Sitting of 12 July 1985

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

House of Commons (Services)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
9.35 am
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons: The House is indebted to the Chairman of the Accommodation and Administration and Library Sub-Committees, the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin), and the Chairman of the Computer Sub-Committee, the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam), for the reports that their Committees have prepared and laid before the House.
The fact that the debate arises on the Adjournment will permit a wide-ranging consideration of the issues relating to the work of Parliament and will enable the Services Committee to take account of the views expressed in considering how best to take forward what has been proposed.
I begin with a general observation about the costs of Parliament; it is to those costs that certain of the proposals will have to be related. I say that because Parliament in the main is not cash-limited in its budget and therefore there is need for conscious self-restraint.
The House might wish to reflect on the fact that, for the four years 1981–82 to 1984–85, total identified costs for the Houses of Parliament, excluding MPs' and peers' pay and allowances, rose from £35 million to over £48 million, a rise in cash terms of 35 per cent. In the same period, Members' salaries rose by 23 per cent. and Members' allowances from £.10·2 million to l5·9 million, a rise of 50 per cent. Overall, the costs of Parliament, including pay and allowances, rose in cash terms by 38 per cent. in those four years. That was against public spending generally in cash terms having risen by between 25 and 27 per cent. Thus, it is not a question of parliamentary squalor amid public affluence. It is a formidable demonstration of the rising costs of this place.
Mr. Stephen Ross: Does that include the costs, including travelling expenses, of Select Committees?
Mr. Biffen: It includes certain aspects of the costs of certain Committees. The compliance cost of Select Committees on Government Departments is not included in the figure and, if it could be assessed, I suspect that it would drive the figures even higher.
Mr. Alan Williams: To put it in perspective, what was the equivalent cost of living increase over that time? That will show the extent of the real increase.
Mr. Biffen: I shall have that figure by the end of the debate. The real comparison is the rise in the costs of Parliament relative to the rise in public expenditure more generally.
Mr. Cranley Onslow: Can my right hon. Friend identify, among the compliance costs, the cost of answering parliamentary questions?
Mr. Biffen: I had not briefed myself on that fascinating point. The rise in the number of questions has not been all that dramatic in the recent past. Nevertheless, that is a factor in the rise in costs. That there has been a rise is undeniable, but I think sometimes that if, overall, the rise in the number of parliamentary questions — I say this in the presence of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)— is modest, at least he has done his best to see that it is on a rising trend.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: The cost is decreased if the questions are answered truthfully. There are two types of question — very costly requests for statistics, and questions on matters of policy. Most of my questions have been policy questions, which means that Ministers actually need to use their brains to answer them, rather than extremely expensive statistical questions. If and when I ask for statistics, I ask for them to be given if they are conveniently available.
Mr. Biffen: I do not think that it would be helpful to get into the more metaphysical aspects of parliamentary questions, but the hon. Gentleman makes a wholly valid distinction. The House will have to consider whether the facilities increasingly available through the Library POLIS arrangements can replace much of what would otherwise be available through Government Departments as a possible means of making savings.
I had no idea that my casual, tentative, almost anodyne observations about the cost of Parliament would release so much passion so early in the debate. In view of the pattern of rising costs, it behoves us all the more to be vigilant, especially as the future development of the Bridge street site is likely to have a considerable impact on the costs of Parliament.
The report of the Computer Sub-Committee on Members' requirements for information technology recommends a computer system for Members' use to provide word processing facilities, an electronic mail system and access information services such as Ceefax, Oracle and the Library POLIS system. The system would be phased in over four years and would necessitate recabling throughout the Palace and the outbuildings. In the final phase, the annunciator system, which will also require recabling, would be added to the new cabling network. The Sub-Committee acknowledged in paragraph 84 that those two reasons for recabling were related by proposing the integration of a new annunciator system into the local area network. The first phase of implementing the Sub-Committee's recommendations would include a pilot project involving 36 Members to see how the facilities might be used.
At a time when we are still at the planning stage of the new parliamentary building, it is particularly helpful that the Sub-Committee has identified the possible information needs of Members. Some Members feel that the development of parliamentary outbuildings should be used so that the Palace itself is primarily reserved for Members

1385
and staff are accommodated elsewhere. In those circumstances, a Member's ability to communicate quickly and easily with his staff located in another building will be especially important. I note that the recommendation in the report would facilitate that communication and I am sure that many Members will show great interest in that.
The other dimension to the development of the Bridge street site is financial. In approving the Third report from the Services Committee in 1982–83 on phase 1 of the new parliamentary building, the House committed the Government to substantial capital expenditure. At present, although we may estimate the costs of this, we cannot be sure. I suspect that our estimate will be too low and that unforeseen expenses will arise. We therefore need to be cautious about committing ourselves further financially.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be criminal not to build in at this stage all the foreseeable developments required for the next few years rather than having to put them in at infinitely greater expense a few years after the new building is completed?
Mr. Biffen: The use of the word "criminal" shows the exaggerated emotion attending this subject. I am concerned to put before the House the challenges contained in the report by the Sub-Committee. The timing of these matters is vital and must be related to the plans of the Department of the Environment and the Property Services Agency for the building work and the rewiring of the annunciator system. To put in a whole range of sophisticated equipment ahead of time in the hope of achieving cost savings in a fast-moving area of development runs the risk of the equipment becoming obsolete in a very short time. I am not taking one view or the other. I am simply saying that Members must treat this subject with as much care, caution and prudence as if their own money were at stake.
We also cannot look at the costs of implementing these recommendations by comparison with future expenditure alone. Here I must sound two notes of caution. The first concerns the place of the annunciator system within the scheme proposed by the Sub-Committee. I understand that the present annuciator system is within five years of the end of its natural life and that installing a replacement system would mean recabling the whole Palace. In planning the recabling, it clearly behoves us to take into account the prospect of installing computer terminals in Members' offices and to choose the cabling and layout accordingly.
That does not mean, however, that we need to install the computers themselves as the recabling is carried out. Provided that the capacity is there, we can build the computer facility into the system at a later stage. Indeed, I very much hope that the next development will be discussions between the Services Committee and the Department of the Environment. I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment will be keen to see what common interest can be established in developing a new wiring system both to serve the next generation of annunciators and to provide terminals for the provision of a computer system able to respond to Members' needs.
1386
My second point in this connection also concerns costs. The total cost of implementing the report's recommendations is estimated at slightly over £5 million, but that figure does not include costs which cannot be accurately gauged at present. Those unquantified costs include the building work associated with the recabling. Given the nature of the Palace and the need to protect the fabric of the building, Members will appreciate that these may well be substantial.
I conclude my remarks on the report of the Computer Sub-Committee in a spirit of gratitude for its work, matched by a belief that its proposals must now be tested against available financial resources.
In the report on research assistants and the growing demand that they make on the facilities of the House, the right hon. Member for Deptford expressed the concern that the number of passes issued to Members' staff had risen by 23 per cent. in the past 10 years to a total of 1,061 in May 1984. That concern prompted the investigation and led to the recommendations in the report. The report recommends that no more than 150 passes per calendar year and no more than 50 at any one time should be issued to temporary researchers from overseas who will be here for less than four months. Otherwise, temporary research assistant passes should be issued only if the Member undertakes that the individual in question will be employed for more than four months. Those who do not qualify in either of those categories should be issued with a temporary secretary pass and should no longer be able to use the branch Library either in person or by telephone.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that many temporary assistants and researchers are unpaid or low paid? Does he further agree that hon. Members have many more than are necessary but, if they had proper secretarial and research allowances, there would be a reduction in the number of such unpaid and low-paid assistants?
Mr. Biffen: It is attractive to make the proposition that yet more allowances for Members of Parliament would result in fewer research assistants. Many of the research assistants who come within that category are brought here for other reasons and I suspect that, even with greater allowances, the problem would remain. I note what the hon. Lady says and I look forward to hearing her speech, but I have a feeling that what she said could engage the comments of the right hon. Member for Deptford, who has looked into this matter a great deal more deeply than I have. I must admit that I am somewhat cynical about the supposition that increasing allowances would result in a diminution in the number of low-paid or unpaid research assistants.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the present system means that hon. Members with other financial resources can get much of the work that they need done without reliance on facilities and employees here? Does he agree that the system therefore discriminates according to the income of hon. Members, which is unfair? Does he agree that, if British education institutions regularly and routinely supplied people as part of their course, we should not need students from overseas? As long as those overseas students come free and British people cannot

1387
afford to work for nothing, we are bound to look for assistance where we can get it without having to cough up for it.
Mr. Biffen: I am reasonably relaxed about all this, but it is not my report. I knew the House of Commons before we were flooded with research assistants, and Governments had a rougher, tougher time then. The idea that, to do our job, we must be buttressed by a growing army of well-paid or unpaid research assistants is just one of the current fashions. There may be many arguments about how we might have to add to the facilities for Members of Parliament and I am happy to hear the debate, but we are discussing a report prepared by the right hon. Member for Deptford and his colleagues and I suggest that we should proceed in that context. I am listening in a spirit of good nature, but I am not bowled over by the proposition that the good work of the House rests on an amplitude of research assistants.
Mr. Clive Soley: When, on 3 June, the right hon. Gentleman replied to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels), who suggested that all hon. Members should have one research assistant who should be paid, he said:
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, but perhaps it would be better elaborated in the debate that has been promised on the second report of the Services Committee, dealing with research assistants."—[Official Report, 3 June 1985; Vol. 80, c. 17.]
Since that is this debate, will the right hon. Gentleman now elaborate on whether he agrees with his hon. Friend?
Mr. Biffen: No. I am anxious to hear my hon. Friend elaborate a sentence into a speech. When I have had the advantage of that, perhaps I shall be able to reflect the better.
Although adopting these recommendations would check the growth in the number of temporary researchers from overseas, it would have little effect on other groups. The report does not attempt to interfere with an hon. Member's right to engage staff. That is understandable, as there is nothing new in Members being assisted by researchers and no such restriction has previously been thought necessary. In the light of the arguments that have preceded the debate, however, I feel that the recommendations do not entirely allay the anxiety about the number of staff employed by individual Members.
The pressure on the Library and other facilities could be lightened significantly only if more restrictive controls on the number of staff were accepted by the House. We have had some suggestions about how that might be done. As the debate proceeds, the House will be able to judge the whole issue and whether it merits further consideration. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Deptford will he marking concern on this matter and I strongly hope that his Sub-Committee will consider any anxieties that are expressed today. Suggestions for a further restriction could proceed only when there have been widespread considerations by the appropriate Sub-Committee of the Services Committee and when the House is clearly sympathetic to any recommendations it makes.
The main theme of the debate is the desire of hon. Members to use efficiently the resources at our disposal to serve constituents. Both reports deal with how that might be achieved, though in different ways. The report of the Computer Sub-Committee suggests means by which information can be more readily accessible to hon.
1388
Members and communicated more efficiently. The report on research assistants exposes the problems that can arise from the pressure which their conscientiousness can put on finite facilities. The questions that it raises and the solutions that may be proposed deserve our further attention, and I have no doubt that we shall return to them. Meanwhile, I hope that the House will have a constructive and informative debate.
9.56 am
Mr. Alan Williams: I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin), my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) and the members of their Committees for the work that they put in to prepare these reports.
There are already too many ill-informed critics who are eager to denigrate the House of Commons by overstating its cost to the community, and it might have been better if the Leader of the House had quoted the real costs rather than the inflated costs in regard to the past five years. Inflation accounts for probably half of the increase that the right hon. Gentleman announced. The right hon. Gentleman's experiment — Select Committees — which I welcome, as they have been a success, account for pan: of the 38 per cent. increase. The increased cost imposed by the average hon. Member in the past five years is therefore fairly modest.
I was fascinated to note that the right hon. Gentleman, who is usually so urbane and controlled, managed his only moment of passion when he harked back to the good old days of his parliamentary youth. I am sure that we all want to accommodate a more up-to-date attitude. What the two studies reveal goes far beyond their remit. They reveal the three areas of inadequacy that we have all come to expect — inadequacy of accommodation, inadequacy of staff facility and resource and the almost non-existent support facility.
The Leader of the House mentioned the 23 per cent. increase in passes for members of staff. As the report states, our discussions are trammelled by the fact that we shall not have much more accommodation before 1990. Therefore, we must consider the present accommodation in the Palace of Westminster. We all recognise the pressure that our present problems have put on the Library, the photocopiers and even the catering facilities in the House.
However, most anxiety has been expressed about the short-term overseas interns, as they are described. I do not believe that the House has faced the problem that the increase in such research assistants reveals. Does it disguise a real need for more resources, as I believe is the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), and is it a cheap way of avoiding a resolution of the real problem by using ill-equipped amateurs, insead of professional researchers, to provide information? We have ignored the question of how we should allocate, among Members, this marginal accretion of our research resources. Marty hon. Members may not want overseas students to help them. I would rank myself among those, because I am too lazy to discipline myself to make proper use of them.
While those extra resources remain available, we should turn our attention to ensuring that they are fairly allocated among hon. Members. They should not be allocated on a personal dispensation basis. If passes are to be rationed to 150, the decision as to who should have

1389
those passes should not be left to a couple of people, although I appreciate their difficulties and do not criticise them in any way. If we follow the report's recommendation, as I believe we must, we shall put the disposal of those 150 passes not in the hands of a Committe of the House or of the institutions which provide the assistants, but in the hands of one or two Back-Bench Members who, for the best of reasons, organise the courses that bring those students to Britain. We are not only disguising a deficiency in the facilities that are available, but we are in danger of perpetuating an arbitrariness in the way in which we allocate those part-time, ill-equipped researchers.
Mr. James Hill: I was approached by outside sources to take on a part-time researcher from America. The small print at the bottom of the letter said that, as a Member of Paliament, I would receive an honorarium of £150. Has the right hon. Gentleman come across that practice?
Mr. Williams: I have not, but it is interesting. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford will have come across it in his investigations, and he may care to observe on the effect of that in his speech.
Mr. Barry Sheerman: Would my right hon. Friend allow me to correct a wrong impression that seems to have gathered pace in his comments and in the comments of the Leader of the House? Hon. Members on both sides of the House have worked hard to make the opportunity of working as interns to Members of Parliament available to British students. Programmes at Leeds university and the City of London polytechnic, in which I have been involved, enable British students to work here. They are working here in increasing numbers and are largely replacing students from overseas.
Mr. Williams: I shall deal with that point later in my speech. I recognise the role that my hon. Friend has played in trying to interest British universities in taking up this facility, should it continue to exist.
If the use of such interns disguises a real need, the House must decide whether that is the best way to deal with it. Are we simply providing training for students from institutions to which the House has no commitment and no obligation? It is an arbitrary allocation of a highly valuable benefit, which is no doubt used as an inducement by the institutions to which the facility is made available. Hon. Members who have had such students working for them say that they are pleasant, industrious and willing to help, but they also say that they have often had to provide a tutorial role and have had to spend much time finding work that the students can do.
If we are saying that the House exists as an adjunct to a few American universities, so be it. But I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and with the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) that we should try to ensure that such a valuable training facility is offered first to our universities. The fact that we must employ overseas students highlights an inadequacy in our universities, not a lack of industry on the part of those who organise such courses. As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield explained when I discussed the matter with him, British universities do not have the modular system adopted by the Americans, and
1390
it is not so easy for their courses to be structured round long visits to the House of Commons. If, as the report envisages, we continue to allow such temporary access, I believe that British colleges should be made aware of the fact and should be invited to put forward propositions for accommodating their students within the system. We should not allow it to continue as a perk to a few American colleges to which we may be indebted for the free service, but to which we have no obligation.
The fact that I have no expertise in and limited knowledge of information technology is rather sad, since I was the Minister responsible for the microprocessor application programme in industry. However, when I talked to top industrialists about the application of information technology, my inadequacies were largely concealed by their ignorance. The House of Commons is still at the abacus stage in its application of information technology to back-up facilities. Such technology offers us not just the facilities of the great universities, but information storage and retrieval at unrivalled speed.
I was astonished by the comments of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) this morning. I thought that since he had seen fit to give his opinion to the nation, he might have condescended to do the same for the House. I have never heard such twaddle as I heard him speak this morning on the BBC. There he was — the great intellect — sitting and thinking great thoughts. He said that we do not need researchers and that he is against all this nonsense. He said that the role of a Member of Parliament is to point out to the Government what they said previously and to show how that is inconsistent with what they are doing now. He said that hon. Members need all their time to think, and seemed to believe that it was inconsistent to do that and to have research assistants.
Mr. Dalyell: Remembering that it is 12 July, I wonder whether the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) is marching with the Orange bands.
Mr. Williams: Such an activity would match the intellectual content of his performance this morning. If one followed the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's comments, one would go to university, sit one's final exams in the first week, and then study for the next three years because one's great thoughts should not be trammelled by information or by data. It was a most absurd, damaging and irrelevant contribution to the subject.
Our trouble is similar to that of industry: we are dealing with unprecedented rapidity in the evolution of technology. Nearly every product that comes on to the market is obsolescent the moment it appears. Its successor is already on the drawing board. Industry finds there is never a right time because there is always something better around the corner, and does not know what is the best time and place to carry out major investment.
We are perhaps fortunate in having a decision imposed on us by the need to turn our attention by 1990 to the new parliamentary building. That is a critical element in our considerations of the type and range of facilities we offer and when we offer them. Most of the population of the same age as the average Member of this House is blind about the new technology. There are people like my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon who are very knowledgeable and can do their own programming and do everything required to make full use of these facilities. But

1391
that is not the case for the average Member or even for the majority of Members of this House, nor is it the case in much of British industry. Industry buys the equipment that is able to use the technical resources now available.
In a way, that relates to the other report. If we are to have the information technology facilities envisaged by my hon. Friend — and I am not suggesting that should not happen — it may be that the introduction of the new technological resource will add to the pressure for back-up staff who will be able in the short term to help Members make use of the new information facilities available to them. I suspect this problem will gradually disappear. We have to plan for new generations and this is where 1990 becomes relevant. At successive elections a new generation of Members will be increasingly at ease with the new technology and will not need such back-up support from staff. They will automatically expect the availability of the new technological resource within their workplace.
Mr. Soley: I support what my hon. Friend has been saying. I have had an Apricot computer for just over a year and have found out, not surprisingly, that my PA and researcher use it more frequently than I do and to good effect, and that is very helpful to me.
Mr. Williams: If my hon. Friend had a 13-year-old son or daughter, as he might have, he would find that child using it even more than any of his assistants and utterly at ease with it. It may well be that what we need for the average Member in the short term, as the report touches on, is the word processor with memory and so on. That would make an enormous difference to the way in which many of us carry out our work. We then have to plan further ahead for the correct facilities. Because 1990 is the deadline, in the interim period we should be looking for the minimum capital investment or commitment, so that we can put the latest state of the art into the new building. In the interim period we should have the minimum fixed capital equipment needed to enable Members to obtain the data they require.
I am not in favour of imposing on Members a choice of equipment. When eventually a facility is available it must be for the Member to decide whether he wants his system to be compatible with the system operating here. It would be wrong for the Fees Office to say, "What you intend to buy is not compatible and will not be admissible". On the other hand, it would be a foolish Member who bought equipment that was not compatible with the system introduced into the House.
Mr. Wigley: On this matter of compatibility, will the hon. Member accept there is a need to consider it not only in the context of the Palace of Westminster and the new building, but also bearing in mind that some Members have their own installation in their constituencies? I have a £7,000 installation which my partner was good enough to invest in to support our work on a parliamentary level. There must be compatibility with the constituencies, and that means linking a telephone line into any system here.
Mr. Williams: That is correct. Whatever decision is ultimately taken on any system will be wrong, because any system adopted here will be transient and that is a result of the nature of technology. Whatever system is adopted here will impose a discipline on each Member, both in terms of his constituency activities and his House of Commons activities.
1392
The new building will give us a focal point in time to which we should relate. My hon. Friend recognised this in his report and the Leader of the House also recognised it in what he had to say. We should not make our decision on the basis of intimidation through ill-informed comments from the press about expenditure. In fact, we are talking about relatively small sums of money in national terms, as I intend to show.
The two reports reveal the appallingly low level of expectation here as compared with comparable parliamentary institutions, or even certain major local government institutions, within this country. We should bear in mind that we are talking about facilities not just for 640 Members, but for a Parliament legislating for 55 million people. When we assess the cost it is not just the cost divided by the number of legislators. One has to recognise that Members of Parliament are the main channel, on behalf of their constituents, for dealing with abuses and they are the main channel of access to Ministers. Therefore, the cost has to be seen in terms of the whole country and the facilities that Parliament provides for the country, rather than as a per capita benefit for individual MPs.
If we take note of ill-informed criticism it will not be just our loss; it will be our constituents' loss. It will also be Parliament's loss because, unlike the Leader of the House, while I recognise that. Parliament has always had its phases of effective operation, it is possible to improve upon the effectiveness of Parliament and the quality of our operations here. Take, for example, the simple situation which happens many times a week — the presentation of statements to the House. We get approximately three hours notice and the average Member has no prior knowledge of what is to come. He does not have the benefit the press has, and an Opposition Member has about one hour's advantage if his opposite number is generous enough to ensure that the copy arrives on time.
Parliament needs to respond quickly, and it is no good saying, as the right hon. Member for South Down said in his radio contribution this morning, that Members should go to the Library to get the information they need. If we tried to form a queue at the Library on every statement to obtain the information we feel we might need in order to deal with each statement, the queue would be substantially uncatered for and the statement would be completed.
Mr. Sheerman: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are 18 researchers in the House of Commons Library for 650 Members? Is he further aware that in a Select Committee a succession of evidence is presented by major Departments, and my own experience of three years in the Public Accounts Committee was that one needed some research even to know what penetrating questions to ask?
Mr. Williams: That is exactly right. My hon. Friend reveals what most of us accept. Considering that there are only the 18 staff, what is remarkable is the quality of service that they manage to provide. Whenever I have asked the Library for information, I have always been astonished by the willingness and speed with which the staff have attempted to obtain it for me.
Mr. Onslow: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is on a false point. By their very nature, statements in the House attract the attention of hon. Members who specialise in the subjects concerned, and they can be expected not to need to go back to square one and research. It would be unreal

1393
to suppose that every hon. Member should be armed with a brief covering the subject dealt with in a statement when, apart from anything else, we all know that only a small number of hon. Members with an interest in the subject are likely to be called to make an instant reaction to a statement.
Mr. Williams: I ask the hon. Gentleman to think back to his Shadow days, for example. In general, the role of the Chairman of a specialist Committee and the role of an Opposition Front Bench spokesman is to have as much information as possible relating to the work of the relevant Department. Even so, any Department is so wide-ranging in its activities that to have such information is incredibly difficult. I ask him also to remember that Front Bench spokesmen get an hour's notice of what is contained in a statement and can ensure that their response is relevant to what the Minister says in his statement. The Back Bencher has no prior knowledge of the contents of a statement and is at a grave disadvantage. Speedier access to information would be of great value to him.
I think that I have made the points that I wanted to make in a debate that is not intended to reach decisions. I wanted to throw in a few random thoughts on both aspects. The reports are useful but, by the Committee's remit, are too restricted to cater for the solution of the problems that they tend to reveal. They reveal that hon. Members still need proper office and secretarial facilities in their constituencies. They still need proper office, research and secretarial facilities in London. We have not even addressed ourselves to how we ensure proper and adequate communication between this Parliament and what is happening in the European Parliament.
10.23 am
Mr. Cranley Onslow: I am rather surprised that the debate is taking this form, because I had a feeling that it might have been more constructive if we had had an opportunity at the outset to hear from the Chairmen of the Committees which produced these reports rather than having to put a number of questions to them and then, in the light of their replies, possibly come back to them. As it is, I fear that the form the debate is taking may handicap earlier speakers, because we want to hear from the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) and the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) about their reports.
Mr. John McWilliam: The hon. Gentleman should not make the mistake of assuming that only the Chairmen of the Committees are capable of explaining the reports. The other members of the Computer Sub-Committee are here and are more than able to explain what is proposed and so enable hon. Members to make up their minds before I reply to the debate.
Mr. Onslow: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his modesty, but I should still like to hear from whichever of his colleagues he thinks is better able to present the report before I make any critical remarks about it. We are forced into this position, and I do not think that it will improve the structure of the debate.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House about the need to be cautious in committing ourselves to future expenditure and about the imperative
1394
of treating the money involved as if it was our own. There are tests of cost effectiveness and value for money which need to be applied to both reports and which I hope to outline briefly.
I am surprised by some of the presentation of the argument on temporary and unpaid research assistants. I regret the importation of this curious word "intern". If there was an accurate description in English which we could recognise, it might be "casual apprentice". "Intern" carries with it an implication of expertise which almost by definition these people do not have. They come here to learn. They come here to be taught. Some hon. Members are fortunate enough to be offered a small fee for teaching them. But the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) put his finger on it when he admitted that he is too idle to discipline himself to make proper use of them — in other words, to teach them what they should do.
I do not see this place as pre-eminently or even peripherally an institute of higher education for undergraduate aspirants to the world of politics —[Interruption.] I am not interested in their nationality. Anyone who wants to learn about politics can find better places in which to do it than the House of Commons.
Mr. Sheerman: That is an interesting thought.
Mr. Onslow: At least it has got the hon. Gentleman thinking.
I wish to ask one fundamental question about the report on information technology. Why is it presented to us without the methodology? Where is chapter 1 of the report? In trying to analyse the value of the report, I wanted to see on what it was based, how large the sample was and what questions had been asked of the hon. Members who contributed to it. The only enlightenment that I could find is contained in page 3 of volume II:
"Chapter One outlines how we conducted the study.
It goes on to admit that
"the sample is biased towards those more favourably disposed toward the use of Information Technology."
Turning back to the list of the contents, I see:
"Chapter One: survey of methodology [Not printed: summary only]."
That is a pity. If I were a director of a company which had a report submitted to it recommending major expenditure of a significant kind, and the people putting it up said, "We shall not bother to show you the methodology because you will not understand it," my reaction would be, "I am sorry, but I need someone else to advise me. I am not prepared to take this advice on trust."
Mr. McWilliam: I am certain that an hon. Member of the hon. Gentleman's experience knows that those papers not printed in reports are made available in the Library. He can gain access to them any time that he likes.
Mr. Onslow: But what consolation is that to members of the public who want to see the basis on which we make our report? I am sorry, but that will not do.
In reading through the report, I tried to deduce how many hon. Members had made an input to it. I can find only eight besides the hon. Member for Blaydon and his colleagues on the Committee. I do not regard that as a representative sample of opinion or experience in the House, and the report is fatally flawed as a result. All its recommendations and findings on the needs of Members of Parliament and the justification of the costs are open to

1395
question on those grounds. That is why I should have liked to hear the hon. Member for Blaydon present his report. I should have liked his answers to those questions before I was obliged to make my remarks.
Looking through the report and trying to find the justifications in it, I am further disappointed. We are told on page vii:
"institutions outside the House are busily embracing this technology as a business standard."
It adds that the House will need to keep up with such advances if it is to play its full political role:
"The growth of statistical data available and the mass of other information with which all Members must deal makes the speedy introduction of an effective information technology system of vital importance."
There is a tremendous dialectical leap there. It is a major non sequitur. I can put it best by saying that we are not a business organisation. Hon. Members, for whatever reason they come here, may make policy decisions, but they do not make executive decisions. Therefore, we have no need for the type of information which in business is essential to good executive decision-making.
Nor has it ever seemed to me to follow that the more information available to anyone, the wiser he becomes. There is no necessary connection between those two states. No doubt there are some hon. Members who benefit from having more information. However, a mass of information presented to me does not necessarily make me any more competent in my judgment.
Mr. Soley: That is a rather silly argument. Of course an hon. Member can be flooded with information and use it badly, but if the information is well analysed he tends to use it better. If we follow the hon. Gentleman's argument to its conclusion, we end up banning schools because it is obvious that any education is bad.
Mr. Onslow: I do not think that the House should concern itself with education. The hon. Gentleman's intervention does nothing to rebut my argument that the processes which are appropriate to business do not apply to the House. We have certain quite different functions and needs. To apply the business analogy is to mislead the House. I have nothing against word processors. I have a daughter who teaches people to use word processors, and I regard them as a very useful tool, but I do not believe that the advantages set out in paragraph 16 on page ix are so compelling as to justify all the expenditure that is outlined there. A rapid response to constituency inquiries does not depend upon the possession of a word processor by an hon. Member, if the information required needs to be obtained from a Ministry or a local authority. Having a word processor on one's desk would do nothing to speed up that process.
Mr. Simon Hughes rose—
Mr. Onslow: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I have a great deal to say.
We should not kid ourselves that this is a significant advantage and that it will improve our performance. Nor do I think that effective cross-indexation systems or access to wire services are so important as to justify massive expenditure, even though it might enable the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) to get the cricket scores without having to take his pocket television set everywhere with him.
The report contains a certain amount of disproportion, which is not surprising, because it is pre-eminently written
1396
by the producer side of the information technology business. The user side has not come across as effectively as it might. That is no doubt the fault of the House, because the number of hon. Members who responded was relatively small and largely confined to those who are specialists in information technology and extremely interested in using it. I doubt very much whether that applies to all hon. Members.
Mr. Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when deciding who should take part in the pilot study it is important to include not just the computer "buff", but a fair cross-section of hon. Members?
Mr. Onslow: It is essential to do that, and I should have thought that it was self-evident. I am glad to have the right hon. Gentleman's support. The pilot study might also show that the number of hon. Members now in the House and those in future Parliaments who might wish to use information technology remains a very small proportion of the total membership and that the need for which provision must be made is very much less in both cost and physical terms than has been suggested. It is possible that the provision of information technology facilities for 20 per cent. of all hon. Members might meet all forecastable needs. We need to find out about that before we spend large sums of money. That would be done in business, and in our continuing approach to the subject I hope that we shall be thoroughly businesslike.
Mr. Sheerman: The hon. Gentleman says that Members of Parliament should be allowed to have the facilities that are useful to them rather than that we should impose upon all hon. Members the responsibility of moving parliamentary neanderthal man into the high technology area. He is only saying what many Members of Parliament have said for some years, which is that hon. Members need to operate in the way that suits them best.
Mr. Onslow: Of course, but the argument in the report is that provision should be made for high technology on the same scale as when the new office buildings were provided. A large number of Hing cabinets and expensive shelves and cupboards were installed, which most hon. Members do not use, so we ought to relate supply to the perceived demand, which I submit is very much smaller than the report suggests. All hon. Members work in different ways. There is no typical Member of Parliament. Every hon. Member should be free to organise his life in what seems to him to be the best way. We should not force technology upon Members of Parliament if they do not want it.
Dealing with the report on research assistants, I should have liked to ask the right hon. Member for Deptford who chaired the Sub-Committee whether, in his opinion, the opinion sample taken was adequate. As far as I can see, he received only 15 replies to the invitation to make a contribution. If that is the full extent of the input of hon. Members to these findings, I cannot accept the proposition that that is an adequate sample.
The report does, however, contain one interesting piece of statistical information, even though I suspect that it is now out of date. It relates to the number of secretaries and research assistants employed by hon. Members in 1984. It is to be found on page 4 of the minutes of evidence. The most significant statistic is that over 400 hon. Members do their job satisfactorily with the assistance of only two staf

1397
—presumably either two secretaries, or a secretary and a research assistant. That is the kind of factual evidence upon which some of the conclusions in the report ought to have been based.
Mr. Robert Key: It is important to bear in mind that when the report refers to two secretaries or to two research assistants it very often means half a secretary and half a research assistant. That is all that one can possibly afford.
Mr. Onslow: I am not aware that the report establishes that these figures are resource limited. I see no evidence to that effect, nor do I see any evidence of whether the hon. Members who figure in the returns employ secretaries who do not possess House of Commons passes but work in the constituencies. We are concerned with the pressures on facilities in this building and the reasons for those pressures. I should have liked research to be carried out into the number and work load of research assistants and secretaries who are employed by the 100 or so hon. Members who need three or more of these people. I should like to know why those hon. Members feel that they need those resources. Sampling on that basis would have told us much more about the decision that we need to make. That decision will demand either the provision of more facilities, or the limitation of access. The burden of the report is towards limitation of access, for reasons which I think are sound, but the report's recommendations do not go as far as they might.
Mr. Simon Hughes rose—
Mr. Onslow: No, I have given way several times.
If further work had been done, it would have been possible to break down the requirements to the point where the solution could have been seen more clearly, but already there is evidence to suggest what the solution is. Most hon. Members do their work with two staff. Why, therefore, should increased pressure be put upon the facilities of the House in order to accommodate those other Members of Parliament who, for reasons which we do not know, feel that in some cases they must have up to six research assistants or secretaries with passes which give them access to parliamentary buildings?
Most hon. Members to whom I have spoken would settle without question or dissent for the proposition that any Member of Parliament should be free to organise his support staff as he likes and to employ them where he likes, but that it would be fair if access by his staff to this building were limited to two, which would enable one secretary and one research assistant to come to Parliament, if they wished. Why should the others? What is the need? Where is the requirement? It is not clear to me, and it does not seem to me to follow from the report. I hope that in due course my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will put down a motion to that effect. It might do a great deal towards helping to solve that part of the problem. Even if it were arbitrary in its application, it would correspond to the majority need and would be seen by most hon. Members to be fair.
Another clearly perceived problem about research assistants involves their interests. The subject is dealt with in the first report from the Select Committee on Members' Interests. In considering the limitation of access and the
1398
accreditation of research assistants to hon. Members, we should also accept the Select Committee's recommendation:
"We recommend that the holders of permanent passes as Members' secretaries or Members' research assistants be required to register any gainful occupation which they may pursue other than that for which the pass is issued, and that a copy of the Register should be placed in the Library".
Research assistants who are given passes include people who are not really working for hon. Members; they are working for themselves. I pass no value judgment on their work, but they do not work for hon. Members. They may be working for a body like Age Concern or for a commercial organisation. Those facts should be known and I suspect that my proposed limitation would do much to reduce the number of research assistants in the House working for charities or commerical organisations. I believe that that is a desirable objective and I shall be interested to hear the views of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
The other matter that arises from the report of the Services Committee is security. This subject is not wholly within the Committee's remit, but it was appropriate for it to be raised. The pressure on facilities must create security problems. Those who are responsible for security arrangements become overloaded, as do so many of our other facilities, including catering, photocopying and so on.
It is important that the House should note that aspect. It is accepted that photo passes are necessary for all those except members of the public who come here only occasionally and for private purposes. Has consideration been given to requiring everyone except hon. Members and staff of the Departments of the House to wear their passes? It is common practice in commercial organisations for passes to be worn, to enable people to be identified and their reason for being in an office to be known. If that possibility has been considered and rejected for the House, I should like to know the arguments that were used. If the idea has not been considered, I hope that it will be.
Many of my colleagues believe that we need to exercise much more self-discipline in the burdens that we impose on this building and in our demands for resources and the expectations that we arouse among our staff and others. Until we appreciate that fact, we shall not be able to come to terms with the facilities which it is reasonable to expect the taxpayer to give us.
10.44 am
Mr. James Tinn: When we show visitors round the House, we usually show them in the Princes' Gallery the model of the Palace of Westminster as it used to be and tell them how the belated action by the Treasury of getting rid of wooden tally sticks and the false economy of using them as fuel in the boilers of the House of Lords resulted in the pipes overheating and most of the building burning down.
I am glad that that happened, because I suspect that if it had not the Leader of the House would have been telling us today how desirable it was that we should have a new building, but that there was a lot of public opposition to the idea of a tower with a clock at the top and that, in any case, we could not afford it now. That is the substance of the Government's response to the Select Committee's report, and it is disappointing.
Politicians have endlessly lectured industry about the need to modernise. Industry is at least trying to catch up,

1399
but we are being discouraged from setting an example. We lead the world in the use of computers in our schools and we have every right to be proud of that fact. Children at primary school can grapple with the complexities of computers. Are hon. Members so technologically illiterate that we cannot use them?
There have been criticisms in the press about our proposed expenditure. I cannot think of any section of the community that is less qualified than the press to criticise others on this matter. Where the press has high technology, it does not dare to use it and most parts of the press do not have that technology and do not even aspire to acquire it. If we are foolish enough to take advice from the press, I hope that industry, commerce and the rest of the country will not do so.
I had the pleasure of serving on the Computer Sub-Committee and we spent many hours taking evidence, not only from hon. Members who were good enough to make thoughtful and detailed contributions to our consideration, but from a wide range of people from outside, including users, suppliers, designers and programmers of equipment.
The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) mentioned the comparatively small number of hon. Members who gave evidence to the Sub-Committee. The small response was understandable, bearing in mind that only a small number of hon. Members were acquainted with computers. That number is growing quickly, but when we started our deliberations few of us had a great contribution to make. I learned a lot not only from other hon. Members, but from the evidence of outside witnesses.
I think that my colleagues on the Sub-Committee will agree that we were impressed on our visit to the Canadian Parliament where we saw the installation of a system which we believe to be relevant to our needs in at least two ways. The Canadian Parliament suffers, as we do to an extent, from having its functions dispersed over a number of buildings. Indeed, it is probably even more inconvenient for the Canadians, given the Canadian winter and the problems of communication and keeping in touch are particularly difficult. Many of us also have to do much of our work at our desks, quite a distance from the Chamber and the centre of activity.
The second way in which the Canadian system is relevant to Westminster is its comparatively low cost. Clearly, shrewd and efficient bargaining had taken place between representatives of the Canadian Parliament and various contractors, particularly in the cabling of the system. The original tender was rejected and the work was carried out at a fraction of the first estimate.
I became interested in this subject three years ago when home computers were first coming on to the market. I believed that they could be used for Members' purposes. Since then, I have been experimenting with my work stations at home and in Parliament based on the BBC micro.
The Leader of the House has rightly said that we should be as careful with public money as we are with our own. I assure him that I and a number of other hon. Members spend a fair proportion of our own money on these activities. We do not complain about that, but we certainly have not been squandering our own or taxpayers' money.
For the benefit of any hon. Members who may not have a great experience of using computers, I shall briefly refer to the purposes for which I am using my system. Its word-processing application is of overwhelming importance. It
1400
is a delightfully speedy process. I find myself writing more letters because it is easier to explain a difficult point as the words are printed on the screen almost as my mind conceives them. Consequently, I am using this facility more and more, rather than depending on my secretary. The computer is useful to write letters to my constituents, and to compose speeches and press handouts.
My computer system has useful fringe benefits. I have developed a program that enables me to call up a large number of addresses, not just alphabetically, as in the ordinary address book, but in categories of interest or location. This is the well-known data retrieval facility. I have adapted a similar program that enables me to find —provided I have put the information on the computer — all the press cuttings and articles that I have considered would be useful in the future. Often hon. Members file these articles somewhere and can never find them again. This simple process enables me to feed into the computer the source of an article and what it is about. Long after I have forgotten the article I can find a reference to it on the computer and use it in preparing a paper on that subject.
The computer's summary of my current case work is useful, not least when a Department replies some months after my original letter was sent. Sometimes a Department inconsiderately does not mention the name of the constituent concerned but simply states, for example, "Replying to your letter of 3 March". The Department assumes that it does not have to tell me on whose behalf I wrote or what the letter was about. In such cases, the names are readily available on my computer.
I have another index that tells me whether I have already signed an early-day motion. This is most useful when hon. Members ask me to put my name to their motion. I do not have to trouble the Table Office unnecessarily.
Access to Prestel, Ceefax, Oracle and mail boxes will be most useful to hon. Members. I hope that, eventually, hon. Members will have access to the updated POLIS when it becomes more user-friendly.
The computer diary provides a back-up to my own personal diary. One's personal diary, which may remain unopened on one's desk or closed in one's pocket, is therefore useless. My computer diary bleeps to give me sufficient time to get across to the House to fulfil an engagement. It provides me with a printout of appointments, including a selection of these appointments —for example, it is useful if I want to know how many speaking engagements I have. If I cannot remember when I have arranged to see the director of education, I simply type in "education director" and the date comes up on to the screen.
These are well-known uses, which I have enumerated only because they may not be known to all hon. Members. Of course, they may be known to those hon. Members who are here. I believe that this facility is admirably fitted to meeting the needs of the House and is not confined simply to business uses. I warmly support the report's recommendations. I am disappointed at the initial response of the Leader of the House, and I hope that a different response will be forthcoming.
10.55 am
Mr. Colin Shepherd: I am grateful to be called so early in the debate and am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn). He has resolved a

1401
mystery that has been puzzling me for some time, but I did not like to ask him about it. I am accustomed to hearing a "Beep, beep, beep" in the middle of meetings. I now know that it is the hon. Gentleman's diary telling him that he should be somewhere else. I am doubly appreciative of the fact that the hon. Gentleman, who is one of the valued members of the Library Sub-Committee of which I have the honour to be Chairman, continues to stay for the rest of the proceedings. His commitment to the running of the House is shown by his participation in the Computer, Catering and Library Sub-Committees.
As Chairman of the Library Sub-Committee, I want to bat on behalf of the Library. The Library is often taken for granted. It is sometimes seen as a fine suite of rooms along the riverside frontage of the House and a corridor containing many books. That is as far as people's perception goes. The Library has greater functions and facilities than normally manifest themselves to hon. Members and the public.
We are debating these issues on an Adjournment motion. This is an opportunity to air opinions. I believe that there is a need for urgent consideration and commitment to the future, especially in relation to accommodation facilities. We are under distinct pressure, and I hope that my remarks on the Library will demonstrate that.
The report recommended that certain steps should be put in train immediately after the Easter recess. Unfortunately, this is our first opportunity to consider the report. The pressure does not lessen with time; it increases. Would it not have been better for the report to be dealt with on a motion that enabled positive action to flow from it, if the House agreed, rather than have what is, in effect, a talking shop motion?
The wide issues which have already been brought to the surface in this debate need careful consideration. I understand that the information technology report does not necessarily lend itself to a motion that invites instant action. Nevertheless, hon. Members have stressed the need to grapple with the issues.
I am concerned that the Library should not be taken for granted. It has a finite level of resources which are voted by the House. It exists to serve the House to the best of its abilities. It is my pleasure to be able to compliment members of the Library staff on their phenomenal achievement. An interesting analysis of this achievement shows that in every Parliament the level of inquiry rises above the level of inquiry experienced in the previous Parliament and increases steadily through the ensuing Parliament, so that, in the past six Parliaments, there has been a steady increase in the use made by hon. Members of the research facilities of the Library.
Dr. Jeremy Bray: The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. The distribution of the use of the Library by different Members is as skilled in this Parliament as it was 20 years ago, but the more exotic services are still used by a small minority of Members. However, they must still be provided. Is that not a lesson for the information technology services?
Mr. Shepherd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is right. I observed that the demand on the Library facilities achieves a new plateau after every election that is above the previous plateau, and then
1402
demand increases during the course of that Parliament. Sometimes, it tails off marginally at the end of a Parliament, but the following Parliament asserts a yet new level.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: I readily agree with the hon. Gentleman's compliments to the Library staff. It is one of the finest libraries in which I have worked. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that the staffing resources in the Library are able to cope with the increased demands, or do they require more staffing?
Mr. Shepherd: The answer to that will become more apparent as time goes on. I do not want to give a categoric answer on this point because we have problems on where we go from here and how we cope in the time until 1990. The Library understands the problem, and when phase 1 of the new Bridge street parliamentary site came up it became apparent that we should try to secure part of that site for future development of the Library services. I was very glad that the House saw fit to accept that recommendation, and we are now well in hand with the creation of a bigger and better Library facility involving the capability for bigger and better research output in the future. However, that will not happen until 1990, so my concern is what happens between now and 1990, and how we overcome the problem of the steady increase of work required by Members and asked of the House of Commons Library.
Part of the growth—I cannot quantify how much—has come about because of the increase in the number of research assistants. Whether research assistants raise the points that they ask hon. Members to place on the Library, or whether they place inquiries themselves on the Library is not clear. However, we know that 80 per cent. of requests are placed direct on the Library by hon. Members and 20 per cent. by research assistants. We have to recall that before 1977 the branch Library did not exist. Now, the branch Library in Norman Shaw North is so heavily under pressure as a consequence of the growth of the number of research assistants and facilities that it is essential that we take action to contain this problem, pending at least 1990. It may be that, come 1990, we shall have a bigger problem which requires yet further thought. This is some of the thinking behind the recognition of the problem.
When we took evidence on the loading in 1984, we found that there were 252 research assistants with temporary passes category 9D. In 1985, in an update, we have found that there are 295, which is an increase of 43, so the problem is now more difficult to cope with than it was when we first took evidence. The branch Library reports to me that things became worse up to Easter of this year, with the January to April term particularly difficult, with severe overcrowding in the branch Library.
At that time, six organisations were sending American research assistants. The problem has eased since Easter. Only one organisation has research assistants here under informally agreed procedures. I understand that there are 15 or 20 freelances as well. There have been no contacts with the other groups. About 35 overseas research assistants are using the Library — let us call them temporary research assistants—who are, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), personal apprentices.

1403
The branch Library feels that it can cope with the present circumstances, and the report came to that view as well. However, when more than 100 overseas research students had access to the branch Library facilities, the branch Library could not cope. Whether research assistants in that category come from the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran, India or anywhere else, the loading on the staff in the branch Library is high because of the high educational input that has to be made for most of the time that the research assistants are with us.
Once again, it is a tribute to the patience and quality of the branch Library itself that its members are able to cope without going completely out of their minds. We owe it to them to recognise this problem and to make their lives as reasonable and easy as possible.
I am not agin research assistants per se. However, I should like it to be recognised sometimes that they are not necessarily all research assistants but are more personal assistants. We might make life a little easier for ourselves if we were to refer to them as personal assistants, because often the personal assistants are those who direct the Members' inquiries towards the source of resolution rather than initiating inquiries themselves.
The Library is a finite entity and there is nowhere for it to go. Therefore, we have to make it possible for the Library to survive until 1990 without the level of service falling or hon. Members' reasonable expectations being disappointed. That is why I want an urgent and early implementation of the recommendations in our report on Members' accommodation, called "Members' Staff: Pressure on Accommodation and Facilities".
In the meantime, we must direct ourselves to the restriction. The report has various ideas about restriction. It is worth while bearing in mind the fact that this concept is not new. Although in theory the 650 Members could have 650 secretaries and 650 research or personal assistants, we do not all have one of each, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woking remarked, some have more than one of each. Therefore, we already have a certain self-denying ordinance.
A long time ago, before we had additional facilities in the branch Library, the Library recognised that research assistants would require access to the main Library. We restricted the numbers of research assistants to 200, and that restriction was accepted by the House. A rule was added that there should be no more than 15 research assistants in the main Library at any one time. Since that restriction was introduced, not more than 15 have been required to be in the main Library. There has been voluntary restraint, and in some respects the pressure has not been as high as it might appear to be.
It is also interesting to note that many of those people on the 200 club list are no longer research assistants. There are a number of secretaries on the research assistants' list with access to the Library. That is possibly a manifestation of a changing scene. The emphasis is moving away from the main Library to research at arm's length through the Library's research facility, which has grown so remarkably over the past few years.
There are 10 fewer permanent research assistants than there were a year ago. Someone who is described as a research assistant on the 200 club list may be a secretary who has the added convenience of being able to pop into the Library and look up "Who's Who" rather than have to go somewhere else.
1404
I have put down my markers as to the implications, of any changes that may be brought about. We can get ourselves into 1990 provided that there are no major changes. However, I have noticed, as I have no doubt my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will have noticed, that there is an early-day motion on the Order Paper with about 200 signatures which asks for increases in personal research facilities. If we accept that—I do not advocate that we should or should not—we may blow the Library and its ability to cope with the load that we put on it. We must recognise that point and be prepared to deal with it.
As there is no way in which the Library can expand physically over the next five years until 1990, the House would be well advised to consider that point before leaping in in a way that could lead to a major growth in the work being placed on the Library.
Mr. Sheerman: I have carefully followed what the hon. Gentleman has said. He has advanced a logical and sound argument. Why are the Library resource parameters unbreakable? There is a good building to let opposite the Abbey, near the accommodation that we already rent. Why is there such tremendous pressure on resources? Why do we not rent that building and put in some extra staff so that Members can obtain the facilities that they want now instead of having to wait until 1990? Temporary measures can be taken speedily.
Mr. Shepherd: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I work within the constraints placed on the Library at the moment and I report on those constraints. If the House feels that that is what we should do, it will no doubt take the necessary steps. The House cannot expect a much greater expansion of Library services within the present structural framework. The Library is already a Gulag Archipelago of little bits deposited over five sites with tenuous lines of communication that cause a great deal of manpower wastage just getting information from point A to point B.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), who has responsibility for the Property Services Agency is not here. I had hoped that he would be, so that he could accept my thanks on behalf of the Library for making available the resources necessary to implement paragraph 26 of the report in advance of the recommendation being adopted, so that improvements can be made this autumn to the fifth and sixth floors of Norman Shaw North. That is good, and no doubt when he reads the debate he will take on board the appreciation of the Library staff, the Chairman and Committee who find that a substantial boost to morale.
I wish to deal briefly with the information technology report and its implications for the Library. This has been mentioned, but there should be no expectation that increased availability to Members of information technology will reduce the Library's work load. It will not. I am confident that it will increase it. The Library experts advise me of that, and I have every reason to believe them to be correct.
That new dimension constitutes a considerable extra facility for Members. They will therefore expect a new dimension in services from the Library. The flexibility given by electronic mail will improve matters. One will be able to put a request into the system out of hours and

1405
possibly receive a response out of hours. That will mean that we are not so dependent upon the availability of research staff over the desk.
I sound, however, a note of caution about the cost of Parliament. My right hon. Friend mentioned this. We are letting Members loose with a not inconsiderable spending power in terms of their access to various databases. We have two types. We have the POLIS system which is good, and I can see that being accessed for the most part by the Library's research staff, although as time goes on more Members will get the hang of accessing it, so the demand on the system will increase. That has a not unreasonable cost implication. Prestel, Ceefax, Oracle and all the other proliferating databases are paid for by the minute. It will be easy to get the habit of dabbing into those databases regardless of the cost. We must bear that in mind. It amounts to an open cheque book.
If we decide to go ahead with the system recommended, can its designers bear in mind the fact that we shall have to arrange for Members and staff to become acquainted with it so that they can understand how to obtain the best value from it? We do not want to spend money regardless and get it wrong. We all work differently. We range around the buildings. We are peripatetic. We do not want to be pinned down to a work station. I agree with the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) who spoke on the radio this morning. I do not want to be pinned down to a desk. I want to be able to be in and out and around. We must remember the need for simplicity, reliability and flexibility.
The Library is the biggest and oldest user of information technology within the Palace. It has an immense well of expertise which must not be overlooked. The strengthening of the links between the Sub-Committees is welcome, as is the strong professional connection. I urge that that close cohesion and cooperation is engendered at all stages as we move into these curious uncharted waters which face us. The benefits to the House will be enormous if we get them right. There will be confusion if we get them wrong.
11.18 am
Mr. John Silkin: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd). I do not believe that there is any Member of the House who will not echo the justified praise he has given to the Library and the staff. We are all greatly indebted to them, and it is right that that should have been said today. I am also grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the part that he played in the joint deliberations, because he is one of the begetters of the report. The Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee and the Library Sub-Committee joined to consider the matter because plainly the pressure placed on the Library facilities by research assistants and others is of great importance. I express the gratitude of the other half of that Committee for the work that was done by the Library members.
I find it odd that the deliberations of the Computer Sub-Commmittee should have been put together with those of the joint Accommodation and Administration and Library Sub-Committees. However, that is the way in which the Leader of the House works. He is a man gifted with the
1406
ability to see 101 different things all at the same time. If that is the way that he enjoys a debate, who am I to interrupt his fun?
I find myself obliged to spend a short time talking about the Computer Sub-Commmittee's report only in so far as it affects the Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee. I promise the House that I shall go no further than that.
The House will appreciate that the annunciators are nearing the end of their life in their present form. The report accepts that we will not be able to continue with the present system for very much longer. This presents us with the choice of using a system which employs the existing cabling or examining another system, considering the possibilities of a different sort of cabling and assessing the advantages that that might give to Members in future. It would be futile to reject the pilot study that the report suggests. To use the term "criminal" to describe such a rejection would perhaps be going too far, but it would be rather a stupid thing to do. There must be a thorough examination and I emhasise that that is essential.
The hon. Member for Hereford said a great deal for me and for the Committee when he talked about research assistants. He observed that one of the recommendations was that the report should be put into effect immediately following the Easter recess. It seems curious logic to say that we must deal with the matter of research assistants immediately, so let us adjourn the whole issue without voting on it. Surely we must hear what the House has to say. I suggest that the issue will be taken up not at Easter, not when the House goes into the summer recess and not at Christmas but at some time in the Greek kalends, when the Leader of the House or his successor will suddenly say, "Perhaps we should do something about research assistants". At that moment perhaps the bright idea will occur to the right hon. Gentleman or his successor to set up a joint committee to examine the issue and report on it. In the meantime nothing will be done.
The joint Sub-Committee had a problem which has been solved in the past. It faced the difficulty of bringing together three distinct issues. It was a more difficult task than bringing together one or two opposing points of view in the same area. When there is a point of view and an opposing point of view on much the same issue, the old British habit of compromise can be introduced and a resolution can be achieved in that way. Instead, the joint Sub-Committee had to consider three distinct factors. The first factor was the freedom of hon. Members to choose what employees they wish to have to assist them with their work in the House. This freedom of choice, which has been recognised for centuries, is vital. The second factor was the need of hon. Members to do their work in such a way as not to conflict with the work of other hon. Members. If certain services are overloaded and the result is that some hon. Members are not able to do their job, it is clearly necessary to find a satisfactory balance. The third factor was the need of hon. Members to be informed. I understand why the Leader of the House does not wish hon. Members to be quite as well informed as he is. However, it would be difficult for them to be so even with 100 research assistants.
Do we want to return to the days when there were no Select Committees? Do we want to return to the days before the introduction of information technology? Do we want to return to the days when Ministers used to write out by hand all their own statements, as they did in the 18th

1407
century? I remember reading that one of the troubles with the French Revolution that caused everyone to execute everyone else was that those in authority had to do all the work themselves. They had no secretaries to assist them and consequently they were worn out. That does not seem to be a useful way of conducting our labours.
When I was the Chief Whip of the Labour Government I took the view that it was not useful to go through the night discussing legislation. I am glad that the House has somewhat changed its view on all night or very late sittings. Things are still quite bad but they are not as bad as they used to be. The Leader of the House must accept that there are changes and that change will continue.
I am surprised that the Leader of the House did not seek a decision on the modest proposals that are contained in the report. As I have said, the Committee had three different factors to consider before coming to a decision. It had to make the judgment of Solomon, in effect. The Leader of the House, who has a sense of history, knows that the judgment of Solomon was never carried out. I wish that he had not taken that precedent so much to heart.
Dr. Godman: My right hon. Friend has said that there is a need for Members to be informed. Will he acknowledge that it is essential that we are informed? We must all be well briefed. But how useful is a temporary research assistant in this endeavour? In paragraph 16 of the report we find that a witness talked about temporary research assistants disappearing just when they are beginning to get used to our work. At that stage a completely new lot of assistants arrive with little knowledge of Parliament and its work. How useful is a temporary temporary research assistant?
Mr. Silkin: The answer lies with Members themselves and not so much with research assistants, provided that they are of reasonable quality. My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) made a fair and reasonable case but I must quarrel with him gently on one issue. Research assistants do not beg to be allowed to come to this place and there are fewer research assistants than Members. We must recognise that Members want their assistance. If Members did not want temporary temporary research assistants, they would not be available and they would not come. I know that the Leader of the House is a great believer in the free market economy and the laws of supply and demand. I am worried that he has not taken that point firmly to his heart. I think that he is beginning to slip; he is becoming slightly Fabian.
Mr. Williams: My right hon. Friend will recollect that I made two optional interpretations. I said that it was likely that the existence of research assistants—they have been called angels—was disguising a need that the House should face. In that way I was agreeing with my right hon. Friend's argument. I think that the need should be met properly.
Mr. Silkin: I did not think that it was for me or for the joint Sub-Committee to go into the broader question of whether we have all the research assistance that we need in a modern age. I know that that question exercises the minds of a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House. Any visit to Congress or to some European Parliaments convinces one that we are 100 years behind the times. However, it would not be appropriate to take up that matter now.
Mr. Sheerman: My right hon. Friend is aware that Members need the help of research assistants. There are some who want to make American research assistants scapegoats for the resources that we have in this place, but Members with common sense do not take on anyone who will be a nuisance. They take on assistants because they desperately need help, whether that is at the level of photocopying, "gofering" or for a myriad of different jobs that the modern legislator has to undertake. These assistants provide a valuable service and they are not pests.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: And they are free.
Mr. Silkin: The fact that they are free makes them to most hon. Members rather more desirable. If the House wishes—it will at some time, of that I am convinced—to provide the funds in such a way that will not penalise hon. Members, I am sure that hon. Members will take on assistants of a more permanent nature. However, I am not altogether convinced that that would be desirable.
I like the idea of people, so long as they are competent, coming from the former colonies and elsewhere and learning a little about democracy. It is good for them and it is good for the United Kingdom. Provided that they are properly treated, they are our friends for the rest of their lives.
We point out in our report that they come not only from the United States. They come from Iran—I should have thought that Iran had a lot to learn from Britain — Korea, India, Germany and many other countries. The fact that they come from those various places is valuable from our point of view.
Mr. Onslow: So that the passionate intervention of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) does not discolour the true picture, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that much evidence was given to his Committee by people who were able to evaluate, from a detached point of view, the work of assistants? Will he confirm that that evidence showed that many temporary apprentices were seriously under-employed and were in some cases used mainly to collect and open mail and take messages? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it does not contribute greatly to understanding between nations if somebody who comes here to undertake such work is treated as a dogsbody?
Mr. Silkin: That is so, but that is a criticism of the hon. Member concerned rather than of the assistant, and it is not my purpose or that of the Committee to spend time criticising our colleagues. We could of course do that, but the House would then have to set up a sub-committee for that purpose.
Given that we have limited facilities — the hon. Member for Hereford faced up to this in the Committee and in the House today—what are we to do? We must have some form of rationing. That was an issue that we had to consider. We must give hon. Members the freedom of which I spoke and the right to be fully informed, if they wish to be informed, but we must not overload the various facilities in such a way as to cause a nuisance to other hon. Members.
In particular cases a nuisance can occur. The hon. Member for Hereford put the Library first, and so do I, because that is the core of the learning and of any ability that we have to serve our country. There are other

1409
facilities, such as catering. The hon. Member for Hereford, being a member of the Catering Sub-Committee, has experience of that. It is not good—I put it no higher than that—if we and others who are more permanently employed are not able to have proper refreshment facilities because of the presence of people who are here for only a short time.
Another factor which comes up more and more these days— in the Accommodation and Administration and Library Sub-Committees it comes up almost every week —is the overloading and over-use, and sometimes the perhaps improper use, of photocopying machines. There must be a limitation of use. That is what we have tried to deal with, though we accept that it must be a sensible limitation, and that is why we have made our recommendations on that type of subject.
In the course of making those recommendations, we were enormously impressed by one group of producers of overseas assistants, Educational Programmes Abroad, because it had a disciplinary basis; it taught its young people something about the House of Commons before they came here and impressed on them the need to conform with certain standards. I suspect — as I believe the Committee did generally — that where our colleagues have justifiable complaints, too often they arise because of young people not being employed on that sort of collective basis, but being employed willy-nilly by hon. Members for a short period and never really learning what this place, its traditions and importance are about. That is why we were impressed by those who were willing to adopt a disciplinary code.
Mr. Sheerman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that several programmes exist by which students are supplied to the House and that rigorous procedures are carried out under those programmes, including visiting constituencies and party conferences and having intensive meetings, before students are let loose in this place?
Mr. Silkin: To be fair, I agree that it happens in a limited number of cases, and we made that point. We were impressed by those cases where that happened. That is why we made our recommendations on the subject and recommended, for example, that there should be a limit on the number of temporary research assistant passes.
I agree with the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) that the phrase is a misnomer in that they are not necessarily research assistants. "Personal assistants" might be a better description. I am not sure about the use of the word "apprentice"; hon. Members, rather than those whom they employ, are sometimes more likely to be apprentices.
Mr. Simon Hughes: While accepting that research assistants should be here for a longer time, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that any hon. Member should be permitted to have more than one at any one time? I am also worried by the use of the word "employed" because some of us need responsible and capable people who are willing to give perhaps two days a week for a year or two without payment, and it may be necessary for us to employ somebody else for another two days a week without payment. They are not, in the strict use of the word, employed.
Mr. Silkin: We were essentially talking about passes being issued to people from overseas. There is no such restriction on passes being given to people from these islands.
Mr. Onslow: I am interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that no consideration was given to restricting passes for assistants unless they happened to be of overseas origin. Was that a conscious and deliberate decision by the Committee in approaching this subject? Did the right hon. Gentleman or his colleagues consider my proposition—I thought that it would be the fairest, if the roughest and readiest solution—that there should be a limit of one secretary and research assistant with passes, or at any rate two personal staff, per hon. Member, however many others hon. Members might employ outside?
Mr. Silkin: We considered among ourselves whether it was possible to make such a numerical decision, but came to the conclusion that it was not. Practicalities affect the question of home-produced personal assistants because, as was pointed out earlier, British universities do not at present regard work experience as part of courses. Therefore, the question does not arise to the extent that it does with American universities which, very sensibly, include this kind of activity in their work programmes. Working in this place cannot be substituted for a summer term at Oxbridge or anywhere else, even if the student is reading politics or philosophy. In that regard, we are way behind the United States. The practicalities therefore led us in the direction that we took.
I believe that the recommendations are fairly clear. It is a pity that the House was not given the opportuniy to get on with the job and simply to pass them. It can always say that the recommendations do not go far enough and that we wish to return to the matter again, but the present method tends to prejudice the possibility of getting on with things.
The hon. Member for Woking was the only hon. Member to raise the important question of security. Here we are in some difficulty. I believe that we are all too lax about security. We accept the need for it, especially after the dreadful occurrences in Brighton last year, and we know that the House is vulnerable but we seem not to take the matter personally to heart as much as we should. If Members are to have the freedom, which in my view they should have, to choose whom they employ to help them, the onus of dealing with the security aspect must fall on them. It was a difficult matter and we included it late in the day following the Brighton outrages. I hope that we have got it right, but I believe that in the end the onus must be on Members to see that it is dealt with properly.
We are dealing not with a compromise but with three essential rights that a Member of Parliament should have —the freedom to choose those who help him, the need to be informed and the need not to interfere with or damage the work of his colleagues. I hope that we have got this reasonably right but I have no doubt that the House will return to it time and again over the years. I venture to suggest that we shall never reach a permanent solution because I do not believe that such a solution exists.
11.42 am
Sir Paul Bryan: The hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn) was disappointed with the attitude of

1411
my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I was well pleased with it, as it seemed entirely reasonable. At a time of so much administrative change it is as well to have a sensible pilot at the helm. I was, however, disappointed with the speech of the hon. Member for Redcar, as he appeared not dissatisfied enough with the status quo.
The hon. Gentleman made sound comments about the future; but I wish to consider how things can be made more tolerable in the five years during which we shall have to live with the present conditions, which are very difficult to improve, until the new building is available in 1990. I was pleased that my hon. Friends the Members for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) and for Woking (Mr. Onslow) addressed themselves to the problem of what can be done now to make things better.
The lot of a Member of Parliament has improved a great deal since I arrived in this place 30 years ago. We are much better paid. We have allowances for secretaries, for research assistants, for living in London, and so on. Even our wives have travel vouchers. All those things were unheard of 30 years ago, as was the help that we now obtain from information technology. Life is also harder. There is greater pressure from constituency work and correspondence, and parliamentary hours are longer. Our constituents are better informed and the demands of the House are much greater. All those things are inevitable and it is no use deploring them. I wish to deal with the tribulations that we have brought on ourselves and about which we may be able to do something.
The use of one or several research assistants per Member of Parliament is a new phenomenon and a perfectly natural development to meet the increased pressure. Some Members, because of the nature of their work, can fully employ one or several research assistants. Others, however, get such an assistant and then find that they cannot fully employ him or her, so the poor research assistant is set to work brewing up large numbers of questions to some miserable Minister in an attempt to fill up the time. Some Members may ask as many as 200 or 300 questions. As surely as night follows day, if one asks hundreds of questions one's correspondence and surgery work will double. The research assistant will then be overworked. The Member then engages another.
Does all this make one a better Member of Parliament? In my view, asking 500 questions does not make one a better Member of Parliament and may actually do a great deal of harm to this place in the process. Whether that is the right or the wrong way to behave, however, the result has been that there are now many more assistants. The research assistants did not come here uninvited. We have caused the problem. If the cafeterias are full to overflowing and the Library or the branch Library becomes a bedlam, that is our doing, for better or worse and whether we wished well or ill; it is up to us to do something about it.
As no additional accommodation will be available for several years, I believe that all of of us — the Government, the Services Committee and Members—must agree to lay down some rules now to stop the rot that we ourselves have started. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Woking that until we have a great deal more room Members should in general be limited to one secretary and one research assistant each. I say "in general" because clearly exceptions will be necessary for shadow Ministers and so on.
1412
As my hon. Friend the Member for Woking also pointed out, those Members who rightly and worthily use all the information technology available often do not appreciate that a large number of Members get on perfectly well without all that and are not bad Members of Parliament as a result. For instance, 241 Members have no research assistant. They do not pay their secretaries £12,000 per year, so they could afford research assistants if they wanted them. The amount of research assistance available outside the House is often underestimated. I have been interested in Honk Kong for many years, but I do not have research assistants gathering information for me about Hong Kong. The high commission provides an endless supply of press cuttings, and many other organisations provide any information that I need. In the modern world, a large number of organisations, trade associations and trade unions are becoming very good at this kind of work and a great deal of information can be obtained in that way.
Mr. Austin Mitchell: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that hon. Members should be made entirely dependent on vested interests? The sources of information which the hon. Gentleman suggests we use often have a financial interest.
Sir Paul Bryan: The hon. Gentleman must not go through life terrified of these people. We get information from whom we want and judge it according to who supplies it. Hon. Members are supposed to have sufficient judgment to sort out what information is good and what is bad. I am unalarmed by that consideration.
There is quite a considerable discrepancy between the numbers of permanent or temporary secretaries, and permanent or temporary research assistants as stated in parliamentary answers and by the Serjeant at Arms. That discrepancy reflects the ebb and flow of students, but there is no doubt that the trend is constantly and rapidly upwards. According to figures supplied to me by the Serjeant at Arms, there were some hon. Members with nine, 10 or even 14 research assistants on 1 May. Hon. Members are entirely welcome to such numbers of research assistants as long as they are watered, fed, accommodated and car-parked somewhere else than in the Palace of Westminster.
Students are welcome if we can give them the sort of education and treatment that they deserve, but it is quite apparent that we cannot. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford gave many sensible reasons for that. I should have thought that, for the time being, the flood of students should be stopped. If we had the accommodation and the facilities, it would be very nice to be able to help them with their education by a few months attachment to this historic place. However, we are unable to supply such a favour in present conditions. At the moment, the arrangement is inconvenient to us and positively unfair on House of Commons staff in the Libraries and restaurants. Moreover, I should have thought that the students must leave with a less than favourable impression of the mother of Parliaments.
As for parliamentary questions, I can express an interest or lack of it, in that I have never been a prolific questioner. I have asked very few during the past year. What are the further thoughts of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the uncontrolled growth in the number of questions? The latest figures show that it costs £67 to

1413
answer an oral question and £41 to answer a written question. For that reason alone, there must be a limit to the number of questions that can be asked.
We are equipped with an admirable reference library and it is hard to see any justification for 800 questions a year. Three hon. Members asked 800 questions in the last Session. That meant that each hon. Member's questions cost at least £33,000 to answer. I cannot believe that that is right or that our constituents would think it reasonable. I am sure that if the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) were here he would jump to his feet to explain the virtue of his various questions. Oh, here he comes. I am not suggesting that the questions are good or bad, but there is no disguising the fact that some of the questions now being asked are largely a publicity stunt or, more worthily, a method of holding on to a marginal seat.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Yes.
Sir Paul Bryan: There is no reason why the Government or taxpayers should pay for that.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the Government made the disclosure of information an automatic part of their processes half of the effort that hon. Members have to go to to extract information, often getting no answer the first time, half an answer the second time and an unsatisfactory answer the third time, but eventually the facts, would not be required?
Sir Paul Bryan: I can only tell the hon. Gentleman that Back Benchers in all Parliaments of which I have been a Member have never been satisfied with the answers they get from Ministers. Even if unbelievably Ministers gave entirely satisfactory answers, nobody can persuade me that that would reduce the number of questions that are asked.
Mr. Dalyell: I make this point quite quietly. Yes, I tabled a great many questions on a particular subject because it was clear that the Government were not being candid. The cost of those questions, in so far as it was a cost, was not the difficulty of getting information, as the information was readily available in the Ministry of Defence, but the fact that Ministers did not want to reveal the truth and therefore had to synchronise one answer with another. The quick response to the hon. Gentlemfan is to suggest that he reads Ponting's book, especially page 129. If the hon. Gentleman had sat through the 11 days of the Ponting trial in court No. 2 at the Old Bailey, he would have seen the extent of the dissemblement. That is the justification for asking so many questions.
Sir Paul Bryan: So that I can get on with my speech, let us all agree that the hon. Member for Linlithgow is a bargain for the nation at £33,000.
Mr. Dalyell: Rubbish.
Sir Paul Bryan: Can my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House explain what are the alleged arrangements for the control, if that is the word, of visitors to the Palace of Westminster? The scene on the Terrace of the House of Commons is often not attractive, especially in summer. It gets overcrowded and some visitors seem to stay there drinking for hours at a time with no host Member of Parliament in sight. I am aware of a regulation which provides that no guest should be left for more than 15 minutes, but who enforces such a rule? Is it not time that
1414
a specially selected and tactful policeman was asked to inquire from time to time what right people have to be in various places? I do not mean just the Terrace, as we often see characters who seem quite at home in parts of the House which we all think are supposed to be preserved for hon. Members.
To follow what the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) said, should we not consider the machinery of our parliamentary housekeeping? Does it operate with sufficient urgency? The Select Committee whose report we are discussing was appointed on 28 March 1984. It first met on 6 June 1984 and it reported on 31 January 1985. Yet here we are discussing the report 15 months after the Committee was set up, but only on a motion for the Adjournment. Therefore, we have no prospect of doing anything before Christmas at the earliest. If we continue at that pace to pursue the reform of the administration of the House of Commons, matters will get much worse before they get better.
11.59 am
Mr. Stephen Ross: Some of the speeches so far from Conservative Members remind me of the last time we debated our salary increases. The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Chope), for instance, who had just been elected, said that we should set an example to the nation and not increase our salaries above a certain amount. Then I discovered that he is a barrister. The impression that some people do not live in the real world has been given again today. Many have numerous directorships.
I have never before taken part in such a debate, and I do not suppose I will do so again, but I shall embark on a litte personal pleading. I remind the hon. Member for Boothferry (Sir P. Bryan) that since Mr. Arthur Lewis, the former Member for Newham, North-West, left the House, the cost of answering quesions has probably decreased substantially.
Last summer, after the debate on our car allowances, I was so disgusted by the fact that Parliament increased allowances to people with large cars that I wrote to the Leader of the House. I said that, although it was probably good for my soul to accept a cut, because I drive a Mini Metro, it did not enthuse my bank manager.
The problem for many Opposition Members and for a growing number of Conservative Members is that we cannot afford to employ research assistants. I disagree with one part of the Select Committee's report. Paragraph 6, at the top of page vi, states:
"We challenge neither the figure itself'—
the secretarial and research allowance—
"nor the view … that it would be wrong to interfere with the individual Member's right to engage staff."
I do not disagree with the latter part of that sentence, but I believe that we should challenge the secretarial and research allowance, which at the time was £12,400, but which has recently been increased to just over £13,000. The allowance is inadequate and bears no relation to the population of one's constituency.
Mr. Silkin: For the record, we did not challenge it because it was not within our terms of reference.
Mr. Ross: I readily accept that. I thought that I might be ruled out of order if I mentioned the subject without saying that it was covered in the report.
I challenge the allowance because it is inadequate, especially when one has a large constituency. My

1415
constituency has the largest electoral register, with about 100,000 people. That creates a large work load, especially when 26 per cent. of the electorate are retired, people who tend to write long letters. There are also three prisons in my constituency whose inmates seem to have adopted me as their constituency Member.
I must employ two secretaries—one in the House and one in my constituency—which makes it impossible for me to consider engaging a full-time research assistant. I am already in debt because I employ two secretaries. It is time that that point was made in the House. If one wishes to play a proper role in the House, as I try to do each day, by sitting on Select Committees and Standing Committees, one suffers from the lack of a research assistant. I could do a much better job if I had a full-time assistant.
Another problem is that one is often asked questions by one's constituents, most recently especially on immigration matters and the lists of restricted drugs. In most cases, one does not know the right answer—one would be a fool to pretend otherwise—so one passes the letters to Ministers, whose civil servants must provide the answers. Since the immigration rules change frequently, to be sure of getting the right answer one must always pass the query to the Minister concerned. We are taking up an enormous amount of the time of civil servants, and if we had effective research assistants we could do more for ourselves.
I took on board the request made by Ministers a couple of years ago for hon. Members to deal more with the local representatives of the Department of Employment or the DHSS. I have always had the facility of telephoning them. I even telephone prison governors so that I can avoid writing letters to the Home Office. But that all takes time, and it would save money if the allowance were increased to enable us to employ full-time research assistants.
At present, I am using a temporary, part-time researcher on one project, and I would regard any restriction on my ability to do that as completely unacceptable. Most of the American students of my acquaintance have been surprisingly good at their job and quickly find their way around the House. I hope that they will continue to come, but I agree with the report that there probably is a need to restrict their numbers, at least until we have improved premises, which we should have had long ago.
I cannot understand why we are not able to make use of some of the empty rooms in the vicinity of the Palace of Westminster. There are some in Bridge street and, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) who is not in the House at present, pointed out, there are also some over by the Abbey.
Why do we always come last in the list of priorities? I have just seen the office blocks which have been renovated at huge cost for Ministry use. One only has to go down John Islip street to see that. It does not make much sense. I trust there will be no further delays in the building programme, and the words of the Leader of the House suggested that that was his wish too.
Page 12 of the report states that, because the number of permanent research assistants is limited to 200, those Members unable to get a permanent pass apply for a temporary one. It seems unfair to limit the number of temporary research assistants, but the problem is really pressure on facilities, as has been illustrated in this debate. That can be relieved by limited access to them, and we will
1416
have to see to that. Evidence was also given on that point to the Committee by the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff. On page 19 there are recommendations for devising a method of such limitation, by restricting the hours or the days on which temporary research assistants can carry out research. I accept that restriction. That raises the question of the need for research to be carried oat urgently, perhaps when a statement is about to be made and someone wants a quick answer to a query. A special pass could be used in the Library for that purpose.
Vandalism and the need to restrict the Library to academic use were two other subjects discussed. Of course blatant vandalism must be dealt with severely. One way to curb unauthorised use of the Library is to have the Member state the nature of the research he wishes his assistant to accomplish; that could be put on the pass provided. It is a bit bureaucratic, but we have to adopt procedures of that kind if we are to relieve the Library of some of the pressures. I accept everything said in the debate so far about the Library. It is the most magnificent facility we have, and I always tell visitors about it. There is no doubt that socialising is going on in the Library. There is evidence of that, and the Librarian should be authorised to order out anyone who is not on Library business or who is causing obstruction.
We know about strains on the canteen and it is fair to point out that the House is not obliged to provide eating facilities for temporary research assistants. Unfortunately, we have not provided adequate facilities in the precincts of Westminster. There is a facility on the other side of the road, but it is rather expensive. People visiting the House, particularly children coming in with lunch packs, have nowhere to sit. Far too many people are going round the House and that ought to be discussed some time. It is impossible to take visitors around without being in a crush all the time, and we ought to think about restricting numbers. I know there is some temporary restriction now.
When visitors have finished their tour, where do they go? If they are with children, where can they sit down and have a meal? We have not thought that through; nor have we thought through the traffic congestion and all the coaches parked outside. There can be 40 or 50 at any one time in Millbank and Whitehall alone. Members should take on more responsibility for the work of their researchers and the use they make of facilities in the House. Perhaps we should consider assigning temporary research assistants either on a morning or afternoon privilege, so that half could use the facilities in the morning and the rest could use them in the afternoon. At other times they would have to work outside the Palace of Westminster. My temporary researcher comes to me out of working hours and starts at about 6.30 in the evening.
Evidence was also given that the problem about research assistants had lessened during the last year. That information was also given to the House by the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd). Perhaps we are being a little unkind in some of our criticisms. The situation has improved slightly. It may be that some of that comes from the publicity given to the report in the United States of America. A very full report appeared in the American newspapers, and that has probably been taken on board. I hope that the message that got across was not that we were anti-American students. I welcome them

1417
from all parts of the world. It is part of the job of the Palace of Westminster, the home of democracy, to be open to such people if we can accommodate them.
I congratulate the Committee on its work. I am grateful to it. I agree with the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) that we should come to some conclusion today and not put it off yet again. I found the report sensible and acceptable, but it would be more meaningful if we had a proper allowance so that hon. Members could employ researchers. That is now controlled by the Fees Office, so it should not be abused. I am one of the 200 signatories of that early-day motion.
I accept that most of my colleagues are getting themselves computerised and that probably I have to do the same. The sooner we introduce the recommended system based on the Canadian experience, the better. But I am no expert in these matters, and I hope that later in the debate one of my hon. Friends will catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
12.12 pm
Mr. Roger Gale: I apologise through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the House for the fact that I have to leave before the end of the debate. I apologise especially to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) and the Leader of the House. I undertake to read the report of the rest of the debate.
At the risk of causing a sharp intake of breath, I have to declare a slight interest in that in my name there are five researchers' passes. One or two of my hon. Friends have asked, "Why five?" I shall briefly explain.
The first of those five is a full researcher's pass which is held by my wife, who is my secretary and my personal assistant. In passing, I may be able to do a service to other hon. Members who employ their wives by putting it on the record that this is not, as is popularly believed outside the House, a way for a Member of Parliament to enhance his salary by using his secretarial allowance in that way. In my experience, most hon. Members who employ their wives do so at less than those ladies earned before starting to work here. When I am asked why, I give the answer that will be agreed by every hon. Member who does the same. It is the only way that I can get someone to work for me 17 hours a day and six days a week for the money. It is also the only way that some of us manage to see our wives.
The second and third of my researchers' passes go respectively to a student from Surrey university who pays a visit here once a week and spends half an hour in discussion with me because he is working on a specific research project. He has the pass to enable him to gain access to the building for that period without an inordinate delay at St. Stephens's Entrance. The other goes to a similar student from London univeristy who is studying economics and working for me on a similar basis.
One young lady from my constituency who helps with constituency work has a pass and uses it on the three occasions a year when she visits the building, again to help with access.
Finally, I have an American student from the educational programme abroad, who obviously also needs a pass.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) was right to say that—apart from my wife— these people are not researchers. They are personal
1418
assistants. However, the machinery of the House at present is such that the researcher's pass is the only identity document readily available. The proposal to introduce a temporary secretary's pass will undoubtedly be the solution. I suggest to the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) that perhaps a personal assistant's pass as an identity document might serve not only that useful purpose but also help to allay some of the misconceptions that have grown up around these batteries of people who patently are not researchers, as I have demonstrated in my own case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford said, there is a fundamental difference between researchers and personal assistants.
I, too, thank those genuine researchers who serve all hon. Members in the Library. They provide for Back Benchers a Rolls-Royce service. At very short notice they provide detailed answers to very tricky questions. I do not believe that the individual research worker of any hon. Member could begin to match the service that is provided by the Library.
As for the service that I have received since I entered the House two years ago from students who work on the educational programme abroad, the American students are much derided, particularly by more senior hon. Members. During the last two years I have engaged six American ladies and one American gentleman. Without exception they have all been personable, enthusiastic and willing to learn. They have helped both me and the only permanent member of my team, my wife. They have done dogsbody work.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) is no longer in the Chamber. He said that they could not learn from doing this kind of work. I do not agree. They run errands and do filing: they fetch and carry between the Norman Shaw building where my secretary's office is located and my office in this building, but we make considerable efforts to ensure that they have an opportunity to learn about constituency work and parliamentary work and we provide them with opportunities to witness debates in this House.
I share entirely the view of the right hon. Member for Deptford that investment in overseas students can only be worth while in the long term. This is the mother of Parliaments and the greatest of all Parliaments. The more people understand that and learn from it, the better. I am grateful to the Services Committee for its recommendations. I have no interest other than that I use the educational programme abroad service. The students are carefully picked. I hope not only that we shall continue to enjoy their good service but that they will continue to benefit from the lessons that this House can teach them.
There is a legendary minute in the diary of a west country political association which said that the normal arrangements would be made for the Member of Parliament's "annual visit" to the constituency. Since that minute was written, nearly 100 years ago, I suspect that parliamentary life has changed a little. It is no longer necessary, in the main, for constituents to come to the House if they wish to see their Member of Parliament. Most hon. Members hold political surgeries and pay regular visits to their constituencies. Very often they live there, too.
The need for information technology in the House of Commons to service the changing role of the parliamentarian is paramount. I shall not dwell on this point in depth, because my hon. Friend the Member for

1419
Havant (Mr. Lloyd) who is the Chairman of the all-party Committee on information technology is to speak in the debate. If we are to be fought by the Executive with word processors, we must be able to reply and to fight fire with fire. I mean no disrespect to this Executive; this is an all-party issue. However, the "people up there", when responding to the inquiries of ordinary Back-Bench Members, increasingly use all the technology that is available to them. Every hon. Member knows that, when faced with a number of inquiries on the same subject, a Department will fire off a standard letter, containing, say, paragraphs 1, 3, 5 and 9 and a personal note at the end. That does not always answer the questions that we are asking.
It has been suggested that research is not necessary for us, and that we do not need information. I have great respect for the hon. Members who have said that, but whenever there is a Minister on the Front Bench there is at least one researcher, called a civil servant—and often four or five — sitting in the Civil Service Box. The Executive has a Rolls-Royce machine looking after it. If we are to serve our constituents in the way in which I wish to serve mine—I am not exceptional; there are 650 of us trying to do the same job—we need the machinery to enable us to do it. That will require information technology and people.
A United States Congressman told me yesterday that he had 14 staff. I do not want 14 people working with me, but I should like to be able to afford to pay two. To forestall questions from Labour Members, I should say that the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) and I were outside the Chamber whipping in hon. Members when we last discussed finance for research and secretarial assistance. We must have adequate funding for those facilities.
We are in the people business and, with due deference to information technology, we should not forget that fact. Most of our constituents do not want to be answered by machines; they want to be answered by people. If we are to answer people with people and still spend as much time as possible in the Chamber, we must have the necessary back-up.
I am sorry that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) is not here. On Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning, he made some remarks that I can describe only as sanctimonious and offensive, and it is a gross discourtesy to the House that he is not present to hear what hon. Members think of his comments. I put those comments on record so that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to read them in Hansard.
The right hon. Gentleman said that hon. Members who were unable to work without research assistants were incompetent. I have described how the nature of our role has changed. Another apocryphal story is that hon. Members used to put post aside for three or four weeks in the belief that if there was no second letter the matter was not urgent and the correspondence could be put in the dustbin. Nowadays, most hon. Members like to answer their mail. If we are to do that and still have time to serve on Back-Bench committees, Standing Committees and Select Committees and to do all the other things that hon. Members are required and want to do, we need back-up. It is a question of the service that hon. Members are required and wish to provide to their constituents.
Some hon. Members wish to bring televison into the Chamber and some wish to have radio broadcasting piped
1420
through the annunciator system. Those developments will involve information technology, but they would do more than anything else to drive hon. Members from the Chamber. Our staff outside the Chamber allow hon. Members to spend time inside. I believe passionately that those staff must be paid for.
12.23 pm
Dr. Jeremy Bray: The hon. Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) is more representative of at least the younger generation of hon. Members than is the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). The hon. Gentleman illustrated well the variety of roles of research assistants. I have quite a number of people working with me on various projects. They come to see me in St. Stephen's house without requiring a pass and, by arrangement with the attendants downstairs, they come straight to my office. There is no problem. If officials of the House and the Services Committee would consider discriminating between various types of research assistant, the apparent problems could be ironed out.
The Computer Sub-Committee has done the House a service in producing this report. By making specific recommendations it has concentrated the minds of hon. Members and the House authorities on the types of facilities that might be provided for hon. Members. I think that the hon. Members for Woking (Mr. Onslow), for Havant (Mr. Lloyd), for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) and for Redcar (Mr. Tinn) do not greatly disagree. I think that we all recognise the diversity of the interests and needs of hon. Members. It is a matter of working out how that diversity can best be served.
The Committee specifically recommended a wide-band local area network, with minicomputers at the nodes, and that every Member be provided with a £5,000 terminal. This would enable Members to receive not only the annunciator service and the public television channels in their offices, but any television channels generated within the House from the Chamber or Committee Rooms. The same terminal could double as a word processor and an electronic mail terminal for transmitting and receiving messages, and for tapping into information services such as Prestel and POLIS — Parliamentary On-Line Information Service—which is provided by Scicon on contract from the Library.
We do not necessarily have to accept that concept. It was based on a system installed in the Canadian Parliament, which is a less lavish model than the range of services provided by the United States Congress. After the Canadian service was designed, and while the Sub-Committee was working on its report, the microcomputer revolution swept into many hon. Members' offices. The increase in the secretarial allowance and the authorisation to use it for the purchase of office equipment enabled many hon. Members to buy microcomputers, which their secretaries and research assistants use mainly for word processing. The most widely used machines are the Apricot and the BBC Micro, both of which are capable of doing serious parliamentary and political work.
In 1983, after the pioneering work by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar, I encouraged Labour Members to use the BBC Micro because that machine had a professional capability which was most widely used by their constituents and constituency parties and could, therefore, act more fluently as a means of communicating

1421
with them. Some Labour Members, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), use Apricot. Conservative Members were encouraged to use one by discounts organised by the Conservative party. I do not think that users of either machine have regretted their choice.
The hon Member for Woking regretted the fact that evidence was not taken by the Sub-Committee from a wider range of hon Members, and I agree. It is fair to remember, however, that the installation of microcomputers was proceeding while the Committee was at work. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) was most communicative about the extent to which the Committee's likely recommendations had an effect on the decisions that hon. Members made during the Committee's work. After its report was published, the Committee sent a questionaire to all hon. Members on the use that they were making of microcomputers. No doubt those replies are being analysed and will be available to the House.
Mr. McWilliam: To save time later, I assure my hon. Friend that we have received the replies. We are collating them and will publish the report shortly.
Dr. Bray: I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
An essential feature of Parliament is its communications with the outside world. That communication activity should be a major consideration in the design of communication and information services in the House. It should be as open and accessible to the outside world as possible. If an information service is valuable to hon. Members, the chances are that it will also be valuable to outside users. The more that it is used outside the House, the more useful will be the service to hon. Members. Hansard, for example, is no longer required reading for Ministers or senior officials, even in the Department responsible for a particular debate. Permanent Secretaries often do not even read speeches by their own Secretaries of State. Lobby journalists do not bother to scan Hansard, so that the value of speaking in a debate has been much diminished.
Likewise POLIS, because it was constructed mainly on bibliographical principles, is almost unusable for political purposes and is of little use outside the House. An hon. Member who is steamed up with Mr. Speaker or Mr. Deputy Speaker because yet again another hon. Member has been called before him might try using POLIS to prove that a certain hon. Gentleman is always on his feet. He will first have to find a member of the Library staff who can find her way round the labyrinthine code. The printout will be yards long. However, before he writes a powerful letter to Mr. Speaker, I advise the hon. Gentleman to take the precaution of looking up that huge catalogue of speeches by the offending Member, because many of those which are solemnly recorded in POLIS include such gems as "Rubbish" and "Bring back Cecil" with, of course, full bibliographical references.
Most of the really useful services in the House are used by only a small proportion of Members. Annie's Bar, the Library, and particular services provided by the Library are examples. The same applies to computer services in the House. Any attempt to build up a standard service for Members will result in their being treated as low-grade clerks in social work departments.
1422
Many computer companies would cheerfully stuff the House full of techno-junk with terminals gathering dust on Members' desks while other Members cadge access to useful services outside the House for which the House will not pay because not enough Members are interested. That is what I have been doing for 23 years.
Surely the right approach is to start from where we are and to build on what we have. Let us provide a simple electronic mail and parliamentary information service, readily available and installed, and operating through Prestel or BT Gold or some private service with communications software for the BBC Micro, the Apricot, the ICL and IBM PCs and possibly two or three other micros in common use.
Any hon. Member would be able to look up information, using his own telephone line installed at his desk in the House or outside. We should also let the public in. The House telephone exchange would not be involved. The overloading of that telephone exchange could arise only because of negligence, misuse, or by leaving equipment connected by mistake. Many solutions are in common use.
I checked with Lexis, the legal information computer service, now the only on-line legal information service operating in Britain. The highest number of lines that it has ever had connected simultaneously, with all the lawyers and legal organisations and the Government using the system, is 29. The House might establish a similar service which is accessible to the whole country. All that would certainly not justify yet another Department stuffed with more staff to clutter the Corridors.
In five or 10 years' time electronic media will be the prime form for the storage of and access to information, with print being only a supplementary form. A computer Department would be no more appropriate to the House's needs than a typing pool for all Members and all Departments would be now.
A computer Department concept is a relic of the old days of the mainframe. I remember my days in ICI, where I used to work 30 years ago. The computer Department established a priesthood, a bureaucracy, which stood between the real user of the system and the actual application that he wanted to get on with. The position today has drastically changed. It is possible to have and to operate open systems to which anyone can connect as a user or provider of information. It is possible for those services to be accessed by different grades of user paying different tariffs for different kinds of services. It is possible for access to be provided throughout the country over the public telephone network. It is possible for those services to have any required degree of confidentiality.
I checked with the IBM (UK) sales director about the volume of business on micros versus mainframes. He estimated that, for the first time, in 1985 the value of sales of micros and terminal equipment will exceed that of mainframes and associated bulk storage devices. Even for the manufacturers the position has flipped, from the mainframe centralised service to the micro service under the control of the end user.
The advice that the House gets from the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency still reflects the old world. The CCTA is nothing like as good on micros and their application and extension as it is on mainframe systems. It learnt bitterly the lessons of the original attempts at PAYE computerisation, the computerisation of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre, Swansea, and of

1423
the Department of Health and Social Security at Newcastle. Today, the computerisation of PAYE is being superbly tackled.
However, in the provision of micros for running as essential a service for the Treasury model in the Treasury itself, the arrangements were made by the economists in the Treasury direct with the university outside, with the CCTA coming nowhere near. Such flexibility should be available to all Departments of the House, and certainly to all hon. Members. We cannot be cabined and confined to a particular channel of provision which some organisation in the House thinks it can provide for all needs.
Services should be developed for the business of the House as we conduct it. The Order Paper, next week's business, the state of Bills and so on are the basic material for the information service. The parliamentary unit being set up at Warwick university to give Select Committees and hon. Members access to all the United Kingdom national economy models is an example of the next stage of the work. The House of Commons Commission has budgeted £70,000 a year for five years to build up that unit to provide access to the testing of policies and alternatives on all the mainstream models of the United Kingdom economy. That service can be provided from outside the House, just as any other facility in the House which hon. Members, their staff, Committees and so on will have access to can be provided.
There is also the Central Statistical Office data bank, to which there is access in a room in Norman Shaw North used by the statistical department of the Library. Members of the staff sit there surrounded by all the volumes of the CSO publications. The cost of using the service provided by the commercial firm SIA, which has exclusive rights to the CSO data bank for the exploitation of its material, are so high that the Library staff will access the CSO data bank only two or three times a week. It is much quicker and cheaper for members of staff to get the volumes from the shelves around them.
Members do not have that facility. They do not have all the statistical publications on their shelves. They do not have big enough offices. Therefore, they cannot have access to the CSO data bank. However, the CSO data bank is available on floppy discs which the Library could tuck under a table anywhere in the outlying offices of the Library, with a facility for hon. Members to dial into the micro. They could have a service which is better than that on line to the SIA mainframe, which is so expensive that hon. Members cannot be allowed to use it.
The Clerk's Department has not put up the text of Bills, amendments or statutory instruments on the main legal information service, where they would be a great facility to those outside interests which want to see what Parliament is about and to have an up-to-date picture of the state of play on a Bill. It would be just as easy for the Clerk's Department to send off material and have it mounted in a data bank from which the printed copies could be made as it is to provide it to the printers today. The Clerk's Department should organise that. It should not be farmed out at prodigious cost to the Economist Intelligence Unit or some such great worthy organisation which will come up with a pompous solution which shows that it does not understand how the Clerk's Department works. It can be done. There are Clerks who are
1424
computerniks equal to any hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. The Clerk's Department could do that within its own resources.
The annual volumes of the Estimates are available in the Vote Office. They give hopelessly inadequate detail of the expenditure plans for major Government programmes. The hon. Member for Woking is interested in defence. The Navy's full procurement programme of all the ships that it buys each year is voted in one figure. The Ministry of Defence is prepared to provide the detail, and it is available. It is not confidential or secret, but it is not included in the Estimates. If it were included with comparable detail under other heads, it would become far too voluminous to publish. That data could be made available on a data bank. It could be accessible to Members and outside organisations. There is no reason why that should not be done more economically than the publication of those prodigiously expensive volumes.
Any four-year, £5 million programme aimed at putting a black Model T Ford on to every Member's desk is doomed to obsolescence before it starts at a time of such rapidly moving technology. The House should slip more comfortably into the computer age. If each Member an each Parliament was allowed to spend the £5,000 a year on the 1990 equipment and services that he needs, he would obtain far better value. We are, after all, a Parliament of Members, not a bureaucracy. The computer has got out of the bottle and democratised itself. It cannot be stuffed back by men in grey flannel suits. We should allow hon. Members the resources to use the new information technology effectively in the service of the House.
12.43 pm
Mr. Ian Lloyd: The hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) always entertains and interests the House, especially when he speaks on a subject of this kind. If I may be permitted two preliminary reflections, the first is that on occasions such as this one realises that the House is not divided among members of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal or any other party. It is divided between conservatives and radicals. Even conservatives and radicals do not necessarily agree with one another.
I agree to a considerable extent with the hon. Gentleman. However, I do not agree with his condemnation of the scheme that we saw operating in the Canadian Parliament, to which I shall come in a moment. I share his objective. I do not believe that that objective would necessarily be prejudiced if we followed that example. He said that we do not want techno-junk, and of course we do not. There is a great deal of it about. One of the main grounds for much of the criticism of computerisation generally, let alone computerisation of the House, is that it gives rise to wasteful expenditure and the creation of computer junk.
The other general reflection which occurred to me arose from a remark of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin), who said that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has a great sense of history. Sometimes history is valuable in providing us with a perspective. I recalled as he was speaking that I had read not long ago a comment of the great historian Gibbon on a man called Peter of Amiens. Gibbon's phrase was:
"Whatever he wished he believed and whatever he believed he saw in dreams and revelations.'

1425
Most of us in our own particular way are vulnerable to that same characteristic. We wish for things and we tend to reinforce our wishes by choosing evidence selectively to support the view that we seek to put forward. Peter of Amiens had another characteristic, which Gibbon described as
"that vehemence of speech which seldom fails to implant the persuasion of the soul."
The Sub-Committee on which I had the privilege of serving provided an exceptionally interesting opportunity to see what is happening in Washington and Ottawa. Alas, it seems that its report is insufficiently vehement to persuade my right hon. Friend that something must be done quickly. The Committee struggled manfully, if that is the right word, to produce its report before Christmas 1984, but seven months have passed since the report was first before the House.
If we look back to the time when we realised that other major legislatures were moving forward on the information technology front, we are reflecting on a lapse of time of about 15 to 20 years and not one of seven months. That is the disturbing discovery that we made when were were in Washington. There is an old saying that one can take a horse to water but cannot make it drink. If one applies that saying to information technology and politicians, it would be appropriate to say that information technology can be introduced to politicians—the most exciting, dramatic and revolutionary development in man's intellectual endeavours since Gutenberg—but to get them to accept it and understand it is a problem to which even the gods themselves on Olympus would find no obvious or easy solution.
Some weeks ago I wrote in the House magazine that I thought I had heard the rumble of a bandwagon beginning to roll. I was wrong. Instead I heard the rumble of the tumbril. No bandwagon was beginning to roll and there is no evidence yet, despite what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, that it is about to do so. This is exceptionally disturbing.
I cannot continue without paying my own tribute to what has been done for us with limited resources within a restricted scope by the staff of the Library. Shortly before the debate began, it published an excellent and useful pamphlet entitled "Information Technology: the Role and Services of the Library Department". It is remarkable what we have succeeded in doing on a shoestring. In some ways we can take pride in that, but is it enough? That is the question to which the Computer Sub-Committee addressed itself. It is said that comparisons are always odious, and I accept that comparisons with Congress immediately expose anyone who draws them to the remark that the United States is five times as rich as the United Kingdom and that a Congressman has responsibilities that are different from those of Members of this place. It is said that any such comparisons are invalid. I do not accept that. There are things we can and should learn from both Congress and the Ottawa Parliament.
I tend to apply the one-eighth rule. We have a population that is one quarter the size of the American population and perhaps we are only half as rich. Whenever we consider the allocation of resources for something which is a good idea and whenever it is to be found in the United States, the one-eighth rule should apply.
1426
The Congressional brochure on information systems refers to office automation, electronic mail, survey processing, electronic voting and word processing, all of which are available to every member of Congress, and adds:
"These were only concepts ten years ago. For Members of the House of Representatives they are now a reality."
There is no such reality here. In my judgment and that of the Sub-Committee, there is no reason why that reality should not exist here, and we put the time scale for it at three years.
It was predictable that hon. Members would say that what we were proposing was, in the current national context, extravagant. I accept that all expenditure is extravagant and that what we propose must go through that mill of criticism. However, resource constraint is visibly less of a problem in some spheres than in others where the contribution made by the resources created is likely to be dramatic, effective and necessary.
Some hon. Members—for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), who I regret is not in his place—have implied that what we propose is not necessary. That claim cannot be sustained. The Sub-Committee found that the Canadian system—I remind the House that the Canadian Houses of Parliament were built at roughly the same time as ours and that their parliamentary procedure is roughly the same, being modelled on ours—made the most remarkably efficient use of resources and was a system which seemed, at least as a start, to provide us with a substantial proportion of what we had seen supplied in the United States Congress at hundreds of times the cost. We did not return and say, "We must do what Congress has done." We said, "Let us at least do what our daughter Parliament in Ottawa has done, because it has been done extremely well and we can learn from it."
Dr. Bray: I do not think—though I shall have to check—that the Canadian parliamentary system gives its Members of Parliament access to the up-to-date models of the Canadian economy. That is an example of how the Model T Ford does not meet the requirements of Parliament today.
Mr. Lloyd: I, too, must check on the exact procedure, but I believe that at least one of the 32 channels in use when we were there enabled the Member of the Canadian Houses of Parliament to gain direct access from his computer or word processing system in his office to all the major databases to which that Parliament had decided that its Members should have access.
Dr. Bray: There is a distinction between a database and a service. A service which gives Members access to the benefits and costs of alternative policies is much more sophisticated than a database.
Mr. Lloyd: I accept that qualification, and if the system does not provide the quality or range of service which the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) thinks is necessary, we can look into that when we decide to do something. I am not saying that, because this is something, we must do it. It is an effective and convincing system and I would have thought that the criteria which he suggested could be applied in our thinking on this issue. If it means modifying the Canadian system, let us modify

1427
it and make it better, so that it achieves the more wide-ranging and desirable objectives that the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I fear that we are a long way from action. So far, it has been exhortation, information and discussion.
Last week the Economist published a survey of the approach by the City of London to information technology. That is relevant to what we are considering, not least because of the similarity of the problems and scale of resources being deployed, and I shall return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking about our not being a business. The article commenced:
"Selecting the right tools takes time, money and a clear view of the future. All are in short supply."
Yes, all—including a clear view of the future.
What is the City of London spending to ensure that its decision-making process is relevant to the present? The survey estimates that about 5,000 firms in banking and finance had spent more than $2 billion on installed computer equipment by the end of 1983 and perhaps $2·3 billion by the end of 1984. The total is expected to reach $3·7 billion by 1988. The report goes on to describe what some of the smaller segments of the City and the financial information world are spending on information technology. Barclays bank alone, a major British bank, spent £100 million in 1985 and NatWest plans to spend £600 million in the next five years.
It may be argued that those are business organisations using that investment to earn and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woking has said, we are not a business, but let us consider what the House spends in other directions. Only yesterday it was suggested in Standing Committee that coal subsidy is likely to be about £2·2 billion. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has announced a £2 billion social security uprating and I do not dispute the merits of that. Closer to home, the revamping of the stonework of this building, which cannot be postponed, is costing £8 million. We must relate the proposed expenditure of a mere £5 million to the primary purpose of parliamentary government and the efficiency of this great institution. We achieve a better perspective by relating that modest sum to the primary purpose of ensuring not only that this institution functions efficiently but that its credibility survives.
A long time ago, Machiavelli said:
"Nothing is more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain from the new."
I believe that that applies from start to finish in most of our debates about the application of information technology in the House.
From time to time, especially in summer, we observe the large flow of tourists who go first to the Tower of London and then to the Palace of Westminster. Mercifully, the original function of the tower no longer exists but a fascinating ceremonial function survives. People who come here, however, expect to see more than the ceremonial function and the splendid neo-Gothic structure. They expect to see three other things, too.
First, they expect to see a level of freedom of speech attained in few other institutions in the world, including our daughter Parliaments, and we are proud of that. Secondly, they hope occasionally to witness the rare phenomenon that can be seen only in a Chamber such as this — the quality that I would describe as political courage. That quality is rare, but it exists in the House. It
1428
would be invidious to name current Members on either side who exhibit it, but I am happy to refer to those who have passed through this place and who showed it in considerable measure. One thinks of Jain Macleod, Aneurin Bevan, Manny Shinwell and many others. Thirdly, the voters who send us here and who then come to see what we are doing expect to see this place acting with relevance and efficiency in its handling of the problems of the state. During the past 10 or 15 years, there has been a perceptible fall in our credibility when it is judged by that criterion.
I have a great affection for this place. The qualities that I have mentioned are such that no democracy can survive without them, but we shall not survive if our credibility falls so far that, when we are considering major legislation, which increasingly involves the most significant scientific and technological components, they are able to say, "Yes, they make very interesting speeches but they are not informed. They do not know. They do not have the information that they need successfully to monitor and check the Executive." That is why I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Woking that we are indeed a business—we are in the business of government. It is the most important business in the land and we shall discharge it responsibly and skilfully, as our constituents expect us to, only if we have all of the tools necessary to monitor the work of the Executive. That is the function of Parliament and we cannot discharge it without information technology.
1 pm
Mr. Bruce George: It is difficult to follow such a powerful speech. I agreed with almost everything that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Lloyd) said. When the Leader of the House recalls what has been said and reads what has been said in his absence, he will realise that the debate has not degenerated into an orgy of anti-Americanism, as some feared, and that we have not fallen into opposing camps. If there are opposing camps, they are not to be discerned by the line that divides the Chamber. Hon. Members on both sides of the House want this legislature to play a proper role in modern government.
If we constructed a continuum of legislatures, the most powerful would be Congress and the least powerful would be the Supreme Soviet. I regret that we are probably nearer the Supreme Soviet end of the continuum in terms of influence. One of the reasons for that is that, although we are spending money updating the crumbling outside of the building, we have not taken time to update the internal crumbling by developing procedures such as a proper Committee system.
Now that we have a Select Committee system, we think that we have arrived for the next 30 years. I inform the House that I am doing some research contrasting the defence committees in 30 Parliaments. I can say without fear of contradiction that, although our Defence Select Committee is important and useful and one of the better of our Committees, we have about the weakest defence Committee in the Alliance and democratic legislatures. We cannot sit back and relax in the glory of what has been established. We must improve our procedures but, above all else, we must make ourselves more professional.
I believe that the Leader of the House will recall with regret his assertion that staffing is one of the current fashions. Adequate staffing is not a fashion but a

1429
prerequisite of a modern, efficient legislature. I do not mean merely the proper staffing of Select Committees or the Library. I endorse the eulogy of our staff in the Library. They are wonderful but, in terms of numbers, they do not compare favourably with almost any other legislature that I have come across, although they compare very well in terms of quality. I am expected to feel guilty about wanting to use researchers and about going back and forth to the Library, but we shall be doing our job if we push the Library to its limit, have full access to technology and have the best possible staffing arrangements.
There are people who want to be professional, but we have what I call the Daily Telegraph philosophy of government. An editorial in that newspaper a few years ago said that all a good Member of Parliament wants is a good typewriter and a good secretary. The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) epitomises that view. He sits in the Library and writes his speeches using his own brilliance. The rest of us are not so fortunate. We need information. It was ironic that the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) denigrated research and then criticised the Select Committee for not having researched the subject properly. He cannot have it both ways.
It is important to recognise that our staffing arrangements are deficient and that we do not compare favourably with the legislatures in America on in Canada, which is a comparable legislature in structure, size and ethos. Yet it is light years ahead of us. The National Assembly in France and the Bundestag are much better staffed than is the House of Commons. It is all right for people to say, "We are going down the road towards the United States Congress." We do not compare favourably even with our parliamentary colleagues in Germany, France and Canada, let alone Congressmen.
Many hon. Members have mentioned American research assistants. I am partly guilty, if that is the right word, of instigating the system and of being one of the first to benefit from the entry of American interns as far back as 1976. I have been working, in a non-financial capacity, with educational programme abroad. As a student of the American west, I believe that American students here form part of what I would call the "Billy the Kid complex". By that, I mean that in the 1880s, any unsolved murder in the south-west of America was attributed to Billy the Kid. Here, if a photocopying machine breaks down, if something disappears or if the lights go out, it is attributed to the American students who, it is said, are flooding the place.
This morning, we heard a great deal of nonsense about catering facilities. Although stopping Americans using our canteen facilities might improve Anglo-American relations, I should stress that they are not allowed to use the Strangers cafeteria. A security man guards access to the restaurant facilities. Americans cannot use the Library and have limited access to some parts of the House.
The latest manifestation of the Billy the Kid phenomenon was on the front page of The London Standard a few days ago. It relates to the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, who sports the most famous eye since Nelson or Harold, and it states:
"Mr. Lamont is said to have told colleagues he got it"—
his black eye—
"when he walked into a door left open by his American research assistant."
1430
I have not the slightest interest in whether the Minister walked into someone's fist or into a door but, if he was looking for an excuse, why did he not use one of a hundred other explanations instead of blaming his American research assistant?
That is a humorous example, but it demonstrates this phenomenon that pervades the House, partly because many hon. Members, research assistants and the police have an interest in ensuring that foreign research assistants are kept to a minimum.
I could not function as a Member of Parliament without access to good research assistance. We are given the magnificent sum of about £12,000 a year to pay for a secretary, out of which we must pay national insurance contributions and about £2,000 for equipment. That does not allow us enough over to use the Brooking Institute for research. Far from making matters worse for the British taxpayer, the use of such research assistants from America or from any other source saves the British taxpayer from the natural consequence of the growth of the legislature. Those who are unenthusiastic about research will not seek out an intermediary and say, "Would you find me a research assistant, because I am desperate to have one?" If they do not want free assistance, they will not approach my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) or me. However, those who want research assistance and who cannot afford it have their natural desire for more staff dampened by access to free advice and assistance in the form of foreign or British students.
The people who come in are criticised and alleged to be CIA or KGB spies. Goodness knows what such spies would expect to find in this place. Another criticism is that they are badly dressed, but in many ways they are the best dressed people in this place. They are also alleged to be rather stupid or clueless.
To any hon. Member with an American or British intern who does not meet that Member's requirements, I say clearly, "Throw him out". If a Member retains a student who does not meet his requirements, he has no right to hold a scarce seat in the building. If an education institution allocates a duff student who is not interested, is only here for a holiday, is not prepared to work and does not know much about the subject, a Member should not use that institution again and should tell his friends not to use it. If an institution cannot deliver the goods in terms of good quality students, Members should have nothing to do with it.
Many myths are circulating and some have been mentioned today. Democracy is expensive — one has only to rattle off the cost of this place to see this—but the prerequisite of democracy is surely not Members of Parliament getting their information simply by reading The Guardian or the Daily Telegraph in the morning and then mouthing off. Government and society are getting much too complicated for that. Even in the 19th century the position was too complicated, and we cannot get away with it any more. We need a good system and adequate staffing. If we do not get such staffing, power is going to drain away from us to the Executive even faster. No wonder the Government do not want to see us having more staff, because the fewer staff we have the less burden we are to them. They can cope with the silly Guardian inspired or Daily Telegraph-prompted parliamentary question. What they cannot cope with is the well-researched question in Select Committee or the Member of Parliament who has researched his information. That

1431
does not come by osmosis on the Library floor; it comes as a result of somebody working and providing the Member with the information.
There are, however, legitimate criticisms. The numbers of foreign students are too high and must be restricted. I totally endorse the recommendations in paragraph 24, especially 24(3). On the matter of Educational Programme Abroad, when there was a minor crisis in 1977 EPA said, "All right, if there are any problems we have 30 students here" —there were only 30 American students around at that time" — "and the EPA will voluntarily reduce the number to 20." That was what it did. Whenever there is a problem the EPA is very quick to respond in order to avoid the kind of hassle that could emerge.
Allegations about spies have never been substantiated. There are worries about security, as there should be, but where there is anxiety why not follow the suggestion of the EPA and Rochester university? They say, "Why not subject students in the USA to a form of security vetting within the USA before they come here?" Legitimate means are available to do that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin), in a speech I greatly admired, said the onus for security ought to be on the Member. I do not agree entirely. I could know that a student had been checked by university authorities, but I have no absolute guarantee that that person does not belong to a subversive organisation.
If the Leader of the House wants a guarantee that subversive individuals will not infiltrate the House, he should consider the suggestion for some form of vetting abroad. If the students do not wish to submit themselves to that in the USA because it would violate their constitutional principles, then they need not come here, because if they want to come they will have to meet the requirements laid down by the House.
Mr. Shepherd: Paragraph 23 of the report addresses itself to that and the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) also talked about it. Does the hon. Member not feel that the ultimate responsibility must lie with the Member himself? It is up to the Member to check whether or not a student has been through a security vetting and to take responsibility for the outcome. He cannot pass the buck to somebody else.
Mr. George: Perhaps the real answer lies in a combination of both our approaches. Ultimately, the Member must be responsible. However, a very good suggestion has been made. There could be some form of additional information presented to the Member or to the House authorities before the necessary pass was issued. If there is any concern about security, other methods must be explored.
Organisations are sometimes criticised for bringing American students here. If they and we are prepared to meet the criticisms as far as possible, that should remove the criticism levelled against them. There are crises. The photocopying equipment often breaks down. I have already written to the House authorities having had a minor altercation with a photocopying machine two nights ago. To my knowledge, no American was within 50 yards of the machine at the time, and I accept total blame for its breakdown.
The problems of dining facilities have been over-exaggerated, because students are barred from them at set times.
1432
Some hon. Members say that they cannot see how the students are useful. A lot depends on the use made of them. If they are good and if the sponsoring organisation is competent, they are very useful. If the sponsoring organisation is competent, it will have put the student through a preliminary reading test in British politics. Before coming here he will have to have shown a knowledge of British politics.
The report contains considerable detail about the work of the Educational Programme Abroad. It has a lengthy induction course, and a system of lectures in British politics throughout a student's period here, and every effort is made to try to meet the objection that these young people are coming here with very limited knowledge. If other schemes cannot meet those requirements, it is their problem, and hon. Members should not have recourse to those students.
If a Member of Parliament knows how to use him, a student can be of inestimable value. Anyone who is interested, as I am, in foreign affairs and defence looks for a student who intends to do a master of arts degree course in international relations and not one who specialises in social security. If the student's interests are matched up with the Member, that overcomes the alleged mismatch of competence.
I am pleased that much of the paranoia expressed in the press about foreign interns has not been repeated today. There are problems, and it would be foolish to close our eyes to them and to the people expressing those criticisms. If this report is implemented, it will go a long way towards assuring Members of Parliament and the public that the criticisms are not entirely valid.
What is far more important is that we must get it across that the foreign student coming here and paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of working for a Member of Parliament is a temporary phenomenon until we have adequate resources to employ our own full-time staff. Until that day comes, I remain grateful, as many other hon. Members are, to anyone. British or foreign, who is prepared to give up his time and put his expertise at my disposal and that of the House and my constituents.
1.14 pm
Mr. Gary Waller: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Lloyd), I am an enthusiast for information technology. In fact, I was enthusiastic about it before the term was invented. In my hon. Friend's terms, I consider myself a radical.
It should be recognised that information technology is not necessarily good for everyone, especially for every hon. Member. Comparing the work of Members of Parliament with that of company executives or officers in local government, it is not as self-evident as it is in those cases that information technology will be an absolute advantage to hon. Members. In both local government and private companies there will inevitably be a repetitive pattern of activity that is ideally suited to computerisation. In Parliament, however, no two days are the same. Constituency cases vary so much that the scope for computerisation is not so great as it is in organisations of the kind I have mentioned.
The Committee that considered the information technology needs of hon. Members failed to recognise that fundamental questions need to be asked before coming out wholeheartedly in favour of an integrated system, but this is what it did. Many, if not most, of the facilities to which

1433
both the Committee and the hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn) referred are already available. They can be obtained by using the individually chosen equipment of hon. Members, many of whom have either word processors or microcomputers. They could gain little by having an integrated system or local area network. As for word processing, standard letters are useful for dealing with standard problems, but many constituency cases vary from the norm.
We also have to ask ourselves a fundamental question about the free post. Members of Congress in the United States can make almost unlimited use of free post and send out many standard letters. We have not yet defined what is a circular and what is an item of correspondence. Because of the new technology, we may need to consider a new definition.
There is no reason why hon. Members should not use electronic mail to talk to each other either by means of their microcomputers talking to other microcomputers directly or by using a mail box system, such as British Telecom Gold. An internal electronic mail system, a local area network, could be justified only if it was interactive to the extent of allowing parliamentary questions to be put down on the Order Paper electronically from one's desk, or of allowing names to be added to early-day motions, or of allowing new early-day motions to be tabled. But do we want that to happen? That question has not been asked.
Reference has been made to the fact that too many parliamentary questions are asked, at enormous cost. There is a motion on the Order Paper about too many early-day motions being tabled, so would it be advisable for us to provide the means for many more of these activities to be carried on, as they undoubtedly would be, without giving a great deal of thought to the matter?
The other main reason for the provision of microcomputers and computers generally is access to data bases. Hon. Members could use POLIS and other data bases without the kind of multi-million pound system that has been recommended.
As for that part of the report which refers to the implementation of these proposals, the Committee's proposal is that 36 hon. Members should take part in an initial pilot scheme. But would not the 36 hon. Members be the ones who have already shown a great interest in computerisation? What are they supposed to do with the equipment that they already have? Are they expected to get rid of it because it is incompatible with the common system?
We should adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) and build on what we already have. Information technology in the House should be promoted, but only on an evolutionary basis. We should not throw out what has already been achieved by adopting a completely new system. The technology is changing. There will probably be greater compatibility in five years' time and many of the proposals of the report may not be necessary then. The Economist Intelligence Unit report suggests the introduction of a minicomputer system, which now looks out of date, and we may find that the proposals of the Computer Sub-Committee will also look out of date in three years' time.
On Members' accommodation and facilities, I have had mainly good experience of British and American research assistants. I do not believe that they are best used in
1434
examining detailed Government policies before hon. Members come into the Chamber to make a speech. I find that they are particularly useful for doing work on constituency problems, to make it less necessary for hon. Members to have to trouble Ministers. Much ministerial and Civil Service time can be saved.
Many hon. Members do not make good use of research assistants. They can be particularly helpful in dealing with constituents' problems and delving for information that hon. Members could find but for the lack of time that afflicts so many of us.
Of course, some temporary research assistants are would-be permanent assistants who are waiting for one of the 200 permanent passes that enable them to use the main Library at certain times. However, not all permanent research assistants who have worked for an hon. Member for more than a year use the main Library. Our current definitions are not helpful and, as the Librarian pointed out, some hon. Members hang on to permanent passes because they may need them at some time in the future.
The present system could be refined and improved even before any major changes are contemplated. The problem is that the sort of rules proposed in the report would be arbitrary and unfair to many hon. Members. The report proposes a four-month time limit on the employment of research assistants, but I can find no logical justification in the report for that recommendation. There is also a proposal that limits should be imposed on the number of permits issued. That would be unfair, because if I wished to offer a temporary position to a researcher in, say, two or three months, I could not give him or her a guarantee that a pass would be available at that time. There is no suggestion that passes could be reserved in advance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) proposes a limit of two passes for each hon. Member—one for a secretary and one for a research assistant. That would probably hit hardest senior Privy Councillors and some former Prime Ministers who tend to maintain larger staffs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Boothferry (Sir P. Bryan) suggested tht there should be exceptions to the rule, but all hon. Members are supposed to be equal and I see no reason why some should be excluded from a rule. That is another reason for not adopting rules that would be unfair to some hon. Members.
Mr. Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the four-month limit. If we are trying to increase the number of British students who help us, perhaps a three-month limit would be more logical, because that would be more compatible with the length of a term in an academic year. We may need to ensure such flexibility if we are to get good people for a sufficient time, while taking into account other demands on their time and our ability to employ them.
Mr. Waller: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Three months would be more sensible than four months, but unfairnesses and anomalies would still arise, and I should like to see some justification for such a rule before it was introduced.
Some hon. Members want to have two researchers each on one day a week. They would not be able to do so if a rule limited them to only one research assistant. Although, superficially, the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking looks attractive, it has many drawbacks.

1435
The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) suggested that the Leader of the House might not want other hon. Members to be as well informed as he obviously is. Perhaps more pertinently, one could ask whether the Executive, which will have to foot the bill, wants to give a bigger bite to the parliamentary watchdog. I wonder whether that question will be answered.
1.30 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: This morning at 7.20 I burst the proverbial blood vessel when I heard the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) on the radio. He is sui generis, but he is also a Privy Councillor. Had he not been a prominent Privy Councillor, he could not have argued as he did. Incidentally, if he had had better research, he might have known a little more about the biochemistry of human embryos.
I preface a question to the Leader of the House with a small tale. I was in the Table Office struggling with those very clever Clerks about questions on "that ship". The right hon. Member for South Down came in and I said to him breezily, "Enoch, you need Greek iambics to get anything on the Belgrano out of Ministers." Quick as a flash he said. "Greek iambics should be applied to everything in life." But government is not just about debate. Does the Leader of the House agree with the views of his former colleague? I detected a Powellite view in what the Leader of the House and the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) said. Does the Leader of the House agree, or disagree, with the right hon. Member for South Down? We deserve to be told.
The Library is not just an educational institution. The House of Commons Library is not the Library of Congress. Are we expecting our Library to perform a tutorial role for research students? Many extremely gifted and clever people work in the Library, but I am not sure that the Library has a tutorial role. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) referred to the "Billy the Kid" aspect. Is it true that certain research students have torn pages out of library books and documents?
Mr. Peter Bruinvels indicated assent.
Mr. Austin Mitchell: Why take the hon. Gentleman's word for it?
Mr. Dalyell: I have looked at the documents listed. In a letter the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) stated:
"Dear Major Le Fanu,
It is with some reluctance that I write to you, but I have for some time, together with a number of colleagues who have offices in Norman Shaw North, been concerned not only about the number of American Research Assistants, the hours which they work, the facilities which they use (sometimes, I am reliably informed, for their own purposes and that of a Member of Parliament)".
At least my questions, about which I am sensitive, are my own.
In my defence, if I ever ask for statistics, I am scrupulous about asking for "conveniently available" statistics. Ministers are entitled to give answers stating, "The answer can be obtained only at disproportionate cost." If that happens to me, I take it like anyone else, because I am sensitive about Civil Service costs. The proviso is that a Member could challenge such an answer and ask Mr. Speaker whether he thought the answer was unreasonable. That would be the safeguard for hon. Members.
1436
The Table Office should be out of bounds to anyone other than a Member of Parliament. If research assistants have to deliver questions, a delivery box should be located elsewhere in the building. It is wrong to expect the Clerks to spend time negotiating the format of questions.
I do not intend to be the school sneak, but I said to a friend, a member of the Conservative party, "I see that you have tabled a very interesting question on subject X." I was met by a bewildered, blank look. I said, "Yes, pursuent to one of mine". Somewhat sheepishly he confessed that his research student must have tabled it. It transpired that my friend and political opponent had signed a number of blank question forms. That really is naughty. Questions should not be tabled without the Member being certain of what is involved, otherwise costs v, ill be increased.
I know that the pot and kettle syndrome applies to questions, but I am concerned about more open government. This would reduce the cost of questions. I have the experience, unforgettably and indelibly imprinted upon me, of those 11 days in court No. 2 at the Old Bailey during the trial of Clive Ponting.
I do not know whether the Leader of the House will be pleased, because what I am about to say could damage both him and me, but I agree that Government did have a rougher time in the past. In our parliamentary youth there was a great deal more scrutiny. Particularly under his Government, the politicisation of the Civil Service has occurred.
Much is said about merit awards for civil servants. On what grounds? Because they agree with Ministers, and particularly with what Ministers think the Prime Minister thinks? What about the business of catching the Prime Ministerial eye for Civil Service promotion? If resources are to be devoted to scrutiny and to the work of the House I should like an inspectorate-general, or something of the kind, to whom civil servants can go if they think that they are being abused in the answers that they are supposed to give to parliamentary questions. That might be regarded as fanciful. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) is smiling, but let me tell him that I am in the exalted company of Sir Douglas Wass, the former head of the Treasury, who takes roughly the same line. Questions are costly when there is something to hide.
I gave my word to my hon. Friends that I would sit down after eight minutes, and that I shall do now.
1.38 pm
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: I am glad finally to be called to take part in an important debate on accommodation. We should be debating not only accommodation for Members' staff but accommodation for ourselves. At the turn of the century there were 670 hon. Members, in 1918 there were 707, in 1945, 640 and in 1983, 650. From what I can ascertain from my own research, in days gone by people managed all right. If anybody should be looking for better accommodation it is Members and not their research assistants or secretaries. I have sympathy with the secretaries who work in overcrowded conditions.
In days gone by Members did not have a desk or an office. Until 1969 they were not even allowed to use the phones free. The secretarial allowance did not come in

1437
until 1969 when it was introduced at £500. It has risen considerably since, but we must keep the issue in proportion.
It is a privilege to be a Member of the House. We should not come here with caps in hand demanding extra money and extra resources without carefully thinking about what the House costs to run the country.
In an answer from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House only yesterday, I was told that 273 hon. Members had their own room, 242 shared their room with one other, 30 with two others, 32 with three others and 62 with four or more others. Most interesting of all, 11 hon. Members do not have accommodation, although there are no doubt reasons for that. We should be examining that problem before considering the problem of accommodation and facilities for research assistants and secretaries, although there is overcrowding in the House.
Members of Parliament did not even get paid until 1912, when they received £400. They now receive over £16,500. One of the problems is that, with so many research assistants, the House costs the country more. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said that four years ago it cost £35 million to run the House. That increased to £57 million in 1984–85. Research assistants have contributed to increasing that cost.
I felt as though I had been hit when my hon. Friend the Member for Boothferry (Sir P. Bryan) spoke about the number of hon. Members' questions. I confess that I ask a large number, but I do so in the interests of my constituency, because I have a marginal seat, and because I plan my campaigns. I believe in self-interest and self-survival!
The report is already out of date. Research assistants seem to be breeding like rabbits. The figures rise alarmingly year by year. The report shows that in 1985 two hon. Members had 9 research assistants, one had eight, four had six, three had five, nine had four, 235 had one, but 310 had none. The 310 who have managed without the permanent services of research assistants have not endangered their survival nor discredited their useful role.
Unlike any other hon. Member in the Chamber, I have been a research assistant in the House. That was in the days when the Norman Shaw North branch Library was not even properly opened. There were only 12 of us for the whole place, and only the Government and Opposition Front Bench spokesmen had them. It is unacceptable that we had, as I was told in a parliamentry answer on 3 June, 452 research assistants in 1984, and have 469 in 1985. That increase is worrying.
This is a rare occasion for me, but I reinforce the view of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). Some research assistants are putting to the Table Office questions that hon. Members have never seen. I know that several hon. Members sign blank forms for tabling questions, and the research assistants do the rest, which is wrong. We are intelligent enough to think up our own questions.
It is fair to say that research assistants have clogged up this and the peripheral buildings. My secretary has to share a room in Deans Yard with a number of research assistants and the secretaries of two other hon. Members. It is overcrowded and the secretaries therefore cannot get on with their work. That office was the attendants' cloakroom and WC.
1438
The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) said that I had said that each hon. Member should have no more than one research assistant. Let me put it another way. Each research assistant must be paid. Of course, everyone likes something for nothing, but we are seeking long-term improvements in the House. We need research assistants who can help us perform our duties.
I am worried about the temporary research assistants who seem to be rushing all over the place. I remember in 1976 two American research assistants being caught on the fifth floor of Norman Shaw using baths belonging to the staff. Things may have changed since then, but I am worried that not all of them respect the facilities that are available. They might block the photocopier or disrupt the normal affairs of the day. No one would deny that the Library research assistants do excellent work. There are only 18 of them, but they play a marvellous role. They know what they are talking about and they are obliging to anyone who asks them for help.
I am worried by the report's suggestion for a number of temporary research assistants. I do not agree with that. There will be no proper control over them. The report recommends that research assistants should be properly vetted and that hon. Members should be responsible for them. That is a good point.
I accept that some research assistants will be doing serious work which might advance their studies. The idea that we should allow in temporary research assistants for up to 16 weeks is completely unacceptable. It is a student summer vacation job, and I do not think that the House should permit that.
I regret the fact that the lobbyist has not been considered. I know of one case where the research assistant is the managing director of the company of which the hon. Member is a director. It is strange to have a research assistant who is the hon. Member's boss outside the House whereas the reverse applies inside the House. It is worrying that such people should have access to such valuable facilities within the House. They can pay for POLIS and other data, but why should they have unlimited access to the building and to any Government publications? That costs them nothing, but it costs us and the country a great deal, and it benefits their public relations company. The point was not covered in the report, and that is a serious omission.
I am anxious about the number of identity passes that are issued. So far this year 1,081 identity passes have been issued. There were 1,061 issued in 1984, but only 916 in 1982. As the report correctly points out, that number of people imposes even more pressure on inadequate facilities. There are too many temporary pass holders. In 1982 there were 77 and in 1984, 308.
Excessive demands are made on the Library. The report states that 9,408 calls were received in 1976, when I was working in the House, and in 1984–85, 50,000 calls were received. Of those, 10,500 were from research assistants. In 1976 they made only 144 calls. Is that fair to the Library staff? Is that the right way to run Parliament?
Access to the Library must be more carefully monitored. Access to the Library by research assistants is allowed only on Mondays and Fridays between 10 am and 12 noon. As the Library is closed, they do not have access on Saturdays. Major statements are made during the middle of the week. It is then too late to obtain a brief from the Library. Unless we are doing our duty here on a Friday, Parliament is off for the weekend and access to the Library

1439
on the Friday is not of much use. For those reasons, the research facilities of the branch Library are used. It is far too crowded.
All research assistants should be employed for a fixed period and should be paid. I do not want to see cheap labour employed. I am not saying how much they should be paid because that is a private matter between a research assistant and the Member concerned.
I ask the House to consider who is taking advantage of whom. The research assistant comes cheap and is a willing hand. He is bubbling with enthusiasm and thinking up parliamentary questions. What does he gain out of his position? He has free access to the House and is able to mix with senior Members. He receives help with research projects that will probably help him in his law and politics degree at the London School of Economics. I agree with the hon. Member for Linlithgow that papers disappear from the Library. I know that research assistants use the telephones for non-parliamentary work.
It is interesting that 192 hon. Members do not employ secretaries. However, 15 secretaries work for two hon. Members each and one secretary works for three hon. Members. There are 342 secretaries working for and helping one hon. Member each. Apparently 612 secretaries have been issued with photo identity passes. That information was contained in an answer that I received from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House yesterday. Secretaries should be given first consideration, not research assistants, if we have them.
Our crowded facilities demand that action be taken. I do not know whether the number of research assistants will be limited to 100. Equally, I do not know whether our secretaries will be moved out of the Palace to the Norman Shaw building and other peripheral buildings while we, the Members, remain here. I am not here to debate that issue at any length. When the Bridge street building is opened in 1990, presumably there will be an opportunity for secretaries to be situated outside Members' offices. I put that forward as a suggestion. That will make it possible for the Member and his secretary to work closely together. However, I do not know whether that will be done.
I am concerned about the growing number of other staff in the House. There are 931 staff and officers. There are 705 who work for the associated agencies, such as the police, the firemen and those responsible for the property services. There are 315 staff and officers in another place and 82 research assistants and secretaries.
An old chestnut that I continue to raise is that the House is working longer hours. I have studied the figures right back to 1900. I believe that the presence of research assistants has contributed to the House having to sit longer. We seem to be rising later. In 1984–85 the average time of rising was 12.52 am and the latest time of rising was 8.44 pm the next day. Also, we are sitting on more days. We sat for 213 days in 1983–84 and 198 in 1974–75. I agree that hon. Members are busier now than before and that they receive 14,500 letters daily on average through the House of Commons sorting office. I understand that 6·5 million postal items were received here last year.
There are more Bills for Members to consider and it is clear that the day is becoming a busier one. We spent 555 hours considering Government Bills in 1983–84 and only 469 in 1980–81. European legislation is taking too much time. We must ask ourselves how we can improve our facilities. The answer might lie in bringing in computers and having easier access to Government records. That will
1440
help, but I ask that the House revise its sitting hours. In 1902 the House sat between 2 pm and 11.30 pm. In 1939 to 1945 the time of rising was changed to 10.30 pm. Since 1945 we have retained that rising time but, of course, the House sits regularly beyond that hour. I urge my right hon. Friend to bring the sitting to an end at 12 o'clock midnight at the latest. If he considers the possibility of morning sittings under Standing Order No. 2, I shall be with him all the way.
I urge my right hon. Friend carefully to consider the new telephone system that is to be introduced. I know that the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) is ready to speak on the subject. I am aware that we are in the computer age, but I understand that the cost of the new telephone system will be £2,037,000, which is incredible. It is an extravagance that we do not need. We can buy our own calculators and digital alarm clocks. The new system is unnecessary.
This House has slowly moved into the 20th century. We have certain privileges. Whatever we say of them, I am sure that we should all fight at the hustings to return here and to those privileges—in other words, to do the job under the conditions that now exist. That is why I urge caution before any changes are made. We want Parliament to be kept in check both financially and politically.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. The wind-up speeches are expected to start at about 2.10 pm. Four hon. Members still hope to speak in the debate. I hope that I shall be able to call all four.
1.56 pm
Mr. Austin Mitchell: Following the 20-minute speech by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) in which he urged hon. Members to make briefer speeches, I hope that when he next gets his research assistant to prepare his speech it will be much briefer.
We are today debating essentially the role of the Member of Parliament, and we have heard some neanderthal views on what that role is or should be. We perform a collection of roles. I am the representative of Grimsby and of the interests and industries there; I am a focal point for the problems of my constituents, problems which they bring to me in large number; I regard myself as a party man—that being an essential part of our job because we were elected on that basis — and that involves advocating the policies of the party; I am a Committee man and a legislator; I am a generalist, practising general supervison over the Executive; and I must increasingly be a specialist, concentrating on certain areas, if I am to help make progress in a modern society. I am also a public figure. Some like that and some do not. It is one of the accidents of the job. Being a public figure, one gets mail and business associated with being in that position.
We have so many jobs to do that keeping up with them is not the simple task that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) made out on the radio this morning, in a contribution that has hovered over this debate. For us to keep up with any or all of those jobs in a modern society, with all its complexities, we need much more assistance than was available in the past or than is provided by the House.
It is up to us how much we do, and there is little check on performance. It is for us to decide how many roles we

1441
tackle. If we decide to make the best of as many of those roles as possible in the service of our constituents, we should be provided with the tools to do that job—to do it in our own way and on the basis on which we have decided to tackle it.
It might help if I related my experience. Like most others, I started out as a Member of Parliament with one secretary. She was based in Grimsby because the problems are there and people came to my door with them. That secretary found quickly just how much work was to be done. A section in the book by Philip Williams on the life of Gaitskell tells of a Leeds Member of Parliament who, in the 1950s, received 50 letters a month. I receive 50 every day or two. My secretary in Grimsby soon found that she needed somebody to do the typing while she tackled the problems.
I need somebody in London to do the necessary research for the multifarous problems that arise daily or weekly in the House. I also need someone to type for me in London; typing has to be done both here and in the constituency. The Member becomes a sort or perambulating centre. I need a nucleus of organisation from which to perambulate as I go to Committee and other meetings and drive to Grimsby and tackle all the other tasks.
When it comes to providing the backing that we need, this is a legislative slum, the mother of sweatshops rather than the mother of Parliaments. Most other parliamentarians have far better backing. Such facilities as are provided here are under strain. To blame American researchers, when we have called in people from the new world to redress the inadequacies of the old, is monstrous. We have turned to American researchers because they do a good job and we need their services.
I admit that there are problems, including problems of turnover. The Library staff must help the assistants, because they come and go. They would have to help any research assistants who came for only three or four months. The problem has nothing to do with Americans but with the inadequate provision by the House of Commons.
If the facilities are under strain, let us expand them. It is ludicrous to say that the Library is a finite resource. There are 250 rooms in the Palace of Westminster available for hon. Members. It seems that 144 rooms in the building are used for accommodation, some of them only occasionally for that purpose. Why cannot the Library expand to fill the space available?
Why is it made so difficult for us to do our jobs? Queueing time to take visitors around the House has now extended to half an hour because of slow search procedures, not to mention the time spent chasing around to get tickets. Numerous problems are caused by aging and inadequate accommodation. If the House would provide the proper facilities and staff to make the job easier, we might have a right to complain about the Americans who have done so much to ease the problems generated by the present system.
On information technology, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) that personal computers should be provided for Members as quickly as possible, each choosing his own computer. The House could use its purchasing muscle as an institution to
1442
obtain those facilities more cheaply and the money that would otherwise have been spent can be used to help to provide services for those computers.
We are becoming overworked and bogged down in detail and we are struggling in our inadequate fashion to survive by taking on American research assistants or whatever other staff we can find. It is up to the House to allow us to do the job that we believe is necessary to serve our constituents as they deserve.
2.1 pm
Mr. Paddy Ashdown: Having listened with interest to later contributions, I apologise for not being present when the Leader of the House opened the debate. I wish to comment briefly on the information technology aspect. First, however, I echo the excellent comments of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman, who seems to be addressing the needs of the House in the modern age. Some of the comments of Conservative Members were more like babblings from the palaeolithic ooze.
Serving a modern democracy and modern needs means the provision of sufficient staff and adequate conditions for them. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without commenting, as other Members have commented, on the disgraceful conditions in which we expect staff to operate. I agree with the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels)—this is the only point on which I agree with him—that conditions for Members may be inadequate, but that conditions for staff are nothing short of disgraceful. The staff have to work in hen coops, the noise level is intolerable and it is virtually impossible for them to do their jobs, which usually command salaries which would be unacceptable elsewhere. For far too long we have relied on their enthusiasm rather than providing decent conditions. Members also need decent allowances to pay their research and clerical staff properly.
I believe that the Sub-Committee reached good and farsighted decisions on what should be done about information technology. Out of the alternatives before it, it chose to allow flexibility for Members to link their own personal computers to a local area network. I believe that that decision is appropriate and correct, although it is contrary to the recommendations of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Two small points, however, deserve further attention. First, although the report is a good one, I believe that it gives insufficient attention to that aspect of a Member's work which, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby stressed, relates not to his job in the House, but to his activities in relation to his constituency. I should have liked more attention to be paid to whether it is possible to set up a communications network with a constituency, to do constituency work more efficiently. Some recommendations were made about hardware, but software is at least as important. Although we might be able to get away with flexibility on hardware, it would be sensible to have much less flexibility on software, because that is the point at which we can have an appropriate interface.
As for funding, we have not taken on board the considerable difference between new technologies and present equipment. We are talking of an outlay of at least £2,000 or £3,000 to equip a Member of Parliament. Although it is accepted that a computer has a life of only two or three years in the present environment, we have no

1443
mechanism for allowing for depreciation of that equipment. If we ask Members of Parliament to pay such large capital sums, we should have a system which enables us to allow depreciation for two or three years to accumulate the necessary sum.
I congratulate the Committee on coming to broadly the correct conclusion.
2.6 pm
Mr. Clive Soley: The things that disturb me most about what the Leader of the House and some of his hon. Friends have said is that they appear to believe that we can have democracy on the cheap. If we start from a low base and operate from a legislative slum, we must expect costs to rise rapidly. We must also expect the quality of our democracy to be poor if we do not have the necessary resources. When I hear some Conservative Members say that a few filing cabinets are not used properly, I fear that we are being taken back not to the 19th century but before then.
The Leader of the House has a respect for the House which I understand, accept and encourage. He must remember the aims of the people who inhabited this House in the last century. They were higher than they are today. He should try to match that quality rather than take us back, on the assumption that we can repeat something rather than move with technology.
As is stated by an early-day motion which I and several other hon. Members of all parties tabled a few weeks ago, and which has attracted more than 200 signatures,, for Members who want it, the House should aim for a minimum of one secretary and one researcher and allowance for equipment and accommodation. If we fail to aim for that as a minimum, we shall continue to misuse students and people from companies who are used as professional advisers. Students and advisers are becoming the red herrings of this argument.
A good secretary is worth between £8,000 and £12,000. Taking account of the movement of prices between 1984 and 1985, I pay an amount similar to that recommended by the Top Salaries Review Body for secretaries in the House. I bought a computer, for which I spread the payments over two years to try to keep within my budget — a loan which I had to take out and pay back by monthly instalments from my allowance. I now find—I hope that the Leader of the House is listening carefully, because I and other Members are coming to see him on Monday about the allowance—that, allowing for my secretary's salary for the rest of the year, I must draw from my salary to pay any new expenses until April next year. When the Leader of the House hears me playing a violin outside his flat at 6.30 pm next Monday, I hope that he will be fairly generous.
I have a researcher who works for me voluntarily. He is highly qualified, like my secretary, and would be able to earn a good salary outside if he could get a job. I cannot pay him a salary, although I pay as much as I can towards his expenses in coming here and doing the work. The nonsense is that by the time I have paid for a good secretary—who could earn more outside the House than she gets from me—and for my computer, plus the odds and ends that come up from time to time, I must pay for everything else out of my pocket. That is wrong.
The number of hon. Members employing secretaries increased from 30 per cent. in 1971 to 99 per cent. in 1982, and the number employing research assistants increased
1444
from 9 to 58 per cent. during the same period. There is no reason to believe that the problem will go away, and to blame the problems of the House on increasing staff is like blaming unemployment oil the unemployed. The hon. Member for Boothferry (Sir P. Bryan) said that we cause work by coming here and doing our jobs. If we follow that logic to its conclusion, the first mistake that we all make is to get out of bed in the morning. Obviously, we must cause work when we come here. If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Clerks and hon Members had not got out of bed this morning and come here, there would have been no work for anyone. We must remember that the priority of this place is to be a democratic legislature, with the resources to do the job properly.
The Top Salaries Review Body accepted that the secretarial and research allowance should be about £13,650 at mid-1984 prices. I would have wished to quote from that report, but, in view of the time, may I simply ask the Leader of the House to examine the sections dealing with secretaries and their salaries and the allowance for office equipment?
Why will only 200 permanent research assistant passes be issued at any one time? If we aim to have one assistant per Member, we should provide enough passes for that. The legislatures in Australia, Canada, the United States, France and Germany pay their members a decent rate to do the job properly.
I could have said much more on the subject, but the most important thing is for the Leader of the House to live up to our traditions and to ensure that he provides hon. Members with the facilities to do their job properly in the way that they wish, and to maintain the high standards that have been set.
2.11 pm
Mr. John McWilliam: I kept my brief remarks until near the end of the debate because it was important that as many hon. Members as possible should have an opportunity to speak.
The report with which I am most concerned—the one on information technology — does not deal with information technology. It deals with solving problems for Members and with solving the problem of our increasing caseload. It deals with the problem of our increasing work load in relation to the increase in central Government. Problems have been caused by the additional work that we must do following the introduction of the departmental Committee structure. We have problems with the speed at which things happen and our need to get information quickly. Another problem is the geographical distribution of hon. Members and the fact that our constituents expect to see us regularly, which was not the case in the past. Therefore, although we must spend a great deal of time away from this place, we must still be able to deal with any problems that arise.
The Economist Intelligence Unit produced a report based on a survey conducted among hon. Members at the end of the previous Parliament. Many of those who took part in the survey are no longer Members of the House. Indeed, many of those who entered the House after the last election have considerably more knowledge of and skill in information technology than Members who came in even during the previous Parliament.
The Select Committee decided that there had been a change in conditions and that we should do something about it. We took much wider evidence than appears in the

1445
report. We took informal evidence, too. Earlier, someone said that hon. Members must ensure that they have word processors. that can take on the Goverment's word processors. One of our informal evidence sessions included an examination of the information technology system in the Cabinet Office. It is reasonable to ask that hon. Members be similarly or at least as well equipped.
The report made several recommendations, which can be broken down into two parts. First of all, the report was written to be as transparent as possible in terms of finance and in terms of those things we do not know and cannot find out without a pilot. The first stage was the suggestion of a pilot scheme. That will run in conjunction with the planning of the second stage, which is the main scheme.
The main scheme will have to take place in some form or other within the next four years, because the annunciators are running down. They work on the 405-line television standard and the only people making sets to that standard are the Swiss. We cannot buy them in Britain any more. There are various estimates of the cost, but to put a new annunciator into somebody's room where there was none before would cost about £1,000. It is daft to install 1959 technology in 1985. We might as well have the best technology available to us. The report is clear that the House of Commons is not the test bed for anybody's state of the art. What we want is tried and tested hardware and software applied by people who know what they are doing.
An important part of the report is that which deals with management structures for the system. We have not suggested setting up a massive new department in the House. We suggest buying in the talent we need for the length of time we need it, and for no longer. There are two reasons for that, and the first is that we must get the best possible people. The other reason is the sheer problem of accommodation. We do not have the room to set up another department. If every Member who has a secretary located that secretary somewhere in the parliamentary buildings, they would have to double up on desks and work in shifts. There are insufficient desks for all the secretaries of Members.
The other report deals with pressure on Members' accommodation. I was privileged to serve on that Committee as well, and should like to pay tribute to the speeches by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) and the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd). They complimented the Library staff and if anything they were understating, because we get a far better service than we ought to expect, given the conditions under which we make people work and the kind of salaries that we pay. I cannot compliment them highly enough. We will have convergent technology, because the information technology for Members, and the Library and the telephone system will all come together.
At the moment we are negotiating a new contract for the POLIS system. The present contract had run out and we had to extend it for a year. We worked closely with the Library Sub-Committee and meet jointly with it and the Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee. This report is a modest one designed to address a specific problem, and I cannot understand why we are debating it on the Adjournment of the House. We ought to have had a statement from the Leader of the House saying, "This is being implemented tomorrow because the problem is pressing."
1446
One or two aspects of the information technology report need to be explained a little further. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) and others expressed the need for open-system architecture so that our machines, in our constituencies or wherever they are, can have access to the system. That is not precluded by the report. We have suggested a technical working party to get over those problems. There are one or two other aspects as well. I am grateful for the views of Members' staff as well as the staff of the House. We had evidence from the trade unions and met the secretaries' council on two occasions, and we took on board some of the views they put forward. The most important one is that, until we get the new building and start reconfiguring the accommodation, there is potential for some difficulty, with large numbers of printers concentrated in a small area. We need that flexibility of accommodation to solve the problem.
We cannot have flexibility of accommodation if we do not go ahead with the main scheme. Unless we have an effective electronic mail system and an annunciator system which gives us all the information that we need where we need it, we shall be restricted in the places where we can locate Members and staff. It could especially frustrate the design to get all the Members into the House and all the staff out of it and into the new building. To achieve that objective, it is no good starting to cable this place in four years' time, because phase 1 will be complete. What is more, an electronic mail system does not operate if most people do not have access to it. It does not operate on the basis of a small group. To give us the flexibility of use of the new accommodation as it comes in, we need to make a start now.
That brings me to one or two remarks of the Leader of the House and several other hon. Members. We have been told that there is great demand for public funds. We have been told that much work needs doing and that the money is not available. That is a very dangerous argument coming from any Government. I remind hon. Members that the duty of Back-Bench Members is not strictly that of Government and Opposition. As Members of the House, we have a duty to scrutinise the Government's expenditure. However, the Leader of the House is saying, in effect, "We shall continue to be the Executive and to deny you, the Members of the House, the money for the research assistance and the information technology equipment that will enable you to scrutinise effectively."
A great many hon. Members speak about the need for more research assistants and secretaries. Currently, it costs £150 per square foot per year to accommodate a research assistant or a secretary in the kind of accommodation that we shall be putting up. I contend that by implementing the information technology report we shall reduce the pressure for more researchers. We do not have to reduce it by very many at £150 per square foot per year to pay for the lot three or four times over — to say nothing of the secretaries—and the Leader of the House has not taken that into account when doing his sums for this project.
There are other aspects, and we need to take more evidence. We need more information. We need to talk to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. He has written to us and wants to talk to us. We shall do that.
As for any detailed consideration of the work to be done in the House, no one needs to tell me about the difficulty of cabling in a building of this description. When I was an apprentice, I lost a cable in the middle of a five-foot thick wall in the National Library of Scotland. That taught me

1447
two lessons. The first is not to lose cables. The other is that my vocabulary was extended quite a lot when the foreman discovered what had happened. I know the difficulties involved, but that is what the technical working party is about. There is no case for Members of Parliament, who are not qualified, to sit around talking about how we get over the technical problems of cabling the building.
I have seen the way that the cabling was done in the Canadian Parliament building. It is a very similar building to the Palace of Westminster. The layout of the adjoining buildings is similar to the layout of our own outbuildings. The problems are the same. In Canada, it has been managed very elegantly.
Finally, I pay tribute to the marvellous contribution to the debate of the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Lloyd). All the members of my Committee have given me great support, and I am very grateful to them. The Leader of the House cannot say that money is not available for the pilot scheme. The new telephone exchange was estimated to cost £2·25 million. We got it for just over £2 million. There is enough money left in the kitty to pay for the information technology pilot scheme. It could be started now. I do not understand why the Leader of the House will not authorise it. All I can suggest is that it is because the Treasury has told him that it wants £250,000 back from the House of Commons.
2.25 pm
Mr. Biffen: I have restricted my reply to five minutes, not out of disrespect for the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) but out of the belief that this is an occasion when the House will wish to participate as widely as possible in a debate about this building and its arrangements.
I have been asked to provide two figures. First, on the significance of Select Committees and their cost to Parliament, I understand that it is between 1 and 1·5 per cent. of the total cost of running Parliament, exclusive of the salaries and allowances of hon. Members. Secondly, the cost of Parliament is rising at about double the rate of the rise in the retail price index. The figures will be placed on the record because they are of general interest. I shall see what can be done by way of a written answer.
The debate has ranged widely and has been a very good blood-letting circumstance. Reference was made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) to a point that is not dealt with in the two reports, namely, the value of
1448
secretarial and research assistance. I understand that the hon. Member is to see me on Monday evening. I look forward to that fraternal occasion, so perhaps we may reserve the further exchange of pleasantries until then.
At the heart of our interest in the information technology report is our belief that the construction of the Bridge street site will provide Members of Parliament with an opportunity to repossess the Palace of Westminster. It is a considerable ambition and has to be related to projections of expenditure and of the budget of the Property Services Agency. I noticed that the hon. Member for Blaydon was keen to regale us with tales from his youth as an apprentice electrician. Had he been an apprentice accountant or an apprentice book-keeper, he would have known that he could not be quite so lighthearted about the financial implications of the proposals. Hon. Members must look for evolutionary change, a point that was mentioned by the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), and try to achieve as broad a consensus as possible.
As for research assistants, the debate demonstrated that there is no such thing as an average Member of Parliament. It is an abstract concept. We have the combined experience of 650 people who adopt completely different approaches to work and completely different attitudes to what constitutes good parliamentary tactics. There needs, therefore, to be a measure of understanding so that what is deemed to be essential for one hon. Member does not necessarily impinge upon another who does not particularly want to use these particular adjuncts and aids.
I recognise the limitations of an Adjournment motion, but the question of research assistants is one where conditionality already exists. We are not talking in absolutes; we are talking about redefining the conditionality that attaches to research assistance. So I thought that there was some merit in having a debate to discover whether anything further could be taken into account before resolutions are put to the House to deal with the problem that has been so helpfully addressed by the Committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin). I hope that I can atone for any lassitude in these matters by saying that we can come back to the House, with a view to taking some decisions, in the reasonably near future.
It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

DHSS Offices (Islington)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
2.30 pm
Mr. Chris Smith: I wish to raise the subject of the conditions for public and staff in local Department of Health and Social Security offices serving the London borough of Islington.
The House has spent much time today discussing the difficult and inadequate conditions that hon. Members have to endure in doing their job. The subject of this debate is even graver, because it concerns the conditions that members of the public and hard working members of staff in the DHSS have to endure in carrying out their tasks.
I shall concentrate on conditions in the Tavistock square office of the DHSS, which are particularly bad. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) will speak about conditions at Archway tower where a claimant armed with an air rifle recently attempted to attack another claimant. The rifle was later found in the toilets and the circumstances that enabled that incident to occur have caused considerable alarm to members of staff, especially in the light of what happened at the Westminster office of the DHSS recently.
About a month ago I received a letter from a constituent who was nearly 40 weeks pregnant and was claiming supplementary benefit and a maternity grant. She wrote:
"I went to the DHSS again on 31st May 1985 a Friday. I waited to be seen all day. I was there at 9.30 am waiting for the door to be open and stayed there until 3.45 pm. At 1 pm I was told I might as well go out for 1 hour get something to eat and find a toilet. I did this and returned at 2 pm. At 3.45 pm I was told that they had not been able to find my file and that I should return on Monday.
On Monday 3rd June 1985 I went to DHSS at 11 am, after a hospital appointment. At about 2.30 pm I was told that they had found my file and that someone would see me which happened about 3 pm. I was told I would receive a giro the next day. By this time because I had not been paid for the period before 24th May 1985 I had no money not even the bus fare and I had only been able to afford a cup of tea all day. I asked for payment that day and about my maternity grant. I was told that I could wait and get my giro and that the grant would be sorted out. I got the giro at 5.20 pm and just managed to cash it."
That was a disgraceful way to treat a woman who was nearly 40 weeks pregnant. The tragedy that she endured is repeated many times over for many of my constituents at the hands of local DHSS offices. I hasten to say that it is not the fault of the staff in those offices; it is the fault of the conditions that they and the public have to tolerate and the facilities that are available.
At the Tavistock square office there is seating on hard wooden benches for 50 people in the public waiting area, which is a small and dingy room. On most days there are far more than 50 people waiting. Many have to stand and some have to wait outside. The conditions in the waiting room are appalling. I sat there for half a morning to observe what happened and the conditions that people had to endure. I was lucky—I could go away. I am paid at the end of the month. The conditions endured by people who depend upon DHSS assistance are appalling.
The gross overcrowding is made worse by the fact that there is no privacy in many of the interviewing cubicles. The acoustic qualities of the screens are so poor that people
1450
have to shout to be heard by the officers. The private details of their medical, social and family circumstances are broadcast to the world.
Even worse is the fact that people waiting in that office have no toilet facilities. If she is lucky, a woman is allowed to use the staff facilities behind the counter. A man is told to use the car park at the back. In 1985 such conditions should not be imposed on citizens seeking their rights from a Department.
Staff conditions are not much better. In 1982, 66 staff were working in the Tavistock office; there are now 92. In 1982, the 66 staff had just about enough room to operate satisfactorily. In 1985, with 92 staff, the staff space is grossly overcrowded. In addition to those staff who form part of the complement of officers at the DHSS office, there are regional reserves and detached duty staff. Because of the enormously heavy work load of the office, many of those people work there regularly. The already overcrowded conditions are thereby made worse.
There is no proper ventilation system for staff. Some years ago, double glazing was installed to cut out the enormous traffic noise from the busy corner on which the office stood. The ventilation system, which was first requested by the trade unions seven years ago, was supposed to be installed in June this year. There is still no sign of it. The recent hot weather makes life even worse for the staff trying to operate in such overcrowded and hot conditions.
Next year, computers are supposed to arrive. New technology is to be installed. This will take up a lot of space and, at the moment, there is no space in which to put that equipment. The result is an incredibly low level of morale among staff, frayed tempers and a reduced ability to deal with the public's problems. There is a high turnover of staff, especially of clerical officers who do much of the most important work in the office. In the past six months nearly 20 clerical officers have left the office.
It is clear that the conditions that the public and staff have to tolerate are a disgrace. Several years ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) raised this matter with the Department. Nothing has been done. Better facilities are desperately needed for that office, and I suspect the same is true of other offices throughout the country. There have been some halfhearted attempts to improve matters. It is proposed—this has not yet been implemented — that board and lodging payment matters should be hived off to a separate office dealing only with them. The management at Tavistock square has asked the authorities to grab some scattered rooms from other organisations elsewhere in the building. Those are not sufficient answers to the major problem caused by the lack of facilities and space available to people who have to work in or claim from that office.
The Department should be able to give some help to the many hundreds of people who have to put up with the conditions. The Government must provide resources to make the facilities better and tolerably decent.
An attempt has been made to tart up the waiting area at Tavistock square. A splash or two of paint has been put on the walls and some new tiling placed there. Appropriately, they depict scenes from Dickens. Nothing could sum up better the Government's attitude in refusing to allow anything other than Dickensian conditions for the public and the staff at that office.
I plead with the Government to show some concern about the facilities, the conditions, the space, the dirt, filth

1451
and degradation that people have to put up with at Tavistock square. I plead with the Government to provide better facilities and to make that office a decent place so that people may go there, not as supplicants, not as Dickensian waifs, but as people who deserve to claim their rights in decent and tolerable conditions. I hope that the Government will show that concern and make a commitment this afternoon.
2.43 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I thank my good Friend the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) for allowing me to take part in the debate. He represents the southern part of the borough and I represent the north. I am in regular contact with claimants' organisations, welfare rights organisations and the trade union involved in the administration of a large social security office at Archway tower, where most of my constituents go, although some go to the office in Hackney. Archway tower is a huge building. The best that one can say about it is that the view from the staff canteen on the top floor is probably the best in London. What one can say about the rest of the building is not so complimentary.
About 34,000 claimants use Archway tower from the Finsbury park and Highgate offices. Only 400 staff handle that work. The building is leased and not owned by the DHSS. It is a tall, 15-floor building with serious structural problems. One is that it contains a large amount of asbestos. This has been removed from the public and waiting areas, and a system of identification of asbestos panels throughout the building has been agreed with the trade unions. I hope that all the asbestos will be removed. Can the Minister say when it will be removed, and whether he and the DHSS are satisfied with the presence of such a large amount of asbestos in a sealed building?
The windows are also causing a problem. The DHSS and the owners of the freehold are in dispute, and the windows have not been cleaned for some time. However, a window cleaning cradle has been erected and I hope that the cleaning will begin. In the meantime, staff are in difficulties because they cannot see out of the windows by their desks.
Staffing levels in the building need serious examination. A large amount of overtime is worked, and a large number of casual workers are employed, which has led to disquiet among the staff. This is an area of high unemployment—about 25 per cent. of workers in my constituency are unemployed — and to allow staff shortages is inexcusable. Such a large amount of overtime and taking on casual staff with no future are equally inexcusable. The DHSS must review the staffing position to take account of the increasing demands on that building. The trade unions have made numerous representations about this matter, as there is a great deal of staff disquiet.
There are other problems, such as the appalling problems of queueing and waiting within the building. There have been demonstrations by claimants, by unions and by other people because of the frustration over the queueing. A constituent phoned me at the House only 10 minutes ago to say that when she went to claim her housing benefit this morning 40 people had been waiting for an hour or more because there were only two staff on duty in that section. She was not critical of the staff — she complimented them—but she wanted to point out the problem.
1452
As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury said, there is also the problem of reception areas in DHSS offices. The problems that he described in his constituency apply to the office in Archway tower. We are looking for an understanding of the fact that people who use Archway tower regularly do not like queueing outside, or even inside, and the atmosphere of hostility that is being engendered between claimants and staff in the DHSS. This atmosphere is created by the Government's underfunding of the DHSS and by the fact that they do not recognise the serious problems consistently faced in inner-city areas, with the growth of unemployment and a great many claimants.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury has pointed out, the atmosphere of trust that needs to be developed between claimants and staff of the DHSS cannot be developed while there are inadequate facilities and overworked, underpaid and often ill-trained staff trying to deal with people who are justifiably angry and frustrated at the inadequacy of the benefits which many of them receive and the poverty in which they are forced to live.
I hope that the Minister will seriously consider our points about the offices in Islington. Perhaps he will visit them himself and join the queues to see what the offices are like. He may then agree to provide extra staff and more and better facilities, such as toilets, telephones and so on, which will make life a little more tolerable for some of the worst off in our society.
2.47 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Ray Whitney): I am glad to be able to respond to this debate. I seem to make a habit of responding to the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), whether on another of our interests, foreign affairs, or now, on social security. Not infrequently, he is accompanied by his colleague the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn).
Mr. Corbyn: We go together.
Mr. Whitney: Yes, the two hon. Members go together. I am tempted to make other comparisons, but I shall not.
Both hon. Members have raised important points about staff conditions and conditions for claimants. I am happy to respond to the points that they have made, not least because, since I had the privilege of joining the Department of Health and Social Security, I have started a campaign of working my way around the 500-odd local DHSS offices.
I have been impressed by the quality of the staff, the dedication they show and the understanding they have of the extremely complex system that has grown up over the past 40 years in the administration of our social security system. I am optimistic that the reforms proposed in the review published by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services on 3 June will lead to improvements in the conditions for staff and will make the system more simple over the next two or three years. That will be good for the staff and good for the claimants.
The impact that we have achieved over the past two or three years in improving our services to the public has been marked. This has been a priority sector for the work of the DHSS in recent years. The results can be seen. I do not

1453
deny that there are problems at the offices to which the hon. Gentlemen referred. I ask them to accept that there is a strong thrust in the DHSS's policies towards achieving improvements in conditions for the staff and claimants and for the delivery of our enormous social security programme which will amount to £42 billion a year, after the November uprating.
It is ludicrous for the hon. Member for Islington, North to denigrate the social security programme. That was completely unjustified. He fails to recognise what the Government have achieved by providing increases in the social security programme above the rate of inflation and in addition to the impact caused by the unemployment figures. It does no service to the case that the hon. Gentlemen are putting to the House to ignore those facts.
I have not yet been to the local offices to which the hon. Gentlemen referred. I have a long-standing engagement to visit the Bloomsbury office. I hope that the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury does not think that it was fixed to coincide with this Adjournment debate, because that is not the case. I have been to the Hoxton office, which I hope will be familiar to the hon. Gentlemen. I was very impressed by what I found there. They will be better aware than I am that it is an area with social problems. The service which the Hoxton office delivers is an example of what can be done by local DHSS offices. I have a number of friends who have spoken highly of the service that they receive from that local office.
Difficulties have been experienced at the two local offices that we have been discussing. Today, we have focused more on the Tavistock square, Bloomsbury office. I do not quarrel with many of the points made by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury about overcrowding and the lack of facilities. We are conscious of them, and we are doing what we can to improve them. He should understand how the pressures on the services have exploded during the past two years. The supplementary benefit case load has virtually doubled over three years. No public service can normally be expected to respond to that pressure, because, as I am sure he accepts in his more charitable moments, buying and selling property in central London creates serious problems. The high volatility of the case load is one thing, but the use of social security resources, be they for benefits or real estate, must be planned over a longer period.
We accept that changes are necessary and some have been achieved. The hon. Gentleman dismissed uncharitably — somewhat uncharacteristically—what has been achieved. We have spent about £40,000 recently improving the area used by claimants. The area occupied by the interviewing booths has been increased by 213 sq ft. I have details of the achievements which that expenditure has produced already.
The fundamental difficulty has been created by the increased case load. In 1982, for example, there were fewer than 5,000 claimants and this year there are more than 9,000. Despite the improvements that we have made in accommodation for members of the public, the premises are not large enough to deal with the present caller load. We hope that during the next 12 months it will be possible for us to acquire more space in the building, provide a better service for the public and better conditions for the staff.
1454
The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred to the treatment of a pregnant lady. I understand that the local office manager is making inquiries into the hon. Gentleman's allegations. He will report to me and either he or I will let the hon. Gentleman know about the detail which has been found. It is true that there are currently no toilet facilities at the office but it is normal office practice for pregnant women, the elderly and the infirm to use the staff facilities that are available. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the way in which a certain pregnant lady was treated is typical of the way in which the public are treated at the office. That I firmly reject.
The staff work hard within the facilities that are available to ensure that people such as the pregnant lady to which the hon. Gentleman referred are given special and favoured treatment to the extent that that is possible. It is of benefit to no one to exaggerate as the hon. Gentleman did. I understand that, when he visited the office in February, he was not dissatisfied with the efforts that were being made and the situation which he found. We both agree that under the present new case load the premises are insufficient.
Mr. Chris Smith: The Minister referred to one of my visits to the office, during which I met a number of members of the management staff. I was not dissatisfied with their desire to improve matters. They concurred with me when I identified one of the problems as the hierarchy of the DHSS beyond them not providing sufficient resources and not being determined to improve matters.
Mr. Whitney: The hon. Gentleman must take account of the fact that the overall budget of the social security programme has increased in real terms as I have described. Since 1979, it has increased in real terms by 30 per cent. and that cannot be gainsaid. The improvements that we have achieved at the Bloomsbury office within a tight structural framework are important. We hope and intend that in the months to come there will be still further improvements.
The staff are operating under great pressure. Many in Government service are, and that is undeniable. We have increased the staffing complement and the staff in post is at a level that is significantly above the agreed complement. That is not to say that I do not recognise that the staff are working under great pressure.
We have good service from our staff and we are making great efforts to continue to improve conditions for claimants. I refer the hon. Members for Islington, North and for Islington, South and Finsbury to the remarkable improvements that have been made since the Labour Government left office in 1979. The fundamental conclusion that we must all draw is that there is an absolute need to simplify, streamline and bring up to date our social security system. That is precisely the thrust of the reforms proposed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. That is what will be achieved by the continued and improved computerisation programme. We hope that the new mainframe local office computers will be in operation in the next three or four years. That will do great things for the staff and claimants in the social security system.
The Question having been proposed after half-past Two o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at Three o'clock.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  University Teachers
  University Teachers
  University Lecturers and Professors (Salaries)
  University Lecturers and Professors (Salaries)
  Teachers (Early Retirement)
  Teachers (Early Retirement)
  Russian Language
  Russian Language
  Foreign Languages
  Foreign Languages
ENVIRONMENT
  Tower Hamlets
  Tower Hamlets
  Tenders
  Tenders
  Housing Programme (Birmingham)
  Housing Programme (Birmingham)
  Telecommunication Developments
  Telecommunication Developments
  Grant-Related Expenditure
  Grant-Related Expenditure
  Local Government Reform
  Local Government Reform
  London Docklands Development Corporation
  London Docklands Development Corporation
TRANSPORT
  Gravesend-Tilbury Ferry
  Gravesend-Tilbury Ferry
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  Trade Statistics
  Trade Statistics
  "Made in Britain"
  "Made in Britain"
  House of Fraser
  House of Fraser
  Alpha Steel Works, Newport
  Alpha Steel Works, Newport
  Crossbows
  Crossbows
  Bubble Gum Sweets
  Bubble Gum Sweets
  Motor Vehicles
  Motor Vehicles
NATIONAL FINANCE
  General Betting Duty
  General Betting Duty
  Black Economy
  Black Economy
  Brussels Meeting
  Brussels Meeting
  EC (Loans)
  EC (Loans)
WALES
  Day Care Places
  Day Care Places
  Housing Repairs
  Housing Repairs
  Doctors' Lists
  Doctors' Lists
  Skillcentres
  Skillcentres
  School Leavers
  School Leavers
  Youth Training Scheme
  Youth Training Scheme
  Training
  Training
  Hospitals Beds
  Hospitals Beds
NORTHERN IRELAND
  School Meals
  School Meals
  Women Prisoners (Armagh)
  Women Prisoners (Armagh)
  Armagh Prison (Strip Searches)
  Armagh Prison (Strip Searches)
  Maternity Units
  Maternity Units
  Labour Statistics
  Labour Statistics
  Pensioners
  Pensioners
  Housing Statistics
  Housing Statistics
SCOTLAND
  Assistance to Newspapers
  Assistance to Newspapers
  Legal Aid
  Legal Aid
  Legal Advice and Assistance
  Legal Advice and Assistance
ENERGY
  Wave Energy
  Wave Energy
  Nuclear Reactors
  Nuclear Reactors
PRIME MINISTER
  Sports Stadiums (Safety)
  Sports Stadiums (Safety)
  GCHQ Cheltenham
  GCHQ Cheltenham
  Steel Industry
  Steel Industry
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Terms of Transfer
  Terms of Transfer
  National Identity Cards
  National Identity Cards
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Metropolitan Police
  Metropolitan Police
  Prisons
  Prisons
  Mr. Ed Kale
  Mr. Ed Kale
  Terrorism
  Terrorism
  Crossbows
  Crossbows
  Prison Officers' Association
  Prison Officers' Association
  Rule 43
  Rule 43
  Electoral Register (Advertising)
  Electoral Register (Advertising)
  Cable Broadcasting (Listed Events)
  Cable Broadcasting (Listed Events)
  Prison Employment
  Prison Employment
  Prison Workshops
  Prison Workshops
  Dog Fouling
  Dog Fouling
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Neonatal Nurses
  Neonatal Nurses
  Limited List Prescribing
  Limited List Prescribing
  Nurses
  Nurses
  Feverfew
  Feverfew
  Board and Lodging
  Board and Lodging
  Single Payments
  Single Payments
  Invalidity Benefit
  Invalidity Benefit
  Child Benefit
  Child Benefit
  Private Medicine
  Private Medicine
  Medical Episode
  Medical Episode
  Family Income Supplement
  Family Income Supplement
  NHS (Property Sales)
  NHS (Property Sales)
  District Health Authorities (Appointments)
  District Health Authorities (Appointments)
DEFENCE
  Tornado Aircraft
  Tornado Aircraft
  RAF Personnel (Records)
  RAF Personnel (Records)
  Service Pensions
  Service Pensions
  Optical Equipment
  Optical Equipment
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Dairy Products
  Dairy Products
  Moulton Veterinary Inspection Centre
  Moulton Veterinary Inspection Centre
  Food (Aluminium Colouring)
  Food (Aluminium Colouring)
  Sugar
  Sugar
EMPLOYMENT
  Trade Unions
  Trade Unions
  Youth Training Scheme
  Youth Training Scheme
  Disabled People
  Disabled People
  Dependant Care (Paid Leave)
  Dependant Care (Paid Leave)
  Labour Statistics
  Labour Statistics

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

M.1 and A.1 Repairs
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To Her Majesty's Government why it was considered necessary to undertake major repairs to several sections of the A.1 at the same time as those on the M.1 motorway, when the two roads provide obvious alternatives for many destinations.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, motorway and trunk road major repair schemes are carried out mostly during the summer months when conditions are right for the laying of bituminous materials. Since major schemes often last for several weeks there is inevitably some overlapping in the timing of works on particular routes. The concurrent works carried out on the M.1 and A.1 this year—not all of them repair schemes—were regrettably unavoidable.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he realise that when I went up the A.1 the other day from here it took me five-and-a-quarter hours to get to Hull, instead of the normal three-and-a half? Surely he would agree that his Answer is unsatisfactory in so far as that, while it is difficult to lay bitumen in the winter, there is a large portion of the year when it can be laid? Can he give me an assurance that in future whoever is responsible will try a little harder to produce some other sensible course, rather than close two important and, to some degree, alternative roads at the same time?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, as I have said, wherever possible works are programmed to avoid problems on parallel routes, but this is not always possible. We have a lot of work to do in a fairly short season and the work in progress at Hatfield on the A.1 is not a repair scheme but a major contract connected with the upgrading of the A.1 to motorway standards in that area. There is about one year's work there. However, other smaller schemes were deferred during the closure period at junction 8.
Lord Morris: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm whether it is true that the contractor was paid some £200,000 as a bonus for completing the work at junction 8 on time? From the taxpayers' point of view was that a cost-effective move in my noble friend's opinion? If the answer to that is, yes, will he pay more bonuses to encourage initiatives and skills on this basis?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, indeed, it is true. The work was finished five days early and the contractor will gain about £200,000 in bonuses. As
422
regards the cost effectiveness, it is estimated that the delays that can occur on roadworks of this sort cost the road users, particularly commercial road users, £130,000 a day. So for a bonus of £40,000 a day this is indeed good value for money.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, as this road leads to Scotland, should not the bonus be higher still?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I think the bonus was quite sufficient, and indeed it proved its worth in getting the work done so much faster than we had expected. I take my noble friend's point about the road leading to Scotland, and, indeed, to the North of England!
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, since the railways manage to do these things on Sundays, is it not better to travel by rail on weekdays?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, we recommended that people should, if they could, use the railways rather than the M.1 during this period. I believe that there was a 15 per cent. increase in the usage of the railway during the period.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, this is intended to be a serious, not a facetious, Question. In view of the large bonus paid to the contractors, is the noble Lord aware of any of the payment being passed on to the workforce, who must have been partly responsible?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, obviously I should like to congratulate the workforce, but I am not aware of the position and it is for the contractor to decide how he does these things.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, bearing in mind that there were about eight areas on the A.1 up to Doncaster which were single lane for stretches of one or two miles, is there really any co-ordination between the different authorities which are repairing the various sections? My doubt is whether there is any such co-ordination, which is why there was such a massive hold-up on the A.1.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the A.1 is a trunk road and so the roadworks on it are the responsibility of the Department of Transport. Where possible we do what we can to improve things. Over recent years we have introduced longer, smoother crossovers at contraflow sites. We have reduced working lengths to a maximum of two-and-a-half miles. We have introduced longer gaps between repair sites, and we normally keep to a six-mile minimum for that. We have also introduced lane rental schemes, which are proving successful.
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, with regard to major motorway maintenance repairs, can the noble Lord tell me what are lane rental schemes?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: Yes, my Lords. Lane rental schemes such as were used at the junction 8 works involve the contractor receiving a bonus if he completes the work early. On the other hand, if he goes over the allotted time he has to pay us £40,000 a day.

The Welfare State
11.11 a.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will establish a commission to increase the efficiency of the welfare state in relieving poverty, disease and squalor.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): No, my Lords, we see no need for a commission. The outcome of the social security review was presented to Parliament last month as a Green Paper. Review work in connection with primary care and personal social services is also well advanced, and desirable reforms would have to be held up if there were now to be a commission with a general remit.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. I am sorry about its tone, which is summarily to dismiss the idea of a commission. Perhaps she will acknowledge that the wish for freedom from squalor, disease and all other hateful things is shared by us all. We wish to secure this freedom. Does the noble Baroness not agree that in the field of health, housing and social services, instead of itsy-bitsy examinations now and then it is about time we established an ongoing commission which could probably save the civilised welfare state a lot of money and make it more efficient to achieve the objectives for which it was established?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the wide-ranging nature of the noble Lord's supplementary question is such that it would take a number of Government departments a great deal of time at quite disproportionate cost even to attempt the kind of comprehensiveness invited.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is less squalor now in this country than there has ever been within the memory of most of us who are now fairly old; that further progress would not be enhanced by the appointment of a commission, which would merely divert resources and establish more bureaucratic machinery; and that it is far better that we should continue to make progress with the help of economic growth?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am most grateful for the remarks of my noble friend Lord Renton, with which I entirely agree. He may be interested to know that the Royal Commission on the National Health Service took three years to complete its work, at a cost of £1,570,000 at today's prices. That was only one part of the welfare state. I leave it to your Lordships to hazard a guess as to how much longer it would take and how much more it would cost for a commission on the whole of the welfare state.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness not agree that even the figures she quoted for that
424
remarkable commission that was established apropos the Health Service, much of whose work this Government have totally ignored, showed a way of saving money and making things efficient (as with housing); and that if we could only spend 20 per cent. of what we spend on trying to make nuclear weapons we could achieve this? Furthermore, does she not agree that for the good and well being of the nation it is just as important to have a commission to examine ways of ridding ourselves of these evils as it is to see that we have good defence? Does the noble Baroness not agree that there is not much sense in building 35 hospitals—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Molloy: My Lords, if I may continue with just two more words—
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Molloy: My Lords, the Government have built 35 new hospitals, for which we are all grateful—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Molloy:—but they have closed 220, which is a disgrace.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, not only has there been a massive increase in spending on the Health Service, on personal social services and on social security during the present Government's tenure, but we have also undertaken radical reviews of many aspects of the welfare state in our search to improve services and attain better care and greater benefits for people. We have a record of which we are proud and to which the Opposition have no parallel.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, with regard to the supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, economic growth will not abolish poverty and squalor unless it percolates down to the people who created it by their skills; and it certainly is not doing so under this Government.

UK Council for Computing Development
11.17 a.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they have withdrawn their grant to the United Kingdom Council for Computing Development.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, for its first three years the Department of Trade and Industry provided funds to help the council become established. It was never our intention to provide support on a permanent basis and the time has now come for the council to convince industry of its usefulness and attract funding from that source.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is it not the case that the Government assisted in setting up this council some three years ago with great fanfares for the purpose of assisting the British computing industry to sell its wares in the third world? Is it not the case also that this is a matter of only £20,000 a year; and is it not mean at this stage to withdraw it in view of the fact that the French pay out 10 times as much as we do for the same purpose and the Japanese 100 times as much?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the Government did not in fact assist in the setting up of this charitable, educational, advisory body. They made a subscription for one year of £20,000 which they continued for a second year and then for a third, and then gave notice of their intention not to continue. It is not a question of selling the computer industry's products. A comparison with either France or Japan is not fair or true because international comparisons of this nature do not start from the same base. Secondly, the noble Lord opposite fails to recognise the considerable aid given to the industry through other sources, notably the British Council and our foreign posts overseas.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Lord reconsider his Answer to the Question addressed to him by my noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby? Is it not true that, regardless of any kind of statistical base in which the noble Lord seeks mathematical refuge, in fact other countries in the world, our competitors, are contributing towards their particular industries in this field on a massive scale which makes any puny mathematical calculation to a decimal point absolutely pointless? Will the noble Lord address himself again to the Question and report to his right honourable friend?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I will not reconsider my Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. That is the truthful Answer to his perfectly proper Question. I remind your Lordships that the DTI alone gives over £200 million worth of assistance to the IT industry.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord said about France, do the Government intend to make any response to the call made by President Mitterrand during his State visit to this country and his address to both Houses of Parliament for a developing European computer industry so that Europe could be less dependent on the United States and Japan? How does that square with what the Government have just done?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, that really is a very different question, but both the Government and the industry are in very close collaborative contact with other firms in that industry in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, may I make another appeal to the Minister? When this is such a paltry sum, £20,000 a year, is it not symbolic of the Government's assistance to the computer industry in attempting to export its wares and train people to use them in the third world? If the noble Lord wishes to
426
make comparisons, is he not aware that if he makes them with France and Japan (the two countries I mentioned) on the basis of commercial diplomatic representation abroad or subsidies from the DTI, both France and Japan can demonstrably be shown to put a great deal more Government money into the support of such industries than this Government do?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, asks exactly the same question but in a different way. I do think that I have answered his Question.

DoE-Local Government Consultations
11.22 a.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: 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 when it is next proposed that the Secretary of State for the Environment will meet the leaders of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Association of London Authorities; and whether they will state which matters will appear on the agenda.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, my right honourable friend will meet the leaders of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Association of London Authorities on 23rd July, when he chairs the next meeting of the consultative council on local government finance. The agenda has not yet been finally decided.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that the information regarding the next statutory meeting is well known? Is he further aware that last week, as a matter of the utmost urgency, the leader of the AMA and the leader of the ALA asked for a meeting as quickly as possible, even against the background of that statutory meeting? I understand that the letter was sent last week and that no response has yet been received. Will the Minister accept from me that the purpose of this Question is benign and not malignant? We are recognising that at the end of a very difficult period of rate capping or rate setting there is an urgency to begin the dialogue as quickly as possible. In view of what has been said in the press lately regarding the possibility of changes in finance, would the Minister not agree that there is great urgency in this matter? I would simply ask him to ask his right honourable friend to respond to the initiative taken last week.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his Question because in fact I can discover no trace of such a letter having been received in the department.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my, noble friend, or at least his right honourable friend, when he

427
meets the association of London boroughs, suggest that the two London associations had better once again amalgamate?
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the two associations in question wish to see the Secretary of State about matters arising from the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils as a matter of urgency, my right honourable friend would welcome that letter even more than the one that has been described.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that there have been complaints, particularly from the AMA, about the inadequacy of some of the discussions at recent meetings of the consultative council. Will the noble Lord bear that in mind and also the fact, in view of the important point raised by my noble friend Lord Graham, that there is need for this other meeting urgently to discuss the points that he mentioned?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the matter in question, I take it, is the matter of rate support grant penalties in particular. The issue was fully discussed at the last CCLGF meeting on 17th April and also in separate correspondence between my right honourable friend and the leaders of the AMA and the ALA. However, my right honourable friend has recently made it clear to the leader of the AMA that he is ready to discuss the matter further. Obviously the association can raise it on 23rd July if they wish, or at a separate meeting.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord; but I am also surprised and disturbed at the advice he has given the House. I am sure he will appreciate that I shall make urgent inquiries regarding the letter which I understand was sent last week and of which he says the department has no trace.
May I draw attention to the Freudian slip just committed by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, because there is a London Boroughs Association and an Association of London Authorities? The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, referred to the Association of London Boroughs. Of course, that could very well be a new title if the two bodies were to get back together again. So far as I am concerned, there is an anxiety to represent the best interests of the people of London. So far as the AMA and ALA are concerned, there are urgent matters that literally cannot wait for two weeks. Can I ask the Minister, if the original letter can be traced or if a copy is sent, to use his best offices to expedite an early meeting with the two associations?
Lord Elton: My Lords, not having seen the letter, I think the best I can do is to promise an early answer to any copy that may be sent.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord opposite for assuming the role of the late Doctor Freud, may I ask my noble friend whether it was not perfectly clear to him—as I think it was to the House—that I was seeking to invite his attention to the ridiculous situation in which in London the London boroughs are in two separate and rival associations
428
and that they ought to be in one, particularly in view of the changes now taking place?
Lord Elton: My Lords, this unfortunate division had indeed come to my notice, and my noble friend now gives me the opportunity to say again that I hope the division will be brought to a speedy end.

Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Bill
11.27 a.m.
The Earl of Bessborough: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(The Earl of Bessborough.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Food and Environment Protection Bill [H.L.]
11.28 a.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons amendments be now considered.—(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Food and Environment Protection Bill [H.L.]

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  [References are to [Bill 79] as first printed for the Commons.]
  1 Clause 1, Page 1, line 9, leave out ("a release (whether or not accidental) ") and insert ("an escape".)
  2 Page 2, line 14, at end insert—
  (" "escape", in relation to substances, includes their release or expulsion by human agency or by any other cause;").
  3 Page 2, line 32, leave out ("release or suspected release") and insert ("escape or suspected escape")
  4 Page 2, line 37, leave out ("release or suspected release") and insert ("escape or suspected escape".)
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 1 to 4, and with the leave of the House I should also like to speak to Commons Amendments Nos. 12, 40 and 56.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  12 Clause 4, page 5, line 24, leave out ("a release") and insert ("an escape".)
  40 Clause 12, page 24, line 11, at end insert—
  (" "escape" is to be construed in accordance with section 1(2) above;".)
  56 In the Title, line 4, leave out ("release") and insert ("an escape".)
  These amendments are intended to put beyond all doubt that the powers in Part I of the Bill can be used in circumstances where substances have escaped accidentally. Amendments Nos. 1 to 4 and Amendment No. 12 replace all references to "release" in Clauses 1 and 4; and "escape" is defined as including the release or expulsion of substances, whether by human agency or by any other cause.
  Amendments Nos. 40 and 56 are consequential amendments to the list of definitions in Clause 22 and the Title, respectively. I beg to move Amendments Nos. 1 to 4.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  5 Clause 2, page 4, line 8, leave out from ("which") to end of line 9 and insert ("appears to the Minister to be necessary or expedient for that purpose".)
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5, and also to speak to Amendments Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 and 15.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  6 Clause 3, page 4, line 28, leave out from ("authorise") to ("to") in line 29 and insert—
  ("(a) persons (in this Act referred to as "investigating officers")".)
  7 Page 4, leave out lines 35 and 36 and insert—
  ("(b) persons (in this Act referred to as "enforcement officers") to enforce—

  (i) emergency orders; and

  (ii) directions under section 2 above.".)

  8 Page 4, leave out lines 37 to 40.
  9 Page 5, line 1, leave out subsections (2) and (3)
  10 Page 5, line 12, at end insert—
  ("(3A) Either of the Ministers may authorise an investigating officer or an enforcement officer who is not an officer of his department to perform any of the Minister's functions under this Part of this Act which he could perform if he were an officer of the department; and an officer performing such functions in pursuance of such an authorisation is to be treated in relation to their performance as if he were an officer of the department.")
  11 Page 5, line 12, at end insert—
  ("(3B) An authorisation under subsection (1) or (3A) above may be given subject to such limitations as may be specified in the instrument containing it; and this Act shall be construed, in reference to a person whose authorisation has been given subject to limitations, as subject to those limitations.".)
  13 Clause 4, page 6, line 14, after ("is") insert ("for any other reason")
  14 Page 6, line 15, leave out from beginning to ("may") in line 17 and insert ("performing his functions under this Part of this Act.
  (2A) An investigating officer or an enforcement officer")
  15 Page 6, line 17, leave out from ("of") to end of line 19 and insert ("performing his functions under this Part of this Act.")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, as drafted, Clause 3(2)(b) might have enabled all enforcement officers to act under any of the provisions of Clause 2 without reference to Ministers once an emergency order had been made. That was not our intention. It is important that the extensive power which would be provided under Part I should not only be exercised with specific authority from the Government but at the same time we would not wish properly authorised local authority enforcement officers to have any less power to act than officers from central government. These amendments would put central and local government officers on a par. My Lords, I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  Baroness Nicol: My Lords, we should like particularly to welcome this group of amendments. We had a considerable amount of discussion on the responsibilities of officers during the passage of the Bill in this House. It gave rise to anxiety and we are grateful for the clarification that has now come. We welcome the amendments.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  11.30 a.m.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  12 [Printed above.]
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 12. This amendment goes with Commons Amendment No. 1.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  13, 14 & 15 [Printed above]
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 13, 14 and 15. They go with Amendment No. 5, which we have just discussed.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  16 Clause 5, page 7, line 18, leave out ("in United Kingdom waters") and insert ("within United Kingdom waters, either in the sea or under the sea-bed")
  17 Page 17, line 27, after ("sea") insert ("or under the sea-bed")
  18 Page 7, line 34, leave out ("in the sea within British fishery limits") and insert ("within British fishery limits, either in the sea or under the sea-bed")
  19 Page 8, line 3, at end insert—
  ("(cc) for the deposit of substances or articles anywhere under the sea-bed within British fishery limits from a vehicle which was loaded in the United Kingdom with any of those substances or articles;")
  20 Page 8, line 18, after ("sea") insert ("or under the sea-bed")
  21 Page 8, line 18, at end insert—
  ("(ee) for the loading of a vehicle in the United Kingdom with substances or articles for deposit from that vehicle as mentioned in paragraph (a) or (cc) above;")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 16 to 21.
  After those, Amendments Nos. 23, 25 and 57 will come with that block.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  23 Clause 11, page 13, line 20, after ("sea") insert ("or under the sea-bed").
  25 Clause 13, page 14, line 6, leave out ("or (e)") and insert ("(cc), (e) or (ee)").
  57 In the Title, line 7, after ("sea") insert ("to make provision for the control of the deposit of substances and articles under the sea-bed;").
  These amendments deal with sub sea-bed disposal, which as some of your Lordships may remember, is one possible method of disposing of radioactive waste. As yet its technical feasibility remains to be proved, and the legal situation under the London dumping convention is also under consideration. Any operation of sub sea-bed disposal would be subject to the same control as would ordinary deposits at sea. That is to say, if the operation takes place in United Kingdom waters, or if the loading takes place in the United Kingdom, or if the vehicle or vessel concerned is British, then a licence will be needed. However, the purpose of bringing sub sea-bed disposal within the Bill as in these amendments is not to permit it but to make it subject to control pending a decision in the London dumping convention.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments—(Lord Belstead.)
  Baroness Nicol: My Lords, we also welcome these amendments. I think that I am probably right in saying that this would in the interim, before the final signature to the convention, cover any deposits in fissures in the sea-bed about which there might perhaps have been an argument as to whether they were on the sea-bed or under it. But certainly we also welcome these amendments.
  Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can explain the difference between "under the sea-bed" and sub sea-bed?
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, no, the two mean the same.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  22 Clause 8, page 9. line 19, at end insert—
  ("(1A) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, where it appears to a licensing authority that an applicant for a licence has applied for the licence with a view to the disposal of the substances or articles to which it would relate, the authority, in determining whether to issue a licence, shall have regard to the practical availability of any alternative methods of dealing with them.")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 22. This amendment would require the licensing authority to consider alternative means of disposal treatment or elimination of the waste when considering an application for a licence to dump. My Lords, I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  23 [Printed above.]
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 23, which goes with Amendment No. 16.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  24 After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause:—
  ("Enforcement of Conventions
  .—(1) The Ministers may jointly by order made by statutory instrument—

  (a) declare that any procedure which has been developed for the effective application of the London Convention or the Oslo Convention and is specified in the order is an agreed procedure as between Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of any Convention State so specified; and

  (b) specify any of the powers conferred by this Act for the purpose of enforcing this Part of this Act as a power that may be exercised, by such persons in such circumstances and subject to such conditions or modifications as may be specified, for the purpose of enforcing that procedure.

  (2) A person who exercises any powers by virtue of an order under this section shall have the same rights and liabilities in relation to their exercise that a person authorised under section 11 above would have in relation to the exercise of any powers for the purpose of enforcing this Part of this Act.
  (3) A statutory instrument containing an order under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 24. With this Amendment goes Amendment No. 46.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  46 Clause 23, page 27, line 6, after ("them") insert (", other than the reference in section (Enforcement of Conventions) (1) above,")
  This is a new clause. Commons Amendment No. 24 enables Ministers to make orders putting into effect any co-operative procedure between contracting parties to the conventions for enforcement of those conventions on the high seas. It reintroduces such provisions which were in Section 6 of the Dumping At Sea Act but were originally omitted from the Bill because no such arrangement had been, or seemed to be likely to be, made. However, concern was expressed in another place about the effect of this deletion, and the Government accept that there is no harm in retaining the powers.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  25 [Printed above.]
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 25, which goes with Commons Amendment No. 16.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  26 Clause 15, page 15, line 13, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
  ("(1) The provisions of this Part of this Act shall have effect—

  (a) with a view to the continuous development of means—

  (i) to protect the health of human beings, creatures and plants;

  (ii) to safeguard the environment; and

  (iii) to secure safe, efficient and humane methods of controlling pests; and

  433

  (b) with a view to making information about pesticides available to the public;

  and references in this Part of this Act to the general purposes of this Part of this Act are references to the purposes mentioned in this subsection.")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 26. With the leave of the House, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 30 to 33, 39, 42 and 58.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  30 Page 18, line 28. at end insert—
  (" "pest" means—

  (a) any organism harmful to plants or to wood or other plant products;

  (b) any undesired plant; and

  (c) any harmful creature;")

  31 Page 18, line 29, leave out ("or preparation") and insert (", preparation or organism")
  32 Page 18, line 30, leave out from ("for") to ("and") in line 34 and insert ("destroying any pest;")
  33 Page 18, line 40, leave out ("or preparation") and insert (", preparation or organism")
  39 Clause 17, page 20, line 36, leave out subsection (8).
  42 Clause 22, page 25, line 13, at end insert (" "pest",")
  58 In the Title: line 8, leave out ("and preparations") and insert (", preparations and organisms")
  Commons Amendment No. 26, which brings us into Part III of the Bill, makes two main changes. In paragraph (a) it broadens the scope of Part III to the control of pests rather than the control of pesticides and makes it quite clear that one of the purposes of Part III is to facilitate continuing development of new techniques in applying pesticides and controlling pests. In paragraph (b) the amendment adds to the basic purposes of the Bill that of making information about pesticides available to the public. All the other amendments in this group are consequential, either directly or indirectly, upon Amendment No. 26.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I wish to welcome particularly this Amendment No. 26. In it the Minister is honouring a commitment which the noble Lord made—I think at the Committee stage of the Bill in this House, originally—to find a proper wording which would set out clearly the objectives of Clause 15, which was the clause about which we were all most concerned. I think that the wording that has been chosen is admirable and I congratulate those who have devised it. It covers, I think, all the objections that we had to the original clause.
  I should like particularly to welcome the reference to continuous development of means of control. This is something which we had not asked for but we certainly hoped for. I am afraid I have a question on it because "continuous development" means continuous funding. I wonder whether the Minister is prepared to say at this stage how he foresees the funding of this continuous development being made. Is it to be by Government methods or by any other methods? Depending on his answer, we shall have more to say on a later amendment. However, on behalf of these Benches, certainly I welcome the new wording of Clause 15.
  Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I wonder whether I may make a brief comment on this amendment? I very much welcome it, as does the noble Baroness, in so far as it goes on from an amendment that was proposed in this House and accepted by the Government, I think at Third Reading. Being a rather suspicious sort of person, I have to ask my noble friend, bearing in mind that I think this was somewhat—if I may put the word in parenthesis— reluctantly accepted in the Commons, whether the Government really have their hearts behind it. I have to point out to my noble friend that, in a recent publication which was circulating at the Royal Show, no mention was made of the continuous development which the noble Baroness has just mentioned. Otherwise, I very much welcome it.
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the generous remarks that she has made. However, she asked me a direct question, which was: does continuous development mean continuous funding? The answer is, yes of course it does imply that. But if the noble Baroness then asks me to give the House some figures about the trend in our funding, I am sorry that I cannot add to anything which may have been said about public funding for Government support for pesticides development at the present time. However, what the noble Baroness asked was relevant.
  If I may reply to my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley at the same time, my noble friend wrote to me a little while ago and he put his question in a slightly different way. My noble friend asked whether the Government's heart was really 'in this, and he pointed out to me that a leaflet which the Ministry of Agriculture prepared for the Royal Show did not seem to reflect the force of this amendment. I have just replied to that letter, saying that there is indeed no question about my right honourable friend's department's commitment to this point, which has now been put into the Bill, provided that your Lordships agree with the Commons amendment. Our reluctance about putting it on the face of the Bill originally was as to whether the amendment was strictly necessary. A great deal of Government research, development and advisory work is in this area.
  But we accepted the mover's point of view in another place and we have developed it further by extending in Amendments Nos. 31, 33 and 35—Amendment No. 35 falls just outside this group—the scope of the Bill through the definition of pests to the control of organisms as well as pesticides and other preparations.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  35 Clause 16, page 19, line 10, leave out from ("pesticide") to ("tests") in line 15 and insert ("under this Part of this Act, on making his application, to pay a reasonable fee in respect of the administrative expenses of processing his application.
  (2) A Minister may also require an applicant for an approval to pay a further reasonable fee towards the expenses of carrying out any examinations and").
  Novel techniques in pest control through, for instance, natural predators, could if necessary be controlled under these regulations. I hope that what I have said is acceptable both to my noble friend and to

  435
  the noble Baroness opposite and that it adds just a little to the Government's reply to this amendment.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  27 Page 16, line 16, at end insert ("and to payment of such reasonable fees for furnishing copies as the Ministers may with the consent of the Treasury determine,").
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 27. This is a technical amendment.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  28 Page 17, line 12, leave out ("when consulted in accordance with subsection (9) below,") and insert (", either when requested to do so or otherwise, on any matters relating to the control of pests in furthering the general purposes of this Part of this Act,").
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 28, and with this I should like to speak to Amendment No. 47.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  47 Clause 23, page 27, line 22, at end insert ("and Schedule 5 to this Act").
  Your Lordships will recall that during the debate on Third Reading in this House, the Government accepted two amendments to the Bill tabled by my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley, the purpose of which was to specify in Clause 15(7) of the Bill that the Advisory Committee on Pesticides should be consulted and offer advice on all matters connected with Clause 15(1) of the Bill.
  Although my noble friend was responsible for moving this amendment, I know that it was the wish also of noble Lords in other parts of the House as well as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord opposite. When this matter was debated in Committee in the other place, the Government accepted a further amendment which sought to broaden the range of that advice to all aspects of pest control. Commons Amendment No. 28 achieves all those commitments. Amendment No. 47, which goes with this, is a necessary technical amendment to which I am also speaking.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House unnecessarily, but I feel that again I must express our pleasure at the inclusion of this amendment, which was, as the Minister said, very warmly discussed here. We feel very deeply about it and we are very grateful indeed that it has been included.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  29 Page 17, line 31, leave out from ("of') to ("or") in line 34 and insert ("controlling pesticides in the United Kingdom").
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 29. During examination of Clause 15(11) in Committee in the other place, the opinion was expressed that in its present wording this subsection might not enable Ministers to collect the information needed to determine whether an approval should be reviewed, revoked or suspended, since it might limit the information obtained to that necessary for the purposes of the original approval. The Government agreed to consider this and, as a result, decided that this amendment would be appropriate.
  Although the amendment is short, it leaves no doubt that the power to require information may be exercised at all stages of pesticide supply and use controlled by Part III, so that Ministers can exercise those controls properly. It therefore ensures that the Government can have both information to approve and information to revoke, review or suspend pesticides.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  11.45 a.m.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  30, 31, 32, 33 [Printed above.]
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 30 to 33. I spoke to these with Amendment No. 26.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  34 After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
  ("Codes of Practice
  .—(1) The Ministers may from time to time after consultation with such persons or bodies as seem to them representative of the interests concerned—

  (a) prepare and issue codes of practice for the purpose of providing practical guidance in respect of any provision of this Part of this Act or of regulations; and

  (b) revise any such code by revoking, varying, amending or adding to the provisions of the code.

  (2) A code prepared in pursuance of this section and any alterations proposed to be made on a revision of such a code shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament. and the Ministers shall not issue the code or revised code, as the case may be, until after the end of the period of 40 days beginning with the day on which the code or the proposed alterations were so laid.
  (3) If, within the period mentioned in subsection (2) above, either House resolves that the code be not issued, or the proposed alterations be not made, as the case may be, the Ministers shall not issue the code or revised code (without prejudice to their powers under that subsection to lay further codes or proposed alterations before Parliament).
  (4) For the purposes of subsection (2) above—

  (a) where a code or proposed alterations are laid before each House of Parliament on different days, the later day shall be taken to be the day on which the code or the proposed alterations, as the case may be, were laid before both Houses; and

  (b) in reckoning any period of 40 days, no account shall be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than four days.

  (5) The Ministers shall cause any code issued or revised under this section to be printed and distributed, and may make such arrangements as they think fit for its distribution, including causing copies of it to be put on sale to the public at such reasonable price as the Ministers may determine.
  (6) A failure on the part of any person to follow any guidance contained in a code issued under this section shall not of itself render that person liable to proceedings of any kind.
  (7) In all criminal proceedings any such code shall be admissible in evidence; and if any provision of such a code appears to the court conducting the proceedings to be relevant to any question arising in the proceedings, it shall be taken into account in determining that question.")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 34. I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 43, 44 and 45.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  43 Page 26, line 31. after ("k") insert ("(Codes of practice),").
  44 Page 26, line 34, after ("each") insert ("or either").
  45 Page 26, line 42, at end insert—
  ("and
  (f) section (Codes of practice) (4)(a) is omitted.").
  Amendment No. 34 is a new clause to be added to Part III which will enable Ministers to prepare and issue codes of practice to provide practical guidance on how the requirements of this legislation may be met. The Government have already indicated that the control of pesticides must be exercised through both regulations and codes of practice, in order not to overwhelm suppliers and users of pesticides with an over-rigid system of rules. This amendment gives these codes a legal status and also provides for proper public consultation about them and for the participation of Parliament in their adoption. Amendments Nos. 43 to 45 are necessary technical consequential amendments. My Lords, I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Belstead.)
  Lord Edmund-Davies: My Lords, perhaps I may inquire of the noble Lord the Minister whether he is quite happy about subsections (6) and (7). Subsection (6) reads:
  "A failure on the part of any person to follow any guidance contained in a code issued under this section shall not of itself render that person liable to proceedings of any kind."
  So a breach of the guidelines does not automatically constitute the commission of an offence. Subsection (7) reads:
  "In all criminal proceedings any such code shall be admissible in evidence; and if any provision of such a code appears to the court conducting the proceedings to be relevant to any question arising in the proceedings, it shall be taken into account in determining that question."
  It seems to me a little opaque and I am rising only to ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he is quite satisfied that there is no possible ambiguity and confusion likely to arise, or capable of arising, from the framing of the two subsections. I do not have an amendment in mind. I raise the question only to be quite sure that it has received adequate attention.
  Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, the noble Lord said that the codes were to be given legal status. I do not
  438
  think you can give a code legal status. It is just guidance. It is the same point as the noble and learned Lord has raised.
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, perhaps I may take first the question of the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. All I meant there is that we were making it clear that the code could be used in evidence in a court of law. Perhaps I may now reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Edmund-Davies. I am advised that subsections (6) and (7) of this new clause are a fairly common form of words which have been used before when Parliament has decided that the code is to be a code which will have legal effect.
  The noble and learned Lord, who knows so much more about these matters than I do, will know very well that codes have different statuses. We seem to pepper legislation now with codes of practice. Sometimes they are simply codes and have no particular standing at all. My official advice is that the effect of subsections (6) and (7) is fairly common where a code is said to have legal status, making it clear that:
  "A failure on the part of any person to follow any guidance contained in a code… shall not of itself render that person liable to proceedings of any kind".
  But if there are proceedings, this, is the kind of code which can then be called in evidence.
  Lord Edmund-Davies: My Lords, I should like to express my gratitude to the noble Lord the Minister.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  35 [Printed earlier.]
  36 Clause 16, page 19, line 18, at end insert—
  ("(2A) Where either of the Ministers has given an approval, he may require the payment of reasonable fees from time to time—

  (a) in respect of the collection of information under section 15(11) above and the processing of information supplied under that subsection;

  (b) in respect of monitoring the effect of the use of pesticides in the United Kingdom,

  by such persons as he considers appropriate.
  (2B) Fees under this section shall be determined on principles settled by the Ministers with the consent of the Treasury and after consultation with organisations appearing to the Ministers to represent persons who are likely to apply for approvals.").
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 35 and 36. The main effect of these amendments is to give the Government powers to include in the fees system charges which must be reasonable. These include a charge to cover the approval process, which includes the evaluation of all the safety and other data provided by applicants in support of an application; an element towards information collecting and processing costs, such as the pesticides usage surveys; and an element towards the costs of monitoring the effects of the use of pesticides, and especially our system of monitoring pesticide residues in food.
  A further aim of these amendments is to add a provision requiring Ministers to determine the

  439
  principles of the fees system after consultation with representatives of those persons on whom the fees will be charged. This last provision is very important because the powers in Clause 16 will not be implemented by regulations but by administrative action. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I am a little worried about Amendment No. 36. Having welcomed the idea of continuous monitoring, continuous research and continuous observation of everything that goes on in this field, and having touched very briefly on the funding of it, we now come to a point where it might be considered that those who are either manufacturing or using (or both) the substances in question might be asked to pay for the entire service.
  As far as the farmers, the users, are concerned, it might be a retrograde step to expect them to pay for continuous monitoring. It is very important that the users of new products should be encouraged to innovate and to try out any new product that is on the market, because we assume that these are always improvements on what has gone before, particularly, we hope, from the environmental point of view.
  The danger arises because if we ask the users to take on board the costs of monitoring in the future as well as possibly—who knows—the cost of further research, we may discourage them from taking on the use of the new pesticides. I should like to be a little reassured on how this is seen to be working out. Is the Minister talking about charges to manufacturers or to users? If it is to users, what right will they have in relation to the monitoring? Will it be that somebody can just arrive on their farm to see how it has worked out, to measure the effects and then charge them for that service for which they have not asked? I think it is fairly important that we should clear this up before we go any further on this amendment.
  Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, once again I am on the same side as the noble Baroness. Unbeknown to her, I wrote to my noble friend Lord Belstead on the very point she has raised. I support the noble Baroness on another point. If farmers are going to have to pay for this service—probably by the increased cost of the commodity—will they be consulted on these charges, perhaps through the NFU or by some other method?
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, both the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, and my noble friend Lord Stanley have asked me very much the same question. When I moved the Government's case in response to the amendment, I outlined three different powers to include in the fees system charges which must be reasonable. This would include a charge to cover the approval process; an element towards information collecting and processing costs; and an element towards the costs of monitoring.
  Both the noble Baroness and my noble friend are saying to me that this could jeopardise movement forward in the whole pesticides field. It was suggested that all this might become onerous for the payer; that
  440
  in the end the producer, the farmer or the grower would be the payer; and that we should hesitate before going along this road. I should like to say in reply that, depending on exactly the components for which one is charging, we are probably talking about between £1 million and £2 million a year. But that is only an estimate. I should like to say to the noble Baroness that, although this amendment is taking power to be able to charge for all costs, we have by no means reached a decision that that is what we ought to do.
  The first people to whom one would turn for paying the costs would be the agrochemical companies themselves. In deciding how much they would actually pass on to the primary producer, I am sure that they would bear in mind that their domestic sales last year were of the order of £350 million and that their export sales, I am delighted to say, were of the order of £480 million. We are therefore talking about £2 million of that enormous sum of money which is coming into the agrochemical companies.
  Nonetheless, let me face squarely the point that some of this would come to the farming community. There are two important safeguards contained in the drafting. First, the principles of the fees system have to be settled after consultation with organisations appearing to represent persons who are likely to apply for approvals, and with no other groups. Secondly, the fees set must be reasonable. That means that they can be contested in the courts to test the basis on which they are being charged.
  My noble friend wrote to me about this and, in addition, he asked me about how the consultation would work out. I have replied to my noble friend that, so far as consultation is concerned, one thinks first of all of the manufacturing companies, but I have no doubt there will be merchants who seek approval for imports or own-label sales. We are quite clear that some farmers will be applying for approvals for imports for their own use and also for approval for off-label uses where they are developing a new use for an existing chemical. The National Farmers' Union would therefore certainly expect to be consulted on the principles of the new system. We shall certainly bear in mind that a good deal of monitoring work is not directly related to use of pesticides either in agriculture or on United Kingdom territory, and that the fees charged should reflect this fact.
  That brings me back to what I tried to say at the very beginning. Although it is true that the effect of this amendment is to give the Government power to be able to make charges for all the services given with pesticide clearance, monitoring and use, we have not by any means reached a decision as to exactly how far the charges should go, because we have to consult first.
  12 noon
  Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, the noble Lord the Minister has twice used the expression that the Government have not yet reached a decision. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, who is also a farmer, I am always suspicious of the word "reasonable" in anything that we have to pay for. I wonder why it is that an expression such as "a calculated fee of the actual cost" could not be used instead of the words "a reasonable fee". Why not

  441
  insert the words "a calculated fee"? Then one will know exactly what one is paying for.
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, for a moment I thought that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Edmund-Davies, might give me the benefit of his advice on the meaning of the word "reasonable". My own interpretation of the word on behalf of the Government derives from what I endeavoured to say just now, which was that there are some elements of the fees system which clearly it might not be reasonable, or might be held by a court not to be reasonable, for the Government to try to pass on in the form of fees, for the reasons I gave just now. That is why we use the word "reasonable".
  The reason why I say we have not yet reached final decisions is because, under the amendments, statutorily we have to consult.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Following is the text of Amendment No. 35:
  35 Clause 16; page 19, line 10, leave out from ("pesticide") to ("tests") in line 15 and insert ("under this Part of this Act, on making his application, to pay a reasonable fee in respect of the administrative expenses of processing his application.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  37 Clause 17, page 19, line 31, after ("being") insert ("or has been")
  38 Page 19, line 37, after ("being") insert ("or has been")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 37 and 38. The purpose of these two amendments is to provide for a necessary strengthening of the provisions relating to powers of entry for enforcement officers. They have been requested particularly by the Health and Safety Executive, who were concerned that the original wording would not allow them to enter land or premises after a pesticide had been used in order, for example, to investigate a complaint, test machinery or inspect records. The Government were concerned that they should have power to do so and have, therefore, put forward these amendments.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  39 and 40 [Printed earlier.]
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 39, to which I spoke when moving Amendment No. 26, and to Amendment No. 40, spoken to already with Amendment No. 1.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Following is the text of the Amendments (Nos. 39 and 40):
  39 Page 20, line 36, leave out subsection (8).
  40 Clause 22, page 24, line 11, at end insert—
  (" "escape" is to be construed in accordance with section 1(2) above:").

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  41 Page 25, line 6, at end insert (", other than a pipe-line").
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 41. This small amendment seeks to remove an uncertainty as to whether the term "marine structure" includes a pipe-line. The question has arisen in the context of Part II of this Bill, where much of the terminology has been taken over from the Dumping at Sea Act 1974. It has always been understood that that Act was intended to deal with dumping from ships, and pipe-line discharges were never licensed under it. The reason is that pipe-line discharges are fully controlled under other legislation; the Control of Pollution Act 1974 and the Radioactive Substances Act 1960.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment —(Lord Belstead.)
  Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister, or whoever was responsible, for this amendment. This was a matter of concern which we discussed at the very beginning of the Bill and it is very helpful to have it cleared up.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  42, 43, 44, 45, 46 and 47 [Printed earlier.]
  Lord Belstead: My noble Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 42 to 47, all of which have been spoken to.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Following is the text of the Amendments (Nos. 42–47):
  42 Page 25, line 13, at end insert (" "pest",").
  43 Clause 23, page 26, line 31, after ("k"), insert (" (Codes of practice),").
  44 Page 26, line 34, after ("each") insert ("or either")
  45 Page 26, line 42, at end insert—
  ("and
  (f) section (Codes of practice) (4)(a) is omitted.")
  46 Page 27, line 6, after ("them") insert (", other than the reference in section (Enforcement of Conventions) (1) above,")
  47 Page 27, line 22, at end insert ("and Schedule 5 to this Act ")

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  48 Clause 24, page 27, leave out lines 38 and 39.
  49 Page 28, line 2, leave out ("I, II or III") and insert ("II").
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 48 and 49. These amendments are made at the request of the Isle of Jersey authorities, who do not wish to have Part I or Part III of the Bill extended to their territory. These amendments will put Jersey on exactly the same footing as Guernsey and the Isle of Man. They do not affect the operation of the Bill in the United Kingdom.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  50 Schedule 3, page 33, line 24, leave out paragraphs 1 to 5 and insert—
  ("1. If within 28 days of the issue of a licence the person to whom it is issued requests the licensing authority to give him notice in writing of the reasons for the inclusion of any provision in it, the authority shall comply with his request within 28 days of receiving it.
  2. On issuing a licence to a person a licensing authority shall notify him of the effect of paragraph 1 above.
  3. If a licensing authority refuses an application for a licence, the authority shall give the applicant notice in writing of the reasons for the refusal.
  4. If a licensing authority varies or revokes a licence without the holder's consent, the authority shall give the holder notice in writing of the reasons for the variation or revocation.
  5. If within 28 days of receipt of a notice under this Schedule giving a licensing authority's reasons the person to whom it is given makes written representations to the authority concerning the matter to which the notice related, the authority shall constitute a committee to consider his representations.
  6. A notice under this Schedule giving a licensing authority's reasons shall state the effect of paragraph 5 above.")
  51 Page 34, line 29, after ("8") insert (" (b)")
  52 Page 34, line 37, leave out ("for the licensing authority's determination") and insert ("given by the authority under this Schedule")
  53 Page 34, line 41, leave out ("may make a final decision only after receiving and considering") and insert ("shall reconsider the decision of the authority to which the representations relate in the light of")
  54 Page 34, line 44, leave out ("authority's decision") and insert ("result of the authority's reconsideration")
  55 Page 35, line 6, leave out ("the authority's final decision") and insert ("the result of the reconsideration is that the authority")
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 50 to 55. These amendments are purely for clarification.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  56, 57, 58 [Printed earlier.]
  Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 56, 57 and 58, to all of which I have spoken.
  Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Belstead.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Following is the text of the amendments (Nos. 51–58):

  COMMONS AMENDMENTS
  56 In the Title, line 4, leave out ("a release") and insert ("an escape")
  57 Line 7, after ("sea") insert ("to make provision for the control of the deposit of substances and articles under the seabed;")
  58 Line 8, leave out ("and preparation") and insert (", preparations and organisms")

Surrogacy Arrangements Bill
12.5 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(The Earl of Caithness.)
Lord Denning: My Lords, I support the Third Reading of this Bill. It was at the Committee stage that I put down a number of amendments designed to strengthen the Bill. However, I withdrew them because of the importance of getting this Bill through as quickly as possible and made law.
The object of this Bill is, in a way, to outlaw surrogate agencies. I desired to strengthen it. Let me first remind your Lordships what a surrogacy arrangement is. A woman who is infertile or who for some other reason cannot have a baby goes to another woman and for money persuades that other woman—or the other woman agrees—to bear a baby and to hand it over immediately on birth to the commissioning mother. Furthermore, the commissioning mother provides the sperm—it may be her husband's sperm or it may be another man's—and then the surrogacy arrangement takes place. As soon as the baby is born, the real mother—as I call her—hands her baby over to the commissioning mother.
I put down amendments to strengthen the Bill. I will not go further into them, but they received much support. All I will do today is draw attention to some limitations in the Bill as it stands which I should like to see extended. In the first place, the Bill only outlaws surrogate agencies which operate on a commercial basis. It does not prevent in any way the commissioning mother or the carrying mother from paying or receiving money. It does not outlaw the doctors and professionals who charge large fees for the purpose. All it outlaws at the moment is surrogate agencies, often operating from the United States of America, who advertise and arrange these deals between the commissioning mother and the carrying mother.
I put down amendments covering those other aspects but withdrew them because of the time. However, I remind your Lordships and the Government of the urgent recommendation contained in the Warnock Report, which appears on page 47, in black type. It states:
"We recommend that legislation be introduced to render criminal the creation or the operation in the United Kingdom of agencies whose purposes include the recruitment of women for surrogate pregnancy or making arrangements for individuals or couples who wish to utilise the services of a carrying mother; such legislation should be wide enough to include both profit and non-profit making organisations. We further recommend that the legislation be sufficiently wide to render criminally liable the actions of professionals and others who knowingly assist in the establishment of a surrogate pregnancy".

445
That is in the report of the Warnock Committee—and how important it is! It is not sufficient to stop at those who do it on a commercial basis. Others may be well intentioned and may want to help women who are infertile. There may be agencies which are non-profit making. Therefore, I hope that the Government will not wait for the final stage of the Warnock Report. Much of it is so controversial that it may take two or three years before we get the final report and decisions on it. I ask the Government urgently to consider whether there could be an interim Bill, brought forward as soon as possible, to outlaw surrogate agencies whether they are on a commercial or a non-commercial basis.
There is another important matter which I should like to see dealt with as soon as possible. I refer to the registration of births. Let me tell your Lordships what happens in the converse case of artificial insemination by a donor. A husband may be infertile himself and his wife anxiously wants a baby. So they get some other man, a donor, to provide the sperm. It is injected into the wife's body and she bears the child. It is not her husband's child; it is the donor's child. It is the donor's semen which has been used. How is that birth to be registered? The Warnock Report said that everything in this field should be anonymous. The mother who gives birth to the child is to know nothing of the donor who provides the sperm. I do not know whether she is even told the colour of his eyes. She does not know whether he is dead or live, because the sperm may have been frozen for some time. She is told nothing of the man who has provided the sperm. Equally, the man is to be told nothing of the woman who has borne a child with his sperm. The principle of anonymity runs through the report. It is the basis if it.
It is a very serious and debatable question whether this theory of anonymity is right. I should like to think that every child has a right to know who his father is. I should like to see that every woman who bears a child knows who is the child's father, with all the particulars. Just knowing that a man's sperm has beers injected is not good enough. The theory of anonymity which runs through the Warnock Report I should like to see challenged in both Houses—but that remains for another day. The immediate and urgent question is: what is to be put down in the official Register of Births so that everyone can know who is the mother and the father?
At the moment, in the cases which I have put forward the baby is registered, more often than not, in the names of the husband and wife, where the wife is not really the mother of the child in a surrogacy arrangement and the husband is not the father of the child in an AID arrangement. Apparently, the practice in registering the birth is to deceive the public and to deceive the child by, in surrogacy cases, putting the commissioning parents as the father and mother and in the AID cases putting the husband and the wife as the parents.
There is another matter of urgency. The Warnock Report states on page 26:
"we are of the view that consideration should be given as a matter of urgency to making it possible for the parents in registering the birth to add 'by donation' after the man's name."
In other words, should not the register be true and represent what has happened? Should we not have
446
legislation urgently to see that in future our registers tell the truth for the sake of future generations and, above all, for the sake of the child, who ought to be able to know who are its true parents?
I mention these matters because they are urgent. The Bill is very good as far as it stands. We cannot go further. We must get it through quickly, as it stands. However, I ask that these other matters be dealt with urgently in another Bill and not be left for the full discussion of the Warnock Report. I fully support the Third Reading.
12.15 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I am one of many who are grateful to the noble and learned Lord. Lord Denning, for the trouble he has taken in analysing the provisions of the Bill so far. We all welcome the Bill and will be glad to see it on the statute book. We are also grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, for his moderation in not pressing his amendments in Committee to the possible prejudice and safety of the Bill by requiring it to be referred back to another place.
There are many matters which need attention, and I have it in mind, if I can secure support, to ask leave of your Lordships early in the next Session to introduce a Private Member's Bill to amend this Bill, which will then be safely on the statute book and cannot be damaged. We can then discuss and carry through, to Divisions if necessary, the various provisions that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, spoke to during the course of the Committee stage. I shall naturally endeavour to draft such a Bill so that it has the maximum rather than the minimum support from the Government. This is merely an opportunity to inform your Lordships of what I have in mind, provided I can obtain support from my noble friends.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, during the course of this Bill it has been necessary for the noble Earl the Minister, with my unusual support, to emphasise that the Bill outlaws commercial surrogacy and does not deal with the principle of the matter. It is a narrow Bill to deal with a problem which, if left uncurbed, might extend rapidly and create a great deal of public disquiet and objection.
We cannot take the Third Reading of this Bill and mount it as a platform (as so often we are tempted to do) in order to do something more, a lot more, and to do it faster, a lot faster. That is what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has been advocating. We know his views, and what we have heard this morning we have heard before, from him and from others. We must keep clear of debating, at this stage on this Bill, the main issues, which still have to be dealt with.
I should like to say a few words on that. Rushed legislation is nearly always bad legislation. In a democracy, time for consideration is desirable. On other matters the Government do not think that three years is too long to spend on dealing with a complex and highly emotional matter. Indeed, on the use of animals in laboratories—which is not unconnected with the issues we are dealing with this morning—the Government have taken the whole of their lifetime to

447
reach a conclusion on legislative proposals; and we are not even in sight of them yet. There is an urgency that is not so pressing as this matter in the mind of the Government or, for that matter, in the minds of many noble Lords in this House. But this Bill raises moral human issues, and they are always foremost in people's minds.
In this connection I should make the observation, too, that we must not overlook the fact that what is done to humans has first been done to animals. It is always well to keep an eye on what is happening to animals as a possible indication of what may be translated into the field of human experience, and that goes for many matters beyond this Bill, though I stress the fact that here we are dealing again with this Bill on a narrow purpose and we ought to keep it at that.
I support this Bill. When the issues come to be debated in their wider, moral and social perspectives we shall require a good deal of time and thought if possible to reconcile differing approaches to this matter. The time for that has yet to come. I shall not seek to dissuade the Government from tackling this matter as early as they feel able to do so, but I hope that when the time comes we shall not be told that the urgency is so great that we must press on. Indeed, it has already been suggested that, if the Government do not have time, it might be dealt with under the Private Member's Bill procedure. We know what problems arise on that, and I dealt with them the last time I spoke on this Bill when that very proposal was put from a noble Lord on the Benches opposite. I ask your Lordships not to have legislation considered under the Private Member's Bill procedure and made under the stress of time, under the urgent plea that if the Bill does not return to another place by a certain date, it will be lost, and that that would be tragic. That is the condition under which all too often this House has had to consider the final stages of Private Members' Bills on matters as difficult and emotional as this one.
I beg the Government and noble Lords to allow this matter to emerge from the Government's considerations and the debate that is going on at the present time on these issues. Let us deal with it as calmly as we can and with adequate time, when the occasion presents itself. In the meantime there is no problem which is of such pressing urgency that we have to legislate further in the immediate future. The main issue is to stop what seemed to be a most objectionable practice of surrogacy under commercial contract. This Bill deals with that and for the moment I think we should rest there and consider this matter further in the autumn and in the course of the coming year.
The Warnock Committee took time to consider its report. We must take time to consider its recommendations. In many respects they are highly controversial, and they have to be resolved somehow or other, but I hope that we shall not be rushed by the urgent pleas of most respected and senior Members of your Lordships' House. There is another point of view about this and I have ventured to express it.
Lord Edmund-Davies: My Lords, I, too, support this Bill and rise merely in an attempt to assuage the perturbation expressed by the noble and learned Lord,
448
Lord Denning, in relation to the restriction of the Bill to matters arranged on a commercial basis. Citing the Warnock Report, he would have the Bill apply to non-commercial attempts to arrrange surrogacy. In that context it is worth noting the provisions of Clause 3, which deals with advertisements about surrogacy. It is not restricted to advertisements about surrogacy on a commercial basis; it prohibits and penalises advertisements about surrogacy, with no such limitation at all.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, had in mind people who, for reasons of benevolence or pity for the childless couple's yearning for a child, enter into some surrogacy arrangement. No concern, no body, charitable or otherwise, can possibly succeed unless it does a certain amount of "advertising" but if it advertises, Clause 3 makes it an offence to do so. In the absence of advertising, how could any appeal or arrangement in relation to surrogacy succeed? With respect, I think that the Bill is wisely framed, and for that reason I do not share the perturbation of my noble and learned friend, who is also my old friend, Lord Denning, in relation to the restriction of Clause 2. On this basis I myself wholeheartedly support the Bill and have no perturbation about it so far as it goes.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I should like respectfully to echo those sentiments from the noble and learned Lord. I much regret that I was unable to attend the Committee stage of the Bill, but clearly it was a most stimulating debate. Perhaps I may say also with respect that I admired the restraint of the participants in not pressing their amendments, though I suspected, and I gather rightly, that they were saving their ammunition for a later, more broadly based attack.
Of those amendments I see that the noble and learned Lord raised but did not press an amendment seeking to clarify the illegality of such arrangements at common law. I have to say that my understanding, from case law at the turn of the century, has always been that any such agreement, whereby a mother seeks to give up her rights over a child, would be held to be void by the courts. As he told your Lordships this morning the noble and learned Lord also sought to broaden the criminal base of surrogacy arrangements, extending them beyond the commercial agencies which are under attack in this Bill. I suggest that in an age when we are perhaps seeking to reduce the stigma of illegitimacy we must be careful in creating what might be seen as a criminal gloss on the already existing stigma.
Generally speaking, if I may echo the phrase of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, in another quarter, for the time being we must trust the judges. We must trust the judges to find such agreements void where they are driven so to do, and, above all, we must trust the judges to keep their eyes on the main consideration in these cases, which is the welfare of the child. I am sure we can trust the courts always to approach these matters on the basis that the welfare of the child is paramount.
These problems will not go away. The noble and learned Lord is right of course. Some of them are urgent, but not all are urgent, as the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, pointed out. They are complex questions and must be considered carefully. I suggest that before

449
we rush into any further legislation careful thought must be given to defining the rights and duties of the adults involved and to defining the rights and status of the children affected. I gather that we all agree that this Bill is uncontroversial. It is uncontroversial and therefore welcome. We must speed it on its way, and I would suggest that it is none the worse for leaving this House unamended.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, we thank the Government for this Bill. Henceforth it will be a criminal offence to operate a commercial surrogacy agency, and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Edmund-Davies, has very clearly pointed out, it will be an offence to advertise any surrogacy service. These are important developments which have been supported by all those who have spoken in the debates at Second Reading and in Committee and which have indeed been acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Denning, this morning.
Although the Bill leaves this House unaltered and unamended, the debates on its provisions and on the amendments put down in particular by the noble and learned Lord. Lord Denning, have been valuable. I am sure that the Minister will acknowledge their significance. They have identified the important issues which are unanswered by the Bill and which are a continuing cause of concern for many Members of your Lordships' House. I very much hope that the Minister can assure the House that the subject matter of the amendments, which it is true were not pressed to a Division, will be given thorough consideration by the Government in the light of the debate in your Lordships' House and, as my noble friend indicated, in the light of the debate in the country at large. I hope that it will not be necessary to come forward with a series of interim Bills. With those few remarks we welcome the Bill and we shall be glad to see it in operation with the minimum of delay.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, your Lordships will by now be familiar with the objective and content of the Bill and my priority today is to express my gratitude to your Lordships for giving this Bill such a speedy passage. The Government announced only in March their intention to bring forward legislation this Session to prohibit commercial surrogacy agencies and advertising of or for surrogacy services. I think that this is a small but useful measure. I say that because one of the commercial agencies operating in this country has already announced that it will cease operations. With due respect, I think that that is the best vindication of this limited Bill. A larger Bill will raise greater emotions and will, as we have heard today, be highly controversial.
I should like just to repeat the words of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, who said that the Government aim to introduce a comprehensive Bill as soon as practicable on the matters dealt with in the Warnock Report. In that connection we have found your Lordships' contributions to this important debate over the last 10 months more than just helpful. My noble friend Lady Trumpington and I are very grateful to all noble Lords—I shall not mention any by name—for having taken part in this debate, as that is helping the department to frame its thoughts on the
450
matter. I can assure your Lordships that in framing the legislation we shall take careful account of the points that have been raised. Once again I express my thanks to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.
On Question, Bill read a third time, and passed.

Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978 (Continuance) (No. 2) Order 1985
12.33 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Lyell): My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978 (Continuance) (No. 2) Order 1985, which was laid before your Lordships on 3rd June of this year be approved.
I shall this morning be reviewing the security situation in Northern Ireland because that is the background against which we ask your Lordships to review the powers in the Emergency Provisions Act, and I shall also set out the Government's response to the late Sir George Baker's review of the operation of the Act.
Whatever political and economic developments there may be in Northern Ireland, security will remain the Government's first priority. Our objective is to bring the terrorists' brutal campaign of violence to an end as quickly as possible, though any realist would accept that there can be no short-cuts to achieving this. Steady progress is being made, however, in both deterring violence and in bringing those who perpetrate it before the courts. While statistics bring absolutely no comfort to those who have lost relatives or friends at the hands of terrorists, the figures show that, to date, violence in 1985 is broadly comparable to violence in 1984, which saw less violence than any year since 1970. This is not a cause for complacency, but it sets the present situation in context.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary has borne the brunt in recent months. Since January this year 19 RUC officers have been brutally murdered by the terrorists. The force has continued to act with courage and, above all, great professionalism in the face of these attacks, and deserves our respect and admiration. I should also like to pay my tribute to the regular Army and the Ulster Defence Regiment who give the RUC such valuable support.
The Government and the security forces will strive to eradicate terrorism, but we cannot do this alone. We depend on support from the general public, and we shall continue to look for ways of winning and sustaining that support from both parts of the community. Many opportunities already exist, such as the Government's proposals for a more independent element in the way complaints against the police are examined and the encouragement which is given to both parts of the community to serve in the security forces in local police liaison groups or on the police authority. The Government will continue to keep the criminal justice system under close review to ensure that it is fair and effective and strikes the right balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of society to be protected from violent crime.

451
But the Government and the security forces must look to the public, and in particular to political leaders in the Province, to play their part. There can be no room in such a small society, beset with economic and social problems, for inflammatory statements and actions. Both sides of the community must show a willingness to accommodate the other if the Province is to make any real progress.
An area where leaders of opinion can display the imagination and responsibility that is so much needed is in the conduct of marches and parades. These have become a source of increasing tension and friction, and now require the deployment of considerable police resources which could be put to much better use in countering the terrorist threat. The Government fully support the Chief Constable of the RUC in appealing to the organisers of parades from both communities, "traditional" or "non-traditional", to show a greater understanding of the difficulties, and more flexibility over their choice of route. I very much hope that common sense prevails in Portadown today, and that the law is kept.
As for the longer-term, the Government will be looking at Northern Ireland's public order legislation as it affects the control of parades and demonstrations, especially in the light of the recently published paper of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary on public order laws. We shall be considering whether there are changes to the present arrangements which would help to alleviate the difficulties we are witnessing at present. But I imagine that, whatever decisions are taken on this legislation, we shall ultimately have to look to the citizens of Northern Ireland to show flexibility and a spirit of reconciliation.
Another area where the Government would ask for more understanding is in the Anglo-Irish talks which are in progress. We are holding these in the hope of security benefits for both communities, not least from a security standpoint. We depend greatly on the co-operation that we receive from the Irish authorities in border areas, and I want to pay tribute to the efforts which the Garda already makes. These efforts have saved lives. But the Government should like to see more intense co-operation at all levels to help counter the border threat, and we hope that ways can be found of extending the present inter-force contacts. We all have much to gain, and the terrorist has most to fear, from better co-operation and a close understanding with the Irish on security matters.
I should like to turn briefly to the recommendations made by the late Sir George Baker in his review of the Emergency Provisions Act. As your Lordships know, the Act gives the security forces and the courts additional powers to counter the terrorist threat. Sir George concluded that there was little scope for fundamental change to the Act, but considered that in some areas it could be adjusted and that some powers could be relinquished. The Government have already made it clear that they accept the broad thrust of Sir George's review, and I shall now set out the main conclusions which we have drawn and which will be incorporated in a Bill to be brought before your Lordships in due course.
452
We do not propose to revoke the detention provisions of the Act, which remain on the statute book though not in force, although Sir George recommended this course. The Government cannot foresee the powers being used in anything other than a major but short-term crisis and we very much hope we shall not face such a situation. But if one were to arise in a recess when we had dropped this power, the Government believe that we would be unable to offer the people of Northern Ireland the protection which they would need. The Government have therefore decided that the prudent course is to retain this reserve power.
Sir George concluded that restoration of jury trial was not possible in present conditions, but he recommended that Schedule 4 to the Act should be amended to increase the Attorney-General's discretion as he put it to certify cases out of the scheduled mode of trial. We accept this recommendation, although it is possible that the list of offences to which such discretion will be extended will not be precisely that proposed by Sir George. The discretion to certify cases out will remain with my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General.
Sir George made a number of recommendations in respect of police arrest powers. We propose to meet the spirit of these recommendations by repealing the arrest power in Section 11 of the Emergency Provisions Act. This would leave the RUC to rely on the powers contained in Section 12 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1984. Under the latter provision, of which the RUC have been making increasing use, a person may be held initially for up to 48 hours rather than the 72 hours allowed under Section 11 of the Emergency Provisions Act. However, the 48-hour period under the Prevention of Terrorism Act may be extended by a period or periods not exceeding five days on the authority of the Secretary of State. So far as the Army's arrest power is concerned, no final decision has been taken on the need for or the form of any modifications to Section 14 of the Emergency Provisions Act, but we intend that a power of arrest should be retained.
The Government, like Sir George Baker, endorse the present practice of the courts in bail applications and propose to recast Section 2(2) to move the onus in bail applications towards the prosecution. Section 2(4) should be repealed as Sir George recommended and Section 2(5) widened to include members of the RUC and RUC Reserve.
The practice of the courts in respect of the admissibility of confessions was endorsed by Sir George Baker. The Government support that view and are proposing to reflect in Section 8 the principles which the judges now apply.
The last of the major changes recommended by Sir George Baker was that the temporary provisions of the Act should be reviewed annually by Parliament and should have a maximum life of 5 years without reenactment. We regard his recommendation as a welcome restatement of the clear responsibility of Parliament and of the Government to consider afresh whether any emergency provisions should continue, and if so in what form; and we accept his recommendation.

453
I should like to touch upon one other set of recommendations contained in the review. We have studied carefully those recommendations of Sir George which relate to pre-trial procedures, including his recommendation for a time limit of 12 months on the period between committal and trial. We are considering this and other possible ways of reducing the length of time between first remand and trial. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has decided to mount field trials on a system of statutory time limits in England and Wales and we in Northern Ireland will be watching progress with interest to see whether there is scope for applying similar measures there.
12.45 p.m.
We are also giving thought to the proposal by Sir George Baker that some way should be found to increase the maximum remand period in scheduled cases to 28 or 30 days. At present all such persons have to be produced before a magistrate once a week. He—I think that clearly refers to the magistrate—has no power to grant bail and can only remand the accused persons for a further period. Thus the process is largely, in Sir George Baker's words,
"meaningless"
and
"a waste of time, money and resources".
Following the precedent in England and Wales, we are already considering separate legislation which would extend to 28 days the maximum period for which, if he agrees, an accused person may be remanded in custody. There would be attractions in amending the Emergency Provisions Act so far as to remove, in respect of scheduled cases, the requirement for a person to give his consent. Taken together, these two sets of changes would give magistrates the discretion to remand persons accused of scheduled offences for up to 28 days. We believe that this would save a good deal of unnecessary court time and other resources—resources which could be better used in minimising the length of time between first remand and trial. Defendants who did not make weekly remand appearances would still have regular access to their solicitors and indeed to other visitors, and could make bail applications.
In the short spell of time available today I have not been able to do justice to every one of the recommendations of Sir George, but I hope that what I have set out will enable your Lordships to appreciate the broad thrust of our response to his review. The Government believe that these small but important modifications are steps worth taking. I cannot say when the amending Bill will be introduced, but I assure your Lordships that it will be during the life of this Parliament.
The Motion before your Lordships today seeks the renewal for a further six months of the special measures in the Emergency Provisions Act upon which the security forces and the courts rely in responding to crimes of violence. Renewal of the Act is far from an academic process, for Northern Ireland sadly continues to face a vicious terrorist campaign which has resulted and which continues to result in a tragic loss of life. As I said at the beginning of my
454
remarks, some improvement has been achieved, but we are not in a position to relinquish these essential measures, which undoubtedly save lives. Therefore I invite your Lordships to agree to extend the life of the 1978 Act by a further six months. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 3rd June be approved. [24th Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Lord Lyell.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, Northern Ireland has lived with emergency legislation for a long time. I well recall my noble friend Lord Fitt telling the House that throughout his lifetime in Northern Ireland he had lived under emergency legislation. I thought that a fairly sobering and revealing observation. Thus this debate on the renewal of the present emergency legislation is obviously not without precedent.
The three core elements of the present emergency legislation are arrest, interrogation and the special Diplock courts. In the three areas the ordinary criminal procedures or processes have been substantially modified by legislation. We often speak of a policy of countering terrorism with the criminal law, but we must constantly bear in mind that terrorism is being countered not with the ordinary criminal law, but with the emergency powers which are above and over the ordinary law of the land.
We do well to remind ourselves that the power of arrest is exercisable even when no specific offence is suspected. I read that one academic writer has discovered that about 90 per cent. of those arrested are not charged. He concluded that the primary purpose of many of the arrests was intelligence gathering and surveillance. When the writer went on to describe this activity as an abuse of the power of arrest, it seems to me that he must have been wrong, because Parliament has decreed that it is lawful to make an arrest even when no specific offence is suspected. That gives us an insight into the nature of the emergency powers.
Nevertheless, we have to ask ourselves whether it is desirable or necessary that the police, the security forces and the courts should be given the powers incorporated in this legislation. This was the question that troubled the Labour Opposition in the other place when they were moved to vote against renewal of the emergency legislation. We are in some difficulty in answering the question of whether or not the powers are desirable or necessary. We do not have sufficient material before us to enable the House to form a judgment. That point is made clearly in paragraph 83 on page 75 of the tenth Annual Report of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, which reads:
"Throughout the years scrutiny of the EPA has been hampered by the paucity of officially published statistics. The general statistics published by the Secretary of State on a regular six-monthly basis offer a general guide to the security situation in Northern Ireland but not the operation of the EPA. If the legislation is to be effectively monitored, the Commission recommend that it should not be left to diligent Members of Parliament to extract this information hut that more material be published in the same way as it is for the PTA following Lord Shackleton's recommendation to this effect".
The paragraph goes on to particularise the information that should be readily available.
That report was published last February. But a year earlier, Sir George Baker had already accepted that it

455
was important that as much information as possible should be made readily available. He recommended that the Northern Ireland Office should attempt to provide the equivalent of the Home Office and Northern Ireland Office PTA quarterly statistics. That, I think, is contained in Recommendation 70 of the Baker review. Perhaps the Minister can correct me, but my impression is that the Secretary of State indicated last October that this recommendation was acceptable to the Government. However, it was not referred to in the Minister's speech this morning.
In discussing the renewal of the legislation we have to place on record that there are complaints that the legislation has compromised the police, the security forces and the courts. This was brought out in one opinion poll. If, however, we have little confidence in opinion polls it was also brought out in the study undertaken by Mr. Walsh when he occupied the Cobden Trust research scholarship at Queen's University, Belfast. Thus, a long period of remand before trial is easily perceived by some people as being a form of internment de facto. Again, the finding that 40 per cent. of the business of the Diplock courts is concerned with non-terrorist cases is worrying. A law that is perceived by a large sector of the community to be unfair may help to fuel discontent, lawlessness and violence. There is a feeling that the EPA may be counter-productive. Even in a case-hardened Province such as Northern Ireland, the feeling that it can be counter-productive because it is perceived to be unfair is another factor that led the Labour Opposition in the House of Commons to vote against renewal of the legislation.
I believe that many Members in the other place voted against renewal as a form of protest against the delay on the part of the Government in announcing their conclusions on all the Baker recommendations and the delay in implementing those recommendations that are acceptable to them. The Minister has this morning stated the Government's conclusions on some of the recommendations. But even now we have to await the Government's response to all the 74 recommendations. Clearly, we shall have to read the Minister's speech carefully; but it appears to me that the thrust of his observations this morning was foreshadowed in the last debate that we had in this House on the renewal of the legislation. I shall give one or two examples. We wish to know whether the Government have come to a conclusion on the need to introduce the tape-recording of interrogation in the police station. Again, is the power of arrest to be amended by imposing a requirement of reasonable suspicion of a specific offence? That would be invaluable because it would potentially increase the scope of judicial review.
The Minister has said that the Government are giving consideration to the need to cut down delay between arrest and trial. I am still not clear, however, what specific instructions the Government are giving to the security forces on this issue. Of course, the Minister speaks of the Government producing their response and legislation in due course. We have been waiting 14 months for the legislation. One agrees clearly that the task is to maintain a fair balance between the need for security and the liberty of the
456
individual citizen. I have no wish to overstate the risks to individual liberty inherent in complex emergency powers. Nor do I wish to under-estimate the difficult and dangerous role of the security forces in their pretty thankless job in the Province. I join with the Minister in paying our tribute to the security forces. One is, after all, conscious of the murders and the killings and the threats of persistent violence. One is conscious that men and women in the Province live in their own homes and walk the streets in fear.
But in making proper allowance for the needs of security we on these Benches consider that we would be failing in our duty if we did not on this occasion give expression to our reservations about the EPA, particularly as the amendments which the late Sir George Baker considered necessary over a year ago to make the legislation acceptable have still not been implemented. The best hope we have is that they will be implemented in due course. If we are concerned about human dignity, we must be concerned that the best offer that we have is legislation in due course.
1 p.m.
Lord Hampton: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his introduction of this order. I shall attempt today to outline the reaction of the Alliance parties. As always, we pay tribute to the efficiency and bravery of the security forces. I note the Minister's comments about marches, and I shall not repeat what I said about this on Monday, and I was particularly interested in the proposed Government reaction to Sir George Baker's report, and an amending Bill duly to be introduced. I shall also follow up some of the points of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies.
It must be accepted that the campaign of terrorist violence by Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organisations continues and makes the continued use of emergency powers inevitable for the foreseeable future. Since 1969, we are told, nearly 2,500 people have been killed through terrorist activity (a figure equivalent to 88,000 on the mainland), and some 30,000 people have been injured. At the same time we regard emergency powers as but a part, albeit a necessary part, of an overall strategy designed to secure a political settlement in Northern Ireland and thereby internal harmony.
It is essential that the emergency legislation should not work against this overall strategy, and legislation must be strictly necessary to combat terrorism, and hence acceptable to the law-abiding population in the province. As a protection against the possible abuse of power the Alliance is strongly in favour of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland and some further measures to protect the citizen against maladministration. We accept that there are often propaganda campaigns by terrorist groups designed to discredit the British Government, and it is essential that justice should be seen to be done without cause for genuine grievance.
The two main Acts we see to protect the security of the state are, first, the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978 and, secondly, the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984. The first was introduced in 1973 and amended in 1978, and it is this that we are considering today. It contains additional arrest and detention powers for the police

457
and the Army together with certain exceptional powers of search and seizure. It provides for the proscription of certain criminal organisations such as the Provisional IRA and the UVF, and allows certain scheduled offences to be tried by Diplock courts—that is, a judge sitting alone.
The second Act, as the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, mentioned, was a response to the Birmingham bombing. It is concerned with special powers of arrest and detention, for controls at seaports and airports, and for exclusion and deportation orders against those involved in terrorism.
It should be understood that the emergency legislation does not alter the central principles of British justice which continue to be applied in Northern Ireland, and the responsibility rests on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. There are, however, some departures from normal judicial standards in the emergency legislation which can interfere with accepted standards of civil liberties. It is essential that these should be seen to be the minimum compatible with the fight against terrorism.
It is with great regret, therefore, that we feel it necessary to accept the impossibility of jury trial for terrorist offences in the near future. The House does not need me to expand on the problems caused by the intimidation of jurors and the impossibility of fully protecting them. Therefore, in Diplock courts trials under a single judge are held without a jury, with all the difficulty of the judge having to warn himself against taking too much notice of uncorroborated evidence.
We appreciate the difficulty of the availability of suitably qualified judges, but can see great advantages where a panel of three judges could preside over trials. This would also bring practice in Northern Ireland into closer harmony with that in the Irish Republic, and this would be a particularly significant contribution to the harmonisation of antiterrorist legislation. I should appreciate the Minister's comment on this point.
It may surprise many people to learn that uncorroborated evidence given by an informer or accomplice is accepted in the criminal courts of the United Kingdom, with the exception of Scotland, and also in the Irish Republic. I do not think we see any basis for denying the prosecuting authorities in Northern Ireland this weapon in cases of terrorist crime. Nonetheless, an apparent miscarriage of justice can have an extremely counterproductive effect.
We want three judges, if possible, then, and we also seek two further safeguards. First, in what are termed "supergrass trials" the maximum number under trial should be cut from even the limit of 20, which Sir George Baker recommended in his report, to a maximum of six. Secondly, there should be a reduction in the delays before suspects are brought to trial.
In 1983 the average time between remand and trial for prisoners refused bail and charged with terrorist offences was as much as 322 days. This is tantamount to sentence without trial, and there is an urgent need of reduction. Both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred to this. We believe that the aim should be something closer to the ruling in Scotland,
458
where there is a maximum of 110 days custody before trial. We also believe that many cases which have no observable connection with serious terrorist offences should be made once again triable by jury. Again, this has been referred to.
It is essential, I repeat, that so far as possible justice should be seen to be done. We believe that a standard of "reasonable suspicion" rather than "suspicion" should be required before the special powers of arrest or search under the emergency legislation can be used. We believe that closed circuit television is a valuable safeguard against alleged ill-treatment of suspects; that every interview in a police station in Northern Ireland with a suspected terrorist should be tape recorded for use as possible evidence; and that confessions should be admissible as evidence only if it can be clearly shown that they have not been the result of physical violence or threats by the police.
In addition we should like to see members of the Northern Ireland Police Authority given the right to observe the interrogation of suspects and to visit prisoners on remand. We also believe that where miscarriage of justice is later confirmed the person wrongly committed should be compensated as a matter of right. Perhaps the Minister can comment also on that suggestion.
To summarise, then, while we believe that the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act are essential to the defeat of terrorism, we are conscious that it is still regarded in some quarters of the Irish Republic, and among the nationalist community of Northern Ireland, as anti-Irish. We should therefore like to see it replaced by legislative provision jointly agreed by the British and Irish Governments, and applicable in both countries.
We would regard this as an important step towards the harmonisation of British and Irish law, and a welcome co-operation in the fight against terrorism. We believe of course that this emergency legislation should remain on the statute book only as long as terrorist activity continues—and Sir George Baker dealt with this—and we accept the need for the present order.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I do not think that anybody could possibly assert that the order we are considering today is in any way similar to any other Northern Irish order which comes before us. The two noble Lords speaking from the Front Benches for the opposition have spelt out clearly why the powers given by this legislation are so serious. If that were not enough, the fact that the Act has had to be reviewed twice by two separate distinguished judges underlines this contention. I should like to suggest that it is most inappropriate for us to be debating this matter at lunchtime on a Friday. I have written about this to the noble Lord the Chief Whip, and I hope that I shall receive support from the other Front Benches concerned with this matter.
Having made that point, I should like to go on to welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said about the Government's conclusions on the review conducted by the late Sir George Baker. We know that improvements have recently been made over powers of arrest under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Hampton,

459
in asking today why all arrests under this Act cannot be subject to reasonable suspicion. What important terrorist has recently been arrested on mere suspicion?
I should like to go on to ask why arrest by the Army in Northern Ireland cannot be limited to terrorist-type offences only. We know what these are precisely; they have been scheduled. Also what is the Government's response to the 21 detailed and reasonable paragraphs in chapter 5 of the 10th report of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights? The two rather short paragraphs in the Secretary of State's letter to the Commission of the 21st February 1985 are clearly not enough.
The usual tributes have been paid to the security forces and I join most wholeheartedly in these. I should like to say something about the Royal Ulster Constabulary. This force is well known to be predominantly manned by people of Protestant origin or connection and it is therefore of vital importance that the proportion of serving Catholics should be increased. I should like to suggest two possible methods how this process might, at least, be started. First, could there not be secondment of volunteers to the RUC from Catholic officers now serving with British, Commonwealth or Irish police forces? Secondly, could not encouragement be given to young Catholics now in Northern Ireland to join British, Commonwealth or Irish policce forces with a view to returning later to the RUC with some experience and seniority? In general, the powers and the role of the Northern Ireland Police Authority should be strengthened, as was recommended by the Kilbrandon Commission in paragraph 10.13. In particular, the membership of the police authority should reflect both segments of the community.
A network of public and police liaison committees should be set up, and this, too, was a recommendation of Kilbrandon. Experience over the past 15 years of the very successful committee in Derry shows that it is necessary to have local community organisations represented on the committee as well as elected councillors. It also shows that the most senior local policemen should be available to the committee. This experience has, quite surprisingly perhaps, been borne out by that of the Community and Police Consultative Group in Lambeth.
I welcome the police complaints and discipline Consultation Paper of April 1985, particularly the provision for investigating complaints wider than those against individual officers; but will Her Majesty's Government emphasise ease of access to this procedure and the independence that is needed for any proper complaints procedure?
I now come to the Ulster Defence Regiment, which has obviously played an important part in the security operations up to now. Much has been said both for and against this regiment. I hope Her Majesty's Government will look seriously at the Kilbrandon recomendation that the regiment should be phased out over a period of time, by natural wastage and by transfers to the British Army and the RUC. This would of course have to be accompanied by a major increase in establishment for the RUC.
460
There are a number of changes in the law, not only in the principal legislation, but in other Acts of Parliament that may be required. A new offence of the reckless use of force should be created, because the courts are so seldom willing to convict a member of the security forces of murder or manslaughter. This was another Kilbrandon recommendation and has been further spelt out in articles by Dr. Hadden of Queen's University, in which he cites Australian experience. When will the Government be legislating for Northern Ireland on the lines of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act? This I know has been promised, but it would be most helpful for us to know some more about timing. It is most important that this legislation should provide a statutory code of practice for arrest and interrogation, also for the taping of interrogations, as was mentioned by the noble Lord Lord Prys-Davies.
The law on coroners' inquests and the reference of cases to the Director of Public Prosecutions may well require amendment. Disputed killings and woundings always cause bad feeling and inquests are now often held so long after the event, when no prosecution is to be made, that they become almost valueless.
1.15 p.m.
I now come to other measures which will not necessarily require legisation. First and foremost there is the proposed Anglo-Irish Joint Security Commission. This would be most beneficial as was recommended by Kilbrandon. I should also like to see an option for persons accused of scheduled offences to go for trial before a jury court in Great Britain, rather than in Northern Ireland. This might help to deal with some of the criticisms that have been levelled at the Diplock courts. I should like to see compensation for time spent on remand by persons who were later acquitted or discharged. This would be in line with the letter from the Secretary of State to the Standing Advisory Commission of 18th February which I have already quoted. I believe it would do much to defuse the "supergrass" question and it would be on similar lines to the susbstantial amounts previously paid to persons wrongly held under detention powers.
As to the "supergrass" problem itself, what I wonder is the response of the Government to the paper by Mr. J. D. Jackson of Queen's University printed on pages 83 to 94 of the Standing Advisory Commission's tenth annual report? If his proposed safeguards are not acceptable, why is this and what better ones will the Government provide?
As for the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights itself, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for his written reply of 9th July in columns 183–84 of Hansard. It is good to know that the commission will be getting some extra staff, but when will they be in post? And why is this matter of adequate staffing still only at the discussion stage?
So far I have spoken about the police and the security forces aided by emergency legislation in the struggle to protect citizens of all persuasions against terrorism. The other approach to the question is through civil and human rights, both those of the individual and those of groups and communities. The well-known "double minority" situation in Ireland,

461
both north and south, makes this approach one of great importance because the Treaty of 1922 left sizeable minorities on either side of the agreed frontier. The minority question in the south has been relatively calm, but that in the north remains, as we know, acute. This explains why a study of human rights and responsibilities has been mounted with the help of the British and Irish Councils of Churches. This is why the Committee on the Administration of Justice in Northern Ireland recently passed the following resolution:
"The Governments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland should agree a bilateral treaty providing for the protection of human rights in both states including specific provisions to deal with the unique problems of Northern Ireland. They should undertake to incorporate the terms of the treaty into their domestic law and due consideration should be given to means of monitoring and enforcement".
Such a measure would be further strengthened by both countries incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into their domestic law. Since this convention is not drawn in terms of group rights, it would mainly assist individuals by making their grievances justiciable in local courts, thus shortcutting the slow procedures of the European Commission and the Court of Human Rights.
Moves such as those I have just mentioned could well be supplemented by a Bill of minority rights, specific to Northern Ireland and by the creation of Human Rights Commission for Northern Ireland. Such a commission could supervise the new treaty and any Bill of minority rights and perhaps act as the local instrument of the European Commission. It could embrace the expanding functions of the Standing Advisory Commission, the Fair Employment Agency, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commissioner for Complaints. It might have responsiblity for the new police complaints procedure.
I urge the Government to think long and hard about human rights and group rights. It is important to remember that the present troubles were sparked off by grave dissatisfaction over basic civil rights. There are some who still feel that these basic rights have not yet been achieved in all their fullness. Others may be beginning to worry about what might happen if the present majority in time becomes a minority. What protects one group now may well in time be of help to another. A major investment now in human rights, with encouragement for their corresponding responsibilities, would be more worthwile than current expenditures on security and prisons, although, obviously, it could not immediately replace them. I hope that it is not altogether too naive and too idealistic to suggest that a new Anglo-Irish Treaty, coupled with the European Convention, a Bill of minority rights and a Human Rights Commission would generate such confidence that Ulster political leaders would be obliged to agree upon a measure of devolved administration.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, it is several years since I have spoken in this particular debate on this highly important subject; and although my noble friend on the Front Bench has made a very clear statement and a very clear analysis, with which I entirely agree, I should like to take this opportunity to make a few rather more general points about the
462
security situation in Northern Ireland. I should like to take the opportunity to stand back and take stock of what changes have taken place in the security of Northern Ireland, of the vulnerability of the position there, of what is being done about it; and, finally, what changes I should like to see put in motion to improve the security situation there.
First, as the Minister and other noble Lords have said, the causes of unrest are still there. At this very moment, the annual celebration of that great Orange victory of 1690 is going on and we can only hope that it is going on surrounded by a peaceful atmosphere. Secondly, a few weeks ago, another forum for dissension and for aggravation was created when the Provisional Sinn Fein achieved the necessary support in the May local elections to install themselves in many of Northern Ireland's council chambers. There can be no doubt that this has provided an additional framework in which the Provisional Sinn Fein can carry on the campaign of disruption which they find a most useful way of stopping the Government's operations in the North.
Finally, as a background to this highly vulnerable situation, we have economic and social grievances which provide a recruiting ground, particularly among the young, for para-militaries of both persuasions; and, at the same time, we face the ongoing problem of how to resolve the political issues that give rise to such a sick and distorted sense of mission in order to isolate those men above. Although some of the factors making up the Northern Ireland scenario have changed, we still face a situation which is highly vulnerable and potentially explosive. It is for that reason that it is so important that we ensure that the measures that we take to safeguard law and order are the right ones and that they may maintain an all-important balance of being effective without at the same time being counter-productive. This is what previous noble Lords have stressed time and time again.
It is in this connection with that vital need for adjusting the measures we use to maintain security that I should like to make a few very brief points. The first point has already been made. It is with regard to the recommendations made by Sir George Baker over a year ago. I am grateful to the Minister for having set them out so clearly. I had the great privilege of meeting Sir George while he was drawing up this report and to discuss the changes that he might recommend. I must confess that, in the same way as other noble Lords, I had hoped very much that he would make a more radical change; and the recommendation that I made, in the same way as the noble Lord on the Liberal Benches, was that although the jury system clearly could not be reinstated, at least there should be a panel of three judges and that this should bring it more in line both with Dublin and with our own system of justice. One can never leave the important point that the objective of any legal system is for it to inspire the confidence of the people who it serves. Yet we know there can be no doubt that many members of the minority community do not trust it. In fact, the Belfast Telegraph of 6th February went so far as saying that nearly two-thirds of the Catholic community thought the legal system was unfair.

463
It is for that reason that it is disappointing, as my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies has just said, that after 15 months the Government have still not implemented even the limited amendments to the law which Sir George Baker recommended as necessary. I know that the Minister has promised us a Bill on this, but he has not given us any time at which it will be put forward; so I think that there is every reason for us to show great concern that these important recommendations have not in any way been taken notice of. My other point relates to the same area of concern but it is about the other important development in Anglo-Irish affairs which has taken place in the last year. That is the report that came from Dublin, the New Ireland Forum Report, which was followed by the recommendations made by the Kilbrandon Committee. I was fortunate enough to sit on that committee.
There is no doubt that the New Ireland Forum Report and the Kilbrandon recommendations were not specifically focused on the emergency provisions but they were largely concentrated on building up and improving the security measures of the Province and they made some important recommendations regarding law reform and law enforcement. Although I know that this is not the moment to discuss the details, either of the New Ireland Forum Report or of the Kilbrandon recommendations—although I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton has mentioned them—I think this is a highly relevant moment to express concern that, in the same way as with the Baker Report, there has been no positive reaction from the Government towards any of the ideas which came out of these two very important exercises in Anglo-Irish relations.
As I said at the beginning of my few remarks, no one could place a higher importance to safeguarding the security and the safety of the people of Northern Ireland than I. Therefore, I accept the importance of the special measures taken to do so; but I cannot accept that at the same time we should not work towards establishing a wider framework in which to improve and strengthen our security measures. This leads me to my last point which is in regard to the closer relationship and the greater co-operation that we believe has been put in train between Dublin and London. Here, I should like to stress that with the realities of the present Northern Irish situation coinciding with the Dublin initiative, carrying as it does a greater measure of mutual trust, understanding and co-operation, I really believe that all this seems to provide a vital opportunity to achieve progress in establishing peace in Northern Ireland.
1.30 p.m.
I do not know whether any of your Lordships read an important article in the Sunday Times of 7th July 1985 by Peter Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins, having commented on the ups and down over the last year in the relationship between the Governments and Prime Ministers in Dublin and London, stressed the importance of courage on the part of both, and he ended his article in the following way:
"We are inhibited in our dealings with The Irish Problem by a fear of making things worse. Even words can be as dangerous as bombs in Northern Ireland. The risk of a bloodbath of Protestant violence
464
cannot be brushed aside. But nor can the unhappy situation of the north be allowed to continue indefinitely, for the sakes of the poor people who live there and because we are all threatened by the terrorism that breeds there. With the chance of making some real improvement in that deplorable situation the time has come to stop appeasing Ulster. The Protestant majority has been guaranteed time and again that Northern Ireland shall remain part of the United Kingdom until its citizens decide otherwise. But that gives no special entitlement to override the national interest or to prevent us from making whatever arrangements we choose with a friendly foreign power."
That is an important statement made in a newspaper which after all is not known for its terrifically progressive views. I should like to identify myself very closely with what Peter Jenkins said, because unless there is some movement, and a movement which must carry the people of both traditions along with it, we will never get beyond making this cursory examination of the Emergency Provisions Act and making it an annual fixture in Westminster. Indeed, it might still be going on when Lord Fitt's children are getting older. I feel very strongly that that alone would be very much to the detriment of all the people of Northern Ireland and that we must work towards a wider framework in which to achieve the peace and stability that they want to see.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies was kind enough to say in his remarks that during all the years of my lifetime I have always lived under emergency legislation. The Northern Ireland state was created by the 1920 Government of Ireland Act and on its creation it brought with it the 1920 Special Powers Act. That Act was renewed annually from 1920 until 1928, and at the end of 1928 the Unionist Government in Northern Ireland said—and of course I am paraphrasing: "It seems to be a bit of a farce going through this ritual every year and renewing this legislation which is so necessary to bolster and support the Unionist Government, so we might as well make it a permanent fixture on our statute book and at some time in the future it may become necessary to repeal it".
As we all know, that Act had to be repealed by a British Government in 1972 and 1973. It was replaced by the Act we are now discussing. I was a Member of the other House at the time and I instinctively rebelled and voted against this particular legislation when it was originally being enacted in the House of Commons. I did so because I had had the experience of living under the Special Powers Act and I read into the draconian provisions of this particular Act something which I could see would never be conducive to bringing peace and political harmony into political life in Northern Ireland.
I voted against it then and in all the years that have elapsed I have had no reason to regret doing so. Since then we have gone through the ritual in another place every six months—it used to be every year—of continuing this Act on the statute book. Normally in the other place it was done by way of an order, and the orders were normally taken after ten o'clock at night. But there were occasions when this legislation was dealt with on a Friday afternoon and there were occasions, normally in the run-up to a Recess when the business of the House is rather more flexible, when

465
it was debated perhaps on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday in the prime time of the House of Commons.
I have to say, regretfully, that on the days when this legislation was being debated in prime time it did not in any way enlarge the attendance. No matter what time of day this legislation is being debated, it is not going to bring in hundreds or even scores of people to listen to the debates. Indeed, I notice that a record has been set up here today. There is a noble Baroness sitting on the Government side of the House—the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper. She has sat through the whole of this debate. That is something that should be written into the record, because there are very few noble Lords or MPs connected with the other side of the House—indeed, there are very few people in the building—who would sit through what we call Irish debates. It is noticeable also that when Welsh or Scottish Questions are being taken in the House of Commons the Benches are not lined with all kinds of English representatives who are showing an all-consuming interest in what is happening in Scotland or Wales.
I have myself had cause to complain about this, but I am not in the least surprised. Let us face facts: there are about a dozen, if that is not an exaggeration, noble Lords and Baronesses in this House who are interested in the Irish question. There are six at least who have spoken today, and they will speak in the next debate and in the following debate. It may be that we will perhaps enlist a few supporters. That is the way politics work in this building.
I hope that some people in the island of Ireland will take note of my remarks, because there seems to me to be a need for a devolved government in Northern Ireland. I believe that if there were a devolved government reactivated at Stormont in which both sections of the community could participate, at least we could say there would be a much better attendance. It may well be that nothing very much more constructive would come out of debates there, but at least people would be discussing their own destinies in the land in which they live.
I have lived in this part of the United Kingdom for the past two years and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, said, my five daughters are now living in England. Fortunately for them, they will not have to live under legislation such as we are discussing now for Northern Ireland. But in fact, like every other citizen in the United Kingdom now, they are living under draconian legislation—the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I have opposed that Act also every time it has been renewed in the House of Commons, and when we forced Divisions I sometimes had five, sometimes 10, dedicated supporters in the "No" Lobby with me. The voting figures that we had then were derisory and I certainly have no intention of putting any figures like that on the record of this House.
However, when we are considering opposition to this type of legislation we must remember what happened two or three weeks ago. I know I cannot go into the matter in great detail because the cases may be sub judice, but the Prevention of Terrorism Act was used to arrest people and they have been charged with conspiring to create a number of explosions in seaside resorts throughout this country. If it were necessary to
466
use that Act to apprehend and arrest those people, then I would withdraw any objections which I ever had to the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
I believe that had those people not been arrested, or had those acts been carried out, great carnage would have taken place in this country—because they are resorts which are inhabited mostly by British working-class people; they are not like the South of France, where members of the affluent society go on holiday; they are working-class seaside resorts. Had there been a number of explosions which had taken place and which killed a number of ordinary working-class English people, as in the Brighton bomb—and we saw what happened there less than a year ago—can anyone contemplate for a single second what would have been the consequences? What would have been the consequences if the British Cabinet had been killed by that Brighton bomb?
Is there any IRA Republican activist anywhere in these islands who does not believe what the consequences would be if there were similar explosions at these seaside resorts? Not only would there he great anger in this island but I would suggest that if those attempts at murder and maiming had been successful the consequences for relationships between these islands would forever have to be put in abeyance. I say to those people who were responsible for the act in Brighton, and to those contemplating other acts, that they should think seriously of the consequences of their terrible actions.
As I say, I have opposed this Act. I can regretfully disabuse the Minister of something he said in his opening remarks. There has been trouble in Portadown today. I listened to the 12 o'clock news on the local radio station, and there have been four or five different riots taking place in Portadown. That does not surprise me, given the high tension and the atmosphere. One can only hope that the riots were not major riots; and, more particularly that when the bands are returning home this evening—because that is the dangerous time—the position will not get out of hand.
One of my great regrets has been that the English people do not have the opportunity to celebrate what happened in 1690, because that was an English revolution. It had absolutely nothing to do with Ireland. It was a family row between a son-in-law and his father-in-law. King William, the son-in-law, was brought over from Holland to boost his father-in-law, who was King James II. Unfortunately, they fought their last battle in Ireland in 1690, and we have had to live with the awful consequences of that ever since. I do not see anybody in Scotland, England or Wales out marching today, and demonstrating about the glorious victory that was achieved in the English revolution of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. We have been left with those consequences.
1.45 p.m.
Whether or not it takes this legislation or public order legislation, I think it is right that in 1985 the Northern Ireland Office seem to be grappling with the problem that we have had with us for centuries—that is, either the re-routing or the banning of marches which can be highly provocative and in fact have been throughout all the years that I have lived in Northern

467
Ireland. Every terrible crisis that we have seen and witnessed over the past 21 years has been preceded by a demonstration or a ban of some description. In 1964 we had the advent of Paisleyism, who said that he was going to ban a march if the Minister of Home Affairs did not do so. That led to the Divis Street riots. In 1966 there was the Republican commemoration, in which I myself took part, which led to a great deal of rioting as well. In 1968 we had the demand for Civil Rights preceded by a march. In 1972 we had the Bloody Sunday murders taking place after a march had taken place; and all the marches that have taken place since. I hope that the Government will persist in trying to grapple with this problem that we have had with us for so long.
On the reinstatement of this legislation today, I can only say I would hope that, irrespective of the sparse attendance in your Lordships' House, and indeed irrespective of the sparse attendance that they have in another place when Irish affairs are being discussed, that should not be used as an indicator to show that the British Parliament, or your Lordships' House, are not concerned about this type of legislation. It is the duty of the Government at all times to be looking at this legislation no matter how many people there may be in attendance. I would hope that the Government would be able to given an undertaking in response to the eminently reasonable remarks which have been made from the Front Bench here today by my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies. I think that the objections that he has voiced would also be voiced by all those who believe in the democratic concept in Northern Ireland.
I would only wish to mention one further point, which I think is a major one. That is about the supergrass trials in Northern Ireland. I have said before that the supergrass trials have taken many dangerous men out of circulation. I realise that it is not the way of British justice to engage in such trials, and I understand the reason for the Diplock Courts. I understand that jury trials could not at this moment in time be re-instituted in Northern Ireland because juries would be under massive intimidation. But there is something wrong with supergrass trials when one solicitor and his wife who is a barrister undertake the defence in a supergrass trial in which there are 29 people involved. I hear from very genuine circles that the cost to the state of that supergrass trial amounted to £500,000 which was earned by the solicitor and his wife in the defence of those charged at that supergrass trial. There is something wrong with that. There is something wrong with the fact that so many accused people could be defended by what was in effect a man-and-wife team. I would agree with the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, that there should be a limit set on the number of people who can be charged in one case in a supergrass trial.
With those remarks, I would not myself want to divide the House but I would want to put on record my continuing dissatisfaction with this type of legislation. The sooner it can be removed from the statute book the better it will be for all in these islands.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down may I ask him: does he appreciate that we
468
English will be celebrating our glorious revolution on its tercentenary in 1988; and that some of us hope that the tercentenary occurring in 1990 will be celebrated with equal harmony in Ireland?
Lord Fitt: My Lords, I am glad to hear that. I wish to God we could celebrate it only once every three hundred years. We do it every year.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, as all your Lordships who have attended this debate have seen, we have had a short but, I believe, a very valuable debate, and in the last seconds an excellent and humorous interchange between the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I hesitate to intervene on these tercentenaries. We have had a debate on various issues which are of the very greatest importance to everyone in Northern Ireland.
I believe that it is the people in Northern Ireland that the Emergency Provisions Act is designed to protect; and it is your Lordships' House which shares with the other place the responsibilities for ensuring that effective anti-terrorist legislation is available to the police and, above all, to the courts. Sir George Baker took the view that it was right to ask the question: Is it reasonably foreseeable that repeal or amendment of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act may deprive yet another man, woman or child of the right to life or the right to live free from fear? He came to the view that, while there was scope for some modifications, the basic powers were still essential to meet the terrorist threat. The Government agree that, while that threat has receded a little, it would be irresponsible for us to curtail the measures at our disposal just now.
With that opening paragraph, I should like to attempt to answer a number of points which your Lordships have made in the very interesting and constructive contributions this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked a number of questions. I think he started with a thought on recommendation No. 70 by Sir George Baker. The noble Lord seems to indicate assent. Certainly, I confirm to your Lordships that the Government intend to publish detailed statistics on the operation of the Act as Sir George Baker recommended. I cannot give any indication about timing, but I give the assurance.
The noble Lord also mentioned one thought in his mind, which had crossed my mind in previous incarnations; that is, the tape recording of police interrogations. We take the view that this is not necessarily something which should be considered solely in the context of terrorism. We are therefore proposing to look at this in the context of a possible amendment to the normal law which follows the precedent of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 for England and Wales. I hope that that will be some consolation to the noble Lord.
He also asked about the delays between first remand and trial. This is not solely a matter for the security forces, but it is a matter which concerns my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. They are all concerned to eliminate what I would call avoidable delays. Indeed, I seem to recall mentioning

469
field trials, which were not to be held out in the open, as your Lordships might have thought. We are examining the length of time between first remand and trial in all cases in England and Wales and are seeing what can be done. As a result of these examinations, we hope that we may learn something which will be applicable to the situation in Northern Ireland.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, also raised the question of the recommendation of Sir George Baker that the Royal Ulster Constabulary should arrest on reasonable suspicion. When Section 11 of the emergency powers Act is repealed the RUC will rely on Section 12 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. This, of course, contains an arrest power which is based on reasonable suspicion, and therefore we hope that that will indicate that the spirit of Sir George Baker's recommendation will be met.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked whether the powers which we have in the Act are desirable or necessary. I am sure he will agree that Sir George Baker concluded after his extensive review that with minor modifications they were needed, and still are. I invite your Lordships to agree that, in the interests of preserving our criminal justice system against what are clearly seen as threats and intimidation by terrorists, as well as in the interests of protecting the entire community in Northern Ireland, these powers are essential. If the situation were to change, the Government would be delighted to do away with the Act; but I am afraid that we cannot safely do so at present.
The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, raised one or two points. I hasten to add that there was no collusion, but there were at least two points which were in commonality with those raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs. We are very grateful for her speech and for her support. But the noble Lord and the noble Baroness raised the question of the Diplock courts and their composition. I think they will find that Sir George Baker believed that what he called a plurality of judges would not necessarily result in a fairer trial. In reaching that view he was echoing the recommendations of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Diplock and Lord Gardiner.
As I have on my little account's hat, may I say to the noble Baroness that 53 per cent. of those who pleaded not guilty to scheduled offences in 1984 in Northern Ireland were acquitted in the Diplock courts, and of those who were tried before jury courts and who, above all, pleaded not guilty, 50 per cent. were acquitted. We believe that that is reasonable evidence that a trial before a single judge in Northern Ireland is no less fair or expeditious than before any other form of court.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, raised a number of very important points, and I am very grateful for the notice that he gave me of them. I hope the noble Lord will accept that I shall not be able to answer them all in detail today. But I assure him that we shall certainly take on board carefully his points and will take them into account, as we have taken into account the point which was made in the Standing Advisory Commission's recent report.
The noble Lord raised, among other points, the question of recruitment of catholics to the Royal
470
Ulster Constabulary. I am sure he will accept that this is a matter for the Chief Constable. All of us know that the RUC are very much alive to the importance of attracting recruits who are catholics. But I do not think it would be appropriate for attempts to be made to recruit only catholics from outside Northern Ireland, because we think that vacancies should be offered to all suitably qualified candidates. If the noble Lord were ever with me, he would find all kinds of accents and backgrounds in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Indeed, in that regard there are three or four people from my old regiment who scare me considerably with stories of my military career.
But the Government share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that the police authority should be fully representative of the whole community. We also believe that there should be a regular dialogue between the police and the local community. The Londonderry Committee is not the only forum for such a dialogue, and I know that the police authority is looking at possible machinery for improving liaison between the police and the public.
The noble Lord also raised the question of the Ulster Defence Regiment. I stress to him and to your Lordships that without any doubt the Ulster Defence Regiment remains an essential part of the counter-terrorist effort. The Government have no intention of disbanding it in the face of the current terrorist threat. As for any possible changes in the law, the Government see no need to change the present law on the use of force, which seems to us to be capable of coping fairly with all the different circumstances which can arise. I am sure the noble Lord and all of your Lordships will agree that these differing circumstances are very far removed from your Lordships' House on a lovely summer afternoon. I believe the same is true of the law on coroners' inquests. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, will be pleased to hear that the Government propose to introduce orders in council for Northern Ireland which would have broadly the same effect as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
2 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, can the noble Lord give any indication at all as to when this will be?
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot do so now; but we take the point on board. I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord that assurance this afternoon. The noble Lord also asked about allowing persons who have been charged with offences in Northern Ireland to be tried in a different jurisdiction—that is, in Great Britain. We see no case for that. As for compensating persons who are held on remand in accordance with the law should they ultimately be found not guilty, again we find no real case for that.
I was interested in the noble Lord's detailed proposals for preserving civil and human rights in Northern Ireland. I appreciate the force of the points that he made about the sense of security to which his proposals might lead. This is, as I am sure he recognised, a long-term task. I assure him however that it is one to which the Government attach considerable priority and we shall certainly take account of these suggestions.

471
The noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, mentioned the composition of the Diplock courts. I hope I have answered her query on that. The noble Baroness also went some way to suggest that we had not taken into account fully all of the recommendations of the Baker Report. We have taken very careful note of the recommendations; but I am sure she will agree that they require a great deal of consultation with all the agencies that will be affected by and involved in the implementations of all of these recommendations. I have the recommendations before me and there are 74 of them. We are working our way through them and I am sure the noble Baroness will accept that it may take a little while. We have now announced the most important of our conclusions. As I announced, the Government will be introducing a Bill when the parliamentary timetable permits—and certainly during the lifetime of this Parliament.
The noble Baroness also raised the interesting question of the New Ireland Forum Report. Your Lordships will know that the Government take the view that a great deal of the report was constructive and helpful but we have to say that none of the three constitutional options which the report identified could be accepted because they would have changed the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. Indeed, the consent for that from the majority in Northern Ireland simply was not forthcoming. But as I am sure the noble Baroness and your Lordships will accept, the Forum Report also makes clear that it was open for discussion of other views, and in response the Government have had constructive talks with the Irish Government over recent months. I am afraid that we do not yet know the outcome of these talks, but your Lordships will without doubt have an opportunity to debate those at the appropriate time.
The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, referred to the Special Powers Act. He also referred to marches. I have some information. I will not say that we play the game of "snap" but my information as to the Portadown situation at 12.30 p.m. is that, as we sit here, 3,000 Orangemen are holding a peaceful demonstration in Portadown town centre. We do not know what the movements of these Orangemen, these representatives of the eight country lodges, will be. The noble Lord referred to some trouble. This may be in reference to so called hooligans who purport to support the Orangemen. I understand that they have attacked a television crew and they have thrown stones and bottles at the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I understand that last night 11 members of the RUC were injured—luckily only in a minor way—in Ballynahinch and that there were further disturbances in Cookstown, Maghera, Londonderry and Belfast.
The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and your Lordships will be quite aware that many thousands of parades take place every year. Hundreds of parades have already taken place this year or indeed will take place along chosen routes. Only a very few have had to be rerouted or have given any trouble at all. But in every case of re-routeing this has been to minimise the dangers of confrontation and violence. The police are anxious to protect the marchers and members of the local community alike.
472
I hope that I have gone some way to answering the points that have been raised by your Lordships in the course of this debate on the Continuance Order of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act. In conclusion, I hope your Lordships will allow me to repeat that the Government's prime objective in Northern Ireland is the eradication of terrorism. We are making some progress, and with the full support of the community in Northern Ireland we can make yet more progress. But that support will continue to depend on measures which are seen to be effective and seen to be fair as well as on the professional and impartial enforcement of those measures.
We believe that the Emergency Provisions Act, and above all the procedures which are followed by the security forces and the courts, meet those demands and that the proposed changes to the Act which I have outlined to your Lordships today will in due course enhance that position. On that basis, I invite your Lordships to approve the continuance order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Historic Churches (Northern Ireland) Order 1985
2.7 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I beg to move that the Historic Churches (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, a draft of which was laid before your Lordships this year, be approved.
The order which is before your Lordships is relatively brief and its purpose is to introduce a scheme of grant-aid to listed churches. It would also bring listed churches within the system of listed building control from a day to be appointed.
Your Lordships will know that in Great Britain the scheme for grant aid to listed churches has been in existence on an experimental basis since 1976. At present it is extended to 1986. The proposals before us this afternoon would introduce a formal scheme of grant aid to listed churches in Northern Ireland along similar lines to the model we have in Great Britain.
The scheme stems from strong representations made to the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland by the churches in Northern Ireland, occasioned by rising costs in the upkeep of listed church buildings. Following those representations, my honourable friend Mr. Chris Patten announced on 5th July 1983 that a suitable scheme of grant aid would be introduced. The scheme was drawn up following consultations with all interested parties, including the various churches involved.
I hope that your Lordships will allow me to go through the provisions of the order. They include, first, the making of grants or loans towards expenditure incurred in the repair and maintenance of listed churches currently in ecclesiastical use. Secondly, the expansion of listed building control to listed churches in current use from a day to be appointed. Thirdly, the appointment of committees of the Historic Buildings Council to advise the Department of the Environment (Northern Ireland) on the operation of the scheme.
Your Lordships will also wish to know about the department's proposals for the administration of the grant aid scheme. The proposals are relatively straight-

473
forward and number six in all. First, the initial annual budget will be the sum of £150,000. Secondly, grant aid will be fixed at 33⅓ per cent. of eligible costs, subject to a limit of £25,000 to any particular scheme in a single year. Thirdly, grant aid will be restricted to repair and maintenance of the external fabric of church buildings and to associated works, such as the treatment of dry and damp rot. Such works as repairing and maintaining bells, stained glass windows and internal furnishings will not be included.
The fourth proposal is that the denominational aspect will not be taken into consideration in any way. Fifthly, claims will be dealt with in the order in which they are received. I hope that noble Lords will not be repeating the comment that minor officials in the department will be taking a lucky dip as to which churches will be fortunate enough to receive a grant. Applications will be dealt with, I hope expeditiously, in the order in which they are received. The sixth and final proposal is that the operation of the scheme will be carefully monitored and may be reviewed, if necessary, in the light of the experience which we obtain.
In summary, it is not the Government's immediate intention to bring churches in Northern Ireland within listed building control. Such a step would be taken only after the most careful consideration and consultation. What the order does is to provide the opportunity for listed churches to obtain historic buildings grant aid which until now has not been possible. This is a fairly simple and brief order. I look forward to hearing whatever points your Lordships may wish to raise on this order, which I commend to the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House an 22nd May be approved.—(Lord Lyell.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, with this order we sail into a religious haven, we hope. However, the amount of the fund allotted under the order is very small. That must be obvious to all of us. As demand is likely to be great, the funds are likely to be inadequate. Even though the money will be spent on a religious building, it will not work miracles. We do not therefore expect results overnight.
The order refers to grants or loans. The first question I should like to put to the noble Lord the Minister is this: is the total figure of £150,000 per annum available for both grants and loans, or will the loans be drawn from an additional fund? Will such loans be interest-free, and over what maximum period of time will they be repayable?
Some concern has been expressed in the House of Commons about the failure to provide in the order a satisfactory procedure for processing the applications. The Minister has said that applications will be dealt with on a first come, first served basis. That basis is likely to be difficult. One hopes that with the passage of time the department will give further consideration to that aspect of the order and will develop broad guidelines that will be seen to be fair by all applicants.
Again, in the other place the Government were pressed to make part of the funds available for repairs and refurbishment of fittings inside the churches as well as to the church buildings. When I think of nonconformist meeting places in Wales—and Wales is
474
probably the most densely chapelled province in Britain—I see very clearly the need to preserve the interior fittings as well as the external fabric. On the other hand, as the funds are very modest, one hopes that the parishioners will continue to see their way clear to being responsible for the maintenance of indoor fixtures and fittings.
We welcome the order even though the sum is modest and even though it will not, therefore bring great relief to the churches. But it is important that the state acknowledges the principle of financial support for historic churches. That is significant. To be fair to the Government, I do not think that one can fairly attack them when they recognise the principle even though they cannot provide the funds necessary. Experience shows that once there is a heading in the estimates for a certain item it is usually there to stay. One's hope must be that, given an improved economic climate, Governments in future years will top up the fund so that this order can play a more substantial role in the life of the Province. With those few remarks it gives one pleasure to support the order.
2.15 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, we on these Benches also welcome the general tenor of the order and note, too, the inadequacy of the money which has been pledged. We understand some of the reasons why more money has not been given, but I must add that I would have welcomed from the Government Front Bench this afternoon an acknowledgment that it is inadquate as well as not merely a hope but a firm intention that the money will be increased as soon as possible. We had an acknowledgment of that inadequacy in another place and I think I am right in saying that, unless I nodded off, we did not have that acknowledgment this afternoon. I hope that before the debate is over we shall have that acknowledgment from the Government. It is extremely important.
I go along completely with the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, in saying that it is important to get the heading on the estimates and that from there on one can hope that having got a foot into the doorway, one will be able to insert more and more of one's body until one is firmly inside. Nevertheless, I think that it is important that the public in Northern Ireland, and the churches in particular, should have the feeling that the Government are well aware that what they are doing at the moment, although helpful, is not helpful enough and ought to be increased in the near future.
The Irish Council of Churches, writing to the Northern Ireland Assembly on this matter on 25th January 1985—a copy of this letter is reproduced in the report of the Northern Ireland Assembly—said:
"Church representatives are opposed to the abolition of the ecclesiastical exemption from listed building consent as it would place a particular burden on those Churches who will not benefit from grant aid (some 80 per cent.) but will still have to face the full rigours of listed building consent. Grant aid has been made available in Great Britain for historic churches without the abolition of the ecclesiastical exemption. Churches argue that already internal controls exist for the vetting of alterations and extensions to Church buildings and that Churches themselves will be particularly sensitive to any change in the character or quality of their buildings.
"Churches feel that at the very least there should be no abolition of the ecclesiastical exemption in Northern Ireland before it is abolished in the rest of the United Kingdom. The Churches involved in the discussion with the Department of the Environment therefore

475
welcome the Department's undertakings not to introduce listed building consent at present (even though preparing the legislative ground work in the order) and that it will consult with the Churches before doing so".
There is a basic reservation about the direction in which the Government are going. Probably there is a feeling that it is inevitable and there is no great resistance, but there is some reservation. I believe that we should have a statement from the Government about what is the likely timetable. We are told, and the Northern Ireland churches have been told, that the Government will not go ahead with the general extension of listing until there is an overall step forward in Great Britain. What is the timetable for that? We know that the churches have been asked to produce a scheme on the matter, but what do the Government foresee as the timetable and the future of these particular orders? They must have something in mind or they would not have gone so far as to include the possibility of the general listing in this particular order that we have before us. I am in no way opposing what is happening, but I think we should be kept closely informed of what the Government see as their timetable and their programme, and I hope that they will take rather more opportunity in replying to this debate than they did in opening it to tell us what they think is going to happen.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, this is one of the non-controversial orders that has come before your Lordships' House in relation to Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, will be acutely aware that churches and those who attend them, and those who go to them on marches and for commemoration services, can be very controversial in Northern Ireland. I know that when this order becomes known in Northern Ireland there will be many religious sections who will want to have their churches listed as historic buildings of some kind. It may be that some of them will be genuine and some of them less genuine, but I know that there will be quite a number of churches which will want to come in under the scope of this legislation.
I am also very fully aware of the position regarding a number of Protestant churches. I think of Carlisle Circus in Northern Ireland where I formerly lived, where three churches of different Protestant denominations have closed down within the past 10 years. I do not know what was the reason for it, but it seemed to be that people were failing to attend services at those churches. I only hope that they had found some other church where they could go on the Sabbath. I should not like to think that they had been stopped altogether from going to church. There is one church that springs particularly to my mind in relation to the debates which have been taking place in both Houses over the past few weeks, and that is Drumcree parish church outside Portadown. This is where the Orange march has been taking place, as we have heard, for the past 170 years and latterly, over the past 50 years, in circumstances of great trouble-making and provocation.
When replying to the earlier debate, the Minister said that there were 3,000 Orangemen having a sit-down protest in Portadown this afternoon because they were prevented from taking this traditional route
476
to Drumcree church. I only hope that the weather over there is as good as the weather is over here—
Lord Lyell: It is cold and wet, my Lords.
Lord Fitt:—because some of those old Orangemen who must be taking part in this sit-down protest are as old and decrepit as I am and I should not like to think that they were sitting down for very long at Portadown on damp ground this afternoon. It would be no good for them as regards their future marches.
So far as Drumcree church is concerned, if it is listed—and I have no doubt that there will be great claims to have it listed—would it not be possible for it to be taken down stone by stone and shifted into a more suitable part of Portadown? Such things have been done before. I am sure that if the Minister needed any labour to carry out this task, he would find that it would be all too readily available from the Obin Street part of Portadown. Men would very willingly and lovingly carry every stick, stone and statue from this Drumcree church to place it right in the centre of Portadown, and that would render it unnecessary for 3,000 of those old fellows to engage in a protest such as they are making this afternoon. I hope the Minister will take that into consideration.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I shall certainly take into account the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, in his concluding remarks. However, we must remember that an afternoon like this in your Lordships' House is a family occasion and perhaps we had better not go into all the things that he gets up to and the exercise that he may take of an afternoon.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, was kind enough to warn me about at least one of the points he would raise—the question of funds. I am able to assure him and all your Lordships that the 150,000 covers loans and grants. He will be interested to note that loans will be available on conditions in line with those set by the Public Works Loan Board. They will generally be over a period of up to 10 years with a rate of interest depending upon the duration. Currently the rate is in the region of 13 per cent. In view of the interest rates and the limited budget, the department would not anticipate an appreciable demand for loans, especially when grant aid is available.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, raised a number of points. We are grateful to him for his interest in the order. He asked us to acknowledge the paucity of funds. I think that my honourable friend in another place used the term, "a small crock of gold". I have given the assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that the scheme will be kept under careful review, and that includes the funds available.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, also inquired about listing. Ecclesiastical exemption would be removed only after the most careful consideration and consultation with churches and certainly not before abolition in Great Britain. He may be interested to know that we hope the completion of listing powers in Northern Ireland will be in the fairly near future, but the department's resources are under considerable

477
pressure. I stress that it is prepared to carry out a review of those churches which on present listing would not necessarily be eligible for grant aid.
However, that requires the advice of a committee of the Historic Buildings Council to be appointed under Article 5 of the proposed order and the provision of additional architectural resources. I am afraid that that cannot be undertaken immediately. I understand that it is currently proposed to offer grant aid at least at the outset only to churches of architectural importance of grade A and grade B-plus. The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, raised the question of Drumcree. The noble Lord is not in the Chamber, but I understand that it is grade B and so would not be eligible for grant aid at the outset.
The noble Lord remarked on what he called the Orange sit-down. I understood it was a peaceful protest, but he has considerably more experience of these matters than I do. When I left the Province this morning it was considerably cooler and damper than it is here. The advice given to everybody going to and taking part in the marches was to bring a raincoat. I share his concern that anybody who sits down might suffer from a painful complaint, but perhaps not. Certainly I understand that the weather is not as favourable as it might be. We shall take note of what he said about Drumcree, but I do not invite him to spend his afternoons in a dismantling operation. Indeed, I hope he will not.
We are grateful to your Lordships for the concern expressed about the order. I commend it to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Industrial Base: Reconstruction
2.30 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what measures they are taking to plan the reconstruction of the United Kingdom's industrial base by encouraging the provision of the most up to date equipment, the training and retraining of employees to provide a labour force with the necessary skills, and the development of new technology.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
This Unstarred Question has been on the Order Paper for quite some time. Ever since it has appeared on the Order Paper I find—and I am sure this is simply by chance—that Her Majesty's Government and indeed Her Majesty's Opposition have become interested in the Question. They have established all kinds of inquiries to find out precisely what is the situation. I do not know whether I can claim that that is because of my putting this Unstarred Question down on the Order Paper. If it is merely a happy coincidence, then it is a worthwhile one and I find it most gratifying and encouraging.
What we are talking about is the future of our nation. Our recent past has not been particularly encouraging, particularly in so far as we are the land which led the Industrial Revolution of yesteryear and when one realises that in nearly four-fifths of the world wherever there is a railway track laid that is because the English thought of the idea first. I could give a long,
478
long list of what the English have invented and produced—right down, even, to the rubber band. Regrettably, they have often left others to exploit it. However, I happen to believe that the innate genius is still there.
I want to ask straight away the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who is to reply to the debate in his capacity as Minister, this question. What burdens on industry have the Government removed to try to revitalise particularly the manufacturing industry? We hear a good deal about those burdens. I am sure they exist. However, I should like to know a little more precisely what they are.
Our industrial base is the foundation of our future. It urgently requires enlarged provision of up-to-date equipment. We must maintain the capacity and perspicacity to constantly update. In the disciplines of modern industrial equipment, technical and technological advance in the, to many of us, bewildering world of computerisation is inevitable and now urgent. The changes in a decade almost deny comprehension. No doubt some of us in this Chamber who may have had some experience in some of the great craft industries and who have been apprentices, or even scientists, find it difficult to understand this massive advance in the past few decades, which I believe is only just getting underway. America has shown the way. It is only just getting underway and there is more to come. I am desperately anxious that this nation shall not fall behind. We have to design and improve equipment at all levels of industry. It is true that we are doing so but I believe without the full drive that the urgency of the situation commands.
In relation to employees, I believe that more schemes of training and retraining must be undertaken. There must be permanent links forged between the shop floor and universities; between technical colleges and training centres. They must no longer be looked at as little empires on their own, little islands of contribution. They must have bridges or links between them to take full advantage of why they were created.
We must make a reality of our high tech vision. The Government funded the MEP, the Microelectronics Education Programme. I praise and laud them for it. It has indicated our route. However, when one realises that, after having done this, we have only trained via it 25 per cent. of our teaching force, this seems to me a very serious form of myopia. The variations that exist among our schools are too great. Some schools use computers a great deal and others not much. These variations between standards of teaching science, technology and computerisation are too great to ignore. They are a danger, and we must do something about it. The monopoly of maths and science seems to be breaking down. That is a particularly good thing. I happen to be among those who believe that vital imagination is much more than having a detailed knowledge of maths and science. The ideal situation is to link them both together.
Domination of the economy by new technology is now inevitable. So, too, is the encouragement of the expansion of technology and a science-based industry. Great Britain has not yet acquired a science-based industry. We have talked about it a great deal. There has been much about it recently in the newspapers and

479
other forms of the media. But it is always talked of as happening in the future. One never hears that within three, four or five months we shall have taken a giant step towards establishing a science-based industry. That is vital. It is exactly what the United States of America has done. We have to emulate that performance.
I believe that the encouragement of expansion of technology is also vital in all forms of teaching. The start must be made in our primary schools. I have raised this matter previously in the House. I have seen how young children in the state of Minnesota are able to use, even as a toy, a computer that baffled me. I am not particularly dull, but that is what happened. My granddaughter can teach me how to use it. We have not yet advanced to this stage. I agree that there are dangers, and I shall come to these later. I wish, however, that we were facing these dangers and that they were not absent because we are not giving the priorities to computerisation that we should be giving.
I believe that experience with computers must begin at an early age. Jack and Jill must control the robot to fetch the pail of water. They should not be humping it themselves. There is no future in that. The future engineer, musician, fitter and poet will have to learn to work with a keyboard and terminal. It is the job, I believe, of the Government in collaboration with the CBI and the TUC to see that we avoid waste of talent among boys and girls. Our watchword must be that current shortages of microskills will not be tolerated. That is vital to the quintessential submission that I make.
Adaptation must be speeded up. Open tech units must be increased. I also believe that the quality of instruction must be improved. It has to be realised that youngsters entering our technical colleges or universities this week will be the instructors in 18 months' time. We have to see that they are geared to the most up-to-date methods not only in what they are teaching but in what they pass on to other technicians. A new breed of scientists must be assisted to emerge.
The great companies of the CBI and the vast coverage of the TUC must be brought together to provide a permanent joint new technology scientific computerisation board. This should not be a one-off operation and they should not have to wait for the Government, of any complexion. They are essential to this idea of mine becoming a great success. I believe that if the TUC and the CBI and those involved in similar aspects of our industrial and commercial life wish to contribute they should be allowed to do so, in establishing this new technological scientific computerisation board. Its purpose in the first instance will be to serve its members. Inevitably, however, it will also serve our nation. Young people leaving school today will retire in the second third of the next century. This by itself demands massive improvements in teaching and training. It must be our top priority investment.
One word of warning. Educational specialisation can also be a great danger. We must never allow the arts and the humanities to drop below the science and technical world. They are of equal importance. Basic skills must be taught in a manner which avoids the essentials being outdated. I shall say that again because
480
it has been part and parcel of the United States' approach to the whole problem. Basic skills in the United States are taught in a manner so as to avoid the essentials of that teaching being outdated. They catch up all the time. We can learn a great deal from that, and we ought to emulate it.
I should like to give the House an example of what the United States has gained from this. When we look at the American record on jobs we see that there are numerous comparisons which show that United States' employment creation outclasses that of Europe. While Western Europe has lost an aggregate of 2 million jobs in the last decade, the United States has added 20 million (and five million of these since the recession in 1980–81) in a formidable display of economic power. Altogether in 1984 the United States' economy generated 3·5 million private sector jobs. It is interesting to note that this big advance was to a great degree assisted, aided, and supported by the publicly-owned sector of the United States of America. The high rate of United States' job creation is not a new phenomenon. They have done it before, and, just as important, so have we.
With regard to the development of new technology, the application of microelectronics involving computers, telecommunications, the automation of equipment and genetic engineering is spreading in Japan and in the United States. We to a degree are making an effort, and so are other parts of Europe. It follows that information technology will herald the new industrial age.
Just as we created a new industrial age a few centuries ago with our Industrial Revolution, now this new industrial age has been created by the United States of America. But they could not have created the second industrial revolution if we in Britain had not created the first. The sensible thing is that we ought to get together. We ought to invite here United States' businessmen and scientists and not just foreign secretaries and presidents, and all those important people. We ought to get these equally important people to come to this country and talk with our scientists and technologists, and to help in the seeking out and teaching of that technology which will herald the new industrial age.
One of the main worries of Europe is that information technology in the broadest sense—that is, everything from computers to telecommunications—is a strategic industry, but in this particular field (and it is difficult to have to say this) Europe has practically nothing. That is why a moment ago I urged seeking the collaboration and full co-operation of our colleagues in the United States of America.
I am firmly convinced that all parties, professions, and craft skills in this country would support the quintessentials of my submission. I also believe that we still possess one of the greatest assets of all time—the determination, courage and willpower of our British people.
In my maiden speech in this House—I am drawing to a conclusion—I thought it right and proper in regard to the subject matter to quote our great poet Milton. I shall quote him again briefly this afternoon. Milton said that we are,
"a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit; acute to invent; subtle and sinewy in discourse; not beneath

481
the reach of any point—the highest that human capacity can soar to"
I conclude with this: the way ahead for our country will present a formidable challenge, but it is not new to this nation. We have faced challenges before and overcome them. I should like to see us garner the best of Britain today, to train our nation for an even finer and better Britain for tomorrow, not merely for the sake of Great Britain and its people but also for what we shall then be able to give to the less fortunate parts of the world.
2.45 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, I did not put my name down to speak, but I feel that this is an extremely important debate. I am sorry that it was set down on a Friday as an Unstarred Question because it raises so many matters of real importance to the nation. I do not propose to speak for more than a few minutes, certainly not more than five. I should like to make one or two points.
First, there is undoubtedly a shortage of certain types of artisan and technical grades that our industry urgently needs. We should do everything we can to make good that deficiency. Secondly, there is a shortage of technicians and university graduates who are trained in engineering and the other skills that are required in industry and who are willing to go into industry. It was pointed out some years ago that in Germany perhaps 80 per cent. of first-class people, not necessarily from university, but able people, went into industry, whereas only 30 per cent. went into our own industry. That is a desperate shortage and is the shortage from which we now suffer. There are insufficient really able men in our industry.
The strange thing is that the Robbins Report long ago tried to help us to catch up with the number of graduates in Russia and elsewhere, always with the idea, apparently, of producing more people who would be useful to society as a whole. But what a tragedy it has been! From an industrial point of view we wanted more people trained in science, engineering and management. But what did we get, my Lords? We had a lot more rubbishy, third-rate art courses, and at that time it was even believed that it did not matter what was taught at university and however badly it was taught; because it was taught in a university, it was self-justifying. This is a disaster.
An even greater disaster was the technical colleges which had been producing a useful outtake of students, but they tried to ape the older universities and we lost out by producing a large number of new universities which were unable to produce the skills needed by industry; nor were they able to produce what was needed by society. The latter is a very important point.
I say, and I say again, that the best training of a mind that I ever received in my life—and I was up at Cambridge—was the Army Staff College. It taught me to think, and many of the disciplines in university do not do so. Furthermore, we found that for many going to university, if they had reasonable capability, was an escape from going into industry.
All that is changing; but it is difficult to change. It is not possible to change suddenly from a lot of arts courses, which may not be very useful, to something more practical. It takes time. That is happening. But of
482
course what we never seem to realise at all is that the strength of this country has always been in its engineers; and latterly we have been bad at the development and production stages. Our research work and our scientists were, and still are, excellent. What we simply fail to do is to produce the product. That is where we are failing.
It is very unfortunate that the status of our engineers, who are responsible for just this, has declined. Many attempts are being made to increase their status and to get more really able people into that profession. But we have a very long way to go. That is one of the things that we must do for the future: hut it will take time. That, my Lords, is my five minutes.
2.51 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, in congratulating my noble friend and colleague Lord Molloy on choosing this very important subject for a debate, I join with the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, who has just spoken in saying that it is a pity that the debate could not be held at a more prime time in the House. As my noble friend Lord Molloy said in his opening remarks, we are of course discussing the future of ourselves as a nation and what plateau of social structure and life our children and their children will have to endure or live on.
I remember that some weeks ago a similar debate took place in this Chamber. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Kearton, on that occasion who used terms such as, "We have had jam yesterday and jam today but unless we get this right there will be no jam tomorrow". I know that he will forgive me for repeating those terms. I think that they encapsulate what we are talking about. The last Labour Government, with all their faults, identified the problem that was then assuming large proportions. They had already taken decisions in conjunction with the TUC that if re-elected they would give absolute priority to sustaining and developing our manufacturing base because, without that, we have very little future or no future at all.
People ask, "What immediate measures can be taken?" I am not speaking in isolation, because it is on record quite recently, when I say that pillars of business (certainly not pillars of socialism) such as the CBI are asking for a reduction in interest rates in order to allow the money to be invested in industry, in some of what I think they term our sunrise industries, about which the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth has spoken. I do not know whether any noble Lords present were able this morning to take on board an interview with somebody from one of the universities which is engaged in developing robotics. It was quite fortuitous that I was able to listen to what he said, because that also underpinned something that the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said. The person interviewed said that people assumed that this country comes a very poor third in robotics and technical developments, compared with America and Japan. He went on to say that that is not the case and that in certain areas we are doing as well and in some cases better.
However, when the initial process has taken place and things should be made available in a marketable sense to attract investment or to make money, we fall

483
down. The money is not available; or, if it is available, it is not finding its way to doing that very job. And, of course, the people who are taking advantage of it are the Americans and the Japanese, almost exclusively, and not the rest of Europe. Therefore, in my opinion we are exporting some wonderful expertise from this country, trained over here almost at market rates.
If I may digress for a moment, I should like to say a word about one part of the admirable speech made by my noble friend and colleague Lord Molloy. He talked, I think, about the humanities and the arts, referring to our future educational needs and the system in the universities. As an ex-shop floor engineer, I take the view with some reluctance that in the language of priorities I do not want to see, any more than my noble friend does, the arts and the humanities suffer. But if we do not get this right there will be an ever-diminishing amount of resources to sustain education in those things. It may well be that the arts and humanities may have to decelerate for a while in order to get the industrial base and the future of the economy right so that funds can be provided for those purposes.
One thing has benefited us. I know that the pound has dramatically fluctuated over a number of years, but I do not think there is any question that the devaluation of the pound, mainly against the dollar (because it has pretty well held its own against most other currencies and has done rather better than some of them), and the opportunities so created, while they benefited us to some extent could have benefited us a little more. I am glad that this debate has taken place in an objective atmosphere, because there is no point in just getting up and repeating criticisms of the Government. But I do have to say that—and it is not being said only by me and my party—that I wish more opportunity had been taken to plough the huge funds gathered since 1979, when the last Labour Government went out of office, into the very things that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, have talked about: that is, the huge sums of money that have been gathered in from our oil revenues.
I know it is not easy to transfer money into jobs, and sometimes one can invest a lot of money and create only a very few jobs; but I believe that a substantial part of the money that has been spent on increased social service benefits and unemployment payments because of unemployment would have been better spent at an earlier stage on retraining and on reinvesting in some of these industries. For instance, Inmos should quite clearly have been developed and underpinned by increased Government funding at the right time. I do not take the view that the Government are doing any service to us in just indulging in privatisation for the sake of privatisation. I do not believe in nationalisation for the sake of nationalisation. Where an industry is doing well, its workers are happy and it is developing, it should be left alone. I think the Government are going a little too far in that situation.
I should like in the next few minutes (because I do not intend to detain the House for very long on this) to take the opportunity of looking at what happened to our industrial base in the ten years from 1971 to 1981.
484
In industry, the figure for men in full-time employment is minus 1,576,000; in services the figure is increased by 200,000. The balance is obviously shifting the wrong way, certainly dramatically, even though one has to accept that the service sector in a developing society will have a bigger role to play. In regard to part-time men in industry there is no change, but in the service industry there has been 124,000 extra jobs created for men on a part-time basis.
With regard to women in full-time employment, 534,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing industries in the same 10 years. In the service industries in the same period there was an increase of 322,000 jobs in the women's sector. In regard to part-time jobs for women, in industry the figure is minus 76,000, and in the service industries it is plus just over a million.
Once again these are dramatic figures that compound what has been happening; there has been a tremendous erosion of jobs in our manufacturing base. Some of those people, such as skilled engineers and those from wool working and textile industries, have borne the biggest brunt of those losses. There may have been some training, but it should have taken place before. However, I have to have regard obviously to the fact that the Government have a very substantial retraining programme.
Since 1981 up to the time of the current figures the manufacturing industries alone have lost 652,000 jobs, while jobs in the service industries have gone up by 377,000. That is another indication that the growth which is taking place in the service industries in terms of wealth creation and the GNP is vastly outstripping the number of jobs that are being lost in the manufacturing sector.
As an ex-Member of another place who represented a northern constituency and as an indigenous northerner myself, I am disturbed by one thing. Perhaps I may read this brief paragraph before I conclude:
"Engineering and textiles manufacture have been notoriously badly hit. Between 1981 and April of this year the number of people in manufacture has dropped by three-quarters of a million. In Northern Ireland and the North and West the percentage of industrial jobs lost since 1978 runs at 30 per cent. The equivalent figure for London and the south-east is just on 15 per cent".
The source of this is the Employment Gazette. It also states:
"Great Britain is fast becoming a new Italy with an economic divide North/South that will soon be irreversible".
In closing I should like to put a point to the Minister. I mentioned this a few weeks ago when we debated the statement on Stansted, or the airports policy. The people in the north, irrespective of what Government Ministers say or what their representatives say, are firmly of the opinion that they have a Government who care more for the south than they do for the north. All the figures on employment and investment, whichever way one looks at the situation, certainly reinforce this view. I do not expect the Minister to take that on board and to reply immediately because I appreciate that this is a very complex subject, with a mass of figures to prove the argument. But I hope that the Minister will take note of what is being said with increasing frequency—and not just by members of my party, his own party or the Alliance. It is coming across

485
to the broad spectrum of the people in the north that they come second on every issue.
I should like to say once again that my friend and colleague Lord Molloy has done us a great service in enabling us to debate this very important subject. If we do not get this situation right, we shall not have a future. I hope that eventually we do get it right. My Lords, we must move in the right direction.
3.5 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, like a number of noble Lords, particularly those coming from an engineering background. I rather regret that we are spending a beautiful sunny afternoon in July in discussing such an important subject, because the importance of industry is in no doubt at all. Despite the hour and the number of contributors to our short debate this afternoon, its importance is in no way undermined. A number of speakers have mentioned the importance of industry as part of our economic stability and also its importance in other areas.
I remind your Lordships of the most interesting debate that we had only a few weeks ago which was initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, on the subject of Industry Year 1986. I should like to say again, as I said on that occasion, that we welcome the initiative of the Royal Society of Arts, supported by the CBI, the British Institute of Management and the TUC, among others, in making 1986 Industry Year. Again, I remind your Lordships that the object of that is to encourage a better understanding of industry, its essential role and its service to the community. The Goverment, and indeed your Lordships, gave this initiative unanimous support when we debated it in May.
We are committed to a healthy, vigorous and competitive manufacturing sector, but at the same time we have to recognise the integral role of the services in our economy. Government do not design a difference in importance between the manufacturing sector and the service. This is how the relationship between the two has effectively evolved in the changing domestic and world situation.
I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, that the employment figures in the service sector increased by 504,000 between March 1983 and December 1984. There are nearly 13½ million peple usefully and properly employed in that sector. Therefore it is important that we deploy all our resources in the service sector and in the manufacturing sector to the best effect. We have to recognise that the decline in the share of manufacturing in total output is a trend which has been evident for many years. Manufacturing output accounted for 40 per cent. of GDP in 1955 and for 25 per cent. in 1984. In employment terms, yes, I recognise what noble Lords have said, because the share of manufacturing has declined from 40 per cent. to 26 per cent. in those years.
However, this is not a development peculiar to the United Kingdom; it is common to many industrialised countries. What causes more concern is that there has been a very long-term decline in our manufacturing productivity relative to that of our competitors. One indication of that is the decline in our share of main
486
manufacturing countries' exports from 20 per cent. in 1955 to 15 per cent. in 1963, to 9 per cent. in 1979 and to 8 per cent. today.
Underlying this decline were shortcomings in both price competitiveness and what have been collectively know as non-price factors—quality, design, reliability and delivery. And to the other symptoms of poor performance was added an absolute decline in manufacturing output of 4 per cent. Since then I think we would all agree that we have seen a remarkable improvement in major aspects of industrial performance, particularly in productivity and profitability.
In the years prior to 1979—I do not pick these to match the 10-years span of 1971 to 1981 of the noble Lord, Lord Dean—we thought the specific solution being offered to these ills was too often to prop up sick and ailing enterprises with an injection of taxpayers' money. Such injections become addictive—a convenient way, as drug addicts find, of avoiding the difficulties of a fiercely competitive world.
Regulation and intervention were seen as substitutes for enterprise and initiative. Not the minimum regulation necessary to ensure smooth working of the market, but regulation and intervention to insulate and protect producers from the signals which the market conveys. Such measures can succeed—and perhaps did—in the short term in protecting an enterprise and its workers from the consequence of change in demand and a failure to adapt. The difficulty is that, when the adjustment comes, it is even more painful than one envisages.
The failure of past measures has been all too apparent. The general solution added more to inflation than to performance and competitiveness. The specific solution contributed to a belief that reality could somehow be indefinitely avoided. If all else failed, the Government could be relied upon to find taxpayers' money in support. The willingness to take a risk had little place.
We do not believe in answers of this kind. We do not believe that industrial performance can be improved by restricting dividends, denigrating profits and preventing overseas investment. We do not believe that protection is the answer. Protection of industry too often means protecting industrial inefficiency. Nor do we believe that subsidy is an answer to managerial or market weakness. Subsidy itself breeds inefficiency, and its inevitable partner—taxation—stifles incentive and blunts the competitiveness of the successful enterprise.
Our overall solution to the problems caused by this long history of substandard performance has been to create a climate in which industry can compete and flourish, and to direct Government assistance towards helping industry to acquire the ability to compete, rather than insulating it from the effects of its failure to do so. A prime requirement in restoring competitiveness is the control of costs. It is therefore to help the recovery of manufacturing industry, as well as in the interests of the nation generally, that the Government are determined to continue the fight against inflation.
But industry itself has a responsibility. If inflation is to be held, if it is to be reduced further, wage

487
settlements have to be lower. A second requirement is to reduce the burden of taxation on those who work and invest in industry. We are now well into the staged reductions of corporate tax announced in the 1984 Budget. Beginning next year the rate will reduce to 35 per cent. from a figure of 52 per cent. at that time. Rates of personal taxation are particularly relevant to those who work in and who finance small firms. We have, moreover, introduced specific measures to encourage the flow of capital to small firms, notably through the Business Expansion Scheme. I would also say, not in particular answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, that we have brought a new spirit of enterprise to some of our largest industries through the return of firms in the public sector to the private sector, and those results are reported in the newspapers as the weeks go by.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, made some very interesting and wide-ranging comments on industry. He will forgive me if I say that interesting though I found his speech, I could not agree with much of it. I am sure that the noble Lord will understand because sometimes we approach these matters from a different viewpoint.
The noble Lord asked me particularly about burdens on industry. Specifically in this Administration we have abandoned price controls, factory building controls, dividend controls, hire purchase controls and foreign exchange controls. That is a fairly long list. I remind the House that those controls were in place in the late 1970s and not the late 1940s. As well as removing those burdens, we abolished the national insurance surcharge, which in its heyday amounted to a burden of some £3 billion on industry's costs. We are not going to stop there.
The Burdens on Business document published last March reported on the work of an inter-departmental study of regulatory burdens. My noble friend Lord Young of Graffham is leading further work within the Government to consider the options. His report is anticipated quite shortly.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, also spoke of—if I may encapsulate his remarks—the American example. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has referred to the success of the American enterprise in the reduction of regulations and in ensuring freedom and encouragement for small businesses to establish themselves. However, I must give one word of warning to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. Much as he may extol much of American industry, it is of some little disappointment to Her Majesty's Government that the Americans appear to be seeking the introduction of protectionist policies to sustain growth. I can only say that were they so to do, that would cause a great deal of damage not only to themselves but also to their trading partners across the world. Protectionism does not add to worldwide trade, upon which our economy, the American economy and the world's economy depends.
I turn now to some of the more specific measures that we are taking to encourage the development of our industrial base. I remind the House that a comprehensive range of support is available to industry. Much of that is administered by my own
488
department, the Department of Trade and Industry. We have found a repackaging of assistance measures necessary, largely in response to complaints from industry that the schemes and services offered were so numerous that business people found it difficult to establish what help was worth having and where they could obtain it. I shall briefly but not exhaustively run over four main heads.
The first is business and technical advisory services, embracing a wide range of general advice, grants for consultancy work to improve works and processes, and grants towards feasibility studies of employing new technology. Another is support for innovation. Selective financial support is available for research and development, leading to new products and processes and for longer term applied research projects. Thirdly, there is support for investment. The general objective here is to improve competitiveness, to encourage the growth of employment and investment. The final category of DTI assistance that I want to underline this afternoon is the help and support given in the area of exports, but I shall not expand on that aspect.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, also said in his speech that he placed as a top priority further expenditure on training, particularly in engineering. He went on to say—as so many people do—that equally he wanted enough money spent on the arts and humanities. Each of us has our top priority. It is our job in Government to balance the priorities, and I think that we have perhaps got that balance about right.
The Question on the Order Paper this afternoon quite rightly refers not only to industry's equipment but to its labour force and to the need for training and retraining. The Government believe that it is essential to our economic survival that we have sufficient people with the skills to meet the demands of new technologies and to cope with continuing change. The Government's objectives in the training sphere were set out in the White Paper A New Training Initiative. I accept, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, that training starts with the young. Their initial training should instil both the necessary skills and the flexibility to adapt to change. Let us not forget, when we are thinking of the young and introducing them to modern technology, that through the micros in school scheme we have an average of 10 micro computers in each secondary school, with many more in primary schools. We are ahead of all our major competitors in that area. I, too, have seen youngsters using these. I was giving prizes at a school recently and a class of four-and-a-half-year-olds were demonstrating to me what they can do with writing simple programmes and directing pieces of machinery across the classroom floor. That is very impressive. We lead in that respect.
I have always believed that traditional apprenticeships are costly and often hidebound by institutional obstacles, such as time-serving. We are emphasising the need to modernise that. The training and retraining of adults is equally vital—certainly something not recognised until a few years ago.
In using the expression "labour" I do not mean only operatives but professional staff such as engineers, of which we do have a shortage and where Britian has lagged behind countries such as France and Japan. We

489
must retrain people into those engineering skills, which are in such high demand. Similarly, I believe the educational institutions have not always recognised training needs. Perhaps industry has not been able to explain to the educational institutions what it is they really want. Those two elements, which have been underlined this afternoon, have pointed to a widening gap between those in industry and those involved in the provision of education. Therefore, the Government have been concerned to improve the links between industry and those who provide for the training and retraining of its workforce. Through measures such as the teaching company scheme and through our increased funds to further and higher education, we have devoted our energies to this.
However, a key element to this strategy is its recognition that the prime responsibility for training must rest with employers because, at the end of the day, they are the direct beneficiaries. In balancing these demands on public expenditure the Government can only afford to fund a fraction of the needs. We have, of course, MSC's role as a catalyst and pump-primer in convincing employers of the importance of investing in training. It is an interesting fact that, of all those people applying for jobs who have recently undertaken retraining programmes, 58 per cent. sought and obtained employment, whereas two years ago only 51 per cent. were successful.
I can offer only the briefest outline of the support for industry which the Government provide. In the vital areas of research and development, innovation and technology transfer, we have doubled our expenditure on support in real terms and our policies here have produced an industry which is altogether fitter, as indeed is our manufacturing industry, more competitive, more efficient and more in tune with the needs of the market. We intend, and we will ensure, that there is a climate in which industry itself can continue to build on those strengths. It is a policy which is clearly working.
I say that on the strength of these few facts. Gross Domestic Product is at its highest-ever level. We are entering our fifth year of uninterrupted economic growth. In the first quarter of this year manufacturing output was 10 per cent. above the trough of early 1981, and in 1985 as a whole it is forecast to increase by 2½ per cent. Productivity growth in the United Kingdom's manufacturing industries has been among the highest in the major industrialised countries in recent years. In the three months to April this year it was over 29 per cent. up on the final quarter of 1980.
Profitability is improving. For non-North Sea industrial and commercial companies, the net real rate of return was around 7 per cent. in 1984, the highest since 1978. Business investment increased by 13 per cent. in 1984. Our current account was in surplus for the fifth year running in 1984. Exports of manufactured goods grew 10 per cent. by volume in that year. The number of people in employment has risen by over 600,000 since the spring of 1983. The CBI have reported a significant increase in business confidence since January. Their monthly trends in surveys of manufacturing are reporting the best results
490
on total orders since the survey was introduced in 1977.
It is from evidence such as this that our policy draws its strength. Your Lordships will understand that I make no apologies. I am confident that the Government's present policies meet the three points that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, put so interestingly in his Question this afternoon.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, there is one point which worries me, though I did not interrupt him. He seemed to say (and I may have got it entirely wrong), that he equated the manufacturing and the service industries as equally important. I am not sure how he defines a service industry, but surely it is only the manufacturing industry which contributes to the health of the nation and the balance of payments. Surely on that ground it is wrong to equate them or consider them as equal.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I did not seek to equate anything at all. What I sought to underline was the importance of the service industries, and there is no doubt that modern technology, the making of things, in fact may be assisted with such programmes as CADCAM. CADCAM needs servicing: telecommunications need servicing, need selling, need financing. These are the service industries. To an extent they go hand in hand. There is certainly no equating nor equalising. But when we talk of industry, as the Question does, I seek not to draw a blind across the importance of the service industries and their contribution to our economic strength.
House adjourned at half past three o'clock.

  TRANS-BOUNDARY AIR POLLUTION
  TRANS-BOUNDARY AIR POLLUTION
  PUBLIC PATHS: CONDITIONS FOR EXTINGUISHMENT
  PUBLIC PATHS: CONDITIONS FOR EXTINGUISHMENT
  COMMITTEE FOR THE ADAPTATION TO TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS: DUICH MOSS
  COMMITTEE FOR THE ADAPTATION TO TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS: DUICH MOSS
  HER MAJESTY'S SHIPS: STATISTICS
  HER MAJESTY'S SHIPS: STATISTICS
  THE ARMED SERVICES: UNIFORMED PERSONNEL
  THE ARMED SERVICES: UNIFORMED PERSONNEL
  MoD MINISTERIAL OFFICES: CIVIL SERVICE STAFF
  MoD MINISTERIAL OFFICES: CIVIL SERVICE STAFF