said, I support the main proposals of the Bill. It is not the first time that we have had violence over here. I have to remind the Scottish Peer who waxed so eloquent on the good behaviour of the Scots that a short time ago Scottish supporters actually wrecked Wembley stadium after they had beaten England. I also have to say that the English have no predominant position in the matter of violence in football matches. You have only to cast your memory back a few years when a prominent (I think, the top) Northern Ireland football club was banned from football, disbanded for life because a group of its spectators attacked the opposing centre forward, a man named James O'Neill, severely injured him and maimed him for life. Belfast Celtic have been banned from football ever since. While we are dealing with it in a new form, football has had an undertone of violence for a long time.
I believe, having been a football supporter for most of my life, that the local magistrates with the aid of the police are quite capable of controlling our grounds if we give them the power on the points where beer or liquor can be sold and when it can be sold. I see no reason for insisting on this nonsensical idea of the private suites of boxes, with some of them seating only four people, having to be treated as though they are open points of access for drinking. They are not. They are very private areas, and I hope that the Minister will address himself to that and give it some consideration, as Lord Wigoder mentioned.
5.33 p.m.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, this has been an interesting afternoon. I wish that we were discussing football or any other sport without it being tinged with violence. I join other noble Lords in giving a welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, who made a most interesting and relaxed speech, without a note. We hope that we shall hear him many times and possibly even in Committee, if he can face it. I am quite sure that he can give excellent contributions there.
I am afraid that I am now going straight on to my prepared speech—and some of your Lordships, including those who have been in the other place, might think this utterly disgraceful. This Bill is urgent, and must be expedited and be made into law ready for the forthcoming football season. It is a great pity that legislation of this kind for England and Wales has not been introduced before, especially following the success of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980, in which one took part in the Committee debates. My interests are basically concerned with the transport arrangements to the sporting grounds and I am happy to say that the industry, through the Bus and Coach Council, has not dragged its feet. It has acted responsibly.
At the time of Mr. Whitlock's ill-fated Bill of 1981 the Bus and Coach Council, together with the Home Office, had agreed the following guidelines which are
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now observed. Tours shall not arrive at the match more than one hour before kick-off and shall not leave later than one hour after the final whistle. The coach shall not stop, except in an emergency, within 10 miles of the match venue. It shall not stop en route for more than one hour more than once for refreshment at any place where alcohol is served; and alcohol shall not be carried in crates or cases or in bulk in any public service vehicle.
So, my Lords, the position so far as coach operators are concerned is virtually dealt with, in advance of legislation, by voluntary action. However, this has been done only at the loss of a considerable amount of business. The hooligan element, against which we now seek to legislate, found a simple answer to the problem. They decided to hire self-drive minibuses and provide their own transport free from restrictions. Indeed, only a week or two ago I read an article in the transport press which asked whether the new legislation would be, "A charter for soccer hooligans". This article suggested that the present Bill, when enacted, would encourage a further move from the disciplines applying to professional coach operators, with even more unruly fans hiring and providing their own transport.
This is a shortcoming in the present Bill which I sincerely believe must be eradicated and it is my intention to move an amendment in Committee to ensure that all passenger vehicles with more then eight seats shall be brought within the scope of this Bill when there is any element of payment, direct or indirect, by those travelling on the vehicle. This would in no way affect the private use of such vehicles, perhaps on a family basis, but it would, one is wholly convinced, greatly strengthen the effectiveness of the legislation.
Here I depart from my prepared speech. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and others have amendments which go beyond this. Perhaps in between the Second Reading and the Report stages it might be as well to discuss the point to see where we go. I feel that theirs perhaps go a little further than I wanted. but I am quite sure there must be something different from what is in the Bill at present.
I am also concerned that, as in the Scottish legislation, there should be a defence, particularly for the driver of a coach, where he may find himself in the position of permitting the carriage of alcohol against his instructions and his own wishes. It must be remembered that the people we are seeking to control are the unsatisfactory element, and there may be circumstances where it will be unfair and unreasonable to expect the driver to expose himself to serious physical assault if he refuses to drive his vehicle because some aggressive people are carrying drink. I believe that a simple amendment following the lines of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act could overcome this unfairness.
To conclude, my Lords, it is unfortunate that it should be necessary to introduce legislation of this nature, especially at the speed with which we have to do so. However, we must face the realities of the times in which we live. Therefore, subject to the minor matters which I have mentioned, I give my wholehearted support to this Bill.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I should like to join all of your Lordships who have congratulated my noble friend Lord Donoughue on a model maiden speech. Since I have had the privilege of knowing and working with him over a number of years, I can assure your Lordships that it was merely a foretaste of the great abilities and the depth of knowledge and experience that he brings to your Lordships' House. I certainly endorse what has been suggested, that he should speak often in our debates.
Since I am critical of the manner in which the Bill was produced and of the suggested rush through this House, let me make it absolutely clear that I completely agree with all those who want to minimise violence of any kind, particularly violence in a sport with which I have been associated over very many years. as well as the shame which all of us must feel through the misbehaviour of the very tiny minority of—I had better say "English", so as not to upset my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock—English supporters. I am sorry that the Scottish Bill, which seems to have worked well, was not put through in 1981, when my honourable friends Mr. Whitlock and Mr. Dunnett were then Members of Parliament for Nottingham. Mr. Dunnett, as your Lordships will know, has been for some time president of the Football League and he is extremely knowledgeable about these matters. I think it is a pity that that Bill was not proceeded with then. Nevertheless I do not think it would have solved the major part of our problem. As many noble Lords have said, the problem is much wider than the mere question of drink. It is an international problem as well.
I support the Bill because it is at least a contribution, although I would endorse what has been said already by several noble Lords; namely, that it is unusual for people to turn up at a match absolutely sober and to become drunk during the course of the match. No matter how one devises legislation, people who want to obtain drink on the way to a match will do so, whether it is from off-licences, supermarkets or whatever. However, I certainly believe that the Bill is a step in the right direction.
What I objected to was not only the instant reaction and panic of our own Government but also that of the international football associations. FIFA, the international body, only yesterday had the sense to realise that to ban English clubs world-wide was totally unjust, and I greatly regret that, with the encouragement of our Government, the European authorities, UEFA, not only banned our clubs from the European competitions but also prohibited friendly matches, even to the extent that friendly matches which had been arranged with English and Scottish clubs (and arrangements for which have existed for many years) have all had to be cancelled. The Belgian authorities, who went about the matter a little more judicially, by having an inquiry, have come out with a number of conclusions which I would have thought it would have been more expedient for the European authorities to have waited for. In the light of that report, I hope they will reconsider their decision, because the hard fact has to be faced that Liverpool had no means of controlling the arrangements for that match, and indeed it is now well understood that it was
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a most unsuitable ground for the European authorities to have chosed. The Liverpool club had no part in that choice. Indeed, I believe that designation of the ground for the final is decided before it is known which teams will actually be taking part.
In general, one very strongly resents the fact that the clubs and the players are treated as though they have full responsibility for their supporters. Of course these hooligans could never be supporters of any sport, since they do not know what sport means, and it is totally wrong that clubs and players should be penalised in financial and other ways, quite apart from having to carry the stigma for matters over which they have no control and, indeed, cannot have control.
I wish very much, as I say, that we had not reacted in a panic and I very much wish that the Bill had been drafted by somebody such as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, who clearly understands about football and who, if I may say so, seems to have a superhuman impartiality. I come from a city where there were two football clubs and it would have been thought there absolutely improper to wear the scarf of one team on one Saturday and the scarf of the other team the following week. How the noble Lord has been able to do that over the years I should like to be told at some time. But obviously he knows a great deal about the game and I hope that perhaps at a later stage of the proceedings on the Bill he will give us the benefit of his great football knowledge as well as of his great legal competence.
Perhaps I may also briefly say that while I support this Bill and think it will help, some other ideas which have been put forward—identity cards and compulsory membership cards, for instance—are totally impracticable. Anyone who has had anything to do with the running of football clubs would know that and would not seek to go up that kind of avenue at all. Several noble Lords have said that we must also watch the consequences for clubs, in terms of finance. I understand the reason, and I do not dissent from the Government seeking powers to designate any sporting match or event, but if they include the Third and Fourth Divisions, they will be putting these clubs under very severe pressures. It is very rare that such clubs have any trouble of this character; their great trouble is getting any spectators into the ground at all. Certainly, as we saw at Bradford, what is badly needed is the money actually to deal with the facilities at the ground.
Also, the ridiculous transfer fees and the rather high salaries one reads about are just as exceptional, taking the game as a whole, as are the hooligans who misbehave as supporters of a particular club. Very many football clubs at present are in great difficulties and we know that at the moment the Government benefit to some extent from the pools. I do not think it would be unreasonable to ask the pools, at the expense of the pools winners, to give a further slice of money. A large percentage is now taken out by tax. I think the Government should pay part of the tax revenues into a fund to help with the improvements at the grounds; and I say that as the author of the Act under which the football pools are managed. Thirty years ago it was a great surprise to me to find that not only did the pools not have accounts, but that they were not subject to any audit or accountability at all.

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I was very glad, with support, to put that Act through. It did not, of course, deal with the tax question. I had no contemplation that I was providing a quite admirable basis for a subsequent government to tax football indirectly. But I would hope that some of this money could go to clubs to help them with ground improvements and to achieve them at a faster rate, because I believe that this is an equally important factor in dealing with the problem that we are discussing today.
Finally, I should like to say that something about the Bill strikes me as being extremely odd. It is right that there is a statutory duty on the police to be responsible for the implementation of the Bill, when it becomes law. But the strange thing is that the football clubs have to pay for every policeman who crosses their threshold. They have to pay a fee for his duties, even though, as at the present, they do not ask for police. They certainly do not specify how many should come. They receive a bill for the police who have attended that match. I think that in principle this is wrong because it does not apply in any other field. I know of nowhere else where the police, quite properly, get involved—whether it is with pickets, or defending either the rights of people to go on strike or to go to work, or whatever it is—and where there is a charge to the organisations concerned. If Parliament decrees that the police should carry out these responsibilities—and we certainly would not wish it otherwise—I see no reason at all why the football clubs should have to continue to pay the costs for policing the football grounds. They do not, of course, have to pay outside—
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, would the noble Lord explain how far the clubs themselves pay for this policing? Is it because it is private property where the game takes place? Is that not right? Surely there is some sort of agreement?
Lord Mulley: My Lords, in fact in South Yorkshire at the present time I believe litigation is pending because some of the South Yorkshire clubs are taking the view that since they do not ask for the police to enter—they have no objection to their coming—they should not have to pay for them. I would certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, that if they ask for police in the grounds as with anyone else asking them to enter private property or for a private occasion, they should have to pay. But when the police believe it to be in the interests of law and order that they should be there, I think that that comes under the general responsibility of the police and that the football clubs should not have to pay. As I say, I think that litigation may well be pending as a result of the refusal, as I understand it, of some clubs to meet the bills that have been sent to them by the police authorities.
I strongly support the amendments that have been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick, and some of the other amendments to which reference has been made during the course of our debate. I think that it is only right that we should give proper consideration to the Bill. I hope that if there is further legislation to try to
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deal with this problem, it will be brought forward in a rather more leisurely manner and that the Government will take more cognisance of those who, like the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, understand what football is all about.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, may I begin, as everyone in this House has done, by welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, and paying a warm tribute to his excellent maiden speech. It is a trite phrase to say that we look forward to hearing him often in the future; some of us have heard him often in the past. All I would say to him is that he did not disappoint any of his friends on this side of the House, or indeed, throughout the House. We certainly look forward very much to hearing from him often in the future.
I listened very carefully to the speech that was made from our Front Bench by my noble friend Lord Mishcon. I echo entirely the thrust of what he had to say—that is, that in no way is it my intention to aid and abet delay or damage to the Bill. We are committed by all the facts and by conventions to ensure, in the light of that which has caused this Bill to be brought here, that as a Parliament we deal with the problem as effectively as we can. However, that does not mean that we ought not to scrutinise the Bill in the time that we have and speak to proposed amendments which are designed to remedy defects that we see and to improve the Bill; but it is against the background that at the end of the day the Bill shall pass with the blessing of this House.
I echo, too, the words of a number of noble Lords. I happened to have been on holiday—as indeed was the House—on that dreadful Wednesday night when we saw the scenes in Brussels. I looked at the television screen with my family, an extended family, on holiday. There was, of course, a mixture of feelings: anger, vengeance, revenge. This turned to despair and desperation, because at the end of the day one asked oneself: what madness gets into individuals to behave and tragically to over-react in the way that they did to bring about the tragedy?
The interesting point is that in another place, when the Home Secretary prevailed upon the House to take the action which is contained in this Bill, it was against the background of the happenings at three major football events: the Birmingham-Leeds game; the Luton-Millwall game; and the Liverpool-Juventus game. In all of those grounds no alcohol was on sale. They were "dry" grounds. It is against that background that we are trying to solve a problem at this time.
The Bill seeks to ensure the non-carrying into the grounds of alcohol. It certainly wishes to see the control of the consumption of alcohol inside the grounds. The dilemma for the Government is that they have to produce a piece of legislation which, to the best of their ability, will tackle not the problem of drinking in the grounds but the problem of the state which the spectator sport of football has reached over a comparatively short period for thousands and thousands of people. What the House has to do is to be exceedingly careful—as my noble friend Lord Ross of

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Marnock said—in making instant judgments based upon a horrific scenario from Brussels and believing that we are getting it right. This is one of those cases where we have not only to get it right; we have to get it right quickly. We all know the danger of trying to get things right quickly—we may very well not get them as right as we would, given time.
I agree with the Government that there is very little time, because we need to be seen to be acting as a Parliament before the season begins. The whole raison d'etre of the Bill is to control, direct, and moderate, in the interests of crowd security, hooliganism which is primarily caused by the consumption of alcohol.
I listened with fascination, not to the whole but to part of the major contribution to this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. He is a Tottenham boy, born and bred. He knows his Tottenham. I happen to have had the privilege of representing Edmonton which is as proud of the Spurs as those such as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, who live there, I happen to have stood on the terraces of the Spurs as long ago as 40 years. At the end of the War, I happened to find my way to the Spurs in July 1945 to see not a football match but a boxing match. It was the heavyweight championship of Great Britain between Bruce Woodcock and Jack London. My noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick knows not only his football but was able to tell me before the words came out of my mouth who the proponents were. Sadly, because Jack London came from West Hartlepool, I cheered him and I lost. Members of the House can see that, although I lived in Tottenham and Edmonton for 30 years, I was not born within the sound of Bow Bells. I declare that other interest.
But what the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said with effect is that those who live in Tottenham are not saints; and certainly they are not sinners. What the Spurs club has attempted to do for the past few years is to recognise that one cannot rely upon the good sense. the moderation or the sense of fair play of the hooligans and people who are intent on spoiling the game as a club and as a business. Like most major clubs, the Spurs is a successful, professional business. but there are responsibilities upon the club. I have had information from the club for this debate which I myself sought.
I declare an interest, not by virtue of a connection with the Spurs, but as a director of the Enfield and St. Albans Co-operative Society who are one of the sponsors of the Spurs. Sponsorship and support by companies and industries plays a major part these days, so I declare a tangential interest in this matter. I have seen the Spurs grow over 30 years into the finely equipped, well managed and anxious to please club that it is today. But clubs like Spurs, faced with wanting to do what is right, faced with agreeing with the thrust of the legislation, recognise that there is a lacuna, an anomaly, so I support the case that has been made for the Government to think again, or to come up with a solution whereby their problem can be looked at.
Without the need to be galvanised into action or being afraid by what happened in Brussels, Spurs spent in 1984–85 £100,000 on ground maintenance and £450,000 on ground improvements, new crush
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barriers, new fencing, new gates, waterproofing stands, modernising the turnstiles, improving concrete steps and retaining walls and better signposting. A club cannot do that sort of thing purely on the basis of the gate money coming in. In 1985, a club carries on what is called a corporate business and it needs other means of survival. It has also spent £70,000 this year on closed circuit television and improved facilities for the St. John Ambulance Brigade.
The phrase used by my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock—"rushing into instant judgments"—is a fair phrase, a telling phrase and a proper phase. There is no doubt that drink and its abuse is part of the problem we face, but the major problem is proper policing and segregation of the fans. When I first stood on the terraces of St. James's Park in Newcastle-upon-Tyne 50 years ago, one suddenly noticed the policemen when, five minutes before the end of the game, they moved from wherever they were. That was the first time one knew that there were policemen in the ground.
It is all changed now. The fact of the matter is that a club like Spurs engages and pays for the average game 200 policemen and 300 stewards and ground staff, in order adequately to police and regularise the ground. They tell me that 99·5 per cent. of any trouble by the crowd can be contained by using that number of people. But that still does not mean that we must not look at the problem of drink.
The noble Lord, Lord Willis, dealt far more graphically, humorously and tellingly than I could with the main problem facing clubs like Spurs, who need an income and who have moved with the times not merely by improving the ground for the generality of the fans but also by providing what are called executive boxes. We have the problem under the Bill that the people on the terraces will be enabled to buy drink, but the people who are providing a great deal of wealth and occupying the boxes will not be able to consume drink, simply because of the geography or the necessity for a certain design. I believe that the Government ought to have another look at that.
I am told that this affects not only Spurs. I have a list of clubs—Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Derby, Everton, Ipswich, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Norwich, Nottingham Forest, Notts County, Queens Park, Sunderland, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton—who all have problems similar to those which will be faced by Spurs; and as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, pointed out, the rental income or the value of the executive suites works out at £600,000 a year. Football in 1985 is very big business indeed.
I do not wish to say any more, other than that it is very sad indeed—and I take note of what my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock said—that this problem has been brought upon us by the behaviour of some English fans, and that the football authorities in England could have followed the lead of the football authorities in Scotland with a great deal of profit. We might then have eliminated the necessity to pass legislation in this form. It will certainly not be impeded or opposed by me, but I hope very much that the Minister can say something kind to me and my colleagues, who intend to argue the case we have made in respect of the executive boxes.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, in winding up this debate on behalf of those sitting on these Benches, I should first like to join with others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, on a most outstanding maiden speech. I can say that for several reasons, the first of which is that I largely agreed with the thrust of his argument that this Bill is in some respects too wide and in other respects too narrow. I think that that is a correct diagnosis. But I join with him also in saying—and I think it is common ground in all parts of the House—that the Government were right to introduce this legislation, and it is clearly right for Parliament to proceed with it with dispatch, so that it is on the statute book before the beginning of the new football season.
That is exactly what the Alliance representatives said to the Home Secretary when they met him. On that occasion, they were given an outline of the Government's proposals, but of course they did not see the Bill. What they committed themselves to on that occasion was to make sure that that Bill had facilities to go through Parliament before the summer Recess. They were not asked at any stage, nor, it is only fair to say, has it been suggested (but I want to avoid any misunderstanding on this point) to agree that the Bill should go through this House in one day's sitting. I would just touch on this matter briefly, because it is important to take account of it and use it as a background in developing the rest of one's case.
We have been presented with a Bill at exceptionally short notice; a Bill which proceeded through the House of Commons in one sitting day. At ten o'clock at night, when the Bill secured its Second Reading, there were a whole series of speeches made, primarily by Conservative Members of the House of Commons, who were complaining at the speed with which this Bill was being put on the statute book. They were joined by a number of Labour MPs and by my honourable friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland. I think it is right to say that, because that is one reason why a number of us were so alarmed by the suggestion that we, too, were going to be invited to put this Bill through all its stages in a single day.
I am very glad that the Government thought better of that, after a number of us had protested about it, and have changed their earlier decision and have agreed to take this Bill in two days—today and Wednesday of next week. But the House has still agreed to speed up the progress of this Bill by a very remarkable amount indeed.
Normally there would be four separate stages. We are now going to have only two stages. That being so—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, as I did to the noble Viscount on Tuesday—the Government have a particular responsibility to listen very carefully to the arguments which have been put by Members on both sides of the House and to take account very seriously of what has been said so that we can try to get some common ground. There is no desire on the part of my noble friends and myself to find areas of disagreement, to press matters to Division, or anything of that kind; but we hope that the Government are going to make some concessions in a spirit of compromise, which I think most of us are very anxious to achieve.
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I should like to make one more point on this aspect of the argument before moving on to the Bill. I touched on this matter on Tuesday when we were discussing the Business Question. When we had the Prevention of Terrorism Bill going through this House in one day's debate, as we did in 1974, there was obviously a very substantial amount of common ground, as there is on this Bill, between Members on different sides of the House. It is only fair to say that on that occasion we provided members of the opposition parties with Notes on Clauses, which has not been done in this House today and which I rather regret. However, on that occasion we had one very important provision within the Bill: it was subject to annual renewal. What we have to accept here is that we are being invited to pass a Bill which will form a permanent part of the statute law of this country, which means that we have to look at it that much more critically to ensure that we do not wholly inadvertently do some private citizens or some clubs very substantial damage.
It has been agreed by most noble Lords who have
spoken that there has long been a case for dealing with football violence. Indeed, as we have been reminded on a number of occasions, an all-party Private Member's Bill was introduced in another place by Mr. Whitlock, Mr. Dunnet, my colleague Mr. Tom Bradley, and by the present Conservative Member for Market Harborough. That Bill, which had the same objectives as the present Bill, was in fact blocked by the Government. That was in 1981. I think that was a mistake. It may well be that the Bill was not perfectly drafted—I am sure it was not—but nevertheless if the Government had supported the Bill and had brought in a number of amendments to it, then it is at least possible that we would have avoided some of the violence of the past four years. It would also have been possible to consider in a much more leisurely way than is now possible the actual detailed contents of the Bill.
There is of course not much mystery about why that violence has taken place. It has occurred partly at least because a number of young men have consumed too much alcohol and have used the excuse provided by a sporting occasion to involve themselves in vicious hooliganism. As we all know—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, touched on this at the beginning of our debate—there is far too much violence in our society. A great deal of this is alcohol-related.
When I was chairman of the Parole Board I asked the Parole Board secretariat to carry out an analysis of 100 murder cases. This demonstrated that in half of those cases the assailant was heavily under the influence of drink at the time of the offence. Indeed, sometimes both murderer and victim were in precisely the same condition. What holds good for murder also holds good for acts of unpremeditated violence. Home Office statistics show that in roughly half of such cases the assailant was heavily under the influence of alcohol at the time he committed his crime.
In such circumstances I think it is obvious that this Bill is long overdue. Our nation's reputation has been severely damaged by the sight of drunken rioters not only invading football pitches but smashing cars in adjoining streets and terrorising people in city centre shopping areas. These escalating episodes of violence culminated in the dreadful events of Brussels. There is

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little more that one can say about this except once again to express one's deep regret and sadness at the wanton destruction of human life by a number of so-called football supporters.
I do not think that many of us doubt—the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, touched on this matter—the accuracy of the verdict of the Belgian Parliament's committee of inquiry, which indicated that there were undoubtedly a number of serious errors committed both by the football authorities and by the Belgian police. But the principal responsibility—we have to recognise this—did lie with British football supporters. That of course is why we are debating this Bill today.
Having stated my support—not only my support but the support of those sitting on these Benches—for the general purposes of the Bill. I now want to turn to a number of specific criticisms of some of its detailed provisions. I shall deal first of all with one matter which is not dealt with at all in the Bill. Frankly, I find this one of the most perplexing issues of all. The House will remember—this has been referred to already—the dreadful scenes that took place at the match between Luton and Millwall in March of this year when crowds invaded the pitch and attached the police. We all remember watching these scenes of vicious violence on television.
I do not understand why the opportunity has not been taken in this Bill to make it a criminal offence to run onto a football pitch while the game is in progress and after its conclusion. It seems self-evident that this was a clear demonstration of how serious violence can take place. I do not understand why we are not dealing with this issue in the Bill. That would deal with some genuine problems. It is a matter of substantial doubt how much effect some of the other provisions in the Bill will have in reality.
Secondly, I come to the difficult question—it is a difficult one—of whether the banning of alcohol at football games should be absolute or whether there should be some form of exceptions. I understand the position of the clubs and I have some sympathy for many of the arguments which have been put forward about the executive boxes. That is an issue of importance to which we shall come in the Committee stage. Many of the clubs are in an extremely shaky financial position and others fear that they could well be driven towards bankruptcy because of the more stringent safety standards which are now being applied and will undoubtedly be applied as a result of the report of Mr. Justice Popplewell.
In the present situation they are inevitably fearful that, if alcohol sales are prohibited absolutely, they and their supporters' clubs will be denied the revenue that they desperately need if they are to keep going. In those circumstances the Home Secretary has chosen what he no doubt regards as a middle way, a term which I hope the Government will not find too offensive at this time, between absolute prohibition and the present situation. He has therefore erected what I am bound to say is an extremely complicated, not to say tortuous, system. Although as from the beginning of next season, as the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, reminded us, the sale of alcohol will be banned in football grounds in England and Wales and
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its possession made an offence if the person concerned is standing or sitting in a place from which he can view the game, there can be exceptions. As the noble Lord has again reminded us, the Bill provides that clubs with a good record of safety and orderly conduct at their grounds may apply to the magistrates for permission to sell alcohol, but only at approved places which are out of sight of the pitch.
Then comes yet another qualification. The police are given the power to apply for the revocation of the magistrates' order—and that much is under-standable—but if time does not permit, an inspector of police will himself be able to revoke the order temporarily. As the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, suggested, this may apparently be done on the basis of some intelligence that noisy supporters from another team are on the way to the ground. It is on the basis of such information and on that alone, as I understand it, that an inspector may say. "Shut down the bars".
What will happen if it is discovered subsequently that the information was inaccurate? The club may possibly have lost many thousands of pounds. There will almost certainly be a complaint made against the inspector to his chief constable. There will he an inquiry under the Police Act as to whether some form of disciplinary action should be taken. The House should be aware of what it is actually doing in this Bill before we cheerfully send it on its way.
I recognise that it is difficult to draft legislation of this kind. All I will say is that I am very doubtful whether such complicated procedures are altogether desirable. I am sceptical as to whether they will be easy to enforce or whether by themselves they will prevent drunken conduct leading to violence from taking place at some of our football grounds.
For instance, there seems to be an assumption that those responsible for football violence purchase their alcohol exclusively on football trains, on coaches, or at the grounds. That does not happen to be so. As has been made clear, it is certainly not the view of the Association of Chief Police Officers that that is the case. As we all know, a great deal of alcohol is purchased from shops in the areas surrounding football grounds. To the extent that the sale of alcohol may be banned from the grounds themselves and on football trains and coaches, even more alcohol is likely in the future to be purchased in shopping areas.
I therefore doubt whether the Bill will in those circumstances achieve its entire purpose. I doubt whether a rather confused administrative system in which alcohol will be available at some grounds because of magistrates' decisions, but not at others, will make a great deal of sense. I question also the suggestion that it should be a criminal offence to have alcohol in one's possession—at those grounds where alcohol is permitted by magistrates' order—if one is drinking that alcohol at a place from which it is possible to view the game. That seems to me to be one of the oddest proposals of all. I hope that we will consider that matter at Committee stage.
Let us remember that at the moment we are talking about legislation which will form a permanent part of the criminal law of this country. In the very limited amount of time available, some of the proposals do not appear to have been thought through as carefully as they should have been.

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I turn now to a third matter on which this Bill appears to go too far. If the Bill is enacted in its present form, the Secretary of State will be given a power to apply its provisions to any sports ground or at any sporting event. The only control that Parliament will have will be the negative resolution procedure. I doubt whether that is a sensible idea. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, to whose speech I listened with great care and attention, said that it would be a nonsense to make it an affirmative resolution procedure. Unhappily, he did not go on to explain why it would be a nonsense. No doubt we can argue this matter at Committee stage.
Lord Renton: My Lords, perhaps I should make it clear that orders made by the Secretary of State would on some occasions have to be peremptory—by that I mean, made with a degree of urgency. If the Secretary of State has to wait for an affirmative resolution, which will very often mean waiting a long time, then the necessary action taken by the Home Secretary might come far too late.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, for reasons which I am just about to explain, I find that argument rather unpersuasive. I will now say why. If the noble Lord's position, and that of the Government, is accepted by the House, then it will mean that the Bill will be extended way beyond football. It can be taken into cricket, into rugby union, and even, in the final analysis, into tennis. The noble Viscount is not in the Chamber, and I am not sure whether he is aware of this, but the provisions of the Bill could even be taken into his own game of golf—all without being compelled to secure explicit parliamentary approval, even by the very limited device of the affirmative resolution procedure.
I will give one example of what could be involved if the Bill is extended in its present form into cricket. I must declare an interest, which no doubt I should have done earlier. While I was for many years, and still am, a supporter of Chelsea, I am also a member of the MCC. Although those two organisations do not necessarily behave in the same fashion, nevertheless it is right to spend a moment or two considering what would happen if the provisions of this Bill are extended into cricket.
The Bill prohibits the possession on a sports ground of what is described as a controlled container. Such a container is at present defined as any container capable of carrying liquid and capable of causing injury. As was pointed out in another place, beer bottles and cans are obviously controlled containers. Most of us would regard that provision as entirely reasonable. But if this Bill is extended into cricket, as it could be if we passed it in its present form, then where people may be present at a match at Lord's, the Oval or Headingley for seven or eight hours, is it being seriously suggested that any child carrying a bottle of orange squash provided by its mother will be committing a criminal offence?
I assure the House that if this Bill is extended to cricket, as it can be with no difficulty whatsoever, then that child will be committing such an offence. I doubt whether many people outside Parliament, or indeed
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within it, will regard that as being in any degree sensible. The controlled container concept certainly makes sense in some respects, when applied to football, but, in the example I have given, it would be an absolute nonsense if applied to cricket.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has put down an amendment with which I agree. I hope that he will not be quite as accommodating as he implied that he might be at the beginning of his speech. The noble Lord proposes to insert a provision that the Bill will expire after five years. That seems to me to be a sensible proposal, and I hope very much that the Government will consider it very carefully.
I am increasingly concerned that in respect of this Bill, where the motives of the Government are admirable, and many of whose clauses will probably find favour on all sides of the House, the Bill will contain also a number of features which will come to haunt us—Government and Parliament alike. Parliament makes itself look foolish when it allows hurriedly-drafted legislation to be rushed onto the statute book without adequate consideration.
As I have indicated, we are broadly in support of the Bill's proposals but the drafting of it is simply unsatisfactory in some respects. As I said right at the outset of my remarks, I hope—particularly in the light of the fact that we have to consider the Bill under a very truncated procedure—that Government will listen to our concerns expressed on a number of matters and will amend the Bill accordingly.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down may I correct him on one small matter? I did receive a copy of the notes on clauses and I am grateful to the Home Office for its courtesy in providing it. Had I realised that, no doubt due to some oversight, my noble friend had not received a copy, I would have shared mine with him.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, we have had an interesting debate and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken and for the general welcome—if qualified in certain quarters in matters of detail—that the Bill has received. As I made clear earlier, the Government do not see the Bill as a means of curing all the problems of football hooliganism, but it deals with an important contributory element. The problems of football cannot be tackled by Government alone. There needs to be action by all those concerned—by the Government, certainly, but also by the police, the courts and, not least, the football authorities themselves.
I take this opportunity from this Front Bench to say how much I enjoyed, as we all did, the excellent maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue. He delivered it without a note, to my acute envy, surrounded as I am by a sea of paper. It was thoughtful, and it was well balanced. Those were its characteristics. And how else could it be anything but well-balanced when the noble Lord said that, on the one hand, the Bill was too narrow and, on the other, it was too wide! I join with others in congratulating him and look forward to hearing his balanced arguments again on other matters before too long.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has explained to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that notes on clauses were

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available. They were also available in the Printed Paper Office. Why things should have gone wrong for him I am not clear, but there we are.
Before going into more detail on the Bill may I refer to the agreement that was mentioned earlier by the noble Lords, Lord Wigoder and Lord Mishcon. Yes, agreement on principles there were, and this has been
explained by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. There were agreements on principle to meet the sort of emergency which football hooliganism has made quite plain to all of us. I agree, of course, that the Bill should be discussed with great care in your Lordships' House, but I believe that we can do it in two days. I shall certainly take careful note of all the points raised.
As regards the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that the reasons for hooliganism go much wider, yes, I am sure he is absolutely right but, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said on 3rd June in another place, if we were to conduct the sort of inquiry which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and others, have suggested might be necessary, that inquiry could go on for years and no conclusion would necessarily be reached. The fact is that we have the difficulty now. The problem exists now. We have all seen it on our televison screens, and that is why we must act with persuasion, prevention, or punishment.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord the Minister. I thought I had made that point abundantly clear. I merely said that the passage of this Bill alone would not cure the problem and that, hereafter, we should go further into the question of violence.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that it is of some concern to all of us. The Government are certainly in mind of the fact that violence has reached such proportions. As a matter of history—and I do not dispute that football hooliganism is at an unacceptable level today, as are other forms of hooliganism—the first recorded incident of football violence that I have been able to trace (I do not know whether anyone has done any further research into the past) occurred on Christmas Day in 1647, in Kent, when the then Government failed to solve the problem. I am sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, is not here because he will know from where that particular information came.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I can confirm that a Labour Government was not in power.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I do not intend to get drawn on the question of which Government was involved.
Before picking up some of the other points raised, it might be helpful in setting this Bill in context if I indicate the other measures to deal with football hooliganism which the Government are taking and which I did not fully develop earlier. We are proposing new legislation on public order, as envisaged in the Government's White Paper on the Review of Public Order. The proposals on assemblies in the open air would enable the police to impose limits on the numbers of people attending football matches and to
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stipulate other conditions if they foresaw a likelihood of disorder. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has already put in hand the designation of all Third and Fourth Division clubs under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, so that by the beginning of next season every club in the Football League will be subject to rigorous safety requirements. A number of measures are also being taken in co-operation with the police. The Home Office is providing three of the special photographic vehicles that were designed and tested last season for use by the police at events where trouble may occur. Radio communication links will be provided between British Transport Police contingents travelling on trains and local police forces. The police have also improved their arrangements for collecting and co-ordinating information about behaviour at matches, both between forces and with the British Transport Police.
Answering the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, I can say that, following discussions with the Football Trust, £500,000 is being allocated for the extension of closed-circuit television equipment to assist in crowd control—enough to cover some 30 grounds which do not already have such equipment. I am sure that that will be to everyone's advantage. The Government are taking a vigorous lead in developing international measures to deal with hooliganism. Discussions in the Council of Europe have produced widespread agreement among member states on the measures which should be taken to prevent outbreaks of violence and to deal firmly with it if it occurs.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, asked about the Popplewell Inquiry. Mr. Justice Popplewell hopes shortly to be able to submit an interim report covering the Bradford and Birmingham incidents. The inquiry's initial recommendations should, therefore, be available before the start of the new football season. The final report covering more general matters will follow later in the year.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the noble Lord, Lord Willis, were concerned about policing costs. I am sure both noble Lords are aware that it is the general practice for organisers of sporting events to pay for the presence of police officers inside grounds. The cost of policing outside the ground is already met from public funds.
I now pick up points of concern raised by my noble friend Lord Inglewood. The first relates to British Rail By-law 3A. British Rail have a discretionary power under their by-laws—and this is what my noble friend is referring to—to prohibit alcohol on any train provided reasonable notice is given. They have used this power on many, but not all, football trains. The Bill will make an alcohol ban mandatory on all trains where the principal purpose is conveying passengers to or from designated football grounds and matches. Bylaw 3A will continue to be available to British Rail for scheduled services that might be used by significant numbers of football supporters. I think that meets the concern which my noble friend expressed.
As regards police task forces, I can tell my noble friend that the police have no plans to form specialist squads to deal with football hooliganism. They consider that there is often an advantage in using local officers so far as is possible because they get to know the regular troublemakers. As my noble friend will

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know, since the Government took office in 1979 the total manpower available in the police service—police and civilian—has increased by over 12,000. Therefore, more officers are available for chief constables to deploy as required. May I add that in addition, as my noble friend will be aware, the British Transport Police already have a number of mobile support units, primarily for just this purpose. They are specially trained and equipped and I understand that the British Transport Police intend to increase the number of these units in time for the next football season.
I hope your Lordships will forgive me for spending a little time on matters which are not strictly within the scope of the Bill, but which were raised legitimately. I believe that we must look at the Bill in the context of a package of measures to counter hooliganism and violence in order to restore the good name of British football. The Bill before us is an important element in the package. The Government share the widely accepted view, which is also largely accepted by those of your Lordships who have spoken today, that alcohol is an important contributory factor. There may well be some football thugs who go to matches in search of a punch-up and who do not need drink before they start attacking others, but for many people alcohol is definitely a factor contributing to the loss of self-control and to a willingness to indulge in violence, damage and thuggery generally. Therefore it is right that we should introduce arrangements to restrict and control the availability of alcohol in connection with matches.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, raised the question of hasty legislation, and before turning to other points perhaps I may deal with this matter. I understand the fears which he raises, but I have to say again that the horrific scenes at the end of last season make it essential to do all that we can as soon as we can to ensure that such things never happen again. This legislation is not wholly new. As I said earlier, with some variations it is based on legislation which has been tried and tested in Scotland and which went through the normal scrutiny of the parliamentary process some five years ago. I note with some interest that some of your Lordships opposite have curiously made fierce criticism of this aspect of the Bill, but in fact we have followed the Scottish precedent quite straightforwardly and quite closely.
I note with equal interest and curiosity that some of your Lordships who have said that there is not sufficient time for proper parliamentary scrutiny nonetheless have not shrunk from putting down amendments which would extend the Bill by creating new criminal offences—the noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to one just now—and new police powers as well. I look forward to hearing at Committee stage how those who advocate that particular course can complete the circle.
I should like to return to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, when he said that he felt that if the spirit of undertaking an agreement would be breached in any sense by his moving the amendments to which he referred, he would not necessarily move them. I have explained the exceptional nature of this Bill. I have to say that I regard the moving of the
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amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, as a breach which would undermine what, in our view, was a clear agreement on principles which were reached about the Bill. That is my clear view. It may not be everybody's view, but it is certainly the Government's that while not wishing to forestall debate as I indicated earlier and as the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, would want the need for an agreement of this exceptional nature to speed this Bill on its way is all important. That is a fact and I hope that the noble Lord will consider that particular point in deciding whether or not to move his amendments.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, before the noble Lord the Minister continues, perhaps I may explain very clearly to the House that, in view of the very clear statement that he has made that the Government would regard the moving of the amendments to which I put my name as being a breach of an agreement which has been reached and therefore a breach of principle, I regard myself as being bound in conscience by his remarks. I should have liked to have moved them, but I think that what he has said precludes me from doing so.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I apologise for intervening in the Minister's speech, but I am afraid that I must make it clear that we on these Benches would not be able to accept that, and if the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon withdraws the amendments—as of course he could—and does not move them at Report stage, they will be put down in the name of myself and my noble friends. We do not believe that agreements of this sort, taken in private, should in fact come before our duty as Members of the House of Lords.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I certainly share the feeling of concern for the duty that the noble Lord expresses about examining legislation with great care in this House. I cannot speak for the noble Lord. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, is there. He has given an indication that he accepts what I have said and that he does not propose to move the amendments. I can do no more than accept his gracious remarks.
I should like to turn now to one matter of concern raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, which is the negative resolution procedure, and the wish that he expressed for the affirmative procedure. After full parliamentary scrutiny, Parliament gave the Secretary of State power to designate by order the grounds and events to which the controls in the Scottish Act should apply, and that order is subject to negative resolution. The Secretary of State for Scotland has exercised those powers with caution and great prudence. In addition to soccer grounds, the only other sports ground designated is Murrayfield, for the purpose of international rugby matches. My right honourable friend intends to be no less cautious. He has already said that initially he intends to designate only soccer grounds and soccer matches. It may never be necessary to designate other sports, but the possible need to do so cannot be ruled out and it is only prudent to take power now for extension to other sports.
The Bill proposes that designations should be accomplished by order subject to negative resolution as in Scotland. I suggest to your Lordships that if the

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need arises to extend to other sports, it is right that this should be done by an order subject to negative resolution. Most of the reasons were admirably expressed by my noble friend Lord Renton. Let us suppose that, God forbid, we were to see rioting at a cricket match—after all, there have been riots at cricket matches in other parts of the world—and that the Government decided that it was essential immediately to extend this legislation to cricket grounds; and let us suppose further that this situation arose during the Summer Recess. In those circumstances, in order to proceed by order subject to affirmative resolution, it would be necessary to recall Parliament. I cannot believe that that would be either necessary or appropriate and it certainly would not be very popular. I very much hope that your Lordships will be prepared to accord to my right honourable friend the powers which are already entrusted to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. There really can be no reason now for making such a distinction.
The noble Lord, Lord Willis, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and others, were concerned about revenue and private boxes, and the implications that this Bill has for the revenue of clubs. This raises in particular the question of restaurants and sponsors' boxes. The Football League estimates that £1·5 million per annum is derived from bar sales of alcohol at league games and £4 million a year from the leasing of executive boxes. The league estimates that 75 per cent. of that £4 million could be at risk from the provisions of this Bill which prevent the sale or possession of alcohol in all areas from which the pitch may be viewed directly.
The Government have of course carefully considered this. Certainly there are implications for revenue. I do not suggest that people in private boxes are trouble-makers—they certainly are not—but it was put to us very firmly that it would be unfair to make special provision for such boxes and restaurants. This is an argument which has force. Why should the very many respectable spectators in the rest of the ground be placed at a disadvantage in comparison with those in boxes? The Bill does not therefore accord any special treatment to boxes. I am not entirely sure that the league is right, though it may be, to say—
Lord Dean of Beswick: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on this point. I think the Minister ought to be aware that the provision of boxes is, in fact, a growth industry and more of the top clubs are installing these boxes. Does the noble Lord, the Minister understand that this particular clause, if it stands as it is, will kill that growth stone dead? This is at present a desirable development in football which will be killed off.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I do not necesarily agree. Boxes may be a growth industry—and I shall take up what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said in a minute—but I do not think that not being able to have a drink in a box in sight of the ground will necessarily do the damage that the noble Lord, Lord Dean, suggests. The availability of alcoholic refreshment is claimed by the league to be an important element in the attraction of boxes. The noble Lord emphasised that. I do not share that view and neither, I think, does
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the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. As I think he said, one hopes that at least some of the occupants come primarily to watch football. However, given some ingenuity, it should be possible to make arrangements for the service and consumption of alcohol out of sight of the pitch. After all, one can watch a match without having a drink in one's hand. We would hope—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, how can that have an effect on public order? That is the point which some of us find difficult to understand. Why does it make it more likely that there will be disorder if a person has the opportunity of seeing what is happening? I find it extremely difficult to follow the logic of this part of the argument.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I think that the logic lies in the fact that there are those who would otherwise be able to have a drink outside the confines of the boxes on the terraces who will not be able to, and they would be able to look through the window and see people in the boxes whom the noble Lord, Lord Dean, described, being able to drink and watch the game. It is the element of unfairness. That surely is the point.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, surely not if the boxes are not overlooked by other spectators.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, being out of sight of the pitch is the key. I can refer to the words a little later. An element of unfairness creeps in if people can see into a box and see people drinking when they are unable to drink. If it can be fully hidden, which seems to be what the noble Lord suggests, I should have thought that that met his point.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, is the noble Lord in effect saying that, if clubs provide one-way glass at the front of these executive boxes so that the members and guests inside can see the event but nobody can see into the box, he might regard that as an acceptable compromise?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I do not think that the idea of one-way glass has yet been canvassed. Perhaps I may come back to that point a little later rather than be drawn on it now.
My honourable friend the Minister of State—and I think that this will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Dean—gave an undertaking in another place that he will monitor the situation. If there is a major fall in sponsorship income, as the noble Lord seems to fear, to the detriment of the game, he will be prepared to consider whether it is possible to make adjustments to the present Bill in the public order legislation which we hope to introduce following the review of the law relating to public order. I think that that may be the sort of assurance that the noble Lord is looking for, and I hope that he will consider that.
Let me address the one or two exceptional points which were made, before I conclude. The noble Lord, Lord Mulley, was concerned about the proposal to designate the grounds of all league clubs and all matches played by league clubs. He said that it was unfair to penalise the smaller Third Division and Fourth Division clubs when the real trouble is in

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others. Crowd trouble tends to be more serious in the big clubs in the higher divisions of the league, but unfortunately lower placed clubs are not immune from the violence that we have seen. Clubs are promoted and relegated each season. The prohibition on drunkenness and on taking drink onto coaches and into grounds is good sense for all clubs. As to—
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I think that following Bradford the Secretary of State was right to require for the first time that the grounds of Third Division and Fourth Division clubs should be subject to stringent safety considerations. But they have to find the money to do that, and they have very little revenue. I have been looking at the figures. In a lot of clubs average attendance is less than 2,000 per game, and they will have bills of £200,000 to £300,000 upwards to put their grounds in order. Why should the little money that they get from alcohol be taken away from them, especially at this time and when they have no disputes? That is my major point. I know of no dispute that has occurred in a Third Division ground. When clubs come into the Second Division they will automatically be caught by the provisions in the Bill.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, the designation in relation to fire following Bradford goes wide of the Bill. The designation in this Bill is narrow. I accept that the concern which—
Lord Mulley: My Lords, the money has to come out of the same pockets. That is the point I am trying to make.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am aware of the point the noble Lord is making, but I do not share his concern that clubs will find it quite as tight as he thinks. I accept that there is some element, but I by no means follow him fully along the path that he wants to go.
The noble Lords, Lord Mulley and Lord Willis, asked about the Government and the pools betting duty. They did not raise the question of VAT. It was claimed that we were taking out millions, but that is not the case. Pools betting duty is a tax on gambling and not on football. The Pools Promoters' Association pays about £5 million a year for the use of league fixtures, and VAT is charged on entry fees to all places of entertainment, including theatres and cinemas, to which one noble Lord referred.
My noble friend Lord Renton asked about an exemption for amateur events. That is Clause 9(6). I am grateful to him for his helpful remarks on the Bill as a whole. The exception to which he referred would benefit only amateur events at which no charge is made for admittance. At charity matches there is usually an admittance charge even if the players receive no fee. The loophole which he mentioned whereby there may be a hidden charge for admittance—which I hope is the point he was getting at—is unlikely to be a problem in practice. It is unlikely that in such circumstances players would not be financially rewarded. I hope that that answers his concern. I shall study carefully what he said and if necessary elucidate further.
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The noble Lord, Lord Dean, asked whether it was possible to permit clubs to apply for exemption orders before Royal Assent. I understand the problem that he raises, but it would be quite wrong to anticipate final forms of legislation which are yet to pass both Houses of Parliament. I am sure that he realises that. Until Royal Assent is given the courts would have no power to receive an application to enable the 28-day period to start running, nor to issue summonses to the police. I am afraid what is being suggested is totally impracticable.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I shall be brief. Is the Minister really saying that there is no possibility of looking at the situation? I have applied for licences in the past, and I believe that there could be some accommodation so that the 28 days for permission to sell drinks under the Bill as it stands would not be lost. I think that this problem could be overcome with some effort.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, it certainly cannot be overcome in the way that the noble Lord suggests. Anyhow, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has stressed the advantage of the initial dry period at the beginning of next season in enabling magistrates' courts to take into account the record of a club. That is all-important in relation to crowd behaviour in the early part of the season.
My noble friend Lord Teviot mentioned two amendments which he is bringing forward at the Committee stage. I realise that he has special knowledge of the subject. I shall not deal in detail with his arguments now, but I shall answer them at the Committee stage.
We have had a long and interesting debate. I am grateful to your Lordships for some interesting contributions. I have tried to answer some of the major criticisms of the Bill and to clear up some of the misunderstandings. I shall try to elaborate in more detail in Committee. While there may be criticism of the Bill, there is far greater criticism and concern—and rightly so, and it has been clearly expressed today—about the behaviour on the football terraces, which grieves me as much as it does the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and which has led us to take the steps that we have to stamp it out. This Bill is one of those steps. Perhaps it is a sad reflection on failure on the part of all of us that it is only by such tough measures, affecting as they do the innocent as well as the troublemaker, that we can take things forward.
Let us not look back. Let us, the football authorities and the public look forward to the day when the package of measures of which this Bill is part has restored the reputation of football as the spectator sport it deserves to be, so that those who wish to can admire and enjoy the skill of footballers in healthy competition and share in their good sportsmanship.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Lord Denham: My Lords, it has been represented to me that there is a certain amount of hardship in going straight on to the next stage without a brief pause, in particular, perhaps, for noble Lords who are interested in the first amendment. It has therefore been agreed

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through the usual channels that we should have a five-minute adjournment. Accordingly I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure for five minutes.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The sitting was suspended from 7 until 7.5 p.m.]
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution of 9th July):
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Glenarthur.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MURTON OF LINDISFARNE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Offences in connection with alcohol on coaches and trains]:
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, leave out lines 6 and 7.
The noble Lord, said: I beg leave to move this amendment. I understand that we are going to take Amendment No. 31 at the same time.
Amendment No. 31: In the Title, line 2, leave out from ("on") to second ("vehicles") in line 3.
As the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, will realise, this is a probing amendment. It seeks to exclude the limitations in Clause 1 relating to the carriage of alcohol on trains and coaches. I see the advantages of the present form of words, that it should apply to coaches and trains hired specifically for the purpose of taking football supporters to a match. However, there are two problems about it, and I should like to hear the noble Lord's views upon them before withdrawing the amendment by leave of the Committee.
First of all, there is the less substantial point, which is that there is this difficulty. What about coaches where it cannot be said that "the principal purpose", to quote the language of Clause 1(1)(b), is to take passengers to "a designated sporting event"? Inevitably, one of the difficulties will be that there will be some ingenious people who will think of ways in which to get round this legislation. One way to get round the legislation is to hire a coach to go, let us say, from Chelsea to Norwich ostensibly to do some shopping in Norwich, whereas in reality the purpose will be to take football supporters there, although no doubt wives and girlfriends will be taken on a shopping expedition. It may well be that it is impossible to deal with every conceivable problem on the face of the statute, but I am just saying that this appears to be one way in which some people will try to avoid the stringency of the provisions of the clause.
I then come to the more substantial question, and that is in relation to ships. Let us remember why we have this Bill. We do not have it because of violence at British football grounds. That is not the real reason. The real reason is what took place on foreign soil: what
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took place in Brussels and what had taken place previously in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. The problem is that large numbers of British football supporters pile on to special trains. They go down to Dover, and if they are going to Belgium, for instance, they have a substantial cross-Channel sailing. So far as I can see, if, by chance, there was a bridge or tunnel across the Channel and they travelled by coach, and so long as they were on British soil, they would not be able to consume alcohol because the purpose of the visit was to attend a football match. The problem is that many of those who travelled to Brussels got into a state of almost hopeless intoxication during the ship's passage between Dover and Ostend.
What can be done about that? It may not be possible to deal with it within this piece of legislation. I do not know. But it seems to me odd that we are talking in the Bill about our internal problems whereas, in what we hope will be the relatively near future, when we are able once again to engage in football matches in Europe—the sooner that this takes place, the better, for many of us, it will be—one of the not unreasonable questions that will be asked is what action the Government have taken to ensure that there is some limit on alcohol supplies on cross-Channel ferries. What can be done about it? I beg to move.
Lord Monson: I am afraid that I cannot possibly support the amendment; it goes much too far. Inadvertently, no doubt, it brings private motor cars within the ambit—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I am sorry, but the noble Lord, Lord Monson, was not in the Chamber when I began to address the Committee. I indicated that this was entirely a probing amendment relating primarily to ships. I am not seriously suggesting that the amendment should be carried.
Lord Monson: I am grateful to hear that. However, in case there is any inclination on the part of the Government to accept the amendment—there was a serious attempt in another place to include private motor vehicles—I should like to say why I think this should not happen. Consider the case of a family consisting of a husband, wife and two children aged, say, 12 and nine, who resolve to attend a football match 50 or 60 miles away. In order to reach the ground and to park their car and find their seats well before the three o'clock kick-off, they decide to leave at noon and to have a picnic lunch on the way. Into the picnic basket, the wife packs as well as sandwiches and fruit, a couple of cans of Coca-Cola or lemonade for the children and a flagon of cider for her husband and herself. The picnic is duly consumed in a lay-by. The children polish off the cans of "coke" and lemonade, but as cider is nowadays normally sold in litre size screw-top flagons, the parents have no inclination to consume the whole bottle and the one-third of a litre that is left is duly repacked in the picnic case. The family arrive three-quarters of an hour later at the football ground car park, whereupon a sharp-eyed constable observes the tell-tale brown bottle protruding from the picnic basket. Lo and behold, the handcuffs are snapped on, metaphorically if not literally. I do not think that this is the sort of thing that we would want to happen.
Lord Glenarthur: If only to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Monson, may I deal briefly with the question of motor cars. The extension of the clause in the manner in which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggests, in probing fashion, would create considerable difficulties for the police in determining which vehicles were on their way to or from designated sporting events and might lead to some resentment—no doubt the noble Lord would feel resentful—on the part of private motorists who are stopped. I can do no more than give an assurance that I am not going to accept the amendment. I should, however, like to develop the theme that concerned the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about ferries.
The extension of the clause to ships would have very little effect since it is unlikely that the principal purpose of the journey of the ship or ferry would be to carry passengers to or from a designated sporting event. It might happen, but on the whole, they are just passengers on that particular vessel. In addition, captains of ships and also of aircraft already have full discretion to refuse to carry people who are drunk or in possession of alcohol. From my own experience as a one-time captain of aircraft, I can tell the noble Lord that I have had cause to invoke that power myself. It is a power that ferrymasters have also exercised on occasion. They also have full power to refuse to serve alcohol or to sell it.
The extension of Clause 1 to ships might also have the effect of driving the hooligan element on to foreign ferries where British legislation could not effectively apply. I should tell the noble Lord that ferries are policed. In the case of the Brussels tragedy, I am given to undertand that the ferry was policed and that the people, as they left the ferry, were not drunk. I have no doubt that if a ferry is policed in that way, the police would not hesitate to draw drunkenness to the attention of the captain who would take the necessary action.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I am much obliged. I have indicated already that this is entirely a probing amendment. I would only say, as I am sure the Government recognise, that when we start playing football in Europe again, this matter will have to be looked at very seriously. I believe that our European partners will want some pretty explicit guarantees before we are allowed to play football on the mainland of Europe. Nevertheless, I am entirely content with what the noble Lord said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 10, leave out ("designated")
The noble Lords said: With this amendment we can take Amendment No. 3, if that is convenient to the Committee.
Amendment No. 3: Page 1, line 10, at end insert ("to be held within the area of a designated sports ground.").
These amendments are designed to cut out a reference to "sporting events" and also to define far more precisely the sports grounds to which the Bill applies. Why are we having this Bill at all? It is because
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of violence at football matches. Why should it not be limited to football? At the moment in this Bill there is a blanket power for the Secretary of State to extend the Bill to any other sporting ground. Why? I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is no longer with us. Insofar as I understood the noble Lord's argument in defence of the language of the Bill, it is that there might be a dreadful event at a cricket match during the summer recess and that, as a result, the Government would have immediately to spring into action and use the language of this Bill. With respect to the absent noble Lord, this is total, fanciful nonsense. We are not talking about large-scale riots at cricket matches. There is no indication of such experience in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, has stated accurately that they have occurred in Pakistan and India. We are not, however, members of the parliaments of Pakistan and India and, therefore, it seems to me that we do not have to concern ourselves with that forbidding prospect. It seems to me that when the Government move in with what is described as emergency legislation we should insist that it relates to the issues of the emergency and does not go into far wider territory.
Ministers have made their position clear. The noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, made his position clear in winding up the Second Reading debate. And his honourable friend the Minister of State made his position clear when, speaking in another place on 3rd July, he said at column 437:
"I reiterate my right honourable and learned friend's assurance, also given on Second Reading, that we have no immediate intention of designating sports other than soccer".
That being so, why give them the powers? I note what was said on the Home Secretary's behalf. But, as we know, Home Secretaries, Ministers of State, and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries are here one day and, unhappily, gone tomorrow. Therefore, the amount of comfort that we gain from what we are being assured that the present Home Secretary will do, does not put our minds totally at ease. One day there may be another Home Secretary—I suspect that there will be many—who will take a very different view of this piece of legislation and who may be foolish enough to try to extend it to sports other than football. In my view the Government must justify what are in fact drastic powers affecting not only the liberties of people going to these matches but also the economics of the sport itself.
Let us consider again what would happen if these provisions were extended to cover cricket. Let us say, for example, that there has been some kind of disturbance at Somerset. Somerset is not a bad example to give because some Somerset supporters—and I hope that there are not too many in the House at the moment—tend to be slightly more noisy than the supporters of other country cricket clubs as a result of the fact that they have so much excellent cider in that county.
Baroness Seear: I take exception to that.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My noble friend is quite right. Somerset has one other great advantage at the moment, and that is an Alliance majority on the county council; and therefore there will undoubtedly be a transformation of the behaviour of Somerset

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supporters in the future. Let us say that there has been some type of problem at a cricket match in Somerset and that that is used as the basis for applying the provisions of this Bill to the major cricket grounds of this country: the Oval, Headingly and Lord's.
There are two problems associated with that situation. First, let me deal with the controls on alcohol. As in the case of football, there would be a total, blanket ban. That would be the effect of extending the provisions to county cricket. Then there would be partial exclusion, if the local magistrates agreed, combined of course with the provision that no one would be able to drink in the sight of the pitch or with a view of the pitch.
To take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, executive boxes would be affected, with a major loss of revenue to county cricket clubs in this country, many of which have very pressing financial problems. We know that in the past some of them have come very close to bankruptcy. Consider also—and I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, a noted supporter of Kent County Cricket Club, is not with us—the effect on Canterbury Week. That beautiful Kent county cricket ground has its cricket festival the first week in August. The tents surround the ground. One of those tents is for the use of the Canterbury Conservative Association and it is there every' year. The mayor of Canterbury attends, and so on.
All those tents provide some form of alcoholic refreshment. Under the terms of the Bill it would be a criminal offence for anyone to consume alcohol—even if an exclusion order had been made by the magistrates—if he were in sight of the pitch. In my view that goes a very long way indeed. The Minister may well say, "Of course nobody would ever do that. No Home Secretary would ever be daft enough to extend the Bill to cricket". Unfortunately the power is being given to a Home Secretary of the future to do just that.
I have given the example of Canterbury, but let us consider the position of Lord's. What about the bars which are under the stands at Lord's? If it could be said, "It's perfectly all right; you can't see the pitch", then drinking would be all right. However, what happens if there is a sudden round of applause and a man clasping a cardboard container full of lager—it cannot be a metal container because that would be a controlled container—jumps or runs up the steps in order to see what has happened? He has committed a criminal offence. It seems to me quite extraordinary that we are prepared even to contemplate giving Ministers powers to extend the provisions of this Bill to cricket and to other sports which would have—and I in no way exaggerate—the effects which I have described.
I come to the controlled container provisions in Clause 2. In reality we are discussing the effects of the extension of the provisions of this Bill to cricket, and therefore we must consider what is being said in Clause 2. Let us again assume that those provisions are extended to cricket. I mentioned this example when I wound up for my colleagues on Second Reading. What about the bottle of orange squash in the hands of a 10-year-old child? There is no doubt at all that the Bill as drafted at present means that that child—any child—with a glass bottle of orange squash in its hand
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is committing an offence. Again, that would seem to me to be a rather remarkable proposition.
There is also another aspect. A football match takes one-and-a-half hours, as I indicated in my Second Reading speech. We are talking about one-day cricket matches which can take seven or eight hours and sometimes even longer. Moreover, they are much more liable to be affected by the weather. There would be a most ludicrous position whereby if a match was affected by rain anyone drinking in the sight of that pitch would be committing a criminal offence.
I hope that between now and the Report stage the Government will consider some of these examples. None of us wants to pass legislation which would be a nonsense if extended beyond the area of our principal concern, which relates to football. On that basis I beg to move.
Baroness Seear: To follow what my noble ally has said, may I ask the Minister whether a thermos of tea is a controlled container? It looks to me as though it is.
Lord Glenarthur: I shall be dealing with the matter of thermos flasks a little later, and I hope then to be able to reassure the noble Baroness. If the noble Baroness will bear with me until later, I hope to give her just the type of reassurance which she seeks. However, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, let me say that I had rather expected the noble Lord to couple his Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 with Amendments Nos. 24, 25, 30 and 32.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Yes.
Lord Glenarthur: Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 only relate to Clause 1. Therefore it is in that spirit that I shall reply to the noble Lord.
Amendment No 24: Clause 9, page 7, leave out lines 12 to 37 and insert—
("(b) falling within paragraph (1A) of the schedule to this Act.").
Amendment No. 25: Page 7, leave out lines 23 to 25.
Amendment No. 30: In the Schedule, page 9, line 3, at beginning insert—
("(1A) The following sports grounds shall be treated as a designated sports ground" for the purposes of this Act—
All grounds on occasions on which matches between teams in the first and second divisions of the Football League are played.").
Amendment No. 32: In the Title, line 4, leave out ("designated").
The principal effect of the group of amendments which the noble Lord has described is to confine the designation of sports ground to venues where matches between First Division and Second Division football league teams are played and to limit designation to the time when the matches are played. It would not be acceptable to the Government to limit this Bill to First Division and Second Division football matches, and I shall explain why.
One only has to reflect that last year Millwall was in the Third Division. Moreover, the Government want the ability to extend designation to other sports if the need arises. My right honourable friend explained in another place that we have no immediate intention of designating sports other than soccer. I stressed on Second Reading that one would hope that one would never have to do so.

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I do not think it helps for the noble Lord to draw in examples from abroad quite in the way in which he did so. However, the fact is that troubles have arisen abroad, and to some extent not riots but certainly disruptions have taken place over here. I sincerely hope that the case which he has described never arises. I can see all types of difficulties not only for cricket but also if the provisions were extended to race meetings and so on. However, I sincerely believe that we must have the ability to take the action should the need arise and that we should be able to do so without introducing further primary legislation.
The point that was made by my noble friend Lord Renton, which I developed a little at Second Reading, was that it is perfectly possible that the sort of situation which might arise could arise at a time when Parliament is not sitting. That is why I think that these careful powers which my right honourable friend feels and which, I am quite sure, his successors will feel should exist, should be interpreted in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time.
7.30 p.m.
A further consequence of the amendments proposed would be to disapply the provisions of the Bill relating to the possession of alcohol and drunkennesss on coaches, mini-buses and trains carrying fans to or from designated matches in Scotland or, for that matter, abroad. I do not quite see the logic of that in the light of the noble Lord's earlier amendment, which he withdrew, when he talked about ships.
Many of us will have witnessed on television the distressing scenes which took place at Brussels. I did, and I was as horrified as anybody. There have been other regrettable incidents over the years involving so-called supporters of English football teams. In view of this lamentable history of bad behaviour by drunken English fans abroad it is entirely right and absolutely necessary that the Bill should allow the Secretary of State to designate matches played abroad. This will have the effect of preventing drunkenness and the carriage of alcohol in coaches and trains travelling in England and Wales to or from matches abroad. Considerable confidence in the Government's resolve to tackle this problem has been expressed in FIFA's recent decision. It is, after all, the governing body of world football and its decision allows English clubs to compete against teams from outside Europe next season. It would be regrettable for your Lordships, by adopting or accepting these amendments, to demonstrate that the confidence which FIFA has shown may be misplaced. This would also send an undesirable signal to those in Europe who are still looking closely at how we tackle this hooliganism problem. I can assure your Lordships that they are doing it most vigorously.
I hope that I have answered some of the concerns that the noble Lord expressed. His concerns are I believe misplaced and I trust he will feel reassured and not press these amendments.
Baroness Seear: Will the Minister tell us whether there is any evidence in any other sport of anything approaching the problems that we have in football? Otherwise the Government are extending to the whole
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range of sporting activities the potential for a range of controls for which there has been no evidence shown whatsoever that they are necessary. Does this extend to Ascot?
A noble Lord: Yes.
Baroness Seear: People will not riot at Ascot, will they?
Lord Grimond: When the Minister is dealing with that question will he clarify a point which I have in mind? I understand that the Bill as drafted would apply to a showground on which sports may take place, as they often do, when the show is over. In my experience there is a certain amount of alcohol available on showgrounds, for there is usually a bar at which a certain amount of beer is provided. Am I right in thinking that this Bill could apply to that? If that is so, I do not think it is sufficient for the noble Lord the Minister to say that no Minister would apply it. The point is that Parliament should not give powers, even if they are not used, unless they are shown to be essential and necessary. I do not believe that it is essential or necessary that Ministers should have a power to enforce the provision of this Bill on a showground because there is a certain number of sports and some beer is provided in a bar.
Lord Mishcon: I wonder whether I may intervene merely to ask whether the Minister feels that there is enough substance in what has been said so far for him to consider between now and Report stage whether or not, as a very minimum, the affirmative procedure should not be invoked if the Secretary of State wishes to make any order in respect of any other sport? I believe I am entitled to say this and I merely ask for consideration to be given. He will find that there is an amendment on the Marshalled List asking for just that. I do not suppose that anybody, although I am only speaking for myself, would want to press him further at this stage other than for him to assure us that the matter will be considered.
The affirmative procedure will ensure that Parliament has a chance of considering the matter properly. If the only answer to it is that there could be an emergency and the affirmative procedure takes too long, I would say that we have gone for years without this legislation. If we have gone for years without this legislation, I would imagine that we could go the few days that might elapse between some other sport taking on the ugly form that soccer has taken on and the affirmative procedure being applied. I merely ask for the noble Lord to consider the matter.
Lord Willis: I support that; but will the Minister reply to one of the strong points that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, made? It is that this legislation, which is designed to cope with hooliganism at football matches, is not really suitable as it stands for extension by a Minister or anybody else to other sports. The shape of cricket grounds, the design of their stands and boxes is totally different from that of football. The noble Lord made the strong point that cricket can go on for a whole day, sometimes three or five days. I am not intending a pun, but this is a different ball game.

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It would be a tremendous mistake to extend it. Having made a suit to fit one game, it will not necessarily fit another. If it were arbitrarily introduced as is proposed, it could have tremendous and very bad consequences. That is why I support the idea that it should come back here.
Lord Colwyn: From the Benches behind the Minister I should like to say that I support what has been said by the mover of this amendment. I feel that the Minister must look into this and have an answer when it comes back at the next stage, if not this evening.
Lord Glenarthur: I certainly acknowledge the feelings which lie behind the views that have been expressed. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, expressed mild horror that this could, in certain circumstances, apply even to Ascot. She suggested that that was quite unthinkable.
Baroness Seear: I did not feel that it was unthinkable that it should apply to Ascot, but unthinkable that Ascot should need it. The Government are not bringing this legislation in for fun, but because they think that there may be a riot. Can the noble Lord seriously contemplate a riot at Ascot? That is what I was saying.
Lord Glenarthur: I cannot, but what I am suggesting to the noble Baroness is that we ought to be prepared to think about the unthinkable. It is our job to anticipate these things. The noble Lord says that riots do not take place at cricket matches, but there have certainly been examples, I believe, in Australia. I shudder to think that it might one day occur over here.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Oh no!
Lord Glenarthur: The noble Lord, Lord Graham, can indicate that that is so far removed from us that it would not necessarily crop up here, but I think the noble Lord only has to consider the fact that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland already has these powers to extend to other sports. So it is not new by any manner of means.
The noble Lord, Lord Grimond, asks whether or not showgrounds are affected. Yes, if sport is taking place there, they would be. I should like to go into this a little more and in doing so I shall refer, with the leave of the Committee, to an amendment which comes later. It is Amendment No. 26, which is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and it relates to the affirmative procedure and it bears relevance. I again say that my right honourable friend has made plain which grounds and which events he intends to designate. That designation, for the present, will be limited to soccer. I can assure the noble Lord that the Government have no plans to designate any other sport. I can further assure your Lordships that any further designation would not be a step which the Government would take lightly.
I referred to the Scottish legislation. When that Scottish legislation was passed, it was thought right to take an enabling power to designate any sports ground or sporting event by order, subject to the negative
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procedure, should the need arise. As I have said, the Bill exactly reproduces that condition for England and Wales. As the Committee will be aware, our Scottish colleagues have made only one very limited extension beyond soccer, and I referred to it earlier—and that is at Murrayfield, to be designated when rugby internationals are being played there. With that one exception, they have not found it necessary to designate any other sport.
There have been a few regrettable incidents in connection with other sports in England and Wales. They must be dealt with firmly; but there is no problem on the scale that prevails in soccer. In that, I would entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris. If circumstances change, and change they might, I believe it is right that we should be able to act quickly; and the negative procedure enables us to do so. Indeed, your Lordships will know that my right honourable friend has used that very procedure to extend the designation of grounds under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975. And who could possibly argue in the case of the tragic happenings at Bradford that that was not necessary? I ask your Lordships seriously to consider what would happen if trouble broke out at, say, a cricket match during the parliamentary Recess? It is not fanciful, as the noble Lord suggested that it was, when he referred to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Renton.
Baroness Seear: The Minister talks about trouble breaking out at a cricket match. Let us say it breaks out on a Saturday afternoon. It will not go on until the following Tuesday, which is the very earliest by which the Government could declare anything. It will be all over. The noble Lord the Minister is surely not suggesting that it is so catching that, because it broke out at one cricket match on one Saturday, unless the Government take action here and now, cricket matches all over the country will be in a state of riot. That is what the Minister is implying. But to order this you are not going to leap into action on a Saturday afternoon if they start rioting.
There is a bigger principle, a very important Liberal principal. This is that we are deeply opposed to increasing the power of central Government to take action of this kind until it is proven absolutely that it is necessary. We have agreed that it is necessary in relation to football; but the noble Lord has made out no case whatsoever for such power being necessary for other sports.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Airedale: In support of what my noble Leader has just said, the Minister has been speaking as if he was forgetting that we have our criminal law which has been in existence for centuries. Parliament ought to be reluctant to extend the scope of the criminal law unless there is a real likelihood of this being necessary. At race meetings and cricket matches and everywhere that people gather in large numbers, disturbances of one kind or another are happening every day and the police deal with it under the existing criminal law. If there are disturbances on Newmarket Heath and so on, we have the criminal law under which the police are able to deal with such matters. Unless there is a real likelihood of hooliganism on football-ground scale

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extending into these other sporting events, we ought not to be contemplating extending this legislation to cover those other events.
Lord Glenarthur: With respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, I really cannot believe that no case has been made out. Because the problem has not arisen yet does not mean, with all respect to her, that the problem may not arise in time to come. I certainly join with your Lordships in regretting in advance the fact that it might occur. It is conceivable. Since we are talking about trying to prevent in advance this sort of thing happening when one gets information that there may be a riot, for example, at a cricket match, or even, God forbid! at Ascot—although I believe that to be a highly remote possibility, if not even more unthinkable than the earlier examples—I really cannot believe that the noble Baroness herself would not agree that the matter should be nipped in the bud.
If the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, want to have it nipped in the bud, then I suggest that the means to do so is by the negative procedure, when the action can be taken straightaway, and not by the affirmative procedure which could involve, for example, the recall of Parliament. One understands that the recall of Parliament is necessary for matters of such importance as the Falklands crisis, but really it is not realistic to recall Parliament for the sort of crisis which might occur and which might nevertheless appear on the television screens in the same awful way as other examples have in the past.
If the affirmative resolution procedures were necessary, we would have to wait for weeks and could even wait for months before the process could be complete. And we would be depriving the Government of the ability to take swift and effective action. That is just as important as the safeguards to which the noble Baroness referred for her party. I think that that is why we need this particular measure.
The noble Lord, in pursuing his amendment, has proposed that, in effect, there should be a two-tier system of designation. Any association football ground could be designated by order subject to the negative procedure, but any other sports ground can be designated only by order subject to the affirmative procedure. I am a little confused about which procedure would be more appropriate for, say, Wembley, when soccer internationals are played there. My right honourable friend has said, and I say it for the umpteenth time today, what he intends to include in the initial designation order. It will be open to your Lordships under the negative resolution procedure to debate that and any other order. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that to insist on the affirmative resolution procedure is unnecessary, undesirable and will prevent the sort of action which we need if the unfortunate should happen. I hope he will not press his amendment.
Lord Mishcon: I wonder whether I could perhaps finally press the Minister without in any way embarrassing him. May I, first of all, rather resent the fact that when he talked in terms of a possible disastrous event at cricket he left it to this world's decision and when he referred to a disastrous event at
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Ascot he said, "God forbid!" As a lover of cricket, I resent the fact that the Almighty has been brought into Ascot and not to the Oval or Lord's where it is much more appropriate, I should have thought—and certainly if it were Lord's.
Having said that, not terribly seriously, may I make a serious point. I do not understand what the noble Lord the Minister is saying; and I am sure that it must be my fault. He says that there can be a disastrous event during the Recess and that it would be possible for Parliament to do something under the negative procedure. I do not understand the sequitur. Either it is in Recess, where Parliament can do nothing at all, and there is an emergency; or there is such a procedure as allows, even in the Recess, Parliament to do something; in which case Parliament could do it just as expeditiously under the affirmative procedure. When I asked for advice as to procedure, I was courteously given it and I was told that you can have an affirmative order taking immediate effect, as would emergency orders, subject to approval within 28 days.
Either the noble Lord is saying it can be done during the Recess without Parliament having a say at all—which, I think, frightens all of us—or he is saying that Parliament would have a say. Therefore, I do not understand his point in insisting on the negative procedure.
Lord Glenarthur: I would be the last person to fail to give due acknowledgment to cricket. Cricket has been well served, perhaps, although he is not here today, by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, and I am sure that he would have complained just as strongly as the noble Lord opposite.
However, turning to the more serious aspect, as I understand it—I hope I am not wrong, and I shall correct myself at a convenient moment if I am—under the negative procedure the power can come in immediately and can be debated during the period that the negative resolution lies on the Table. That is my understanding of it, which I believe to be correct. So if the noble Lord has a concern about it, I think he should understand that that is the procedure which applies in many other cases. I really do not think I can add to what I have said. We believe it is necessary to have these powers and I hope, as I said, that the noble Lord will not press his amendment.
Baroness Seear: I am sorry to keep popping up, but the noble Lord has said of the negative procedure that the whole point of it is that it can be used during the Recess. If the negative procedure is used during the Recess, nobody can raise it for debate, because Parliament will not be here.
A noble Lord: That is the whole point I was trying to make.
Baroness Seear: If I may say so, I do not think the noble Lord the Minister quite heard what I was saying. The whole point is that the Minister says he wants to be able to do this during the Recess. If he lays a negative resolution, he has just told us that Parliament is free to debate that. But the whole point about doing it in the Recess is that Parliament will not be here to debate it.
Lord Glenarthur: If I may say so, I think the noble Baroness may be under a misapprehension here. The negative procedure can be used when Parliament is in recess. That is where the advantage lies; and it can be debated during the 40 days.
Lord Mishcon: We must not keep popping up, and this is the last time I shall do it, I promise your Lordships. But if Parliament is in recess the whole point of the argument put forward by the noble Lord the Minister is that there is an emergency, and Parliament is not there to deal with it. If the thing is laid, it may very well be that Parliament, if they were sitting, could have the very right that the noble Lord the Minister has referred to; but if they are not sitting then they will not have that right because they are not there.
That is why I said: would the noble Lord the Minister, without giving any assurance at all to the Committee, but so that we can pass on to the next amendment, at least say that he will bring the arguments and submissions raised in the various parts of the Committee to the attention of his right honourable friend with a view to seeing whether or not be can bring an answer forward at the Report stage? I think, if I may say so, that that is the least one can expect, and I am not asking for any assurance whatsoever.
Lord Glenarthur: I shall certainly draw the attention of all those concerned to the exchange, but I must stand my ground a little on this. The fact is that the negative procedure can take effect when Parliament is not sitting to deal with an immediate problem, because the order can be made and it can lie on the Table, and it can be debated during the following 40 days. One has not got time to recall Parliament to deal with a particular problem which is forecast at a day or so's notice. We are talking about a perfectly standard provision of the negative procedure. It is different from the affirmative one, and the number of days that it has to lie on the Table is different.
In arguing that Parliament would not be able to debate these issues the noble Lord is really trailing a bit of a red herring. We are talking about the action that is necessary to meet a particular concern. That will be available under the negative procedure. But, having said that, I will of course study with great care the remarks that have been made, and I will draw them to the attention of my right honourable friend. Beyond that I can give no commitment.
Lord Monson: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I briefly put one slightly different question to him? He maintains that the negative procedure provides adequate safeguards. Just possibly it does; but is it not the case that by convention your Lordships' Chamber, in contrast to another place, has no effective powers when the negative procedure, as opposed to the affirmative procedure, is employed?
Lord Glenarthur: I think we have the same powers. I do not think the noble Lord is right in what he has just said.
Lord Airedale: My experience as a long-time member of the Joint Committee on Statutory
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Instruments leads me to support the Minister upon this matter. I understand it to be that under the negative procedure a statutory instrument is laid and comes into force upon the day which it says on the face of it that it shall come into force, and it remains in force until such time as a Prayer is prayed against it to annul it. If that Prayer is successful it is annulled; but otherwise it remains in force.
Lord Glenarthur: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his helpful comments.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The noble Lord will not be astonished to learn that his answer left me totally unconvinced, and I am afraid I must say to him that he also left the entire Committee unconvinced. Every single member of your Lordships' Committee who has spoken in this debate has been critical of the Government's position.
I did have a moment of fellow-feeling with the noble Lord, if he will allow me to say so. I must avoid a trip down memory lane at this particular stage of the evening, but I do remember defending the previous Government on the Welsh devolution Bill. There was a particularly forward-looking proposal in that Bill with the responsibility of which I was entrusted on behalf of the Home Office—largely on the grounds that no other department wanted to do it. We had some responsibility for racecourses, and there was a provision in the Bill delegating full responsibility for Welsh racecourses to the proposed Welsh Assembly. The only problem was that there were virtually no racecourses in Wales. In fact, we discovered there were one-and-a-half: the half was where National Hunt meetings were held, and the one, I believe, was at Chepstow.
I can remember a debate rather similar to the one we have just been having; namely, that I was trying to put a case for which I am bound to say I did not have a great deal of enthusiasm, and I was being assailed on every side. However, the moral of the story is that my colleagues ultimately took the view that this was an issue on which it would probably be sensible to reach a desirable compromise; and that was eventually done. I would say to the noble Lord that I think he has behaved with high gallantry this evening, defending his department and putting the case which has been no doubt approved by his right honourable friend; but, frankly, he has not convinced a single Member of your Lordships' Committee.
I would say this to the noble Lord, Lord Denham—whose courtesy, incidentally, round about seven o'clock I very much appreciated, if I may say so—as the principal Government business manager in this Chamber. On a Bill which is in fact being speeded through with very considerable despatch as a result of collaboration on all sides, it is most important that arguments as strong as those which have been deployed this evening should lead to a situation where the Government are prepared to look at the position following Committee stage and to consider whether they should not put some form of compromise before your Lordships' House on Report. None of us wants, next Wednesday, to be going into the Division Lobbies on a Bill which, frankly, should receive broad bipartisan support.

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There broadly is bipartisan support for this Bill; but, quite honestly, many of us are wholly unpersuaded by a case which rests on the arguments I should like now to summarise briefly. The first is that we have no intention of moving outside the game of football. That is the Home Secretary's view; it is the view of the Minister of State; and it has been repeated here this evening by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary. We welcome that.
We then go on to question why, in that case, we cannot have some provision which at least makes it possible for Parliament to consider the situation if in fact some future Home Secretary decides to move in a different direction. A future Home Secretary will not feel himself hound by the view taken this evening by the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, and we may well find some future Government misusing this legislation to extend the provisions of this Bill to sports outside football.
I have given a few illustrations of what could happen to county cricket in England. I am quite sure that there are many others of your Lordships in this Chamber who could give a whole string of similar examples of what might happen if this Bill were applied to other sports. All I am saying to the noble Lord is that if this Bill were extended to cricket it would make this piece of legislation an absolute nonsense.
8 p.m.
The suggestion, as I understand the argument, that we need the present Bill in its present form in case there is one August some appalling happening, at some county cricket match, so that a vigorous Home Office can immediately spring into action and extend the provisions of this Bill throughout the major county cricket grounds of this country, seems to me fanciful in the extreme. We would not even be debating this Bill tonight were it not for what happened in Brussels. That is the issue we have to keep before us. My noble friend Lady Seear said a few moments ago that one of the things Parliament must examine with the utmost care is governments of whatever political persuasion coming forward and saying that it would be very nice for the Secretary of State to have this power, and then finding it extremely difficult to explain why he needs the power.
The only examples we have had this evening have been the riots in Pakistan; the riots in India at cricket grounds; and apparently some disturbance in Australia. That does not seem to me the most formidable argument for having this provision in the Bill. I do not want to repeat the argument. Time is getting on. All I am saying to the noble Lord, and through him to the noble Lord, Lord Denham, is that I hope we shall not have a rigid departmental case being argued on every single amendment this evening.
There is a need for compromise on this. Most of us want an agreed measure. Indeed, I think all of us want an agreed measure. We do not want to have some boring, sterile, party conflict on this question. We want to reach agreement, but it needs two sides to compromise. I hope that we shall get that. On the basis of that statement, I seek the leave of the Committee to withdraw this amendment, but I leave no doubt in the
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Minister's mind that we shall be coming back to this on Wednesday unless in the meantime he can effect some form of compromise.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 3, leave out from ("offence") to end of line 7 and insert—

("(a) if the vehicle is a public service vehicle and he is the operator of the vehicle or the servant or agent of the operator, or

(b) if the vehicle is a hired vehicle and he is the person to whom it is hired or the servant or agent of that person").

The noble Lord said: With your Lordships' permission, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 6 and 7.
Amendment No. 6: Page 2, line 14, leave out ("in relation to such a vehicle").
Amendment No. 7: Page 2, line 16, leave out from ("1981") to end of line 18.
These amendments relate to the liability of operators and hirers of vehicles to which Clause 1 applies and their servants or agents who knowingly cause or permit the carriage of alcohol. As presently drafted, the clause catches the operator and the hirer and the servant or agent of either, whether the vehicle in question is a public service vehicle or a train. During proceedings in another place, concern was expressed that the position of British Rail and its employees would be different in England and Wales compared with Scotland. In England and Wales they would be liable; in Scotland they would not. We agree that the position should be the same, so far as possible, on both sides of the border. That is the purpose of these amendments.
The net effect of the amendments is this. For public service vehicles—that is, coaches and so on—the hirer and the operator and the servant or agent of either are all caught. For trains, only the hirer and his servant or agent are caught. British Rail and its drivers, guards and ticket collectors therefore are not caught. This seems only sensible. I believe that all reputable companies and their employees will do all in their power to ensure that the law is respected on their vehicles. Indeed, it is most necessary that they should do so.
It is unreasonable to expect the police to enforce these provisions without such co-operation. However, we also need to ensure that operators or their employees who encourage drinking, or fail to do all they can to prevent it, are penalised. The Bill provides all such penalties in relation to public service vehicles, but I think we can draw a distinction between them and railway passenger vehicles in this respect.
Coaches and mini-buses are hired out by a multiplicity of companies ranging from national fleets to an owner-driver of a single coach. With trains we are dealing primarily with a single operator, British Rail. It has power to make by-laws. It has an established disciplinary structure. It can look to the British Transport police to enforce the law on its vehicles and its stations. Indeed, British Transport police will often travel on trains. British Rail is able to deal effectively with any of its own employees who may offend against the law or the disciplinary

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regulations Football specials are often provided on hire to clubs and the main onus must then be on the club and its stewards to ensure that the law is upheld. I beg to move.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Perhaps I may express my appreciation on behalf of those Scots Members in another place who raised this matter and pointed out that you could have trains travelling between London and Glasgow under one regime while they were in England and another regime while they were in Scotland. I am very grateful indeed that the Bill has been so altered that the Scottish experience will continue and will be applied to England. I think it is very sensible. It carries out a pledge that was made in another place.
Lord Glenarthur: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, for his helpful and kind remarks.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Hayter): I have to point out that if Amendment No. 5 is approved I cannot call Amendments Nos. 6 and 7.
Lord Teviot Lord Teviot moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 14, leave out from beginning to ("in") in line 17 and insert—

("(a) "public service vehicle" has the same meaning as in section 1 of the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 and the exclusion under section 41(1) of that Act shall not apply, and

(b) "operator", in relation to a public service vehicle has the same meaning as in the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 and").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 5. I am grateful to my noble friend for the fact that on Second Reading he did not refer to any of my comments, and will do so now. I shall move this amendment quite quickly. I am afraid that on the Marshalled List it looks as clear as mud. However, I hope that with a short explanation of the intention it will be slightly clearer; but I fear that if it is not as clear as mud it will be as dry as dust.
If I read this brief very slowly—it is rather technical—I hope your Lordships will forgive me. The intention of my amendment is to ensure that any vehicle operated for hire or reward is caught by the provisions of this clause. By that I mean any vehicle, regardless of the owner, on which those travelling contribute directly or indirectly to the cost of the journey. These people are all too frequently the ones about whom we need to be concerned.
More precisely, the amendment has the effect of applying the clause to all vehicles which carry more than eight passengers if—and I quote Section 1 of the 1981 Act:
"payment is made for, or for matters which include, the carrying of passengers, irrespective of the person to whom the payment is made, and in the case of a transaction effected by or on behalf of a member of any association of persons (whether incorporated or not) on the one hand and the association or another member thereof on the other hand, notwithstanding any rule of law as to such transactions".
Smaller vehicles might also be caught, if any passenger pays a fare for the journey. The major change from the Bill is to bring in scope the so-called permit minibuses—there is no reason whatsoever why they should
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be excluded—and to emphasise the liability of those sharing self-drive hire mini-buses.
One recognises that, in the hiring conditions of responsible firms, the driver is required to remain sober and abide by the driving and traffic regulations. But only the driver is under contract to remain sober. Moreover, control for the use of the vehicle is remote and cannot readily be enforced. Because only the vehicle is hired it may well be cheaper than hiring a proper coach. Therefore, this Bill as drafted will provide a positive incentive for football fans to transfer from conventional coach travelling to mini-buses. I could even suggest that the Bill would create unfair competition for coach operators. But that is of secondary importance.
I think your Lordships will recognise that the Bill is lacking in its ability to meet the needs of the situation—and that is something we must all earnestly desire—unless my amendment, or one very similar, is made. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: I have to say to my noble friend that before he made his speech on Second Reading and I saw his amendment on the Marshalled List, I was not quite sure what direction the thrust of his argument would take. He said that this is a complex matter. The definition of "public service vehicle" in the Bill is the same as that in the Scottish Act and this will catch vehicles capable of carrying eight passengers or more, if they are carried for hire or reward. This will catch some mini-buses, but it may not catch all mini-buses, if they are not carrying passengers for hire or reward. The Government are aware of this, but there would be real difficulty in extending the definition of "public service vehicle" more widely without catching private vehicles, which would be contentious and would require careful thought, as I tried to indicate earlier.
In those circumstances, the Government decided that it would not be right to go beyond the definition in the Scottish Act; but, as my honourable friend the Minister of State pointed out in another place, the Government expect to introduce public order legislation next Session. That legislation could be an appropriate vehicle for reconsidering the issue after consultation and after we have had time to assess how the Bill works in practice.
I recognise that in this complex area I shall have to study carefully what my noble friend has said. I will do so and will certainly draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend. But I hope that with that understanding and with his own understanding of the fact that it is a complex issue, he will be content and will not press his amendment now.
Lord Teviot: I have no intention of pressing the amendment, but I am very glad about what my noble friend has said with regard to forthcoming legislation. This is a very sober moment in our discussions, which have been quite technical. I am grateful for what my noble friend has said. I shall read the report of what he has said, just as he will read the report of what I have said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 6:
[Printed earlier.]
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 4. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 6):
Page 2, line 14, leave out ("in relation to such a vehicle").
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 7:
[Printed earlier.]
The noble Lord said: I spoke to this also with Amendment No. 4. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 7):
Page 2, line 16, leave out from ("1981") to end of line 18.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Teviot Lord Teviot moved manuscript Amendment No. 7A:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Defences in connection with carriage of alcohol.
Where a person is charged with an offence under section 1(2) of this Act, it shall be a defence for him to prove that the alcohol was carried on the vehicle without his consent and that he did all he reasonably could to prevent such carriage.").
The noble Lord said: I apologise for the fact that there has been a complete muddle on my part. Two nights ago, because of the urgency of moving these amendments, I took to the Public Bill Office rather late at night two copies of the first amendment but not of this one, and I arrived here today and discovered that I had not put this one down. I feel that it is important that this amendment should be aired and discussed, and therefore I am most grateful to the Government for allowing this manuscript amendment. Also, I appreciate that they may not have time to study it fully and, if necessary, I shall put it down at a later stage.
Under Clause 1(2) of this Bill, it is an offence knowingly to cause or permit alcohol to be carried on a vehicle. These words are already the subject of considerable case law, and for this reason there is concern in the coaching industry that their drivers could unreasonably be put at risk. The word "cause" is not a problem. It denotes a positive control of the situation. The word "permit", however, while necessary, could be unhelpful. It has been held that permission may be "merely inferred", although knowledge is always essential; but with an interesting play on words that, where a person deliberately chooses not to know what another person is doing or failing to do, the first person nevertheless permits the action.
Let me apply this to a case where a coach driver is confronted by two or three rather large and formidable gentlemen—it could even be ladies—who he can see are carrying hip flasks of drinks. To meet the requirements of this Bill, the driver would have to tell these men or women that he could not carry them, unless they threw away their bottles of whatever drink it was. If he does that and they become aggressive, he may be left in the position that if he does not drive on he will be physically assaulted and may be quite seriously injured. That is no exaggeration. Your Lordships
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could ask anybody who drives a vehicle about injuries to himself or his friends caused by these rather strange people; it is not something to be taken lightly.
It is in these circumstances that I seek to introduce the statutory defence provided in this new clause. It is, I submit, only common justice to provide a defence of this nature which will, of course, be evaluated by the courts, according to the particular circumstances. I end by saying that this is almost a carbon copy of the defence which already exists in the excellent Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: Of course I sympathise with the argument which my noble friend has put forward in moving his amendment, that it would not be right for hirers, their servants or their agents in the case of trains, or operators, hirers, their servants or their agents in the case of coaches and minibuses, to face absolute liability for the carriage of alcohol by their passengers. But I have to tell him that his amendment is unnecessary.
The words used in the relevant defence in the Bill are "knowingly causes or permits". These words already import considerations of mens rea—that is to say, there must be either knowledge of the offending circumstances or wilful blindness to them. There are, of course, some circumstances in which it is very difficult for a coach driver to confront a bunch of young hooligans. The driver in such a case would be guilty of permitting the carriage of alcohol, but only if he knew or suspected that alcohol was being carried and if he had failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. In considering what were reasonable steps, the full circumstances of each case would be taken into account. including whether, for example, there was any intimidation of the driver or a refusal accompanied by threats of violence to obey his instructions.
I appreciate that in the Scottish legislation there is a specific statutory defence, but it would not be appropriate to include such a provision in this Bill, because under English law the word "permits" already imports considerations of mens rea. I therefore hope my noble friend will feel that his point has been fully met and that he will be able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Teviot: May I say a last word? My noble friend explained clearly the difference between Scottish and English law. I shall read carefully the report of what he said, which I am sure is absolutely correct. But I hope that drivers who are confronted by this situation will have good employers who will back them up, and that they will not be caused any embarrassment. All legislation is about people and I feel for the drivers of vehicles who may be confronted by this sort of situation. I thank my noble friend and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 [Offences in connection with alcohol, containers etc. at sports grounds]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: I have to point out a printing correction to Amendment No. 8 as it appears on the Marshalled List. The words "to which" should be left out the first time they appear.
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 19, leave out ("a controlled container") and insert ("an article to which this section applies").
The noble Lord said: With your Lordships' permission, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 11. It might be convenient also if I refer to Amendment No. 12, in the name of the noble Lord. Lord Harris of
Greenwich, and Amendment No. 13, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon.
Amendment No. 11: Page 2. line 33, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
(" (3) This section applies to any article capable of causing injury to a person struck by it, being—

(a) a bottle, can or other portable container (including such an article when crushed or broken) which—

(i) is for holding any drink, and

(ii) is of a kind which, when empty, is normally discarded or returned to, or left to he recovered by, the supplier or

(b) part of an article falling within paragraph (a) above;

but does not apply to anything that is for holding any medicinal product (within the meaning of the Medicines Act 1968).")
Amendment No. 12: Page 2, line 36, leave out ("capable of causing injury to a person struck by it") and insert ("made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person or intended by the person having it with him for use by him")
Amendment No. 13: Page 2, line 36, leave out ("capable of causing injury to a person struck by it") and insert ("made or adapted for use causing injury to the person or intended by the person having it with him for such use ")
I apologise for the printing error, which should have been spotted. These amendments respond to criticisms in another place about the range of items which would be caught by the definition of "controlled container" in Clause 2(3) of the Bill. In effect, the amendments restrict the offence to a narrower range of containers.
It is of course already an offence under general legislation to be in possession of an offensive weapon. That offence would cover items such as knives or sharpened poles or other items of that kind which were brought into a football ground. The purpose of the offences relating to controlled containers in this Bill is to catch containers such as bottles and cans which, if used as missiles, are capable of causing injury. The offence in the Bill catches all containers designed to carry liquid which are capable of causing injury. This extends to containers of drink, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, and to containers of liquids other than drink. Any such item cannot easily be caught by the offensive weapon offence because it is almost impossible to prove that it is not to be used solely for an innocent purpose.
It is of course impossible to catch all the items which could conceivably be used as a missile. For example, coins have been thrown at the goalkeeper, and one can readily understand that being hit on the back of the head by a 10p coin could well lead to injury. But it would not be sensible to make it an offence to be in possession of coins. The purpose of this offence is not to catch every item which can be used as a missile, but only those containers which cannot easily be caught by the offensive weapon offence and which, experience shows, are frequently used as missiles. That is the background to the offence.
A similar offence is of course contained in the Scottish Act and the definition of "controlled
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container" in Clause 2(3) of this Bill is closely based on the Scottish definition. Nevertheless the definition was criticised in another place as catching too wide a range of items. It was pointed out that the definition would catch items such as thermos flasks, which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, mentioned earlier, babies' bottles, deodorant aerosols and bottles of scent. It was argued that, while these item were capable of being used as missiles, they were not likely so to be used, and that such a prohibition would bear unreasonably on respectable spectators. For example, it would become unlawful for a person to be in possession of a flask of tea or hot soup, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, suggested, which he wanted to drink to keep warm on a cold day. The Government undertook to look again at the definition of "controlled container", and these amendments are the result.
As compared with Clause 2(3) as it now stands, the amendments limit any containers caught in two respects. First, only containers for drink would be caught. Clause 2(3) catches containers of liquid. The effect of this is to free such items as scent bottles and deodorant aerosols. Secondly, the amendments would catch only containers which are normally discarded when empty, or returned to the supplier. This would decriminalise—if that is the right word—such items as thermos flasks and babies' bottles.
Your Lordships will perhaps have noted that similar amendments have not been tabled to the equivalent offence in the Scottish Act. My Scottish Office colleagues have been consulted about this. I understand that there have been no major problems north of the Border and it is not therefore proposed to make any amendment there. Nevertheless the Scottish Office will observe the English provisions with interest. My right honourable and honourable friends in another place and your Lordships' House might be prepared to consider an amendment to the definition in the Scottish Act if it seems advantageous in the Scottish circumstances, and if there is a suitable legislative opportunity.
These amendments respond to criticisms that too wide a range of containers would be caught, and I hope that the restrictions which they embody will be welcomed by your Lordships. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Renton): I have to point out that, as the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, has referred to Amendments Nos. 11, 12 and 13, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 12 or 13 if Amendment No. 11 is agreed to.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The new definition put down by the Minister improves what was an unsatisfactory situation. We cannot in any event, as the noble Lord in the Chair has pointed out, pursue our own amendments this evening—the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and myself—because they are caught by the terms of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur. I should like to consider again the general questions involved in this issue. I shall not add anything more this evening. I have already deployed with some vigour the argument about the bottle of orange squash. I shall not trouble the Committee with it again this evening, though I fear I may have to trouble your Lordships again next Wednesday.
Lord Mishcon: I shall add to this debate only very briefly so that the noble Lord the Minister can consider whether he feels there is any weight to the submissions that I have made. It will save the time of the Committee if I speak to Amendment Nos. 12 and 13, realising what we have already been told must be the ruling if the amendment of the noble Lord the Minister is passed.
I ask him to consider two matters in regard to his own amendment. First, I should have thought that if somebody brought his own glass or glasses from his own home and said that that is what he had done, there would be difficulties. The first is whether the police would have any right at all to deal with the container under this clause because it is his own glass and is not one therefore that either would normally be destroyed or one that would normally be returned to the supplier. It is his own glass.
The second point that I would ask the noble Lord the Minister to consider—I do not ask for more than consideration—is this. The noble Lord realises, unless I have read this wrongly, that there is an alternative. It is,
"a person who has intoxicating liquor or the container",
which is now differently defined,
"in his possession".
How therefore does one deal with the innocent container which has orange juice in it, or any non-alcoholic liquid in it, or indeed water in it? I ask the noble Lord the Minister to consider that matter not now—I do not expect any answer now—but when he has the leisure and time to do it in order to see whether he thinks there is anything in the points I have made which ought to be covered.
I turn for only a brief moment to Amendments Nos. 12 and 13. I ask the Minister to consider whether he feels that Amendment No. 12, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, or my amendment, deserve some consideration to see whether they are preferable. I mention only one word about the difference between Amendments Nos. 12 and 13. Looking at Amendment No. 12—I think I recognise the organisation which was responsible for it—I thought that the final words "for use by him" in the passage which reads,
"intended by the person having it with him for use by him",
were largely meaningless. I therefore altered that in Amendment No. 13 to "for such use". The words "such use" relate back of course to the words,
"made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person".
That is the reason for the difference in wording between Amendments Nos. 12 and 13. I was, of course, a supporter of the spirit behind Amendment No. 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris.
I shall content myself with those remarks. I do not intend to ask the noble Lord the Minister for a considered reply to the points I have raised; it would be unfair of me to do so. However, I hope they will at least have his attention between now and Report stage.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Inglewood: I ask my noble friend to consider the drafting again before Report stage in one week's
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time. I have listened to this debate from beginning to end. The longer I have listened, the more complicated it looks as though this Bill is to become. I refer to the small points which will arise and the impossible situations in which people will find themselves. We have all drunk all kinds of liquor from thermos flasks in trains and elsewhere.
One point which has not yet been mentioned and which might be important is this. Those of us who go on holiday in the Alps and elsewhere nearly always carry a leather bottle filled with wine. Can it be said that such a flask is an offensive weapon or not? After all, one could turn around and hit somebody over the head with it. Or should one now carry around one's wine in a soft receptacle?
Lord Ross of Marnock: I hope that the Minister will take note of this single point, when he refers to the watchfulness of the Scots and the possibility of changing Scottish legislation because of what may happen in England. I advise the Minister to leave well alone. When we included such items as fruit juice bottles, it was because they can be pretty powerful weapons. All one has to do is take such a bottle and break it against the heel of one's shoe and it becomes a powerful weapon. Long before we ever talked about violence at football grounds in the terms we are now, I have known such to be used as a weapon in certain parts of Scotland.
I advise the Minister to leave well alone. He may do what he likes about England—I will let him make a mess of it if he wants to do so—but he should not interfere with a provision that is proving useful in Scotland.
Lord Airedale: I am a little concerned about the proposed new subsection (3)(a)(ii) in Amendment No. 11. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, mentioned hip flasks. A hip flask, if thrown, could undoubtedly make a very nasty weapon indeed. I can well imagine a hooligan, having consumed the neat spirits from his hip flask, deciding to use it as a weapon. The trouble is that the hip flask would escape under subsection (3)(a)(ii) because although it is a container, under (a), and is for holding any drink, under (i), it is not, under subsection (3)(a)(ii)
"of a kind which, when empty, is normally discarded or returned to, or left to be recovered by, the supplier".
Admittedly, if one omits subsection (3)(a)(ii) and let lady's thermos of
tea. However, I should have thought it was worth while doing that because the police act sensibly in these matters. They do not prosecute every offence that is committed. In practice, they would say to the lady with a thermos of tea, "Strictly speaking, you are not supposed to bring that in here and perhaps you should not do so again". But they would not prosecute her. I feel that we need to include the hip flask in the offence, even at the expense of having a technical offence if one brings in a thermos of tea.
Lord Glenarthur: I listened with interest to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, concerning glasses. I believe he was talking about glasses which could be used for the consumption of the soup, tea, or whatever

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fluid it is, inside the thermos. That is a very good point. I will study his remarks with great care and will consult upon them further.
This is a very difficult area. As the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, said, the half-consumed bottle of orange squash to which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred could become a missile. The amendment in the name of the noble Lords, and to which I spoke earlier, would have us go further than we have already gone, in that the noble Lords wish to limit the scope of controlled containers to those which are offensive weapons. I do not believe that that goes far enough.
Containers which meet the description proposed by the noble Lords would already be offensive weapons under Section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, from which I believe both noble Lords have drawn the words for their amendment, or so it appears. In that respect, the amendment duplicates existing law. Indeed, an offence under the 1953 Act carries higher penalties than this Bill—up to two years' imprisonment.
In Clause 2, we are trying to catch items which are used as missiles at football matches but which are not of themselves offensive weapons. For example, a can of Coca-Cola is not self-evidently an offensive weapon because it may well be held for legitimate purposes—that of drinking the contents, obviously. It is therefore unlikely that it would be covered by the 1953 Act because of the difficulty of proving that it is possessed with the intention of using it to cause injury. Fortunately, most people do not throw Coca-Cola cans at one another. But some hooligans do and the end result is much the same. It is certainly regrettable that in order to prevent such misuse, innocent people have to he forbidden to take their drinks into football crowds.
I believe that our amendment is the best way of meeting this problem. My noble friend Lord Inglewood asked me to consider this aspect again. What both he and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, may be forgetting, when they talk about bringing a flask containing wine or any other alcoholic drink into a ground, is that Clause 2(1) makes reference to,
"A person who has intoxicating liquor",
and then goes on to describe the times or conditions for entry under subsection (1)(a) and (b).
This means that the person will have committed an offence if he has brought the liquor into the ground. The container as such is an additional application to this particular clause. I believe this point was well covered by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, when he said that we should leave well alone. We may have to take account of the particular matter of glasses, but I hope that the concerns expressed by both the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, and my noble friend have been met by what I have said. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 23, after ("viewed") insert—
("(other than an area to which an order under section 3 of this Act applies)")
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 9 I will, by leave of the Committee, speak also to Amendment No. 15, because the two are interlinked.
Amendment No. 15: Clause 3, page 3, line 27, leave out subsection (3).
The substance of these two amendments has already had a considerable airing. Certainly it was greatly enlarged upon during the Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, when he gave a wonderful exposition of the case for making these amendments.
In replying to me during the Second Reading debate, the Minister indicated that in another place the Minister of State had implied that the Government would keep the situation under review—I refer to the question of liquor being sold in suites or boxes. Since that debate I have received information which indicates that of the five boxes at Tottenham Hotspur where the leases are due for renewal, a clear direction has been given by two out of the five lessors—that is, 40 per cent. of them—that they will not be renewing their leases if the purpose for which they originally leased the boxes is withdrawn.
I am not for a moment trying to hinge a whole case on the leases of five boxes at one particular club. However, I wonder whether the Minister might consider trying to be helpful. I do not know whether the Government or any of their Ministers have had any discussions on this difficult problem—and it is a difficult problem. The Government cannot afford to turn their back on it. Have the Government had any discussions with representatives of the clubs involved in this particular decision and who could he very seriously financially affected?
We have until next Wednesday before we come back to the Bill having completed the Committee stage tonight. It might be helpful, I suggest, if the Minister, or another Minister in his department, would be prepared, before next Wednesday, to meet a small deputation from the clubs involved. He might then be able to come back to us on Wednesday next with an agreed formula, rather than have a situation where clubs will quite unnecessarily lose substantial sums of money and, as it were, have to bury the corpse before proving the case.
The Minister may wish to respond to that suggestion so that I need not proceed further and delay noble Lords this evening. I have no desire to do that. It may be a way out, but I ask the Minister to respond to my suggestion.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I rise briefly to support my noble friend. More than once since Second Reading began we have posed to the Minister the problems and consequences of the legislation. I fully understand the imperatives of the Minister. He has every justification for taking what I call drastic action. However, the Minister is a fair man and the department is anxious to proceed with the maximum co-operation from those who will be affected.
There is no doubt whatever that the general view of the public will be to welcome the thrust and the action of the Government, which is designed to tackle this terrible problem. There is not much time, but that is not the fault of those who either oppose the measure or who are not concerned with it. At the same time, we

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understand the reason why there is so little time—if the legislation is to be effective for the beginning of next season it must complete all its stages through both Houses before Parliament rises for the Recess.
I do not suggest that those who see the Minister will do so with any great confidence that a radical change might be achieved, but they would at least be satisfied to hear from the mouths of the Minister and his spokesmen the real reasons why, in the light of their plight, the Minister is unable to accede to their request. The Minister has more experience than I in these matters. There are bound to have been occasions when the bleak decisions beforehand are amended or twisted in the light of discussions. One does not know what good ideas might come from the mouths of those outside the department, or even from its officials, after they have heard the germ of an idea which might emerge.
It is a reasonable amendment with an even more reasonable suggestion which could provide the ground for the withdrawal of the amendment.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Willis: May I, briefly, also support the amendment. I listened very carefully to the Minister's reply at Second Reading. First, it seemed to me that his main argument was that it would be unfair to have drinking in private boxes when law-abiding citizens elsewhere in the ground were not allowed to have a drink. Secondly, the Minister felt that if those law-abiding spectators in the ground could see, through the windows of the boxes, someone swigging liquor they would feel badly treated.
There is a problem, as I am sure the Minister realises. I think that he passed over it rather lightly in his reply when he said that he does not share the view that the loss of revenue from private boxes will be very great. I can assure the noble Lord the Minister that it will be enormous. One is killing Peter to pay Paul because the money that could be used for ground improvements will not be available if the boxes are not sold.
As I said earlier, it is impossible to adapt the boxes at Tottenham Hotspur, but a deputation might be able to convince the Minister that, for example, if one-way glass is installed—the crowds cannot see into the boxes at Tottenham, anyway—it would certainly remove that objection. One would then have a confined space with 10 or 12 people in it who are incapable of influencing others or creating a riot. At the same time it would be preserving a valuable source of income for the football club. That seems reasonable. On the one hand, one does not want to deprive people of the pleasure of a private box but, on the other hand, one sees the point that one does not want to irritate the law-abiding spectators on the ground. Why not compromise? Why not meet a deputation which can put forward this sort of argument? That is a reasonable suggestion and I hope that the Minister will agree to it.
Lord Monson: I think it might be useful if someone from another quarter of the Committee also spoke in support of these two amendments. It was pointed out in another place on 3rd July that the three matches that led to the introduction of this legislation were
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played at football grounds where alcohol is banned. We should bear that in mind when considering the subsection which Amendment No. 15 seeks to delete.
There seems to be an element of class distinction in the Government's attitude. It was pointed out in another place on 3rd July by an honourable friend of the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, that he—that is, the noble Lord's honourable friend—knew of no case in which a person had become blind drunk in an executive box and then gone downstairs and thumped somebody. Yet people in private boxes at football matches who have never laid a finger on anyone will now be forbidden to drink alcohol while watching their favourite sport. In contrast, different types of people in private boxes at Ascot who are no more violent—but no less so, either—will be permitted to continue drinking themselves into such a state that they can hardly hold their binoculars while racing goes on.
It will be said that this subsection is the consequence of collective punishment which anyone connected with football in any way, however remote they may be from the hooligan element, must suffer as a consequence of the hooligans' actions. Ever since my schooldays I have detested collective punishment. I dislike the collective punishment imposed by FIFA and I dislike the punishment that this subsection effectively imposes. It is a punishment which, it was pointed out in another place, will cost football clubs, collectively, £4 million a year.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I hope that the Government will look at this matter again. The point made a few moments ago that the three last serious disturbances in this country took place on grounds where there was no alcohol demonstrates one problem. It is a problem which will confront the Government if the Bill goes on the statute book in its present form.
Let us assume that we enter the next football season with the Bill enacted in its present form. A number of football clubs, as we have heard this evening from several of our colleagues, undoubtedly will be seriously financially damaged. One or two of the smaller clubs will probably be driven into bankruptcy. The loss to football could be substantial. What will happen if the disturbances continue? The punishment will have been awarded, as the noble Lord, Lord Monson, said, and clubs will have been grievously damaged in economic terms and the violence will continue.
The Minister must accept this. There are many senior police officers—I do not claim to speak for the whole of the police service this evening, and there are probably as many different opinions on this legislation in the police force as there are within the Committee—who do not believe that the problem is caused by drinking at the grounds. The problem arises from the drinking that occurs before reaching the grounds. We are at real risk of doing something that will damage the game of football and achieve little or no advantage for public safety.
Lord Glenarthur: The noble Lord, Lord Dean, has raised a difficult question, that of whether drinking and the sale of drink should be permitted in private boxes and restaurants. Of course the Government are

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aware that clubs which provide boxes, of which I understand that there are some 32 at present, are concerned about the potential loss of revenue if drinking ceases to be permitted. I referred to this earlier, and we have given the matter a very great deal of consideration.
We are not suggesting that people who use private boxes are hooligans—of course not; neither are the great majority of spectators in the stands and on the terraces. We want to ensure that the controls in the Bill apply fairly to all spectators. As I indicated at Second Reading, it is not possible to introduce controls of this sort without them having an impact on respectable spectators. I regret it, but it is an inescapable situation. I personally share many of the reservations which the noble Lord. Lord Monson, expressed about collective punishments, from the same sort of background of the things which happened at school.
Against this background, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, indicated and as I said earlier, many people would regard it as unfair if people in boxes were able to enjoy a drink when watching the match while those on the terraces and in the stands, who were equally respectable people, were prevented from doing so. I think that this would be seen in some quarters as conferring an unacceptable privilege on the occupants of boxes. The Bill prohibits the possession or sale of drink anywhere in the ground from where there is a direct view on to the pitch. Of course it does not preclude drinking out of sight of the pitch. Some clubs may already have or may wish to provide areas out of sight of the pitch where drink may be served to occupants of boxes or any other spectators, and it will be for the magistrates to say in each case where and under what conditions drink may safely be sold there.
I believe that people who use private boxes have the interests of football at heart and will support the principles of this Bill. I hope that the restrictions on drinking during the match—and I myself think that drinking must be regarded as a pleasant luxury rather than a strict necessity—will not cause them to diminish their support for the club, particularly those who can go and have a drink elsewhere, if not in view of the pitch. In the long run they, like all of us, have much to gain from restoring to football its good name. That seems to me to be the most important matter. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Dean, that the effect on the revenue of football clubs, if the good name of football is not restored, will be much more serious, and I think he should bear that closely in mind.
The Government accept that some loss of revenue is to be expected, and that is why we have undertaken to monitor the effect on club sponsorship income over the coming season. I have no doubt, too, that we shall carefully monitor the situation as regards hooliganism, and if there is hooliganism at "dry" football grounds and the measures that have been taken do not seem to be having the effect which they are designed to have, directors' boxes will be taken into account in this way. But if it is the case that there is a major fall in sponsorship income to the detriment of the game, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State would be prepared, in the context of new public order legislation, to consider whether an amendment might be made which would relax restrictions in the Bill.
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However, we do not feel able to recommend such a relaxation at present.
I hope that the noble Lord will not press his amendment, but I should like to develop the theme a little more. So far as discussions are concerned, the noble Lord may be aware—or perhaps he is not—that my honourable friend the Minister of State has discussed the issue with Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United and the Home Office has been in touch with the Football League. Quite honestly, I do not think that there would be much point in having a further deputation come to meet my honourable friend. I shall of course draw his attention to the remarks which the noble Lord has made and the support that others have given him, but in view of the discussions which have already taken place I do not think that there will be much future in pursuing the matter.
It was suggested that whether or not an area has a direct view on to the pitch is an irrelevant criterion for deciding whether the sale of alcohol should he permitted there. But it is not in such areas that drinking, and especially the possession of beer cans, bottles and so on, is most likely to cause trouble. I take it that those who have raised this matter do not seriously propose that drinking on the terraces and in the stands should be permitted. I am sure that that is not what they intend. It seems to me that it is perfectly sensible to say that it is at the places where people sit or stand in order to watch the match where, under all circumstances, we wish to prevent drinking and the possession of cans and bottles. I know that there are those who do not agree that the general rule should catch private boxes. That has been made quite clear and I have explained why that is not the Government's view. We believe that the same rules must apply to all spectators at a match.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, suggested that the provision of one-way glass might be a sufficient means of allowing drinking in private boxes. I have looked into this. It has been considered and I have to say that I doubt very much whether it would help. The Government have decided that the fairer solution is to apply the same criteria to drinking by all spectators alike.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The noble Lord is saying that it probably would not help. Can he say why it would not help? It seems to many of us that it would help a great deal.
Lord Glenarthur: If the noble Lord will allow me to develop my theme, I can point out precisely where in the Bill he will find that it does not help. The restrictions in the Bill affect law-abiding spectators in the stands and on the terraces, and they affect law-abiding spectators in private boxes also. It is true that if spectators who were not allowed to drink could see other spectators drinking freely in private boxes, it would be an annoyance for them. I accept that and that it might reduce their respect for the law. But even if they cannot see directly into the boxes in the way in which I think the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, was suggesting, people have a pretty shrewd idea of what goes on there.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: They suspect it.
Lord Glenarthur: Suspect, maybe. They probably know, because, apart from anything else, on purely practical grounds, it is possible to see through one-way glass if the light happens to be in the right direction or if there is a light behind it. They will know that drinking is going on and that it is smiled upon by the clubs and permitted by the law. I do not see that one-way glass is the answer.
The point is that the Bill as written covers this particular point because it refers to the need to be able to "see from"—"may be directly viewed" is the key phrase here. I am trying, with some difficulty at this time of day, to find the relevant clause in the Bill. It is Clause 2(1)(a):
"A person who has intoxicating liquor … in his possession—(a) at any time during the period of a designated sporting event when he is in any area of a designated sports ground from which the event may be directly viewed".
So we are talking about looking out, not about looking in. That is where the noble Lord's suggestion falls down.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I am sorry that the noble Lord the Minister could not have been more sympathetic and responsive to what I still think is a reasonable request. I do not know when the Minister last stood on a football terrace or sat in a football stand. I do not go to football matches as frequently as I did. I was blooded at the same two grounds as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder—namely, Manchester City and Manchester United—and probably at the same time, so maybe we stood there together as boys. I know that in the early 1930s of the two Manchester City was the premier side. I was sent to watch United if I had misbehaved because the team was playing so badly. But the position has been reversed a bit since.
9 p.m.
I think that the Minister's response could have been a little better. I probably watch about two or three matches a year now. I watch Leeds—which is where I live—or go across to watch Manchester City for the odd game. I have yet to see what the Minister or the Bill are trying to imply—people quaffing beer from cans in the stands at Maine Road or Elland Road. It just does not happen. I have never seen people sitting down in the stands swigging pints of beer at the football grounds to which I go. A lot of this is based on a completely false premise. As many noble Lords have said, the trouble is not in the grounds but before people get anywhere near them. The pubs that have the trouble in the Leeds area are not the ones that the genuine Leeds supporters use; they are the ones that people go to from outside.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt him, but in that case can the noble Lord explain the success of the legislation in Scotland?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the Minister cannot have the argument both ways. I fully agree that it has been a success in Scotland, but numerous noble Lords have indicated today that where the experiment has been tried in England and the grounds were completely dry, there has been the worst possible crowd trouble anywhere. In some cases abstinence must fire the blood. I have never seen that, but that
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would appear to be the logical conclusion. People abstain and get angry about other things; it may be frustration.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is not part of the answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, that although some violence is alcohol related, a lot is not, and that is obvious?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am sure that that is the case. I do not want to detain the Committee much longer. In this country we have a ground which, although it is not now the best in the world, is still the citadel of soccer internationally. I am talking about Wembley Stadium. It possibly stages more showpiece games than any other stadium in the world. Before any footballer of note from any country in the world hangs up his boots he wants it to be known that he has played at Wembley.
Wembley has a first-class restaurant which can cater for 200 people. There is no direct access to the stands. After the war, when the cold war started to melt a bit, Russia sent across some superbly trained football teams—Moscow Dynamo and Spartak. Then the Hungarians came and showed us how to play the game that we had taught them. Part of that showpiece was the catering. There is a magnificent restaurant with a full panoramic view of the pitch. What do we tell visitors when they come now? "We are sorry, but there was an incident in Brussels which a lot of people think could have been prevented or diminished by proper control and arrangements, and the citadel of soccer has to suffer".
We are not asking much of the Minister at this late stage. He may have discussed the matter with Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, but that is not the approach that I want. I am not particularly concerned about the financial well-being of some of the clubs at the top. They can always adjust and look after themselves. I think that Manchester United has had the highest average gate in the country for a number of years. But, as I said earlier, even a club like that may not succeed. Liverpool has had the most successful run of any club in history, but it still lives almost on a financial tightrope. These clubs must have extra fund raising and revenues other than the turnstiles clicking over.
I certainly shall not press the amendment tonight. But I think that we should have had a more sympathetic response and not just be told that the Minister of State has spoken to certain people. I was hoping for a meeting so that there could be, not confrontation, because I do not want to use that word, but consultation between the Minister and his advisers and the collective advisers to the sport. What suits one club may not necessarily suit another. We need that in order to present to your Lordships next Wednesday a formula acceptable to both sides.
I can see what will happen. The trend that I have spoken about of the five boxes at Spurs may be the yardstick. We are talking about only two out of the five which are empty at present. It might go to four out of five once people decide that it is not worth it if there cannot be entertainment on the basis set out in the original contract. The Government are changing the name of the game unnecessarily. Once it starts to

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happen it is hard to stop. When someone has lost £4 million it is no good the Government saying, "Well, you were right and we were wrong. We will reverse the situation". That is not necessary.
I stood at Maine Road as a kid when there were 84,500 people there. It was the biggest crowd ever at a football ground outside Wembley watching the Cup Tie in 1933. I have watched football ever since. I have never seen the abuse on the terraces for which some people are in a blanket fashion condemning football supporters in this country. It is totally unfair. It is as had as some of the judgments that are coming through in the Belgian courts on some of our people. I do not know whether noble Lords saw the interview with the Belgian lawyer about the case of the lad from Liverpool. It was an utter disgrace. The Belgian lawyer said that there was no case, no evidence or anything else, but the lad was convicted. I do not know what his record was, but he wa convicted because he was one of a crowd. It seems to me that because of what happened at Brussels for time immemorial we shall subject our people and our clubs to blanket justice when they have not even been involved in the excesses.
I do not believe that the Minister or the Government would be in any way diminishing the desires of your Lordships or of those in another place to deal with the delicate situation by agreeing to the request to have discussions before next Wednesday with representatives of the people involved. Otherwise, I feel that totally unnecessary and irreparable damage will be done.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I did not wish to indicate a lack of sympathy for his arguments. I said that the Government came to their conclusions after a great deal of thought. I also said that I would make sure that my honourable friend was aware of the arguments that had been put forward. I said that in the light of the fact that he was already been in touch with two clubs—albeit clubs that may be better off than some of those which the noble Lord seeks to protect—and that the Home Office has already been in touch with the Football League. What I also said—and I draw the noble Lord's attention to it—was that we would monitor the situation closely and that in the light of experience over this season my right honourable friend might consider whether or not it would be appropriate to bring forward amending legislation to relax the restrictions of this Bill when we come to the new public order legislation in the next session. That is what I have said. I shall draw my right honourable friend's attention to it. I hope that with that assurance—and there is no intention at all on my part to show lack of sympathy—the noble Lord will not press his amendment.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I am sure the Minister will understand that I am not trying to delay anything. What goes from your Lordship's Chamber should have almost unanimous support, if that is possible. However, there is no question at all that a number of noble Lords who have spoken do not feel inclined to give this particular clause in the Bill, as it stands at present, unanimous support. I do not want to divide the Committee on this issue. However, I am bound to tell your Lordships that, if the evidence comes in that because of the time factor the finances of clubs will
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suffer adversely, I shall be bound to come back to this matter in some other form at Report stage.
I have always had respect for the answers of the noble Lord the Minister and the sympathetic way in which he normally deals with matters. He has said, "Well, if this goes wrong, we will have a look at it". What is the good of that? That is like, for example, a bank manager saying to a person he has made bankrupt and could have helped. "Well, I am sorry, but we are a bit late now". It is like a doctor saying, "I could have saved you, but you are a client for the undertaker". That is the very situation that we are trying to prevent. We are trying to eliminate the possibility of what in my opinion would be irreparable damage, based on the premise that historically and even today people in our football grounds stand on the terraces and sit in the stands quaffing pints of beer. This premise is absolute rubbish, and I do not know what people base it on.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Perhaps I may speak very briefly, because the Committee has devoted a substantial amount of time to this amendment. On the other hand, it is an important issue. If the legislation goes through in its present form it will undoubtedly do substantial damage to a number of football clubs.
Inevitably the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, is an enthusiast for both Manchester United and Manchester City. There have been enthusiasts for Tottenham Hotspur. However, some of the clubs who will suffer most grievously are those who have not been mentioned—some of those who are struggling for survival. I hope very much that between now and next Wednesday this matter will be considered very seriously by the Government.
However, I understand what could loosely be described as the class warfare point. The argument is this: why should the men on the terraces be prevented from drinking, whereas those in the boxes are allowed to drink as much as they want? Of course I understand the argument. However, in my view it is an entirely false argument. That is for two reasons. First of all, there is no evidence—I repeat, "no evidence"—that watching a match is liable to make one involve oneself in acts of violence. I do not become concerned at those grounds where the magistrates have given their consent for drink to be made available. After all, we all know the background to the situation. We start off with total prohibition: drinking will take place only if a magistrates' court gives its authorisation for that drinking to take place.
In that situation is it really possible to argue that what I regard as this false distinction as between those who can see what is going on and those who cannot see what is going on should form part of the legislation at all? I do not believe that those people on the terraces or sitting wherever they may be, in an executive box or in the stands, are more likely to become involved in violence if they are drinking in those seats or standing wherever it may be.
I hope that this particular concept will be looked at very carefully because this is why there is a problem at all. If the Government were to say that a magistrates' court must decide whether a particular ground can be allowed to serve alcohol and that should be the only test, together with the control contained in the

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provisions, I think we would get over this difficulty immediately. The only problem is that it is suggested that a person would be committing a criminal offence if he were in a position to watch the match. I think that is unnecessary. I think that is the point which should be reconsidered by the Government between now and next Wednesday.
I end on this point. I understand the Government's difficulty about seeing deputations. If I may say so, I understand inevitably the problems. However, I hope that the Government will consider this point. This matter goes wider than the amendment. I speak to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, as one of the veterans of the Sexual Offences Bill. I think there is something to be said for seeing whether there can be informal consultations to see whether we can get some broad measure of agreement between all parts of the Committee between now and next Wednesday. We would have a much shorter Report stage and Third Reading if we were to do that.
Lord Glenarthur: I should like to respond briefly to the noble Lord, Lord Hams. I do not really think that in the short period of time between now and Wednesday it will be practicable to produce the sort of consulatations that the noble Lord seeks. That would be one of the additional considerations that would face the suggested consultation with the football grounds that the noble Lord has suggested. It is better to consider what has been said today. I shall draw my honourable friend's attention to it. I shall deal with the matter myself and in consultation with my honourable friend as quickly as I can. If there is anything that I can do to help, I shall let the noble Lord know, but I do not honestly believe that I can go as far as he wants this evening.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Is the noble Lord really saying that he is declining—I am sure he is not—to meet a number of Members of the House between now and next Wednesday? Surely, it is in the Government's own interests to agree. Otherwise, we shall have a very tiresome Report stage on the Bill. I pointed out earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, that there is some obligation on the Government, given the very speedy way in which this Bill is being put on the statute book, to try to make some concessions. Frankly, the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, has not made a single concession this evening. He has not even begun to imply that he is prepared to move in any direction at all. It has been resist, resist, resist at every stage. I do not believe that that is reasonable.
Lord Glenarthur: I do not suggest that it would be impossible to meet the noble Lord to discuss the matter. I am concerned about whether the discussions that he wants would be particularly fruitful. If the noble Lord so wishes, I shall certainly see what can be done about a meeting. I still think, however, that it will be extremely difficult to meet the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Dean, and by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. We are talking about real matters of principle in this part of the Bill. We are aware of the concern that has been expressed. It has been deeply thought about and discussed by the Government. That
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is why the Bill is in the form it is now. I shall certainly do my best to meet the noble Lords concerned at some point. I cannot, off the top of my head, say when. It will certainly not be tomorrow because I shall not be here. I shall, however, bear the matter in mind. I hope that with that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I shall not proceed further other than to say that if the position is as rigid by the time we reach Report stage next Wednesday this may well be an issue that cannot be resolved simply by debating it. Some of us feel very strongly over a part of the Bill that we consider unnecessary. However, not wishing to delay proceedings any further tonight, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Inglewood Lord Inglewood moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 2, line 24, after ("enter") insert ("or loitering in the vicinity of).
The noble Lord said: I shall try to be very brief because I do not believe that the amendment is likely to give rise to a long discussion. The words of the amendment sound like charge room jargon, but they add, I believe, to the clarity of the meaning of this subsection. The next subsection begins by dealing with a person who is drunk. I wonder what is the definition of a person being drunk who may be loitering. I believe I am right in saying that the average police sergeant has several ways of describing a person who is drunk. Here, it says no more than a person "who is drunk". If we are to be precise over so many small matters, we should be able to define someone who is incapable. I support especially the words "loitering in the vicinity or which add considerably to the meaning of the subsection. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: I shall try to be equally brief. My noble friend rightly points out that trouble can often develop outside a football match. That is the theme of the amendment. The Bill helps in one respect in that the prohibitions that it imposes in relation to coaches and football special trains reduce the likelihood of supporters arriving in the ground under the influence of alcohol. There is also a power in the Licensing Act 1964 for the justices to order the closure of licensed premises on the application of the police in any area where the presence of supporters seems likely to give rise to unruly behaviour and disorder. Of course the police can deal with a person who is committing an offence under the existing law with a simple charge of drunkenness, or something more serious, in a public place outside the ground. My noble friend invites us to go one stage further.
The difficulty about my noble friend's amendment is that it would catch people who had no connection at all with the football match. That is not a fanciful construction or interpretation to put upon his amendment. Football grounds are usually near town centres or at least in built-up areas. My noble friend has not sought to define just what "the vicinity of ' a football ground should embrace—
Lord Inglewood: The amendment refers to loitering about "in the vicinity of', which is exactly what I said. You may never get inside the ground; you are loiterng in the vicinity.
Lord Glenarthur: Perhaps I may develop the theme a little further. The difficulty which I see is that because it is "the vicinity or' and it would include streets surrounding the ground as well as the area immediately beside the entrance, a person, for example returning from a supermarket with a bottle of wine in his shopping basket could arguably commit an offence if he stopped to chat to a friend in the street. A person drinking a can of lemonade would equally be caught, because it would be a controlled container.
So far as drunkenness is concerned, it will not be necessary for the police to resort to breathalysers or that type of thing in order to prove the offence of drunkenness under the Bill. Under Section 12 of the Licensing Act 1872, for well over 100 years it has been an offence to be drunk in a public place and the police have not experienced any difficulties in bringing prosecutions. The courts have held that a person is to be regarded as drunk if he has consumed intoxicating liquor to the extent that he has lost self-control. I could add to that, but I really think that my noble friend's suggestion that "vicinity" should be included would take the Bill far too wide and would catch all types of people who I am sure my noble friend would not like to catch.
Lord Inglewood: The hour is late. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 11:
[Printed earlier: col. 393.]
The noble Lord said I spoke to this amendment with Amendment No. 8. I beg to move.
Lord Airedale: It is true that we discussed this amendment with the earlier amendment, but I should like to say a word at this stage, having had time to consider the Minister's reply to the concern—
Lord Skelmersdale: I hope that the noble Lord will allow me to intervene. If this amendment is to be discussed, even in retrospect, so to speak, I think that the Question should first be put.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: The Question is that Amendment No. 11 be agreed to.
Lord Airedale: I am very sorry. I expressed disquiet that hip-flasks were being put outside the scope of the Bill because they were not returnable containers. In reply the Minister said, yes, but that the position seemed to be covered because it was also an offence to be in possession of intoxicating liquor. I have in mind the hooligan who smuggles in a hip-flask containing neat whisky which he then consumes. He becomes unruly and attracts the attention of the police. He is no longer in possession of intoxicating liquor because the intoxicating liquor inside him is no longer in his possession within the meaning of the Act. The police say, "No, you have a whisky flask in your possession". He says, "Yes, but you haven't read subsection (2) of the section. It is not a returnable container. You can't catch me for that".
Surely it is worth while forgetting about the returnability of the container and bringing the flask
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within the scope of the Act. Admittedly it then becomes a technical offence even to bring in a thermos flask of tea. But surely we can leave it to the good sense of the police not to prosecute innocent, orderly people who bring in a thermos flask of tea.
Lord Glenarthur: I thought that I had been able to make it clear to the noble Lord—I am sorry if I have not—that under the amendments that we dealt with, Amendments Nos. 8 and 11, there are two strands to the argument. One deals with containers intended to carry drink; that is those which are caught. The present Clause 2(3) catches containers of liquid whether or not the liquid is drink. Secondly, the amendments limit the containers which are normally discarded, such as cans or bottles, or returned, such as glasses and one or two other things as well. Hip flasks would not be caught because they are not normally returnable, but they can cause injury if thrown, but so can thermos flasks. One cannot sensibly create new criminal offences on the basis that the police will not enforce them. We have genuinely tried to meet a realistic need which was expressed, among others, by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who said that somebody might legitimately take into a football ground a thermos flask full of tea or soup, but would not be allowed to do so under the Bill as it stands.
One could argue that a thermos flask could be thrown, but it is unlikely. It is much more likely that the hooligan who brings in a hip flask—if, indeed, hooligans have hip flasks, which I somehow doubt—would be quite likely to throw it, and it could do damage as a result. But the concern which the noble Lord has expressed has been met by the earlier amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 11):
Page 2, line 33, leave out subsection (3) and insert—
(" (3) This section applies to any article capable of causing injury to a person struck by it, being—

(a) a bottle, can or other portable container (including such an article when crushed or broken) which—

(i) is for holding any drink, and

(ii) is of a kind which, when empty, is normally discarded or returned to, or left to be recovered by, the supplier, or

(b) part of an article falling within paragraph (a) above;

but does not apply to anything that is for holding any medicinal product (within the meaning of the Medicines Act 1968).").
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 have fallen.
[Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 not moved.]
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 14:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("Playing areas.
. A person who enters the playing area of a designated sports ground at any time during the period of a designated sporting event at that ground without the express approval of the person or persons responsible for the management or supervision of the event is guilty of an offence.").
The noble Lord said: The Minister will be delighted that I propose to take this fairly briefly. It concerns a point which I raised on Second Reading. We have spent a fair amount of time discussing issues which in the view of many of us are not really relevant to soccer

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violence. Without repeating what was said in the last debate of substance, I would say that many of us doubt whether drinking at the actual football grounds is in fact the central issue, though it has become the central issue. What we know is what we saw of the Luton-Millwall match at a ground where drinking was not taking place, a "dry" ground, where large numbers of football hooligans invaded the pitch, stopped the match and had a violent confrontation with the police. It seems to many of us deeply and genuinely puzzling why the Government have not taken advantage of the Bill to make this behaviour a criminal offence. They are making many other types of conduct into offences, why not this? It is far more directly related to football violence. I repeat that I find it most surprising that this was not contained in the Government's Bill.
If I am told that the Government will consider this matter seriously—I underline the word "seriously" —in the forthcoming public order legislation, I shall be content. With great respect to the Minister, "drawing the attention of my right honourable friend", will not quite do. I mean some indication that the Government are proposing to look at this matter seriously in their forthcoming public order legislation. If they are, I will not take up more time of the Committee.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: I must confess to finding the noble Lord's position on this amendment rather curious and confusing. He has soundly berated the Government for allegedly trying to rush through what he suggested might be ill-considered legislation; on the other hand, he has tabled a number of amendments which considerably widen the ambit of the Bill and create important new criminal offences, criminal offences for which the noble Lord himself has expressed great concern over the last week or two on other issues as well.
This amendment, apart from anything else, is not strictly relevant to the subject matter of the Bill. That is the first point to make about it. For that reason alone, I do not think that we ought to accept this amendment. I acknowledge the noble Lord's concern about the scenes of pitch invasion by football spectators. We have all witnessed them. However, it is the case that the uglier forms of behaviour by so-called football fans who invade the pitch are already covered by the criminal law and may constitute, for example, criminal damage or assault or threatening behaviour.
Acceptance of this amendment would only extend the law in a limited way and, in particular, would make criminals of those whose behaviour at best might be described as over-enthusiastic, for example, people running on to the pitch to congratulate a goal scorer. That is not to say that I believe such behaviour is wholly acceptable, far from it. I should be the first to urge football clubs to improve their perimeter fencing within the grounds of what is safe to give the greater control over pitch invasions. I certainly do not think that it should be criminal. I hope that the noble Lord will understand the force of that argument.
There is also another difficulty which would arise if encroachment on playing areas was made an offence in the way that the noble Lord proposed; that is, that only encroachment on to the playing area of a designated
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sports ground during a designated sporting event would be caught. I indicated during Second Reading of the Bill that at the moment it is the Government's intention that the Bill should apply to football and not to other sports. Indeed, we discussed at length that matter earlier on. The effect of this amendment would be to make a criminal offence to invade the pitch during some football matches but not during any rugby matches or any cricket matches. Thus, it would be an offence to run on the pitch to congratulate a goal scorer but not an offence to run on to the cricket square to congratulate someone who has scored a century. I cannot see the logic in that, and neither do I think that it would be equitable or even right.
The noble Lord must also consider that it would put at grave disadvantage other people, such as the fire brigade—and Heaven forbid that that should ever be necessary again!—who need to come on to the pitch. That is the effect of the legislation; but in practical terms it would not mean that. I must say to the noble Lord that the point of that would be that if people wanted to come on for some sort of emergency, I think they would find themselves technically caught by the amendment which the noble Lord proposes. I am not suggesting that it is likely to affect the position, but that is a result of the noble Lord's amendment. The noble Lord asked me whether or not the Government would consider bringing forth some sort of legislation in the future to do with crowd—
Lord Harris of Greenwich: To do with public order legislation.
Lord Glenarthur: That is right: public order legislation. Certainly, the Government will keep under review the sort of happenings which entail people running on to pitches. Whether or not that particular matter will be included is a matter for consideration by the Government. I feel that there is something of a lack of logic in what the noble Lord has put forward in this amendment. I hope he will not feel it necessary to press the amendment.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: As I have already indicated that I am not going to press the matter, the noble Lord will not be surprised to hear that that is still my view, despite a remarkably inadequate response. I must say that if I had had the job of replying to that amendment I hope I would have produced one or two slightly better arguments than the point about the fire brigade. If ever there was a weak, threadbare argument, it was that one.
The reason why in fact one is raising this issue at all is because this was the particular occasion, as the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, may recall, which excited the great interest of the Prime Minister—for the first time, so far as I am aware—in the question of football violence. One of the problems of the Government in this matter is that this event took place at a ground which was then as "dry" as many grounds will be in the future. This is an attempt to make the Bill more relevant.
May I just say to the noble Lord that one of the problems about this Bill is that in fact it is designed to punish a significant number of individuals and institutions without giving any guarantee whatever that there will be a lessening of soccer violence. That is why the

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amendment has been put down. There is no lack of logic: it is a fairly obvious response to the situation which has arisen at Luton and a number of other football grounds in this country. However, while I do not propose to trouble your Lordships any longer with this particular debate, as I indicated a few moments ago, I really do hope that the Minister will find some better arguments in the future. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 15 not moved.]
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Supplementary provisions about orders under section 3]:
[Amendment No. 16 not moved.]
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 5, line 16, leave out ("transfer or").
The noble Lord said: I am going to move Amendment No. 17, which is an alternative to No. 18, and I think we could take No. 19 at the same time.
Amendment No. 19: Page 5, line 17, leave out ("or the grant of a protection order").
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness White): It has been suggested that Amendment No. 20 might be discussed at the same time.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Yes, very well.
Amendment No. 20: Page 5, line 22, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
("(4) Where an order under that section is in force in respect of any premises and application is made not less than twenty-eight days before the order is due to expire for renewal of the order or for a further order in respect of the premises, the first-mentioned order shall not cease to have effect by virtue of subsection (1)(b) above until the application is disposed of by the magistrates' court.").
This is a fairly limited issue. Our attention has been drawn to it by a leading football club and I hope that this amendment will be somewhat less controversial than some of the others we have been discussing this evening. This particular problem will arise only where there are licensed premises or registered club premises in a designated sports ground. A magistrates' court may make an order under Clause 3 of the Bill and under the order intoxicating liquor may be sold or supplied within the control specified in the clause and in the order itself.
Under Clause 4(2) if the holder of the licence dies, retires or is sacked, the Clause 3 order ceases to have effect when the justices' licence is transferred or a protection order is granted. One cannot have a hearing for a new order under Clause 3 until 28 days after it is requested, and that provision is dealt with in paragraph 4(b) of the schedule. There may therefore be circumstances where a club will suffer if the Bill is not amended, and this seems to be a matter of drafting rather than for the inclusion of a deliberate provision in the Bill. If the amendments are made the club will not suffer accidentally. No harm, I believe, will be done to the desire to have tight control if the amendments are made, because there is the power in Clause 3(5) for a magistrates' court to revoke an order under the clause if they wish to do so. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: This is a complex part of the Bill. If I have understood the noble Lord's argument correctly, his concern is that the provisions of the Bill as it is at present drafted could mean in practice that if there were an unforeseen change of licensee—for example, where a dishonest licensee had to be summarily dismissed—the football club could be faced with a period of at least 28 days during which there would be a prohibition on the sale of alcohol and no power for the magistrates' court to hear an application for a fresh exemption order no matter how meritorious that application might be. So far as the sudden death of a licensee is concerned, I believe that my own amendment, Amendment No. 20, has the effect of ensuring that clubs should be in no difficulty.
I think that the arguments about the other circumstances in which a protection order might have to be sought as a matter of urgency do have some force. I am not equally persuaded that there is a real problem in connection with transfers. I repeat what I said earlier: that I am sure the Committee will realise that this is a highly technical part of the Bill's provision. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his amendment so that I can give this further consideration before Report stage. There may be some technicalities of drafting to consider. As I mentioned, I am not sure that the case for transfers is as strong as that concerning protection orders, but I am willing to consider the point raised and I hope that the noble Lord will feel reassured by that.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Yes, of course. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 5, line 16, leave out ("or removal").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 18 is a minor drafting amendment. The effect of the removal of a justices' licence to different premises is that the premises to which the licence originally related cease to be licensed premises. The words "or removal" thus add nothing to the final words of the subsection. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 19 not moved.]
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 20:
[Printed earlier: col. 413.]
The noble Lord said: I have spoken to this amendment. Although I seem to have rather a lot left to say, I do not think that it is strictly necessary. In essence it is purely technical and drafting. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Following is the text of the amendment (No. 20):
Page 5, line 22, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
("(4) Where an order under that section is in force in respect of any premises and application is made not less than twenty-eight days before the order is due to expire for renewal of the order or for a further order in respect of the premises, the first-mentioned order shall not cease to have effect by virtue of subsection (1)(b) above until the application is disposed of by the magistrates' court.").
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Closure of bars]:
Lord Inglewood Lord Inglewood moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 6, line 17, leave out ("constable in uniform") and insert ("police officer in uniform of rank not less than an Inspector").
The noble Lord said: I shall make this point very quickly. I think the meaning is entirely clear here. I am suggesting that we should have a "police officer in uniform of rank not less than an Inspector" closing down a bar rather than a "constable in uniform". There are occasions galore when it is perfectly right and proper to let large responsibility rest on a constable's shoulders. On the other hand, there are occasions when I think that the situations are handled rather better by an officer of senior rank. I therefore beg to move.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Glenarthur: I agree with my noble friend in his curtailed speech that where a magistrates' court has seen fit, after careful consideration, to grant an exemption order permitting the sale of drink, the police should act to stop such sales only with good reason and with the appropriate level of authority.
The emergency power in Clause 3(7) to suspend or modify an exemption order for a particular match is reserved to police officers of rank no less than inspector, as my noble friend will be aware. But the power in Clause 6 has a different purpose. It can happen that during the period of a football match—perhaps just before kick-off or at halftime—trouble suddenly brews up in a particular bar. What is then required is immediate action to nip it in the bud. If, in the view of the constable on the spot, that means closing the bar, he should be able to do so. If the constable were obliged to await the arrival of an inspector before he could act, valuable time could be lost as the trouble grew more serious. In our view it is essential that the police should be given the powers they need to react quickly to signs of trouble. Clause 6 will cater for such situations where firm and swift action is of the essence. I know my noble friend will agree that swift action is important and I hope that he will be able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Mishcon: I wonder whether the noble Lord the Minister can help with a very real point—
Lord Inglewood: I did not hear exactly what the noble Lord said.
Lord Mishcon: I had the good fortune to hear him and possibly I can summarise what the noble Lord the Minister said by saying that there could be an emergency where only a constable was present and therefore that emergency ought to be covered. I can make a suggestion to the noble Lord the Minister. Can we be assured that there will be guidelines issued to the police, so that when enforcing this clause a constable will, on all possible occasions, get the concurrence of a more senior police officer before he carries out the provisions of Clause 6, it being well understood that if that is not practicable, the decision will have to be left to him?
Lord Glenarthur: I am sure that in considering the way in which this legislation will operate general
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guidance will be given to police officers on how they should conduct their business in this matter. I think, though, that it is important—and I believe my noble friend shares this view—that one must react quickly to situations when they crop up. That is why I do not think my noble friend's amendment would be practicable because it may take some time to get an officer of the rank which my noble friend requires. But certainly it will be brought to the attention of policemen. I feel sure that that will be the case and I hope that that will reassure my noble friend as well.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: But of course it will be for the operational decision of a chief constable how this matter is enforced. It is not primarily a matter for the Home Office. It will be force orders which will go out on the basis of this piece of legislation. I see the problem about insisting that it should be an officer of the rank of inspector, certainly in an emergency situation. On the other hand, I am slightly nervous that, quite bluntly, some probationer constable may over-react in some circumstances. We are all aware that probationer constables make up a significant proportion of the police force and one could over-react in a particular situation and close a bar. Then there could be a situation of more difficulty than if the bar had been left open in the first instance. It is probably very difficult to do this on the face of the Bill, but it is a matter which should be carefully considered with the chief inspector of constabulary and there should be informal consultations with the Association of Chief Police Officers.
Lord Glenarthur: I quite take the point that the noble Lord makes. It is difficult to put it on the face of the Bill. Of course, one must guard against overreaction, and that is just the sort of thing which will be catered for by the instructions issued to police forces. In general, the wishes that have been expressed will be carried out.
Lord Inglewood: I am very grateful for what my noble friend has said. I see his point, but I do not think his argument deserves quite the weight that he has given it. It is suggested that something will happen very rapidly. When you are on a football ground you will have policemen in small groups, led almost certainly by a sergeant. When I put down the words of this amendment I thought to myself that a sergeant would be an extremely good compromise between the rank of inspector and what is in the Bill. If my noble friend will tell me that he will have a look at this before Report stage, I shall beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Glenarthur: I shall certainly study the noble Lord's words without commitment. I do not think I can do more than that because there are real practical difficulties to adopting my noble friend's suggestion. But I shall certainly consider it and I shall discuss it with my honourable friends. I hope that that will meet his concern.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Powers of enforcement]:
Lord Inglewood Lord Inglewood moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 6, line 37, at end insert—
("( ) A constable may search a person seeking to board a public service vehicle (within the meaning of section I of this Act) or a railway passenger vehicle if he has reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence under that section is likely to be committed.").
The noble Lord said: I do not think it is necessary for me to read the words off the Marshalled List. The drafting of this page of the Bill has not struck me as being very clear. If my noble friend can set my mind at rest I shall be very grateful.
Lord Glenarthur: My noble friend's proposal would confer on the police additional powers of search beyond those already contained in the Bill. By Clause 1 the Bill makes it an offence to be in possession of alcohol on a football special, coach or train. This offence attracts the power of search in Clause 7(2) which is exercisable on reasonable suspicion that the person is committing or has committed one of the offences in the Bill. Since the offence of being in possession of alcohol on a coach or a train is capable of being committed only in the vehicle itself, it follows that the power of search is capable of being exercised only in the vehicle itself or if there is reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed when the suspected offender gets off the train.
My noble friend's amendment would give the police power to search a person before getting on to a public service vehicle or train if they had reasonable suspicion that an offence was likely to be committed. I have to tell him that the additional power is open to very serious objection. I ask my noble friend to consider the following situation. Let him suppose that the power of search conferred by his amendment is exercised on the platform of a railway station and that alcohol is found in the possession of the person searched. What is then to be done? No offence has yet been committed. The police have no power to seize and detain the alcohol they have discovered. They will have to return it to the person whom they search. He will no doubt then either drink it immediately or throw it away. It is only if he is foolish enough to board the vehicle or train with it still in his possession that an offence will have been committed and an arrest can be made. I can really think of nothing much more damaging to the standing of the police than to search a person, find the article for which they are searching and then have to return that article to him without being able to take the matter further.
The only other point that I should like to make to my noble friend is that we are rightly careful about conferring new powers of search and arrest on the police. A number of your Lordships have expressed concern about the speed of the passage of this Bill. There are good reasons for that. But on this particular amendment I suggest that your Lordships and my noble friend would be right to be cautious and sceptical. I hope that that explanation helps my noble friend.
Lord Inglewood: My noble friend has given us just about the worst case to describe the circumstances that I have tried to describe. I have seen something of the sort happen. I should think that the wise, experienced
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PC would proceed with what is called ways and means if he found somebody creating difficulties on a platform in a railway station. But in the circumstances it may perhaps be a good thing if I withdraw the amendment. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 23 not moved.]
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Interpretation]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Should Amendment No. 24 be agreed to, it will not be possible to move Amendment No. 25.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I propose to move neither of those amendments.
[Amendments Nos. 24 and 25 not moved.]
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 8, line 5, after ("section") insert ("relating to an association football ground").
The noble Lord said: I should like also to speak to Amendment No. 27.
Amendment No. 27: Page 8, line 7, at end insert—
("but no order in respect of any other sporting ground shall be made under this section unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.").
I turn to this matter very briefly. We have already had what might be described as a Second Reading debate on this particular proposition. I refer to the affirmative resolution argument. As the Minister may recall, we had it at his instance on an earlier amendment. I made our position clear then. I believe there was total unanimity in the Committee, except on the Government Front Bench, on this particular matter. It is one of the matters which I hope will be seriously considered between now and Wednesday of next week.
I do not want to repeat this point with boring regularity, but the fact is that none of us wishes to do other than ensure that this Bill goes onto the statute book in a satisfactory form. So far we have achieved precisely nothing as a result of our debates today, except a position of considerable inflexibility so far as the Government are concerned. We hope that between now and next Wednesday we will see greater progress.
I shall not argue the case again this evening, but, frankly, if we do not make progress, we will be debating these matters at substantial length next Wednesday, because we do not believe that this Bill should be extended to sports other than football without the affirmative resolution procedure being employed. Having said that, and having briefly moved the amendment, perhaps I may indicate that after the Minister has responded I shall withdraw the amendment. That is on the clear understanding that we are bound to have this debate over again next Wednesday, unfortunately at great length, unless (as I hope very much) we have an indication that the Government will make some concession.
Lord Glenarthur: The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will not expect me to rehearse the same arguments again. I know his feelings on this matter. We have already said that it may be possible to meet and to try to thrash something out before the next stage. That is probably the best way to leave this matter. With that, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I shall not try to pin any words on the Minister, but I welcome the note struck in his intervention. On that basis I gladly withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Amendment of Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980]:
Lord Glenarthur Lord Glenarthur moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 8, leave out lines 10 to 12 and insert—
(" (a) in section 68(1), after paragraph (b) there shall be inserted—
"(c) a sporting event, or a class of sporting event, taking place outside Great Britain";").
The noble Lord said: This amendment,in the name of my noble friend Lord Gray of Contin, is purely a drafting amendment. This part of Clause 10 deals with the Secretary of State's power to designate sporting events abroad. At the moment, under the clause as drafted, it might be argued that it will oblige the Secretary of State to designate grounds outside Britain as well as sporting events. All that is wanted in practice is the power for the Secretary of State to designate events or classes of sporting events which take place outside the country, and the revised drafting makes this perfectly clear. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 11 [Short title and extent]:
Lord Mishconhad given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 29:
Page 8, line 30, at end insert—
("( ) This Act shall continue in force for the period of five years beginning with the date of the commencement of this Act and shall then expire unless Parliament by affirmative resolution of each House determines that it shall continue in force for a further period of five years.").
The noble Lord said: In the circumstances recorded in the exchange between myself and the noble Lord the Minister, I shall not move this amendment.
[Amendment No. 29 not moved.]
Clause 11 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 30 not moved.]
Schedule agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 31, 32 and 33 not moved.]
Title agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.
House adjourned at ten o'clock.

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