Sitting of 20 November 1985

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

    QUEEN'S SPEECH (ANSWER TO ADDRESS)
    The Vice-Chamberlain of the Household reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address as follows:
    I have received with great satisfaction the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I opened the present Session of Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions
  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

    Middle East
    Mr. Waltersasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on progress towards peace in the middle east.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): The responsibility for making progress lies in the first place with the parties directly concerned. It is encouraging that both King Hussein and Mr. Peres now accept the need for an international framework for peace negotiations. We shall continue to support the efforts of all those who are working to find a way forward to negotiations.
    Mr. Walters: Bearing in mind the rebuffs that King Hussein suffered when pursuing his peace initiative, will my right hon. and learned Friend try to ensure that a serious initiative is launched by the United States and Israel, which is from where it must now come, and, in particular, that Mr. Peres' speech is followed by detailed proposals, to be discussed at an international conference, which show a willingness by the Israelis to exchange territory for peace?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am in general sympathy with my hon. Friend's point of view. An international conference may certainly have a part to play, but we are not yet convinced that the scene has been sufficiently set for that. The position certainly calls for a willingness by the Israeli Government to follow the lead offered by Mr. Peres' speech, and the role of the United States is indispensable to the progress of the peace process if King Hussein's initiative is to be carried forward, as we would all wish.
    Mr. Beith: Does the Foreign Secretary share the hope that President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev will find time in Geneva, among all their other concerns, to discuss their common interest in working together to produce stability and peace in the middle east?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman is right to identify regional questions as topics appropriate for discussion between the two superpowers, and I am glad that they have been appearing increasingly on the agenda for such discussions. Whether President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev will be able to take that particular topic further forward at their present meeting is less certain. It should be an active item on their agenda.
    Mr. Latham: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that if the Soviet Union is to play a constructive role, which is by no means impossible, an essential prerequisite is that it resumes diplomatic relations with Israel?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: We would certainly like to see wide international involvement in carrying the process forward. If, as part of that, the establishment of diplomatic relations were to come about, it would be welcomed.
    Mr. Ernie Ross: What confidence can King Hussein have in future talks with the Government, given that the Government failed to live up to the letter of invitation to the Jordanian-PLO delegation, which led to the shambles in London earlier? If the Foreign Secretary is concerned that King Hussein's initiative should succeed in future, what statement would he make to give King Hussein and the PLO confidence that any future initiative proposed by him or the Prime Minister will have a chance of success?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman does not accurately—[Interruption.] I am reminded that I must welcome the hon. Gentleman back to the House, and I gladly do so.
    Unfortunately, I cannot share the hon. Gentleman's perception of the matter. King Hussein clearly understood the circumstances leading to the visit by the joint Jordanian/Palestinian delegation. It came on the clear understanding that it would unequivocally and publicly state its commitment to a peaceful settlement and its opposition to terrorism and violence. That means the acceptance of the two Security Council resolutions and of Israel's right to exist. King Hussein publicly confirmed that. Assurances to that effect had been negotiated with the Jordanian Prime Minister, and King Hussein confirmed that it was through no fault of ours that that meeting did not take place.
    We remain anxious and willing to do everything that we can with King Hussein and anybody else who can help to carry forward the initiative which he started.

    Chile
    Mr. Corbynasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Chilean Government regarding the reimposition of the state of seige in September.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Eggar): The Chilean authorities lifted the state of seige on 17 June and replaced it with a state of emergency, which remains in force. We leave the Chilean authorities in no doubt about our concern at the continuation of human rights abuses in that country.
    Mr. Corbyn: What representations have the Government made about the large number of people in Chile who have been arrested in the last few months? Specifically, have we taken up the cases of trade union leaders Manuel Bustos and Rodolfo Seguel?

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    Does the Minister now accept that, because of the abuses of human rights in Chile, it is incompatible with the Britsh Government's declared support for human rights to continue to sell arms to Chile, to coninue to provide military training facilities for the Chilean army and to continue joint military exercises with the Chilean army in the Beagle channel and elsewhere?
    Mr. Eggar: We supported European Community representations made in October protesting against the detention of trade union leaders, and we have appealed for a national reconciliation.
    Mr. Forth: Does my hon. Friend agree that what happens in a country such as Chile is none of our business? Has not the constant seeking of some countries to interfere gratuitously in the domestic affairs of other countries probably been the major cause of wars throughout the centuries? Does he agree that that should cease forthwith?
    Mr. Eggar: We have made it clear to the Chilean Government that we wish to see an orderly return to democracy in Chile. We believe that the national accord of 25 August provides a basis for that.

    Namibia
    Mr. Andersonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how frequently the Western Contact Group on Namibia has met over the past three months.
    The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): There has been no formal Contact Group meeting duing the last three months, but we and our Contact Group partners have remained in close touch.
    Mr. Anderson: Was not the group formed seven years ago on the assumption that it could deliver Namibian independence, and has it not utterly failed in the reason for its formation? Will the Government therefore consider a new initiative to the United Nations, rather than take actions such as vetoing the Security Council resolution on Namibia last week, which gave the impression to the world that Britain is South Africa's surrogate in the Security Council?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman's question displays an ignorance of what the Contact Group has achieved. Over the last few years it has been responsible for a wide range of agreements between the South African Government, the Front Line states and the various parties in Namibia about how the UN resolution should be implemented. We regret that that resolution has not yet been brought into effect in Namibia.
    As to the vote in the United Nations last week, the hon. Gentleman should appreciate that the United Kingdom and the United States vetoed the resolution and the French Government abstained because all three Governments could not support a policy calling for mandatory sanctions against South Arica—for reasons which are well known to the House.
    Mr. Wilkinson: Recently, has not Cuban, and to some extent Soviet Union, support for the NPLA Government in Luanda increased? Until Cuban forces are withdrawn from Angola, will not a peaceful, fair and equitable settlement be impossible?
    Mr. Rifkind: There have been disturbing signs of greater Soviet involvement in the actions of the Angolan Government against UNITA in the civil war. The Government believe it desirable that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from Angola—both South African and Cuban—and that the people of Angola should be allowed to determine their own future.

    South Africa
    Mr. Rathboneasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to meet representatives of black people in South Africa.
    Sir George Howe: I have in recent months met Dr. Motlana of the Soweto Civic Association and the United Democratic Front, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Chief Gatsha Buthelezi. I remain prepared to meet representatives of all shades of opinion within South Africa that are not committed to violence.
    Mr. Rathbone: I wish that I could thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. Where representation within a nation is denied, is it not all the more important to encourage talks with the disfranchised on the broadest international basis? Will the Government reconsider their present requirement for conditions to such talks?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am sorry that my hon. Friend could not manage to summon up gratitude for my reply. I thank him for having repeated the points that he made on this topic in our recent debate. I shall, of course, continue to reflect upon them.
    Mr. Mikardo: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman had an opportunity to read the transcript of the evidence given a week or so ago to the Foreign Affairs Committee by Mr. Oliver Tambo? If so, does he agree that that evidence suggests a better opportunity for a way forward than many of us might have expected?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I have studied the evidence given by Mr. Tambo to the Select Committee. Indeed, it deserves study with care. However, the fact remains that the support by the ANC for a suspension of violence along the lines commended in the Commonwealth Heads of Government communiqué would not only enhance its reputation but help to promote the prospect of dialogue both inside and outside South Africa.
    Mr. Adley: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that it is not the ANC, or any other group, that is cruising round the townships in South Africa shooting people from armoured vehicles? He constantly repeats his commitment not to talk to people unless they renounce violence. Does that not apply first and foremost to the South African Government? Does he agree that throughout the history of this country there have been numerous cases—such as Kenyatta, Makarios, Gandhi and others—where we have been too late in recognising the view of the majority population?
    Mr. Geoffrey Howe: I know that my hon. Friend has reflected considerably on this matter. Of course, if progress is to be made towards the dialogue that we want in South Africa, actions and changes are necessary on both sides. I do not believe that it is right to approach the question from the balance that my hon. Friend suggests. I agree that if the South African Government were to

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    proceed swiftly to the unconditional liberation of Mr. Nelson Mandela, that would be an act of comparable importance and very valuable indeed.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain to representatives of the black people in South Africa why a delegation from the Leeds chamber of commerce is currently on a commercial visit to South Africa with the support of Government money—despite the agreement reached in Nassau by the Commonwealth Heads of Government?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: That is entirely different from the subject of the main question. The Government are in course of putting into effect the conclusions reached by the Commonwealth Heads of Government mission on that aspect, as on many other matters. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman could be regarded as having served his constituents particularly well if a mission of that sort were to be interrupted and cut off in mid flight in the context of the policy change announced.
    Mr. John Mark Taylor: When my right hon. and learned Friend meets those representatives, will he bear in mind the extra burden placed on reformers within the South African Government as a result of recent by-elections in that country?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I think that I follow my hon. Friend's point of view, though I am at a loss to know who are the people who will meet me and to whom I am meant to express that view.
    Mr. Healey: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the mission from the Leeds chamber of commerce has not yet left this country, that it has been considering whether it should travel, and that the Government's decision, in spite of their undertaking to their Commonwealth partners, to fund the mission, is absolutely impossible to justify and is a grave offence to all the Prime Ministers at that conference who believed that the Government would carry out the undertakings that they solemnly gave?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I fail to understand the right hon. Gentleman's manifestation of concern on this issue. We have undertaken not to finance any new missions of this kind. This is a mission for which, I understand, undertakings have already been given. Although the right hon. Gentleman is right to be concerned that pledges given at Nassau are upheld, I do not understand why he should put his interests in that ahead of those of supporting missions to which we are already committed.
    Mr. McQuarrie: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that to have any discussions with the black representation in South Africa would be wrong when the likes of Oliver Tambo can come to this House and condone, and continue to condone, violence, and when Nelson Mandela has repeatedly said that, even if he were released from prison, he would condone violence in any shape or form?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I could not go as far as my hon. Friend, who appears to be wanting me to repudiate the prospect of any discussions with black representatives in South Africa. We wish to see a suspension of violence on a basis that would enhance the prospects of a dialogue between black representatives and the South African Government. That is our position, and we stand by it.

    Chile
    Mr. Ron Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Chilean Government regarding progress towards democracy in that country.
    Mr. Eggar: My right hon. and learned Friend recently reminded Senor Del Valle of the widespread interest in the United Kingdom in seeing an early return to democracy in Chile. We also welcome the opportunity provided by the national accord for Chile to make progress towards the restoration of a full and genuine democracy.
    Mr. Davies: Does the Minister agree that these representations from the British Government would carry more weight and credibility if they refused to use their vote in the General Assembly in favour of Chile, if they refused to carry out their programme of training military personnel and if they refused to sell arms to Chile? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a change of direction in those policies would ensure that the Chilean Government took more notice of us?
    Mr. Eggar: Our vote in the United Nations will be decided on the merits of the resolution, which has not yet been circulated. We shall, of course, consider matters relating to arms when and if those issues arise.
    Sir Peter Blaker: I do not dissent from the action that Her Majesty's Government have taken in regard to Chile, but should we not beware of double standards here? Have we made representations to the Government of the Soviet Union and others in eastern Europe regarding the desirability of making progress towards democracy in those countries, bearing in mind not least the fact that they have signed the Helsinki agreement, which commits them to democracy and full human rights?
    Mr. Eggar: I have taken careful note of what my right hon. Friend has said. Of course, we always take the opportunity to make representations to the Soviet Union and its allies.
    Mr. Wareing: Does the Minister agree that it would be a matter of concern for Her Majesty's Government if arms supplied by this country had been used in the recent repression in Chile? Can he give a categorical guarantee that no arms supplied by this country have been used in that repression?
    Mr. Eggar: So far as we are aware, no such arms have been used.
    Mr. Porter: Has my hon. Friend sought the views of the Chilean Government about the problems of the government of Northern Ireland? Apparently we take the views of all sorts of foreign Governments on the matter.
    Mr. Eggar: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point.
    Mr. Foulkes: On a rather more serious note, will the Minister tell the House whether the Government welcome the national accord that has been signed by almost all the democratic parties in Chile? Will the Government join the increasing chorus of criticism of the repression carried out by General Pinochet and join my right hon. and hon. Friends in calling for the imposition of a complete embargo on arms sales to Chile? Will he give a specific assurance—he has said that the issue has not yet arisen—that no export licence will be granted by the British

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    Government for the sale of Centaur armoured vehicles to Chile? We know that they will be used for internal repression.
    Mr. Eggar: As I have said to the House on at least two occasions, we have already made it clear to the Chilean Government that we welcome the national agreement on the transition to full democracy, which was issued on 25 August on behalf of the moderate political parties in Chile. There is no question about anything being done with the Centaur armoured vehicle except being returned to the United Kingdom.

    South Africa
    Mr. Winnickasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the latest representations made by Her Majesty's Government to the South African Government over the internal position in that country.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: On 2 November we made it clear to representatives of the South African Government, both in London and Pretoria, that we were disturbed by the imposition of restrictions on the freedom of the press to report events in South Africa. These restrictions will do nothing to improve the prospects for that peaceful, fundamental change which we all seek.
    Mr. Winnick: Do the South African authorities really believe that banning television in that country will make the outside world lose interest? If they do, they will be proved entirely wrong. To take up the supplementary question of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), when will the British Government take effective action to support the cause of freedom in South Africa? Is the Foreign Secretary aware how sick and tired we are to hear constantly from the Government why action cannot be taken? By making excuses, they play into the hands of the apartheid regime.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I would rather put that the other way round. The British Government have been taking sustained and determined action to promote the changes in policy that are necessary if we are to secure the ending of apartheid by peaceful means as quickly as possible. The British Government fought tenaciously and valiantly to establish a position agreed by all the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Nassau. We are now working to secure the prospect of success for that Commonwealth eminent persons group. I would rather say that the House is sick and tired of the hon. Gentleman casting aspersions on every genuine attempt that the Government make to secure those ends.
    Mr. John Carlisle: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that much of the violence and reporting in and from South Africa has been grossly exaggerated by the world's press, not least by the BBC, in much biased reporting of the sad events that have taken place? While the ban on the press is to be regretted, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that in the circumstances it was almost unavoidable? Is it not better for the Government to continue some form of dialogue than to take the road that is advocated by the Opposition, which involves sanctions and isolation?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I understand my hon. Friend's arguments and agree absolutely with his closing point. It
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    is of the utmost importance for us to do all that we can to promote dialogue in South Africa. We would like nothing better than to see the South African Government taking the decisive steps that are necessary to move in that direction.
    Mr. Foot: Will the Foreign Secretary explain the exact context in which the Prime Minister used the phrase "teeny-weeny concession"?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The right hon. Gentleman appears sufficiently well-informed to make a judgment for himself.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that when he discusses the internal position of South Africa, one of the things that worries that Government is Amnesty International's report on Zimbabwe, which shows that more repression is carried out by blacks on blacks than even that imposed by whites on blacks? Does that not have to be taken into consideration?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: Unhappily, there are many reports of human mistreatment of fellow human beings in many countries, and they all have to be taken in their context.

    Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
    Mr. George Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made at the review conference on the nuclear nonproliferation treaty; and what proposals Her Majesty's Government intend to pursue.
    The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Renton): We are pleased that, in contrast to 1980, this year the review conference produced an agreed document. We warmly welcome this. We intend to work to implement the conference's recommendations for improving the International Atomic Energy Authority safeguards system, and the transfer of nuclear technology to developing countries. Many of the recommendations were proposed by the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Robertson: The most important measure sought at the review conference was the conference on the comprehensive test ban treaty. Does not the Government's stance on verification look increasingly feeble, because the new technical developments, as even the technology page in yesterday's Financial Times showed, would make detection and verification simple? We should ask the Government to review their position on the subject, or be driven to the conclusion that the United Kingdom is resistant to the possibility of such a treaty because it wants to test its own Trident missiles before preventing people from conducting similar tests.
    Mr. Renton: Yes, I too read the article in yesterday's Financial Times. I agree that the experiments in Norway lead to a possible avenue which is well worth pursuing. The key requirement continues to be for the Soviet Union to accept the monitors that have now been invented. I disagree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman's final point. We are committed to the goal of an effective comprehensive test ban, but the word effective is crucial to this. We are not yet convinced that verification developments can lead to a foolproof test ban system.
    Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the greatest threats that we face is the

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    acquisition of nuclear weapons by unstable and fanatical regimes? Will he vigorously support proposals to open all nuclear installations to international inspection and to halt the spread of uranium enrichment technology?
    Mr. Renton: Yes, Sir. One of the successes of the nonproliferation treaty, to which another 17 countries have become members in the past five years, has been the halting of horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons, while encouraging peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

    South Africa
    Mr. Parryasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures are being taken to arrange the recall of British military attaches from South Africa.
    Mr. Rifkind: Both British military attaches accredited to the Republic of South Africa have now been recalled.
    Mr. Parry: I am delighted by that reply, because, early in September, I asked the Prime Minister whether we would consider breaking off all diplomatic links with South Africa. In view of the serious situation in South Africa, will the Government consider breaking off diplomatic relations with that country?
    Mr. Rifkind: We think that that would be an extrmely foolish action to take. The Commonwealth Heads of Government conference decided to seek a dialogue between the Commonwealth and the South African Government. To contemplate action of the type recommended by the hon. Gentleman would fly in the face of that approach.
    Mr. Ian Lloyd: I very much regret the recall of the military attaches. If the Government change their mind and those attachés eventually return to South Africa, will my hon. Friend ensure that they return via Delville Wood, the Sangro river, El Alamein, Sidi Rezegh and the many other cemeteries in which the South African dead of the second world war are buried?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the valiant contribution during the second world war by many black and white South Africans and people from other parts of Africa. I think he will appreciate, however, that we are seeking to do what we can to make clear our disapproval and detestation of apartheid, but not in a way that damages the economic prospects of the South African people.
    Mr. Anderson: On 25 September we agreed with our EEC partners not only to recall our military attachés in South Africa but to refuse to grant accreditation to South African military attaches in this country. Is it not the Government's policy that the military attachés in the South African eembassy in London can remain until they are recalled by their Government?
    Mr. Rifkind: The point that the hon. Gentleman has put to me is a matter that is currently under consideration by the Foreign Ministers of the European Community. At this stage, only Belgium and Luxembourg have taken the decision to ask for the recall of South African attachés from their capitals. The matter is under active consideration at present.
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: Has not anxiety been expressed in this House about South African military
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    excursions into neighbouring territories? Is it not therefore stupid to withdraw from South Africa those who would be able to assess and report on those operations to Her Majesty's Government?
    Mr. Rifkind: Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that the action that we have taken will not, in practice, jeopardise such information that we have about the matters to which my hon. Friend referred. We have always made it clear that incursions by South African troops into neighbouring sovereign states is a matter to be condemned and discouraged at every available opportunity.
    Mr. Lawrence: As, most commendably, it is the Government's policy to oppose terrorism on every front, will my hon. and learned Friend say why the African National Congress is allowed to operate through its attaches out of an office in London?
    Mr. Rifkind: As my hon. and learned Friend will be aware, the British Government's policy has always been that individuals are free to set up any office that they wish in London as long as their actions and activities do not conflict with British law. If there is any evidence that any individual in such an office is taking action that conflicts with our law, steps will be taken to deal with that matter at the earliest opportunity.

    EC Intergovernmental Conference
    Mr. Garrettasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent progress has been made at the EEC intergovernmental conference; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: Discussions are continuing at both ministerial and official level with a view to presenting recommendations for consideration by Heads of Government at the European Council on 2 and 3 December.
    Mr. Garrett: Does the Foreign Secretary accept that his reply is, word for word, what I expected and what I have already written down? Is there a possibility, or even a faint hope, that one day he will come to the Dispatch Box and tell us about the chaos within the EEC and whether ministerial talks are failing? Will there be a more blunt approach to the problems? Is it not time that he tackled matters with rather more vigour than he has hitherto done?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am delighted not to have disappointed the hon. Gentleman with the terms of my reply. He asked what progress was being made in the conference which is to take place in less than a fortnight from now. I shall be glad to report to him what progress has been made at that conference, when it has taken place.
    Mr. Cash: I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on the negotiations that are taking place at the moment leading to the intergovernmental conference. Will he assure me that at the moment there is no question of the European Parliament's consent being attached to the decision on whether the treaties could be revised under article 236?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: A number of proposals have been put forward by a number of states that relate to possible amendments of the treaties. I do not recollect any of them dealing with that point.
    Mr. Spearing: As it is known that there are proposals at the conference for the establishment of a permanent staff

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    to the presidency, particularly in respect of the mode of European extra-treaty co-operation, and suggestions for enhancing the powers of the Strasbourg Assembly, will the Foreign Secretary tell us whether proposals tabled by Her Majesty's Government, such as the Stresa memorandum and matters that he mentioned in a recent speech, are to be made public and, if so, in what manner?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: We have put forward no new proposals in the context of the intergovernmental conference. The practical proposals that we put forward earlier this year for the Stresa meeting are still on the table, and have been placed in the Library.
    Mr. Forth: When considering the proposals put forward to enhance the powers and involvement of the European Parliament in Community affairs, decision-making and the composition of that Parliament, will my right hon. and learned Friend, bear in mind the difficulty that it has in achieving consistent policy decisions owing to its shifting political balance and its recent activities with regard to the EEC's budget?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend has drawn attention to relevant points. Our purpose is to enhance the Community's effectiveness, especially its decision-making procedures. I shall bear those points in mind.
    Mr. Deakins: Why is the right hon. and learned Gentleman in favour of giving more powers to the European Assembly when such powers can only be at the expense of the powers of the British House of Commons?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I have reached no conclusions as to any such change. We are examining proposals as they come forward for consideration at the conference. It would not be right to conclude that the powers of the European Parliament could be enhanced only at the expense of the House. They could be enhanced at the expense of other Community institutions. It is because of the diversity of choices that could be made that we are most anxious that any change enhances the effectiveness of the Community's decision-taking procedure.
    Mr. George Robertson: Why is it appropriate for Ministers to brief the press after meetings of the intergovernmental conference, but not to brief the House of Commons on the position of the British Government in the lead-up to the Luxembourg summit? When will we be told precisely what stage the negotiations have reached and what the likely stance of the United Kingdom will be at the summit that will take place in only 10 days' time? Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House now what the stance of the Government is on improved Customs union, a permanent secretariat on foreign affairs, increased powers for the European Parliament through amendments to the treaty and specifically on the French initiative tabled yesterday for increased European union, which is apparently to be one of the surprise subjects that will be dealt with at the Heads of Government summit next weekend?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman has indicated the breadth of his curiosity and indeed to some extent his knowledge of the subject. As he said, the French proposal was tabled yesterday. It will be discussed in the context of the many other proposals before the conference. We shall judge whatever proposals finally emerge by whether
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    they make a real difference to the achievement of our objectives, above all for completion of a genuine common market.

    South Africa
    Dr. Mawhinneyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy towards South Africa.
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement about the situation in South Africa.
    Mr. Rifkind: We are working for the total elimination of apartheid and for rapid progress towards a genuinely non-racial democracy in South Africa.
    Dr. Mawhinney: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his reply. Has he had an opportunity to meet and offer encouragement to any of the South African industrialists, business men and others who recently visited Lusaka? If not, has he plans to do so?
    Mr. Rifkind: I have had contact with at least one of the South African business men. We have obviously noted with interest the efforts being made by the South African business community to persuade their Government to work for a more rapid dismantlement of the apartheid system.
    Mr. Canavan: On the question of sanctions, will the Minister heed the words of black South African leaders such as Oliver Tambo, who recently told the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that real and effective sanctions would be welcomed by the majority of the South African people, who are prepared to make further sacrifices so as to overthrow the apartheid regime and bring about the liberation of the majority of the people? Has the stubborn refusal of the British Tory Government to implement real and effective sanctions against South Africa got anything to do with the fact that many of the British based companies with vested financial interests in South Africa are also big contributors to the financial coffers of the Tory party?
    Mr. Rifkind: Mr. Tambo is only able to put forward his own views and those of his organisation. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Chief Buthelezi, who speaks for many millions, takes the opposite view. With regard to whether the British Government's view on sanctions is because of an alleged connection with donations made by British companies to the Conservative party, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Labour Government also strongly opposed economic sanctions. I leave it to the hon. Gentleman to inquire from his own leadership whether that was because of secret donations to the Labour party.
    Mr. John Townend: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that Her Majesty's Government have no more right to interfere in the internal affairs of South Africa, a sovereign state, than they have a right to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States of America or Soviet Russia?
    Mr. Rifkind: I agree with my hon. Friend that one must always be cautious when commenting on the internal affairs of any country. The need for a peaceful resolution of the problems of South Africa is not only of importance

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    to the people of South Africa but has profound implications for the stability of southern Africa and for wider international issues.
    Mr. Madden: As the South African Government have chosen to stop the media, including the British media, telling the truth about what is happening in that country, why do the British Government allow the South African ambassador to remain here and to use the media, including the British media, to propagate lies about what is happening in South Africa?
    Mr. Rifkind: I notice that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to see the recall of other ambassadors from countries with which we have equally profound differences of opinion. I ask him at least to try to be consistent in his approach.
    Mr. Hayes: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that if there is to be real change in South Africa, it will come from within? Will he wholeheartedly support the many industrialists—I met one who came back from negotiating with the African National Congress in Lusaka—who publicly and openly condemn apartheid?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct to emphasise that at the end of the day profound change will come because of factors and pressure operating within South Africa. One of the most encouraging developments is the increasing proportion of white South Africans, including those from the Afrikaner community, who are taking the lead in calling for much more fundamental and radical reform from their own Government.
    Dr. M. S. Miller: Does the Minister accept that the Government's laudable intentions to see the end of apartheid in South Africa will be widely accepted? However, does he realise that intentions are not enough? Will the "teeny weeny" measures that the Prime Minister said were being taken against South Africa be built up into bigger measures after the six months have gone by?
    Mr. Rifkind: We have always made it clear that we are prepared to contemplate measures that show our disapproval of and do damage to apartheid, but we are not prepared to support measures designed to destroy the South African economy to the disadvantage of all South Africans, black and white.
    Viscount Cranborne: Following that reply, will my hon. and learned Friend also bear in mind, when he is considering British policy towards South Africa, what the effect of sanctions could be on neighbouring countries, particularly if miners native to neighbouring countries have to be sent home as a result of the imposition of economic sanctions?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that matter. One has noticed in recent months that Swaziland has been opposed to economic sanctions, Botswana has said that it intends to campaign neither for nor against economic sanctions, thereby showing its sensitivity to the matter, and the Zimbabwean Government have said that while they approve of sanctions, they would expect to be compensated for their effect.
    Mr. Beith: Would it help the success of the Commonwealth mission if the British Government said, as the Prime Minister did, that if the mission is not successful there are no further measures in the direction of sanctions that the British Government are prepared to contemplate?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that our efforts at the moment are concentrated on the eminent persons group that the Commonwealth has decided to appoint. We hope very much that the objective of the group, which is to establish a dialogue with all those in South Africa who can help towards the evolution of fundamental reform, will be successful.
    Mr. Easthamasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures are being taken to seek to discourage scientific agreements between bodies in Britain and South Africa by Her Majesty's Government.
    Mr. Rifkind: We know of only one formal scientific agreement between British and South African public bodies, and it is due to expire in June 1986. We agreed as part of the Luexembourg measures to discourage those scientific agreements with South Africa which could have a role in supporting apartheid.
    Mr. Eastham: In view of the instability of the South African Government, are the Government not concerned about having an official agreement on nuclear development? Why should South Africa further enjoy associate membership of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority systems reliability service? All those matters cause great concern among people in this country, especially with such an unstable country as South Africa.
    Mr. Rifkind: As I said to the hon. Gentleman, we know of only one scientific agreement between the United Kingdom and South Africa. It relates to the South African astronomical observatory and is due to expire on 30 June 1986. Indeed, the decision to allow it to expire was not taken in the context of the agreement that I announced earlier.
    Mr. Pawsey: What positive benefit to the black community is likely to come from banning scientific agreements between the United Kingdom and South Africa?
    Mr. Rifkind: I remind my hon. Friend that we specifically insisted, when the wording of the agreement was settled at Luxembourg, that we should discourage scientific agreements that could have a role in supporting apartheid, and we had no desire or intention of discouraging any agreements, either scientific or cultural, which could have no possible conection with apartheid. For example, we were particularly anxious to ensure that the work of the British Council, which is concentrating on assisting the black community in South Africa, would not be impeded by any measures of the sort proposed.
    Mr. Home Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will discuss the situation in South Africa with representatives of the African National Congress.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: We recognise the African National Congress as one important focus of black South African opinion and aspirations. The Commonwealth accord called for a lifting of the existing ban on the ANC and other political parties in South Africa and for the beginning of a process of dialogue in the context of a suspension of violence on all sides. Clearly, the ANC's support for such a suspension of violence would enhance its reputation and help to promote dialogue within South Africa and with those outside the country who seek a peaceful political solution to that country's problems.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Is it not spectacular hypocrisy for the Government to condemn violent opposition to the violent system of apartheid while at the same time opposing effective sanctions, which must be the only alternative to violence in overthrowing the system? Since we all know that the African National Congress would infinitely prefer a peaceful route to liberation, will the Government now enter into sensible negotiations with the ANC, which is the universally accepted representative of the majority in South Arica?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I repudiate absolutely the hon. Gentleman's simplistic view that the only alternative to the present position is the imposition of sanctions. I agree that the suspension of violence by all sides would be desirable. That is what we are seeking, alongside the promotion of dialogue with the leaders of black Africa and the South African Government.
    Mr. John Carlisle: Will my right hon. and learned Friend finally explode the myth that the ANC speaks for the majority of black people in South Africa? Does he agree that Chief Buthelezi, who speaks for about 7 million Zulus, has a far stronger voice and preaches peaceful reform rather than violence? Is it not disgraceful that a House of Commons Select Committee asked a violent revolutionary such as Oliver Tambo to give evidence to it rather than asking a peaceful man such as Chief Buthelezi?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The Select Committee must be accountable for its actions and decisions. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that Chief Buthelezi is an outstanding example of someone who speaks for many millions of South Africans and who is not committed to violence.

    EC Draft Directives
    Mr. Allen McKayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the importance which the Government attach to the draft directives currently under discussion in the EC, with particular reference to those in the social field.
    Mr. Rifkind: Our attitude depends on whether a proposal would implement the objectives of the European Community treaty, whether adequate measures already exist in the individual member states and on the regulatory burden which would result from the adoption of a Community instrument.
    Mr. McKay: That is a disappointing reply. Can the Minister explain why the Government intend to veto the already watered-down draft directive on parental leave and why, in the case of directives on workers' information and consultation and part-time working, the United Kingdom always appears to put up the blocks?
    Mr. Rifkind: The Government believe, as a general rule, that such matters are best arranged voluntarily between employees and employers. In addition, there is no advantage in Governments imposing additional burdens on employers that could act contrary to the interests of creating jobs and maintaining employment.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Have the Government any information on whether the South African Government have access to nuclear weapons technology, and will the Minister make a statement?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This question is about the EC.
    Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: Will my hon. and learned Friend be robust in maintaining the point that he has just made so that he does not allow these strange social measures to creep in and make us even less competitive than we are now?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. One initiative taken by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is to achieve greater deregulation in the Community to reduce the existing burden, especially on smaller businesses and firms with few employees. The last thing that we would wish to do would be to introduce or support measures that would increase the burden at this difficult time.
    Mr. Foulkes: Will the Minister abandon all this gobbledegook and Eurospeak? Will he admit that the Government have accepted directive after directive in all other areas—including one to ensure that the temperature at the centre of frozen peas is uniform throughout Europe—but have systematically opposed all directives on progressive social legislation and workers' rights? Has it been caused by a directive from the new, unelected Secretary of State for Employment, or is it merely the result of the Government's well-known dogma?
    Mr. Rifkind: I am delighted and slightly amused by the fact that the Labour party has suddenly been converted to the desirability of European action imposed throughout the Community. We have not previously heard such a view from Opposition Front Bench spokesmen. We are indeed selective. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, we consider each proposal on its merits.
    Mr. Wallace: Will the Minister confirm that there is under consideration a directive to give assistance to agricultural projects in the peripheral areas of the Community, including the Scottish islands? Will he confirm that the United Kingdom Government will not seek to reduce the amount of money that will go into such projects?
    Mr. Rifkind: Obviously the United Kingdom Government wish to ensure that the maximum resources from Community proposals and projects should come to the United Kingdom. Clearly that is an objective that any British Government would be anxious to pursue. We will take that into account as one of the factors when considering any proposals put before us.

    South Africa
    Mr. Hefferasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures are being taken by Her Majesty's Government to seek to discourage cultural ties and exchanges between Britain and South Africa.
    Mr. Rifkind: We have agreed to discourage those cultural events and agreements which could have a role in the support of apartheid. British Council activities in South Africa are unaffected, since they are directed essentially towards black education. There are no cultural agreements between ourselves and the South African Government.
    Mr. Heffer: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman explain why it is that retired professors in this country go to South Africa to talk about Shakespeare? How is it that The Guardian film critic can go to the film festival? How are those things possible when the United Nations has

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    made a clear decision that there should be a cultural boycott of South Africa? Is it not a fact that British Council money is used as a device to allow certain people to break that boycott?
    Mr. Rifkind: If cultural proposals could be shown to be helpful or supportive of apartheid, we would be strongly opposed to them. I do not accept the proposition that the diffusion of Western values, ideas and culture to both blacks and whites in South Africa is an undesirable policy. I argue quite the opposite. If we seek to persuade the South African Government to impose all the values of Western culture, civilisation and our political system, it would be absurd simultaneously to try to cut off South Africa from examples of Western culture.
    Mr. Stokes: I heartily agree with my hon. and learned Friend. Why are we in general so severe in our attitude towards the Government of South Africa, which is friendly to the West and, at the same time, friendly towards many other countries in southern Africa whose internal conditions are far worse?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the substantial problems of human rights that exist in many countries in Africa. However, in the case of South Africa, there is the additional factor that the South African Government have always maintained that South Africa is part of Western society and that they apply Western values. We are entitled to draw attention to those aspects of their policy that are contrary to that claim.

    Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
    Mr. Strangasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the Government intend to take action following the nonproliferation treaty review conference to try to secure agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Renton: We have been trying to achieve progress towards a comprehensive test ban treaty for some time, particularly at the conference on disarmament in Geneva, where we have tabled a paper on seismic monitoring as a contribution to resolve the difficulties that still stand in the way of a treaty. A copy of this paper is available in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Strang: Is it just an insensitive coincidence that the first exercise in the deployment of American cruise missiles from Greenham common for four months should occur right in the middle of the Gorbachev-Reagan summit? Is this the American military's way of telling us that the summit will not change anything? Were the British Government consulted in advance about the decision to take these ground-launched cruise missiles on to Salisbury plain this morning?
    Mr. Renton: As a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said this morning, the deployment of the cruise missiles was purely fortuitous. On the matter of the summit, may I remind the hon. Gentleman of what a White House spokesman said last night, that those who talk at the moment will not know, and those who know will not talk? At this stage in the summit that is sensible advice to follow.
    Mr. Soames: Does my hon. Friend nevertheless agree that a comprehensive test ban treaty is of the utmost
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    importance, and that the argument about verification is no longer valid? Will he and his colleagues press ahead with this matter?
    Mr. Renton: I fully agree with my hon. Friend's first point, but do not agree with his second one. It is necessary to arrive at a system in which there is clear differentiation between seismic disturbances caused by natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, and disturbances caused by low level nuclear explosions. The problem of such differentiation has not yet been solved, nor has the problem of peaceful nuclear explosions. Many countries want to continue such explosions, while wanting to stop military nuclear explosions, but it is obvious that peaceful explosions could be relevant to military purposes.
    Mr. Healey: Does the Minister agree that leading seismologists in Britain, Canada and the United States now agree that it is physically and scientifically possible to distinguish natural convulsions from underground explosions? The hon. Gentleman referred with approval to an article in yesterday's Financial Times. Since the nonproliferation treaty review conference asked the nuclear powers to resume negotiations on a comprehensive test ban treaty before the end of the year, will the Government take the initiative in inviting other nuclear powers to such a conference immediately?
    Mr. Renton: Seismologists differ on technical matters, just as economists do, as the right hon. Gentleman will remember from his days as Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suggest that he reads the paper tabled by the United Kingdom in July, which shows some of the difficulties of seismic monitoring. It emphasises the difficulties, about which many experts agree. It is essential that steps be taken on verification as a prelude to genuine discussions about a comprehensive test ban. We hope that that will continue in the conference on disarmament.
    Mr. George Robertson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your advice? You will have noticed the discussion on question No. 10 concerning the intergovernmental conference of the European Community. Since Britain's accession to the EC, Ministers have regularly reported on the outcome of European Council meetings to the House. We have had no reports from any Ministers on any European Council meetings since the new Session began. A Foreign Ministers Council is meeting in almost permanent session at an intergovernmental conference, but all that the House has to rely on are confused and confusing newspaper reports about the conference and the stance of British Ministers. The meeting is a prelude to the Heads of Government summit, which is to take place at the end of next week and the beginning of the following one. The abandonment of the principle that Ministers report to the House must concern you as well as the rest of us. Can we seek your protection to ensure that Ministers no longer keep the House in the dark on these vital issues?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman knows that whether the Government seek to make a statement is not a matter for me.
    Mr. Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I raised a point of order with you yesterday—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall deal with that in a moment, if I may.
    Mr. Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Several Conservative Members have spoken on South African matters. I have looked up the Register of Members' Interests. Several of the hon. Members who spoke did not declare that they have made trips to South Africa paid for by the South African authorities. Would it not be better if we changed our procedures so that the House knows, without having to look up the Register of Members' Interests, that sponsored trips have been made by the hon. Member—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has asked a question that I can answer. It is not necessary during Question Time to declare an interest, because it will appear in the Register of Members' Interests. If the hon. Gentleman wants a change in the procedures, he should take the matter up with the Select Committee on Procedure.

Questions to Ministers
3.34 pm
Mr. Speaker: I wish to make a statement in response to the point raised by the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) yesterday.
The hon. Member drew my attention to two instances of Members tabling more than one oral question to the same Minister and asked whether this invalidated the 4 o'clock shuffle for the day in question. There have been further examples today.
The present practice of the Table Office in such circumstances follows the recommendations in the appendix to the report from the Select Committee on parliamentary questions in Session 1971–72. This lays down that record cards should be kept of starred questions once they have appeared in print and that if any starred notice is found to exceed the daily limit it should be unstarred and the Member so informed. When this happens, the Table Office has among other things to give priority to the questions in the order in which they are printed. I understand that those instructions had already been followed in the two cases brought to my attention by the hon. Member yesterday.
However, there is no doubt that unfair advantage in the 4 o'clock shuffle can be gained by any Member who tables more than one question to the same Minister. I have therefore given an instruction to the Table Office that, as from today, all questions dealt with in the 4 o'clock shuffle should be checked before they are sent to the printer and that if it is found that any Member has tabled more than one question to the same Minister the lowest such question in the shuffle should be the one to which priority should be accorded and the remainder tabled as if they had been handed in unstarred. The Member concerned will be informed when this is done. I consider that this will constitute a more equitable rule.
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It is my belief that incidents of this kind usually arise from the practice on the part of Members of allowing others to table questions on their behalf. This is a subject which the Select Committee on Procedure might wish to reconsider, as did one of its predecessor Committees in the Session 1975–76, when this practice was much less prevalent.
Finally, I should tell the House that I attended the 4 o'clock shuffle in the Upper Table Office yesterday. I am satisfied that the process is both efficent and impartial. As I said last week, any Member is entitled to attend the shuffle, and I hope that those interested will take the opportunity to do so.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 6 DECEMBER
Members successful in the ballot were:

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith

Mr. Gareth Wardell

Mr. Jeremy Hanley

PRESENTATION OF BILL
  EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL
  Secretary Sir Keith Joseph, supported by Mr. Secretary Edwards, Mr. Secretary Baker, Mr. Chris Patten, and Mr. Bob Dunn, presented (under Standing Order No. 111) (Procedure upon Bills whose main object is to create a charge upon the public revenue) a Bill to increase the limit in section 2(1) of the Education (Grants and Awards) Act 1984 on expenditure approved for education support grant purposes, and to exclude remuneration for midday supervision from the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 12.]

Televising of the House
Mr. Speaker: Before we begin the important debate on the televising of proceedings of the House, I should announce that I have not selected any of the amendments on the Order Paper. I should add, however, that no fewer than 34 right hon. and hon. Members have expressed the wish to take part. A number of them are Privy Councillors. [Laughter.]
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Shuffle them out.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
This is not a party political occasion but a House of Commons debate, and, although I shall, of course, take account of views from either side of the House, it will be the Chair's endeavour to balance the arguments for and against in calling Members to speak. So that as many Members as possible may express their views on this important House of Commons matter, I appeal for brief speeches. I hope that Privy Councillors, who may be called early, will set a good example.
3.40 pm
Miss Janet Fookes: I beg to move,
That this House approves in principle the holding of an experiment in the public broadcasting of its proceedings by television; and believes that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the implementation of such an experiment and to make recommendations.
I regard this motion not as a radical departure from ancient tradition but as one more chapter in the long-running saga as to whether, and how, Parliament should have its proceedings reported. Over 400 years ago, when this House was locked in a contest with the monarchs of the day, starting with Queen Elizabeth and followed by the Stuarts, the House became very jealous of its power to keep its proceedings secret. No doubt that made good sense at a time when monarchs had much greater power, but by the end of the 18th century that contest had been well won. By then, however, the tradition of secrecy was strongly entrenched. There were notable debates and there was controversy, with printers hauled before the Bar of the House for daring to report its proceedings.
I do not think that today anybody would suggest, as did some of our 18th century forebears, that the common people are not good enough to be privy to what is happening in this place and that it is enough for them to hear the results of our deliberations through legislation. However, one argument was advanced which I suspect may ring a bell with several hon. Members: that free reporting of Parliament would bring the danger of misrepresentation and trivialisation. I do not think that that word was used, but that is certainly what was meant.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I agree with it.
Miss Fookes: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is so old, is he?
The same arguments were rehearsed over the sound broadcasting experiment. Although some hon. Members no doubt wish sound broadcasting to come to an end, I think that the general feeling is that it should continue.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Is it not a fact that the radio broadcasts of the proceedings of this House, particularly in the early morning, have trivialised Parliament?
Miss Fookes: No. I take issue with the hon. Gentleman. One of the problems is technical. The microphones that are used in this place give a false impression. It is notable that those who sit in the Public Gallery and watch as well as hear the proceedings do not make as many adverse comments as do those who listen to the proceedings on the radio. I understand from the sound engineers that background noise comes up as foreground noise. In television studios we are asked on no account to rustle papers or to pour water into a glass because of the sound that it makes.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue is not trivialisation but censorship? Is she aware that, on the first day of the televising of the proceedings of the House of Lords, I was invited by the BBC to make comments, so I stood at the Bar of the House of Lords for two hours. Then I went into a pub in Whitehall and saw the same debate on television. The two were completely different. The cameras showed the viewer what the producer wanted him to see. If the proceedings of the House are to be televised, the House must be seen as it is, or not at all.
Miss Fookes: I have noted my hon. Friend's observations, but I do not wish to be diverted from the main course of my speech.
There is a reason why my motion is couched in modest terms. It seeks not to get an opinion from the House this afternoon about televising in principle for all time, but at least an experiment in televising the House, which is overseen by a Select Committee. That would give those who, like me, believe that it is a marvellous opportunity to make our House more relevant to the affairs of the country the opportunity to see that that is so. It will also give those who are genuinely disquieted about the idea the opportuity to see what happens in practice, and to come to a conclusion after the experimental period. I cannot see any objection to an experiment, knowing that in the end the decision rests with the House and with none other.
Mr. John Stokes: My hon. Friend passed lightly over the question of sound broadcasting of the proceedings of the House. Does she agree that many hon. Members feel that the tone, conduct and way in which Prime Minister's Question Time is now conducted is worse than it was before broadcasting was started, and that it has done great damage to the House?
Miss Fookes: The simple answer is that I disagree with my hon. Friend's observations.
Let me labour the point about the experiment. It is important that we at least give ourselves the opportunity to see whether televising the House is likely to work in practice. That is a modest request. I hope that, if the debate goes in favour of the experiment, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will introduce a motion to set up a Select Committee with all the normal powers and general trappings that are associated with it—the power to send for persons and papers, and to have specialist advisers if need be. I have not introduced such a motion this afternoon, because it seemed presumptuous to pre-empt the decision of the House. Nevertheless, if the experiment goes ahead, I hope that my right hon. Friend will act quickly.
Mr. Jim Craigen: On what basis would the hon. Lady consider that the experiment had succeeded, assuming that the House gave its permission to the experiment today?
Miss Fookes: The answer will lie in the decision that the House makes at the end of the day. [AN HON. MEMBER: "What do you want?"] In a seated intervention, one of my hon. Friends asks what I want. If I were allowed to proceed, I would tell the House.
Mr. Robert Banks: Has there not already been an experiment in the other place? Is it not the case that their Lordships would not be sad if the televising of their House were discontinued?
Miss Fookes: On the contrary; a survey of peers showed that at least 59 per cent. wanted the experiment to continue, and a further number, bringing the total to 78 per cent. , wanted it on a permanent basis. The grumbles in the other place have not been about the heat of television lights, but have expressed disappointment when those lights have not been turned on. We learn from their Lordships that they regard the experiment as sufficiently successful to wish to continue with it. They have already decided to do that. Indeed, the experiment in the other place is a good reason why we should follow suit. It seems, not to put too fine a point on it, that they have stolen a march on us, and have gained by the televising of their proceedings while we have lost.
If we allow the cameras in, we shall move forward well into the 20th century—[Interruption] No doubt hon. Members are equally concerned about 20th-century medical advances which might save their lives. There is much to be said for the 20th century.
We must face the fact that many members of the public rely mainly on television for their information about politics. It was estimated in a recent poll that 62 per cent. of the people say that most of their information comes from television—[HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful."] Disgraceful or not, we have to deal with the facts. If it is a fact that most people gain their information from television, we are losing badly by not having television cameras in the Chamber.
Mr. Tim Brinton: I hope to catch your eye later, Mr. Speaker, so I shall not elaborate, but if the close editing, which has been referred to as trivialisation and in various other ways, has to happen as a technique, surely much of the information will be inaccurate.
Miss Fookes: I shall come to editorial control later. I do not intend to answer just because someone says, "Jump—here and now." [AN HON. MEMBER: "Sock it to 'em Janet."]
We already lose by not having television cameras in the Chamber, because we hand great powers to television producers. They can call upon hon. Members to come out of the Chamber to take part in various programmes for which they have set the format, chosen the subject and the Members of Parliament to discuss it. In that way, they exercise a great deal of control. They may still exercise such control, but there will be an alternative if the cameras focus on what is happening in this place.
I believe with great conviction that people have a right—just like those who sit in the public galleries—to see as well as to hear what we are doing, since that is now technically possible.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Sir David Price: Does my hon. Friend's definition of proceedings include Select Committees? If she wishes to ensure a fairer presentation of the hulk of what goes on here, she must include Select Committees. The other place has not yet allowed cameras into Select Committees.
Miss Fookes: I have no objection to the televising of Select Committees, nor, indeed, of Standing Committees, where I personally would stand to gain. However, the Chamber is the most central part and the most difficult, and in an experiment one should concentrate on the area which is likely to be more difficult rather than less difficult. In the fulness of time I envisage that if the Chamber is televised Select and other Committees might also be televised. That would have my blessing.
Some hon. Members have expressed misgivings, not least about the intrusiveness of lighting and cameras. If we were to allow a permanent arrangement, there are means—admittedly expensive—of providing coverage of the Chamber without any discomfort or intrusion to ourselves. I can well understand why, in the past, people shuddered at the thought of what I call an extension of the Lime grove studios to this place, where it is an obstacle race to reach the studio and where the arc lights are exceedingly hot and unpleasant to be under for any length of time.
However, it is interesting to note that Lord Whitelaw, in another place, said that, with the Lords experiment, he has not found the lighting intolerable. My understanding is that with modern cameras there would need to be only a modest increase in lighting in the Chamber, and the cameras could be operated from a distance by remote control. Indeed, only four small discreet cameras would be needed, and they would be mounted under the Galleries.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I am sympathetic to the hon. Lady's argument. Would the special cameras be available during the experimental period, and would the lighting be as inoffensive then as we are led to believe it would be if we agreed permanently to televise our proceedings? Is there not a danger that, if that is not the case, the experiment would put off hon. Members who might be willing to accept the long-term arrangements?
Miss Fookes: I do not know what the position would be for the experiment, but the cameras are certainly available. Of course, we understand the reluctance of the ITN and the BBC to engage in capital expenditure for an experiment only. Let the House be under no misapprehension—the cameras exist. Some of them are British and it would be a small boost to our manufacturing industry if cameras were introduced in this place—[Laughter.] Hon. Members may hoot, but better British than Japanese.
I hope that no one will refuse the experiment on the ground that life would be so uncomfortable under television lights that it could not be tolerated.
I recall that, 10 years ago, when there was a major debate on this matter, a Committee room was filled with what was then the latest equipment showing what could be done if we were seriously interested in televising our proceedings. I suggest that development will have occurred in the intervening decade. If we were to televise our proceedings, that would no doubt give a spur to the endeavours of manufacturers.
Mr. Richard Holt: Can my hon. Friend tell us where she expects the microphones to be, how many there would be and whether they would pick up all the sounds currently picked up by radio broadcasts?
Miss Fookes: The plain answer is that I do not know. I am not a technocrat or a engineer. However, I am assured that these things could be arranged if the political will were there and if the money was found. No practical technical difficulty stands in the way.
It has been suggested that one of the disadvantages of televising the House is that it would have an undesirable effect upon the behaviour of hon. Members, and that they would seek to play to the gallery. Frankly, I do not think that those who are likely to play to the gallery would do so any more in those circumstances than they do right now. Indeed, I suspect that television cameras might have a good effect upon those whose behaviour leaves something to be desired. Those viewing our proceedings at home would see through ploys and stunts, and rudeness and unmannerly behaviour would be seen for what they were and would do no good to the hon. Members concerned.
Mr. Derek Conway: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene on the important matter of whether televising the Chamber would have an effect on the conduct of right hon. and hon. Members. Does she accept that there are often more hon. Members wishing to take part in debates than opportunities to do so, the opportunity for hon. Members to appear before their electorate on television would result in the necessity constantly to interrupt those who have been successful in catching Mr. Speaker's eye? That may be an innovation which, I suspect, the Treasury Bench would not welcome.
Miss Fookes: It is a possibility, but it can be exaggerated. Consider, after all, the number of interventions there have been in my speech, without the benefit of television cameras.
Mr. Joseph Ashton: Was the hon. Lady in the Chamber when Bernadette Devlin, the day after the Bloody Sunday, grabbed Reggie Maudling by the hair? She did not lose any support despite that emotional outburst. Let us not forget the Irish problem that we have. There have been other occasions—for example, when a bomb was thrown and when a bag of horse manure was thrown from the Public Gallery. People take actions such as those to gain support or publicity for causes, and sometimes they succeed.
Miss Fookes: I would not cite the Irish as a precedent for anything. They seem to be a law unto themselves. That aside, there may be occasions when exciting incidents occur in the House, and I was present when Bernadette Devlin went for Reggie Maudling. I do not think it unreasonable, when those incidents occur—they occur but rarely—that they should be captured on camera. We cannot attempt in a modern democracy to hide ourselves or our faults and failures from the general public.
It should be possible under the ground rules that we might establish that, unless it were impossible to prevent, the cameras would not be expected to focus on the Public Gallery, because there would be a danger of people coming in to demonstrate. They would quickly stop doing that if they knew that the television cameras would not be on them. That would be a legitimate ground rule to lay down.
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Other ground rules might be suggested. It would be reasonable for the television authorities, generally speaking, to focus on the Member who has the Floor rather than to cut away too much to other parts of the Chamber. It would be reasonable to cut away to some extent, where there was a real reason for doing so, but it should be done with discretion. It would be an important part of the duties of any Select Committee in any experiment to see how that was done and to keep a watching brief thereafter.
We should need a body to act on our behalf, and I cannot think of a better one than a Select Committee. That body would keep a watching brief always on what was provided to see that it met the general criteria of fairness and impartiality. Let us not forget that there is a legal obligation on the ITN and BBC as part of their licences under the relevant legislation to see that that is carried out. If the cameras were focussed on this place, we should be well placed to see that such basic ground rules were observed.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: From a six-hour debate such as this, television, which is meant to be entertaining, would screen 5 per cent. or 15 minutes of television time. I am sure that we should all like 12 minutes of that to be devoted to the speech of my hon. Friend who now has the Floor and who is making a splendid speech. How would she envisage that time being chosen? If only 5 per cent. of a serious debate is to be screened—there are not in the Chamber many Ciceros to rivet television audiences to their sets—how would my hon. Friend suggest the editors choose that small percentage? It will be chosen, surely, on its entertainment value rather than on reflection, which is what this House is meant to be about.
Miss Fookes: That is a problem, but it is the same problem that faces those who report our proceedings for the newspapers. In virtually every case there must be a selection of material. It is not an impossible task. The fact that it may not be 100 per cent. to our taste is not a good reason for not doing it.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: Is the hon. Lady satisfied now with the press treatment of the proceedings of this place?
Miss Fookes: Not altogether, but it is one of the perils of democracy that what one says or does may be interpreted or reported by others in a way that one would not wish. That is a small price to pay for informing people of what is happening, if they wish to learn it. As there is always the pressure of time, one can never get away from the difficulties of selection.
It seems that those who argue against would infinitely prefer that there should be no reporting of the proceedings here, because there might be an aspect of the way it was done of which they would disapprove. That seems to be the logical extension of their argument, and I do not accept it.
Mr. David Young: Does the hon. Lady agree that what goes on in Parliament extends far beyond what goes on in the Chamber? Does she think that televising only the Chamber would create a balanced impression if the essential work done in Committee and elsewhere were not televised?
Miss Fookes: I dealt with that point in response to an earlier intervention, when I said that I would welcome the

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extension of televising to Select Committees and Standing Committees but that I felt that in a limited experiment, such as I am advocating, one should concentrate on the Chamber, which is the centre of our proceedings and which is, in technical and other ways, probably the most difficult to do. In other words, let us tackle the difficult part first, and if the problems associated with that can be ironed out, it can be extended to those Committees with good effect, so giving a better idea of the totality of the work of Parliament.
While I agree that that is important, we must take one step at a time. Had I suggested that there should be an experiment not only in televising the Chamber but in covering Select Committees and Standing Committees, I should have been accused of trying to rush ahead, stampeding hon. Members into more than they wished to have. I have tried not to do that, because it is important to give full consideration to all the issues during the process of an experiment.
I am aware of your request, Mr. Speaker, for brief speeches, in view of the number of hon. Members who wish to take part in the debate. Contrary to the views of many hon. Members, I believe that the Chamber is ideally suited to be conveyed on television. Television coming into the average lounge does not capture well huge conferences and mass audiences being harangued from a rostrum. It is well suited to the more intimate nature of this Chamber, where there is the lively interplay of interventions and where Members who speak pompously are often taken down a peg or two. It is a good medium to focus on this Chamber.
Mr. Bill Michie: I tend to agree that we should televise the proceedings in the Chamber. Does the hon. Lady share my concern, however, about the standard of debate here—I include myself in that—which may cause the public to campaign for a lowering of the television licence fee? Perhaps we should make financial provision for compensation to be paid to the television companies in that eventuality.
Miss Fookes: I do not share the hon. Gentleman's gloomy view of the standard of our debates. On occasion, we can rise to great heights. That does not always happen on the great set occasions, and very often the most effective debates are not those that are well publicised in advance of staged occasions. There are many occasions when we could well put over to the public through the televising of our proceedings a great deal more of what we do than is currently the case.
I state again my profound feeling that the Government are entitled in a democracy to see as well as to hear and to read what goes on in this place. I am far more sanguine about the impact on the public than, it appears, some of my right hon. and hon. Friends and some Opposition Members. If we go ahead, if the experiment goes well and if the televising of our proceedings is finally made permanent, I think that people will wonder what all the fuss was about.
I have great confidence in the ability of the House to maintain worthwhile traditions and to absorb new ones. It is in that spirit that I commend my motion to the House.
4.11 pm
Mr. Michael Foot: I am glad that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) has
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brought the motion before the House. I hope that we shall have the wisdom to proceed to establish television in the House as soon as possible. I take that view because of some of the arguments that the hon. Lady has advanced, and for some other reasons.
As the hon. Member for Drake said, many of the arguments against televising our proceedings are the same as those that were used against the original proposals for reporting the House. There were bitter arguments when those proposals were discussed. There were many Members who said that the affairs of the House might be trivialised if they were reported and that great debates might be debased. There was one argument that went beyond that. It was argued that if the proposals were implemented the character of the House would be changed. The character of that 18th century House of Commons was changed by the reporting of its proceedings, and a very good thing, too.
The implementation of the proposals to report the proceedings of the House of Commons constituted perhaps the greatest change in the way in which our affairs were reported to the nation. The moral that we can draw from that is that the House, Parliament and the country have the power, strength and ability to take changes and to weave them into past traditions and to prepare them for the future. If the House proceeds to carry the motion, the Select Committee's recommendations, and the proposition which I believe will come later, that the affairs of the House should be televised, I do not have the slightest doubt that the House will be able to deal with all the problems that will arise. It will not be able to do so in the first week or month, and it will take some time to accommodate them, but the strength of the House is such that it can deal with such changes. It would be a retrograde step if we were not to face change here and now. We should have done so long since, when my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and those before him were introducing their Bills on the subject.
I shall recall to the House what was said a long time ago by my predecessor, who was then the Member for Ebbw Vale. No one can say that he did not understand the ways of the House of Commons and the association of the House with the democratic movements and impulses outside. I shall quote some of his sentences, which continue to set out some of the major arguments. He said:
"It was said last week"—
this was said in the course of the last speech that he addressed to the House of Commons, and much of it is strictly relevant to our current affairs—
"that there was a considerable gulf growing between this House and the nation. I believe that to be absolutely true. There is a lessening interest in our discussions. We are not reaching the country to the extent that we did. It can no longer be argued that the national newspapers are means of communication between the House of Commons and the public. The fact that Parliamentary reporting has become a sheer travesty. Apart from a few responsible, solid newspapers with small circulations, the debates in this House are hardly reported at all, and such reports as take place are, as hon. Members on both sides know, a complete travesty of our proceedings.
I am not making a special attack upon the newspapers"—
and that probably went for those who were associated with them. I do not think that there are many Members who would consider those words completely inapposite to the position in which we find ourselves today.
My predecessor then described the incipient system which prevailed at that time, which now prevails and which will continue to prevail if we once again reject the

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proposition to televise our proceedings. He referred to the method by which television companies select the Members of Parliament who are to be most prominently displayed on the television screen. He used strong language in referring to the method, as he often did in other debates. I am sure that hon. Members will regard the following sentences as apposite. He said:
"In fact, there has been nothing more humiliating than to see Members of Parliament in responsible positions selected by unrepresentative persons to have an opportunity of appearing on the radio and television.
In my opinion, there is something essentially squalid … in Members of Parliament beginning increasingly to rely upon fees provided by bureaucrats in the BBC … and ITV."
I do not suppose that any of us reject the fees when they are gracefully offered. None the less, it is much better that the major debates that are reported are the ones that take place in the House rather than those that take place afterwards between Members on both sides of the House who have been selected by those who run Broadcasting House or the ITV.
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: I have the greatest respect for the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor. However, when his predecessor talked about a travesty of the truth because an entire debate was not reported in the newspapers or on the radio, how will the travesty be any less when we will be lucky if 2 per cent. of a six-hour debate appears on the television screen? How will the reporting of our debates be any less of a travesty than it is now?
Mr. Foot: The real travesty is the way in which the hon. Gentleman has recited what I read out. I suggest that he goes away and reads the passage carefully before he misrepresents it again. The televising of our proceedings will be an advantage, because it will provide a further medium to report what happens in this place. I am not suggesting that we can dispense with newspapers; they will continue to report what happens here. However, we shall have a different and alternative form of reporting. If the affairs of the House of Commons are reported by television—this is my opinion, and at this stage I cannot prove that I am right, because it will be necessary to wait and see—I believe that there will be a beneficial effect on the travesties of reporting that take place in many of our newspapers.
Mr. Faulds: Is my right hon. Friend suggesting that if this unfortunate development takes place and the cameras and the microphones intrude further into the Commons, somehow or other we will have hours of responsible reporting of the proceedings of the House of Commons? Is he going to pretend that once the cameras come in that will stop our friends, the broadcasting boys, choosing their favourites, whether nationally or regionally? We can all name them and point at them. There are a few of them around in all parts of the House. Is my right hon. Friend suggesting that that practice will cease?
Mr. Foot: I am not suggesting that that practice will cease. I am suggesting only that we shall have a fresh medium for reporting what happens in the House. There will be misrepresentations and misreports and there will be complaints about them, just as there have been complaints about the newspapers' reporting of our affairs. For us to say, in whatever the year is, 1985—[Interruption.]
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These arguments were brought forward in 1965. For us to suggest in this year that we shall continue to refuse to allow the public to hear what happens in this place by means of television, which is the major form of communication throughout the country, is to deprive the House of its capacities and its rights, and to insult the public.
My predecessor, Aneurin Bevan, went on to say:
"All I am suggesting is that in these days when all the apparatus of mass suggestion are against democratic education we should seriously consider re-establishing intelligent communication between the House of Commons and the electorate as a whole. That surely is a democratic process."—[Official Report, 3 November 1959; Vol. 612, c. 865–67.]
My predecessor when on to say that he had not watched television very often, but he believed that some of its reports could bear favourable comparison with reports in the bulk of the newspapers. That was said in 1959. I think that it would have been much better if we had decided then to go ahead with television. As the hon. Member for Drake said, if that had been done, the public would have accepted it as being as much a fact of life as the reporting of our proceedings in the newspapers.
I hope that we will proceed speedily with televising the House of Commons, though I know that there are arguments against it. It has been said that Front Benchers and Privy Councillors will have an advantage. That is not necessarily the case with the reporting of proceedings by the press, and I do not see why it should be so with this new form of reporting.
It is said also that televising will infringe the rights of minorities and smaller parties. Sometimes it is said that the Liberal and Social Democratic parties will not have—[Interruption.] Perhaps their attendance will improve with the television cameras. It is said—this is part of a larger argument which I must admit I am always rather dumbfounded to hear—that the Liberal and Social Democratic parties have been unfairly treated by the media. The complaint that the two Davids have been unfairly treated by the media strikes me as the basest example of gratitude since King Lear's daughters, Goneril and Regan, turned upon their father! The House of Commons need not devote too much attention to that aspect. I have not the slightest doubt that minorities and individuals will be able to reshape and guard the process as we proceed.
Mr. Joseph Ashton: Does my right hon. Friend remember the serious occasion when he went to the Cenotaph? The proceedings were televised and, because he wore a certain type of jacket, there was an enormous amount of trivialisation. The SDP Members demanded that they should be allowed to go to the Cenotaph as well. Is not this a perfect example of what will tend to happen with televising the proceedings in the House?
Mr. Foot: I recall the incident well. I had on a coat which I had recently purchased. I am happy to have this opportunity to disabuse anyone who might have less understanding of the nature of that coat. My tailor has been complaining ever since. It was a very fine coat. It certainly was not a duffle coat. When I returned to the Foreign Office, where we sometimes had drinks afterwards—I hope that this revelation does not cause too much concern—I was congratulated on the coat by the Queen Mother. Ever since, I have always admired her taste more than I have that of my colleague who complained. But that is a different matter. We can all survive such things.

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I hope that the House will make up its mind. Of course there will be problems about the ways in which we shape this process. I underline as strongly as I can that I think that the power and enduring democratic roots of the House of Commons will be strengthened by this change. It is on that basis that I urge the House, not only to greet this propositon now, but to get it working as soon as possible.
4.24 pm
Mr. Edward Heath: I want most strongly to support the permanent televising of the proceedings of the House, including the Select Committees. I want that to be done by the BBC, ITV and any regional company that wishes to do so.
This is a matter for the House, and it is one of those rare occasions when individual Members vote according to their wishes. It is not a matter for the Government or Opposition Front Benches; it is for each of us to form our own judgment. I hope that that is what hon. Members will do.
I maintain this position as a principle of democracy. The proceedings of the governing body should be widely communicated as speedily as possible. I maintain it also as a principal right of the citizen to know as quickly as possible the details of the proceedings of the governing body. The time when the citizens could gather in the Forum to hear and participate in the proceedings are long past. Our responsibility must be to make our proceedings as widely available as possible.
Mr. Holt: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Heath: I am sorry. As a Privy Councillor, I am not allowed to give way.—[HON MEMBERS: "Oh!"]
Today we have the modern technology to enable us to make the proceedings as widely available as possible.
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it a fact that a Privy Councillor cannot give way, or is it that my right hon. Friend will not give way?
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is a personal decision. I did not say that.
Mr. Heath: I was interpreting a general wish expressed in this debate, Mr. Speaker, that speeches by Privy Councillors should be as short as possible. I thought that I was responding to the statement by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) that the House is a place for reflection. He should spend more time on reflection instead of interrupting me.
Mr. Holt: Will my right hon. Friend extend his argument on democracy and the citizen to the Cabinet?
Mr. Heath: I have very strong views now about the whole question of Cabinet Committees and the attempt to prevent the public from ever knowing that they exist. That has obviously proved in modern times to be absolute nonsense. It would, therefore, be much better if we came clean about a mass of proceedings—for example, the establishment of Standing Committees. That is another bigger question with which we must deal. I have stated my view on this matter before. I have changed my view in the past 35 years. One is entitled to do that.
It has been said that if this is a temporary procedure, we shall not be able to take advantage of the latest technology. I am therefore in favour of hon. Members deciding that this measure shall be permanent. To those hon. Members and the people who have written recently
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about this and who believe that once we start this as a temporary proceeding we shall never stop it, I say that is absolutely right. Once the proceedings of the House are televised, we shall never be able to stop it. We must therefore face the fact that it will be permanent. Let us have the most modern technology straight away and do the job properly. I hope that the Select Committee will bear that in mind.
We come to the question of laying down the guidelines. I have said that I want the permanent televising of all the proceedings of this Chamber as well as of Select Committees. We cannot have a guideline that says that the cameras will show only the hon. Member who happens to be speaking. The public want to see the whole of the Chamber throughout the proceedings. All the arguments that have been raised against that can be raised against having the public in the Strangers' Gallery. Only a few members of the public sit through the whole of a daily sitting of this House. Are we to say they cannot get a proper perspective of this House and that they can be admitted only if they undertake to listen to all the proceedings throughout the day? Of course not.
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Come off it.
Mr. Heath: There is no point in my hon. Friend sitting there reflecting and muttering, "Come off it."
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: If my right hon. Friend talks nonsense, I shall say so.
Mr. Heath: I say to my hon. Friend that the best reflectors do not mutter, "Come off it."
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: I wish that my right hon. Friend would come off it.
Mr. Faulds: The right hon. Gentleman has just put forward an inappropriate analogy. The members of the public, whom we never notice in this place, come and go as they wish. They stay as long as they want to. They push of when they want a cup of tea or a bun. The difference in the television presentation, if the cameras come in here, is that the selectivity will be made not by the public coming and going, but by chaps who have political interests to pursue, who have the old-boy network to trade on and who want to represent a certain attitude of Members of the House, not the complete representation of the enormous mixed feeling of the majority of the House on any issue at all.
Mr. Heath: It is not Privy Councillors who take up the time of the House. Yes, the cameras will come and go as they please, just like the public. I have no anxieties and fears about that.
Of course, I have been irritated, frustrated and, at times, infuriated by television. We must accept that. I am not prepared to say that on balance television in this country is not the best in the world. It is the best and, on the whole, the fairest. The House should accept that.
A point about "two minutes' time" has been mentioned. I believe that interest in the proceedings of the House will develop to such an extent that television will give much more time to those proceedings.
Mr. Graham Bright: The radio does not.
Mr. Heath: Radio gives more time. It covers the whole of Prime Minister's Question Time. If the public's interest is in the House, television will cover it.

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It is said that television will concentrate on particular incidents. Of course it will. If the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who is sitting opposite, jumps up and threatens Mr. Speaker, we all look at the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Why pick on me?
Mr. Heath: The public will look at the hon. Gentleman.
If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence dashes over and picks up the Mace, everyone looks at him. Of course they do. Who is to say that the television cameras must not look at him? That is trying to put television into a straitjacket. I remember very well when an hon. Lady rushed from the Opposition Benches and hit Mr. Maudling. I remember that vividly because I thought that she was going to hit me. She could not stretch as far as that, so she had to make do with him. Of course that would be shown on television. It is right that it should, because it shows the public that some people feel deeply about an issue and want to draw attention to it. Why should the public not know about that? Why should television not cover it? Of course it should.
I remind hon. Members of what happened in the 1950s. In those days it was laid down that no current affairs programme on television could cover any issue to be debated in this House or the House of Lords within a fortnight of the occurrence. For a fortnight television was silenced on anything that was to be discussed in the House. Can anyone imagine that happening today? Of course, that broke down over time. The House has always been slow to accommodate itself to the requirements of public opinion and technology. It is inconceivable that we could treat television in that way today. It is inconceivable that we can continue to treat it as we do at the moment and prevent it from covering the proceedings of the House.
Contrary to what has been said by many hon. Members, I believe that today television and, to a lesser extent, radio are the only firm guarantee of individual freedom in this country. The press which claimed to be so for so long is no longer the guardian of freedom in this country. The power of the press proprietors in this country has never been greater than it is today.
There are those who have said that television will pick out individuals, perhaps for ridicule. I saw one columnist over the weekend who said that people would see hon. Members lying on the Benches and may think that they are asleep; they will not realise that all that those hon. Members are doing is putting their heads against the microphones which are hidden in the backs of the seats. Very well, let us explain to the public that there are microphones in the back of the seats and that Members who appear to be asleep are not asleep. When they are asleep, it should be explained that they are asleep, or they should go and sleep somewhere else.
It is only because press columnists have suddenly realised that this motion will probably be carried tonight that there is this great outburst against the proceedings of the House being televised. It is said that television might try to make fools of us. What do the parliamentary correspondents do in the press day after day? The sole purpose of the parliamentary correspondent of the Daily Telegraph every day is to ridicule what goes on in the House.
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: But they are brilliant.
Mr. Heath: My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) was never a parliamentary correspondent; he was a Lobby correspondent.
Mr. David Harris: Why pick on me?
Mr. Heath: We should look at the last but one parliamentary correspondent of The Times. His sole purpose was to do in politicians. He declared it openly; he told me so. He said that politicians were pompous people who should be destroyed. I told him that in the process he would run the risk of also destroying Parliament. That was too bad.
Any idea that the press today guarantees the freedom of the individual in this country has now become a fallacy and a farce. The one opportunity the public have of judging what we are really like and really say is on television.
By allowing the televising of our proceedings we shall go a long way towards providing once again a guarantee of individual freedom. The public will be able to judge politicians and our political institutions. That is the second principal reason why I so strongly support the permanent televising of all the proceedings of this House.
4.37 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith: The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) touched upon a subject on which he will find considerable agreement in many parts of the House when he pointed to the dangers that now exist in the press and the extent to which we rely upon television. Television has brought great events into the homes of many people. It has given rise to great movements. The enormous British reaction against famine in the Third world owed almost everything to the television pictures in people's homes. I agree with him that television has a great role to play in safeguarding individual rights not just in Great Britain but in many other countries—including, of course, South Africa where there is a determined attempt to prevent television from reporting what is happening.
The right hon. Gentleman and many of my hon. Friends have been advocating the televising of the proceedings of this Chamber for many years. During that time, the press and broadcasting have changed significantly. We must now assess the issue in a slightly different climate. Even with the interests that have been shown in this debate, it would be hard to suggest that today's argument bears any relationship to the public interest in the breakdown a few weeks ago of negotiations between the Football Association and the television companies.
The day is past when anyone assumed that the televising of Parliament would make a huge and dramatic impact and bring about changes. The case for television is straightforward and logical. The proceedings of this House should be open to the public. The public is admitted to our proceedings in person in the form of people who write for the newspapers and in the form of radio microphones. Ultimately, I believe that it will be admitted also in the form of the television camera. Those are proper means of public access which make that access a great deal more widely available. We must set those factors against a background slightly different from that against which the right hon. Gentleman and many of my hon. Friends have

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argued for television cameras over the years. There has clearly been a decline in what we call the Gallery reporting of Parliament—the extent to which newspapers report our debates and seek to set out what is said. If that were true when Aneurin Bevan made the comments quoted by the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), it is much more true now.
Only two or perhaps three serious newspapers have regular Gallery columns, reporting systematically the proceedings of the House. The reports seem to get shorter and shorter and occupy less and less space. The rest of the reporting of Parliament, apart from the news contributions of political correspondents and the parliamentary sketches, which themselves have changed, depends on the occasional line here and there. We see the odd significant or outrageous comment reported in the popular newspapers.
The parliamentary sketch has changed in character. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup referred to sketch writers such as Frank Johnson. I do not criticise the appearance of sketches like that, which are entertaining and funny, but they have supplanted a different type of reporting. There used to be a serious attempt to portray a parliamentary debate as a supplement to the straight report of what was said in the debate. That was a traditional role of the parliamentary sketch, but is has largely disappeared.
This considerable change in press reporting has been reflected in broadcasting. Hon. Members must remember the row there was when "Yesterday in Parliament" changed its character from a straightforward report of the previous day's proceedings to a report in which there was a great deal of interpretation and comment. The programme has settled down after the initial period of being jazzed up, but it lost much as a straightforward report of our debates and deserved many of the early criticisms made of it.
Mr. David Crouch: The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for about five minutes and the House has been listening to him with great interest. I suggest that an editorial director of a television programme would feature the comments of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) about his dress and the Queen Mother's remark upon it, and the observations of my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), rather than take up the interesting remarks of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). That is what worries me. It may be good for debate, but not for television.
Mr. Beith: Those are the facts of life. They will happen tomorrow without the House being televised, but because of them we have to ask questions about how the televising of the House might be carried out. The motion, with its reference to the appointment of a Select Committee, gives rise to important arguments which we must put in the minds of the members of the Select Committee, and which the Committee must consider and bring back to the House.
Some issues came to light in the Lords experiment. People have commented in different ways on that experiment, but the Hansard Society produced an interesting brief interim report in which it made comments about balance. It referred first to a debate initiated by the Official Opposition which was not given the appropriate political balance; the role of the Official Opposition was not properly described. The Hansard Society also said:
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"The Alliance might well be aggrieved by the coverage of the two debates they initiated on 15 May. In the coverage of the first debate on trade union balloting the Liberals were allotted 40 seconds out of a four-minute slot on 'Newsnight' and 50 seconds out of a 15 minute edition of 'Their Lordships' House."
How the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent could regard that as in any way fair I do not understand. The report of the Hansard Society says:
"The debate on the strategic defence initiative and NATO, which was initiated by the SDP, received no direct coverage. The Cross Benches also have been particularly under-represented in television coverage."
Although there is no direct analogy to the Cross Benches in this House, it is a reminder to Back Benchers of all parties of the problems that will be posed if television coverage of this House has no adequate outlet in television programmes. It is to that point that I am brought by those considerations.
It all depends on whether there is an adequate outlet in television programmes for the material which comes from the House and how that outlet is used by those who do the editing. If I take issue with the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, it is on his failure to recognise that the television screen is not the same as someone observing the proceedings from the Strangers' Gallery. The small screen in the corner of the room will cover only a portion of the action in time and in vision. Therefore, the editing role will be important. The importance of the editing role will increase enormously if the amount of time available is limited. If time is limited, what will we see? We will probably see Prime Minister's Question Time. That was what happened in the radio programme. For a long time, the emphasis was on Prime Minister's Question Time. Eventually, it was taken off because there was so much noise that it became an unpopular feature of our proceedings.
Viscount Cranborne: Is the hon. Gentleman not saying that that kind of war is too important to be left to journalists? Might not his objections be overcome with the aid of modern technology and the allocation of one channel entirely to the proceedings of the House, without the interference of editing? If the public were bored by it, they could switch off.
Mr. Beith: I should like to see that, but I do not think that option is on offer. Television coverage on a special channel should not exclude the additional use of material from the House in news and current affairs programmes if it is used properly. It would be complementary to such provision.
If the emphasis were to be on Prime Minister's Question Time, the difficulty of fairness becomes apparent. That has not been shown up in the Lords experiment, because there is no equivalent to Prime Minister's Question Time. How can Prime Minister's Question Time be portrayed fairly if the Prime Minister can be asked two, three or even four questions from the Opposition Front Bench, without the Leader of the Opposition having any difficulty in being called, and only one question is permitted from this Bench?
It would be very difficult to give a fair presentation of political argument. Anyone watching on television at home might wonder why the Liberal Member who had asked a question did not put a supplementary question. The answer is that our procedure does not allow that. The same applies to Back Benchers. Prime Minister's Question Time, as it operates, does not afford an opportunity to

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anyone except the Leader of the Opposition to follow up a point which has been raised. That is a defect in our proceedings, but it will make it difficult to show Prime Minister's Question Time as anything other than a Punch and Judy show; I do not assign those roles necessarily on a sexually stereotype basis.
Again, when there are statements, the statement from the Government Front Bench is followed by a supposed question from the Opposition Front Bench, often longer than the original statement and raising a houseful of issues, whereas other hon. Members, including the representative of a similarly large section of opinion, can raise only one or two points in the briefest of interventions. Statements will be difficult to portray fairly.
Similarly, what will happen in a major debate—the great occasion when a speech from the Government Front Bench is followed by a speech from the Opposition Front Bench? The temptation will be to stop the television coverage and go on to another programme rather than continue to report the speeches of the party which I represent or of Back Benchers of different points of view.
The Select Committee, if given the opportunity to do so, must consider within what context of programming the televising of the House will be permitted. It would be much easier to present a distorted and limited pattern on television than on radio. Radio affords more opportunities for coverage of the output from the House than television programmes.
I do not think that we can take the Lords experiment as entirely convincing, because it has taken place wholly during a period within which the broadcasters 'were hoping to be able to televise this House. It is my view that a daily programme on the House of Lords on both BBC and ITV—initially it was only on ITV—was transmitted only because the television companies wanted ultimately to come into this House. I may be cynical in that view, but I do not believe that the House of Lords would have had its daily diet of televising had there not been the hope that the cameras would come into this House.
The Select Committee will have a major job to do, including consideration of the technical problems which will arise from the televising of the House, such as the placing of the lights and the siting of the cameras. I support the suggestion that there should be remote control cameras rather than having cameramen scattered about the House. There will be technical problems with the microphone system, which is 40 years old.
Mr. Skinner: You are using a new one.
Mr. Beith: I sometimes wonder in which museum was found this microphone that has been added to the system to make it slightly more efficient. The microphone system has been in the Chamber since it was built and it would need to be examined. As well as technical problems, there are the issues of fairness and balance of presentation and output to be considered by the Select Committee.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that there is already a form of censorship and that we already depend on editing? Complete pieces of legislation which are not considered interesting by the Lobby are not reported. Even when the House is full, hon. Members discover that the
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value judgments of those in the press lobby are not the same as those of hon. Members representing their constituents.
Mr. Beith: I believe that that is so. That is another reason why I stress so much the need for the Select Committee to consider what opportunities for broadcasting the material will be available. The programmes of debates in the other place are important, and we could have an equivalent system. I may have been cynical about the reasons for the programmes' appearance, but they are good in general and well put together by the professional broadcasters involved. If we have television in this place, we should have an assurance that, each day the House sits, there will be a proper programme such as "Today in Parliament" giving an account of the proceedings, conducted on a fair basis. If we allowed television to proceed without that condition, we should be allowing the opportunity to slip to give what television should be able to give the people—the opportunity to see what is actually happening in Parliament, not an over-selective and limited picture.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Is he suggesting that the Select Committee should look at the right of Mr. Speaker to select those who speak? That will not change with television. None of us would want that to change. Is he suggesting that the business of the House, which is arranged through the usual channels, sometimes including discussions with the hon. Gentleman's party, should change? None of those things is of any concern to the new Select Committee. Its job would be simply to decide whether the House as it is should be broadcast, not whether the House should change its methods to suit the broadcasters.
Mr. Beith: The Select Committee will have to face that question one way or the other. If the broadcasters were to select from our debates—for example, if they took the first hour of a debate as at present arranged and constituted—there is no way in which they could discharge their obligation of fairness either to my party or, for that matter, to the hon. Gentleman, who frequently speaks at later stages in debates and makes cogent criticism of Government policy. If the pattern were to cover only one hour of the debate, such a view would be wholly omitted.
Hon. Members would be foolish if they ignored those aspects of the problem. I do not share the view of those who say that, because there are such difficulties, we must not allow television into this place. That is wrong. It was as wrong to say that about the admission of the public as it was of the press and radio.
If we are concerned, and if one of the arguments for bringing television into this place is that the public debate of the nation will be brought into people's homes the more fully to inform them of what is going on in the House, we must ensure that the basis on which it is done makes that possible. To some extent, that involves the way in which we organise our proceedings as well as the extent to which broadcasters have the freedom, in terms of the time available to them, to draw from our proceedings and give a fair and accurate report.
There is a three-way political debate in the country at the moment. If television, when it comes into the House,

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tries to portray something different, it will give a totally false picture, and I believe that it will be rejected by the public.
4.53 pm
Mr. Tim Brinton: I agree with many of the cautionary remarks of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). One thing is absolutely plain and certain. If television cameras are introduced into the House, it will never be the same again. If we agree to that move, things will change, and we shall have to accept the change.
It may be known to you, Mr. Speaker, that in a sense I wear two hats. I have announced that I shall not stand at the next election and I have an almost total interest in the electronic media—television and radio—which I freely declare.
Were I outside the House today, I should be speaking energetically in favour of televising its proceedings, but my responsibility, which I feel as a Member of the House, is to say with great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth. Drake (Miss Fookes), who so ably moved her motion, that today is not the time and this is not the right motion to accept, because the time will come.
Right hon. and hon. Members have referred to the evolution to press reporting. There is a check and balance against press reporting. It is called Hansard—the verbatim, written-down word of everything said in the House. I suggest that the same has to apply to television. My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Cranborne) made that point. However, it has been claimed that a channel for Parliament might not be available yet. If not, we must wait for it, because the word that I used—"inaccuracy"—when I intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Drake was meant as no insult or slight to the professional editors of television or radio news. It was meant to describe the inevitable effect of television programming.
Television can never be truly real or truthful. The two-dimensional lens followed by the pair of eyes of the camera man and directed by the director in the Gallery cannot do anything else but select, and selectivity has to mean, in the nicest way, a form of censorship. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said that he wanted to see the whole House in operation. I agree with him. Unfortunately, at this time that cannot be achieved to a satisfactory degree.
Were the motion an attempt to set up a Select Committee in more general terms—not to mount an experiment—we might make considerably more progress because in a matter of years, as technology advances—it may be five or 10 years—considerable progress in cabling, which has already started, will be made. When cable is covering many households, that insurance channel can be there, putting out to the people who want it every mortal and, dare I say, sometimes boring word uttered in the House. That is the check and balance against the inevitability of the technique of editing news bulletins such as "Today in Parliament" and "Yesterday in Parliament". If we go down the path that has been suggested, with luck five Back Benchers might get one minute or one and a half minutes every night at 11.30. If that is so, where is the advantage to Back Benchers of being seen frequently by their constituents? Will not the criticism be, "Why are they not seen more often"?
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I turn from the personal and political advantages to individual Members to the advantages or disadvantages to the House. I see disadvantage that ultimately has to be surmounted. The televising of the House is inevitable some time, but not yet. The disadvantage is that this is a serious House. I have suggested that television can never be truly real. Others have rightly suggested that television is basically entertainment, illusion and impression. Let us use the illusion, impression, entertainment and excitement that television can bring in the right way and with the right consideration.
If we had an experiment, the first inevitable thing would be that we could not contemplate remote-controlled cameras. It has already been said that they would be too expensive. Will we seriously consider allowing gentlemen or ladies—there are camera women as well—standing behind cameras in three different positions in the Chamber on Budget day or during Prime Minister's Question Time? We would all trip over them, or they would trip over us, but either way it would create chaos. If there were cameras in the Gallery, that would be no good to the broadcasters because all that they would get would be the tops of our heads. Although our faces may not sometimes entertain the public as much as we would like, the tops of our heads might be even worse.
I should like to sum up my feelings. Eventually we must televise the House of Commons. We took it slowly when we allowed the press to come in. We invented a check and balance against the press. Let us do the same for television, because the way in which we introduced radio broadcasting has done nothing but bring the House into public disrepute.
4.59 pm
Mr. Peter Shore: The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) is the first hon. Member to make a speech of opposition. It was interesting for the House to hear him, but the argument that selection is inevitably censorship cannot be applied to television alone. The essence of publication is selection. The problem of editorship is relevant and difficult for all the media, not just for television.
I have long taken the view that entertainment is inevitable in the reporting of the proceedings of Parliament. A wider view includes the responsibilities imposed on the BBC by the charter. The duty of the BBC is to instruct, educate and entertain. If those three elements lie within the terms of reference of any serious body reporting the proceedings of Parliament, many of the difficulties envisaged by the hon. Gentleman would not occur—or at least not to the extent that he fears.
The motion moved by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) has been welcomed by the House, but from the many interventions it is clear that she does not command universal support although, as she said, the motion is couched in modest terms. The motion is modest because it seeks the approval of the House in principle to the holding of an experiment in the public broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings and to establishing a Select Committee to consider the implementation of that experiment.
Most hon. Members will be voting not merely on the principle of holding an experiment, but on the desirability of bringing television permanently into the House of Commons. That was made clear in the speech of the right hon. Member for Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath).

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I must make it plain that I am speaking for myself, and that there is no party view. My right hon. and hon. Friends will vote tonight as their judgment and conscience dictate. I assume that similar freedom has been accorded to Conservative Members. I am now free to say that I am in favour of televising the proceedings of the House. Like others, I am mindful of the great battle fought nearly 200 years ago to open up our proceedings to a wider public. That battle was finally won in 1803, when newspaper journalists were permitted to take notes and report parliamentary proceedings. More recently, in 1978, the House agreed that sound broadcasting should be introduced on a permanent basis. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House are far from satisfied with the press or sound radio coverage. They have made that clear in their interventions and speeches. However, only a small minority would support a proposition to banish either the microphones or the reporter's pen from the House today. Once an experiment has been undertaken, the same will apply to television.
By giving access to the press, radio and television, the House is responding to the major changes in mass communications that have transformed our society in many ways. Television is the most influential of the media. Hardly a home is without a television set. People spend many hours watching television programmes, including those on current and political affairs in all their diversity. It is strange and even paradoxical that elected members of Parliament and elected Governments, who are constantly dealing with communication and persuasion, should deny themselves the opportunity of communicating direct with the British public through this almost universal media.
We have heard the main arguments against voting for this modest motion. I wish to deal with them in three main groups. First, there are fears that the televising of Parliament will damage the reputation of the House. That concern is expressed in the amendment on the Order Paper in the names of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) and his hon. Friends. The amendment of the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) expresses the belief that television
"would only trivialise and sensationalise the serious purposes of this place".
There are two strands of thought about trivialisation. One is the possible effect that television would have on hon. Members, and the other relates to the behaviour of the broadcasting authorities. I do not believe that the presence of television would encourage or provoke behaviour by hon. Members that would damage the reputation of the House. That is not because all hon. Members are perfectly behaved now, or will be in the future, but rather that the conduct of hon. Members reflects their dispositions and personalities. Those are expressed regardless of the presence or absence of the microphone or the camera.
I do not wish to be partisan in choosing an incident, but my most vivid recollection of disorderly conduct was when the present Secretary of State for Defence seized the Mace and waved it in the air. There were no televison cameras to incite that action, and radio had not been
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introduced into the Chamber. It happened, and it could happen again, but I do not believe that television will make any difference.
The second strand of the anxiety relates not to the effect of televison cameras on the behaviour of hon. Members, but to the danger of selective reporting and trivialising the reporting of the proceedings of the House by the broadcasting authorities. That is a danger, although it would not arise if major statements and debates were continuously reported, when the problem of selection and editing does not occur. We agree on that. However, we are not defenceless against the BBC or ITV if they offend.
Mr. Heffer: My right hon. Friend has put forward important and fair arguments. In the so-called report of Parliament on the radio in the morning, for example, we hear not only what hon. Members say and debate, but the interjections of a journalist, who says what he thinks and makes snide comments about what the hon. Member may or may not be doing. If there was a clear guarantee that there would be straightforward reporting and nothing else, I should have no objection, but it will not be so. We are faced with the manipulation of the media, as we have been by the Gallery and the radio.
Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend has made a fair point. The answer is that it is for us to impose conditions and a code of conduct on the broadcasting authorities. Those who understand the business of the Select Committees that were set up to study the introduction of sound radio, and the recent House of Lords Committee on television before its introduction there, will know that a number of basic guidelines are laid down and have been accepted by both television authorities.
Mr. Ashton: One of the worst things to come out of politics in recent years has been the growth of the personality cult—the building up of the Derek Hattons, Arthur Scargills and Ken Livingstones, or whoever the media chose to build up into a film star, only to knock them down later on. How can the House stop or control that?
Mr. Shore: The cult of the personality was established not only here but elsewhere long before any suggestion was made about the use of television. Obviously we cannot deal with events outside the House. All that we are concerned with is televising and the rules that may guide the televising of the proceedings of this House. The code of conduct backed up by resolutions of the House applied before the 1978 sound broadcasting experiment was made. Among other things, the code specifically excludes the broadcasting authorities from using material drawn from either House of Parliament for any purpose of entertainment in other programmes. There must be no coverage of interruptions from the Strangers' Gallery, and no use of material drawn from the proceedings for party-political broadcasts.
A point made to the Select Committee on Broadcasting by the Attorney-General is that there are specific penalties, and it would be a contempt of the House if the broadcasting material was tampered with or falsified for the record. Further guidance has been given, and those who have studied the Select Committee report that preceded the televising of the House of Lords debates will realise that guidance is given about such matters as the

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focus of the camera. It is generally accepted that the House of Lords has had a successful and constructive experience of televised broadcasting.
There is a further safeguard. To those who say that the Lords experiment was simply a case of seeing the broadcasting authorities on their best behaviour, the answer surely is that as long as we retain supervision and control through a Select Committee that will monitor and review what is going on, we will always be free to change the arrangements if we seriously believe that the reputation of either the House is being damaged by current practices. The other major anxiety which has frequently been expressed, and which was expressed by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), is about the political impartiality of the broadcasting authorities.
From time to time there are genuine grievances, but most of us accept that in the news coverage of parliamentary proceedings, and in such programmes as "Today in Parliament"—although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) about "Yesterday in Parliament", the one that follows it—selection is carried out as impartially and as fairly as we can reasonably expect. The obligation to be impartial is in the charter of the BBC and is a statutory obligation upon the IBA. I am sure that the Select Committee will consider that most fully, but if we are not satisfied on that score the alternative of setting up a separate parliamentary broadcasting unit is available to us. That deserves the most serious study.
The third and least important of the objections that we have heard relates to the physical intrusiveness of the television cameras. The House of Lords' experiment was undertaken by, I believe, four manned cameras, and an early experiment in the House of Commons would probably require manned cameras as well. In addition, televising of the House would result in an undoubted rise in temperature caused by the lighting. That is certainly unwelcome, but here, too, the experience of the House of Lords is far less unhappy on that count than was expected. Looking only a little way ahead, there is the prospect of remote control cameras and less obstrusive lighting. Those things are not far off.
These anxieties have to be set against the more positive arguments in favour of televising our proceedings. First, it will bring the House into direct contact with the great majority of the homes in this nation. It is certainly not over-optimistic to believe that the level of understanding of issues and the involvement of people in the political process would be considerably enhanced.
The three main functions of this House—statements on Government policy and the cross-examination of Ministers that follows; the presentation of the grievances of the nation, which is the essence of the Opposition Supply days; and the introduction of legislation—are of intrinsic interest either to majorities or to large minorities of the public. The size of audiences cannot be easily predicted, but even the late night reports of the proceedings in the House of Lords attracted audiences of roughly one third of a million, and those debates were late at night. Debates on major issues attracted far larger audiences.
Our proceedings are not adequately reported by the press, and here I echo what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot). Many papers give only a sporadic coverage to the affairs of the House, and others, when they do report it, do so with a
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strong partisan flavour, reflecting either editorial or proprietorial bias. Television will give us more, and less biased, coverage.
Secondly, there is a growing tendency, simply because the House is not televised, for major political debates to be arranged in the television studios. Those debates are governed entirely by rules laid down by the television producers, and the participants are selected entirely by them. A shift of interest away from this Chamber has resulted, and it has affected both the reputation of the House in terms of public esteem, and the level of attendance and interest of hon. Members themselves in the proceedings.
It is in the interests of the House and of the public outside, and also in the interests of strengthening our domestic process, that we should now accept the televising of Parliament.
5.16 pm
Mr. John Stokes: I oppose the motion. It was generally thought before this debate that the motion would be carried, and some people thought it would be won quite easily. So far, we have heard six speeches and I am not being unfair when I say that the best speech was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton), who knows more about this subject than any other hon. Member. I cannot remember on how many occasions I have opposed the televising of the House, but obviously this debate today is the most vital occasion of all. My sole purpose is to appeal to those who have not already made up their minds to listen to what I have to say. I ask those who are in favour to think again.
I realise how strong the pressures are to bring the lights and the cameras and all the other paraphernalia into this Chamber. Some hon. Members will say it is an inevitable trend of the times. Some will even claim it as progress and others will say that, even if we stop it this time, eventually it is bound to come. Surely we in this House have a free will. We do not believe that history is predetermined; therefore, our decisions here should surely shape our future. I also fully appreciate the strength of the media lobby outside and inside the House. I am talking not just about those people who may have some connection with television or journalism, but about those who believe that television is the most important thing in our lives—so good that it ought to be here.
Television should not cover every facet of our national life. For example, few people would advocate cameras going into the courts. The trial and possibly the sentencing of fellow citizens is considered by most people to be too serious a subject for the screen. Similarly, our business here is too serious to be covered by television reporting as we know it today, however skilful and unbiased that reporting may be. Essentially, the purpose of television is to entertain. As I have often said, television is, in essence, a branch of show business. No matter how absurd or comical our proceedings may sometimes be, we are generally about the state of the nation, which is not a form of entertainment.
Television must entertain, or viewers will switch off. The proceedings of the other place were televised only fairly occasionally and often late at night. There were only about 250,000 viewers because, I believe, unlike us, the Lords have no constituents and generally conduct their affairs in a rather graver and quieter manner. Television

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producers in here would be bound to go for the scenes, the rows, the conflicts and the occasions when somebody is named by Mr. Speaker. They would not be interested in about 90 per cent. of our business or in the work of Select Committees.
Television in here would alter utterly the character of the place, and for ever. Some hon. Members would crowd into the Chamber the moment the lights were on to ensure that their faces were on the screen. They would try to speak more, they would put down more questions, and they would interrupt more—anything to get in on the act. We have already heard that the broadcasting of Prime Minister's Question Time has harmed the occasion and damaged the institution of Parliament. Why? Because of the gladiatorial nature of that quarter of an hour twice a week, which is by no means typical of how we spend most of our time.
I realise that there might be advantages for my party in televising the House but I shall not go into that. The issue is greater than party advantage. Once the die is cast and the cameras, lights and camera crews are here, even for a so-called experimental or trial period, it will be very hard to get them out again. Can we imagine a Select Committee meeting night and day worrying all the time, wet towels on heads, trying to monitor the performance of the producers? It is quite impractical and we know it.
Television would also alter the timetable and the tenor of our proceedings. Important debates would no longer start at 3.30 pm but would be timed to start at peak viewing times after the tea has been eaten at 6.30 pm, and those who speak will be chosen for their ability to speak and for their photogenic qualities. [Laughter.] These are serious matters. Our dress and appearance would alter. There would be a great temptation for certain lady hon. Members to wear pretty hats—and why not? Viewers might, I am afraid, be more concerned with the length of their skirts than with the length of their speeches.
We know that people tend to behave differently the moment that the cameras are upon them. For example, the presence of television cameras often provokes riots. Goodness knows what their presence would do here. If an hon. Member unfortunately picks his nose or inadvertently drops off to sleep during a boring speech, the cameras will be on him at once. Those admirable hon. Members who are so assiduous in Committee and so attentive to their constituents, who travel on the Government's business and who attend our debates regularly but who rarely speak, would be forced to try to address the House often. Think what a nightmare it would be if all right hon. and hon. Members tried always to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. It is difficult enough to do so now.
Mr. John Gorst: Is my hon. Friend most against change or most against innovation?
Mr. Stokes: I think that I am against change and innovation. We should hold on to what is good and not try to change everything every second—certainly not the Tory party.
The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) is a great House of Commons man, but, despite what he said, I believe that the cameras would change the intimacy of debate here. The cut and thrust would go. Instead of addressing each other, we should be on a giant hustings addressing the 55 million people of these islands. I dread
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to think what might happen. Hon. Members might feel that they had to alter their hairstyle or wear make-up. Would we all have to be coached in the art of making suitable gestures? Would the amateur and professional actors among us come even more to the fore?
Hard reflection shows that the dangers and difficulties are immense. The longer that this debate goes on, the more those difficulties and dangers will become apparent. I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members who love this place, its history, all that it has stood for and the position in which it is held in this country and throughout the world will not put the whole lot at risk by bringing in all the trappings of a non-stop variety show.
5.25 pm
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): I should like to compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) on her introduction of this subject. The House has anticipated this debate for some months now. I owe the House an exposition of the history of the issue and the central role that the Select Committee would play. I also owe it the obligation of brevity.
As the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) has reminded us, the matter was raised as long ago as 1959 in the debate on the Loyal Address by the then Member for Ebbw Vale, Aneurin Bevan. Since then, the House has had several opportunities to consider the matter, and did so most recently when the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) gave the House, in his ten-minute Bill of 2 November 1983, an opportunity to consider the establishment of a parliamentary television unit to maintain an electronic Hansard. His motion to have leave to bring in the Bill was passed by 165 votes to 159 but, as is the way with Bills introduced under that procedure, it failed to reach the statute book.
Since that debate, some interest in the subject has doubtless been confirmed by the experiment in another place. On 27 November last year, it was decided to hold a six-month experiment in televising proceedings. Hon. Members may have seen for themselves the results of that decision and be able to make their own judgments about it. Since the end of that six months, the decision has been to continue with the experiment until a permanent system has been approved or rejected. I acknowledge immediately that our own procedures and physical surroundings are very different from those in another place. It would be facile to draw a neat comparison between the two.
As for the proposal to establish a Select Committee to examine and report on the modalities of televising our Chamber, I noted what my hon. Friend the Member for Drake said about bringing forward a motion to establish such a Select Committee with the normal powers, to consider the televising of our proceedings, and particularly the experiment, and I confirm that, if today's motion is carried, we will be proposing a motion to establish a Select Committee with the normal powers as soon as is convenient.
The decision in another place to hold the experiment was taken after a Select Committee had reported, and its conclusions had been debated. There has already been discussion today about referring the question to a Select Committee of this House. I believe that this is the only sensible way for us to consider fully the implications and technicalities of an experiment.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify my understanding of the motion? It appears that, if we take a decision in principle, the Select Committee's duty thereafter is to proceed towards implementation—the decision on televising the House having been taken this evening, implementation will be carried out subject to details considered by the Select Committee. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that that principle does not apply and that we shall have a second bite before a final decision is taken?
Mr. Biffen: The short answer is yes, but if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me for the next few moments he will find that that point is answered in my speech.
If the House so resolved, it would be the Select Committee that would hear and reflect upon all the technical and editorial anxieties. It would be the report of the Select Committee that would outline how an experiment could proceed. At that moment, the debate of principle would be joined by consideration of practicalities. No experiment could proceed without the House endorsing the Select Committee observations.
The issue is so important that I believe that a new Select Committee should be set up so that its Members can be chosen by the House to reflect the range of views which are held about the many different aspects of a televising experiment. That in no way undermines the work of the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart). Members of that Committee will have much to contribute to our future discussions on this topic because of the expertise and experience that they already have in this and related matters.
The unique nature of the prospect before us leads me also to believe that the House of Commons (Services) Committee would not be the appropriate group to look at all the facets of an experiment and that a new Committee is required. Without seeking to pre-empt the work of the Committee in any way, it may be helpful to the House if I suggest two major factors among many that I believe that it would wish to consider. I have heard the broadcasters' preliminary thoughts on these two matters, as there was informal discussion with them before this debate.
On the type of experiment and equipment to be used the broadcasters suggest a six to 12-week experiment, with equipment continuously based in the Chamber. For an experiment, they would be content to pay for cameras and staff between them but would look to the House to provide the cabling and lighting required. That is the basis on which the experiment was agreed in another place. The costs to the Property Services Agency for the experiment in another place amounted to £25,000. The financial arrangements for any permanent system of televising the House would, of course, be a separate matter.
The Select Committee would doubtless wish to look at the effects of television cameras continously inside the Chamber. As I understand it, much would depend on the type of camera used for the experiment. Manned cameras on the Floor of the House would enable an experiment to proceed most expeditiously but would represent the greatest intrusion. Remote-controlled cameras would require more time both before they were available and for their installation. Another possibility might be cameras mounted under the Gallery and controlled by cameramen
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seated in the Gallery, or a combination of manned and remote-controlled cameras. It would be for the Select Committee to weigh the merits of these and other suggestions.
Another aspect which would physically affect the Chamber would be the provision of extra lighting. In our previous debates on this subject, it seemed possible that a system requiring no additional lighting could be developed. I understand that this is not now believed to be the case, and that while some additional lighting might be set up outside the Chamber more powerful lighting under the Gallery would still be required. This is something which the Select Committee would want to look at in detail when there had been an opportunity for tests to be carried out inside the Chamber.
The physical differences which televising equipment in the Chamber would bring are clearly not the only aspect that needs consideration. The effects outside the Palace would be at least as great. Particularly important would be the effect on the way in which the House is perceived. This would depend largely on the type of programme proposed and the balance contained in the coverage. Both the BBC and the independent broadcasters would suggest live coverage of major occasions, a daily summary of proceedings, use of material in a wide range of news and current affairs programmes and coverage in the regions concentrating on local issues and Members.
The broadcasters assert that they appreciate the importance of presenting a balanced picture of the work of the House. By balance, I mean not merely the way in which the different parties are treated and the amount of time and coverage that they receive but also the division of time between Back Benchers and Front Bench spokesmen. Consideration must also be given to the type of occasion which is broadcast, either in full or in part. They recognise that, for example, Prime Minister's Question Time alone would not be an acceptable representation of the standard of debate or behaviour in the Chamber. They believe that, as in the experiment in another place, they should have editorial control of the material to be broadcast.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: That is censorship.
Mr. Biffen: It would be for the Select Committee to look at the responsibility that this places on the broadcasters, and to recommend whether it would be acceptable would be one of the Committee's most significant tasks. As with all these considerations, I must emphasise that the ultimate decision would lie with the House.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the time scale. If the Select Committee were to report in the spring of next year, we would hope to give the House the opportunity to decide on the recommendations and to discuss the report soon after Easter. If the decision then was to proceed with an experiment, there would be a delay of some weeks before it could start, to allow for installation of cameras and lighting. Just how long this would take would depend on the type of experiment recommended by the Select Committee and endorsed by the House.
I would envisage, however, that the most optimistic timetable would be for the experiment to start in the last weeks before the summer recess. Caution inclines me to believe that a more realistic possibility is for the

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experiment to begin at the start of the new Session next year. Following the experiment, I would expect the Select Committee to make a further report to the House later next year, offering recommendations to the House as to whether we should proceed to a permanent system of televising proceedings and the form that this might take. The House would then have an opportunity to vote on the matter. That is just an outline of what seems the shortest possible time scale. The Select Committee would, of course, be able to make recommendations about this and other aspects of an experiment.
Finally, I should say briefly how I shall be voting. I believe that a Parliament seeking popular support for its authority should not foreswear what is probably the most effective popular form of communication. Of course we cannot know what the effects will be. A decision to televise is probably as fundamental to Parliament in its implications as was Disraeli's 1867 Reform Bill, which almost doubled the size of the electorate. Like that Bill, it is a leap in the dark. I believe that we have to take that leap, but I remain optimistic enough to believe that this institution can adapt to television and not be mastered by it.
5.38 pm
Mr. Joseph Ashton: The most popular television programme featuring politicians must be "Spitting Image", judging from the size of the audience that it attracts. I shall vote against the proposal tonight because I believe that politicians will ultimately end up as the nation's clowns, portrayed as they are in "Spitting Image". That will happen if we allow television producers to take control of the proceedings, because they are interested only in mass audience figures.
I mentioned earlier the growth of the personality cult and named a few people who have been built up out of all proportion by television. I served on Sheffield city council for seven years. In those days councillors never appeared on television. Now, however, councillors and trade union leaders are bigger than Members of Parliament. They have been built up into personality figures, because television is interested not in issues, but in people.
The current political situation seems to develop into a presidential election campaign at election time. That happened at the last general election when all attention focused on the person at the top. If our proceedings are televised, the same thing will happen here. Every Tuesday and Thursday we shall have "The Maggie and Neil show—Scrap of the Day"—an everyday story of people having a bash at each other. Prime Minister's Question Time would become another soap opera, like the "Buckingham Dallas" with Prince Charles and Princess Diana. It used to be said that religion was the opium of the people. We now have the "soapium" of the people, and the House will become yet another soap opera. Television is bound to head in that direction.
The newspapers have reported that the Prime Minister's change of mind has been brought about because of the advice given to her by Saatchi and Saatchi—that the image of the individual woman standing at the Dispatch Box, with the men howling and shouting at her while she tries to give the impression that she is faced with enormous difficulties in running the country because of all the hooligans on the Opposition Benches, will be worth half
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a million votes. I believe every word of it. The Prime Minister is a shrewd, sharp politician and a very good operator, so I do not blame her. Politicians are in business to win votes.
However, we have to ask ourselves whether the function of this House is to win votes. Is it a debating Chamber or a political soap box that is designed to win the next election? Television will turn the Chamber into a political soap box. Detailed, leisurely analysis by half a dozen right hon. and hon. Members on the Government and Opposition Benches of a weights and measures Bill, for example, or the White Fish Authority will vanish.
During the time I have been here I have seen one hon. Member eating an apple during Prime Minister's Question Time, knowing that everybody would ask, "Why is he eating an apple?" He was eating an apple to draw attention to the plight of the Kent apple growers. Another hon. Member brought in a box to show the kind of conditions in which battery chickens have to live. Yet another hon. Member wore a white suit to draw attention to certain textile problems.
We held a debate on this matter when my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) was Leader of the House. I sat behind my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) and held up a card saying, "He's daft." It was designed to send up the whole debate and show just how ridiculous it was.
Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: That was without television.
Mr. Ashton: Yes. And who appeared that evening on "Newsnight"? I did. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent was absolutely furious that I had sent up the debate, but I did so to show him what would happen. Who interviewed me on "Newsnight"? It was my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). He had to choose who would appear on television after that serious debate, and he chose the comic aspect of it. That is the way that television producers think.
There has been much talk recently in the press about the emptiness of the Chamber. Of course, the press protests about the Chamber being empty. It is not allowed to go anywhere else. It would love nothing better than to go into the smoke-filled plotting rooms of the Tribune group, the campaign group or the 1922 Committee, but it cannot get in. Therefore, it wants this Chamber to be full of controversy, with hon. Members throwing the Mace about and demonstrating so that there is something to write about. If the Chamber is empty, it is lack-lustre. Nothing appears in the press except the merry quips of the parliamentary commentators who want the Chamber to be full, not empty.
We have to ask ourselves why it is empty. It is empty because during the past 10 or 15 years the work load of hon. Members has increased to an enormous extent. When I became a Member of Parliament 17 years ago there was one bloke in my 250-square mile constituency to whom to complain—me. Now there is an army of community project agencies and citizens advice bureaux, and they bring their problems to me. The work load of all hon. Members has trebled.
Hon. Members serve on Select Committees and campaign at by-elections. I was not here on Monday afternoon for the very important statement on the Anglo-Irish summit, because I was visiting a local factory. But

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how many of my constituents, sitting at home watching television, would have known that I was visiting a local factory? They would have said, "We have been sitting here watching television for four or five hours but we have not seen our Member of Parliament. He is probably out skiving, having a day off, or he is in the bar."
It is difficult to explain to our constituents that, if time were allocated among 650 Members of Parliament, we would each get one and a half hours a year. If the proceedings of the House are televised, hon. Members will not get even that. There will be four statements every day from the Dispatch Box. No Minister will ever again answer a written question; it will all be done at the Dispatch Box. The establishment on both Front Benches will organise it. The Back Benchers will be squeezed more and more. We shall end up sounding like the Cecil B. de Mille chorus from "Samson and Delilah". No time will be allocated to Back Benchers if the proceedings of the House are televised.
My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby, who is a keen advocate of television, is an experienced politician. He has a majority of about 350 over the Social Democratic party.
Mr. Austin Mitchell: No; over the Tories.
Mr. Ashton: Then his Tory opponent, if he has any sense, will sit at home while the House is being televised and watch how often my hon. Friend speaks. He will watch to see how many questions are asked by my hon. Friend and then write to the local newspaper and say, "I sat watching television and did not once see the hon. Member for Great Grimsby". What is even worse for many hon. Members is that their re-election opponents will be sitting at home watching television and spreading the message about how often they have spoken in debates.
Our experience of television in this country—I have to dash off in two minutes because I am to appear on television is that it has ruined everything that it has touched. It has killed off the cinema; it has killed off football. Football has bitterly regretted ever having allowed the cameras into football grounds. The spectators have vanished. Unless it is Many Secombe touring Whitby and appearing on "Songs of Praise", religion has also had it on a Sunday evening. Everything has been trivialised in order to attract the mass audience.
Television is most effective when a shrewd interviewer like Robin Day or Alistair Burnet gets right to the heart of the question. With a close-up of the face on the television screen there can be no wriggling. That is the best way for politicians to appear on the box and that is how it should be kept. The televising of Parliament will trivialise it and reduce its importance in the chase for viewers.
5.47 pm
Mr. Tim Rathbone: The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) made an interesting speech. He showed how prone the Opposition are to lapse into reactionary behaviour. I would prefer Ministers to stand at the Dispatch Box more often and make statements, rather than give press conferences or studio interviews, which means that often the public hear about the Government's intentions before hon. Members hear about them.
The arrival of the cameras will mean that once again this will become a proper debating chamber. It will be
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answerable to the country. It will be charged with arguing the facts with the Executive, and with the potential Executive on the Opposition Benches. It will no longer be a Chamber of statement and counter-statement, where so much is governed by the application of the Whip. The House should open it windows, as it has already opened its keyhole, to let in the public ear and eye.
We are talking only about an experiment. This was made clear by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes). We shall find out whether what has proved to be acceptable in other countries is acceptable here. However, there is a need for an experiment in camera discipline in televising the proceedings of the Chamber. They must not be trivialised in television's continual search for show business or innuendo.
I have changed my mind since we last debated this matter. It is crucial that there should be a parliamentary television Hansard that is answerable to this House for television broadcasts. I believe, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), that we need the best possible cameras and lighting right from the outset. We have been misled about what is meant by televising the proceedings by what happens at the State Opening of Parliament. The television companies wheel in extremely bright football stadium-type lights, and we are all blinded and sweaty after a few moments. We need the lighting that is required by the most modern cameras, rather than those floodlights, and we must have them during an experiment to see their effect. Linked with that lighting, we must have cameras which can be sufficiently discreet not to intrude into our business, unlike those which have intruded to some degree in the other place, and which would intrude considerably in this House if manned in a similar way. Even if they had to be manned during the experiment, they could be manned indirectly by people sitting in the Gallery and operating remote controls.
The methods of using the television feed should be carefully monitored. It should be done so that reasonably objective assessments can be made of it. Co-operation with the broadcasters will be essential for that purpose, and I was delighted to hear that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has already had informal consultations with them.
In the end, it is a question, not of playing to the media, any more than the media in the Press Gallery are played to at present, nor of playing to the Strangers' Gallery, where visitors come to see our debates, but of playing to the people in the country, who have elected us to the Chamber and to whom we are answerable.
Television is by far the most potent form of communication. We should try it in the House as a method of building better bridges to those who elect us.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: I agree with the basic drift of my hon. Friend's argument, but surely he did not mean playing to the people of the country. Surely he wants the cameras to observe what goes on in the House, and does not want to encourage hon. Members to play to the cameras, which is what we fear.
Mr. Rathbone: My hon. Friend is the least appropriate person to read more into my remarks than I meant, as he is so successful at playing to audiences both in the Chamber and outside.
If television coverage could give people just a mite greater appreciation of the fact that Parliament is their

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institution, where their battles are fought and their thoughts can be transmitted, we should be taking a step towards the proper operation of a form of parliamentary democratic government which has been trusted and tried, but which, in the minds of many, has been found to be lacking. Therefore, I hope that an experiment will be undertaken and a Select Committee set up quickly.
5.52 pm
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Despite the modesty of the manner and content of the proposal which was laid before the House at the beginning of the debate, and the helpful and judicious examination by the Leader of the House of the technical and experimental aspects, the House is being invited to take a decision in principle in favour or otherwise of the televising of the proceedings of the House.
The present generation of hon. Members who sit on these green Benches are the holders of a trust, which we have received from those who were here before us, and which it is our duty to hand on as little as possible diminished to those who will sit here after us. One of the tragic ironies about human affairs is that we have it in our power at any time to destroy that which we have not ourselves created, that which, if we destroy, we could not recreate.
The unique characteristics of the people whom we represent, and the unique way in which over the years this House has gone about its business, have forged an instrument, which is also unique to our country and this place, to solve the problem of maintaining a relationship and mutual understanding between the Government and the governed. At the heart of that process, which is the business of the House of Commons, there lies parliamentary debate.
There is nothing like the parliamentary debate of this House anywhere else or in any other Chamber. We do not stride to a rostrum to make orations to our fellow Members; we rise where we sit, from among our fellows; we belong, and are aware of belonging, to a collective corporate entity. The corporate entity of the House is the foundation of the power of the debate which takes place in it to bind together the Government and the people, and to render the Government as far as possible intelligible and accessible to the people.
We address the House with the purpose of being heard by, and winning a hearing from, our fellows and equals. Those who occupy offices of state are, for the purposes of debate, no more than the equals of the rest. We address a gathering which knows us, and by all of whom we are known. It is part of the nature of our debate that everyone, as he seeks his own way of bringing his point of view home to the rest, judges the House, and is judged by the House from moment to moment as he does so. Debate in the House is a seamless garment: the whole collectivity of what happens in the Chamber is a single thing. That is what renders any comparison or presumed analogy between this House and another place utterly misleading.
Such being the character of the House and of our debate, the one certain way to falsify it is to abstract from it one element. Partial representation is essentially falsification. We have already learnt to our cost the damaging consequences of abstracting pure sound from the totality to which that sound belongs; sound which all
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of us participated in creating, knowing, as we did so, the meaning of it and what we were doing. It would be far more a caricature if we should seek to represent the House in visual strips—views taken now from this angle, now from the other, not of the Chamber as a whole and of what we all know is happening and understand to be happening, but of some visual point on which it is necessary for the camera to concentrate. That would be the denial and, in my view, the destruction of parliamentary debate as it has been forged by literally centuries of the history of the House, by parliamentary debate as parliamentary debate is understood; for our proceedings are understood much better by those outside, by the people whose mutual tolerance and homogeneity are reflected in the House, than is sometimes represented.
During the debate it has been said that we owe it to our constituents and to those outside that they are to be informed. Yes, I agree. Every hon. Member knows that his existence here depends on the maintenance of communication with those who sent him here. That is part of his duty, on which he does not need to be lectured. What we have no right to do with that which we have inherited, to do to those whom we represent, is to present a misrepresentation of this place—a caricature, a falsehood. Of necessity and by its nature, that would be the result of televising the House.
6 pm
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) deployed arguments, which he put in his usual profound way, which were used when people objected to the reporting of our proceedings—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] I am right. Reports in The Times and the Morning Post were said to betray the House because they were not full.
The House would prefer people to read everything that is said, but we must live with reality. Many people are far too busy or not sufficiently interested to read everything that is said in the House. They do not regard it as a seamless web. The right hon. Gentleman's argument is not strictly relevant to whether television should be allowed to play its part in reporting, albeit partially, the affairs of the House.
Much of the prejudice among right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House towards televising our proceedings is reflected in the belief that television is basically an entertainment medium. That is what my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) said. That fear is also expressed in today's Daily Telegraph, which states:
"above all there is the ineradicable conflict between television as a medium of entertainment, and the Commons as a place of business."
Some in the press suggest that the fourth estate—those who seriously deal with the fundamental issues of this nation—is the preserve of the printed word. I do not think that is true. Television is capable of presenting issues seriously and profoundly with the consistency and sincerity found in any printed journal.
It is strange that in the debates about television in the last few years most hon. Members have agreed that we have the best television service in the world. We have the right to infer that there is a degree of respect for those whose job it is to convey serious views to the public. The

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documentary tradition and the presentation of news on television in the United Kingdom is second to none. That view is shared worldwide.
We cannot have it both ways. We cannot praise those who work in television and believe that their service is second to none, yet, when it comes to using the power of television, trivialise their true intentions. I believe that they regard it as their duty to instruct, educate and. entertain. We do not do justice to the professional operators who serve television.
There are other underlying fears. One is that if our debates are televised, not only will Parliament be trivialised, but exhibitionist tendencies among our Members will be encouraged. Tension has always existed between hon. Members and the media, but the fears expressed today reveal a fundamental mistrust of the media and a lack of confidence in our ability to adapt.
Some hon. Members incorrectly describe what happens when the proceedings of a democratic assembly are televised. I have seen proceedings televised in the United States. Members of that assembly do not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge suggested, wear make-up or try to hog the cameras. The experiment in Canada also belies that charge. Why should we assume that we will succumb to such terrible temptations?
It is sad that this generation of Members of the Mother of Parliaments should be so lacking in confidence that we can behave ourselves. If we reject the experiment we shall be saying that we have no respect for our ability to behave with appropriate restraint, that we have no respect for the professional abilities of those who work in television and that we have no respect for our own professional expertise in devising a system of supervision to ensure that our own guidelines are adhered to. The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) made it clear that strong guidelines have been laid down and that there could be sanctions.
I have no objection to the continuous transmission of proceedings. I should not object to it being fed to newspaper offices. The advent of cable would be a useful adjunct.
I accept that some people believe that we should not take too big a leap and that therefore the proposal for an edited daily version of proceedings might commend itself to the House. If it was thought to be too big a leap in the dark for that to be handled by the ITN or the BBC—I declare an interest as a non-executive director of London Weekend Television—the Select Committee might conclude that it should be handled by a parliamentary broadcasting unit. Editorial direction should not be given to individual Members, because that would be wrong. To deny editors of programmes the responsibility of making their own decisions would encourage irresponsibility. However, we might think it appropriate to set up a supervisory board which could ensure on a daily basis that our general guidelines are observed.
It makes sense for special events to be televised. Our debate on entry into the European Community would have benefited from television and resulted in a wider understanding of the issues. Our debates on the Falkland Islands were conducted with dignity, despite strong passions. Televising them would have led to a deeper understanding of the issues at stake. Perennial high points
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in the parliamentary calendar, such as the Loyal Address, the Budget and debates on defence White Papers, might also benefit from television.
In the days when parliamentary democracy seemed to be at its zenith, in reality Britain was run by a close-knit oligarchy, the members of which were a highly educated elite who communicated easily and naturally. It was a restricted franchise. To that extent, communications between the governed and those who ruled was intimate and prolonged. People knew the rules of the game.
It is sad that today newspapers do not think it right to cover our affairs in detail. It is sad that such is the state of sophistication among our electorate, or the standards of education, that there is not that same close interest that prevailed when the educated minority voted. But those are the problems that obviously come with universal franchise. For that reason alone, therefore, it would be imprudent of us not to rise to the challenge and see how far we could bridge the gap between ourselves and the public—which, whether we like it or not, has increasingly come to accept or to learn from the views and opinions expressed on television.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that television will illustrate, in a way that neither newspaper nor radio can, the under-representation of women in this House? When viewers see the rows upon rows of grey-suited men, will they not do something about it at the next general election?
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Long may we have more hon. Ladies in this House. Although it is not my purpose to promote television for that reason, it is not a bad one.
We must bear in mind that every group in this country, be it a trade union or the CBI, has had to come to terms with the fact that, if it wants to communicate its views, it must use the power of television. I find it odd that a nation that prides itself on being a democracy, and we in this House who pride ourselves on our willingness to communicate with our electorate, should shy at this vehicle to demonstrate that.
The use that the United States made of television did a great deal to restore the faith of American citizens in their democracy. Those of us who visited the United States at the time of the Watergate scandal know the effect that the subsequent inquiries had on the American people. They could see on television that those accused of criminal conspiracies were actually brought to book. The witnesses were examined closely by the inquiry and by committees. Indeed, I strongly argue that television cameras should be present to capture the valuable work done by our Select Committees.
Some fear that television will only encourage hon. Members to disrupt proceedings even more than they do now. On the whole, I find that those who want to disrupt proceedings, whether at public meetings or other events, prefer not to be identified. They probably learnt at school that it is usually best to bait the teacher from the back of the class. Far from encouraging exhibitionism, I believe that such behaviour would look even less attractive when viewed on a screen. The most likely effect would be to cast a question in the mind of the viewer as to whether that hon. Member was fit to be a member of this place.
I think that such outbursts would be self-defeating. Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is not here to confirm whether I am right, but he

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never sits at the back of the class. He is most skilled in the art of controlled aggression. I doubt whether he would ever be tempted by the camera to be even more beastly to the Government, because he would not wish to destroy the effectiveness of his interruptions by playing to the cameras.
I conclude that television could strengthen our democratic roots by going to the market place, which, indeed, was the case in the days of the classical Greek civilisation. It was certainly the way that we attempted to do it when we went to the educated elite in the 19th century. In this mass age, we must use television to get to grips with those who, so far, find our affairs unattractive.
Television is an instrument of democracy. I am not sure whether the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) quoted a particular extract from his distinguished predecessor, Mr. Bevan, but I shall quote it now because he spoke during the first Loyal Address debate that I attended when I entered the House in 1959. He said:
"All I am suggesting is that in these days when all the apparatus of mass suggestion are against democratic education, we should seriously consider re-establishing intelligent communication between the House of Commons and the electorate as a whole.—[Official Report, 3 November 1959; Vol. 612, c. 866–67.]
I think that he was right. I find that a much greater and nobler challenge than to go outside in the rain and stand under an umbrella while a large number of television people ask us what occurred in this place.
6.15 pm
Mr. Sean Hughes: My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) hinted that the best way for a politician to appear on the box was in debate with Robin Day or Alistair Burnet. That begs the question: why is it not even better for a politician to appear on the box in debate with other politicians in the House?
I am a recent convert to the idea of televising the proceedings of Parliament. I agree with much of what I have heard today of the fears and the projected dangers, for example, the heat from lighting and the obstruction of cameras and cables. All that must be controlled, but are we seriously suggesting that such mechanical obstructions should obstruct the televising of Parliament in the late 20th century?
We have heard much about other dangers, such as trivialisation and sensationalism. Are we not fooling ourselves if we pretend that those dangers do not exist here and now, without the presence of the television cameras? It is argued that television will concentrate on the gladiatorial aspect rather than on the intricacies of parliamentary debate. I wonder whom we are trying to delude. The gladiatorial aspect of our proceedings is already the very aspect on which much radio and newspaper comment concentrates.
I listened with great interest to the compelling speech of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). However, I do not share his romantic description of our proceedings. It does not take a new Member of Parliament long to notice that the Press Gallery empties once the opening speeches have been made, only to fill again, miraculously, once the replies begin. If we are honest, we have to accept that it is not only Press Gallery seats that are vacated once the opening speeches have been made.
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Change is rarely comfortable, and its consequences are usually exaggerated—as typified by the speech of the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes). Just as the coming of the locomotive was viewed in some circles as a demon on the move, so the coming of television cameras to this Chamber is bound to be viewed with suspicion, and even fear.
There are those who fear that the televising of our proceedings involves some basic principle of parliamentary democracy. There is nothing new in that. It is the argument that was used when Parliament agreed to make provision for the presss and radio. Indeed, until the last century it was a matter of dispute whether the public should have the right to watch our proceedings. Yet today we make greater provision for the press and the public than we do for hon. Members. I am told that of the 929 seats in the Chamber, there are seats for only 427 hon. Members as against 502 for others.
We do not have to look only at the speeches of the past 10 years against the televising of Parliament to see the same arguments being advanced. We could go back a great deal further. I have read a debate that took place on 22 May 1834, when the House was considering whether there should be an alternative report of our debates. There is a striking similarity between what was said then and what we are saying today. That raises the question: what are we afraid of?
All those years ago, hon. Members made points similar to those being made by some hon. Members today. I do not have time, though I wish that I had, to quote from some of those speeches. One that grabbed my imagination was a most unusual argument adduced by a Colonel Evans, who said that he felt the plan was impossible in the first place and, if possible, was objectionable in the second place. Within a year of that debate the press was accommodated, and shortly thereafter, by an act of God, the Houses of Parliament burnt down.
I have never ignored the part that tradition plays in our lives. I believe that tradition can enable us to make progress painlessly. I have never accepted the doctrine of inevitability. However, I believe that the day must come when television will be given access to the House, just as the press and radio have been given access to it.
Some hon. Members have expressed fear that televising our proceedings would lead to change, even to a reform of our proceedings. That might be so. But that change would occur not simply as a result of placing a few cameras and several yards of cable in the Chamber. It would come as a result of the reaction of the viewers, the people who have sent us here.
Mr. David Winnick: My hon. Friend argued earlier that the press did not sufficiently report our proceedings. Why does he think that an edited version—it would be greatly edited; the programme would last for perhaps 15, at the most 30, minutes—would portray much of the proceedings of the House? Would there not be the possibility that when, as with "Yesterday in Parliament", it was discovered that there was only a small audience, the edited version would become even shorter?
Mr. Hughes: I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) who said that it would be one more Forum. Limited though it might be, one more would be better than none at all. After all, the viewers—the electors, the public—should be at the

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centre of this argument. Despite all the sophisticated arguments and the weighty views of constitutional experts, we are discussing the right of the British people to see and hear the proceedings of their Parliament through the medium of their choice.
I recognise that there would have to be safeguards, and I appreciate the dangers of editing. We are debating a principle. Many of my constituents never read the so-called quality press and the already brief reports of Commons debates. They do not turn to Radio 4 automatically. The medium through which they get the news is unquestionably television, and we shall be doing them a grave disservice and denying them access to our debates if we do not admit the cameras.
I admit that I have a vested interest in wanting my constituents to witness the Government arguing why there is no alternative to their policies. The issue is simply about the right of people in a late-20th century democracy to see their Parliament in session.
In the debate in 1834 Sir Samuel Whalley said:
"If Members wished to discharge their duty conscientiously, they would desire those whom they represented to be fully apprised of their proceedings."
That sentiment has stood the test of time.
6.25 pm
Dame Jill Knight: Although I am well known to be a sympathetic character, I find it difficult to make my heart bleed for the constituents of the hon. Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. Hughes) at the news that they are unable to read the serious newspapers. I am sure that they are able, should they wish, to purchase any newspapers they desire and that, should they not be able to do that, to read the accounts of our proceedings in newspapers in their local libraries. There is no barrier to people reading newspapers. Anybody who wants to learn about the proceedings of this House can do so.
I am in favour of having a Strangers Gallery so that people may come to watch us at work at any hour when we are sitting. However, I am against the televising of our proceedings because that is a totally different matter.
Mr. Nigel Spearing rose—
Dame Jill Knight: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me a few moments to get into my speech, I will then gladly give way to him.
What exactly is the purpose of Parliament? That is the most crucial question for us to ask. This House is, or should be, a place of dignity and serious debate, a place where laws are made and from which the country is governed. It cannot be turned into a form of national entertainment without losing its essential character. My first objection, therefore, which has been referred to by many hon. Members, is the fear of trivialising Parliament.
I join the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) in what he said about our responsibility to history. That responsibility is not to ensure that our faces are on the nation's screens. Like him, I believe that we have a duty, having been elected, to carry on the dignity and character of the House of Commons so that others who come after us may continue it, and we cannot regard lightly our responsibility in that respect.
As we have learnt from televising the proceedings in the Lords, the media's techniques are not conducive to serious assimilation of debate. The cameras there linger for
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perhaps a minute—I am being kind; normally they linger for far less than 60 seconds—on one speaker. The producers believe that a face cannot be shown for a greater time. After lingering for a few seconds, off the cameras go like frenetic butterflies, alighting on such flowers of entertainment value as a sleeping Member, one showing a little too much yellow sock, or perhaps two chatting together ignoring the speaker.
My second objection is that accuracy would undoubtedly be a casualty. Unless all debates were televised to the bitter end, there would have to be selective reporting, and experience shows that highlights chosen by producers do not present a balanced view. The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) brushed that argument aside as though it were a bothersome fly of no account. He said in effect, "If there is an imbalance, we can complain and matters will be put right."
I cannot believe that would happen. Indeed, if we tried to complain, we should be lobbied and there would be banners proclaiming that we were interfering with the freedom of the media to say what they wish in their television programmes. One can imagine the letters that would arrive. If anyone tries to interfere with the media and their ability to choose what they select, there is trouble.
We have experience of what would happen not simply from the televising of the Lords, but from programmes such as "Yesterday in Parliament" and "Today in Parliament". They are examples of the way in which producers allow their natural desire to produce an entertaining programme to take precedence over straight reporting. Those programmes used to be much more accurate than they are now.
I believe that control of the Chamber will slip away from your hands, Mr. Speaker, which means from the hands of us all. Some hon. Members will use the House as a stage on which to project themselves. It was an interesting Freudian slip that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) made when he said that our job is to play to our constituents. We were elected not lo play to anyone, but to do our job. I resent the idea that entertaining is a new role that we should be expected to carry out.
Television in the Chamber cannot give an accurate portrayal of the work of Parliament. So much of our work takes place outside the Chamber in Select Committees, in Standing Committees, in undertaking research in the Library and in our offices. I was interested when my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) overcame that objection by saying merrily, "Let us have television cameras everywhere. Let us have them in Select Committees and in Standing Committees. Let us have them here, there and everywhere."
How much will all this cost? No one has asked about the cost of televising Parliament. There are various estimates—
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: One is £2·5 million per annum.
Dame Jill Knight: My hon. Friend says that one estimate is £2·5 million per annum and I know of that one. Will the cost of the licence be increased to obtain that money, or will the Government grant it as a special allowance? If the former, there will be an outcry from those who strongly object when the cost of the television

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licence is increased. If the latter, I must tell my right hon. and hon. Friends who occupy the Front Bench that there are many better things on which we can spend £2·5 million per annum than televising the proceedings of the House.
I have no wish to bore the British nation to death, and it must be said that most of the screening in their Lordships' House is a crashing bore. Viewing figures bear that out. How many people rush back from the pub, or wherever, and tear indoors to see what is being shown of the proceedings in another place? There are few, if any, who do that. If all our proceedings are shown, the result will be the dullest programme on television. If selections are shown, we shall face the problem of editing for entertainment. It is not the function of the House to provide that.
Where is the evidence that there is any public demand for the televising of Parliament? Has any hon. Member received shoals of letters from constituents begging him to argue for the televising of our proceedings? I am sure that no one has. I have not had one such letter.
Have we seen queues around Parliament square showing the anxiousness of the public to tear into the Chamber to listen to this crucial debate on whether they will be allowed to view our proceedings on television? We do not refer to these things normally, Mr. Speaker, but I must observe, as it is so relevant to the debate, that throughout the course of our deliberations this afternoon the Strangers Gallery has never been more than half full. How is it to be supposed that anyone is keen on spending £2·5 million each year on projecting our proceedings?
Mr. Winnick rose—
Dame Jill Knight: No, I shall not give way. I wish to finish my speech shortly.
How would members of the public take to having the beady eyes of 10 million people on them throughout the time that they spend in their offices? How would they feel if they were forcibly subjected to the gaze of 10 million people for hour after hour as they worked? Imagine the reaction of teachers, factory workers, office workers, doctors, gardeners and shop assistants, for example, if television cameras were to be allowed to portray their every move during their time of work.
This is a stupid idea. Why should we put up with it? What an outcry there would be if we expected those outside the House to tolerate what we are now considering should happen to ourselves.
6.35 pm
Mr. Jack Ashley: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame Jill Knight) was talking nonsense when she said that the televising of proceedings in another place was a crashing bore. One of the reasons why many of us want the proceedings in this place to be televised is the success of the televising of another place, which has aroused a certain jealousy in the House.
I declare a personal interest, because my daughter produces the programme which shows the proceedings in another place. That is a special reason for me to support the motion. Having made that declaration, I believe that most Members watch the proceedings in another place on
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television and wish that the proceedings in this place were televised. That is one of the reasons why the motion has been advanced.
The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), in a typically intellectual and elegant speech, gave me the impression that he was talking to a bunch of masons, as if we were a private elite and had nothing to do with those outside. He could not be more wrong. This is a public assembly and we address ourselves to the public outside the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) came out with one of his typical and characteristic horror stories. He suggested that every bad thing that takes place in the House should be televised. He seemed to be saying that speeches should not be televised, but that everything that his fevered imagination could dredge up should be. He was talking as much nonsense as the hon. Member for Edgbaston.
We know that television producers—I was one for eight years—are extremely responsible people. They lean over backwards to ensure justice for Members of this place and for those in another place. I believe that they bend over too far. They are too responsible and respectful. They should let things go a bit. The charge that they would take the mickey out of us is absurd. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw probably appears on television more frequently than any other Member. He appears every night—sometimes five times a night. He knows full well that television producers will not disregard the conventions of the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw mentioned the Prime Minister's conversion. If it is true that the Prime Minister is now in favour of televising our proceedings because she thinks that it will lead to a political advantage for her, she has bought a boomerang. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and shadow Ministers are twice as good as the Prime Minister and her Ministers. The longer this Parliament continues, the more obvious that will become. I hope that my hon. Friend will take that point on board.
One of the main objections is that the exhibitionists and buffoons—some of those who have spoken, but not those who are in favour of the motion—will take over the show. I am sure that Mr. Speaker will not stand for that. He will continue to call hon. Members to contribute to debates as he does now. Like other assemblies, we have our buffoons and exhibitionists. They have not taken over in the United States, Australia, Canada or western European assemblies, and there is no reason for arguing that they will take over here.
It is said that television will trivialise our proceedings. I cannot believe that this legislature will be turned into a comic show merely because we have television cameras in the Chamber. To argue that way is to disregard the function of the House and to insult hon. Members and the public.
We must come to terms with the modern world. We must move with the times. We must stop fighting the battle that our ancestors fought by keeping the press out. Television is the modern press—
Mr. Beaumont-Dark indicated dissent.
Mr. Ashley: Yes, it is. Television is the modern means of communication. Without it, we shall continue to cut ourselves adrift from public opinion. We shall become an

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offshore legislature. We shall legislate for a tribe about whom we know nothing—the British people. We need television because it is the most important medium of communication; we need television to restore our link with the electorate who sent us here; we need television to put us back in the centre of the stage to ensure that we again become the prime forum for public debate; and we need television to restore the lifeblood of public interest.
Ultimately, we are speaking not simply of the convenience of the House. Parliament is not about parliamentarians. The British people have the right to know and see what goes on. We have a duty to them to expose our proceedings and allow them to be televised. The sooner we do that, the better for all concerned.
6.41 pm
Mr. Geoff Lawler: We have been bombarded with excuses and exaggerations as to why the House should not he televised. We should strip away all the excuses and exaggerations and come to the overriding principle that this is a democratic institution. It is in the nature of any democratic institution to provide access to the population. If access can be provided to the mass of the population through technology, what right have we, in a democratic society, to deny that access?
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) referred to the popularity of the Strangers Gallery. Despite the inconvenience caused to the police and administrators who run the Palace, the security problems and the costs, we encourage people to fill the Strangers Gallery. Unfortunately, that Gallery has a limited capacity. Many other constraints also prevent people from coming to the Palace—for example, the cost of travel and the inability to take time off from work. If the people cannot come to us, we must go to them. The press and radio have provided us with the means of doing so and the logical extension is television.
Dame Jill Knight: I must raise a rather important point. Does my hon. Friend have evidence that there is a demand?
Mr. Lawler: There is a demand. Many of my constituents would love to look around the Palace and watch our proceedings but are not able to do so because they cannot get away from work or because they cannot afford to come here. The demand is evident from the queues outside the Palace. If the demand cannot be satisfied, television can provide a means of satisfying it, enabling people to stay in their homes to watch what is happening here.
Hon. Members would like more people to watch the proceedings. They are proud when their friends or constituents are in the Strangers Gallery. They are rightly proud of the House. Why are they reticent about letting more people see the House? Why are they suddenly not so proud of the proceedings and want to hide them away from the public?
The public should see us as we are, as they do when they come to the Strangers Gallery. They will be able to do so through television. If the public do not like what they see, we must look to ourselves to change. We must not be arrogant and say, "The public do not understand the nature of our debate, our behaviour and the emotions that are aroused. Therefore, they should not be exposed to us and we should not expose our behaviour to them." If there is
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a strong reaction to the way in which we conduct ourselves, we should question our behaviour, not the public's view.
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: I am fascinated to hear my hon. Friend say that we should change. I presume he means that, because only about 3 per cent. of any serious debate will be shown on television, we should all start to speak in slogans. If television has to cover every hon. Member's contribution, we shall all have to say about four words, or there will be selectivity. What change is my hon. Friend prepared to make in his excellent speech to get his seven-word slot on television?
Mr. Lawler: My hon. Friend has made two points. One is about change. I am not advocating any change—
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: My hon. Friend was advocating change.
Mr. Lawler: No. If the public react to the televising of our proceedings and to seeing more of what happens by saying that our behaviour is unruly and that we do not have informed debates, we shall have to react. That change will evolve, as our behaviour has evolved over many years.
When I look tomorrow at The Times, the Daily Telegraph or The Guardian, I shall have had no say in whether any of my speech is covered or, if any, how much. At the most, the reporters will have picked out two or three paragraphs. The logical extension of the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) is that we should deny the press the right to report what goes on in the House because it has to make that selection.
For a body of people who are naturally publicity conscious and only too keen to receive publicity, a number of hon. Members seem to be uncharacteristically shy. Politicians cannot have publicity only on their terms. We cannot be selective about the publicity that we receive when we conduct our public duties. Part of our role is to go around factories and to tour old people's' homes in our constituencies. We like the public to see in the newspapers photographs of ourselves in those places, and no doubt we are on our best behaviour there. If, the next day, we behave in a less than decorous manner in the relative privacy of the House, we should not expect to be unobserved. We should be judged by our performance here just as we are judged by our behaviour in our constituencies.
One argument is that any change in the House is anathema and that the atmosphere is unique and sacred. I do not believe that television will change the atmosphere or our behaviour. If there is a reaction because of televising our proceedings, let it happen. This place is not our House. We have no sacrosanct hold over it. We have no right to say that the present atmosphere is now and for ever shall be. This is not our place. We are its temporary residents. It belongs to the people, and we should not cosset it and seek to possess it. If change is forced upon us, we should accept it and not perpetuate this ivory tower.
Mr. SpearingDoes the hon. Gentleman agree, first, that anyone who looks after his constituents cannot be in an ivory tower and, secondly, that we have an obligation to the public to conduct public affairs in the Chamber in a reasonably efficient and proper way, as suits us as public representatives? I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees with both statements.
Mr. Lawler: Of course we have the right to conduct ourselves efficiently and properly. Exposing our behaviour on television to the public will help us discover what is acceptable to them. As, for example, with the Canadian experience, we might improve our behaviour and make ourselves more acceptable to the public.
On the hon. Gentleman's first point about the ivory tower, unfortunately this Chamber is regarded as an ivory tower by the public. It is irrelevant to the national political scene, in the public's view. With the growth of pressure groups and Committee work in the House, what goes on in the Chamber is almost unknown and mainly irrelevant. That is a shame and something that should be corrected.
We can increase the Chamber's relevance by making people more aware of what goes on here. What is said here is not everyday conversation down at the local public house and shop. We do not find heated debate about how so-and-so performed in such-and-such a debate, or what an hon. Member said. That is a shame. By putting the Chamber on television, we might find that happening. We might find people discussing what happened in the Chamber and how a particular hon. Member made a splendid contribution or point. Suddenly the Chamber might become relevant to the national political scene. I am sure that that change would be greatly welcomed.
If we reject this opportunity to give the Chamber new status and significance, we are in danger of going the other way. We shall lose credibility and be seen to be anachronistic. We shall continue to be irrelevant. Like it or not, television is a way of life for the vast majority of our population.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, hon. Members do not have much time to watch television. When I return to my constituency, I am struck by how out of touch I appear when I cannot join in much of the conversation, which invariably centres on what has been on television during the previous week and what has happened in the latest soap opera. The public do not spend hours pouring over parliamentary reports in the newspaper, reading Hansard or listening to Radio 4.
The House decided a long time ago to allow its deliberations to be made public. Once, the most appropriate medium for that was the newspapers. Today, it is television. We should seek to use the medium which the majority of the population use.
This country has passed on its democratic heritage to many countries. Many of the offspring of the Mother of Parliaments have taken the advance that we are debating, with positive results. It will be a shame if we resist such an advance and refuse to learn and benefit from their experience.
The privacy of our proceedings was originally promoted to advance democracy. To reject the opportunity today to open up our proceedings to the widest possible audience will be undemocratic and will weaken the relevance and stature of the House. People elect us to govern them, and they have the right to watch how we do it.
6.53 pm
Mr. Gordon Wilson: The hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Lawler) lives in cloud-cuckoo-land if he believes that the public will receive his speech or mine at great length and watch them unadulterated and unedited. My impression is that there is not much demand for the televising of Parliament. People
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will probably want to see snippets on the "9 o'clock News" or "News at Ten", and that will be the end of it. I am not against the televising of Parliament, but we must be realistic about the coverage that will be achieved.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should not treat the Chamber as if it were a sacred institution, with the idea that it would be sacrilege to alter it. I am only too well aware of the inadequacy of our procedures. Hon. Members must be frustrated by the lack of financial power we have in the House compared with many Parliaments in western Europe and beyond.
We are in danger of taking the debate out of context. I was prepared to vote against the motion because it seemed to me wrong that we should vote for a principle without knowing the practicalities. According to the motion, which the hon. Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) moved so well, we were apparently prepared to agree to an experiment in principle and then to have running sidesaddle with it, so to speak, a Select Committee charged with the job of implementing it but not with the consideration of whether it would be desirable.
However, the Leader of the House has swayed some of my views, because, if we follow his advice and vote for the motion, we shall not be voting for what it describes. In other words, we shall have an opportunity to consider the principle and the detail when the Select Committee reports. It will then be possible to put the boot in to the proposal if it does not match up to what we expected.
The House, through the Select Committee and the debate that we shall have in six months, can dictate to the broadcasters what it wants to put over. We could make many mistakes. We do not have to look far from sound broadcasting, which I think was one of the biggest gaffes the House has made for a long time. That is saying something considering some of the peculiar decisions that we have made.
Broadcasters naturally look at the most entertaining and lively parts of our proceedings. That must of course mean Question Time. Question Time is entertainment. We should all stagger back in disbelief if we ever managed to obtain some information out of Question Time. It is there. It is prime time. The public desperately want tickets to get in and it is carried to its zenith—if I may use that description, probably incorrectly—at Prime Minister's Question Time. We face each other in an adversarial, indeed gladiatorial, fashion and make a great deal of noise. If we want to get rid of the noise, we must alter the shape of the Chamber and call people to a rostrum to make speeches. We should soon all be preserved in aspic and the quality of many of our debates would decline.
One of the dangers of introducing television to the House without considering our procedures is that their shape may change in a way that we have not determined. Right from the start, we must take on board the fact that we are moving towards television because television is the principal medium of communication. It is the medium for election fighting. It is anachronistic to go around knocking on doors and speaking to our constituents. With one television appearance, we can reach more constituents during an election than we can with all our knocking on doors. Leaflets through the door are not a useful way of imparting ideas. Television is the medium.
I suspect that one of the reasons why we are discussing this issue tonight is that we are in the gravitational pull of a general election. Some people have been looking at their sums and are beginning to say, "We should have coverage

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on television during the run-up to an election because we may put over our case more effectively." If we introduce this experiment, we should not do it in the run-up to a general election. It would be far more effective to introduce it immediately after the election of a new Parliament.
I have some doubt about what the practical effects of television coverage might be. I take up some of the points made by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) on the subject of Question Time. If Question Time gets the television slots, members of a minority party will want to be called, because Question Time receives the coverage. All hon. Members will have to change their priorities. It will not just be a matter for minority parties. There will be competition for a restricted time slot.
Mr. Allen McKay: Would it not be better, instead of coverage being slotted into programmes, to have a 24-hour channel so that people could switch on and off when they wished? That would prevent all the problems. It could cover the work of Select Committees and the Standing Committees which do most of the work.
Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman has raised an interesting point. He must remember that the electorate might not want to watch a 24-hour channel. Heaven forbid that we move to a 24-hour day.
My point is still valid; if we are talking of television we are talking of prime time. Prime Minister's Question Time takes place at the right time of day for coverage in the news programmes. In general debates, if a Member is not called before 5 o'clock, his chances of being quoted in the television news have probably gone. The point has already been made about statements. We will have to re-adjust our individual, party and parliamentary priorities to meet the demand made by the new medium. Many of us may be disappointed and disillusioned by the experiment, and electors may reach a similar view.
Practical problems must be considered. I want to make it clear on behalf of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party that we would not be happy to be represented on the Select Committee by a member of the SDP or the Liberal party. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where are they?"] They have vanished to do their plethora of television interviews. At one time we could have trusted members of those parties, because they wanted to further the interests of smaller parties. They now have ambitions beyond their stature. They are imperialist in the sense that they want to aggrandise themselves to get media coverage. That is legitimate, but I should not like to trust our parties to their care on the Select Committee.
The Leader of the House will not be able to answer other specific points, but I wish to put them on the record on behalf of Plaid Cymru and the SNP. What facilities will be made available to broadcasters in Scotland and Wales? Will adequate editing facilities be available? The experiment should not be done purely on a metropolitan basis. Many hon. Members will want their local television stations to have access to coverage of their own speeches as frequently as possible.
Important debates on housing and local government in Scotland and Wales often take place after 10.30 pm. Will the television cameras cover those proceedings in the wee small hours of the night? Those debates will affect our constituents more perhaps than grand debates on foreign
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affairs. If the cameramen will be there at that time, who will pay them? Will it be the House, the BBC. ITN or the local companies? The local companies would not want to take on that expense.
There are the proceedings of Select Committees, and of Standing Committees too, although heaven forbid that anyone should want to watch what we get up to there. What about the Scottish and the Welsh Grand Committees'? The Scottish Grand Committee deals with some Bills that might otherwise be taken on the Floor of the House. Is the Scottish Grand Committee to be covered? If not, we should insist that all Scottish Bills are dealt with in the House because of the possibility of television coverage.
If the Scottish Grand Committee is covered, will its proceedings be televised when it meets in the Scottish Assembly building in Edinburgh? As the Leader of the House is no doubt aware, it meets in Edinburgh four or five times a year to deal with legislation and other important matters. Who will take the cameras there for occasional visits? Yet it would be wrong if important visits by Scottish Members to the Scottish Grand Committee in their own country were not covered. The gallery is not large enough to accommodate many members of the public, although I must put it on record that my experience of meetings in Edinburgh is that the general public are not keen to inflict on themselves the same masochistic damage that we inflict on ourselves.
I support in principle the televising of the House, but I have reservations about how it may be put into effect. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I will support the motion because of the assurance given by the Leader of the House that the principle of coverage will be married to a detailed report from the Select Committee and that we will have another bite at the apple.
7.5 pm
Sir Philip Goodhart: My instinctive belief is that we should be cautious about letting the cameras into this debating Chamber. My view was powerfully reinforced on the evening before the House of Lords television experiment began when I watched a trailer for the next day's debate. There were three scenes on the trailer.
There was a picture of an American Congressman going mad. We moved from Washington to the Floor of the Bundestag in Bonn. We did not see a great speech by the German Chancellor. Instead, we saw a riot by the Green party. We moved from the Bundestag to the European Parliament. There was a picture of our own dear Les Huckfield, whose microphone had been cut off because he had breached a rule of European parliamentary etiquette—he had pulled out a loud hailer and was addressing Members of the European Parliament, who looked somewhat bemused. Clearly the television producer believed that those three scenes were good television, but they showed Parliaments at their worst.
I fear that violence and bad behaviour will spread to this House if its proceedings are televised. My fears were not much assuaged when I watched the first serious debate from the House of Lords on the Second Reading of the Local Government Bill, whose purpose was to abolish the Greater London council and the metropolitan counties. I had reservations about that legislation, but my noble Friend Lord Elton made an admirable speech. When it came to televising the speech, the producers could not

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allow a shot of longer than 30 seconds from one angle of a speaker at the Dispatch Box, so we had 30 seconds of Lord Elton's left profile, 30 seconds of Lord Elton straight on, and 30 seconds of Lord Elton's right profile. The television producers were clearly getting alarmed about how they would fill the next 30 minutes of his speech.
Relief came in the shape of Lady Seear. The deputy leader of the Liberal party, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), claimed that the Liberals had only 40 seconds' coverage in an important debate in the House of Lords. The Liberal party managed to get 40 seconds in the debate on the GLC because one of the straps of Lady Seear's undergarments slipped over her left shoulder, and she spent the next 40 seconds or so trying to get it back by shrugging her shoulders. The television cameras zoomed in on her because that provided relief from going from one dull-looking Member to another.
That underlines the fact that not only did the producers wish to trivialise the important debate that was taking place, but unfortunately that televising speeches from the Lords or the Commons will be very dull indeed, visually speaking. The producers and the audience will seek relief after a few seconds.
If we must experiment—I am very doubtful whether we should, and I shall not vote for the motion—we would be well advised to follow the example of the United States Senate over the years. Although the cameras, under strict control, have gone into the House of Representatives in Washington, the Senate has always resisted having the cameras on its Floor. However, the Senate allows the cameras into the Senate Committees when the Chairman and Members of those Committees agree. Some of the televised hearings in the Committees have been historic. I was in Washington at the time of the hearings presided over by Senator Ervin, during the Watergate scandal. Undoubtedly those hearings helped to change the course of history.
If we were to have cameras, we would be well advised to begin with the Select Committees rather than on the Floor of the House, because the cross-examination of witnesses, the courtroom scene in the Select Committee, is naturally good television. One does not have to fiddle around looking for odd gimmicks to make it real, attractive and interesting to the audience.
If we pass the motion, I hope that the Select Committee will look with equal seriousness at the televising of Select Committees as at the televising of the House.
7.14 pm
Mr. Austin Mitchell: The basic reason why the House should be televised is to bridge the gulf between us and the people. After all, we are the people's Parliament. We are not a closed debating society. We are the representatives of the people. We are not speaking for ourselves. We are discussing the issues that matter to the people and making decisions that affect their lives. Therefore, we should be available to the people on the medium from which they now get the bulk of their information about news and current affairs. Lament it how some will, that is the fact. If we are not on that medium, we relegate ourselves to a backwater that is irrelevant to the people and their lives.
Arcane abstractions have been dredged up from the 18th century via South Down, but we are not a
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19th-century debating Chamber. We are not influencing and persuading each other. We cannot control the Executive, because we cannot bring it down. We have a system of government by party in which the people choose the Executive, and the people alone can bring it down. In that situation, the House of Commons is the open part of the system, where decisions become public for debate. It is the forum of the nation where the issues are discussed. It is the stage for the battle of ideas where the case for and against what the Government are doing is put before the people. All that is done to inform and educate the people. Yet what a farce it is if we do not reach the people.
The popular papers do not report us. The qualities give bald summaries for a small readership. The radio, which is a minority channel, carries noisy extracts of our debates, but television, the only genuine mass medium, carries only sound radio with still pictures. We are the weaker for that. We can be effective and reflect the public's concerns only if we have firm roots outside. We should be involved in a two-way communication process with the people outside, because it is the people who are the root of our power.
All the arguments against televising Parliament have one common characteristic—they are all defensive. There is a strange coalition of opponents. We have hon. Members who feel that their inadequacies in performance, or the lack of it, should not be exposed to the gaze of the public. We have hon. Members who feel that the House is so awful—
Mr. Faulds: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Mitchell: No.
Mr. Faulds: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Mitchell: No, I am sorry, I am not giving way.
Mr. Faulds: He is frightened of the argument.
Mr. Mitchell: Some hon. Members feel that the House is so awful that the public should not be allowed to see it. Some feel that the public are so stupid and ill-informed that they will not understand what we are doing. Over the past few days journalists, men of the written word, have been bitterly hostile to television coverage, which will cut down their importance, their job as self-appointed middle men mediating between us and the people at inordinate profit to themselves. Both the Charles Moore article in the Daily Telegraph and the Hugo Young article in yesterday's edition of The Guardian showed contempt for politicians and television.
In the Chamber, two fears are paramount. There is fear of change in the Chamber and fear of television itself. To those who fear change in the Chamber, I say that, with television, the lighting will be somewhat brighter than it is now, but the House can be unconscionably dim at times, can it not? If we bring in the cameras straight away, they will be operator cameras. If we wait until the start of the next Session in November, the broadcasting organisations will be able to supply wall-mounted remote-control cameras that are unobtrusive.
It is up to us in the House to define the terms of the coverage. We could go for the Canadian style of coverage or that in the United States House of Representatives, where the Speaker is shown in mid-shot and there are no cutaways, no shots of disturbances, no shots of people rushing like lemmings to jump from the Gallery almost as fast as nationalised industries have been flogged off—no

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sensationalism, just straight, neutral coverage. We could go for the same coverage as the House of Lords, which allows cutaways. The decision is for the Select Committee and the House, and it has to be taken predominantly in the light of what the House wants rather than what the television people want. That is the important thing. The decision is ours. When we are televised, what will come over is what is effective now—serious, straightforward Chamber debate.
Mr. Faulds: How gullible.
Mr. Mitchell: The speech of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), unlike the interventions of my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds)—
Mr. Faulds rose—
Mr. Mitchell: That speech would come over—
Mr. Faulds: If my hon. Friend has the guts to give way—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order.
Mr. Mitchell: I shall not give way.
The speech by the right hon. Member for South Down would come over extremely well on television, wrong as it was, because it was compelling argument. That is the truth of the matter. It is not the histrionics of the demagogue or the subtle lying of the studio, but straightforward Chamber debating that comes over effectively. It is striking from the Hansard Society report on the House of Lords coverage how little the House of Lords has changed because of the advent of television.
There are those who fear change. We have conducted ourselves like a closed debating society for many years. What good has that done us? What respect is there for the House of Commons? The public are increasingly alienated from parties, politicians and politics. They do not respect or hold hon. Members and the House of Commons in esteem. The public are not in awe—they are bored and alienated and believe that we are remote. We must reach out to the public, and we can do so through the media from which they get their news and information.
In this closed debating society, for much of the day the Chamber is dying on its feet, which may be especially true when I am speaking. The Chamber is badly attended and uninspiring for large chunks of the day. The only way to remedy that is to make it once again the focus of attention by putting it on television and making it available to the people. Through television we have the chance to make the Chamber important and a focus of interest and concern once again. We should seize that chance.
I never understand the fear of television—a fear that has been so manipulated tonight.
Mr. Wilson rose—
Mr. Mitchell: Television is essentially a mirror of reality. It has faults, but reality has faults. If we object to reality—
Mr. Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you enlighten me? Under which code of practice are we debating? Is it the pre-television one, when one gives way to interventions, or is this the post-television age when we do not?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for me.
Mr. Mitchell: The interventions have been so repetitious and so absurd—
Mr. Faulds: My hon. Friend has not listened to them. I am so grateful that he has at last been overcome by embarrassment and is prepared to listen to a moment of contradiction of some of his arguments. I rose first—I made many attempts later—to make the point that my hon. Friend seemed to be basing his attack on some of us on the fact that we were defensive about television. I happen to like the medium. I am rather good on television. If, unfortunately, the cameras come in, I will probably benefit from it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that this is an intervention, not a speech.
Mr. Faulds: What I wanted to say to my hon. Friend when he refused to let me intervene is that we are not defensive about proper television coverage of this House. If there were a continuous programme, I would vote for it. What we are defensive about is the selective presentation that the media boys will give to televising the Chamber.
Mr. Mitchell: I thank my hon. Friend for making it clear why I did not give way in the first place. I did not want his speech to punctuate mine.
The critics of television are getting it both ways. They say that the House is too dull to be covered, and that it will be reduced to a form of entertainment. They say that people will not be interested, but also that 10 million people will be watching for every flaw, every absentee Member and every aberration. If they are influenced by those fears, they can only suck it and see. The experiment gives us a chance to see whether the fears are realised. That is what an experiment is about.
Mr. Faulds: Jump off the cliff and see where you land.
Mr. Mitchell: It is no use listening to abstract fears of people who have not seen the proceedings on television and who are defensive about it. The best way is to watch the experiment and see how it works.
The critics of television must not forget that we already appear on television and in the least appetising, most inadequate way—a voice-over radio broadcast with irrelevant pictures. Why should not the reality be shown through the television cameras? We should be clear that the coverage will be different for each level and channel. Television will have several forms of coverage of our proceedings. Eventually, we shall have full-time coverage on cable. Cable is coming. In Canada, there is full-time coverage by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the United States has such coverage on C-Span. They attract small but devoted, interested and involved audiences. There will occasionally be full debates on important issues, as there have been on the radio. There will be daily and weekly edited summaries of what has happened in Parliament on BBC 2 and on Channel 4. There will be extracts of speeches and statements in Parliament in the news and in the current affairs programmes. There will also be regional coverage by the regional companies of regional matters and Members of Parliament.
Each channel will make its own decisions and choices. There is enough evidence that, within that range of choice, everyone will see something. However, those who wish to see more and to pay continual attention to the House will

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be able to follow their interests, and why not? It could be a long debate, or simply a reminder on the news that Parliament exists. In contrast to the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), some of my constituents have telephoned me in Grimsby during the week and, when told that I am in London, respond by saying, "What is he doing in London?" There is an amazing ignorance of Parliament.
The fear of television is unrealistic. The debate has moved on more recently to an argument about which party will have the advantage, and whether Front-Bench or Back-Bench Members will benefit. The Prime Minister is reported to have changed her mind yet again. I hope that she is not, as The Guardian put it, "uncharacteristically dithering". She has everything to gain by appearing on television, as does the leader of the Labour party. Both will come over brilliantly, because ability comes over well on television. That is what people will be looking for. If ability comes over well, it is not a matter of which party wins or loses. The whole Chamber will gain, because we shall have shown that we are doing a serious job. We shall allow the public to judge our ability, performance and how we get on in this testing ground. We shall not leave that judgment to the insiders—to the sketch writers who relay their views in their theatre criticisms, peddling small doses of what happens here, at inordinate profit to themselves.
The experiment in the House of Lords has shown how successful television can be. It was not naturally the most exciting television, it was not naturally the most propitious experiment that could have been conducted, but at the end of the experiment, 81 per cent. of a representative sample of 200 peers wished the experiment to continue. In a sample of the public interviewed by BBC audience research, 72 per cent. believed that television gave them a good insight into what was happening in the House of Lords. Moreover, audiences were good. There was an average reach of 1·5 million for the afternoon and of 300,000 for the late night programmes.
Indeed, when the ITN programme "Their Lordships' House" went out late at night, the audiences were one fifth higher than they had been for the programmes in the preceding four weeks. That is the test. The consumers liked it, and those who participated liked it and wished it to continue. That 19th century institution down the corridor has shown us the way into the 20th century. It is a success story that should give us the confidence to take the plunge. If we do not, that House will continue to get the prestige of being on television.
The House of Commons should go ahead on a similar basis. We could do so by voting today in principle and then allowing the Select Committee to agree the coverage that will be most acceptable to hon. Members. Then we should put it to the test of an experiment, preferably as long as possible and as late as possible, so that we can install remote-controlled, wall-mounted cameras, which are less obtrusive, and decide the matter on the basis of reality, not the hypothetical fears that have been projected today by those who are scared of television.
Only when we have seen how it works will we have to take a final decision, and power will remain in our hands throughout that process. I hope we will decide not on fears, either of ourselves or of television, or on the kind of quibbles that have been paraded before us, but on what
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is in the best interests of the people who have a growing desire to know, to see, and to be involved. All the evidence is that people want the House to be televised.
Secondly, we must decide on the basis of what is in the best interests of this House. We are the last major Chamber to allow television in, and it is television alone that will enable us to do our real job, which is to put arguments before the people. We have dithered, delayed, hesitated and hovered. Enough is enough, and it is well past the time to reach out and talk directly to the people. We can do it through this experiment, and if we go ahead we shall be moving into the 20th century instead of cowering in fear of the world outside, pretending we are still living in the 19th century, doing a job that is dead in a Chamber that is half alive.
7.31 pm
Sir John Farr: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). My interest in televising Parliament and, in particular, the House of Commons stems from the ten-minute Bill which I introduced in 1978. It was lost by about 10 or 15 votes. In 1978 and at subsequent times when the matter was placed before the House by other hon. Members under the ten minutes rule, there was a growing strength of opinion in favour of televising proceedings of the House.
The evidence that I laboriously collected from all over the world before introducing my ten-minute Bill has been strengthened, not nullified. The facts and figures I presented about democratic countries that had television in their Parliaments and had never thrown it out have been further strengthened in the seven years since 1978. I am not aware of any country which televises its parliamentary proceedings that has got rid of it. It has worked, and in some countries it has created a demand and been successful.
Many people ask me for the two tickets that I get every 15th day for the Strangers Gallery. Those are the only tickets I get. There is an intense demand to see what happens in the House of Commons at all hours of the day and night. I also know that many school children want to see what is going on but cannot because of the congestion in the Strangers Gallery. The main impression that many of them have—an impression that is possibly accelerated by sound broadcasting—is that Parliament consists of wigs, maces and robes and is a rather stultified debating society. They have the impression that it does not apply to juveniles in Britain and does not have much to do with them.
Such pupils will certainly not get into the Strangers Gallery to see and hear a debate. Last week I was host to 24 children from Leicestershire. They were able to peer into the Central Lobby at the Speaker's procession, but all they could see was the Mace and the wigs. That is their impression of Parliament. Since 1978 there has been a growing desire to make children aware of what happens in the House of Commons, to make them appreciate the value of the arguments and the sincerity of the place. Unless we make them appreciate those things and give them an opportunity to observe proceedings in the Chamber perhaps via the TV camera, then future generations may not have a Chamber in which we can debate as we are doing today.

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A few years ago I was trapped in Strasbourg, waiting in a hotel for a Council of Europe session which did not begin until the evening. There was a vote of no confidence in the French Government and the debate was televised live. My French is mediocre, but I could understand enough to know that it was a riveting debate, although the cameras portrayed the Members deploying arguments for and against. It was done in great detail. The cameras gave shots of Deputies cheering and jeering. Although my French is rusty, I was able to gather the essence of the arguments. Ever since I have held the opinion that hon. Members have no right to keep out young people or anybody else in Britain who wants to see the whole of what goes on in this place. The sooner that happens, the better.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup is not present at the moment. For the first time I find myself agreeing with everything he said. That is rare, although I have been in the House as long as my right hon. Friend.
We do not want to rely on Select Committees. We are public servants and have a duty to the public to let the cameras in so that the people can understand the arguments. The sooner we let them in, the better. The people who are against progress, by opposing the television cameras, are the descendants of those who kept the general public out of here until 1845 by passing an annual sessional order. Until 1913, such people kept the press muzzled. It was not until 1909 that the Official Report was established. The only reason for its establishment was that various leaked reports were so inaccurate that it was felt desirable to establish an official record. As I say, until 1909 they fought against having the press in here at all, and until 1919 those same people kept women out of the Press Gallery.
The House of Commons must move ahead. We have to show the country that there is much of which to be proud here, and the sooner we let in the cameras the better.
7.38 pm
Mr. Eric S. Haffer: Over the years that I have been in the House of Commons, I have voted for television coverage of the House. We all must learn by experience. I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) that it is our privilege to change our minds. I have changed my mind on a number of issues. I changed it on the Common Market. I was originally in favour of entry into the Common Market, then I came out against it and lost a certain position as a result. At one stage in my life I thought passionately that everything Israel did was more or less without criticism, but nowadays I take a rather different view.
I have changed my mind on this issue as well, and I have done so because of experience. We allowed radio into the House. Before that, in the mornings and evenings we used to get a fairly good report of our proceedings. Most hon. Members who had spoken in a debate were mentioned, and something of what they said was given. Even now, the late evening programme is much better than the morning one. In the mornings, we get not the reporting that we used to get but the views of the journalist. Indeed, we sometimes get far more of his or her views than of what is happening in the House. I get a little fed up with that.
I have been in the Chamber and heard first-class speeches by hon. Members who might not speak often or be the stars of the House or political stars in the country,
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but they have not been mentioned. There might be some argument for admitting television if we had a channel given over entirely for the purpose, but everybody has said that that will not happen. There is bound to be at least an edited channel.
We all go to party conferences and know that it used to be argued that, if television was allowed in, those at conference would play to the cameras. That has not happened. People forget the television, but I have been told that people have attended the conference, then watched it on television in the evening but have not recognised it as the same conference because it is edited. They say, "It was not the same conference that I was in."
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: It was the one you left.
Mr. Heffer: I have to tell the hon. Gentleman—no, I will not. He knows what I was about to say.
The editors decide to edit and some of the best speeches made at the conference, which are made by delegates who are there perhaps only once, are not covered at all.
Some of the best speeches that I have heard in the House are not the great oratorical feats; they are made by hon. Members who perhaps bored us at the time but whose speeches, when read and examined, turn out to be excellent. Such speeches would never get on television.
Mr. Spearing: They might never be made.
Mr. Heffer: My hon. Friend is right. I have reached my conclusion on the basis of experience of what has happened elsewhere.
Some hon. Members are regularly involved in television programmes. I have to admit that I have had my fair share. I suppose that I am no longer as photogenic as I was when I was 42. We get older, we lose a few teeth and our faces change. We are not the handsome young men that we were when we came here. However, I have gone along to a studio and been filmed for half an hour and asked all manner of questions—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: And you get two minutes.
Mr. Heffer: My hon. Friend is too kind. That happened to me once and I got about two seconds. Those two seconds followed an interview with a member of the Communist party with whom it appeared I agreed entirety. Perhaps they did the same with him. One tiny part of my interview was picked up and shown out of context. Will the same not happen here? Is it not possible that little bits of our speeches will be picked out and used as somebody else wishes?
Mr. Austin Mitchell: No.
Mr. Heffer: My hon. Friend is saying that the people who run television are above suspicion and never do any such thing. He must live in a world that is completely different from the one that I have lived in. Of course there are some television producers whom I would trust absolutely—if they assure me that something such as I have described will not happen, I know that it will not—but there are others who have told me that nothing will happen, whom I have believed and who have manipulated what I have said. I will never go near those producers again. There are many programmes on which. I will not appear. I am occasionally asked whether I will appear but I say, "No, thank you very much. I have no intention of getting involved in your programme because

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I know that you will talk to me for 20 minutes, cut the interview and use it in a way other than what was intended."
I have another argument against televising the House, on which I might lose those Conservative Members who have been with me so far. I am frightened about how televised material could be used by the establishment. The establishment can manipulate modern media dangerously. I do not think that of all media, although they are usually not up there in the Press Gallery. Some are, but the Gallery is usually empty.
Modern technology is marvellous. We used to be able to make a speech at five minutes to midnight on some important issue and it would be reported. At least the Daily Telegraph would have said something. Modern technology means that if we speak after 7 pm, it does not matter how good our performance is, the speech will not be heard of. It is therefore argued that it would be better for us to have television, as speeches would then be covered.
I thoroughly disagreed with somebody who recently suggested that sketch and parliamentary writers should not make fun of us. Frank Johnson is a great loss to the parliamentary system. I wish that he was still here. I am not being critical of those who replaced him, but he was better than any of them. That is a fact. I have had my leg pulled by Frank Johnson as much as, if not more than, most people. That is what politics is about and nobody objects to it.
We are not talking about that but about something more serious—the manipulation of the media in the interests of the establishment. That will not be in the interests of the people. I therefore do not believe that television coverage will be in the people's interests unless it is done strictly on our terms. Some argue that that is what we are being asked to vote for. I am not sure. It is not an option.
If it was suggested that all our proceedings were to be televised, I should think differently. Nevertheless, hon. Members would be hard put to cut themselves into five pieces. Members of Select Committees would have to put a notice up in the Chamber saying, "I am not here because I am on a Select Committee." Hon. Members may be on a party committee which happens to be meeting somewhere in the House or they may be members of a Joint Committee considering a specific issue and so may not be present in the Chamber.
Some members of the public believe that the Chamber is the only room in the House, but there are many others. One of the principal reasons for the recent depletion of attendance in the Chamber is that there are too many Select Committees. Hon. Members spend more time in Select Committees than they do in the Chamber.
It will be argued in my constituency that I was always in favour of televised proceedings. When I was asked about that in 1978 I said that I wanted television cameras in the Chamber to prove that we were not all comedians. Listening to some of the speeches tonight, I think that I was wrong; we have proved that we are all comedians. That is not a particularly good thing.
I ask the House to think seriously about the motion and consider whether we are to open up a process which will make it easier for manipulation by the television companies and for the establishment who will work in their own interests against the democratic process. I ask the House not to support the motion.
7.52 pm
Sir Paul Bryan: On 24 November 1966, 19 years ago next Sunday, the House debated a similar motion. The late Richard Crossman, as Leader of the House, led for the Government, and I, as shadow Postmaster-General, led for the Opposition. We both supported the motion; it was lost by one vote.
Mr. Heffer: I voted for it then.
Sir Paul Bryan: I believe that the House is as divided today as it was then. I am not so confident as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) that the motion will be passed. In the past 20 years the arguments for and against this motion have remained unchanged. Those in favour argue that as television has become the main source of information for the bulk of the people it is only right that Parliament should not remain the one area of their lives that television cannot illuminate. Those against say that the invasion of the cameras will bring an end to Parliament as we know it. My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) put that case in picturesque terms.
Although the arguments have remained the same, the balance has swung in favour of the ayes. In the 1960s it was thought necessary to produce evidence from polls and surveys to show that television was the main source of information. After 50 years of television, with television sets in 99 per cent. of homes and two sets in many of them, average viewing time is now three and a half hours per day. Television has clearly become so embedded in our national and private lives that the question is no longer in doubt. Television has become so dominant that even without cameras in the House it is the chief source of parliamentary news for the electorate, either through interviews or from the soundtrack of proceedings.
The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said that the humiliation of politicians is now complete. Members of Parliament literally beg their local television producers to be allowed on their screens. It is Brian Walden, not Mr. Speaker, who decides whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be allowed to address the masses in their homes. That is so outrageous that our successors will marvel that we tolerated it for so long. We should not be sorry for ourselves, because we have brought that humiliation on ourselves. It is our constituents who have just cause for complaint.
During the miners' strike, thousands of unhappy people in the mining areas of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire must have longed to hear their local Members—the only people who knew the local situation—speaking in the House on their behalf, but they had to be satisfied with whichever politician the producer of the programme thought would be good on the box. That is a scandal which should not be allowed to continue. I wish that the people of Northern Ireland could have seen our proceedings on Monday when the Prime Minister made her statement and answered questions. It was an impressive hour, and the genuine concern of the whole House for Northern Ireland could not have been shown so vividly by any other form of communication.
Mr. Winnick: I agree, and my next comment will not be the final point in the argument, but if people have such a strong wish to see what is happening here, it is interesting to note that we have not received any letters from our

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constituents on the subject. The only letter that I received was from my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell).
Sir Paul Bryan: I do not find that at all convincing. In every country in which the televising of proceedings has been established the public have been pleased and no one has wanted to throw the cameras out once they were in.
The arguments against televising the proceedings have been based on the arguers' estimate of what might happen after the advent of the cameras, fortified by varying measures of wishful thinking. Even after many years in the House I should not like to presume what will be the exact effect of television, but by now so many other legislatures have already accepted it that there is a great deal of evidence of its effect and we can now view the prospect with more knowledge and less fear. None of the 25 or more legislatures which have adopted television has subsequently rejected it. In every case the public have approved, usually strongly.
There are, of course, growing pains and early difficulties, such as playing to the camera. John Fraser, European correspondent of the Toronto Globe and Mail, said in an article in The House Magazine earlier this year about the televising of the Canadian House:
"Within a relatively short time, however, everyone settled down and it is generally held today that the standard of debate is more dignified and pertinent. Playing to the cameras receives the same sort of internal contempt as playing to the galleries did, and there have been no really serious abuses".
We should not be too proud to concede at least the possibility that television could improve our proceedings here. Nobody can have welcomed the decline in attendance in the Chamber in recent years. I agree with the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who has not taken part in this debate, but who said in an article last year:
"The televising of Parliament would, I believe, reverse the trend to non attendance. The MP's need to communicate with the electorate which at present drives him to the television studio would then compel him to be present in the Chamber. With more people in the Chamber, the sense of a proper debate would be reconstituted. The Chamber not the television studio would again become the place where important arguments were made and contested."
Mr. Crouch: I suggest that this place would be no longer a Chamber, but would be a television studio. Where would the cameras go? Already 200 Members have nowhere to sit. This is an intimate assembly and the result would be that many of the few seats that we have would be taken up by television cameras.
Sir Paul Bryan: The technical difficulties are not the strongest part of my hon. Friend's argument. If modern cameras are introduced, I do not believe that there will be any problems.
Despite the reassuring experience in Canada and elsewhere, no Parliament is exactly similar to another, and ours is unique. Therefore, we ought to approach the venture with care and base it upon our own broadcasting practices. Under the British broadcasting system, companies and the BBC have great editorial freedom, but, almost unknown to the general public, they operate under very definite guidelines which they cross at the peril of losing their licences. For instance, I recall that Granada was required every week to put out seven hours of local interest programmes. The ITV companies must not exceed a quota of 14 per cent. of foreign transmissions. The ITV
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network has to screen 104 hours of adult education programmes. That is a strong reason why British television caters far more for minorities than does television in other countries.
Mr. Heffer: Is the hon. Gentleman declaring an interest? I know that he has an interest in television. He should have told the House about it.
Sir Paul Bryan: I must have told the House a hundred times of my connection with Granada, and I am happy to do so once more. I apologise for not having done so at the beginning of my speech. The Parliamentary Broadcasting Committee which no doubt would be set up should, like the IBA, lay down appropriate guidelines. As a start, I suggest that on every parliamentary day Channel 4 should be required at 10.30 each evening to present a half hour daily summary of the proceedings of Parliament. A full hour should be devoted to a weekly summary at a peak hour each weekend.
Broadcasters will say, as they say about the House of Lords, that on many days the parliamentary programme would be too thin to support a half hour summary. That is because they disdain the minority audience. Yesterday's debate on Okehampton would not have drawn a national audience. Nevertheless, it would have been of the greatest interest to the people of Okehampton.
Mr. Ron Lewis: Who will do the editing? Will there be an editorial board, or will this be left in the hands of the BBC or ITV? If we allow this experiment to take place, there ought to be parliamentary control.
Sir Paul Bryan: That would be a matter for the Committee. If the Committee decided that the editing should be carried out by the BBC-ITV, so be it. If the BBC-ITV did not do it satisfactorily, a unit would have to be formed by the House.
Mr. Lewis: But would it work?
Sir Paul Bryan: This is the procedure in other legislatures, so there is no great difficulty about it. If the editing is unsatisfactory, the House will not sit and suffer. It will be put right. In order to ensure success, I advocate a step-by-step approach, learning as we go along from our experience. I hope that in time all of our proceedings will be open to the cameras, but to begin with I would confine them to the Chamber. I agree with the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) that the timing of this experiment is important. If the motion is passed and the programme described by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House were to be followed, it would be possible to have the cameras in the House in a year's time. In my view, this would not give the experiment its best chance of success. There could not be a worse time than the period running up to a general election. That is a quite exceptional period. Therefore, I advocate that we should pass the legislation in this Parliament, with a view to introducing the experimental period at the beginning of the next.
8.5 pm
Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: In his last sentence the hon. Member for Boothferry (Sir P. Bryan) took words out of my mouth. In order to allay suspicions that this is a party political gimmick initiated by the Prime Minister, I suggest that no decision should be implemented until after the next general election. I agree with a great

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deal of the hon. Gentleman's speech. For more than 20 years I have listened to every debate on this subject. To begin with the arguments were mainly technical—about the heating, the lighting, the cameras and the interference because of the presence of cameramen on the Floor of the House. Virtually all of those arguments have now been resolved. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not all of them"]. The Committee that is to be set up will tell us whether or not those problems have been resolved. The important argument is the democratic one. I have always taken the opportunity to vote for the education of the people about what goes on inside Parliament.
Mr. Spearing: That is the vital issue.
Mr. Hamilton: Yes, it is an absolutely vital issue.
All hon. Members must be disturbed by the woeful ignorance of people about what goes on inside Parliament. I regard this as an attempt not to trivialise Parliament, but to educate the public about how Parliament does its work. No hon. Member should be frightened of the extension of the democratic process. The intrusion of the cameras will carry risks with it. It will expose hon. Members almost indecently to the gaze of the public. But why should hon. Members be afraid of that? This is where the power should reside. We have little control over the power of Whitehall. This is the forum of the people and we are denying them their right to see it.
In the summer many people queue for entrance to the Strangers Gallery. Not all get in. I have long argued that, as an experiment, Westminster Hall should be used to provide live television coverage of the proceedings in this House. If that experiment had been conducted 20 or 30 years ago, all of these problems would have been resolved. I believe that such an experiment should go hand in hand with whatever decision is reached tonight by the House.
The arguments of my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) are based upon fear of the selectivity of the media. But selectivity has gone on for thousands of years. There is no way of preventing selectivity in a free, democratic society. Indeed, there is a good argument for increasing selectivity. If hon. Members believe that the cameras are being unfairly selective, the power lies in their hands to stop it.
In a recent intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Lewis) made a valid point about editing. I was disturbed when the Leader of the House said that television broadcasters will have the right to decide what is screened. The House should have an editorial board. It should be made abundantly clear to television broadcasters that the purpose of this experiment is to educate and to inform, not to provide entertainment or titillation or to ridicule. That is the way to handle the issue.
The best argument in favour of this experiment was put forward by the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton). He is a well known expert on these matters. He said that if the proceedings of the House of Commons are televised, the House will never be the same again. I cannot think of a better reason for letting in the cameras. This House is a cesspool of conservatism. It is the most difficult thing in the world to change the procedures of this place. Now we have a chance. My one proviso is that it must be all or nothing.
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Many hon. Members have pointed out that the most important, if least spectacular, work is carried out in Standing Committees and other Committees, including the 1922 Committee and the parliamentary Labour party committee. Both should be televised. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) suggested that the television cameras should cover Committees of the Cabinet, which is a good idea. The more the Prime Minister is exposed to television cameras, the better for the Opposition.
Therefore, let us get on with the experiment, let us see the results, and, at the end of the day, let the Government of the day say, "All right, we shall put the issue to the electorate at the next election." I am confident that the British people are yearning to see what goes on in the House and to be educated in the way that we conduct our business. That is the most democratic way of proceeding.
8.10 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: All hon. Members should remind themselves of the salient difference between this Chamber and the other place. We will all agree that the other place does not have to face the ballot box, whereas we do. Whether we freely admit it or not, we are in the self-promotion business. We want our constituents to be pleased with us, and to know that we are working exceptionally hard on their behalf—as, indeed, the majority of hon. Members do. We must get that message across. Therefore, if the House is televised, the temptation to be present in the Chamber rather than elsewhere will be irresistible.
Hon. Members may be surprised to hear that, at any one time, about 50 meetings are taking place within the Parliament buildings. They are held in Committee Rooms in the main building, in the rooms off Westminister Hall, in the Terrace rooms, and in conference rooms in the Norman Shaw south and north buildings. Those rooms are booked many times over, and sometimes on the hour, each hour. There are many demands on hon. Members—for example, to serve on Standing Committees and Select Committees, to attend all-party groups and one's own party groups, and to meet constituents and delegations of all sorts of groups. There is no end to the number of groups that wish to meet parties of hon. Members.
Sometimes regional Members must get together to meet various visitors to the House who have asked to see them. What on earth would happen if, for example, every hon. Member were doing his stuff and working hard in those various meetings, and then looked at the clock and said, "By George, we're on television." Suddenly rooms all over the building would empty as hon. Members scurried into the Chamber.
This is an important debate, but on par, no more than about 40 people have been present all day. That includes the Speaker, the Clerk, the Serjeant at Arms and the Doorkeeper. With television cameras, it would be a different matter altogether. Let us set the scene. If the Leader of the House kindly made room for something like the Miniaturisation of Schrompling Pin Bill 1985, the Benches would be full of hon. Members, probably not one of whom would know what schrompling pin was. I shall send up the spelling to Hansard later. Nevertheless, the Chamber would be full because hon. Members would know that many of the disabled, the elderly, and the unemployed would be at home watching television,

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because they are television addicts and television is their great pleasure in life, and would be looking for them and asking "Where are they?". All the time hon. Members will have to explain that we have many matters to attend to, besides sitting in the Chamber.
Earlier in the debate, many hon. Members were nasty to the gentlemen and ladies of the press, and suggested that the press selection was narrow, and that, although they made wonderful speeches, not a word appeared in the newspapers the following day. We have short memories. The work that we do in the Chamber is only one small part of what we must do. Yes, this is where the laws of the nation are made, but all hon. Members know that, whatever wonderful speeches we make today, at 10 o'clock when it is time to vote, other hon. Members will scurry to the Chamber from all over the building, most of whom will not have heard a word of our compelling arguments. They will look for friendly faces and troop through the Lobby that they think suits them best. What we say does not change a thing. In a way, the Chamber is a bit of theatre and we are the players, but at the same time we seek to do a responsible job.
Hon. Members cannot say that the press report only what we say in the Chamber. Remember this: when hon. Members table questions, the press approach them in the Lobbies, ask what is behind the question, request a quote on it and ask us to elaborate on it. We are also reported in that and many other ways. The press reports not only what is said in the Chamber but what is said at press conferences. Many of the press troop around the world with political figures, and work hard. It is unfair to say that they are extremely selective.
To be honest, one does not hear many brilliant speeches. We do not have in the Chamber today the great politicians of years ago. They did not have radio, television, or wonderful newspaper coverage. Newspapers came only with the advent of the railway system, when W H. Smith and others put newsagents at all the stations to distribute the news. That was the birth of the newspaper industry. Nevertheless, the great men of the past made their case heard, even without the facilities of today.
Today hon. Members have the Official Report, which anyone can purchase, radio coverage and good press coverage. Moreover, we ourselves are not slow in notifying the press of what we are up to. We are in the self-promotion game because the ballot box is behind us. The people in the other place do not have that constraint and, therefore, do not need to scurry to be present when the cameras are filming.
We have also been unfair to the British Broadcasting Corporation and, perhaps, the Independent Radio Network News. While I am speaking, across the road the tapes are running in the news rooms and teams of people are listening to our comments. Sometimes they are pleased, and sometimes they think that our debates are an absolute bore and take no interest. They are doing their jobs and working hard, but they can put only so much about a debate on the air.
The main interest is in the legislation that is passed, the main thrust of the debate, and the main opposition to the proposed legislation. But the press also seek to ensure that as many hon. Members as possible are mentioned in the time allocated. We should not grumble. Most of us do fairly well, and if we do not, we have not much to say and
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we are not worth recording. We cannot have it both ways. We need the help of the press, and we should not be critical.
What would Question Time today have been like if we had had television cameras? It would have been like a greenhouse. We would have had so much hot air and so many plants—the plants being the planted questions that we hear all the time—that it would have been like filming a greenhouse.
I have changed my mind.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Which way?"] You know me well, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I always keep you in suspense. People have been kind to me and said, "Geoffrey, it is made for you. Get in there." I shall resist the temptation. I shall vote against having television cameras in the Chamber, even if they might suit my style nicely. I believe sincerely that it would be wrong to televise Parliament. Most of my constituents who hear the radio broadcasts of our proceedings think that we are a disgrace. I think that I am doing them a tremendous favour tonight by voting against television cameras in the Chamber.
8.20 pm
Miss Betty Boothroyd: The hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) is guaranteed to hold the full attention of the House. This evening he held the House in suspense, because only in the last few minutes did we learn how he would vote.
I cannot recall our debates on this subject as far back as others can, but whenever we have discussed televising our proceedings I have voted in favour of the principle. I shall do so again tonight, for a number of reasons. I shall do so in the belief that the House of Commons plays an important part in our national life and that Parliament and the Government should be as open as possible and accountable to the electorate. I believe that the public outside the building are interested in what we do. They have the right to as much information as possible about our proceedings and to the way in which we conduct our business.
Modern technology has made it possible for news and current events in remote parts of the world to be transmitted in minutes, or simultaneously, to the homes of millions of families. Viewers share the realities of Ethiopia and Colombia, as well as of Geneva. All such happenings have a direct connection with the public, and yet that same public cannot see for themselves anything at all of what we do in their name in this House. That is a considerable anachronism.
Parliament, and the House of Commons in particular, is an institution which creates public interest. When modern technology makes it possible for those who send us here to see our proceedings and how we go about our business, the argument must rest primarily with those who would deny people that opportunity, rather than with those who argue in its favour.
Many problems must be solved before we can make a start. I welcome the wise words in the motion which asks for a Select Committee to examine the details and to report back. I understand that the Leader of the House said that if we approve tonight's motion a Select Committee report will be presented to the House before a final decision is made.
I shall describe the problems, but not necessarily in order of priority. Coverage of the business of the House

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will cause a problem. Television companies, like newspapers, are interested in "news value". They are interested in what they think viewers want to see. We all have our own ideas about that. I have listened for the last four or five hours to what hon. Members think about what people want to watch.
The contest between the party leaders at Prime Minister's Question Time is of enormous interest outside, and will be of prime importance in terms of coverage, as will the exchanges between some Front-Bench Members who cling to the Dispatch Box at the opening and closing of major debates. The Select Committee will have to make it clear to the television companies that others in the House have informed opinions and can speak with direct knowledge about developments—or lack of developments—in their areas and can express opinions on world events and many other matters which might not be in line with their party or Front-Bench attitudes.
The broadcasters will need reminding that the House is a microcosm of the country as a whole and that Back Benchers are part of the reality of the House and its work. The Select Committee will need to know in detail the broadcasters' intentions when providing adequate coverage of Back-Bench opinion.
Many hon. Members feel as I do, and are concerned lest broadcasters pick out the sensational highlights and that the occasional punch-up will take precedence over a serious debate. The press already highlights the sensational rather than the worthy, just as some of us do sometimes. I expect that the broadcasters, with their statutory obligations and with a Select Committee with some control, will be more objective.
Mr. Robert C. Brown: Does my hon. Friend agree that all her anxieties about the media having the right to say what the public see of our work could be overcome by a separate television channel broadcasting the whole of our proceedings?
Miss Boothroyd: I should certainly support that, but that is not an option. I must deal with what is on the Order Paper.
Editorial control might cause problems. The television companies tell us that producing balanced, political television is no different in principle from editing the broadcasting of proceedings. When challenged, they speedily bring into play the regulations under the Broadcasting Act and in the BBC charter. Perhaps the principle is not so different, but my concern is with the implementation of that principle as it applies to the Chamber, which is an unknown arena. I am not certain that editorial control of programme content should remain entirely with the broadcasters. I hope that ground rules will be worked out by the Select Committee and agreed with the broadcasters to provide assurances to those of us who hesitate over that difficulty. I was pleased to hear the cautious remarks by the Leader of the House in that respect. If the motion is agreed, that will be a crucial part of the Select Committee's work. I shall certainly give the problem careful scrutiny and attention.
I do not have strong views about the timing of the start of the experiment. Perhaps we should take as long as possible, so that we can create the right atmosphere, with the right lighting and television cameras. The timing will be tied up with the type of equipment used. The location
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of cameras and lights will depend upon detailed technical tests. What the broadcasters and the Select Committee must bear in mind is that this Chamber is much smaller than the Chamber of another place. More importantly, it is an elected Chamber. Therefore, there is not a great deal of comparison.
Quite rightly, there would be strong objection if there were manned cameras on the Floor of the House. It is clearly in the minds of all who are discussing the matter that any permanent arrangement must involve remote-controlled and unobtrusive equipment. To conduct an experiment with hand-held cameras would give an entirely false impression of what the long-term arrangments would entail. Whatever the considerations of cost—and I understand that they would be considerable if remote-controlled equipment was used—I urge that we and the broadcasters ensure that any experiment is conducted on the same basis as any long-term arrangement. I do not want false impressions to be given to me or to other hon. Members. I want to know precisely how the arrangement will work.
The motion is couched in very modest terms. Although I have some reservations, I shall certainly vote for the principle embodied in the motion.
8.31 pm
Mr. Richard Alexander: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd) in what is undoubtedly a great House of Commons debate. It is a privilege to take part in it.
The proposal before us is only that we should conduct an experiment. I cannot understand why so many hon. Members are against conducting an experiment. The experiment in the other place was so successful that I suspect they fear it will be successful here also. They are afraid that their prejudices will be removed if they are tested.
Televising this House would be neither an educational nor an entertaining experiment, although it may be something of both. It will certainly give the electorate an opportunity to see what is going on here, in their name. Presently they are restricted to a few minutes' coverage in the morning and the evening. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) put it well, although he and I are on different sides in this matter, when he said that the BBC in its morning programme had not done a great service to the serious broadcasting of this House.
Milton Shulman, in The London Standard recently, said that televising the other place had been a resounding flop—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members may say that, but any programme put on for only a few minutes just before midnight will, in terms of audience take-up, inevitably be regarded as a flop. It is unfair to judge audience reaction by screening a programme at that time.
Even if audience numbers cause hon. Members to think that televising the other place has not been worth while, I have found that those who have watched it have a far greater respect for the institution of Parliament and for parliamentary proceedings than they had hitherto.
Mr. J. F. Pawsey: Will my hon. Friend speculate on why the broadcasts occur late at night? Is it because they are not of prime interest to viewers?

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Perhaps my hon. Friend will also address his mind to another part of Milton Shulman's article, when he said that the cameras would be more interested in personalities than in policies.
Mr. Alexander: I accept that is a danger, but I would expect the Select Committee to deal with that. It would be unfair to judge audience take-up solely on the time that the programme was screened.
We need a greater awareness among the public of what we are doing here. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) and the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) put the matter well when they said that people were queueing to get into this place to see what was happening. It is rare that we can obtain two tickets for constituents to come into the House—
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does my hon. Friend accept that people sitting in the Strangers Gallery see everything, warts and all? People watching 12 to 14 minutes will see only selected excerpts.
Mr. Alexander: I fully accept my hon. Friend's point. However, I resent the fact that the opportunity to see what is happening in this place is so limited. I hope that people will see what is happening, warts and all.
Television is so much a part of people's daily lives that we would be unwise and backward-thinking if we, in this place of all places, were to try to exclude it. This is not a private club. Whether we like it or not, we are public servants, even though we may be public servants of an unusual kind.
Some hon. Members may abuse the facility that television coverage offers. However, we have often seen hon. Members, on both sides of the House, perform in a manner that we wish their constituents and the outside world could see. The House should act a little better at times. I believe that television will be a civilising influence on both our behaviour and our proceedings.
There is a fear that the media will go exclusively for trivia. That is a hazard we must risk in the interests of opening the House to the general public. I am sure that the media will find that if it concentrates on trivia and the silly moments of the House, its audience take-up will be much lower than if it gave a serious report and account of what goes on in this place.
If people want to watch comedians, chat shows and general rubbish, they will switch on their televisions at 5, 6, or 7 pm on a Saturday. They will not switch on a parliamentary broadcast if they want to see that. Most legislatures in the free world have introduced television in one form or another. None that I have heard of has argued that television should be removed from their proceedings and lives. They all have safeguards against abuses. I hope that our Select Committee will provide a safeguard.
I said that we are not a private club. Nor are we a private debating society. We are here to communicate our views as best we can to the widest possible audience so that we may gain acceptance of those views both here and in the country.
Today I am speaking to a handful of hon. Members. All the newspapers have gone to bed. My fourpennyworth will certainly not be reported on either "Today in Parliament" or "Yesterday in Parliament". I make no complaint about that. However, television in this Chamber might give someone speaking late at night a greater opportunity to exercise his skill—the skill with which he was sent here
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—to communicate as best he can on behalf of his constituents. We are, above all, communicators, but we communicate to an infinitesimal number of people outside, including our constituents, when we speak in this Chamber.
If we turn our backs on this opportunity tonight, we shall do a grave disservice to the people of this nation. If we accept it, we shall be able to share our debates on issues, great and small, affecting the nation to an extent never before possible. People are not convinced of our relevance today. Some people in Britain, if given the opportunity, would undermine our democracy, our way of life, and this House. If we share with the nation our work and the way we go about doing it, we shall enhance respect for the system. By agreeing to the televising of our proceedings, we shall be doing that in full measure.
8.41 pm
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: I was elected to this House in the 1979 general election. On the first day that I came here, instead of going to claim my locker and desk, my first action was to walk into the Chamber, stand at the Bar and ponder over where I would sit for the period that I would spend in Parliament.
I decided to sit in the seat that I now occupy, and I have sat here ever since. I chose this seat because I wanted to occupy a position from which I could oversee the Government Dispatch Box. I had heard repeatedly over the years arguments deployed, for example, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) and the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) to the effect that the House of Commons, and in particular this Chamber, was all-important.
I had been told that any new Member had all sorts of opportunities open to him to represent his electorate, such as making direct representations to Ministers and their Departments and by correspondence. However, a good and effective Member of Parliament, I was informed, should concentrate on using this Chamber and ensure that the focus of his attention was the Government Dispatch Box. I remain convinced that that is the crucial point on which we should concentrate our debates.
I rapidly learned that, though Members of Parliament, we are tradesmen in the sense that we have a craft. Our craft is to know how to use this Chamber and its procedures and to intervene in debates in a way that has impact. We must argue our case, but most of all we must be able to press Ministers at the Dispatch Box on important issues.
I have learnt over the years that, if pressed in the right way, a Minister at the Dispatch Box will respond. Indeed, Ministers have been known when speaking from the Dispatch Box to change their position, having become aware of the hostility from the Floor of the House towards what they were proposing. Ministers have had to return to their Departments and complain to their civil servants about the nature of briefing material, which they felt was inadequate to deal with the level of opposition by Opposition Members.
I oppose the televising of our proceedings for a simple reason, and I tell that story of my coming into Parliament as the background to that reason. It is that, in the practice of our craft, we in this Chamber must sometimes do things that are ugly, and the public will not wish to see them.

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They are practices which some would describe as lacking in decorum, although they are crucial to the way we conduct ourselves in the Chamber.
A sedentary intervention, or even a series of them, in the speech of a Minister can have the effect of pressing him so much that he may modify his position. That can happen at the Dispatch Box or in subsequent debate. Those pressures may be crucial. However, if the public saw those pressures being applied—I say that irrespective of Government and from whichever Benches they are applied; hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Government Front Bench below the Gangway have applied pressure on their own Ministers—and saw us applying our craft in such an ugly way, it might incur their wrath. That could happen if such ugliness were displayed on the television screens of the nation.
An example of that occurred some years ago, I am told, before I arrived here. I gather that the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster occupied a seat on the Opposition Front Bench below the Gangway for five years and that he was known affectionately as the Chingford skinhead. I am told that he was a most effective opponent of the then Labour Government. Indeed, I have been informed that some Labour Ministers feared him—[Interruption.] Former Labour Ministers admit that he was a formidable opponent in opposition.
Today, some of my hon. Friends who occupy seats on the Opposition Front Bench below the Gangway are equally vociferous and effective in their opposition to the Government, as are some hon. Gentlemen who occupy seats on the Government Front Bench below the Gangway. They know that they are effective when they challenge their own Ministers.
Can hon. Members afford to let their constituents see them practising their ugly craft? [Interruption.] Yes, it is ugly. On occasions it may be considered acceptable, but some people, without understanding the nature of sedentary interventions, may believe that they lack decorum. However, if such action has the effect of modifying a Minister's approach, let alone changing Government policy, the hon. Member adopting it has been effective.
If the television cameras are allowed in, some of my hon. Friends who sit on the Opposition Front Bench below the Gangway—and some hon. Gentlemen who sit on the Government Front Bench below the Gangway and who, without the cameras, are courageous enough to criticise their own Ministers—may feel constrained in their attitude—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It is all very well for hon. Members to say no, but I am laying down my marker in the belief that the intrusion of the cameras will constrain hon. Members in the way they practise their craft. I rest my case on that, and time will tell whether what I have said is correct.
8.50 pm
Mr. Nigel Forman: I have had the benefit of listening to most of the debate, but I have the disadvantage, therefore, of not being able to say a great deal that is new. It is important for the House to focus on the terms of the motion and to note carefully that it invites the House to approve in principle the holding of an experiment on television broadcasting. The motion—
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I am sure unwittingly—is somewhat misleading. Either we approve the principle of television coverage or we do not. The issue is as straightforward as that.
I am against the proposal, for reasons upon which I shall touch. I would support the idea, if necessary, if we were initially to set up a Select Committee to investigate all the issues before there was any question of a decision in principle being taken. The idea of approving an experiment and then setting up a Select Committee to examine the consequences of the experiment is to take things in the wrong order. I was only partly reassured when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said that there might be an opportunity for a final decision at a subsequent stage.
My reasons for opposing the principle can be stated simply. They closely resemble some of the arguments which have been advanced by some of my hon. Friends. I am sure that the evidence tells us that television has a tendency to distort, sensationalise and trivialise the events that it seeks to portray. If the House is not convinced of that argument, it must understand from the works of Mr. McLuhan and others that it has been demonstrated pretty clearly that television is qualitatively different from other media of mass communication. In many instances television personnel do not want to behave in a way that will have that result, but the outcome is inherent in the imperatives of the medium—for example, brevity and what producers call "good television". There is a ratings war between the various television companies and the likelihood is that it will hot up.
Television is a medium which serves to create impressions rather than conveying information. It encourages instant viewer response rather than mature and thoughtful reflection. Unlike newspapers, which allow the reader to turn back a page or to re-read a paragraph, or radio, which allows for real concentration and reflection, which is possible when we listen to something intently, television merely creates images and impressions. Whenever audience polls are conducted, when a representative cross-sample is asked whether it remembers one thing that anyone has said during a television programme, the responses show that the majority can remember nothing of the content. That goes for educated people as well as for those who have not had the good fortune to receive a reasonable education.
If we want to convey serious and complicated ideas, television, which has many other strengths, is not the appropriate medium. However, we are trying to grapple with, discuss and convey serious and complicated ideas during the bulk of our proceedings.
If television coverage of our proceedings in the Chamber were introduced, I believe that it would have far-reaching and unintended effects on our procedure. It would increase pressure for the prior organisation and manipulation of parliamentary debates. There is enough of that already, thanks to the usual channels. There is no doubt that it would lead us to copy the House of Representatives in the United States. Increasingly in that forum a representative can speak on the floor of the house only if he has an ex officio right to do so for a specified period. That procedure would work against anyone who saw a need, in the interest of his constituents, to filibuster. It would work also against the interests of spontaneity. I think that it would damage the quality of our debates in the Chamber.

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Such a tendency would increase the pressure for equal time for the parties, or for more equal time to reflect the balance of votes won in the country. We all know that this is an issue just below the horizon in the overall political debate, especially between the alliance parties and the Labour party in the present Parliament. This would merely result in an awkward twist to that problem. It would increase also the pressure for the timetabling and programming of what we do in this place and so work against the interests of individual parliamentary initiative and the sort of spontaneous combustion which, as the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) mentioned by implication, is such an essential part of our parliamentary work.
If television were to be introduced, it would create a minefield of editorial disputes between the media men and the politicians. We only fool ourselves if we think otherwise. There would be disputes over the selection of the material to be emphasised in what must necessarily be short television programmes. There would be disputes over alleged trivialisation and sensationalism of the issues in the interests of grabbing and maintaining the public's interest. No producer will hold on to a public affairs programme for very long in the face of commercial imperatives—all television has these imperatives behind it in various forms—if he does not obtain the necessary ratings. There would be disputes over the allocation of screen time between the parties. There is enough argument now about party political broadcasts and the carve-up of time that is involved. That argument would be extended to parliamentary proceedings.
The minority parties would argue for more equal time on the strength of their share of the popular vote. The official Opposition would argue their corner on the basis of their time-honoured position in the House. The governing party would argue its corner on the strength of its electoral victory and its parliamentary majority. In other words, there would be a minefield of potential editorial difficulty.
If the House were to control these editorial issues, I suspect that many members of the media would soon lose interest in the idea altogether. It would be a price that they would not be prepared to pay, and it would be contrary to one of their basic assumptions. That is an assumption to which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has already drawn our attention. If television producers were to have the last word, that could be the cause of endless suspicion and resentment between this place and the media world. I do not think that we need that. We need creative tension between the fourth estate and the House but we do not want the mutual recrimination and suspicion that might be generated if producers were to have the last word in this matter.
Mr. Shore: Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the difficulties which he has aptly described will be greater with the introduction of television cameras than they have been during the past seven years of broadcasting in the House?
Mr. Forman: The main reason why the difficulties would be greater stems from my first argument about the qualitative difference of television from other media of mass communication. All the evidence shows that the impressions and images that television is capable of creating—this happens sometimes unwittingly—are
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infinitely more powerful, and therefore potentially more damaging, than anything which is broadcast over the radio or printed in the columns of the press. For that reason, I suggest that right hon. and hon. Members would become infinitely more concerned about the consequences.
My final major reason for being opposed to the motion is that the very idea of televising the House, if carried forward, might in the long run further undermine the representative principle which is still the basis of our parliamentary democracy. We are all supposed to stand in a vital intermediate position between the mass electorate and Her Majesty's Government of the day. We can choose to act as filters, or as megaphones, of public concern. We are elected to the House to debate seriously, to reflect on the issues and to reach our conclusions by vote.
We would not be able to discharge those responsibilities properly if we moved inexorably with the televising of our proceedings to a form of direct and instant appeal to what would be the court of public opinion. At the end of that road lies a sort of Orwellian push-button democracy which would have a heavy bias against public understanding and be wide open to cynical attempts at media manipulation, whether by politicians or by producers.
During the debate, two main points have been put by the proponents of the motion. They must be answered. The first is that somehow the public has a right to know and that, with the availability of modern television technology, we should fulfil that right. The answer to that fundamental point is that the public can exercise its right to know at present in a number of ways—people can sit in the Strangers Gallery, as they are doing today, and they can watch television reports of our debates and proceedings on the "9 o'Clock News" and "News at Ten".
Another argument is that, all the time the public is supposed to come here to listen to us. That may be convenient from one point of view, but it is a fundamental part of our duty as politicians to be in our constituencies as often as possible to communicate with the people who returned us to this place and with the people who did not vote for us. The old-fashioned arts of public persuasion, communication, public meetings and use of the local press and media generally are all too easily glossed over on the assumption that all that matters is that these dreadful instruments should come into the heart of our proceedings.
The second major argument is that televising our proceedings would revive public interest in the working of our parliamentary democracy at a time when it is said to be flagging. Yet, on the contrary, there are obvious reasons why public interest in the Chamber and the workings of our parliamentary democracy may he flagging, and they have nothing to do with television. I offer the House a few headline suggestions as to those reasons. There are the deadlines imposed for printing in Fleet street, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Haffer) said. There are the entertainment imperatives of the television programmes. Above all, there is the fact that most of our debates are organised along party lines with Whips and largely predetermined party votes. If what was "said" in argument—as was the case in the middle of the 19th century, in the halcyon days of this Chamber—was to determine and influence the outcome of the vote at the end of a debate, one thing is sure: there would be far fuller regular attendance in the Chamber; people would listen to the arguments and would occasionally be persuaded by them; and there would be a much more favourable public impression of our proceedings.

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I oppose the motion because the case for televising our proceedings has not been made out conclusively, and certainly not in relation to televising this Chamber's proceedings. If the motion were passed and we were to proceed to televise, let us by all means begin by following the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart). He pointed out that there is discretion in these matters in the United States Senate and, in contrast to the House of Representatives, cameras are allowed in to the special committees, which are analogous to our Select Committees. If we want a real-life experiment with broadcasting in the Palace of Westminster, let us try that. But let us keep it out of this Chamber until we are all more certain of the overwhelming benefits.
9.2 pm
Mr. Robert N. Wareing: More than 200 years ago, in 1783, the House of Commons expressed its concern, by a resolution, at what it called the "great presumption" of journalists in reporting its proceedings. It went on to declare that it was
"a high indignity and notorious breach of privilege to print accounts of debates".
I heard echoes of that resolution in the speech of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). In those days, it was even argued that printing reports of debates in the House would tend to make Members of Parliament accountable for what they said inside the House to people outside it. When I was elected in June 1983, that was my understanding, that I was accountable to the people outside the House.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) talked about representative government and the fact that we make ourselves accountable by going to our constituencies. I believe that we should make ourselves accountable also by ensuring that our constituents know what we are doing and saying inside the House, and what work we are undertaking. That is not being done at present. The press, as has already been said, publishes little of what is done in this House. To a large extent, that is because, although television has become the medium of entertainment in this country, the so-called popular press has become a type of "comic cuts" medium.
The House of Commons is harmed by not submitting itself to the most popular, modern and powerful medium of mass communication. If we are interested in allowing the outside world to know what is happening in the Chamber, we should be prepared to allow it to see on television what is happening.
We are living in the television age. Youngsters are brought up on television almost from birth. In many cases, people want entertainment. However, I argue with hon. Members when they say that people switch on the television set for entertainment only. Does anyone suggest that television was not performing in the public interest when a few months ago it showed the desperate plight of the people of Ethiopia? What a response that evoked from the British people. Do right hon. and hon. Members not believe that televising the proceedings of the House would evoke a response from the British people, and that they would not start to ask questions about what happens in Parliament, what our procedures are, why we do this, why we do that and why we should not do it another way?
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The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington fears that television may bring about changes and that we may suddenly modernise our proceedings. Many hon. Members will say, "Not before time." The British people might realise that we live and work in an antiquated building and that our procedures are likewise antiquated.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many hon. Members would accept television if it were on the Canadian model and the whole proceedings were televised? What representation of our work in this place, including work on Select and Standing Committees, does he imagine can be shown in approximately 12 minutes' television coverage?
Mr. Wareing: I am glad that the hon. Lady made that point. Like her, and like the predecessor of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), Aneurin Bevan, I believe that there should be a special channel for the House of Commons.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: We are not to have that.
Mr. Wareing: No, but there is no reason why we should not work towards it in the period leading up to cable television. All that is being asked for in the motion is that we set up a Select Committee. We have never had a Select Committee to study the detail and problems of televising this Chamber.
If we reject the motion, that will be perceived by the nation as Members of Parliament working in the same way and with the same aims for Parliament as our predecessors did in the 17th and 18th centuries when they barred the public from their representatives in Parliament.
The Kilbrandon report stated:
"People have tended to become disillusioned with Government—the general disenchantment may be largely attributable to a failure of communications."
I believe that to be the case. People have become alienated from Parliament. Parliament is modelled for them by what the so-called cynical popular press has manufactured. People who report in the Daily Telegraph, Private Eye and The Sun are there to tell the public not to be interested in politics. They are almost part of a press conspiracy to ensure that the people do not know what is happening in the House.
When people get into the habit of switching on their television sets to watch the House of Commons, they will take an increasing interest in debates. They will want to know where Members are if they are not in the Chamber. The televising of the House of Commons will be an educative process. It will enable people to understand what happens in Parliament. They have already seen the debates in another place, and more and more people understand what happens there. I want them to be able to see what we are doing here and in Select Committees.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: The cameras will not be in the Select Committees.
Mr. Wareing: We do not know. The hon. Lady is intervening from a sedentary position. How delightful it would be to have that on television. The hon. Lady could make points to her constituents, but she does not want them to watch her on television. It will be a start if a Select Committee considers the matter in detail.
Time after time important statements on Government policy are made from the Dispatch Box. The only opportunity that the public have of seeing Ministers questioned on those statements is when Ministers are

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called to the television studios to be interviewed by Sir Robin Day, Alastair Burnet or Brian Walden. No matter how professional those interviewers may be at their art, none of them is a democratically elected representative of the people. My constituents and the constituents of every right hon. and hon. Member have a right to see their Members putting questions to Ministers.
A great advantage of the House of Commons is that the grievances of individuals may be aired in the Chamber. Those grievances may reflect problems encountered by many others. We are preventing information from being put across to the electorate when we say that they cannot see those grievances being aired in the House of Commons, Ministers answering questions on statements or debates on major issues which affect their daily lives.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight)—I am sorry she is not here at the moment—asked an important question about the cost of televising the House. The cost could be regained to a considerable extent by piping the proceedings live for a subscription to universities, clubs, newspaper offices and anybody who wants to see the House of Commons in action. The subscription would more than pay for a television Hansard. In time, it would pay for cable television channels.
It is wrong for the broadcasting and television media to determine which politicians appear before the camera. A few weeks ago I was walking along a corridor in the building when I saw a gentleman walking towards me. I thought, "I recognise him. I am sure that I have seen him on television." When he went past, I said to myself, "My God, that was the leader of the Liberal party, and I do not often see him in the House."
Let us modernise our proceedings by passing the motion to inquire and investigate. The House of Commons will be a more prestigious institution in our democratic society and will no longer be alienated from the people. It will modernise itself for its benefit and that of the British people.
9.15 pm
Mr. Colin Shepherd: Having listened to the debate from the beginning to the present moment, I am grateful to have the opportunity to add a few words.
It is now five hours since my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House talked about the motion being a leap in the dark. I have listened carefully, but I have not been able to adduce a shred of evidence why that leap in the dark should in any way lead to any light. I am not convinced that anyone who advocates that the leap should be taken knows where it is leading. As was said by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) in his powerful remarks, we have a duty of stewardship in this institution. It is incorrect to lead off in a direction when that direction is unknown and the consequences are unforeseeable. The debate has not enlightened us in that direction; it is all supposition and emotion.
During the summer I visited Canada. Not unnaturally, I took the opportunity of asking, whenever possible of whoever possible, for views of the broadcasting and televising of Parliament in that country. I visited three provincial Parliaments and spoke to Members of the federal Parliament. What I found in no way supported benign statements about the performance of television in the Canadian Parliament.
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The argument that has to be won by those who wish the motion to be passed is that the change is acceptable, quantifiable and manageable. There has been change in the House since broadcasting came in. It is not disputed that the House that is broadcast now is not the House that existed before broadcasting. That has been confirmed by several right hon. and hon. Members during the debate. Anyone who thinks that there has not been change and that there is not a different tempo when the House is being broadcast live has only to watch the point of order specialists leap to their feet when the little light is on in the Box in the corner.
Of late the Canadian Parliament has had occasion to consider its televising of proceedings. The committee charged with doing that produced a substantial report, under the chairmanship of James McGrath. He visited the House last week with a delegation from Canada. I had an opportunity to talk to him. He said that he would not go back, but I caught a certain reluctance in him to face the position that he had reached when he could not see how to get back. His report says:
"The evidence of the past eight years suggests that television has caused only a few changes. For example members now applaud rather than thump their desks to signify approval."
I gather that the public did not like members thumping their desks, so the members now applaud. Mr. McGrath said that someone then discovered the standing ovation, so now they have standing ovations all the time. The report also says:
"Members also tend to move around the chamber to sit at the desks behind the person speaking. Attempts to counter the impression that a member is talking to an empty House are not really successful. No one is really fooled"—
nevertheless it is done,
"The game of musical chairs simply adds an artificial element that would be unnecessary if there were greater public understanding of the reasons why members are not always in their seats in the House of Commons."
The Canadian House has had television since 1977. It is remarkable that, after eight years of exposure, not one jot of further understanding has been achieved. So much for the thought that television will lead to the better understanding of this House. More needs to be done to achieve that, but in different ways.
On my visit to Canada I spoke to an Opposition spokesman about the competitive element in securing television time. He said that he made a good point—rather like the points made by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)—but without success because there was no television coverage. He did the same again—a good point, but no television coverage. The third time he said, "To hell with it. I am going all out for it." He employed histrionics, shouted, waved his arms in the air and tore at his hair. He said, "I got my coverage coast-to-coast on the news." The only trouble was that no one knew what he had said, and he did not feel very good about it. What a length to have to go to in order to secure television time. That goes against the reports we have heard about the idealism of the Canadian experience.
While I was there, a fish in a big greasy parcel was thrown on the Prime Minister's desk—[HON. MEMBERS: "A gift?"] Not a gift, and not very fresh, but it secured the attention of the television. The Member got his coverage. That may have been the practice before the Canadian House had television. That is what is meant when the report states that there has not been much change in the past eight years.

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I could not find a member of the public who was anything but indifferent or derogatory about television. I did not speak to 18 million Canadians, but, out of interest, I spoke to people in the street, shops and stores. I visited the Quebec Parliament. The Clerk at the Table, who has just retired after 22 years' service, when asked for his views on the introduction of television, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, as only a French Canadian can, and said, "Ah, Monsieur"—
Mr. Tony Marlow: English!
Mr. Shepherd: We were speaking in English, because my French is not good enough, and my Canadian is even worse. He said, "The members like it, but they no longer talk to the Parliament; they talk to their constituents." We must beware of this constitutional matter, which relates to the stewardship point made by the right hon. Member for South Down. Burke said that he was a Member of Parliament first and a Member of Parliament for Bristol second. Members of Parliament here are supposed to address Parliament. There are other opportunities and avenues for addressing constituents. We must not be distracted from our work in addressing Parliament. Anything else is an abortion of what this place is—a forum for deliberation.
I received a similar response about the televising of the American House of Representatives. Speeches no longer have relevance, because they are directed towards far-flung constituents. Let us not fall into that trap.
Mr. Lawler: I do not know whether my hon. Friend has read an article by a former Clerk of the House of Commons of Ottawa—a Mr. Fraser—who says:
"What have been the results after the experience? In the main very positive indeed. The activities in the most important 'room' in Canada are being seen and assessed by an audience much greater than was contemplated by the most enthusiastic proponents of parliamentary broadcasting."
There is also evidence from the Speaker of the time, Mr. Jerome, who speaks favourably about the effects of televising the House.
Mr. Shepherd: I am aware of what I might call the Establishment comments. I was referring to the gentleman I came across who recounted his views. I also watched television while I was there, and saw no fair treatment of Ministers at the Dispatch Box. The Tory party in Canada has enough troubles at present without everyone having a field day at Ministers' expense. When I watched the televised proceedings on the news, I did not see a balanced picture of what had happened in the House that afternoon, only the Minister in an acute state of discomfiture and the Opposition in a state of triumph. That may be the realistic position, but I could not see on television whether the Minister had had better moments before or after. I saw only the part where he was most discomfited. I had a profound distrust of what I was watching and wondered whether it was right.
Mr. Marlow: It was good entertainment though.
Mr. Shepherd: That is perfectly correct. Indeed, I thought that it had boiled down to entertainment only. Although the proceedings are broadcast the entire time that the House is sitting, it is open to news editors to select those parts that they wish to show for onward transmission.
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I hope that the House realises that the case for change has not been made today, and that there are pitfalls. I end with the remarks of a robust housewife from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who took me figuratively by the lapels and said, "The House of Commons in Ottawa has not benefited at all from television. Do not let them do it to you".
9.26 pm
Mr. Roger Gale: For reasons that are fairly obvious, Mr. Speaker, I shall be brief. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes) for introducing this subject and for her generosity in agreeing to curtail her remarks at the end of the debate to allow some more of us to speak, although she knew that I at least would speak against her.
The hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) said that he believed that the machinery of television should not be allowed to influence our decisions. I wish to comment as a television producer and director—I believe the only one in the House—on what the machinery will do to the House. It has been suggested that we could use a micro-camera. Those cameras are being developed, but they do not exist. It is suggested that it will be unnecessary to light the Chamber for television. However, for good colour television, the Chamber will have to be lighted.
As an outside broadcast director, I know that we shall need four cameras. If we cannot hang them under the Gallery—at present, we cannot—we shall have to put them at each end of the Chamber. If we do so, we shall obtain extremely odd shots of those sitting on the Front Benches. If we light the Chamber from above, all the shadows will come down—any television lighting director could tell us this—and those sitting on the Front Benches will look extremely odd—[HON. MEMBERS: "They do already."] It is tremendous, Mr. Speaker; all one needs to do is feed them a line. That would be even more the case if we appeared on television.
There is no doubt that the technical necessity for television will change the Chamber. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) said, in time, the technological developments may be such that miniaturised cameras may be possible, but at present no automatic remote control camera could respond swiftly enough to an hon. Member intervening in a speech.
Mr. Austin Mitchell: That is just not so.
Mr. Gale: The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) has intervened, as he so often does, from a sedentary position. He is wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman's statement is incorrect. Those cameras already exist and will have been purchased by British broadcasters before we start the new Session next November.
Mr. Gale: I will not ask the hon. Gentleman what the response has been to those remote-controlled cameras, because I do not wish him to intervene again. Allow me to tell the Chamber, as a television director, that they do not react swiftly enough to record an intervention from another hon. Member. That is the technicality of it. The Chamber will have to be changed in structure. Holes for cameras will have to be cut in the back, and for colour contrast, lights will have to be put in. It is simply a technical fact that the Chamber will be hot. Hon. Members may choose to accept or reject that, but it is a fact.
Mr. Holt: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Gale: No, I do not have time.
The only reason advanced for introducing television to the Chamber is that, in some way, it will enhance democracy. How will it do that? All the work of the Chamber will not be transmitted. If we record all the work of the Chamber, edit it and then transmit some of it, that will be phenomenally expensive, because we are talking about many hours of television recording and editing for very little transmission. We have a choice. We either show all of it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said earlier, or we transmit some of it. If only some of it is transmitted then, with great respect to the hon. Members who have said otherwise, the editorial control will not be in the hands of this Chamber.
As a producer and director of television, I am aware of the exact processes involved. At the end of all this, will it be worth it? The hon. Member for Great Grimsby quoted some inaccurate figures about the television viewing of the Lords. I will give the correct figures. Three debates were covered live on Channel 4 on 23 June, 20 March and 15 April. The average audience for those programmes was 439,000 and the maximum audience of 747,000 was for the first debate, and it obviously had curiosity value only. We are therefore talking about a maximum viewing figure at any one time of 747,000. Any producer or director faced with those figures at any reasonable time of day—those programmes were transmitted at peak time and broadcast live—would have his programme taken off. The late-night viewing figures went down to virtually nothing at all.
We are talking about destroying the atmosphere of this Chamber and, if we are going to record it all, it will cost £2·5 million a year. That will be to transmit something and there is no evidence that anybody will watch it. Not one of the hon. Members who spoke in this debate has had a letter from anybody saying that he wished to watch it. There will be a minimal audience and no return. If we wish to introduce more democracy to the Chamber, we have the apparatus to do that in front of us. If we genuinely wish to take the British Parliament to the British people, the microphones are here, and we can dedicate a radio channel to do that. There are also microphones hanging in the other places that need to be heard, the Committee Rooms. We have the means for live broadcasts from this House and from the Committee Rooms.
I will be standing with the chairman of the Back-Bench media committee at the entrance to the "No" Lobby trying to persuade hon. Members who have not heard the debate to go into that Lobby, because we both believe that televising of this House would be profoundly bad.
9.34 pm
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: I do not wish to repeat the many arguments already made, but it is interesting to note that, before this debate started, we were told that, like death and taxes, it was absolutely inevitable that the House would vote in favour of having television. Those hon. Members who are most experienced in the knowledge of the media spoke about the effects that the media can have. My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) were honest enough to say that, if they were outside this House, they would press for televising, but because they are Members they do not believe it would benefit this House.
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In the great days, the high days and the tragic days of the war when Winston Churchill came back from wherever he had been, whether it was America or the Middle East, he said, "Before I do anything I must report to the House". He said that in his memoirs. The Prime Minister of that day, as at any time, regarded reporting to the House as his most important task. We have been pushed by the media—we should be honest enough to admit it—into reading nearly everything about policy, irrespective of which party is in power, in the press, and sometimes weeks, if not months, before a statement is made here with all gravity. It is this House that must decide ultimately.
It has been argued, I think rather pathetically, that we cannot get the problems of our areas across without television. It seems that yesterday's debate on the Okehampton bypass would have captured peak time in Devon and Cornwall. That six-hour debate was important for the people in those counties, but how much time would the media have given it? If the television producers wanted to impress on us how good the debate was, we might have got 12 minutes. How much of the work that hon. Members have done for their constituents and their areas would have come over in that time? Precious little.
I have sat through most of the debate. What we decide today is important. The House is not just a talking shop. It is a place where great decisions are meant to be made and debated. I contend that we should not admit the cameras, in spite of my natural shyness of the media. My hon. Friends the Members for Gravesham and for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) are shy of the media. However, nearly all the right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken against the televising of this House have a good relationship with the media. It is sometimes easier to catch the eye of the media than the eye of the occupant of the Chair and we are able to put over our views as we know that, as long as we are being interviewed live, we cannot be misquoted. One of the great things about live interviews is that one is in control. If we make a 20-minute speech here and only seven seconds of it is used in a news clip, that speech can be made to represent 15 views. That will happen. We must not always think of the media being in the hands of the kind, the good and the honest. It is not always so.
Until we have sorted out the problems, the House would be wrong to give in to those who say that television is inevitable. I hope that we shall at least keep control of our House and of our destiny. To say that everybody wants television is to use the argument of tyrants and those who try to push and shove people into doing something that they know that they should not do. We are elected. We can be appointed and disappointed at any time. We do not need the media to push us into anything. We should vote for our conscience and the future of the House. In the end, we, not television and not radio, will answer to the people. We are the elected ones.
9.38 pm
Mr. Nigel Spearing: There is one thing on which all right hon. and hon. Members agree—that the gap between the House of Commons and the public is apparently increasing. Those who want us to vote in favour of the motion maintain that television will fill that gap.
If hon. Members vote in favour of the motion, they may increase the feelings of frustration and powerlessness among their constituents. Politicians speak to their

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constituents daily in their drawing rooms and kitchens and the public cannot get back at them. If the public were able to see the proceedings in the Chamber but could not come here to make a speech, the division between hon. Members and constituents could conceivably be greater.
Hon. Members can take many steps to close such a division. They could make sure that Hansard appears in every public library and in the libraries of every secondary school. I do not know whether that would be possible to implement at present. Years ago the weekly Hansard could be purchased from bookstalls, but today the daily part costs £2·50. I believe that Hansard should be available throughout the country at wholesale prices.
Many hon. Members have said in the debate that the function of a Member of Parliament is not restricted to the Chamber. Indeed, the majority of our time is spent outside the Chamber, however vital our function in the Chamber may be.
When the House was asked to support sound radio in the Chamber, we were told that the broadcasts would cover Select Committees. The media told us that they would give coverage to powerful Select Committees calling the Government to account. In fact, the only coverage of Select Committees is a BBC programme broadcast at 11 pm on Sunday on VHF only.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) that the Chamber is the hub of Parliament. The Chamber operates on motions, questions, debate and decision. There is also pontification, promotion of causes and probing of Government. Above all, there are good speeches of persuasion. Those are often the most effective speeches in the Chamber, but if speeches of persuasion are distorted by the media to create news value—and the media will be tempted to do that—distortion of our proceedings will be increased.
The trumpet soloists will be in the ascendancy if the motion is passed. I ask hon. Members to consider what a Beethoven symphony might sound like if it was played only from the score for the brass and timpani sections. That is not an unlikely analogy if, through the exigencies of the edited extracts, that is the view that the public are given of the Chamber.
There would inevitably be pressures on hon. Members and on how parliamentary business is carried out. If we wish the House to become a permanent, national, political television studio in an attempt to fill the gap between the public and Parliament which hon. Members have identified, we must adapt our priorities, proceedings and practices to suit the requirements and disciplines of the media. That is not the function of Members of Parliament.
In the Chamber, it is our duty to ensure the efficient dispatch of public business. That should not be done in secret. It should certainly be recorded. It may be broadcast in sound and it is published the very next day in Hansard.
Hon. Members must be publicly accountable—motivated by party passions and principles or those of our own deep convictions—but if the practices and proceedings which are the ball bearings of democratic government are in any way geared to requirements other than the proper dispatch of public business, democratic parliamentary procedures will be threatened. We shall be performing those functions to satisfy the requirements of one medium whereby we are accountable, rather than the requirements of parliamentary business.
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Parliamentary democracy is very tenuous. Its gossamer threads are too fine to be subjected to the risks that those who support the motion would have us take. The House should seek other, more realistic measures to close the gap and defeat the motion tonight.
9.44 pm
Sir John Page: My interest in voting today is to ensure that greater power and authority is given to this Chamber. I had a kind of road to Damascus conversion in the bath last Thursday morning and decided very determinedly that I would vote for the motion. This is a debating Chamber, however, and in a free vote we can be swayed by the speeches that we have heard.
As I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) in support of the motion all my confidence dissipated but, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has said, one should not be ashamed to change one's mind, however frequently the pendulum swings. Soon aftewards, however, my hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) spoke against the motion and all his arguments persuaded me that it would be quite wrong to vote against it. My hon. Friend said that instead of spending his afternoons in Committee, talking to disabled constituents or dealing with his correspondence, he would have to waste his time in the Chamber, and that poniard went straight into the wound.
In the light of that final revelation, I have decided to vote in favour of letting the cameras in—not only because I bought a carnation this morning at enormous expense in the belief that the cameras would already be here today, but because I believe that the televising of our proceedings, warts and all, will bring back greater power to our debates here, which is where it ought to be.
9.47 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth: Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page), I did not take a bath last week or this week for the purpose of conversion. I took a bath to listen to "Yesterday in Parliament" to find out what had gone on while I was doing my correspondence.
I shall vote with great confidence against the motion. Although I have been privileged to be a Member of the House for only two and half years, I believe that the intrusion of the cameras would be a grave mistake and would destroy the essential character of this place. I believe that it would turn the House into a television studio and theatre. The microphones do not intrude, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) so ably explained, the cameras would intrude a great deal.
We should no longer be looking to you, Mr. Speaker, and we should no longer be looking to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). Some strange alliances have been formed today. I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Walton has said, which must embarrass the hon. Gentleman as much as it embarrassed my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) to agree with all that was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). The television cameras would intrude; the intimacy of the Chamber would be lost. It would become a studio or theatre. The press would interpret our proceedings. As the hon. Member for Walton so ably explained, it would choose the little nuggets that it wanted to televise.

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This motion should be rejected out of hand. We should preserve the traditions of this great House. Those who want to hear our proceedings should listen to them on the radio. Better still, they should come and see us in action.
9.50 pm
Miss Fookes: I am almost terrified to open my mouth in case I change again the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page).
It is clear that the House is retaining a tradition, maintained over 400 years, of getting very hot under the collar about the reporting of its proceedings. Nevertheless, I repeat my profound conviction that television is a very powerful medium that this House cannot afford to ignore. People rely either completely or to a great extent upon what is presented to them on the television screen.
Many of the arguments that have been advanced against the televising of the proceedings of this House could equally be advanced against any reporting of its proceedings. We could continue the debate all night and firm convictions would still be held on either side of the argument. However, one way in which to test it would be by adopting the motion. It calls only for
"an experiment in the public broadcasting of its proceedings."
The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) suggested that we should be voting for the principle. I take issue with him. We shall be voting for an experiment. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House made it abundantly clear that we shall have a further opportunity to reach a final decision. It would therefore be wrong not to allow the various views to be tested by means of an experiment.
In the motion—[Interruption.] I suspect that the general noise that I hear is an argument against the televising of our proceedings. Be that as it may, a Select Committee would be able to establish the ground rules. It would be made plain to the broadcasting authorities, whether ITN or BBC, that the House expects adherence to certain principles and that, if they fall short of those principles, we shall bring the experiment to an end.
The decision whether the experiment should go ahead rests with hon. Members. If it goes ahead, it will then be. up to the House to decide whether to make the experiment permanent. Tonight we are not making a final decision.
Hon. Members: We are.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is making her case.
Miss Fookes: I differ from my right hon. and hon. Friends and from Opposition Members who say that tonight we should be making a final decision. The motion makes it quite clear that it would not be a final decision. We will have further discussions on the matter. Unless we make some attempt to sound out the matter, we shall never know whether my views or those expressed by hon. Members who feel that television coverage would be bad are correct. The House should at least give the opportunity for this limited experiment to go ahead. I shall be disappointed if the House does not make that one gesture towards television coverage of our proceedings.
In future we may extend television coverage, as many hon. Members wish, to Select Committees and Standing Committees, and even to having one channel which transmits our deliberations in full. The experiment would
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not prevent any of that from taking place. Indeed, it might facilitate that. For those reasons, I ask the House to think carefully before turning its back on the experiment.
It is relevant to consider the 18th century debates, when the House was extremely perturbed about the possibility simply of the newspaper reporting of our proceedings because many of the arguments advanced tonight are of that order.
Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I do not want my hon. Friend to finish a moment early because we are all listening to her argument with great care. Will she assure the House that if the Select Committee reports in favour of broadcasting and proposes a form of broadcasting which is acceptable to members of the Select Committee, the payroll vote will not be wheeled out in support of television coverage, as it was in support of a recent measure to which most of the House was opposed?
Miss Fookes: My hon. and learned Friend is using some of his courtroom tactics. He knows as well as I do that I am not responsible for the payroll vote.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have only three minutes left.
Miss Fookes: My case, which has been supported by many distinguished parliamentarians on both sides of the House, is sound and meets the needs of the latter part of the 20th century. Be that as it may, I hope that the House will at least give the opportunity for a limited experiment. In that spirit, I commend my motion to the House.
9.58 pm
Mr. John McWilliam: I apologise for intervening at this late stage, but I have listened to most of the debate and am worried about a couple of points.
First, having had the opportunity to visit the Canadian House of Commons and, indeed, to steer the television cameras and sit in the seats of Canadian Members of Parliament, I know how uncomfortable it is. I assure the House that low-light cameras, which are tossed about like confetti in the House, will not be available to us for at least another five years. We shall have to bear a light level which will be uncomfortable in this assembly, which sits for longer than any other in the world. Those of us who must suffer on the Back Benches, sitting hour after hour waiting, hoping and dreaming to be called, know what it would be like if the light level were that which we must suffer during the short period of the Queen's Speech. We know what it is like. We have felt it, and we must remember that.
My second anxiety relates to the unedifying spectacle in the Canadian House of Commons of Whips ushering people around the Chamber to sit behind the next member who is to speak.
Miss Fookes rose in her place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question put, That the Question be now put:—
The House proceeded to a Division—
Mr. McWilliam(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order to move the closure on a point of order before—
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is perfectly in order to move the closure at that time. I must put the Question.
The Question is, That the Question be now put. As many as are of that opinion say, "Aye", to the contrary, "No". I think the Ayes have it. The Ayes have it.

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The Question is,
That this House approves in principle the holding of an experiment in the public broadcasting of its proceedings by television; and believes that a Select Committee should be appoinited to consider the implementation of such an experiment and to make recommendations.
The House proceeded to a Division—
Mr. Mark Hughes(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe that a number of right hon. and hon. Members are still ensconced in the Lobbies in the belief that they are voting on the procedural motion. Could the position be made clear before the doors are locked?
Mr. Speaker: I have put the Question. I distinctly heard the cry, "Division off," in respect of the procedural motion.
Mr. Dickens(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Many hon. Members were in the Lobbies when it was announced that there were no Tellers for the procedural motion. Therefore, many hon. Members are voting differently from their beliefs. Will you recall the Division, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members in the Chamber and outside clearly heard the cry, "Division off." I then put the Question on the main motion, and we are now voting on that.
Mr. Dickens(seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was in the Lobby and it was packed. Not one hon. Member heard the cry, "Division off." That is the gospel truth.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot be responsible for hon. Members who happen to be lurking in the wrong Lobby, or even in the right Lobby.
Mr. Faulds(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.] Order! When the Division was called off, many hon. Members in the Divison Lobby—I was one—did not hear that it had been called off. I am sorry to say that many of my colleagues are as dimwitted as I am.
Mr. Robert Adley(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I confirm what the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) and my hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) said. I did not hear your calling the Division off and I suspect that there are 50 or 60 hon. Members in the same position.
Mr. Speaker: As there appears to be some confusion on this matter, I propose to suspend the House for five minutes while the Division Lobbies are cleared, when I will put the Question again.
10.10 pm
House suspended.
10.15 pm
On resuming—
Sir Kenneth Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that the House wants any further points of order. I have already suspended the sitting.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: I merely wanted to ask, Mr. Speaker, how what has just happened would be explained on television.
Question put. That the motion be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 263, Noes 275.

Division No. 8]

[10.15 pm

AYES

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Aitken, Jonathan

Dover, Den

Alexander, Richard

Dubs, Alfred

Alton, David

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Ancram, Michael

Dykes, Hugh

Arnold, Tom

Eadie, Alex

Ashdown, Paddy

Eastham, Ken

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Evennett, David

Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

Farr, Sir John

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

Fatchett, Derek

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Barron, Kevin

Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

Beckett, Mrs Margaret

Fisher, Mark

Beith, A. J.

Flannery, Martin

Bell, Stuart

Fletcher, Alexander

Bellingham, Henry

Fookes, Miss Janet

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)

Foster, Derek

Best, Keith

Foulkes, George

Bevan, David Gilroy

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Blair, Anthony

Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

Bottomley, Peter

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Boyes, Roland

Godman, Dr Norman

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Golding, John

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Gorst, John

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Gould, Bryan

Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

Ground, Patrick

Brooke, Hon Peter

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Hancock, Mr. Michael

Bruce, Malcolm

Hanley, Jeremy

Bryan, Sir Paul

Harvey, Robert

Buchan, Norman

Haselhurst, Alan

Buck, Sir Antony

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Butler, Hon Adam

Hayes, J.

Caborn, Richard

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

Hayward, Robert

Canavan, Dennis

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (W'ton S)

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Cartwright, John

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Chalker, Mrs Lynda

Hirst, Michael

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Clarke, Thomas

Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

Clay, Robert

Home Robertson, John

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Hordern, Sir Peter

Cohen, Harry

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

Coleman, Donald

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

Howells, Geraint

Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

Hubbard-Miles, Peter

Coombs, Simon

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Corbett, Robin

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Hume, John

Cormack, Patrick

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Craigen, J. M.

Jackson, Robert

Cranborne, Viscount

Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

Critchley, Julian

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Cunningham, Dr John

Johnston, Sir Russell

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Dalyell, Tam

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

Kennedy, Charles

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

Key, Robert

Deakins, Eric

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Dewar, Donald

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

Dobson, Frank

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Dorrell, Stephen

Kirkwood, Archy

Douglas, Dick

Knowles, Michael

363

Knox, David

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Lambie, David

Richardson, Ms Jo

Lamont, Norman

Rifkind, Malcolm

Lawler, Geoffrey

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Lester, Jim

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

Robertson, George

Livsey, Richard

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

Luce, Richard

Rooker, J. W.

McCrindle, Robert

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Rossi, Sir Hugh

McGuire, Michael

Rost, Peter

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Rowlands, Ted

McKelvey, William

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Ryder, Richard

Maclennan, Robert

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

McNamara, Kevin

Sedgemore, Brian

McQuarrie, Albert

Sheerman, Barry

Madden, Max

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Malone, Gerald

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Martin, Michael

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Sims, Roger

Maxton, John

Skinner, Dennis

Mayhew, Sir Patrick

Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'bury)

Maynard, Miss Joan

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Meacher, Michael

Smith, Rt Hon J. (M'kl'ds E)

Merchant, Piers

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Soley, Clive

Michie, William

Speller, Tony

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Spence, John

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Spencer, Derek

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Squire, Robin

Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

Stanley, John

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Stern, Michael

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Stott, Roger

Moynihan, Hon C.

Strang, Gavin

Neale, Gerrard

Straw, Jack

Needham, Richard

Sumberg, David

Nellist, David

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Newton, Tony

Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

O'Neill, Martin

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Ottaway, Richard

Thorne, Stan (Preston)

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Thurnham, Peter

Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Parry, Robert

Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Wallace, James

Pattie, Geoffrey

Ward, John

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Wareing, Robert

Penhaligon, David

Watson, John

Pike, Peter

Whitney, Raymond

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Wigley, Dafydd

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Williams, Rt Hon A.

Prescott, John

Wilson, Gordon

Price, Sir David

Wood, Timothy

Radice, Giles

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Rathbone, Tim

Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Renton, Tim

Mr. Michael Meadowcroft and

Rhodes James, Robert

Mr. Barry Henderson.

NOES

Adley, Robert

Bermingham, Gerald

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Bidwell, Sydney

Amess, David

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Ashby, David

Blackburn, John

Ashton, Joe

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Aspinwall, Jack

Body, Richard

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

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

Baldry, Tony

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Bright, Graham

Barnett, Guy

Brinton, Tim

Batiste, Spencer

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

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

Bendall, Vivian

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

Benyon, William

Bruinvels, Peter

364

Budgen, Nick

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

Bulmer, Esmond

Holt, Richard

Butterfill, John

Home Robertson, John

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

Carlisle, John (N Luton)

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)

Carttiss, Michael

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Chapman, Sydney

Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

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

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Hunter, Andrew

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

John, Brynmor

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Clegg, Sir Walter

Jones, Robert (W Herts)

Cockeram, Eric

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Colvin, Michael

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Conlan, Bernard

King, Rt Hon Tom

Conway, Derek

Knight, Greg (Derby N)

Cope, John

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Couchman, James

Lamond, James

Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

Lang, Ian

Crouch, David

Latham, Michael

Crowther, Stan

Lawrence, Ivan

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Leadbitter, Ted

Dickens, Geoffrey

Leighton, Ronald

Dixon, Donald

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Dormand, Jack

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Lightbown, David

Dunn, Robert

Lilley, Peter

Durant, Tony

Litherland, Robert

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

Emery, Sir Peter

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Ewing, Harry

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Eyre, Sir Reginald

Lord, Michael

Fallon, Michael

McCurley, Mrs Anna

Faulds, Andrew

Macfarlane, Neil

Favell, Anthony

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

Forman, Nigel

Maclean, David John

Forrester, John

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

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

Forth, Eric

McTaggart, Robert

Freeman, Roger

McWilliam, John

Freud, Clement

Madel, David

Fry, Peter

Major, John

Gale, Roger

Malins, Humfrey

Galley, Roy

Marek, Dr John

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Marland, Paul

Garrett, W. E.

Marlow, Antony

Glyn, Dr Alan

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Mather, Carol

Goodlad, Alastair

Maude, Hon Francis

Gourlay, Harry

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Gow, Ian

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Gower, Sir Raymond

Miscampbell, Norman

Greenway, Harry

Moate, Roger

Griffiths, Sir Eldon

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Monro, Sir Hector

Grist, Ian

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Hamilton, James (M'well N)

Moore, John

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Hannam, John

Mudd, David

Hardy, Peter

Murphy, Christopher

Harris, David

Neubert, Michael

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Nicholls, Patrick

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Normanton, Tom

Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

O'Brien, William

Hawksley, Warren

Onslow, Cranley

Haynes, Frank

Oppenheim, Phillip

Heddle, John

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Heffer, Eric S.

Page, Richard (Herts SW)

Hickmet, Richard

Park, George

Hicks, Robert

Parris, Matthew

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Patchett, Terry

Hill, James

Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

Hind, Kenneth

Pavitt, Laurie

365

Pawsey, James

Shersby, Michael

Pendry, Tom

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

Pollock, Alexander

Silkin, Rt Hon J.

Porter, Barry

Skeet, T. H. H.

Portillo, Michael

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

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

Snape, Peter

Powell, William (Corby)

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Proctor, K. Harvey

Spearing, Nigel

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

Raffan, Keith

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Randall, Stuart

Stanbrook, Ivor

Redmond, M.

Steen, Anthony

Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

Rogers, Allan

Stokes, John

Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Rowe, Andrew

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Sackville, Hon Thomas

Taylor, John (Solihull)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Terlezki, Stefan

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

366

Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Watts, John

Tinn, James

Weetch, Ken

Torney, Tom

Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Welsh, Michael

Trippier, David

Wheeler, John

Trotter, Neville

Whitfield, John

Twinn, Dr Ian

Wiggin, Jerry

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Wilkinson, John

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Viggers, Peter

Winterton, Nicholas

Waddington, David

Wolfson, Mark

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Woodall, Alec

Waldegrave, Hon William

Woodcock, Michael

Walden, George

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Walker, Cecil (Belfast N)

Younger, Rt Hon George

Walker, Bill (T'side N)

Wall, Sir Patrick

Tellers for the Noes:

Waller, Gary

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours

Walters, Dennis

and Mr. Robert Atkins.

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Question accordingly negatived.

Board and Lodging (Social Security Rules)
10.30 pm
The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): I beg to move,
That the draft Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Miscellaneous Provisions (No. 2) Regulations 1985, which were laid before this House on 11th November, be approved
I should remind the House briefly of the reasons for the action we took to make changes in the social security rules affecting board and lodging earlier this year. We were concerned about the extremely rapidly increasing expenditure in this area.
Between December 1982 and December 1984, expenditure on ordinary board and lodging rose from £166 million to £380 million, while for residential care and nursing homes, expenditure rose from £39 million to £190 million. Thus, the overall increase was from some £200 million to very nearly £600 million in only two years. To put it in perspective, that is equivalent to nearly £2 a week on the basic retirement pension.
We were concerned in particular about the growth in the numbers of young people who were moving into board and lodging. The number of claimants among young people of 25 and under rose from 23,000 in 1982 to 37,000 in 1983, and to an estimated 56,000 in 1984. We expected the figure to reach 85,000 in 1985. That is an increase of between 50 per cent. and 60 per cent. a year, far beyond anything which could be explained by any other factors.
We were also concerned about the extent to which those young people were effectively being drawn into a peculiar version of the unemployment trap, in that it was highly unlikely that they would be able to take a job and continue to pay for the accommodation that they were in—that is, if they were taken off supplementary benefit because they had found employment.
Another matter of concern was the wide variation of local limits throughout the country, not least for residential care and nursing homes, to a degree which it seemed almost impossible to explain by any rational calculation. We were not least concerned about the growing evidence of abuse of the system both by claimants and by landlords.
For those reasons we introduced regulations which took effect at the end of April 1985. For residential care and nursing homes, the essential feature was a national pattern of maximum amounts designed to reflect the different needs of different types of homes, but with what the Social Security Advisory Committee described as "generous" transitional protection for those for whom supplementary benefit was already meeting higher amounts.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: The hon. Gentleman referred to growing evidence. Was that evidence that came directly to his Department from officials, or was it evidence of newspaper stories?
Mr. Newton: It was evidence from a variety of quarters, including the study by the consultants Ernst and Whinney, of the board and lodging market in six or more areas around the country, a copy of which the hon. Gentleman will find in the Library if he cares to look for it.
368
For ordinary board and lodging, the essential feature was a system of board and lodging areas, consisting of DHSS local office areas grouped to take account of travel-to-work patterns, with a maximum board and lodging limit appropriate to each area. For young people under 26 there was a time limit, but with an extensive range of exemptions.
As the House will be aware, on 31 July, after Parliament had risen, the High Court decided an application for judicial review on the regulations. Mr. Justice Mann rejected the argument that we had failed properly to consult the Social Security Advisory Committee, and also the argument that the time limit of four weeks applied in the case of Simon Cotton was unreasonable. However, he found that the powers in the Supplementary Benefits Act 1976 were insufficient to make regulations enabling Ministers to determine board and lodging areas and limits. In other words, the judge's view was that the regulations would have been in order if they had themselves contained the board and lodging areas and limits.
Mr. Justice Mann declined to make a formal order, on the Department's undertaking not to apply the time limits pending the making of new regulations or the outcome of any appeal. Immediate action was taken to put that undertaking into effect.
The House will also be aware that we decided to appeal, and that appeal is due to be heard by the Court of Appeal on 25 and 26 November—next week. At the same time, however, we felt it right to consider what the position would be in the light of the various possible outcomes of the appeal, and whether further action—
Mr. Frank Dobson: He will ask for other offences to be taken into account.
Mr. Newton: If the hon. Gentleman will wait, that is precisely the point that I shall come to.
We felt it right to consider what the position would be in the light of the various possible outcomes of the appeal, and whether further action was required to ensure that "sensible interim operation" for which Mr. Justice Mann had himself recognised the need. Since those appeal proceedings involve not only the Department's appeal on the technical point that I have described but a cross appeal by Simon Cotton on the issue of alleged inadequate consultation, the possible outcomes of the proceedings cover a very wide range.
Mr. John Morris: Why did the Minister describe the appeal as having been decided on a technical point, when it was a major point for statutory interpretation?
Mr. Newton: I do not want to be involved in a legalistic or semantic argument. The point was very limited, concerning the fact that, had the board and lodging areas and time limits been in the regulations themselves, rather than set by the use of the Secretary of State's discretion, they would have been in order. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman objects to the use of the word "technical", I am more than happy to meet him by changing it to "limited". It is certainly a limited and narrow point.
Mr. John Morris: The judge found that the Secretary of State had no discretion; that is why the matter is not a

369
technical matter. It was a matter of importance and it had to be enshrined in the statutory instrument itself. That is why the right hon. Gentleman and his Department lost.
Mr. Newton: I disagree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman—with some hesitation. The judge found that in the regulations, the Secretary of State could have taken discretion to deal with individual cases, but not with classes of cases, so that simply to say that the Secretary of State had no discretion is to convey the wrong flavour of what was said by Mr. Justice Mann.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does the Minister accept that this is a serious issue? When the original legislation was passed it was not envisaged that the regulations would be used in that way. Would it not have been better to use primary legislation to carry out the Government's policy rather than doing it by the back door? Will the Minister give a clear undertaking that implementation of any of the review of the whole of social security will be done by legislation, not by a series of statutory instruments introducing changes that were never envisaged when the original legislation was debated?
Mr. Newton: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the sweeping undertaking that would change the practice of many successive Governments over a long period. I understand that he has written to the Leaders of both Houses with the point that he has just raised. No doubt they will reply to him in due course. With regard to the social security review, we have not sought to disguise our intention to have a significant primary Bill during the present Session—it was in the Queen's Speech.
There was a wide range of possible outcomes of the proceedings, especially in view of the cross-appeal. The more we considered the position, the clearer it became that the risk of confusion and of potential hardship to many claimants if the appeal were determined to any extent adversely to the Department's case without fresh regulations being in place were risks which any responsible Government could not knowingly have allowed.
If, for example, Mr. Cotton's cross-appeal were to succeed and all the earlier regulations were to fall, there could be an immediate reduction in the amounts of benefit payable in many areas, especially for those in residential care and nursing homes, a significant number of which, determined by previous locally determined limits, were substantially lower than those currently being paid. In Oldham, for example, the present residential care limit is anything up to £70 a week higher than the limit that was in force before April, and the nursing home limit is anything up to £60 a week higher than it was. A similar pattern would be true of many other areas.
In between that possibility and the other straightforward outcome, in which the Department succeeds in its case, lie a variety of conceivable positions in which some parts of the regulations stand while others fall. For example, there could be no limit on what could be paid; or we could have no secure basis for the increases in residential care and nursing home limits, which have been widely welcomed and which are due to come into effect as part of the general social security uprating next Monday. On almost any of those scenarios, our local offices would be faced with the need to make immediate re-assessments of the benefit of up to 200,000 claimants.
370
Therefore, we decided that the only proper course was to introduce regulations to prevent such confusion and uncertainty, to safeguard the increased maximum benefit rates for supplementary beneficiaries in residential care and nursing homes, and to provide a period of stability during which the outcome of the appeal proceedings, and of any further appeal by either side, could be properly considered. Having reached that decision, we introduced the draft regulations, which were laid before the House on 21 October. They were intended, as I believe everyone accepts, to establish a temporary or holding position until the end of May 1986, for the reasons that I have already given.
The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments drew the House's attention to those regulations, principally on grounds that I can best describe by quoting from its report:
"The Committee accepts that these amendments are intended to take account of the judgment in the Cotton case and of the resulting undertaking given by the Department to the court in that case. Nevertheless, the amendments (apart from Regulation 3) have only temporary effect, and subject to that temporary effect, the 1985 Regulations are re-promulgated. The effect of the Regulations is thus to re-promulgate inter alia the very provisions held in the Cotton case to be ultra vires."
It would be entirely pointless for me to do more than state that our position was that, in the event of the Department's appeal being unsuccessful, we would have introduced new regulations before the temporary provisions expired. But the House will agree with our decision that it would not be right to proceed with those regulations in view of the anxieties expressed by the Joint Committee.
Thus, we come to the further draft regulations that were laid before the House on 11 November and which we are debating tonight. They are designed to respond to the Joint Committee's concern, while at the same time meeting our objective of a period of stability.
Mr. John Morris: Can the Minister explain why, since the Joint Committee came to the view that the regulations were based on the dubious premise on which Mr. Justice Mann had held against the Government, they were introduced on substantially similar lines when that matter was still before the courts?
Mr. Newton: For the reasons that I have clearly stated. Obvious problems would arise in certain circumstances following the outcome of the appeal, and that would leave a state of total confusion about who should be paid what benefit in 200,000 cases around the country. Many vulnerable people in residential care and nursing homes could have found that, under existing law, their benefit entitlement would be substantially and dramatically cut. I will describe as simply as I can, in a complicated area, what the regulations do.
First, the financial limits applying to board and lodging areas and the time limits applying to some younger claimants, are effectively incorporated by reference in the regulations themselves.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: I fully support the regulations and the intention behind them. Did the Minister consider changing some of the board and lodging limits from the first regulations to the new ones in the light of some of the inconsistencies that have been pointed out? In particular, is he aware of the special problem in Southend in relation to the rate for Peterborough?
Mr. Newton: I am conscious of the representations that my hon. Friend made. We considered almost every aspect

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of these in deciding what regulations to bring before the House. We concluded that, in the circumstances that I have sought to describe, and against the background that in any case we have undertaken to carry out early next year a thorough review of all the limits in these provisions, it would not be right now to make piecemeal changes of the kind my hon. Friend has pressed upon me.
Secondly, however, the time limits for some younger claimants apply at the outset only to new claimants—that is to say, to those not being paid as boarders at the time the regulations take effect. They would not apply to existing claimants until 28 July 1986, a date we have chosen to coincide with next year's social security up-rating. Thirdly, they re-enact all the categories of exemption from the time limits contained in the original regulations. Thus, the time limits do not apply, for example, to young people in hostels, to those with children, to those who are disabled, to those who have recently been in care, or to several other categories.
Fourthly, they provide a power to exempt young people from the time limits in any individual case where either they or their partner would otherwise suffer exceptional hardship. This replaces the previous provision, which was, of course, one of those called into question by the judgment in the Cotton case, to establish by the use of discretion additional classes of exemption as distinct from exemptions in individual cases.
Mr. Tony Blair: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could help about two related matters about the Secretary of State's discretion. Does a person have the right to make the Secretary of State exercise that discretion? Does a person have the right to ask the Secretary of State to consider whether there is exceptional hardship? If there were circumstances in which the Secretary of State was satisfied that a person was genuinely attempting to seek work and not abuse the regulations, would that fit within the category of exceptional hardship?
Mr. Newton: The answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question is that, clearly, a claimant could discuss his circumstances with the local office to which he applied for benefit in the first place, and draw attention to that which he considered to be exceptional hardship. The arrangement we have made will allow that matter to be referred by the local office to headquarters. That is to enable the exercise of the discretion to be operated consistently throughout the country, and a team of officers at headquarters will be particularly concerned with that work.
On the second point, it is not for me to make off-the-cuff judgments about what would or would not constitute exceptional hardship in a particular case. Given that the framework of the regulations, including the two, four and eight-week limits, was specifically designed to give what we felt was a reasonable time for young people to seek work in particular areas, simply the fact that someone was seeking work would not be taken automatically as a circumstance of exceptional hardship.
Mr. Frank Field: When this point was put to them earlier in the year by the Social Security Advisory Committee the Government replied to the possibility of discretion being incorporated in the regulations in confident vein. In Cmnd. 9467 they said:
"discretion … would be impossible to administer properly and fairly, and would be open to easy manipulation."
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Why was it wrong then but right now?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will understand that there have been some major changes such as have been mentioned and commented on throughout the summer arising from legal proceedings. Given that, as a result of the Cotton judgment, we have, at least for the time being, the power that we sought to create additional exemption classes to meet the need for flexibility, we felt it right to reconsider the possibilities of individual discretion and to do everything in our power to incorporate the flexibility that we believe is required. We have now found that we shall be able to operate by means of the provision that I have described.
Mr. Field: Perhaps other hon. Members, like the Minister, have failed to grasp the point. The Government said clearly that discretion would be impossible to administer. They did not qualify the statement. They did not say that they were considering a narrower canvas. They clearly rejected the Social Security Advisory Committee's proposal for discretion, saying that it was impossible. The Minister has a duty to the House to say why it was wrong then and why it is right now, beyond what he has already said.
Mr. Newton: I cannot go a great deal beyond the answer that I have already given, except to say that, as we conceived the suggestion then, the discretion would be operated purely locally, just as the previous setting of local limits was operated by adjudication officers at local level. We felt that that system had not produced a fair and defensible system of limits around the country. That led us to attempt to set limits by the national means that I have described and to feel that the system would not be satisfactory for the type of discretion that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. We have re-examined the matter in the past few months and decided that it would be right to develop a system at headquarters for operating discretion. We believe that, by that means, we can overcome the objections that we saw earlier to the operation that was expected to be local.
Dame Jill Knight: I am sure that the House is most grateful to my hon. Friend for the careful way in which he is explaining an extremely complicated matter. Is there anything in the proposed changes which will give comfort to parents such as two constituents who came to see me recently? They were in great distress because their young daughter of 17 has got into bad company. She was able to leave home, as her father said, "through the taxes I pay", and thus be in much greater danger than if she had stayed at home.
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend has described clearly one type of case that we intend to tackle by the earlier regulations and these—the young person who ought not to be able to leave home at the drop of a hat and pick up large sums of taxpayers' money. [HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful."] If Opposition Members on the Front Bench think that that is disgraceful, they are demonstrating the irresponsibility with which they approach the subject.
Mr. Dobson: What help will the regulations be to those young people whose relations with their parents are so poor that they cannot possibly stay with them?
Mr. Newton: The exemption categories are designed precisely to cater for young people in that position.
Mr. Ralph Howell: What is the maximum sum that a teenager in London could receive, including laundry allowance and so on, after the regulations come into force? After all the changes and attempted changes, I believe that it is still possible for a teenager to receive about £100 per week.
Will my hon. Friend also explain why the amount that can be received in my constituency is £5 or £10 less than in the neighbouring constituency of Norfolk, South?
Mr. Newton: On the second point, as I have said on previous occasions, we set the limits for the individual board and lodging areas taking into account the limits that had been set locally under the previous system and such other information as was available. In the early part of next year we shall be reviewing those limits, as I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), and we shall be prepared to consider points of that kind at that time.
On the first point, it is impossible without undue complexity to speculate on the maximum benefit that a claimant might receive, taking into account all possible additional elements of supplementary benefit, but the maximum normal allowance for a young person in board and lodgings in London at present would be £79·25. That means that the young person would have to earn £115 a week to achieve the same residual amount to spend on board and lodging. If my hon. Friend regards that as unsatisfactory, I remind him that previously the highest local limit in London was £109, which meant that a young person would have had to earn £180 per week to meet the same board and lodging charges out of earned income—roughly the same as the average adult male wage and far more than the average earnings of young people or of adults in unskilled jobs. That is as good an illustration as any of the appalling unemployment trap into which we are allowing many of these young people to fall.
Mr. Howell: That is precisely my point. Just the other day a lady came to my surgery who had only £28.05 to live on, although her rent and rates, admittedly, were being paid. What on earth are we doing paying £80 or more to young people who deliberately make themselves homeless?
Mr. Newton: For the moment, I will take comfort in the obvious support for the attempts that we are making to tackle the problems about which my hon. Friend is concerned. That is the basis of the regulations.
For residential care and nursing homes the regulations set out the same structure and pattern of limits as the original regulations, varying according to the type of home and the differing needs of the people for whom the homes cater, but they also do two other things to which I should draw attention.
First, the regulations provide clearly and directly for the proposed increases in residential care and nursing home limits which I announced in July and which are intended to take effect from next Monday. This means an increase of £10 per week in all residential care limits, so the range will be £120 to £180 instead of £110 to £170. For nursing homes, the increase is £31·40 per week, so the range will be £170 to £230 instead of £138·60 to £198·60.
That has been welcomed by all hon. Members. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) ironically asked me what steps I proposed to take to safeguard those increases, although he complained at the same time about
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the fact that I was introducing these regulations. We are taking powers—again to be exercised on an individual basis where there would otherwise be exceptional hardship—to give the benefit of transitional protection to those who were in residential care or nursing homes last April but who have come on to supplementary benefit only since then. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have been concerned about that point. I hope that they will welcome the action that the Government have taken.
Although the regulations are permanent, I should make it clear that this in no way detracts from what I said earlier about the reasons for bringing them forward at this stage, or from the commitments we have made to a review in the early part of next year, taking account, among other things, of the work now being done for us by consultants on residential and nursing care.
I should also make it clear that we continue to believe that it would be desirable to have greater flexibility than these regulations allow—for example, to change the board and lodging areas or to introduce new exemption categories—and that we would wish to consider restoring this, should the Department's appeal in the Cotton case succeed.
Our basic objective remains, as it has been throughout, to ensure proper provision for those who are in need while preventing exploitation by those who are not, and it is in that spirit that I commend the regulations to the House.
11.1 pm
Mr. Michael Meacher: As the Minister for Social Security said, this is the third attempt by the Government to force through these infamous board and lodging regulations. The original regulations were declared illegal in July as a result of the Cotton case. The second set of regulations were withdrawn in October, following unprecedented criticism by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Its report states:
"The Committee sympathise with the Department's difficulties, but it seems to the Committee that to make regulations knowing that there is a doubt about their vires is a very questionable procedure. The Department were unable to point to any precedent for proceeding in that way and the Committee do not know of any. Furthermore, the Committee are not persuaded that the making of these regulations in advance of a decision of the Court of Appeal is necessary, given that Mr. Justice Mann left the way open for the Department to maintain the status quo either pending an appeal or pending the making of new regulations."
Despite that unprecedented slapdown, the Government are introducing a third set of regulations. Quite apart from the substance of these regulations, to which I shall return, the procedure which the Secretary of State is adopting is highly questionable, if not actually improper.
An appeal regarding the original regulations is pending. It relates to the referral of the regulations to the Government's social security advisory committee. The proposed regulations, on the other hand, have not been referred to the social security advisory committee,
"since it appears to the Secretary of State that by reason of urgency it is inexpedient to do so."
Any state of urgency is entirely of the Secretary of State's own making. It is highly dubious for the Secretary of State to act ultra vires and then to use the consequential delay as the ground upon which not to follow the normal procedure.
This is not a technical point. The Government are required under the terms of the Social Security Act to consult the social security advisory committee, but they

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have not done so. There can be no possible excuse for failing to do so, because three and a half months have elapsed since the hearing of the Cotton case in July.
Secondly, it is all the more remarkable that the Government are trying to rush this third set of regulations through Parliament when the Department of Health and Social Security's application to the Court of Appeal is to be heard very soon—the Minister said in five days' time. At the very least, it is presumptuous towards the Court of Appeal.
The Government could introduce the regulations and drop the appeal but they have not done so. Having launched an appeal, I do not accept that it is appropriate to pre-empt the result of the appeal by further regulations. That is exactly what the Government are doing and it displays a very high-handed approach. It is all the more high-handed when the current position is not a cause for immediate concern, either for the Department or for the claimants.
The earlier regulations are still in force. They were not struck down by the court, and claimants are protected by the undertaking given by the DHSS to the court. There is simply no urgent reason why that position cannot continue, having continued for at least three and a half months, until after the Court of Appeal's decision in five days' time.
Mr. Newton: I hope the hon. Gentleman appreciates that, among other things, the 1985 regulations revoked large parts of the previous regulations, under which limits were operated. Will he consider the possibility, which we must consider, that some parts of the 1985 regulations are judged to fall, but not that part which revoked the 1983 regulations? To all intents and purposes there is, therefore, no effective regime governing board and lodging payments.
Mr. Meacher: Our position is that that would be a considerable advantage, because there is no need for regulations. There are already adequate powers in the hands of the Secretary of State to deal with any allegations of fraud in respect of persons in board and lodgings. The powers are wholly gratuitous and should be rescinded.
It is astonishing and tragic that the Government should be rushing ahead so inflexibly with regulations which are unnecessary, and which have caused, and will continue to cause, several suicides—I certainly know of at least half a dozen—and real misery for tens of thousands of young people. The regulations will penalise these young people for failing to obtain what everyone outside the Government knows it is virtually impossible for them to obtain, that is a job within eight weeks, when unemployment today for people under the age of 25 averages 21 per cent., or alternative accommodation, when the house building programme under the Government has been decimated, and alternative houses or flats for young people are simply not available.
Mr. John Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman made the serious allegation that these regulations had caused suicides. Does he have any direct evidence of that? Has that been found in a court? Does he have any evidence that the incidence of suicide has increased as a result of the regulations?
Mr. Meacher: I shall cite a number of cases in a moment, but, as the matter has been raised, I shall cite a case from a report by the Association of Chief Officers of Probation. The report states:
"In Northumberland, a mentally disturbed, former client of the Probation Service received notice of time expiry, could not find alternative accommodation, committed suicide."
It is possible, legalistically, to say that it cannot be proven that that was the sole cause, but certainly there is strong evidence to suggest that that was the cause. [Interruption.] I can provide other examples.
In Luton, a 22-year-old man committed suicide after receiving notice of the implementation of the DHSS regulations. In the case of a broken family in Essex, a 23-year-old man who was trying to be reconciled with his wife obtained lodging near her home, but he was forced to move on because of the suspension of allowance under the time limitation. Can Conservative Members countenance such a price being paid for the regulations?
Mr. Butterfill rose—
Mr. Meacher: This is a short debate, I have more to say and, therefore, I shall not give way again.
The Government's main justification throughout has been that the board and lodging budget has been escalating out of control, but individual charges have not been increasing rapidly. I hope that the Minister takes it on board that the percentage increase in the average board and lodging charge for 1984 was the lowest for five years. The increasing numbers of people living on board and lodging has caused the budget to grow. Is that a justification for introducing maximum allowances, which simply have the effect of making people homeless?
More recently, the Secretary of State has tried to imply that the regulations are designed to check fraud, but there is a major flaw in that argument. The private landlord and hotelier, not the claimant, benefit from increased board and lodging allowances. All that the claimant receives is a mere £9·70 per week personal allowance, plus fixed amounts for meals. The lodging allowance and relevant allowance for board have to be handed over by the claimant to the landlord.
If there is as much fraud as is claimed, why have only 30 people been prosecuted in the King's Cross area, when the Government claim that 600 out of 1,200 claimants investigated there have been defrauding the system? I shall be glad to give way to the Secretary of State if he wishes to answer that. He talks about fraud, but only one in 20 of those who are said to defraud the system have been prosecuted.
It is because the justifications do not wash that the Opposition unreservedly condemn these gratuitously harsh and unfair regulations. We call for them to be rescinded.
The exemption system which the Government were forced to introduce in the light of the previous outcry against the measure does not provide adequate protection for the most vulnerable. This is partly because the responsibility for identifying the exempt lies with claimants and not with the DHSS, and because many claimants within the exempt categories who have applied for exemption have been turned down by the DHSS and their allowances cut.
I can list examples. An 18-year-old girl with chronic asthma was not treated as exempt. She had severe attacks. Her landlady had to assist. The DHSS would not accept that she was chronically sick and therefore exempt.

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Another 18-year-old girl was physically thrown out of her home by her mother two years ago. Some hon. Members talk about people walking out of their homes without provocation. That rarely happens. More often people just cannot stay at home. In the case that I described the girl's stepfather was a violent drunk and her mother was mentally ill. The DHSS refused to concede that she had left home because of physical or moral danger.
Another case involves a youth aged 20 who had twice been put in hospital because of his stepfather's violence. He was living in board and lodging accommodation, but, because he was over 19, family violence was not a ground for exemption and his benefit was cut. Is that an example of the exempt limit being properly exercised?
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: A number of parents have written to me in distress informing me that their schoolgirl daughters have left home to live with their boyfriends in Morecambe and are being paid for by the DHSS
Mr. Meacher: The phrase "being paid for by the DHSS" is an extravagant distortion. If hon. Members had to experience the standards of living imposed by the cuts, they would not use that phrase. If the Lady writes to me about individual cases, I shall be pleased to reply.
The awful truth about the regulations is that, far from increasing the jobs take-up, which was their ostensible purpose, they have had a different and disastrous effect. They have curtailed severely the amount of board and lodging accommodation available.
The Campaign for the Homeless and Rootless has found that in central London there are now only about 25 bed and breakfast hostels within the price limit laid down by the DHSS in the areas covered by the four central DHSS offices. Before the new limits there were 200—eight times the amount of hostel accommodation. So embarrassed is the DHSS that it has refused to publish a list of accommodation within the price limit.
Many hoteliers have taken other and more profitable sorts of trade, leaving only those places of such poor standard that no one with any choice would choose to live there. The hoteliers remaining in the trade keep up profit margins by flouting public health laws and cramming in people. That is the effect of the regulations. I ask the Minister whether that is what the Government intended. If not—and I believe that they did not intend that—how can they justify pressing on regardless with the regulations?
Mr. Robin Corbett: Will my hon. Friend take on board the point that another effect of the regulations is the disfranchisement of many thousands of young people who will not be able to register their votes? Will he advise them that by 10 October next they should try to obtain board and lodgings in Finchley?
Mr. Meacher: That is admirable advice. There are 85,000 people whom the regulations have made into nomads. I hope that for the purpose of registering for what will probably be the date of the next general election, those people will find an opportunity to be in the constituency of Finchley so that they can effectively show the Prime Minister what they feel about the regulations.
I come to the part of the regulations mentioned by the Minister that has the more welcome effect of raising the
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limit for elderly persons in residential and nursing homes. Even here there is a shortfall in the new ceiling which is below the market reality. It is the relationship with the cost of accommodation that is relevant and that is having disastrous consequences. I cite one case put to me by the British Association of Social Workers. An elderly, physically handicapped lady living in Enfield entered a private residential home three or four years ago. She used the capital from selling her house to pay the £180 per week rent. At that time she was assured by both the DHSS and the social services department that when her capital was depleted she would be eligible for supplementary benefit, and that her future would be secure. By July of this year her capital had been reduced to £3,000 and she applied for supplementary benefit. The DHSS informed her that she would be entitled only to the statutory limit of £110 per week under the new regulations, and that she would have to make up the shortfall from her capital. That she has done since July, but her small sum of money is rapidly running out.
Mr. Newton: I realise that the hon. Gentleman is in the middle of describing a particular case, but to save him the trouble of completing it I make the point that it is exactly that sort of case that is the object of one of the new provisions that I described in my speech.
Mr. Meacher: When the Minister talks about new provisions, I do not know whether he is talking about exceptional hardship or transitional protection. That elderly lady has already attempted to kill herself by taking an overdose of drugs. Her family wrote to the Secretary of State some considerable time ago, but has received no reply.
Mr. Allan Rogers: And she voted Tory.
Mr. Meacher: Perhaps the Secretary of State would care to go through his correspondence and help that elderly lady.
Another problem is causing real anxiety to the elderly, but the Government have not provided an answer tonight. It arises with the elderly and disabled who are placed with families in the community and cared for on a long-term basis. Under present arrangements, the DHSS contributes the maximum sum allowed for such placements, which is £70 a week, and that is then topped up by the adult care scheme to meet the costs of carers. The present regulations provide transitional protection for such claimants only—this is relevant to the point which the Minister has just made—until April 1986. After that date, the residential homes limit will apply to such placements and the board and lodging regulations will preclude the topping up of payments to elderly people in this type of accommodation. The Minister said that the transitional protection was designed to assist the kinds of cases that I have mentioned. He might care to say what will happen in less than a year from now, because many of these elderly people will live beyond then, and this is causing immense anxiety.
It is absurd that such elderly and dependent people will in future have to be cared for in local authority residential homes when the cost of such a home is £196 a week, as opposed to the topping-up cost under the adult care placement scheme of only £14·87.
These regulations will not achieve the purpose ostensibly claimed for them. They are not intended, let alone expected, to achieve that aim. They are, in fact, yet

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another element, and a particularly harsh and vindictive one. of the Government's general policy of cutting benefits for some of the most vulnerable members of society in order to fund increased tax reliefs for the already privileged. It is a philosophy which we reject and abhor, one which, when we come to power, we shall wholeheartedly reverse.
11.22 pm
Mrs. Edwina Currie: I am glad to support the Government in tonight's endeavours. This set of regulations can be rated better than the last lot on several grounds. First, they protect the increase given to residential care homes, particularly nursing homes, and I know that that will be greatly welcomed. At last, some of the figures are realistic, and I know that the Minister is examining the matter with consultants to see exactly how the limits can be set in future. One waits in vain to hear spokesmen on the Opposition Front Bench welcoming some of the increases, which will solve some of the problems that the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) outlined.
Secondly, the regulations give the Secretary of State discretion in cases of hardship. I should have thought that would answer all the worries of Opposition Members about borderline cases. It will require a realistic and responsive system. I wonder whether my right hon. and hon. Friends quite realise what they are letting themselves in for if we are to have a 24-hour system. I believe that it is right in principle that there should be some discretion and that it should lie with the Secretary of State.
Mr. Chris Smith rose—
Mrs. Currie: I will not give way, because there is little time for the debate and other hon. Members want to speak.
Thirdly. the categories to be helped are widened. I counted about 30 categories outlined by Mr. Justice Mann, and we have now added to those. The list includes all the people we want to help, such as the pregnant, the mentally handicapped, the mentally ill, the disabled, students on vacation living in their normal term-time accommodation and people under 19 with no parents or guardians, and all the others.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West talked about people who had committed, or were alleged to have committed, suicide—[Interruption.] They did not do it because of the DHSS. In all the cases that have been put to us, they did it because they were suffering from mental illness; and those who are busy writing reports about them, such as SHAC, Shelter and all the other organisations, would have been better advised to look after those people rather sooner, before they reached that state. I say that particularly to social workers and probation officers, who should have been looking after them much better.
Mr. Butterfill: Does my hon. Friend agree that it was curious of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) not to mention whether those people had previously attempted suicide, before the regulations were introduced?
Mrs. Currie: There has been a campaign to try to brand the Government as evil ogres doing down poor and handicapped people—[Interruption.] For such a campaign to convince me, I should need some detailed figures and names and addresses. We have not been given
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any of those. Whereas I should need verifiable evidence, what we have had in all the campaigns—including the Derby Evening Telegraph, just as we had tonight from the hon. Member for Oldham, West—has been a handful of anecdotes and some unverifiable statements: what used to be called no names, no pack drill. I should want to see some names and detailed case histories before I could be satisfied.
Mrs. Margaret Beckett: Does the hon. Lady recall that when the regulations were first introduced, that is exactly what the Social Security Advisory Council said about the Government's evidence?
Mrs. Currie: I recall also that the Derby office of the DHSS, which covers the hon. Lady's constituency as well as much of mine, told me that in March, before the regulations were changed, there were 800 board and lodging claimants in Derby at 200 addresses. It was convinced that there was widespread fraud and it did not have the staff to make the necessary checks.
If anyone from the Treasury is listening, I believe that cutting DHSS staff in local offices costs public money and that the cuts should not take place.
I have not had to take up the case of a single constituent who can be shown to have lost through the new regulations or to have been placed in one of the exempt categories and caused to suffer real injustice. I have offered to do so, and no one has come forward. It would seem that there is not one such case in my constituency.
Any system of social security has to try to satisfy those who are in real need and to combat abuse. I shall quote the answer that was given by my hon. Friend the Minister on 29 October 1985. He stated:
"A survey of … claimants … in the south-east"—
it was a survey of 2,350 claimants under 26—
"showed 20 per cent. were exempt".
They were within the exemptions then set out, which are about to be widened. He continued:
"A further 35 per cent. remained in the same accommodation, mainly at the non-householder rate of benefit. 15 per cent. moved to other accommodation (less than 2 per cent. of these as boarders). 25 per cent. ceased to claim supplementary benefit altogether."—[Official Report, 29 October 1985; Vol. 84, c. 441.]
It appears that a fair number of them disappear. The figures in other areas produce a roughly comparable picture.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West knows all about these figures, for it was he who tabled the question which produced the answer from which I have quoted. If he wants to be Secretary of State for Social Services, he will have to find some way of combating such abuse. He cannot and should not try to deny that there is abuse. We must find ways of combating abuse in any system that we introduce, and a Labour Government would have to emulate this Government's example.
The Labour party has a bit of a nerve. If all the old people who are in residential care receiving the allowances, and even half the young people receiving board and lodging allowances, are in real need, I should expect to find from the figures even five to six years ago—they are all available—about 40,000 old people being cared for and about 100,000 younger people. I am taking account of demographic change and changes in the employment pattern of young people, for example. I have checked the figures. In 1978, 40,000 young people, not 100,000, were being helped by the Labour Government

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under the then regulations, and 7,000 old people, not the 40,000 that we would have expected. They spent all of £50 million on board and lodging allowances and a miserable £6 million on caring for old people in private residential care. Who are the misers? The misers are on the Opposition Benches. They spent all of £50 million, and last year this Government spent £570 million. I think that I am right in saying that this year we shall spend £700 million. The record of the Labour Government does not bear comparison with that of the present Government.
I have not yet congratulated my right hon. and hon. Friends on producing something that is legal—we do not know whether it is legal because the name of the game is "Find a loophole"—or I have not yet congratulated them on producing something that is simple, elegant and easy to understand along the lines demanded by the social security reviews. I am not sure whether the provisions can be so described. I am not certain that we have the definitive version before us. What is missing above all is a genuine system of assessment of need. My hon. Friend the Minister had been kind enough to allow me to put some suggestions to him on this matter.
I shall support the Government in the Division in the honest hope that they will produce a system that looks after those who are in need, not those who do not come into that category, and in the certain knowledge that no one else can produce such an earnest endeavour to that end.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. I remind the House that this is a short debate. I appeal for extreme brevity.
11.30 pm
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I do not follow either the style or the content of the speech of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), but I take up her last point. She said that she favours a system that helps those who are in need but does not help those who are not in need. I do not think that this system does help those in need. I should like to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). We shall vote against the regulations.
There are substantial legal difficulties. Our conclusion about the mess that ensued from the Cotton legal appeal and the subsequent legal difficulties is the same as that already pointed out by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett). Any secondary legislation to introduce a fundamental and far-reaching change in policy does have extensive implications for the House. I was somewhat reassured by the Minister's tone, but I would be happier if he would make clear what the Government intend doing in the future. The Secretary of State's Green Paper is in train. A Social Security Bill will be introduced early in the next calendar year. I hope that in future the Government will eschew procedures such as this to save us from this difficulty.
If the proposals enshrined in this secondary legislation had been contained in primary legislation, hon. Members would have been able to ask the Secretary of State detailed questions, like those he was asked before. There are still some unclear matters. The DHSS has taken powers to introduce an exemption for exceptional hardship in cases referred to it by local adjudication officers. I assume that
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there can be no appeal. Does that mean that a claimant can appeal only by means of a process of judicial review: If so, we are on course for another series of charades to be played in the courts. Surely that is in the interest of no one.
I have looked carefully at the regulations, but I cannot work out the procedure for review. I understand that we shall have, not an annual recourse to uprating board and lodging payments, but a process of review. Does that mean that the Secretary of State will introduce secondary legislation to say that he is publishing a new booklet? We shall have one of these one and a half hour debates about whether the booklet should be produced, but we will not necessarily have the booklet in front of us. We shall be giving the Secretary of State the power to change the geographical areas or the time limits in a statutory instrument to be followed by a booklet published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. That is a terrible, hopelessly unsatisfactory way to proceed.
It is regrettable and inevitable that there will now be chaos—administrative and otherwise. DHSS staff in my area do an excellent job, but I do not understand how the Secretary of State can expect them to see new claimants for board and lodging payment and tell them that they will be back in the old system whereby they are subject to the two, four or eight week limit. I understand that existing board and lodging claimants will be covered until the operating period next year. If these measures are introduced forthwith, there will be a great deal of chaos.
The Minister has said that he will look again at the regulations. Is he talking about looking at them in detail and refining the cash and time limits and the geographical areas, or is he proposing to introduce a new system for dealing with the adjudication problem? If he is intending the latter action, he will receive a great deal of support from us. It may be pushing things a bit in terms of time, but the Minister has the opportunity in the Social Security Bill which is to be introduced next year to propose a new system which could replace the present hopelessly unsatisfactory one.
The Government's need to react in the way that they have done has not been proved to my satisfaction. I heard what the Minister said about the Ernst and Whinney report, and all the rest of it, but I think that the Department has acted largely on anecdotal evidence and press reports. I have seen nothing that satisfies me that the major changes introduced by the Government were necessary.
As the hon. Member for Oldham, West said, there has been an increase in the number of young people receiving board and lodging allowances, but the Government have not encouraged local authorities, through the Department of the Environment, to have a more flexible house letting policy for young people. That could have made a great deal of difference. I do not mean that the local authorities should build lots of new houses, but, with sensible rehabilitation and improvement grants, some single accommodation in some of our cities could be made available to our young people.
The furniture grants have been administered too inflexibly. It is regrettable that claimants must establish that there is no other suitable accommodation available locally before they can receive furniture grants. The Government could have done more about that matter.
Where in the regulations is there an attempt to tackle the problem of abuse by landlords? What have the Government done to tackle the board and lodging cartels which the Minister mentioned, the pricing policies and the

383
conditions in which some of the young people live? If they had done something, they would have been seen to be more even handed, and the Minister might have received more support for his proposals. The Government have not taken the necessary action, and I therefore do not think that the proposals deserve support. The consequences are there for all to see. The proposals have a harmful effect on young people's employment prospects because of the time that they have available to look for jobs.
The vulnerable will not be properly protected, even with the new exceptional hardship exemptions, because the onus of proving exceptional hardship is on the claimant. There is a myriad of regulations to look through, yet the onus is on the claimant to try to work out the complicated exemption categories. The protection available is not enough to satisfy me that the vulnerable will not be at risk.
The right of appeal will be vitiated in practice, because if the claimant has only, two, four or eight weeks in which to appeal, by the time the appeal is heard the landlord will have hoi'd the claimant out of the door. There will not be time to prosecute the appeal sensibly. There should be a procedure to stop the time limit clock from running when the claimant appeals.
The fact that the regulations are prejudicial to young people's voting rights has been mentioned. They are also prejudicial to their education and training opportunities.
Does the Minister believe it to be right that some young people in this position should have to attribute their meal and personal allowances to pay their boarding charges? If we can establish that that is happening, will the Minister take a serious view of the practice, or is he prepared to accept it as a consequence of the regulations? If he is, that is monstrously unfair. There is evidence that that is happening.
I ask the Minister to consider the failure to increase the limits, which are damaging. I think that he has had correspondence from the Scottish Council for the Single Homeless about them. Many people were expecting board and lodging increases in the normal uprating of benefits in the annual review. It has not happened, and that has put a lot of budgetary plans out of joint. Will the Minister consider again the failure to increase the allowances for meals? The £1 limit for breakfast and the £1.55 limit for lunch and dinner are penal. Those have been the limits for some time.
I could continue, but in view of the constraint on time, I shall not do so. We cannot support the regulations. I urge the Minister to consider the problems again and to bring forward a new system in the social security legislation next year.
11.40 pm
Mr. Robin Squire: Time is very short, so I shall briefly put only three points to my hon. Friend. Perhaps I should start by saying that I am proud to have been a member of the board of management of Shelter since 1982, although that means that from time to time I see things differently from some of my hon. Friends. As I said in the Chamber when we first debated the regulations, I support action to crack down on fraud, and we should all be able to support that.
I ask my hon. Friend to consider the administrative point of how the system operates. A person under 26 will receive a notice telling him that his benefit is to be cut, and with it will come an exemption form. Some people have
384
not realised that they can claim exemption, and one or two tragedies have occurred. May I suggest a slight change in the system? The Department should initially notify the person that the period of benefit is coming to an end and should send with that notification an exemption claim form. If and when the Department determines that the person is not eligible, he should then be advised that the grant will be terminated. That might remove some problems.
As to the quality and standard of the buildings we are talking about, there are enough independent reports to show that in the main they are disgusting, ghastly and horrible. I hope my hon. Friend will continue to bring pressure on, I assume, the Secretary of State for the Environment to introduce a system of registration of the buildings. It is long past the time when any of us should be happy about conditions in so many of the properties. Nothing will happen unless we show the political will to do something about them.
Like all my hon. Friends, I want as many young people as possible to remain within the family environment for as long as they can. Some of them do not, for reasons which we have heard in the debate. We already know why some young people leave home. We have a responsibility to find ways to cope with those young people. The treatment of young people without a friendly home to return to is very bad. Would it be possible to have an inter-departmental review involving the Home Office, the Department of the Environment and the DHSS to try to find ways to assist young homeless people? Many of them dare not return to their parents or step-parents. If something were done about that, we would have started to tackle the underlying problem which essentially involves housing for the homeless rather than benefit.
11.43 pm
Mr. Frank Field: I want to speak briefly about Simon Cotton, because he is a constituent of mine. Had he not been successful in taking the Government to court, he would not now be one of my constituents, because he would have been moved on under the rules.
Although still a young person, Simon has had a serious heart complaint and has undergone major heart surgery. He has lived for most of his life in children's homes or in foster homes. He is now living with an ex-employee of one of the children's homes in which he grew up. Even under the new regulations, that person would not be exempt. Therefore, as well as considering some of the grander accusations about those who are abusing the social security system, the House should think about some real people.
I am not making a claim from the Opposition that there is no abuse. I hope that nobody in the Opposition puts forward that case. However, we are saying that we object strongly to the way in which abuse is being tackled. If claimants are abusing the system, it is proper that they should be brought before the courts. It is noticeable that, with all the charges of abuse over recent debates, few claimants seem to have appeared in court.
Much more serious than the abuse by some claimants is that by landlords. The Opposition object to trying to prevent that abuse by penalising claimants, some guilty, some not. That is an unsound way to try to tackle a considerable increase in public expenditure, as the Minister said. My guess is that quite a few of those claims were wrongly made, not so much by claimants as by the landlords upon whom they are dependent.

385
Secondly, no one in the Opposition wishes to support a social security system that prevents or discourages people from working; but we make a plea, at a time of massive unemployment, for a genuine test of whether a person wishes to work. Twenty years ago, the rules were clear. The Ministry of Labour was closely linked with social security payments, and people who claimed benefits could have their claim tested by being presented with a job opportunity. [Interruption.] The previous Government and this Government have been unwise to try to divide the workings of the Department of Employment from the payment of benefits. Many claimants—[Interruption.]—would be encouraged if the Department of Employment—
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Could you not persuade the hon. Members for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and for Crawley (Mr. Soames) who are standing below the Gangway, to keep more quiet? It is distressing that they appear to be satisfied on the basis of the generous board and lodging allowance for Members for Parliament, when we are considering much smaller sums. It is a little unfortunate that they should behave in that way.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have no doubt that hon. Members have heard the hon. Gentleman. I hope that they will keep reasonably quiet.
Mr. Field: I am grateful for the intervention. One hon. Member said that he wished to be sent for an interview by the Department of Employment. No doubt that will happen soon.
I should like to turn from fantasy to the real world. I am sorry that I did not speak after the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). I was sent a copy of the Derby Diocesan Council for Social Responsibility's report on how the board and lodging regulations are operated in her area. The main points were as follows. First, the report expresses surprise that the Government, who believe in encouraging the private market and that private landlordism should be extended should be so horrified when that occurs. In the council's area, which the hon. Lady's constituency covers, that is precisely what has happened with the small landlord and landlady.
Secondly, the report refers to the extent of abuse. The council reckons that abuse is operating in its area, but by and large it is being done by those who are operating large establishments or who own several establishments. The council list the ways in which the bigger landlords are providing bogus accommodation so that claimants can claim allowances.
Thirdly, the report asks whether, in an area where there has been a massive increase in public expenditure and where the Government are anxious to create real jobs, it would not be sensible to try to control the increase in public expenditure by employing a few more people to build a register of decent lodgings, so that the claimants and the taxpayers knew that they were getting a good deal.
Lastly, the report describes some of those who are affected by the rules and regulations. I emphasise the point that the report, by its nature, does not pick up those who abuse the system. They are not foolish enough to go along and say, "This is how we do it." They are excluded from the report, but others are affected by the regulations.
Mr. Rooker: Why did not the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) quote that report?
Mr. Field: I do not know. I am trying to quote the report and finish my speech.
Mrs. Currie: I have seen the report, and I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman confirm much of what I said: that there is widespread abuse. I do not care who is committing it; it is wrong. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is difficult to discover genuine cases? I repeat that I asked for the details, names and addresses of constituents badly affected, and I have received nothing.
Mr. Field: I would have given the hon. Lady the benefit of the doubt by assuming that she had not seen the report. It is extraordinary that she did not quote it, as I have done.
I end by giving three examples—perhaps they are the hon. Lady's constituents—of real cases. Some hon. Members believe that many claimants are street-wise people who know how to rig the social security system, but the report states:
"Many of those interviewed had severe literacy and numeracy problems, and rather than being 'street-wise' they came over as being rather slow and inadequate in their ability to cope with the demands of everyday life without some support."
The report also describes a young girl:
"She was ill with worry, having been forced to move out under the original ruling, and the prospect of having to move again, consequently she was being treated for depression. She commented: 'I would do the same as I did before, sell my body for the money to eat.—
Mrs. Currie: What is her name?
Mr. Field: If the hon. Lady is doubting the Bishop of Derby, she is very foolish indeed.
The third example is of a lad from Derby who intentionally broke a shop window in the hope of getting a probation order, which would make him exempt from the time restrictions. That strategy was successful.
The House decision's tonight will affect many claimants similar to those mentioned in that report. Many hon. Members would say that they would not be so foolish as to behave as some of the claimants whom I have described, but, of course, we are not making the rules and regulations for us. If we were, we would not pass them tonight.
11·53 pm
Mr. Tony Favell: I am glad that my hon. Friend the Minister will not be deflected from his determination to introduce some sense into the board and lodging allowances for the able-bodied young. I say that for three good reasons. First, the allowances are an insult to the rest of the population. Many low-paid people cannot hope to live in circumstances similar to those enjoyed by those who benefit from the board and lodging allowances. Certainly in my constituency, they live in comfortable circumstances. Secondly, the regulations are an insult to the unemployed. An unemployed single person on supplementary benefit receives £27·50 a week, yet someone in receipt of board and lodging allowance receives £29·40 only for his food.
The second reason, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) said, is that the allowances lead to the breaking up of families. A lady constituent came into my surgery recently and told me of her 16-year-old girl, who was being encouraged to leave

387
home to live with a young man whom the mother suspects of dabbling in drugs. She said: "Mr. Favell, the state is encouraging this young girl, who needs me and my family, to move out and live in those circumstances. What hope is there for my daughter and what is the state going to do about it?" I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend is proposing to do something about it.
These allowances are bad for young people, because it is not good for them to be tied to the apron strings of social security. With allowances of this kind, there is little prospect of them leaving board and lodging if they are offered a job. In my constituency, somebody on board and lodging receives £55 plus another £9-odd for pocket money. There is no point in him going on a community or youth training programme, because he woud lose his supplementary benefit. There is no incentive to work or train or to find a job.
11.54 pm
Mr. Newton: In the time available, I shall not be able to reply to all the points made by hon. Members.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) used a phrase that reflects the exaggerated way in which he has consistently approached this problem. He took the number, which we originally estimated, of young people under the age of 26 likely to be in board and lodging this year-85,000. I made a note of the phrase that he used. He referred to 85,000 nomads roaming the country. On 29 October I gave the hon. Gentleman some of the results of our careful monitoring of the introduction of the regulations while the time limits were still operating. I shall put those figures on record.
A survey of 2,350 claimants in an area covering a large part of south-east England showed that 20 per cent. were exempt from the time limits. Later evidence suggests that is an understatement of the position. A further 35 per cent. remained in the same accommodation, mainly at the non-householder rate of benefit—lower than the board and lodging rate. They stayed in the same place. The survey shows that 15 per cent. moved to other accommodation—less than 2 per cent. of them as boarders. In other words, they found accommodation with family or friends or in rented accommodation where housing benefit applied. Alongside the 35 per cent. who stayed in the same accommodation, at tens of pounds a week less benefit, 25 per cent. ceased to claim supplementary benefit, some because their unempolyment benefit was higher than their then entitlement to supplementary benefit.
In a situation when over half the claimants in a large part of the country in a substantial survey either stayed put at much lower rates of benefit or simply disappeared from the books, questions about the validity of many of these payments must be raised. That evidence has been strengthened by work carried out at the Euston local office which suggested that nearly half of the claimants—
Mrs. Beckett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Newton: No.
The Euston office found that nearly half of the claimants were not staying at the addresses they had notified to the DHSS.
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman is misleading the House.
Mr. Newton: The hon. Lady says that I am misleading the House.
Mrs. Beckett: If the Minister is not misleading the House, I should be pleased to hear his explanation. The figures he quoted were given between April and July 1985. Londoners did not have to move on until August.
Mr. Newton: Whatever may have happened as regards Londoners, those figures cover a large part of the south eastern part of the country, and the time limits were operating. They correspond with the figures in Euston. It is precisely because of that evidence that we are taking vigorous further action against fraud. I hope that when we do, we shall have more support than we had at the time of Operation Major in Oxford—we prosecuted both claimants and landlords—when the Opposition spent months making a fuss about what had happened.
I commend the regulations to the House.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 336, Noes 198.

Division No. 9]

[12 midnight

AYES

Adley, Robert

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Aitken, Jonathan

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Alexander, Richard

Clegg, Sir Walter

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Cockeram, Eric

Amess, David

Colvin, Michael

Ancram, Michael

Conway, Derek

Arnold, Tom

Coombs, Simon

Ashby, David

Cope, John

Aspinwall, Jack

Cormack, Patrick

Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

Couchman, James

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

Cranborne, Viscount

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Critchley, Julian

Baldry, Tony

Crouch, David

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Batiste, Spencer

Dickens, Geoffrey

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Dorrell, Stephen

Bellingham, Henry

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Bendall, Vivian

Dover, Den

Benyon, William

du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

Best, Keith

Dunn, Robert

Bevan, David Gilroy

Durant, Tony

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Dykes, Hugh

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Blackburn, John

Emery, Sir Peter

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Evennett, David

Body, Richard

Eyre, Sir Reginald

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Fallon, Michael

Bottomley, Peter

Farr, Sir John

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Favell, Anthony

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

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Fletcher, Alexander

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Fookes, Miss Janet

Bright, Graham

Forman, Nigel

Brinton, Tim

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

Forth, Eric

Brooke, Hon Peter

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

Franks, Cecil

Bruinvels, Peter

Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

Buck, Sir Antony

Freeman, Roger

Budgen, Nick

Fry, Peter

Bulmer, Esmond

Gale, Roger

Butcher, John

Galley, Roy

Butler, Hon Adam

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Butterfill, John

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

Carlisle, John (N Luton)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (W'ton S)

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Carttiss, Michael

Goodlad, Alastair

Cash, William

Gorst, John

Chalker, Mrs Lynda

Gow, Ian

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Gower, Sir Raymond

Chapman, Sydney

Greenway, Harry

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

Gregory, Conal

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Griffiths, Sir Eldon

389

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Major, John

Ground, Patrick

Malins, Humfrey

Grylls, Michael

Malone, Gerald

Gummer, Rt Hon John S

Maples, John

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Marland, Paul

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Marlow, Antony

Hampson, Dr Keith

Maude, Hon Francis

Hanley, Jeremy

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Hannam, John

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Harris, David

Mayhew, Sir Patrick

Harvey, Robert

Mellor, David

Haselhurst, Alan

Merchant, Piers

Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Hawksley, Warren

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Hayes, J.

Miscampbell, Norman

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

Hayward, Robert

Moate, Roger

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Monro, Sir Hector

Heddle, John

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Henderson, Barry

Moore, John

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

Hickmet, Richard

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Hicks, Robert

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Moynihan, Hon C.

Hind, Kenneth

Mudd, David

Hirst, Michael

Murphy, Christopher

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Neale, Gerrard

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

Needham, Richard

Hordern, Sir Peter

Neubert, Michael

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

Newton, Tony

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Nicholls, Patrick

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Normanton, Tom

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

Norris, Steven

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

Onslow, Cranley

Hubbard-Miles, Peter

Oppenheim, Phillip

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Ottaway, Richard

Hunter, Andrew

Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Page, Richard (Herts SW)

Jackson, Robert

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Parris, Matthew

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Jones, Robert (W Herts)

Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Pattie, Geoffrey

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Pawsey, James

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Pollock, Alexander

Kershaw, Sir Anthony

Porter, Barry

Key, Robert

Portillo, Michael

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

Powell, William (Corby)

King, Rt Hon Tom

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Knight, Greg (Derby N)

Price, Sir David

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Proctor, K. Harvey

Knowles, Michael

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Knox, David

Raffan, Keith

Lamont, Norman

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Lang, Ian

Rathbone, Tim

Latham, Michael

Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

Lawler, Geoffrey

Renton, Tim

Lawrence, Ivan

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Rifkind, Malcolm

Lightbown, David

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Lilley, Peter

Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

Roe, Mrs Marion

Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Lord, Michael

Rost, Peter

Luce, Richard

Rowe, Andrew

Lyell, Nicholas

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

McCrindle, Robert

Ryder, Richard

McCurley, Mrs Anna

Sackville, Hon Thomas

Macfarlane, Neil

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Sayeed, Jonathan

MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Maclean, David John

Shelton, William (Streatham)

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

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

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

McQuarrie, Albert

Shersby, Michael

Madel, David

Silvester, Fred

390

Sims, Roger

Twinn, Dr Ian

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Viggers, Peter

Speller, Tony

Waddington, David

Spence, John

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Spencer, Derek

Waldegrave, Hon William

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Walden, George

Squire, Robin

Walker, Bill (T'side N)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Wall, Sir Patrick

Stanley, John

Waller, Gary

Steen, Anthony

Walters, Dennis

Stern, Michael

Ward, John

Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

Warren, Kenneth

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Watson, John

Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

Watts, John

Stokes, John

Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Wheeler, John

Sumberg, David

Whitfield, John

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Whitney, Raymond

Taylor, John (Solihull)

Wiggin, Jerry

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Wilkinson, John

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Terlezki, Stefan

Winterton, Nicholas

Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

Wolfson, Mark

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Wood, Timothy

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Woodcock, Michael

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Yeo, Tim

Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Thurnham, Peter

Younger, Rt Hon George

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Trippier, David

Mr. Robert Boscawen and

Trotter, Neville

Mr. Carol Mather.

NOES

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Corbett, Robin

Alton, David

Corbyn, Jeremy

Anderson, Donald

Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

Ashdown, Paddy

Craigen, J. M.

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Crowther, Stan

Ashton, Joe

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

Cunningham, Dr John

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Dalyell, Tam

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

Barnett, Guy

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Barron, Kevin

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

Beckett, Mrs Margaret

Deakins, Eric

Beith, A. J.

Dewar, Donald

Bell, Stuart

Dixon, Donald

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Dobson, Frank

Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)

Dormand, Jack

Bermingham, Gerald

Dubs, Alfred

Bidwell, Sydney

Duffy, A. E. P.

Blair, Anthony

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Eadie, Alex

Boyes, Roland

Eastham, Ken

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Ewing, Harry

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

Fatchett, Derek

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Faulds, Andrew

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

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

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

Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

Fisher, Mark

Buchan, Norman

Flannery, Martin

Caborn, Richard

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

Forrester, John

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Foster, Derek

Canavan, Dennis

Foulkes, George

Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Freud, Clement

Clay, Robert

Garrett, W. E.

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Godman, Dr Norman

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

Golding, John

Cohen, Harry

Gould, Bryan

Coleman, Donald

Hamilton, James (M'well N)

Conlan, Bernard

Hamilton, W. W. (Fife Central)

Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

Hancock, Mr. Michael

Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

Hardy, Peter

391

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

O'Neill, Martin

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Park, George

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Parry, Robert

Heffer, Eric S.

Patchett, Terry

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Pavitt, Laurie

Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

Pendry, Tom

Home Robertson, John

Pike, Peter

Howells, Geraint

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)

Prescott, John

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Radice, Giles

Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

Randall, Stuart

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Redmond, M.

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

Hume, John

Richardson, Ms Jo

John, Brynmor

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Robertson, George

Kennedy, Charles

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Rogers, Allan

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Rooker, J. W.

Kirkwood, Archy

Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

Lambie, David

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Lamond, James

Rowlands, Ted

Leadbitter, Ted

Sedgemore, Brian

Leighton, Ronald

Sheerman, Barry

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Litherland, Robert

Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

Livsey, Richard

Silkin, Rt Hon J.

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Skinner, Dennis

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'bury)

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

McGuire, Michael

Smith, Rt Hon J. (M'kl'ds E)

McKelvey, William

Snape, Peter

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Soley, Clive

McNamara, Kevin

Spearing, Nigel

McTaggart, Robert

Steel, Rt Hon David

McWilliam, John

Stott, Roger

Madden, Max

Strang, Gavin

Marek, Dr John

Straw, Jack

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Martin, Michael

Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

Maxton, John

Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

Maynard, Miss Joan

Thorne, Stan (Preston)

Meacher, Michael

Tinn, James

Michie, William

Torney, Tom

Mikardo, Ian

Wallace, James

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Wareing, Robert

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Weetch, Ken

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Welsh, Michael

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Wigley, Dafydd

Nellist, David

Williams, Rt Hon A.

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Wilson, Gordon

O'Brien, William

Winnick, David

392

Woodall, Alec

Tellers for the Noes:

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Mr. Allen McKay and

Mr. Frank Haynes.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Miscellaneous Provisions (No. 2) Regulations 1985, which were laid before this House on 11th November, be approved.

Statutory Instruments, &c.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): To save the time of the House, I propose to put together the Questions on motions 3 to 8.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 79(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).

LEGAL AID AND ADVICE (SCOTLAND)
That the Legal Aid (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1985, dated 25th October 1985, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th November, be approved.
That the Legal Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1985, dated 25th October 1985, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th November, be approved.

LEGAL AID AND ADVICE
That the Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1985 (S.I., 1985, No. 1614), dated 23rd October 1985, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th November, be approved.
That the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1985 (S.I., 1985, No. 1615), dated 23rd October 1985, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th November, be approved.

DENTISTS
That the draft Dental Auxiliaries (Amendment) Regulations 1985, which were laid before this House on 21st October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
That the draft Redundancy Payments (Local Government) (Modification) (Amendment) Order 1985, which was laid before this House on 29th October, in the last Session of Parliament, he approved.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
Question agreed to.

Unemployment (Alyn and Deeside)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
12.12 am
Mr. Barry Jones: My speech must begin with a letter sent to me on behalf of the Catharall brickyards work force at Buckley by the Transport and General Workers' Union branch secretary, Mr. Godfrey Catherall, who is no relation. Mr. Catherall is the senior shop steward. He has a record of loyal and lengthy service. His views are a reflection of the strength of feeling among the members of the work force who received their redundancy notices about three weeks ago. They were surprised. They are angry and bewildered. Their prospects for obtaining work are not good. They are fine men and, as a work force, they have a superb record. I want Her Majesty's Government to help my constituents.
Mr. Godfrey Catherall wrote:
"On October 21st Hanson Trust, via Butterley Buildings, gave notice to 60 most loyal employees to terminate their employment at the brickmaking factory, known as Catharall's works, Buckley. Brickmaking has been continuous there since 1760 and now, after a period of 13 years of profit making, Hanson Trust close the site with all its assets intact, ready for sale. How do they treat their employees? They treat them ruthlessly, not with generosity or caring, as Hanson Trust representatives claim. They will not make ready their economic reasonings for closure, and the people involved are very angry. Redundancy payments are being made, but it is simply peanuts to men who have no possible opportunity of finding employment elsewhere. Redundancy—no"—
says Mr. Catherall—
"retirement—yes, for all involved. Please bring notice to all people of our plight."
That is the letter that the shop steward gave to me.
Butterley Building Materials Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the massive food and industrial concern, the Hanson Trust. The Hanson Trust reported profits before tax for each of the past five years as follows: 1980, £39·1 million; 1981, £49·7 million; 1982, £60·4 million; 1983, £91·1 million; and 1984, £169·1 million. Butterley Brick's end of year financial statement for 1984 reports a record profit and that it is now the number one brick producer in the United Kingdom within its area. For 9 October 1985, Butterley reported increased profits and anticipated good results for the year. Hanson Brick profits, which is London Brick plus Butterley, in 1984 reported a profit of £32·6 million. That is the financial background to the redundancy notices given to my constituents in Buckley. Clearly, there is no financial crisis in the Hanson Trust, Butterley or Hanson Brick.
My constituents are perplexed to hear that the Hanson Trust is poised to make a
"milestone in world takeover history."
That was reported on Channel 4's "Money Programme" on Sunday 10 November. We learnt from the programme that the chairman of the Hanson Trust was in courtroom 36, United States district court, New York, making legal history in a takeover dog fight which would enable the Hanson Trust to expand in the United States. While the Hanson Trust told its subsidiary to close the brickyards at Buckley, Channel 4 revealed that $72 a share was being offered by the trust for its quarry in the United States.
Some of my constituents at Buckley, soon to join one of Wales's longest dole queues, are sceptical about why the closure is being proposed. They, and their union officers, led by Mr. John Beard, JP—their district
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officer, who has worked hard on the case—want access to the company's accounts and an economic breakdown of the closure. They have been informed that Hanson policy is that no information of that nature must ever be given to the work force. Will the Government ensure that the company accounts are revealed to the work force—not just information that the company may wish to give, but the full accounts which are presented for audit by law? I have asked the Secretary of State for Employment to assist the work force to that end, but so far I have had only an acknowledgement of my letter of 26 October. Will the Minister urge the company to assist in setting up a cooperative, if the work force expresses a wish to do so?
The Secretary of State for Wales, when I asked him in October to intervene on behalf of the work force, told me that the matter was for the commercial judgment of the company. His response has greatly disappointed my constituents. Will the Minister assist in preventing the closure and in helping the factory to an assured future?
There has never been a dispute at the site, and my people have done everything asked of them. They are a superb, experienced and loyal work force of male and female employees, who have brought only honour and profit to the owners. Their bitter conclusion is that it is clearly a disadvantage to be made redundant by a private enterprise company. Redundancy payments in the private sector are considerably lower than in the public sector. It could be that redundancy rates in the private sector in the south-east of England are higher than in Wales.
Clearly, if my constituents were employed by the Welsh water authority, the British Steel Corporation or the National Coal Board, they would be much better off. When some of my constituents leave Catharalls they will receive not so much redundancy, as early retirement. I am concerned about the cash paid by the private sector compared with that from the public sector.
Should the closure go ahead, there is seething resentment at the prospect of meagre redundancy payments. It has come to the notice of the work force that when the Hanson Trust closed the London Brick company, treble redundancy was paid and the balance of the 90-day notice, which is more than double what is proposed at Buckley.
My constituents are shrewd. They noted that Hanson took over the London Brick company last year. Now the Catharall brickyard is to be closed. They wonder whether the takeover and the closure are related. Are they?
In a recent "Whicker's World" programme Hanson executives were reported as saying they were ruthless but generous. My constituents say that they are ruthless; I say, let them be generous.
Five years after probably the largest industrial closure in modern-day western Europe jobs in north-east Wales are again vanishing. Although the numbers involved are smaller than in steelmaking at Shotton in 1980–81 when 8,000 jobs were lost, it is disturbing that new industries intended to replace steel are now shedding labour.
In April this year P D Can closed, with the loss of 80 jobs, only two years after setting up on the Deeside industrial park. The news that Deeside Titanium is to make 40 workers redundant after other natural wastage losses is another blow to Clwyd, particularly as the venture was by the first heavy manufacturing company to offer alternative jobs to steelmaking.

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The latest figures for jobcentre areas reveal that at Mold 2,261 people are unemployed; at Shotton, 2,873; at Wrexham, 6,542; at Holywell, 1,405; and at Flint 1,328.
In the Deeside travel-to-work area 9,239 men—or 22·7 per cent.—are unemployed. The female rate is 15·7 per cent. In total 13,477 people are unemployed—19·9 per cent. In neighbouring Wrexham, over 8,000 people are out work—18 per cent. of more.
In Alyn and Deeside, 2,983 men are out of work, and 4,417 people are without jobs. In the Delyn local authority area, 3,206 men are out of work, and 4,589 in total. In Glyndwr, 1,750 people are jobless, and in Rhuddlan, 4,119.
In the county of Clwyd 24,982 people are jobless—18·6 per cent. That includes 16,996 men, representing 21·6 per cent. male unemployment. In Wales as a whole over 182,000 people are jobless. In Clwyd, 1,322 young people claiming benefit are jobless. Many of them live in Alyn and Deeside.
Notwithstanding the serious figures, I regret that on Deeside no advance factories between 1,500 sq ft and 10,000 sq ft are available to incoming industrialists. That means that Deeside is losing the vital inquiries made by industrialists prior to their location decisions. That is said by those whose business it is to obtain new projects. That does not happen in England. Therefore, we are at a disadvantage. We lose chances to make inroads into the large dole queues in north-east Wales. I am seriously concerned at the inability of the Government and the Welsh Development Agency to make available such advance factories as I have named, and Deeside clearly is neglected in that respect.
It is fair to say that modern manufacturing industries are a vital ingredient in regional development. No area recovering from industrial decline can succeed without a hardcore of jobs in that sector. Shotton cannot be transfonned into the City of London and seek its salvation by deindustrialisation. The service sector is important—it provides new jobs—but it cannot grow in a vacuum. Local authorities have imaginative plans for tourism projects in the Shotton new development zone, but they must he complementary to manufacturing, not alternatives.
The problem is severe because of the combination of growth in the number of young people seeking work and the reduction in employment in manufacturing. The job losses in industry reported recently are an alarming sign that the downward trend might resume. That demands positive action.
The answer to recession in the late 1970s affected the United Kingdom exceptionally, and within it areas such as Alyn and Deeside suffered even more. The worrying signs warn against inaction. It is that inaction of which I complain in the Government's economic policy as it affects Wales, especially Alyn and Deeside. What is required is a change of Government policy so that we can make true inroads into the large dole queues.
Although there are examples of new industry in Alyn and Deeside on fine industrial estates, it appears to be difficult to make real inroads into the unemployment total, notwithstanding the good work being done to attract new industries and jobs to the Deeside and Clwyd areas. It is sad that many men are doomed never to work again in north-east Wales, unless there is a major change in Government policy.
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On the positive side, there is the superb prospect of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales opening the Shotton paper mill next month. But when we celebrate that great success, we should also understand that the loss of P. D. Can and the redundancies at Deeside Titanium and at the Catharall brickyard will wipe out the gains in jobs at the paper mill.
Many of the brickyard workers are young men with wives and children to support. Many of them have mortgages and considerable hire purchase commitments. The future is grim for that work force. I have met its representatives twice, and I can tell the House that their anger and dismay are genuine. They would be foolish not to be angry and not to ask the Government to give them assistance. They are to suffer an injustice, and they do not deserve that kick in the teeth.
I ask Ministers to open the accounts to leaders of the work force. If redundancies there must be, let them be on the very best terms. Hanson can afford to be generous. It is not being generous, yet its profits are huge. Its profits next year will be even larger. It is monstrous that that brickyard will close when thousands of Welsh houses are in need of repair and modernisation. There is also a pressing need for new homes for the elderly, the homeless and the handicapped. If that job were tackled, brickyards such as Catharalls would expand rather than close.
I hope that the Minister will give some helpful replies tonight to the members of a loyal work force who fear that, if they lose their jobs, they will remain unemployed for a very long time.
12.31 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Mark Robinson): The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) has highlighted a specific problem, and I recognise the sincerity with which he has brought the matter to our attention in the calm of this Adjournment debate. He also raised broader issues about the employment situation in his constituency generally, and I shall, if time permits—and only a short time has been left to me—deal with the broader, as well as the narrow, issues that he raised.
In fairness to the hon. Gentleman, I shall deal first with the Catharall works, about which he spoke at considerable length. He explained not only his fears, but those of the work force, which is affected by these redundancies and the closure, which we greatly regret. He also referred to the role of the Hanson Trust, and I noted the points he made about that.
Nobody can be other than concerned when jobs are lost, but it must be for the companies concerned to determine the future of their plants in the light of all the circumstances before them. The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of financial information on the performance of the Catharall works and pointed out that the work force seemed not to have been given the full information for which it had been looking.
As the hon. Gentleman correctly said, the accounts of Butterley Building Materials Ltd. are available, the most recent being for the year to September 1984, but they do not identify separately the financial performance of the works at Buckley. Clearly, in situations such as this, a company should make available to its work force appropriate information relating to its decisions. This, however, under company law as it exists now, is a matter for the company's own judgment, and it is not a matter in

397
which the Government could, or would interfere. Having said that, on behalf of the hon. Gentleman, I urge the company to make the relevant information available.
Redundancy terms are for the work force to resolve with the management. If the members of the work force cannot obtain satisfactory terms in negotiation with their employers, they can make the relevant complaint to the local industrial tribunal. Other issues and possible solutions are obviously open to them, but the hon. Gentleman will agree that in this kind of situation it is important that the company concerned should be open with the work force and set in train a form of consultation to enable the employees to be fully in the picture and know where they stand and what the future holds for them. Although I am not able to give the hon. Gentleman some of the assurances that he sought—because they are not within my power to give—I hope that at least what I have said has been of some assistance to him and his constituents who have been affected.
We are here tonight to discuss also employment in Alyn and Deeside. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government should do more and spend more, which provides me with a valuable opportunity to set the record straight about the Government's public expenditure record as it relates to the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
While we accept that Alyn and Deeside, in common with many other parts of Wales, has high levels of unemployment, the Government have always recognised that the task is to assist in attracting new real jobs that offer a long-term future, rather than to try to buy short-term jobs that are destroyed nearly as quickly as they are created. We must look at the hon. Gentleman's constituency in the context of the overall travel-to-work area and the regional context of its location.
The travel-to-work area of which Alyn and Deeside is part is, of course, a development area qualifying for the highest available levels of regional industrial assistance which consists of automatic capital or job-related grants plus selective assistance. Between January 1984 and the end of October this year, 14 offers of selective assistance have been accepted by investors hoping to provide 1,326 jobs in the constituency. In the county of Clwyd as a whole, 46 such offers have been accepted, providing prospects for 2,996 jobs and safeguarding 1,296 existing ones in the same period.
The record of sound achievement by the WDA—the hon. Gentleman referred to the agency—gives equally impressive testimony to the efforts being put in. Since May 1979, 77 factory units providing 700,000 sq ft have been completed in the constituency by the WDA, and during the past nine months alone seven units have been allocated. All this is part of a factory programme for the travel-towork area which has provided a total of 140 factories since 1979, and for the county as a whole has provided 210 advance factory units comprising 1·5 million sq ft of floor space. I do not see any evidence here of a lack of commitment to investment.
It is worth looking more closely at one or two specific developments. For example, there is the United Paper Mills project at Shotton, where £100 million has been invested in a plant whose benefits to employment in the forestry industry go far beyond the 250 directly created jobs which are expected to arise.
398
At the Deeside industrial park, which in itself is one of the major industrial successes of Wales, Europe's first thin film disk manufacturing plant is expected to get into full-scale production next year and eventually to employ about 250 people. CWS's project at Deeside park, producing breakfast cereal, promises 150 jobs, and the very successful Iceland Frozen Foods is now hoping to provide another 100 new jobs by 1988. The Alyn and Deeside constituency also extends into the Wrexham travel-to-work area and includes Llay, where Sharp has been particularly successful, promising over 800 new jobs from its video recorder and microwave projects, which I am sure has an implication for the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The area therefore has already established a proven record of success, together with a clear potential. I remind the hon. Gentleman that there are other areas of the country which would be very glad of the successes that have been achieved in and around his constituency.
In that respect, north-east Clwyd has captured three major Japanese investments—Sharp, Brother and Hoya Lens. This is part of our overall achievement in inward investment, which has culminated in Wales obtaining one quarter of the inward investment into the United Kingdom for two years running.
This positive news is not limited to new companies or enterprises. What we must also recognise is the quite admirable efforts of the Shotton work force in recent times in transforming the performance of the works. Production records are constantly being broken—most recently on the colorcoat line where demand for the product has grown so dramatically. We look for similar achievements from the new Galvalume project, where an investment of £30 million is nearing completion.
In saying this, it would be wrong not to make reference to the Courtaulds closure, which has affected the whole area of north-east Clwyd, including the hon. Gentleman's constituency. As in all situations of this kind, the Government's response was prompt and generous. In June my right hon. Friend announced a range of measures to assist the area affected by the green field closure, covering both social and economic development, which could result in expenditure totalling over £6·5 million on schemes already identified. To this package the company has now, in agreement with the local authorities and in consultation with the Government, added its own comprehensive set of initiatives to assist its former employees wherever it can but including the free transfer of the green field site to the local authority. Alyn and Deeside will benefit from my right hon. Friend's package, and the council has been allocated additional urban programme assistance for 1985–86 amounting to £175,000 for two schemes under the supplementary allocation made in September. In saying that, I am glad of this opportunity to pay tribute to the tireless work of my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffen)—I am pleased to see him in the Chamber tonight—on behalf of his constituency in this matter.
During 1986–87 it is hoped to start work on the new road bridge over the Wrexham-Bidston railway, which is to receive substantial grant assistance. This will greatly improve the currently restricted access to the Shotton paper mill and open up sites on the western side of the railway for further industrial development.
It is important to recognise, too, the context of public expenditure in which we are working. The Government are attacked as being opposed to constructive public investment. If we were talking against a background of

399
notably low totals of investment in capital this might be justified, but in fact we are speaking against a background, particularly in Wales, of high levels of investment in programmes for factory building—over £300 million has been spent by the various agencies since 1979—through hospital construction—£250 million since 1979—to road building—over £600 million has been spent on trunk roads since 1979. In the county of Clwyd alone since 1979 well over £350 million of public funds has been invested by the Welsh Office and by the WDA. This includes the A55 improvement programme, which has seen the construction completed in September 1984 of the Hawarden bypass, which passes through the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
I would not wish to doubt the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman's concern for his constituency which is reflected in the specific case that he brought before the House. It is a simple fact, however, that the massive increases in present planned levels of public spending of the sort which the hon. Gentlemen has so fervently advocated, on this and many other occasions, could destroy jobs if used excessively. Such policies characterised the Labour Government.
400
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider carefully what I have said tonight and acknowledge that his concern is shared by a Government who are backing their concern with concerted action. In Alyn and Deeside there are excellent prospects for attracting further industrial investment and growth. Major public investment, policies to attract industry, major promotional effort and, above all, a major record of sound achievement are bringing in new jobs to the hon. Gentleman's constituency and will continue to do so.
Clearly there is still far to go, but all that has been done has enabled Alyn and Deeside to establish a formidable record in creating new and successful enterprises and has made Alyn and Deeside one of the most outstanding attractive prospects anywhere in Wales for attracting industrial investment and growth. That is what—
The Question having been proposed after Ten 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 eighteen minutes to One o'clock.

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  Israel (Torture Allegations)
  Israel (Torture Allegations)
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Pornography
  Pornography
  Library Books
  Library Books
  Armagh Prison
  Armagh Prison
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Foster Parents (Payments)
  Foster Parents (Payments)
  New Cross Hospital (Cancer Unit)
  New Cross Hospital (Cancer Unit)
  Departmental Files
  Departmental Files
  Disability Allowances
  Disability Allowances
  Attendance Allowance
  Attendance Allowance
  Benefits
  Benefits
  Nurses' Accommodation (Disposal)
  Nurses' Accommodation (Disposal)
  Community Care
  Community Care
  Health Authorities
  Health Authorities
  Drugs
  Drugs
  Hospital Closures
  Hospital Closures
  Social Security Appeal Tribunals
  Social Security Appeal Tribunals
  NHS Hospitals (Private Patients)
  NHS Hospitals (Private Patients)
  Disabled Persons (Discrimination)
  Disabled Persons (Discrimination)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Common Agricultural Policy
  Common Agricultural Policy
  Farmers (Adverse Weather Compensation)
  Farmers (Adverse Weather Compensation)
  Sea Defences and Land Drainage
  Sea Defences and Land Drainage
  Pesticides
  Pesticides
  Home-Grown Cereals Authority and Meat and Livestock Commission (Membership)
  Home-Grown Cereals Authority and Meat and Livestock Commission (Membership)
  Council of Agriculture Ministers
  Council of Agriculture Ministers
ENVIRONMENT
  South Africa (Rugby Matches)
  South Africa (Rugby Matches)
  Renovation Grants
  Renovation Grants
  EC Grants (Textiles)
  EC Grants (Textiles)
  Rating Reform
  Rating Reform
  Housing Programme Allocation
  Housing Programme Allocation
  Teachers' Dispute
  Teachers' Dispute
  Housing Standards
  Housing Standards
  Housing (Portsmouth)
  Housing (Portsmouth)
  Home Insulation Grants
  Home Insulation Grants
  Landlord and Tenant Act 1954
  Landlord and Tenant Act 1954
  Local Authority Expenditure
  Local Authority Expenditure

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

The Lord Bishop of Newcastle
Andrew Alexander Kenny, Lord Bishop of Newcastle—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of Southwark and the Lord Bishop of Hereford.
The Lord Bishop of Truro
Peter, Lord Bishop of Truro—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of London and the Lord Bishop of Saint Albans.

NHS Planned Developments: Funding
2.48 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many health authorities in England and Wales have postponed planned developments because of financial stringency.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am not aware of any postponed plans, and on principle we would not expect centrally to monitor progress during the year. Service developments at health district level are a matter for local management. Health authorities receive a cash sum each year within which they are expected to fund pay and price changes and service developments. Inevitably, the level of pay and prices affects the resources available for service development. But the National Health Service cannot be isolated from the real world.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is it the case that on November 1 st the National Association of Health Authorities announced that 48 health authorities in the country had had to postpone their planned developments because of lack of money largely due to the increase in pay for nurses and doctors?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the department has heard from a large number of health authorities about this matter. Generally, the message has been that authorities have been able to accommodate this year's increase in paybill costs for nurses and doctors as Ministers predicted when the awards were announced and still continue with most of their planned developments. It is as a result of the announcement made in the other place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that we feel confident that the increases which are staged over a two-year period are going to be met by the increases in funding that have been promised.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I am sorry: I did not quite catch what the noble Baroness said about local health authorities in Wales. Did she indicate the number of health authorities in Wales which have been affected by this matter?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I do not believe I referred specifically to Wales at all; but I may say that so far as Wales is concerned the excess cost of this year's pay awards, after allowing for discretionary growth and national insurance restructuring, amounts to only £3.5 million or 0.6 per cent. of total revenue resources. That small excess should not entail any reductions in service provision and should largely be met from efficiency savings. So I think the noble Lord need have no particular worries so far as Wales is concerned.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for having reminded the House of what is happening in Wales.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness two questions?
Lord Denham: One.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness one question? If, as the noble Baroness said, at the DHSS there is no monitoring of the decisions taken about the postponement of projects, would she not agree that the people who do know best are in fact the health authorities, as represented by the National Association of Health Authorities? Is it not likely, therefore, that this figure is true? Does she agree that often a postponement entails no saving at all since, particularly if it is a building repair job, it adds to the burden of cost that may fall within the forthcoming year?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the whole object of the restructuring was to ensure that at local level responsible decisions would be taken. My information is that advice and plans at local level are going equally well and that the local health authorities are finding themselves able to cope with the financial situation as it faces them.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, would the noble Baroness confirm the figure I gave in my first supplementary, that the National Association of Health Authorities has stated that 48 health authorities in England and Wales are postponing their planned development? Is she also aware that the same association, in the same report, declared that services to patients were being cut by the closing of wards and of hospitals because of lack of money, due to this year's increase in the pay of nurses and doctors not funded by central Government?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the increase in funding announced last week, as I have already mentioned, is helping the local health authorities to meet the requirements resulting from the increase in pay awards. I would not wish at this moment to confirm precisely the figure quoted by the noble Lord, but I understand that in making representations the

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National Association of Health Authorities in fact ignored the contribution which cost-improvement programmes can make towards meeting the pressure for the service.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that most people would welcome the fact that local authorities make decisions as to whether or not money is spent wisely and properly, and would deplore any suggestion, as the Question seems to imply, that the Government bail them out however they have spent their money and with whatever disregard they may have shown towards the actual financial situation?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I would agree in general. In fact, the most crucial measure of the National Health Service's success is not the amount of money spent but what is achieved with that money in terms of services to patients. Our hospitals are now able to treat more patients than ever before. In 1984 hospitals in England alone had 800,000 more inpatients cases, 340,000 more day cases and 3 million more out-patient attendances than in 1978.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Baroness is making the best possible case she can, and making it very agreeably, but is she aware that local health authorities are going through an extremely difficult time and that everyone who visits them from time to time is well aware of this? Is she also aware that the situation in Wales is particularly bleak at the present time? Is she, moreover, aware that the proof of this is the fact that private nursing homes for the elderly—very often not up to the required standard—are springing up all over the country? Is that not clear proof that the Government are not doing their job adequately in this important field?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I feel that the latter part of that question was slightly outside the terms of the original Question, and since we are due to have a very wide-ranging debate this afternoon over the whole of the National Health Service, perhaps the noble Lord's concern will be met in the course of it. So far as Wales is concerned, my information is that the Welsh authorities stated earlier in the year that they welcomed the considerable growth in the development of the health services which have been funded since 1979.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, would the noble Baroness not agree that if she had been of a different sex the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, would not have said that her replies were being made "very agreeably"?

ILEA: Allocation of School Places
2.58 p.m.
Lord Henley: 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 are aware of reports that the Inner London
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Education Authority propose to turn children away from popular schools where physical space is available to boost numbers at unpopular schools.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, due to falling rolls, the intake targets of some schools may need to be set below physical capacity to ensure the educational viability of others. ILEA is one of many local education authorities which see the need to do this, but the Government are not aware of any particular reports on its practice.
Lord Henley: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he does not agree that the paramount way of allocating places in schools should be a question of parental choice?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that parental choice of school is very important. I do not think I would go so far as to say it is paramount. That is why the Education Act 1980 strikes a careful balance between the right of a parent to secure a place for his child at his preferred school and the need of the local education authority to be able to manage school provision efficiently in the interests of all the children in its area.
Lord Alexander of Potterhill: My Lords, is it not a fact that an authority may be faced with the simple problem that if they allow children to be admitted to certain schools it could involve additional staffing, whereas if children are sent to a neighbouring school with places available, which would not involve additional staffing, that is no more than efficient administration, particularly when the authority is under very great financial pressure to exercise the maximum economy?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, has repeated in other terms what I said in my last supplementary answer. I would therefore agree.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, should it not be possible for a thoroughly unpopular school which parents do not think is efficient to sink into insignificance, and finally to vanish? If it is a matter of economy, is it not possible to move part of the staff from one school to another without extra expense to a local authority?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, while I accept that some schools are more popular than others, I do not think there is a black and white distinction between popular and unpopular schools. In any case, popularity may not necessarily reflect inherent quality.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I had intended to thank the Minister for his three replies. I am now able to thank him for his four replies. Does he not agree that his fourth reply to the noble Viscount indicates, as the noble Viscount said, the dangers of allowing schools to sink into unpopularity and the real problems which that would pose for the parents, children and teachers at such schools?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, yesterday when I welcomed the noble Lord as spokesman on the

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Benches opposite I did not expect to have him agreeing with me quite so quickly and on so many points. I think it would be splendid if every child could be guaranteed a place at the school chosen by his parents, but that is not practicable in the real world.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the fact that the ILEA has reduced the intake at Highbury Grove school from 240 to 210 places, in spite of the first preferences for that school running at 280 places, represents an infringement of the principle of freedom of choice which is enshrined in the 1980 Education Act; and also that the distress caused to the unsuccessful applicants is most regrettable?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, the intake of a school may not be reduced by more than 20 per cent. below its 1979 level, unless my right honourable friend has approved public proposals to that effect in the light of any objections that they may attract. My mental arithmetic is probably not as good as the noble Baroness's, but I think that on the figures she has quoted the ILEA is probably within its rights, because I do not think that the figures she has quoted would be more than a 20 per cent. reduction. But of course it is open to local residents to make representations to the authority about these reductions if they are concerned.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, does not the sum total of the English law on education—that is, the 1944 Act as well as the 1980 Act—make it absolutely clear that, no matter what rules the local authority may make, a parent may send his child to any school he wishes, provided there is a place, provided it is suitable for his age, ability and aptitude and provided the local authority is not involved in any undue expense? Provided those three criteria are met, is it not clear that a parent may send his child to any school he wishes?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, this is what I have been saying all afternoon. The answer is that under the 1980 Act we tried to make it possible to respect parental choice, but I think the noble Lord is quite right when he says, "provided there is a place available". I think what is worrying my noble friends behind me is that the ILEA is saying that there are not places available when maybe there are.

South Africa: UK Investment
3.3 p.m.
Baroness Sharpies: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the level of British investment in South Africa.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, the most recent official figures show that the book value of United Kingdom investment in South Africa at the end of 1981 was £2,826 million.
Baroness Sharpies: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does he agree that perhaps investment should be increased enormously because there are 21 million coloured and black people in South Africa, and also there is the problem now arising with unemployed people in the white community?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, in general terms I think that we would probably agree with my noble friend, but certainly decisions on overseas investments are best left to the commercial judgment of the companies concerned, and that investment in South Africa is making a contribution to the economy of that country.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that most responsible leaders of nationalist black opinion in South Africa are against this continued level of investment from western countries which they believe is perpetuating an unjust and oppressive regime?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the Government have on a number of occasions made quite clear their abhorrence of the regime in force in South Africa. But we do not believe that the withdrawal of our investment or of our economic activity, which employs so many of the population of South Africa, is the best way to ensure change.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that investment in South Africa has proved a good investment? It has increased the wealth both of the borrower and the lender. However, investment in the rest of Africa has, on average, proved the opposite largely because of the amount that gets stolen. On the whole, loans to the advancing countries in South Africa are money which is lost and does no good to anyone. In the circumstances that we benefit Africa as well as oursleves, will the noble Lord encourage investment in a good and reliable source?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, since my noble friend's Question addresses the position in South Africa, I would prefer not to be drawn on the rest of Africa. There is no doubt in the Government's mind that sound investment in South Africa is one of the best ways of ensuring and aiding change in the direction to which I think we would all wish that regime to go.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, that is surely a by-product.
Lord Monson: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that most British and international firms are a positive force for good in South Africa? I say this because if you want to see black men and women in responsible, well-paid white collar jobs, you are likely to find them, above all, in branches of Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, British insurance companies and international hotel chains.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, in general terms of course I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Monson.
Lord Sainsbury: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether it is not a fact that many wise British companies have already withdrawn their investments in South Africa?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the fact that some companies may have withdrawn their investments is a commercial decision for them. I do not believe that it bears at all upon the underlying reference in the noble Lord's question.
Lord Morris: My Lords, my noble friend quoted the book value of investments in South Africa. Can my noble friend possibly tell the House what is the real value of those investments?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: No, my Lords, I cannot. Since there have been exchange rate changes in recent weeks, I have not made the calculation. It would be dangerous for me to give a view on valuations by commercial companies of their assets. I do not think they would thank me and nor do I think my noble friend would do so.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does not the Minister think that the majority of people in South Africa are entitled to have a say in what is the best means of ensuring change in that country? Since their representatives are unanimous in believing that disinvestment is the correct answer, why are the Government deaf to their entreaties?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not believe that what the noble Lord has said is in fact correct; nor is it indeed true. Again, it is for the individual companies to make their investment decisions. We believe that investing in South Africa, and the benefits that accrue to South Africans of all races by virtue of that investment, is the best way of helping to make the change which both the people in South Africa and ourselves would wish to see.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the term "British investment", which was in the Question put down by the noble Baroness, can be misleading? Will the noble Lord also agree that it might be thought that this is an investment made by the will of the whole British people? Will he make it abundantly clear that the bulk of the people of the United Kingdom do not approve of investment of this kind, and that the investment decisions are made by individuals and firms?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, is trying to mislead either me or your Lordships' House. The investment is a result of the decisions of individual companies. It represents their commercial decision. It is not a matter in which the British Government can or will issue directions.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, if the noble Lord and the Government are sincere in their belief that British investment is assisting the move away from apartheid and towards democracy in South Africa, how does it come about that after 85 years of British
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investment the plight of the African and coloured populations in political and human rights terms is much worse than it was at the beginning?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it would be quite wrong for us to encourage the removal of British investment in South Africa. That investment is the largest foreign investment in South Africa. It has made a contribution and continues to make a contribution to the wellbeing of that country. Were that investment to be removed there would be, I suggest, something approaching economic chaos in that country, in which then no progress along the direction which the noble Lord seeks could ever possibly be made.

Unemployment and Assisted Areas
3.11 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: 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 have any plans for increased financial assistance for the five regions of the United Kingdom where the proportion of the unemployed listed as long-term unemployed has now reached over 40 per cent.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, long-term unemployment was one of the criteria used by the Government when redrawing the Assisted Area Map during the review of, regional industrial policy which took place last year. I would refer the noble Lord to the recent Statement of my noble friend the Secretary of State for Employment which gave further recognition to the problems of the long-term unemployed.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but is he not aware that by now the national average figure for long-term unemployment within the unemployment total is 41 per cent? The five areas referred to in my Question have of course suffered deprivation and shocking conditions for a much longer period of time than some other areas. When will the Government do something positive and meaningful? If they can be induced to do it, will they do it urgently because of the long-standing conditions in these five areas?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I remind the noble Lord again of the Statement made by my noble friend the Secretary of State for Employment on 12th November in which he outlined two initiatives which were about to take place. My noble friend will be announcing very shortly full details of the pilot scheme in assisted areas.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in the Tyne and Wear metropolitan county long-term unemployment as a percentage of total unemployment is now approaching 50 per cent? Does not the noble Lord really feel that, rather than the Prime Minister coming forward and calling us moaning minnies, as she did recently, such an appalling situation demands much more help from central Government in attracting new investment,

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especially as we compare so unfavourably with the resources made available, and rightly made available, to Scotland through their development agency?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord would not expect me to pick out one specific area. As the noble Lord mentioned in his original Question, a number of areas are suffering from excessively high unemployment. The Government have spent more than £1 billion in attracting new industry and other enterprises. The noble Lord will know that the change in the regional policy through both grant and selective assistance was designed to encourage jobs. Although that scheme has been operating for only a year there is already evidence that it is working and that jobs are being created, particularly, for example, in the West Midlands.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us whether all the five regions referred to in the Question may expect to benefit from the pilot schemes that are to be introduced shortly and are designed to help people who have been unemployed for a long time and have become demoralised because of their inability to find work?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, as I said originally, the pilot scheme areas will be announced by my noble friend quite shortly, although it is true that these will include assisted areas and areas outside so that a comparative figure may be allowed. There are of course other initiatives already taking place with a view to alleviating the problem.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the revised plans for regional assistance, made, as he said, a year ago, in themselves represent a cut in regional assistance? Is there not a case at least for restoring the level of regional assistance, even within the new criteria, to the annual figure at which it was running previously? Will the noble Lord bear in mind that if it was possible to bail out Johnson Matthey, to use the term of the noble Lord, to the tune of £100 million, the great bulk of the British people would believe that £100 million to have been better expended on regional assistance?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, at the end of the day more than £400 million will be spent in regional assistance. We believe that, although there has been a cut, that money can be very much more effectively used as it is directed towards job creation rather than capital investment. One should bear in mind a significant series of figures, one of which is the fact that in the United Kingdom 65 per cent. of the working population are in work. That figure is some 7 percentage points higher than the average across OECD countries.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, with regard to the noble Lord's reference to pilot schemes, he will no doubt be aware that I asked a question on this subject during the debate on the loyal Address which for some reason or other the Leader of the House inadvertently forgot to answer. Can the noble Lord now tell me whether the Government are satisfied that these schemes are wholly within our responsibilities and legal liabilities
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to the rest of our partners as members of the European Community?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, no; I am afraid I cannot add anything to answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, other than to repeat that my noble friend the Secretary of State for Employment will be announcing quite shortly full details of the pilot scheme arrangement. I will ensure that his attention is drawn to that question so that he may take care of it in the presentation of that detail.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, to what extent is the financial assistance directed to setting up new industries in these distressed areas?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the grant money in the assisted areas is devoted to any new industry or any existing industry that creates new jobs rather than transfers jobs from another area. In addition, selective assistance is available under certain criteria for both new industry and existing industry development, again with the accent being upon the creation of new or the perpetuation of existing jobs.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, are not the Government and the Minister being completely complacent in this matter? Is it not a fact that their so-called regional policy helps absolutely nobody? It does not help those in the North, where unemployment is high. Neither does it help those in the South, where infrastructure arrangements are breaking down and housing costs are going through the roof. Would it not be as well if the Government had a regional plan and devoted sufficient resources to creating real jobs where those jobs are needed?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: Oh dear! My Lords, I am so sorry for the noble Lord.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: The Minister need not feel sorry for me, my Lords.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am sorry that he should make such a series of wild allegations.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: They are absolutely true, my Lords.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, let me give the noble Lord an example of where the Government's regional policy has worked extremely well. The West Midlands became an intermediate area last November. More than £22 million of grant and more than £150 million of total investment has been put into that area since that time, and 13,500 jobs have been created or safeguarded. Our policies do work, and I refute the allegation which the noble Lord makes.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I listened carefully to the noble Lord's reply to my first question. In spite of his tantrum when replying to my noble friend, will he tell the House specifically what the Government intend to do to halt the rise in long-term unemployment in Tyne and Wear, because it has risen every year since the Government came to office?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the Government's economic and employment policies—most particularly those which have resulted in improved productivity, competitiveness and investment in British industry—are all designed to have the result of improving our general commercial position, and they have achieved that. It is as a result of those policies that further long-term jobs will be created and maintained.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: What about Tyne and Wear, my Lords?
Lord Denham: My Lords, the House may feel that, as we have a long list of speakers for today's debate and as we have spent 32 minutes on Question Time already, now is probably the moment to move on to other business.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I will ask a final question.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will listen to what I am saying. Thirty minutes is considered very long for Question Time, and we have spent longer than that on it already. We have a long list of speakers for this afternoon.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I shall be as brief as I possibly can. Is the Minister not aware that despite the numbers he gave of people in employment, those figures mean nothing at all to the long-term unemployed in the five areas I mentioned? I reiterate the question asked by my noble friend Lord Glenamara: what are the Secretary of State's proposals and, because of the urgency, when will they be implemented?
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: Answer!
Lord Denham: My Lords, I made a request that is usually accepted in this House—that Question Time should come to an end. I am sorry that the noble Lord should have gone on questioning. I hope that we may now go on to the next business.

Museums and Galleries (Prohibition of Admission Charges) Bill [H.L.]
3.23 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to prohibit the making of charges for admission to museums and galleries in Great Britain funded wholly or mainly out of moneys provided by Parliament. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Jenkins of Putney.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Marriage Bill [H.L.]
Lord Meston: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make further provision with regard to the marriage of
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persons related by affinity. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Meston.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Deputy Chairmen of Committees
3.25 p.m.
The Chairman of Commitees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following Lords be appointed the panel of Lords to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session:—

Airedale, L.

Alport, L.

Ampthill, L.

Aylestone, L.

Cathcart, E.

Cox, B.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Hayter, L.

Listowel, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Renton, L.

Serota, B.

Simon, V.

Strabolgi, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

White, B.

—(Lord Aberdare.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sound Broadcasting: Select Committee
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting:—

Ardwick, L.

Cathcart, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Phillips, B.

Winstanley, L.

That the Committee have power to adjourn from place to place and to report from time to time;
That two be the quorum of the Committee;
That the Committee have power to appoint Specialist Advisers;
That the Committee have power to join with any Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting that may be appointed by the Commons;
That the Committee have power to agree with the Commons in the appointment of a Chairman for any joint meeting.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Okehampton Bypass (Confirmation of Orders) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and, pursuant to Section 6(5)(6) of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedures) Act 1945, treated as having passed all its stages up to and including Committee; ordered to be printed.

NHS and Reform of Social Security System
3.26 p.m.
Lord Ennals Lord Ennals rose to call attention to the state of the National Health Service and to the recommendations for the reform of the social security system contained in the DHSS Green Paper (Cmnd. 9517–20); and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I greatly welcome the opportunity that this gives the House to consider the state of the National Health Service and the recommendations of the Government's Green Paper on social security. In saying that, I also welcome very much the number of noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have put down their names to speak in this debate.
We are at a certain advantage in choosing to debate this matter outside the debate on the Queen's Speech, because we now have news of a modest increase in expenditure on the National Health Service in the Chancellor's statement. Later, I shall try to put that into perspective. I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Cledwyn in that I too have long doubted whether Ministers really understand the degree of desperation of those who are now working in the National Health Service because they are having to postpone so many things which they wanted to do but which, because of financial cutbacks, they are unable to do. We must seek to understand that sense of deep frustration, which I find wherever I go.
We have two disadvantages in this debate. First, the long-promised Green Paper on primary health care has still not been published. It seems to be a case of this year, next year, sometime, never. I have counted up that I have asked seven times when that Green Paper is to come. I hope that when the noble Baroness replies to the debate she will give the House some indication of when it will be. I may tell the noble Baroness that I have a number of questions to ask, but I do not expect that she will be able to answer them in her opening remarks. However, I hope she will give some consideration to them when she winds up the debate.
The second disadvantage is that the social security Green Paper has denied to the public and to the many interested organisations which have taken part in the debate the figures of losers and gainers in this essentially cost-cutting exercise. However, before I come to an analysis of health service finances—which I shall go on to do, as well as dealing with the social security review—there are a number of quite specific issues which concern me and other noble Lords on these Benches. I will put them to the noble Baroness for her attention.
First, the Government are wise to take heed of the extent of public support for the National Health Service. I do not believe that there is any other public service which is more respected and admired by the British public than the National Health Service. I read the results of a recent public opinion poll, and I shall mention just three of its findings. People were asked what priority they gave to equal access to the health service by everyone who needs health care. A total of 99 per cent. said "very important" or "quite important". The second question was on free health care for everyone at the time they need it. Ninety-seven per cent. laid a very high priority on either "very important" or "quite important".
The third question related to whether the health service should be paid for out of taxes rather than fees or private health insurance. It is interesting to note that 84 per cent. said that it was either "very important" or "quite important" that it should be. I think we must recognise that there is a willingness by the public, which is shown in many opinion polls, to be prepared to pay a small additional sum of money on their taxes in order to provide more funds to improve the National Health Service.
Therefore, these are some of the questions I want to ask. Why are hospital waiting lists so much longer than they were under the Labour Government? On 10th June this year the noble Baroness told me in answer to a Question that the average number of people waiting for admissions to hospital between May 1974 and May 1979 was 558,000—too high, I agree. She also said that the average figure since the Conservative Party came into power is 676,000—that is, 118,000 more. I hope that the noble Baroness will explain why this situation should exist if the health service is so safe in the hands of the Prime Minister and her colleagues.
Will the noble Baroness tell me what the figure was at the latest count and how she explains this very substantial increase? Is she aware that recent figures published by the British Medical Association found that out-patient waiting times had increased by 20 per cent. between 1982 and 1983? The department represented by the noble Baroness was sceptical about this and so it was independently reviewed by the Health Services Management Centre in Birmingham, which came up with figures almost identical to those of the British Medical Association. I hope that we may have some comment on that.
I am very worried, too, by the situation concerning the welfare of children in hospitals. For many years it has been accepted by Ministers under successive Governments that children should be cared for in children's wards; not in general wards which can often make considerable difficulties and hardship for the children and for the parents who want to spend a long time with them to the children's great benefit. I understand from a recent survey carried out by the National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital that there are as many as 100 examples where children are in general wards and not specifically in children's wards. This is a matter of considerable concern and I want to know from the noble Baroness whether the situation is improving or getting worse.
I now move to the other end of the age parallel. Can the noble Baroness explain why it is that, while over

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the past five years spending on hospital services in general rose by 8.5 per cent. in real terms, spending on geriatric in-patient services rose by only 4.5 per cent.—that is, half the extent of the increase on the population in general—at a time when there has been a steady increase in the number of elderly people and the demands they make on the health service and when local authorities have been held back from expenditure that their social services departments need?
Will the noble Baroness confirm this quite extraordinary fact and the figures revealed in the recent study commissioned by the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Institute of Health Service Management? The report showed that in 1983–84:
"Total spending on age-related services rose by only 3 per cent. when the demography rule would have suggested at least another £58 million in spending".
Why has there been such a slight increase in spending in terms of the elderly population? Is there not a danger that some people will reach the conclusion that the Government are giving inadequate priority to the ageing population? That must concern Members of your Lordships' House.
I shall certainly not mention mental illness and mental handicap because I am delighted that we are to have a debate on that subject next week, or the week after, which is to be introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, and I am most grateful to him for that.
My next question is: why have the Government been cutting back on medical research and placing such obstacles in the way of improving training for nurses and for professions supplementary to medicine? I shall not go into detail, although clearly I could do so in my capacity as president of the College of Occupational Therapists. It is reported that scientists from four countries are about to announce a major advance in identifying the defective gene which causes a crippling congenital disease affecting 4,000 young people in Britain. However, according to a recent survey carried out by the Observer it is suggested that Britain's health service is ill-equipped to take advantage of the new tests. The Government recommendation in 1979 that every regional health authority should employ two consultant geneticists has not been implemented because of lack of funds; two regions still do not have a consultant and four more have only one.
I well remember the decision that was taken in 1979 and I am deeply disturbed that what seemed to be a very proper recommendation has not been carried out. I ask the noble Baroness whether she is satisfied that the recent announcement of £1 million to tackle the growing problem of AIDS in our community—which we have discussed in this House on a number of occasions—really is an adequate response to a very desperate problem. If the American pattern is followed here in Britain it could bring devastation to individuals and families. Is not this sort of expenditure a pathetic drop in the ocean in the light of the size and the fearful nature of the problem?
Is it not true, in respect of the treatment, care and rehabilitation of drug abusers, that one of the most
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disturbing elements in our society is that it is now plagued not only by drugs but by violent crime and inner-city conflict unknown before this Government came to power with what I believe to be their distorted priorities? Is the noble Baroness satisfied that the Government, with the funds they are making available, are responding effectively and adequately to the challenge of increasing drug abuse in our society?
Will the noble Baroness help the House to unravel the uncertainty about the number of beds available and patients being treated in National Health Service hospitals? This is an issue which arose during Question Time and figures were given by the noble Baroness who was answering. Ministers have made much play of new facilities completed between 1980 and 1984—most of which, I must say, were planned and started when I was Secretary of State. They quote the figure of 11,000 new beds but they have not mentioned that the average number of available hospital beds actually decreased by 12,900 during this period from a total of 356,000 in 1980 to 343,100 in 1983. Therefore, is it not better that we should look at the available beds and consider the number of beds closed and not merely talk about the new beds?
The Government quote a 12 per cent. increase between 1978 and 1983 in the number of in-patient cases treated and the shorter stays in hospital. On the face of it, if one does not seek to examine the consequences of these statistics, we could all cheer and say that that shows not just how much healthier we are but how much work the National Health Service is doing. But I must say to your Lordships and to the Minister that it is my clear impression—and I have asked many people about this—that sometimes patients are discharged too soon and therefore have to be readmitted. So they are counted twice because the figures that we are given do not represent the number of patients but the number of admissions.
Elderly people may often have two or three spells in hospital in one year, and these people too are counted twice or three times. When the noble Baroness comes to wind up the debate, can she give some figures of patients treated as opposed to this inflated figure of admissions to hospital? This applies to out-patient units as well. A better measure of the extent of inpatient services may be the average number of beds used daily. Perhaps the noble Baroness could give some figures that would help us on this.
We also have staff problems. Every Minister who talks about increases in nursing staff always says, "up to 1983". For some reason or other they stop at 1983. The reason is that 1984 was the first year since the National Health Service was created in which the number of nurses actually decreased. They also give their figures without taking into consideration the fact that the hours worked by nurses have quite properly been reduced from 40 to 37½, so in order to do the same amount of work obviously more nurses are necessary. Can the noble Baroness give us some figures about that and particularly about the future intentions of the Government in terms of this manpower watch. If they have now started to reduce the number of people who are working in the health service—and this is not really just a local matter but is a decision taken by the Secretary of State—is this a long-term intention or is it intended for just one or two years?
I am sorry to continue to ask questions but they are pretty vital ones. Will the Minister also accept from me that as regards health visitors and district nurses, who are vital elements in community care, the number of staff rose less than did the number of people they visited?
I want to obtain the Government's view about the results of the Griffiths Report and the appointment of general managers. First, I have strongly objected to excessive interference by Ministers in who is appointed to regional and district posts. I believe it is quite wrong that the assumption that Whitehall knows best should be applied to the health service. There have been many cases where appointments which have been properly made by health authorities have been overruled by Ministers, which I think is a very unsatisfactory situation. Does the noble Baroness share my deep concern about the effect of the whole of this reorganisation on the very heart and soul of the National Health Service; namely, the nurses, who, after all, form 50 per cent. of the staff of the NHS and a much higher proportion of its caring personnel?
What conclusions does the Minister reach from the following facts—and in putting these facts I am delighted to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, will be taking part in the debate and I hope that she will have something more to say about them, too. If we look at regional general managers, only one nurse has been appointed out of 14 appointments in England; as district general managers, 4 nurses have been appointed out of the 189 appointments which have taken place in England; as unit general managers, so far 22 nurses have been appointed out of the 200 appointments which have so far been made. As your Lordships can see, this represents about 11 per cent. of posts going to nurses.
There are other aspects of this matter about which I believe your Lordships should be concerned. The appointment of general managers is only one dimension. Once in place, the new general managers will review the structure which will be answerable to them as general managers, and in these reviews the position of nursing and nursing advice is being considerably weakened. The Royal College of Nursing has examined 110 out of 191 authorities, and found that 24 district health authorities—that is, 22 per cent.—now have no chief nursing officer in their proposed structure. I could give a number of other examples but time simply does not permit. I think it is a very serious matter indeed if the position of nurses is not properly protected in the management reorganisation within the National Health Service.
The questions that I want to put finally relate to resources. First, we must take into consideration that costs in the National Health Service rise much faster than the retail price index, and secondly that 0.5 per cent. is calculated by the DHSS to cope with the cost of medical innovation—and our National Health Service must keep pace with new discoveries and developments. If we add to that the 1 per cent. which is needed just to cope each year with the increasing demand on the health service of very elderly people, the figure comes to about 2 per cent, which means that anything under a 2 per cent. growth rate is in fact a cut in real terms.
If we look at the last few years, in 1980–81 the real-terms growth rate was 1·2 per cent., in 1981–82 it stepped up to 3·3 per cent., in 1982–83 it was 1·2 per cent. in 1983–84 it was 1·4 per cent. and in 1984–85 it was 1·1 per cent.; nil growth was prophesied in the White Paper before the Chancellor came to make his Statement. Let me make it quite clear that I welcome the fact that it was decided that, unless the National Health Service was to begin to crumble, it was absolutely vital that the Chancellor should find some more resources. I thank him for small mercies; but it is a very small mercy because it does not really mean—particularly with the continuation of the RAWP (Regional Allocation Working Party) formula—that in some parts of the country there will not continue to be major cuts, since I have not mentioned the fact that a great deal of the money that has been found by the Chancellor is to enable health authorities to pay for their own staff. It was an absurd situation that the Government agreed to an increase in doctors, nurses and other staff, but then said, "We shall pay only 3 per cent. and all the rest has to fall on the health authorities".
This leads me to the last point I want to make on health before I move on very briefly to social security. In view of what I have said and the circumstances that have developed, after eight years of RAWP—which has made a major contribution to the equalisation of the resources available in regions across the country—I honestly believe it is time it was reviewed. I do not say it is time for it to be stopped. I remember that when I introduced it I called it a blunt instrument and it was then my intention as Secretary of State to monitor it very carefully. It underestimates a range of factors—and I shall just mention inner city needs, which are the concern of your Lordships' House and the country as a whole. I would be interested to know whether the Minister feels that the time has now come, after eight years, for a review of the application of the RAWP formula.
I have left myself too little time for the rest of my remarks and therefore I shall continue very rapidly. I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Jeger, who will be winding up the debate, will deal at greater length than I shall with the question of Norman Fowler's review of the social security system. It is just as well that I am not going to deal with it in detail because I have documentation, which is at least a foot high, from almost every organisation which has submitted representations and in almost every case 98 per cent. of the evidence is against the recommendations that have been made by the Government
I was looking at an interesting study that has been made of 60 of the most important organisations. Two bodies appeared to be very solidly in favour of the Government—two out of 60. One was an organisation called the Monday Club, which is not always noted for the most progressive views; perhaps even the Minister would agree with that. The other was the Institute of Directors, and I say nothing against that organisation. But those two organisations showed consistent support for the Government's recommendations, and almost all the others on every single issue said, "No". I am not surprised, and I hope that the Government will take that very seriously indeed.
Let us look at a number of the particular proposals. I want to mention briefly the state earnings-related pension scheme. When announcing the results, the Secretary of State said that this was the first major review of the social security system since the days of Beveridge. First of all, there is no state social security system; there are a variety of systems to deal with a variety of needs. Child benefit is clearly totally different from an earnings-related pension scheme.
When I look at what has come out of the review I can only reach the conclusion that it is not an attempt to improve the benefits that we provide for the people in greatest need in our country but a cost-cutting exercise to provide additional funds for the Government to use at the right time, as they think, in pre-election tax cuts—pre-election tax cuts paid for by those who suffer the greatest need in our society.
The process of consultation on SERPS lasted many years. I was involved in it in 1958, and Parliament went through years of consultation until we reached absolute agreement across the Floor of the House. I have to admit that the Liberals did not join in the agreement. We worked very hard as a government. We can see if we look back at the comments made then that Norman Fowler and Kenneth Clarke, then in Opposition, supported the measure. We thought that we had taken future benefits for the elderly out of party politics and that we should not have another period of kicking back and forth arguments on the needs of the elderly in their retirement years. It is appalling that we are now thrust back to that situation.
Let us look at other issues. The claim is made that the cost of SERPS is now too much and facts have changed. The costs of the scheme were fully recognised at its outset 10 years ago, and even the Tory Reform Group, which I put into a quite different category from the Monday Club, acknowledged that in its response to the Green Paper proposals. It said:
"The Green Paper's references to emerging costs seem to imply that the full cost of SERPS was not known in 1975. However, Edward Johnstone, the Government actuary and a member of the pension review team, has made it clear that this is not so."
It condemns the Green Paper—and I quote the group s words again—for
"its rather dubious statistical arguments".
The only change that there has been is in the number of unemployed people.
I should like to have said more but I shall not do so as time does not permit. I could have said a great deal about the effect on disabled people and the effect on families with young children if we do not continue child benefit. I could say much more about how much means testing there will be, and about the abolition of the death grant, cuts in maternity grant, and so on.
In conclusion, I say to the noble Baroness that whatever happens in another place—and I think that there will be a major debate over many months once the White Paper is published—if the proposals in the Green Paper now appear in the White Paper, in this House on these Benches we shall fight them tooth and nail because we believe that they will damage not only the general structure of our welfare state but the people who are most disadvantaged, for, as I say, the simple and unworthy purpose to make room for tax cuts. I
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believe that it would be a moral outrage if we approved the recommendations that we have so far seen. I beg to move for Papers.
3.55 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity for the House to discuss an issue as important and as far-reaching as the future of the health service and social security. The terms of the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, are extremely broad, and I have no doubt whatsoever that your Lordships will take full advantage of the opportunity to range widely over the whole field before us today. So I hope I shall be forgiven if I do not attempt at this moment to cover all the many issues which are likely to be raised. The noble Lord has already asked many questions, and I know that I can rely on your Lordships to ensure that I have plenty of other issues to pick up in my wind-up speech!
I want therefore to concentrate in my opening remarks on a few key points. First, there is the question of resources. I need hardly remind your Lordships that health and social security between them account for around 40 per cent. of all public expenditure. Now from time to time I hear talk—indeed, I heard it in this House last week and again today—concerning "cuts in the health service". So my noble friend Lord Stockton and noble Lords from Opposition Benches will be delighted to hear me when I say that there can be no dispute about our commitment to continue support for a National Health Service financed largely from taxation and providing comprehensive health care for all. That commitment is quite clearly illustrated by the record amounts of money which we are devoting to the health service. Since we came into office, spending on the health service in Great Britain has more than doubled. After allowing for general inflation, that represents a real-terms increase—or an increase in the cost to the economy and the taxpayer—of over 20 per cent. Over the same period, public expenditure as a whole rose by just half that amount—about 10 per cent., in real terms.
This priority for the NHS continues to be reflected in our plans for public spending over the next three years. These were announced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place on 12th November. In broad terms these plans show total expenditure on the NHS in Great Britain set to rise by nearly £2·8 billion in 1988–89. That means that in every year since we came of office in 1979 to the end of the current planning period a real-terms increase in NHS spending has either taken place or is planned, whereas under the last Labour Government there was actually a real-terms cut in 1977–78. It is funny how the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, conveniently puts his head in the sand and fails to remember the days when he was associated with the Labour Government.
Let us look at what this means for the health service in England. For the hospital and community health services it means an extra £650 million next year. This is an increase of 6·7 per cent. compared with a forecast increase in general inflation of 4·5 per cent. On top of this, health authorities will have the benefits of their

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growing cost improvement programmes, which are expected to yield £150 million this year. This pool of resources will be used to meet pay and price increases, to provide for the growing numbers of very elderly people and to continue to improve services. In 1987–88 we have planned further cash increases of more than 1 per cent. above the level of forecast inflation.
We have already substantially increased the level of NHS capital spending. This has risen about a quarter in real terms since we took office compared with a real-terms cut of one third under the last Labour Government. We are now further increasing provision for hospital capital spending. Together, the additional cash and income from sales of surplus land will enable authorities to carry through major programmes of capital investment to replace and modernise outdated hospital buildings. Much has already been done. Since 1979, 24 major hospital building schemes have been completed. Over the next three years we plan to start 43 more, each costing over £5 million. In all, nearly 250 schemes costing over £1 million each are being planned, designed or built.
I might at this point answer one of the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. He made the point that the number of beds in the NHS has fallen. That is true. However, the essential point is not the number of beds—we do not treat the furniture—but the number of patients. As the noble Lord recognised, there has been a substantial increase in the number of in-patient cases since we took office. The NHS has become more efficient. Modern medical techniques enable people to be treated more quickly. The noble Lord suggested that patients were discharged too early and that the measure of the number of in-patient cases simply reflected repeated admissions caused by too early discharge.
First, the number of in-patient cases has always been used to measure the use of NHS services, even under the Government of which the noble Lord was a member. Secondly, I would be surprised if our doctors and nurses allowed that to happen. I do not think that they would much appreciate the remark of the noble Lord. Thirdly, a research study on one region showed that the number of patients rose broadly in step with the number of cases.
Spending on the family practitioner services has increased to £2·5 billion and will continue to increase in each of the next two years to meet current estimates of rising demand. These sums are enormous by any standards and should silence once and for all those who denigrate our success and simply wail about cuts. How are these resources being used to deliver services to patients, which at the end of the day is what the health service is all about? The figures speak for themselves. Our hospitals are now treating more people than ever before. In 1984, in England, they had, as has already been mentioned, 800,000 more in-patient cases, 340,000 more day cases and 3 million more out-patient attendances than in 1978. Between 1983 and 1984 alone, output rose by nearly 3 per cent. These increases more than meet rising demand due to demographic changes and represent a real improvement in services. We plan to build on these successes.
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In addition, we plan to continue to provide for increasing numbers of elderly people, and take advantage of advances in medical techniques. We are also expecting health authorities to make further real improvements in key services, such as treatment for renal failure—where targets have already been agreed—hip replacements, care in the community and services for drug misuse.
I have referred to the very substantial cost improvement programmes which have secured major savings to be devoted to patient services. Now I want to say a word about management. The health service is one of the largest enterprises in western Europe. It needs leadership and management of the highest quality. It is precisely those issues of quality of management and effective use of resources that this Government—more than any other—have tackled. Primarily, this is to benefit the patient, to ensure that every last penny possible is being devoted to improving the standard of care for the individual. But it is also important for the morale of staff, for the calibre of future generations of managers and. of course, for the quality of service offered to patients that the National Health Service should be an attractive place in which to work as well as a compassionate and effective place in which to be treated.
Our record boasts a whole range of initiatives designed to improve the quality of management, to remove structural and other obstacles that impede good management and to improve the use of resources. Collectively, these amount to freeing managers at all levels to be better able to provide the best standard of service possible, as both they and we want. Ultimately that must result in a more satisfied workforce and better served patients.
During this past summer, I have had the great good fortune to have visited hospitals and other places concerned with the National Health Service throughout Britain. I cannot agree with the exaggerated remarks made, I regret to say, by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, in his speech, and by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, during Question Time regarding the "desperation"—I think that was the word used—felt by those working in the National Health Service. I totally refute that assumption.
I am well aware that dedicated people who serve the NHS sometimes feel that they have suffered from too much reorganisation. When people recount the changes to me, I must admit that the expression "to be RAWP-ed" sometimes conjures up the wrong impression in my mind. Be that as it may, we are committed to RAWP. I have not heard criticisms of the introduction of the Griffiths Report proposals as such. In fact, the whole concept is welcome. These proposals concerned, as your Lordships will know, the introduction by authorities of general management without changing any health authority boundaries. This was an entirely new concept to the NHS and is designed to ensure that accountability for use of resources and for producing necessary changes and results effectively and efficiently are focused on identifiable individuals.
The appointment of general managers at regional, district and unit level has now been going on for just over a year. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord

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Ennals, that the results are encouraging. All regional general managers, all but a handful of district general managers and well over 200 unit general managers have so far been appointed. Nearly halfway through the appointment process, the results show a heartening involvement of different disciplines and a balance from inside and outside the service. Well over 20 per cent. are of doctors and nurses and 15 per cent. come from outside the service. Over 40 per cent. of the appointments that have been made represent the introduction to, or the unearthing within, the NHS of new managerial talent. This infusion of new blood cannot but benefit the service over the coming years. Your Lordships will also be pleased to learn that many authorities are appointing senior managers to be responsible for the quality of patient care and services—a very welcome further development.
Nurses and doctors are keen to play their part in the management of their service. Who better than these professionals to tell health authorities what patients' expectations are? The way the health service is developing will, I think, ensure that their talents, managerial as well as professional, are put to good use, and I am sure that the service will benefit greatly. At the same time, we have paid particular attention to the way in which resources are being used. We have established a system of accountability and performance reviews, all designed to ensure that authorities are responsibly addressing national priorities, achieving the objectives they set themselves and using money and manpower effectively.
As part of our drive to secure value for money we have also required authorities, first to institute cost improvement programmes; that is, to look at better ways of achieving better use and deployment of resources; secondly, to invite tenders for the provision of support services to patients, a policy which alone has registered savings so far of £28 million a year which are now being redeployed to improve patient care; and, thirdly, to introduce Rayner Scrutinies to take a fresh look at a particular activity to see whether it might be done more efficiently. The nine scrutinies published so far indicate that many millions of pounds can be ploughed back into patient care. Health authorities are putting the scrutiny recommendations into practice, and more scrutinies are now under way.
Fourthly, we have required authorities to implement energy conservation programmes. Currently expenditure in the NHS in Great Britain is some £325 million a year. Without the energy conservation measures already taken this would be nearly £70 million more. We are on course for a continuing fall in energy consumption of 1½ per cent. per year, offering the prospect of further cumulative savings exceeding £1 billion by the end of the century. Fifthly, we have required them to release all underused or unneeded land thus saving £50 million last year alone.
That amounts to an impressive record. It is to the benefit of patients, taxpayers and NHS staff and will lead to further improvements in the performance of the NHS which has already risen dramatically. I have given your Lordships some of the key figures. The point I want to make at this stage is that the health service has responded with enthusiasm to the
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challenges it faces. A revolution is taking place in management, and the effectiveness with which so many more patients than ever before are being treated indicates clearly that staff on the wards and in departments have the motivation—and the resources—to go on to achieve yet greater things and I pay tribute to them.
We would be wrong to think that the health service is only a hospital service. Nothing could be further from the truth. This country has one of the finest primary care services in the world, which is used by millions of people every year. We are already reaping the benefits of the change in status of family practitioner committees which we made in April of this year. Our underlying objective was to provide a new focus for the development of the major component of primary care services while at the same time improving efficiency and securing greater accountability in their administration.
Collaborative arrangements between health authorities and FPCs are developing well. A system of computerised committee, records is being introduced which will improve efficiency and greatly facilitate preventive measures such as cervical screening and the production of age-sex registers for primary health care teams to use as an aid to health maintenance.
It is clear from the review process that the new FPCs are actively reviewing important areas of their work such as complaints procedures, deputising arrangements for general medical practice, emergency dental services, arrangements for health care of homeless people and the standards of practice premises. They are also examining critically their own management arrangements.
The composition of the committees is broadly based, and a very wide range of interests and occupations is represented among their chairmen and members. We were encouraged by the large number of people who came forward in a spirit of public service to offer the considerable amount of their time needed to make the new arrangements work well.
The provision of a full range of care to the people of this country does not begin and end with the hospital service or even with the primary care services. The role of the personal social services is crucial and this Government are committed to promoting the development of joint planning between health and local authorities in which the voluntary sector too should play a full part. The annual allocation of funds for joint finance has increased by over 50 per cent. in real terms since 1979 and is currently £105 million. Joint planning is crucial to the development of a range of services to meet the needs of vulnerable people, such as mentally handicapped, mentally ill, physically disabled and the elderly. It is also crucial to provide those services in the most cost-effective way: matching the needs of individuals and avoiding gaps and unnecessary duplication in services.
We are also committed to the development of care outside hospitals in the community for people who would otherwise have had to go to hospital, perhaps for long periods, and for people discharged from hospital after a long stay. Our care in the community arrangements have removed obstacles to the transfer of funds with patients from long-stay hospitals to

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community care. In addition to a number of care in the community projects with local fundings, a programme of 28 pilot projects has been launched with central funding and will be evaluated and the results shared. There is no doubt of the importance of this field of activity. Community care has been something of a buzzword, but the Government are putting effort and resources into making it a reality.
There is no question of our throwing patients out of hospitals and into the street without providing the necessary back-up services. I was able to reassure the National Schizophrenia Fellowship on this point last week. I also told them that money received from the sale of mental hospitals would be used for care in the community purposes and would not disappear into other NHS pockets.
I should now like to turn to the other major topic of today's debate—the reform of social security. We have been engaged in a debate on the reform of social security for two years now. The debate has involved people outside government on an unprecedented scale. Apart from outside members on each review team, we drew the public at large into the consultations. Their interest and the scale of responses show how right we were to do so. Over 4,500 individuals and bodies sent evidence to the review teams. Over 7,000 responded to our Green Paper proposals. The debate has ranged over the whole complex of issues in our social security system. It has raised the general levels of awareness about the value of social security to our society; about the aims of that system; about its problems. I believe that it has also been a unique debate in that, having tackled such a large, complex and emotive area, we have arrived at a broadly-based consensus. It is that our present social security system suffers from serious problems. Change is not going to be easy, but change there must be. I would only add to that ringing statement this coda: and change there will be. For, having taken up the challenge two years ago, this Government will not shirk their responsibility to society.
Let us take a brief look at this Government's record. Above all, we have slashed inflation from the high point of 27 per cent. reached in the mid-seventies to below six per cent. now, and it is still falling. That achievement alone is of the utmost importance for all those on low incomes. But, further, next week's uprating of benefits will bring spending on social security to well over £40 billion, nearly one-third of all public spending. And that is an increase, in real terms, of over 30 per cent. since 1979. In that period we have more than honoured our pledge to maintain the real value of pensions. We have doubled the mobility allowance and taken it out of tax. We have introduced the new severe disablement allowance. We have introduced a new mobility supplement for war pensioners, and we have taken war widows' pensions out of tax.
That same positive and constructive approach has characterised our proposals for reforming the social security structure. We want a system that is simple to understand and easier to administer. That way claimants will know more clearly what they can and should be getting and staff will be able to deliver the service more quickly and effectively. We want a system that will be fairer to those at work on low
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incomes and which will not undermine their motivation to work harder and increase their earnings. We want a system that will not bind a future generation to financial commitments that we know now to be unreasonable. And we want a system that is geared to the needs of today, a system that gets help to those who need it most.
Meanwhile we have taken and are continuing to take positive steps to improve the service to the public. I shall not detail the initiatives here but will mention that we are also embarking on the biggest computerised programme in Europe to ensure that our staff in local offices will not have to depend almost entirely on manual records. This is a long-term programme which will yield its full benefits in the next decade.
All these measures, I would emphasise, are designed to ensure that we shall deliver the social security system to the public as efficiently, as accurately, as speedily but—most important of all—as courteously and sympathetically as possible. I should also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the many staff in local offices who work so hard in sometimes the most difficult of circumstances.
However, there is one area of concern that I should like particularly to mention and that is the sick and disabled. Of course, as we have made clear, the review did not seek to cover benefits for sick and disabled people because we need reliable, up-to-date and comprehensive information about the number, circumstances and needs of these people if we are to develop our policies in the longer term toward a more coherent system of benefits for the disabled. The full-scale survey that is now being conducted will give us that information.
Disabled people will of course get particular help from the premium in our proposals for the income support scheme to replace supplementary benefit. The premium will be payable automatically to anyone who gets invalidity benefit, severe disablement allowance, attendance allowance or mobility allowance or to someone who has been incapable of work for 28 weeks. This will be a clear-cut entitlement that claimants can understand and that can be administered without fuss. I ask your Lordships: do you really think that the needs of disabled people are being well served by a system that requires them to answer questions about the number of baths they take in a week so that DHSS staff can work out how much they should get in benefit? We also propose special treatment for families with disabled children; they will get a double family premium. And the severely disabled—those getting attendance allowance and mobility allowance—will continue to get those allowances in full, in addition to the disablement premium.
As I said earlier, the debate on the reform of social security has been wide-ranging. It has covered every aspect of our proposals—from the escalating cost of the state earnings-related pension scheme to local schemes in housing benefit. We are now considering all the very many responses we have received and we have listened carefully to all the views and concerns expressed—as we shall listen to your Lordships today. There has of course been a good deal of speculation about what our final proposals will be, but I know that

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your Lordships will not expect me to comment on such speculation, much less fuel it, particularly when I say that our final proposals will be published in a White Paper within weeks.
This has been a brief look at some key points. The health service and social security have seen some major changes over recent years, but many of these changes have led to significantly better services for the people of this country. There are more changes to come, and it is the Government's aim to ensure that they too lead to improvements for people who need health care and social services and social security. We have achieved a great deal already and we are determined to achieve yet more in the years to come.
4.22 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for giving us the opportunity to debate these important subjects which did not receive much attention in the debate on the loyal Address. There is always a great deal of argument, accompanied by claims and counter-claims, on health service expenditure. The Government say they are spending more than ever before in real terms. The noble Baroness has just been making such claims in her speech. Despite the bullish talk about spending at the macro level, this happy scenario is all too frequently not reflected at the micro level. For example, the Medway district stands at only 77.2 per cent. of its RAWP spending targets. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was talking about reform of RAWP. Only this month a man who has had an accident at work is to go before a court and faces the loss of his house. The reason is that he has been off work as a result of the accident and is awaiting an operation on his knee. May I——
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am terribly sorry. I always have the same trouble with the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. Can he possibly get under the microphone? Otherwise I shall not be able to answer any of his questions, because I shall not have heard them.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I shall try another microphone to see whether it picks me up better. I was saying that in the Medway district a man who had an accident at work is going before a court and faces the loss of his house because he has been off work as a result of the accident and is awaiting an operation on his knee. The consultant cannot promise him anything better than a three-year wait. So he can give no assurance to his mortgage company about a speedy return to work which might secure him a stay of execution. In the same district, a woman who needed to have a broken bone reset in her foot had her operation deferred six times because of pressures from emergencies, motorway accidents and other casualties. She was in constant pain throughout this long ordeal. This is the reality of the health service in the Medway towns, whatever the rhetoric of the Government.
Let us consider some of the realities on the big screen. In the first place, the United Kingdom's absolute level of spending on health care at 5·9 per cent. of GDP in 1984 was the lowest in the OECD, apart from the Netherlands and Belgium. All our other
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major competitors spent more, with the USA at 9·8 per cent., West Germany at 8·2 per cent., France at 8·1 per cent., and Italy at 6·7 per cent. This relatively low expenditure has been masked by the efficiencies that came initially with the structure of a service paid for out of taxation with relatively low administrative costs. We started from a lower base and we got good value for money—better than most other countries. I believe we can still get it, because our basic structure is better. But it has to be recognised that spending on health care has risen at least as fast as real GDP throughout the developed world, so we need a realistic allowance for growth in future health spending. We need to find the right growth path and we need to stick to it without annual fluctuations and crises.
Government claims to have increased health expenditure over the period 1979–80 to 1984–85 by 17 per cent. in real terms are reduced to only 7·2 per cent. if we take into account the relative price effect, which is the extent to which health care costs rise faster than costs in general. Over five years this would represent an average increase of 1·5 per cent., but this is without allowing for the increase in the elderly population or for technical innovation. The National Association of Health Authorities has calculated in its annual report that the average increase for this period was 0·8 per cent. per annum, which is significantly less than the Government's own rule of thumb of 0·7 per cent. for demographical purposes and 0·5 per cent. for the technological factor, respectively—that is to say, 1·2 per cent. to stand still.
What is the point of all these statistics? I am not trying to outsmart or outpoint the Government, because that is what politicians do to one another. I and my noble friends are interested in how statistics are reflected in patient care and how far the Government are fufilling their own stated policy objectives. To find some answers I turned to a report published by the Centre of Health Economics at York University called Public Expenditure on the NHS: Recent Trends and the Outlook, written by Mr. Nick Bosanquet, senior research fellow. The centre is widely respected as responsible and impartial. The introduction tells us:
"it became widely accepted that a certain amount of extra expenditure was required in real terms in order to maintain the service at a constant standard in the face of changing needs and changing technology."
This is the 1·2 per cent. that I have already referred to, and it should be noted that this would ensure a constant and not an improved service.
But this minimum is only valid, the report tells us, if price and wage inflation are within the Government's assumptions and if optimistic estimates of "efficiency" savings are met. The report, in its restrained style, then suggests:
"there is at least the possibility that the NHS may be trying to cover multiple tasks with the same funds".
I repeat that phrase: "multiple tasks with the same funds".
That brings me to policy objectives. Since the early 1970s there has been a considerable shift away from the hospital services—some would say not enough, but it has been happening under successive Governments. In 1970–71 the hospital services absorbed 44·1 per cent. of total current spending. By 1983–84 this was

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down to 37·2 per cent. I believe most of us would welcome the shift from large institutions towards primary care and care in the community. But here some harsh realities have to be faced. Let me take first the community care for priority groups; that is to say, the elderly, the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, has a debate on this subject on 4th December. Here I want to quote a very significant passage in the report of the York Health Economics Centre. It reads:
"It may be that in the long run community care will prove a cheaper option but in the initial stage the costs are likely to be higher as the investments are made in the new system at a time when much of the old system is in being."
This is what the report calls an "uncosted policy aim", which seems sloppy at least with a cost-conscious Government in charge.
I shall not go into joint financing, the reluctance of local authorities to accept long-term commitments for people released from hospital, and so on. But I want to ask the Government some concrete questions—I hope the noble Baroness can hear me now—on the new money for hospital building announced in the Autumn Statement. Much of that will come, if I understand correctly, from the sales of NHS buildings, residential accommodation and surplus land, which, according to the Sunday Telegraph of 11th November, may be expected to yield £750 million over three years. That is excellent news. But how is that money to be apportioned?
The York report—I always call it that for short—speaks of,
"The heavy investment required in community care over the next few years",
and suggests that this, along with certain specialist acute services, will require a year-on increase of 0·5 per cent. per annum. That is an additional increase of 0·5 per cent. per annum. But if all, or most, of the money is to go on new hospital building where are the funds to come from for the grossly under-funded community care sector? I think I heard the noble Baroness say that the sale of mental hospitals would be ploughed back into community care, and perhaps she would confirm that at the end of the debate.
There is also of course the £1·7 billion backlog in repairs and maintenance which the NHS currently suffers, and the Building Employers' Confederation has put it as high as £2 billion. How is this to be funded? The York report concludes:
"… in the light of the multiple objectives set for the NHS 2 per cent. a year increase in real spending for the next three years is the minimum required for general managers to carry out their tasks".
What is the Government's response to that? Are they going to tie their new general managers' hands behind their backs before they start?
There is the additional problem for general managers of how to meet the awards of the review bodies which are consistently higher than the Government's assumptions on wages, in some cases with devastating results. Here is another example from Medway. A county councillor writes to me:
"Quite suddenly and without warning, we have had an announcement of wholesale hospital closures which the authority says will be needed by 1986–87 to finance the nurses' pay award".
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Yet no one in his right mind can suggest that the nurses are being overpaid. So where do we go from here? Will the Government make up the difference every year between the review body awards and their own calculations if there is a gap? Will they commit themselves to that?
There are certain objectives of Government policy which are actually stated in White Papers and circulars. The White Paper on Public Expenditure 1985 sets out the following aims:

"(a) to meet greater demands for services which will be related to the growing number of elderly people;

(b) to take full advantages of the advances in medical technology;

(c) to combat social problems of alcohol and drug abuse'——

Baroness Jeger: I cannot hear.
Baroness Faithfull: Slow down.
Lord Kilmarnock: I am sorry.
"(d) to continue to improve community support for people who do not require continuing hospital care by strengthening primary care and community health and social services"
All extremely worthy, but there was never any explicit costing for community care, so how are Government policies in that field to be implemented? I believe that what the public most appreciates in politicians is honesty and frankness, and so the Government owe the public an answer to this question.
There is of course another option, which is to scrap the whole idea of returning the elderly and the mentally ill and handicapped to the community, reverse the policies of the last 30 years, stop the sales of Victorian institutions and fill them again with their erstwhile inhabitants. It would be cheaper. It would cost the nation less.
But if the Government do not want to return to Victorian values of that sort, they must stump up the money. There is no alternative. Instead, therefore, of congratulating themselves and looking for adulation for their programme of hospital building, largely financed by sales of existing property and conveniently timed to coincide with the run-up to the next general election—their conversion to this type of public investment is remarkably sudden—the Government should be setting out to answer the questions I have asked them. Not only I but the voters of the Isle of Sheppey and all sorts of disadvantaged districts up and down the country want to know the answers too.
I want to turn briefly to primary care. We really must hope at least in this Session of Parliament that the Government will finally produce their Green Paper. This really is becoming a stale joke. It simply gives the impression that the Government are racked with indecision. Even if they are, what is the problem? After all, Green Papers are for discussion. That is their purpose. They are part of the consultative process. The response to the Fowler reviews is rumoured to have caused the Secretary of State to have second thoughts on his pensions proposals. Fine; that is what it is all about. So why not shed this secrecy and caution so that we can all get on with the vital debate, and pressing debate, on primary care?
There is no doubt—my noble friend Lord Winstanley will correct me if I am wrong—that the family doctor service is now in better shape than it was

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in the early 1960s. There has been a reduction in list sizes. GPs are referring only 155 patients now per 1,000 compared to 320 20 years ago. This is a remarkable achievement but it needs to be carried further by a continuing reduction of list size and extension of GP services and facilities to absorb even more of the hospital out-patient workload.
This is not the place to go into great detail as to how this might be done. Our original idea was that FPCs should be abolished and their functions subsumed into the DHAs. We lost that argument (or, anyway, we lost it in terms of votes) and certainly we would not now seek to subject the NHS to further upheaval—along with Griffiths—but it remains absurd that the FPCs should be separate from the community health staff responsible to district, with all the overlapping that this entails.
Various recommendations have come from the Royal College of Nursing and the Health Visitors' Association to the Cumberlege Inquiry, and the Royal College of General Practitioners have published their views, all of which deserve study. The leader of my party has suggested that rather than some blanket reorganisation of primary care, an NHS development fund should be set up on which general managers and family doctors could draw, and pilot schemes could be funded arising out of local initiatives. This would help compensate for the undoubted fact that the more GPs do in providing new services and taking on new work and staff, the greater their personal financial loss.
But the first step is for the Government to put their own ideas on the table. In the meantime we simply speculate and slake our thirst on leaks. We assume that the Government will want to be fairly radical about making it easier to change one's doctor, about information on practices, about the retirement age, about quality assessment—a matter with which the Royal College of General Practitioners is specifically concerned in its admirable paper, Quality in General Practice.
These are all legitimate areas for improvement, and I think there is a professional will at work to secure this improvement. But there is a note of warning I would utter to the Government before they finally give us the benefit of their long rumination on these matters. Do not try to create a two-tier primary care service by artificially stimulating private practice. Private practice is perfectly legitimate, but the overwhelming majority of the British public wants a good family doctor service within the NHS.
Perhaps there is something of a drift into private schemes where hospitalisation is involved and the NHS has a bad record on waiting lists through starvation of funds; possibly 7 per cent. of the population is covered in this way either individually or through company schemes. But only 1 per cent.—I discovered this only the other day—an incredibly low 1 per cent. of primary consultations take place within the private sector at present. This has not increased since the foundation of the National Health Service. I find that a remarkable statistic. It is a pretty good vote of confidence for the family doctor service, whatever its shortcomings, and I suggest to the Government that they would be extremely unwise to dismantle it or
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undermine it in any way. The noble Baroness referred to one of the finest primary care services in the world, and I hope she heeds her own words and the Government heed them too.
My Lords, I shall say very little about social security as my noble friend, Lord Banks, who is the acknowledged expert, is to speak shortly. Also we await the White Paper. But I will repeat our opposition to, or severe reservations over, several proposals which figured in the Green Paper. We oppose the cuts in housing benefit. The IFS—the Institute of Fiscal Studies—estimates that of the £450 million saved, £350 million will go towards family credit. This is redistributing from the childless elderly poor to the working poor with children—the poor paying for the poor.
We oppose the payment of 20 per cent. of the rates by all households. The effect on those of low income will be adverse and in some cases punitive. Fifty per cent. of pensioner households will lose more than 1 per cent. of income and 11 per cent. will be more than 5 per cent. worse off. We cannot support that. We are totally opposed to abolition of the death grant and believe it should be raised to £250 and made reclaimable from the estate of the deceased, if there is any.
We have severe reservations about the "Social Fund". If it is cash limited and runs out in its tenth month, what happens to the applicants then? The Family Credit Scheme has some merits but we very much dislike its payment through the wage packet as this means a major redistribution of money within the family from women to men, where the woman is often unable to earn any income of her own owing to family responsibilities. Possibly, this is a technical problem which can be overcome during the passage of the Bill. We shall have to see.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to discuss pensions in any detail without the White Paper but I note with interest, in passing, the rumours in the press that the Secretary of State is backtracking on his original proposals to abolish SERPS and is now thinking of remodelling the scheme along the lines suggested by us as a possible basis for an all-party agreement. We fear that we shall not get an all-party agreement because the Labour Party has committed itself, if it comes to power after the next general election, to the reintroduction of SERPS, unmodified, with all its huge cost implications for the future. We should consider this to be wholly regrettable, in view of the long-term costs of SERPS and its inegalitarian features. For example, a couple earning less than £6,500 will not benefit at all under SERPS. We prefer the solution originally advanced by the Liberal Party, with which my noble friend Lord Banks is particularly associated, of a substantial rise in the basic pension should SERPS be abolished. If the Secretary of State now has other proposals, we shall have to study them very carefully to see whether they do anything to make SERPS more egalitarian by giving more help to the low or intermittent earner. Only then can we decide whether we can give them our support.
As is often said in this House, we are in an extremely complex field of policy, not helped by the ad hoc way in which our social security system has developed. However, if anything is certain it is that any proposals

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that have the effect of making the poor poorer over time and widening the gap between them and our more prosperous citizens will be strenuously resisted from these Benches. That goes both for health and for social security.
I have just spent two months in Catalonia, a small nation of some six million people without the status of a nation-state but with many similarities to us: they are manufacturers, traders and passionate lovers of liberty. They cannot be accused of being way out to the left. Indeed, their present regional government is centre right. However, everywhere on Catalan lips one hears the phrase, "teixit social", social fabric. This tends to be rather derided over here as a cliché of sociologists. However, there, in a very business-minded community, it is seen as essential for economic success to preserve social cohesion. I commend the idea to the Government.
4.42 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Durham: My Lords, debates about the National Health Service and about the future of our social security system are bound most of the time to be about details. We are anxious, and some of us sometimes are angry, about the way matters have developed, particularly in individual cases or areas such as those referred to by the noble Lord in the previous speech. We are all very concerned about the decisions which need to be taken and which will be taken for the future. Clearly, for example, if we move into the area of the proposals in the Green Paper on reform of the social security system, vital questions will arise, such as: at what cash level are the Government proposing to move in implementing their various proposals for income support, family credit, social fund and so on? Alternatively, what are the probable effects of those likely moves on certain groups of persons who are dependent on social security payments and who are the concern of particular pressure groups and specialist agencies, like the family service units, the citizens' advice bureaux, the Child Poverty Action Group and all the rest? Clearly, much turns on the details. Therefore, we must obtain detailed information, we must have detailed reflection and we must take detailed decisions.
Yet, in the middle of all this, I sometimes have the disquieting feelings that, despite all the detailed investigations, the compiled statistics and the urgently prepared briefings and documents which we no doubt all receive by each post, we are still in danger of missing the points which really matter. These are the details of what life is actually like to particular men, women and children in their daily and weekly experiences—for instance, their daily and weekly experiences of making ends meet, or of living with the almost certain knowledge that the ends available to them never will meet in any foreseeable or imaginable future. "My child wears through its shoes", in a way which is not related to social security regulations; the cheque does not turn up for some suspicious reason such as, "I have been looking regularly for work, so they think I am in work"; or the whole business of "My application which has been passed three times before being turned down now": none of these matters can be dealt with directly by central legislation, regulation or administration.
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Moreover, before limited means of finance, time and personnel can be applied to varied, clamouring and growing needs, people and circumstances, all these people and circumstances must be turned into statistics, and clearly hard choices must be made about priorities. It is exceedingly difficult—is it not—to discover and to work out the practice of what might be called "statistical compassion". How can regulations and budgets promise, produce or allow space for relevant and careful caring?
People must be treated as people or mistreated as non-persons at face to face and local level. That is clear. Also scarce resources must be distributed and regulated, by and large, at a national level. Therefore, perhaps the best we can do is to have proposals in a Green Paper; proceed through extended debate and criticism to a White Paper with legislative proposals; debate, amend and pass these, and then do the best we can with what we have.
However, I am still compelled to wonder, and to ask your Lordships, and indeed the Government, whether there is not a dimension which we are ignoring and which we could, if we gave our minds to it, both rediscover and relate to practical politics. This dimension, which was touched on by the noble Lord as he finished his speech, I think lies somewhere in the following area. Debates and decisions about arrangements for social security and for running the National Health Service are also about social cohension and—if your Lordships will allow me the expression and give me a moment or two to explain what I mean—about social symbolism.
This is to draw attention to the fact that what we do about social security and about the National Health Service sends out very powerful messages; messages to people about how organised society regards them and what kind of society it is which is causing them or allowing them to be treated in this way or that way. The operation of the social security system and the functioning of the NHS is not just a set of Government programmes costing a lot of money and one set of programmes, among many, competing for scarce resources in a period of acute economic uncertainty. It is of course that.
However, let us for a moment take the social security system, apart from the NHS. The social security system speaks directly and daily to millions of people—people who may be called claimants, clients or pensioners, but who are certainly citizens and neighbours. It speaks directly to them as to who we are and how we regard them or us collectively, and what we are trying or hoping to be. The Green Paper on social security, at the end of chapter 6, says, I think correctly:
"Social security cannot prevent the causes of poverty, it can only alleviate the symptoms. Problems, such as unemployment, that can lead to poverty must therefore be tackled at their roots. This can only be done by creating the conditions for sustained and real economic growth. If we are to achieve this, the cost of social security must not be allowed to become a millstone preventing the general economic improvement on which the real alleviation of poverty depends".
Clearly this is true as far as it goes, but it seems to me that if we are not careful it may be too narrowly interpreted. General economic improvement is a very long haul and we shall need the support, the collaboration and the gifts of what we may call the poor, as

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well as the efforts of all those who are immediately in a position to be competitive and, in a narrowly economic sense, productive. The social security system and the running of the National Health Service surely are directly and urgently related to how we retain the poor as full members of our society, how we keep our society together in the difficult and certainly conflictual times through which we are now living, and how we mobilise our total national resources of people. and communities for building a new future.
I fear that it certainly seems to me that the Green Paper proposals do not look like a satisfactory basis for the sort of social security system we need to take us into the 21st century and do not give us much encouragement that either the social security service or the National Health Service is safe in their present hands. This is regrettable—and very political of a bishop. Unfortunately, commonsense overtakes my ecclesiastical prudence.
It seems to me that unless we tackle the broader questions, for instance, of tax reforms, rate reforms and income support, we shall just not be facing up to how we can organise our society in regard to its social needs, its productive needs and its togetherness in the face of the problems that are before us. There seems to be a rather discouraging lack of vision about the newness that is required for a lively future for our society, or for the simplicity of both administration and understanding which is required. It seems to me that in the Green Paper so far there is simplification on one side and complexity on the other, largely because no fundamental questions have been asked.
Mind you, my Lords, that is very donnish of me. You can always put off practical issues by saying that there is one more theoretical question. There is only one thing which is equally horrendous to the irrelevance of the theoretical man and that is the impracticability of the practical man who goes on practising things which have already clearly been outdated. If we are not going to face the depth of the newness which is before us and the challenge about work—where will people gain their incomes?—how, in my part of the world, even if we get the best possible we can out of the best intentions of the Government, (or a government, it seems to me in many ways, of any sort) are we going to put people back into the sort of employment which many of them have been used to?
There is no use, I think in just tinkering with things, especially as (it seems to me it has to be said) the proposals look as if they are largely concerned with containing costs—containing costs within the case of the Green Paper; there are to be some simplifications and improvements for some target groups but complications and threats for other equally vulnerable groups. And the proposals do not really begin to measure up to how we sustain and motivate a large and disadvantaged section of our community. Surely it is necessary both to sustain and to motivate this section of our community if we are to move through what must be a painful interim; a painful interim of building up and benefiting from economic recovery, even if we assume that we are on the way to that.
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Let us take the best possible scenario. For the foreseeable future, and certainly over the immediate decade, there are still going to be all these people who are disadvantaged and, through no fault of most of them, dependent upon this social security system. It seems to me that the message that is likely to be conveyed to people in receipt of social security, if the general direction of the Green Paper is followed up, is that they are a burden, a burden to be maintained at the lowest possible level of subsistence; that people are to be grudgingly allowed discretionary payments as long as funds last and that people are to be supervised at every turn about their needs and the conduct of their lives. The social symbolism here, the message conveyed, looks as if they will work directly against social cohesion and against the re-incorporation of the socially disabled into society. It may be that this will not be so. But the omens do not look very favourable.
If the development of the social security system is to be socially positive, surely at least the following, among many other things, will be required. It will not be possible for the present and for the immediately foreseeable future, say, five to 10 years, to reorganise at nil initial cost. It is true of course, and we believe it—and, after all, we always believe the statistics that are given to us—that 11 per cent. of income goes on social security and that when you add the cost of the health service you get a very high proportion. But this has got to be regarded, it seems to me, as social investment. Have we not got to go alongside the whole business of trying to deepen, renew and extend economic investment? And have we not also to be concerned at the same time, sometimes at the cost of not going so fast on economic investment, with social investment? Social investment cannot entirely wait upon economic development. Maybe we have to give up any notion of jam today in the hope of producing jam tomorrow. Surely it will be dangerously socially divisive if we start trying to scrape off what little margarine there is on some very dry bread which is all that people at present have.
So what sort of social symbolism is to be seen and what sort of social message is received if national assets are sold off in relation apparently to tax cuts, but many deprived members of society are at the same time discovering that there are cuts in their allowance for heating costs and that they may be required to contribute 20 per cent. to their rates? This is the symbolism. This is the message.
Secondly, the timing of the changes—and surely we are all agreed that urgent changes are required and deep thinking and political reflection are necessary—must be extended so that much more detailed consultations and working out of likely effects can be carried out. It is very difficult to keep on receiving assurances that all is well when, as happened to me last week—although I realise that I am not statistically significant—I am told by one clergyman of three cases known to him in his village where he has had to help people who had hitherto been anxious to take in an elderly relative, at least to care for them as long as they could. But they are now not ready to do this because, owing to the various cuts and manoeuvrings to do with accommodation for aged people, they know of one or two other families who, having taken on somebody for as long as they could

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care for them, found when they were totally desperate they could not get them taken into care. Therefore, this is having a devastating effect. No doubt the vicar should have told them to be heroic and that following God means that you take on any sacrifice and carry on like this. But I do not think that we can base our social security services on demands for neighbourly heroism.
Of course, that is not statistically significant. But when one hears echoes like that around the place, or echoes of people who are trying to run schemes for self-help but cannot get the unemployed in because the unemployed are afraid that if they turn up on more than two days a week their Giro will be stopped while investigation is made, and so on, one is obliged to believe that there is something in these echoes. Of course, I shall be told once again, "Give us the details of the case"; and for this particular one I can do it quite simply. But the point is not the details of the particular case but the whole feeling, the whole social symbolism, the whole social attitude; and this point has really got to be faced.
I think that the Government and the country as a whole must take time to work out these changes and to work out in detail how they will be applied and what they will mean, and to do that before they are applied; for people on social security cannot themselves afford time, cannot wait for something to be worked out or got straight. This is because one week's delay in producing an assessment or a payment causes real misery and hardship if people are totally dependent on the weekly Giro and if the cash that it is worth, even with careful management, only lasts them for five days out of seven. They simply cannot wait for other people to make inquiries up the line about what the regulations are or, even when they are told what they are, to work out what they mean. We who are in power and in prosperity must afford the time for careful working out and preparation, not the claimants, the dependants and the neighbours in need.
Thirdly, it seems to me that nothing must be implemented until staff are trained and brought up to strength. This is vitally necessary for the staff of the DHSS as much as for their clients. I myself have fairly recently been involved in at least a couple of incidents where my attempts to draw attention to poverty, misery and particular cases have been misinterpreted as threatening the DHSS staff. This was not in any way my intention. My naivety is being rapidly rubbed off, as you can imagine. I imagined that everyone was so concerned about the issue that to bring it to public notice would help all concerned. However, it was not taken so.
I am quite clear that the DHSS staff, being as human as anyone else, do a magnificent job, on the one hand, but that at other times they get involved in the sheer miseries of the situation and the frustrations and difficulties of their clients which brush off on to them. Of course, we are all human beings and there is an urgent general point here. As there is misery and anger among claimants, it brushes off on to staff and, as staff are human beings like the rest, they find this very threatening and they can become very defensive. Surely the important point to recognise is that all staff and clients in some areas are under nearly intolerable pressures.
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It is therefore vital that the Government do not press ahead with changes which both demand more and more staff—like the highly increased discretionary element, without appeal, and so on—and at the same time make it more likely that there will be frustration, bewilderment and anger among the clients. That is a recipe for increased tensions both for the DHSS officers and for people in the multiple-deprived areas. I greatly fear that if we are not careful we shall be strengthening a tendency in society as a whole which sometimes seems to be supported by measures promoted by the present Government. But we are too ready to direct the pressures and sufferings of our society on to some of our paid servants: for example, in some cases the police and in this case the DHSS staff. They do not deserve, and cannot bear, the pressures and conflicts we are forcing upon them.
It therefore seems clear to me that money, time, training and more personnel must be made available so that as the new system works out there are people there who can cope with it. Surely it is very greatly to be hoped, and an urgent necessity, that in going forward on social security reform and in caring for the National Health Service the Government will think very hard, consult very widely, take the necessary time and be prepared for a period to commit the necessary increased expenditure to ensure that our social security system and our National Health Service speak to people in need of a society that cares now, not of one that promises them dividends tomorrow when economic recovery can be shared with everybody—not least because to get economic recovery or to live creatively in continuing economic struggle we surely must have social cohesion. For this, and for social morale generally, the social security system and the National Health Service are not just programmes but an essential means of social caring and social growth; so we need, however urgent, to take time in both cherishing them and changing them.
5.2 p.m.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, over the years I have introduced a number of debates in your Lordships' House on the National Health Service and social security, and I have come to the conclusion that it is a most depressive, useless and pointless exercise. When I listen to the Government, as I have done over the years when we have been discussing this particular matter, there has always been a tendency to leave it to the Minister and play it at low key—so much so that I have got to the point that I look round to see whether my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter is there. He is my friend, and if he is there I think it means that he has been given the official responsibility of rescuing the Government party in a debate of this kind. I am sorry if it offends the Minister, but that is exactly how I feel—that he is going to throw a lifebelt in to try to help.
We on this side often feel that there is a lack of interest in the future of the National Health Service by the members of the present Government party. Perhaps it is due to the fact that they know so little from practical experience of the working of the National Health Service. I would not like to test it, because the rules of your Lordships' House would not allow me to ask: "Put up your hands those of you who

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use the National Health Service. But I am pretty certain, from what one knows and hears, that not many members of your Lordships' House who sit on the Government side are regular users of the National Health Service. I am not opposed to private medicine. People have the right to choose the kind of treatment they wish and where to get it in the way they want to, but I feel that the National Health Service should not be the poor relation as it is today and as it has been ever since its inception.
It may well be some noble Lords are surprised that we feel so strongly about it. We feel so strongly about it for no other reason than the fact that we regard this as the finest piece of social legislation which has taken place in this country during this century. Many of us can remember what the old methods of treatment were—the local authority hospital or the voluntary hospital—and we know what that meant. I do not feel that the concept of a National Health Service has been accepted as it should be, in its entirety, to make it a first-class service; I do not think it has been accepted by noble Lords opposite.
There is perhaps one notable exception, and I hope the noble Lord will not mind my referring to him. I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, who when health Minister (I believe it was in the late 1950s) did a great deal to help the National Health Service and worked very hard on its behalf.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Hear, hear!
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I should like to feel that I could say that of his successors. This afternoon I want to confine my remarks to the National Health Service, to which my colleagues and I attach considerable importance. As I have already said, we fear it has not received the enthusiasm of the Government. The recent Autumn economic statement by the Chancellor no doubt will have pleased noble Lords opposite, who quite genuinely feel that the Government have done as much as they possibly can in the circumstances. In point of fact, I think that really was the tenor of the speech made by the noble Baroness the Minister. What astounds me is that a Minister can get up in your Lordships' House and say, "Yes, there are empty beds, but we are dealing with more people than ever before." Why are the beds allowed to remain empty when the waiting lists are so long and when people have to wait so long to be seen and treated?
Reference has been made to the fact that the grant that is to be made in the foreseeable future for next year will do very little more than meet the increase in the salaries of doctors and nurses. We on this side are not opposed to that. We recognise that many of them are underpaid and work far too many hours. But if I may say so, that is not going to produce any situation other than a standstill situation, because the National Health Service will still be starved of what it needs to be an efficient and effective health service. There are too many people, both in Parliament and outside it, who feel that the National Health Service is an extravagance. Although many noble Lords opposite will deny it, I am quite certain in my own mind that
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there is a feeling that spending on the National Health Service is an extravagance and that it is not a bad thing to cut it.
Reference was made by my noble friend Lord Ennals to the fact that, according to a recent survey in the Guardian, more than half the population of Britain believe that health should be the Government's main priority spending. A Gallup Poll in the Sunday Times showed that 75 per cent. think that too little is being spent on the National Health Service.
It is the duty and responsibility of every government to keep in the forefront of their thinking the needs of those sections of the community which are medically vulnerable, particularly when we are living in a community where there are something like 10 million old-age pensioners; 3½ million unemployed and 3 million disabled persons as well as others outside those groups, who need medical care and hospital treatment more often than many of us know. The Black Report, Inequalities in Health, which will be familiar to a number of your Lordships, clearly shows the links between personal health and poverty and poor housing.
I was interested to read recently—and I do not say this in any sense to score—that a former well-known Conservative on, I think, the Cardiff City Council who recently left the Conservative Party and joined the Labour Party, said:
"The overall effect of the Prime Minister's Government has been a catastrophe. Britain is like a house that has not been maintained",
and that is perfectly true. I ask your Lordships to look at every walk of life in this country at the present time affecting the life and happiness of individuals. There is not an aspect of it that has been properly maintained.
I doubt whether a week passes without several newspapers and periodicals commenting on the limitations of the National Health Service, particularly the plight of those awaiting admission for treatment and operations. The Government assure us from time to time, as they will today, that they are pouring more and more money into the National Health Service. Ministers seem to have missed the statement made only a few months ago by the Permanent Secretary at the DHSS, who said that current spending on the National Health Service in the past year fell. If the noble Baroness the Minister is to ask her advisers to give her any facts and figures, will she ask them to give true ones? It is surprising how we on this side—and I can call in the Alliance parties for that matter—differ so much and so fundamentally in our figures from those that are produced by the Government.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, I resent his remark about asking my advisers to give me true ones. I have never knowingly misled or lied to the House and I should be grateful if the noble Lord would take back that remark.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, I did not say that the noble Baroness had done so. I said would she ask her advisers, which is rather different. She should not be so ready to take exception.

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On 10th October, the Guardian newspaper stated
"An attack on claims by Mr. Norman Fowler, the Social Services Secretary, that he was providing record levels of care in the National Health Service has been launched separately by Dr. David Owen, Leader of the Social Democrats, and medical statisticians working for the health service.
"Dr. Owen, in a speech to a Royal College of Nursing conference in London, yesterday accused Mr. Fowler of being 'outrageously inaccurate' in claiming that record numbers of patients were being treated."
It went on:
"government claims that health spending had risen by 17 per cent. over four years were proved wrong by the all-party report—which showed it was nearer 4 per cent.
"Claims that new hospital beds had increased by 11,000 had been disproved by the British Medical Journal which had shown beds had decreased by 12,900.".
We ought to be able to get accurate information and that is all that I am asking for.
I understand that the number of patients on the in-patient waiting list in March last was somewhere in the region of 670,000—that is 8,000 fewer than in September 1984—but it is the stories behind the waiting which should be exercising our minds. They are stories of excruciating pain that continues for months, but that would disappear in a day following an operation. It is not sufficient for Ministers to say: "We are reducing the waiting list." The question is: are they doing it fast enough? And the answer is: no.
The BMA undertook a survey into waiting times and asked the Health Services Management Centre to analyse the data. The result showed that between 1983 and 1984 there was an increase in both the average minimum and the average maximum waiting time in every specialty in 163 English districts. In orthopaedics, which are the cause of so much incapacity and pain, the minimum waiting period was 16·1 weeks and the maximum waiting period was 31·7 weeks. That is something like eight months.
If you have never experienced the physical pain, it is difficult to understand what the problems are. Yet all over the country we have not hundreds but thousands of men and women in these specialties which are producing a devastating existence lasting sometimes for as long as eight or nine months before they can be relieved. Whatever method of analysis is used, one cannot avoid the conclusion that the outpatient waiting time deteriorated between 1983 and 1984. It is quite scandalous that this situation is allowed to go on.
I know that in the next two or three years the Chancellor of the Exchequer expects to receive something like £ 14½ billion from privatisation sales. Is it seriously contended that there will not be enough money to provide a better National Health Service? And it is not only £14½ billion from which he will benefit in the next three years. There will also be all the money that is coming in from gas, electricity, water and various other undertakings which may not yet be up for privatisation.
I shall not put this question to the Minister because she cannot answer it. However, is it beyond the competence of the Government to spend some of that money on the National Health Service? This need comes before a reduction in other things. I know that the Chancellor has already hinted that there will be tax reductions next year, perhaps of 2p. It is also being said
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that there will be tax reductions in the following year of 3p. Are we really justified in putting money into the pockets of a large number of people who do not need it? I do not say that there are not some people who would benefit from tax reductions, but I am sure that those people are from that section of the community who meet among their own friends and relations men and women who have been waiting for a long time to go into hospital for treatment. They would cheerfully forgo a tax reduction in order that more money could be made available for hospital treatment.
I ask noble Lords opposite to take this matter seriously. I have never really thought that noble Lords on the Government side were as concerned about it as many of us because the need does not arise for many of them. They could make an arrangement tomorrow and go into hospital the next day. Some people ask to do so but have to wait for nine months. There is a moral obligation in this respect on every government, and particularly on this Government because they are going to come into a vast fortune in the next three years. I have not mentioned oil revenue. I should like to know what the revenue from oil has been since 1979. It could be tens of billions of pounds. When one considers the enormous amount of money that has passed through government hands and the enormous amount of money that is going to pass through their hands within the next two or three years, one can see no justification whatever for this penny spending. That is all it amounts to. When one considers the amount that is already being spent on the National Health Service, £600 million over the next two years is really a very small sum in comparison.
5.22 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, is not at the moment in his place but he knows that I have the very greatest admiration for him, not least for the courage with which he has faced up to quite serious physical disability very recently. That no doubt accounts for his absence at the moment. But even in his absence I should like to say, as I would have said with greater pleasure in his presence, that I think he made a mistake in asking your Lordships to debate this afternoon both the National Health Service and the problems of social security. Both of these are enormous subjects of the highest complexity and of the greatest possible importance. Each one of them would have made a much more satisfactory debate than I am afraid we are going to get out of the mixture. It is a mistake which derives from the mistake made some years ago—I have always thought that it was a very bad mistake—when the old Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance was merged with the Department of Health. Both of those departments had an important role to play and I have never ceased to criticise the folly of those in both parties who brought those two departments together. I should myself like to see them divorced.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, made a remarkable observation about me. He said that he thought my role was to throw a lifebelt to my noble friend on the Government Front Bench. I am bound to tell the noble Lord that, of all the people I know, the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, is the person least

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in need of a lifebelt that I have ever met. I do not regard the highly supernumerary activity of providing the noble Baroness with that facility as being any reason for me to intervene on those lines. As the House knows, the noble Baroness is more than capable of looking after herself.
I rather resented the implication throughout the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell—I hope the noble Lord will accept this—that noble Lords on this side of the House and my right honourable and honourable friends in the Conservative Party in another place have a lack of concern about and a lack of interest in these subjects. That is just not true. For my own part, I gave 6½ years of my life—I think it is the longest stint anybody has ever done—in the old Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. Many of my colleagues have served there, including I am very happy to recall our present Prime Minister.
In this House we have a great many people—my noble friend Lady Faithfull is an example that leaps to mind—whose record of social service, social care and social concern is as good as that of anybody else in the country or in any political party. We care at least as much as the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, but where we differ, and where we are entitled to differ, is not about the end but about the means. It is no use caring about and having a great enthusiasm for a subject unless you are prepared to back the most effective practical method of achieving the best possible results. That is where, legitimately, there is a difference of opinion. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for whom again I have the very highest personal regard, will realise that he does give some offence to his own friends and admirers on this side of the House when he suggests that we are not very interested in this subject.
Finally, as regards the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, the noble Lord will say when we come to questions of taxation that it is wrong to put money into the pockets of those who do not need it. That is a complete travesty of what may or may not be involved in what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does. It is not a case of putting money into the pockets of those who are better off; it is a case of not taking quite so much out of them. That is a totally different thing and is of course immensely relevant to that which we all care about, which is the efficient working of our economy and the creation and generation of wealth so as to have among other things an economy capable of sustaining the burden, the enormous financial burden, of our social services
I listened with enormous interest to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I agree entirely with what he said about the need to take time over these important matters. But, my Lords, this seems to be what the Government have been doing. We have had a flood of Green Papers. I have two of them here and there are two more on my desk. There have been consultations with all outside bodies and there is then to be a White Paper. Whatever the Government can be accused of in their proposals on social security, I should not have thought that indecent haste was one of them. They are moving with the urgency that the importance of the subject demands, as I am sure your Lordships will agree. However, they
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have taken an enormous amount of trouble to consult, to inform and to seek opinions on these matters, just as they are, as I understand it, listening to your Lordships' House this afternoon. Therefore I thought that was less than fair.
But what I was very unhappy about in the speech of the right reverend Prelate was when he said of the present Government that the social security system was not safe in present hands. I say with great respect to the high office which the right reverend Prelate holds that that was an uncharitable thing to have said, and more important it was absolutely baseless. If the right reverend Prelate studies the way social security has developed in this country since the war he will see that it has been contributed to by both the major political parties. Both of them, in office and out of office, have worked extremely hard in the development of our social security system. Just to say now, when spending on social security is at a record level, that the system is not safe in present hands is a remark which, on reflection, I hope the right reverend Prelate will regret.
The right reverend Prelate then referred to his theological prudence. Some of us might wish that he remembered it in the pulpit. He went on to say—and one understands very much of the feelings he has for the people of his diocese, which is possibly the worst hit economic area in the country—that he wanted to see unemployment brought down. There is no one who would quarrel with that. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham is doing his utmost to achieve just that. The right reverend Prelate went on to make a remark that I believe to be quite dangerous: that people should be given the sort of employment to which they have been accustomed. I suggest that such is a dangerous doctrine to propound.
The Lord Bishop of Durham: My Lords——
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, if the right reverend Prelate will wait for a moment, I will of course give way to him, as is the normal custom of this House. However, perhaps he will find it more convenient to allow me to make my point so that he may answer it. He cannot anticipate the point I am about to make. My point is that we have a changing economic situation. There are a great many people, particularly from the heavy industries. in the North, who will never be re-employed in their old industries, and it is dangerous to let them think that they may be so re-employed. It is however essential to persuade the newer, high technology, developing industries, and thé rest, to move into those parts of the country and then to provide the employment which people in the right reverend Prelate's diocese desperately seek and which all of us desperately wish to see them obtain. I will now give way to the right reverend Prelate.
The Lord Bishop of Durham: My Lords, I thought that I had said precisely that which the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has just said: that it is no use expecting the type of employment which existed before. I was trying to make the point that it is no use expecting full-time employment—40 hours per week for 40 years of a lifetime—for a very large number of people in my diocese. I was not suggesting that we should go backwards in any way.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate. However, I made a note of his remarks at the time and when he reads Hansard he may feel that, per incuriam, he did give a wrong impression, which I am very glad to have had the opportunity of enabling him to correct. I believe that the right reverend Prelate appreciates as much as anybody that it would be a most dangerous thing to try to persuade an unemployed man that, in some mysterious way, industries which are inevitably declining will suddenly be revived so that people may do, as of course they would like to do, the kind of work to which they have been accustomed.
Lord Jacques: My Lords, does the noble Lord not accept—and I speak from personal experience—that in the past it has been the experience that the kind of employment which has become available in the right reverend Prelate's diocese has been quite unsuitable for those who have been out of work there? In most cases, the type of employment available in the North-East is not suitable for out-of-work miners but is for their wives or daughters.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, there is of course some element of accuracy in that observation. It is all the more reason we should encourage the new, high technology industries which can offer employment to the former miner as well as to his family, to move to such areas. The noble Lord will understand as well as anybody that present legislation dealing with sex discrimination makes it very difficult, when establishing new industries, to see to it that the man rather than his wife gets the job. An employer who attempts to do so soon finds himself in court. Nevertheless, I take the noble Lord's point.
I want to refer now to two specific items and then to one general issue. Very recently, probably in the light of this debate, I received a letter from the parent of a young person now aged 17 who, when a child, was severely mentally handicapped as a result of vaccination. The parent received on his behalf in 1983 the sum of £10,000 as final compensation. The parent concerned is naturally disturbed to discover that awards made since 1983 have been at the level of £20,000 and that no attempt has been made to raise the orginal figure of £ 10,000 to the level of current awards.
As the disability is in all circumstances the same, it seems wrong that the mere accident as to when the application was made—and there is no question of inflation playing a part because it is only one or two years' passage of time—should result in such a wide disparity. I do not know whether my noble friend can answer when she winds up this debate, but I shall be grateful if she will look into this matter. On the face of it, it seems to be a real grievance.
My other specific point relates to war pensions. The older war widows still receive, as I believe is the case with all pre-1977 widowhoods——
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it is the case with all pre-1973 widowhoods.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend. In any event, they receive
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much less pension than those whose unhappy widowhood occurred a little later. I find it difficult to defend that situation. In fact, the older the widow the more likely it is that the greater will be her need. This is a very real grievance and one which the Royal British Legion, which does so much for the ex-serviceman and his dependants, has taken up again and again with Ministers without apparently persuading them of the wrongfulness of that discrimination. Again, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to say something about that matter. Better still, I hope she can say that her right honourable friend is having second thoughts about that issue.
Finally, on the main issue of social security, I refer to that which is described by the rather disagreeable word SERPS. When I introduced in 1958 legislation the first graduated national pension scheme, we called it just that. SERPS is an intruder from later in time, and it is not a very pleasant description. The original 1958 scheme was very small but was a pioneer in relating pension to earnings during life. It was intended, first, to help those who had no private pension rights, and, secondly, to encourage employers to introduce private pension schemes.
If your Lordships will cast your minds back to 1958, at that time very few companies outside the public sector had their own comprehensive pension schemes. Many operated schemes for their senior people but few offered them to members of staff throughout their firms. Whatever else may be said of the 1958 proposals, they were highly sucessful in that regard. Since then, there has been a most gratifying growth in private pension provision. Indeed, it is for that reason that the Government are now legislating to help those early leavers who otherwise may not benefit fully from private schemes.
As regards the current SERPS, there is no doubt that the financial burden ultimately involved is very large indeed. It is not a question, as one or two noble Lords have been suggesting, of the immediate cost, or of the scheme's effects on the next two or three Budgets or on tax concessions in the next two or three years. It is a question of the burden we are building up for our successors in the next century. There is a lesson to be learnt from past experience in both social security and health.
In the moving speech made by my noble friend Lord Stockton the other day, which most of your Lordships heard, he pointed out that in the late 1940s we somehow kidded ourselves that after six years of war and destruction we were all much better off and were going to be very much better off", and could therefore afford massive improvements, including massive improvements in social security. As a result, the Government of the day went beyond what Sir William Beveridge recommended in respect of national insurance benefits and brought forward the payment of benefits at the full rate. Equally, the late Mr. Bevan introduced a wholly comprehensive health service.
As the years have passed the financial burden of both these has become very heavy, though if our economy is well managed I have confidence that we can maintain it. But there is a lesson in that, I suggest, for the future. We do not know how the British economy will function when we reach the 21st century. We hope that it will be doing extremely well,

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but it is possible that a great deal of the oil will have been exhausted by then and it is certain that the competition from many of the new countries, particularly of eastern Asia, on world markets will be very formidable. Therefore it seems imprudent to pile up for our successors the very heavy obligations which will arise under the present SERPS scheme.
I am not an advocate of abolishing SERPS. I think that would cause disappointment, break continuity and consensus, and I do not think abolishing it is necessary. However, I feel that it requires modification in one particular respect. Under the scheme as it stands pension benefit is assessed on the best 20 years of one's working life. Under my original scheme—the national graduated scheme—and others, it was assessed over life. If SERPS were amended so that one's earnings throughout one's working life provided the basis for the calculation of one's pension I understand that this would substantially relieve the future burden in the next century and I do not think that most people would feel that to be particularly unfair.
It is arguable too that the provision in the present scheme that a widow receives her late husband's pension in full is necessarily right. In many private schemes the widow receives two-thirds of her husband's pension. Account is taken of the fact that the husband, alas, no longer has to be maintained and therefore there is no need for quite so much pension. Therefore the suggestion which attracts me and, I hope, in due course will attract the Government, is that we should retain SERPS in its general structure but modify it in one or two ways such as those I have mentioned in order that we shall not again perhaps be making the mistake of imposing on our children burdens which they may find too heavy.
5.42 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I do not see the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, so much as the thrower of a lifebelt to aid the noble Minister in her reply but rather as a terrier who has been set to bite the heels of one or two other noble Lords and the right reverend Prelate who have criticised her speech. I thought that the noble Lord, at one point at least, barked at the noble Baroness when he threw at her something of a nasty about compensation for vaccine damage. I too should like to know the answer to that question.
I have to apologise to the noble Baroness who is to reply to the debate. I have a previous long-standing engagement and must leave before the end of the debate. I am to chair a meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine on the prevention of coronary artery disease. I think that is a suitable place to go from this debate.
I intend to concentrate on my own field of primary care, not only because I am acutely aware of some of the problems from an inside view but also because of its importance in the whole structure of the National Health Service and to everyone who seeks medical help. I am aware that this importance is recognised by the Government. As we all know, and as has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, a Green Paper on primary care—yet another Green Paper other than the ones we see lying on the Table—is to be published some time in the near future. Many of
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us working on the ground will be very grateful if a date for this could be given by the noble Baroness when she replies to the debate.
We hope that the Green Paper will indicate the Government's thinking on the future of primary care. The gestation period for this supposedly planned birth has been remarkably long. Sadly, it seems that one reason is that several foetuses have miscarried or perhaps were deliberately aborted. My information is that at least three rewrites of the Geeen Paper have been carried out in the past two years. I wonder what was wrong with the first two. Could it be that the department's soundings of opinion or recommendations did not meet with the philosophy of the present Government? I wonder. I am fully aware that Green Papers are intended to provide the basis for further discussions and are not definitive, but the wording and lines of argument in a Green Paper are very influential in shaping the White Paper and possible legislation which follows. So I very much hope that my words will be heard or read by those entrusted with the final draft of the Green Paper.
It is often thought that primary care is a euphemism for general practice. In fact, it is much more than that and includes all points of first contact with the health service. These include in the United Kingdom not only general practitioners but also the large number of nurses, health visitors, midwives and other paramedical workers and some social workers based in the community. It also includes other doctors in, for example, the school health service and occupational medicine and some hospital-based doctors such as casualty officers and the staff of sexually-transmitted disease clinics, which are so much in the news now with AIDS. In both those clinics there is open access, as in general practice. There is much overlap between the work of general practitioners in their surgeries or health centres and that of these other doctors.
There is no time in this debate to give an adequate historical perspective to the development of general practice towards the broader concept of primary care. Most GPs still value their independent contractor status, which has been an acceptable development from the original individualistic entrepreneurial basis of the profession—selling curative or comforting wares on the open market. Expansion of the role of the GP to embrace the help of others working in the community has been welcomed by most forward-looking GPs who have seen the advantages of providing the wider scope of care than can be offered in collaboration with a team of attached or employed nurses or other workers. Indeed, general practitioners, especially those in the Royal College of General Practitioners, have been in the forefront of promoting the team approach. That is in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organisation, which stresses the fundamental importance of primary care throughout the world.
Twenty years ago general practice acquired a new lease of life in what has been known as the GP's charter. Doctors were encouraged to employ more staff by the reimbursement of 70 per cent. of their salaries and some incentives were given to form group practices and to improve their premises. Since then there has been not enough incentive to improve methods of working; although general practitioners

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are now much better trained because of the vocational training scheme which is mandatory before appointment to a National Health Service principal's post.
The earnings of general practitioners now actually reach their maximum very early in their career—often by the age of 30—and there is very little financial incentive to change from then on. Any innovations are left entirely to the profession itself. That is perhaps as it should be in an ideal world and at least the department puts few barriers in the way of those who wish to innovate and even makes encouraging noises. However, that is not good enough. General practice, and with it the whole of primary care, still falls far short of what we would like to see. That is particularly so in some inner-city areas, particularly London. I think the chief medical officer, Professor Acheson, must be a little sad to see how few of his recommendations have been implemented. Left to itself I think that there will be a steady improvement because of the new recruits to general practice who are some of the best products of our medical schools. However, it will be slow if new and promising ideas are not positively encouraged by the DHSS.
In its publication of two years ago, General Practice—a British Success the BMA promotes the idea that general practice has done a good job and deserves to be further encouraged by the injection of more money and the reduction of average list sizes to 1,700 (from the present 2,200) without loss of remuneration. They have a point. General practitioners see 90 per cent. of episodes of illness that reach the National Health Service; but nowhere in this book do they suggest that there are bad or unimaginative GPs who could be encouraged to do better.
The Royal College of General Practitioners—and here I must declare an interest because I am a member—only includes one-third of established general practitioners among its ranks but it is trying to promote higher standards in primary care through its quality initiative. There is a recent publication called, Quality in General Practice that has just been produced this month, which I hope will be taken into account by the Government in their Green Paper. In effect the quality initiative is a form of self-audit by college members. It was launched two years ago and has been pursued in all its faculties throughout the country.
At this point I shall digress to list some of the services which I feel that primary care should be able to offer in addition to the role of caring in a humane way for patients when they present with symptoms. General practitioners are in the unique position of having a captive list of patients, a population to care for, and for this population they should be able to provide anticipatory or preventive as well as curative services. They can be provided either opportunistically when patients present with other symptoms—one has them there and can do some investigations on them—or by inviting patients to special clinics. Obstetrics and ante-natal care come into this latter category, and here general practitioners are encouraged to maintain skills by item of service payments which are higher if the doctor is on what is
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called the "obstetric list", which requires him to have additional expertise and qualifications.
I consider that the same system should apply to pre-school screening and surveillance. Ten years ago the Court report on child health care services suggested that each practice should include one doctor who had special interests and training in child care to supervise this aspect of primary care in association with nurses and health visitors. So far nothing has come of this recommendation and far too few practices run effectively, well-baby clinics of an adequate standard.
In this field I suggest that as well as an obstetric list there should be a paediatric list and that child surveillance should be run by suitably qualified general practitioners who should be remunerated for their expertise, as they are in Sweden for instance.
There are other screening, preventive and health educational activities which could be encouraged, the exact means for which are to be worked out: high blood pressure screening, cervical cancer screening and breast screening, to mention a few. Continuing care of many chronic diseases can be perfectly well carried out in the primary care setting with the aid of nurses and an efficient recall system rather than in crowded outpatient departments. Here and in other aspects a computer is useful, though not essential.
Diseases which GPs can look after well for example include diabetes and other endocrine deficiencies, such as thyroid disease or epilepsy. These are familiar examples from a long list. Many procedures now undertaken in hospital could be carried out in suitably equipped surgeries or health centres—for example, vasectomy, minor surgery and minor casualty care—and much of the work of the present inefficient and overcrowded outpatient clinics could be canned out better in general practice. More consultants could come out more often to see patients in the community in conjunction with their doctors and this would have a very good educational effect.
I could continue. Many of these developments will save hospital costs. The important point is that at present there is little incentive for these things to happen. Hospital consultants, by being reasonably assiduous at their work, earn merit awards; general practitioners have a fixed remuneration on a relative plateau throughout their career, whatever they do.
I am aware that the General Medical Services Council of the BMA is very suspicious of differential payments to general practitioners. The College of General Practitioners, on the other hand, has come out with a call to face this issue. It may be that those doctors who are prepared to contract to do more for their patients should be paid more. Maybe the time has come for the terms of service for general practitioners in the National Health Service contract to be rewritten. The Green Paper is perhaps the place to air this issue. The option of a salary for those who want it should also be on the table.
As my noble friend Lord Ennals has pointed out, it is very clear that the present system of care free at the point of service and funded from general taxation is popular with both patients and doctors as well as being economical, and it should not be altered. I suggest that any plan to introduce private practice into primary

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care in this country is likely to fall flat on its face. As the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, mentioned, only 1 per cent. of the population uses private general practice. The present system needs to be upgraded and improved and not overturned.
This is a very large and rather specialised topic and I have only touched the edges of it. I look forward to the Green Paper. I hope it will encourage innovation, experiment and consultation with all concerned parties. The Government have an opportunity here to provide an imaginative lead. It will be tragic and a major disappointment if the opportunity is wasted.
5.57 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, I should like to say a few words about management in the health service; but first let me congratulate the Government on their wisdom in not tampering with the Public Health Laboratory Service. To have done so might well have put the health of everyone in this country at risk. The Public Health Laboratory Service is a vital part of the nervous system of the National Health Service, and is a highly sensitive screen for the protection of everyone. Organisms are no respecters of the boundaries of man-made administrations.
In relation to the development of management in the health service, there have been two important happenings in the past to which I should like to refer. The first of these was the development in this country, prior to the National Health Service, of the medical officer of health, now done away with in his original form. The medical officer of health was the chief medical adviser of local authorities and no mean manager of medical services and hospitals under his control.
The other piece of history which is relevant to this story is the experience of the emergency medical service in World War II. This produced between hospitals and specialists of the local authority and the voluntary hospitals a collaboration which in fact laid the foundations of the National Health Service in its development after the war. It is interesting to note that in the first months of the war, Walter Elliot raised the question of whether the emergency medical service should not be turned into a state hospital service. The management board and a string of general managers that the Government have recently introduced are concerned with those very hospitals and the regional and district authorities which run them and which are supposed to manage them!
The timing of this vitally important development could not have been worse. Many administrators and able managers left the NHS in the 1973 organisation, and with the dissolution of the area authorities in the 1980s some of the best took their compensation and left, confident that because of their quality they could get a job elsewhere. That does not mean that there are no able administrators within the service, but in the light of future needs that was most unfortunate.
I have gone into this in a little detail because it should be understood how difficult the task has been for those responsible for the development of management services in the NHS. They have in fact done remarkably well under the circumstances.
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However, 12 out of 14 regional managers came from the NHS itself and were appointed before the chairman of the management board. I do not know how many of them had ever been on a management course. Now that the district and unit managers are being appointed, the need for management training courses has become urgent, and perhaps the Minister will tell us the estimated cost of training those already appointed to carry out their larger task. At district, of those appointed about 7 per cent. are clinicians, and at unit level the percentage of clinicians appointed as general managers is in the region of 15 per cent., so that the nearer the patients the more we have medically qualified general managers.
Doctors, like the members of many other professions, believe quite sincerely that any good doctor is a good manager and that a doctor requires only to apply himself to do well. Of course we know that that is not so; but fortunately doctors see no conflict in combining management with clinical work, which is important and necessary for clinical units. So things seem to be moving.
However, all that immediately raises a number of important questions. What will the managers do which is of vital importance to the NHS and which will give us a cheaper and more effective service? Everyone is anxiously waiting to see the results. One should remember that the profit motive and the balance sheet approach which exist in industry and which give a good guide to achievement are not present in the same form. Will the managers give us financial priorities in clinical services? A whole lot of new relationships will have to be worked out. One has to remember that the Conservative Government introduced consensus management in 1973 and many people have made that system work in spite of its having time-consuming disadvantages.
What will be the relationship between clinicians who are unit managers and the general manager? Are they directly responsible to the regional or district board or to the manager? We should also note that the Medical Research Council and the Science and Engineering Research Councils have become effective and world famous. All their unit managers are scientists and clinicians, and to my knowledge they have no general managers. Your Lordships should not misunderstand me. I am not against general managers; I just want to know what they will do in the NHS.
One question not unconnected with the management situation also remains to be answered. How necessary or effective is widespread public participation in the running of the NHS? Politically it is accepted as vitally important by all parties; but surely the reason is the size of the public health expenditure bill. Apart from the safeguarding of public money (which is so very important) does widespread public participation do the patients or the actual medical service and its management any good? I believe that that is difficult to prove. Sick people have no interest in how the NHS is run, but they are vitally interested in their effective diagnosis and treatment being carried out by people concerned with their welfare. If there is proof that wide public participation in management improves the care of patients I should like to hear about it, though, as I said, one accepts that

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it is a responsible way to control the expenditure of large sums of public money.
Sadly, the management proposals in the health service do not concern general practice. As your Lordships will remember, it is only a year or so ago that the general practice organisation was put directly under the Secretary of State; and yet I believe that there is a need for the methodology of general management to help develop the service. How big should a general practice be? How can one apply to general practice the new methods of diagnosis and treatment so that scanners and modern techniques are made readily available and patients do not have to wait weeks and sometimes months before they know whether they have cancer? What should be the shape and organisation of practice in the future? A new kind of secondary care centre, planned with modern management and technical skills, could be just around the corner.
Fortunately, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said, there is a lively ally in the Royal College of General Practitioners which has recently shown by research in general practice whether certain types of patient are being treated in the best way and whether doctors communicate well with their patients, keep good records and provide a quality service. In business that is the role of general managers, and the problem is already being tackled, as the noble Lord said, by the fellows of the royal college, and they want to be paid by results.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, referred to a recent study in the Health Service Management Centre at Birmingham University,and I was concerned in its foundation. It has been examining the waiting lists. We can accept that every organisation needs spare capacity, and beds in the NHS must always be free for emergencies; but it seems an incredible paradox that the researchers found that of 50,000 acute beds one quarter of the total are empty each day, while over half a million people are waiting for treatment. I am not suggesting that it is a simple problem; it is not. But it requires skilled and sympathetic managers bringing to the attention of the physicians, surgeons and boards concerned the true state of affairs and proposing plans so that such situations can be dealt with in the future.
I turn for a moment to consider the health service management board. I support the view expressed by a Nuffield Provincial Hospital Trust report edited by Gordon McLouchlan that a key appointment necessary to achieve the objectives declared is a director of information services as a member of the board. That need is only partly met by the development of a unit within the Department of Health and Social Security under a deputy secretary. But if there is to be improved policy, major innovations both in substance and in style are necessary.
The task is formidable—to co-ordinate all health information services; continuously to review management in the NHS; to ensure that on-line management is producing accurate information; and to propose changes in development together with supporting evidence. Without those and other facts, the NHS management board could well be ineffective. It has been calculated by the Nuffield Provincial
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Hospital Trust working party to which I referred that the cost of adequate information services is in the region of 1 per cent. of the NHS budget. That figure is taken as a proportion of the total spent in many industries on R and D and information. Will the Minister explain where the resources are going to come from to establish the complex, modern and adequate information service that is necessary? I hope that it does not come from the National Health Service itself. That, as we know, is already struggling.
The management revolution, coming at a time when district reorganisations were in progress, has caused concern in many quarters. That is very understandable. In these circumstances, the Government are surely prepared to produce additional resources to get the health service functioning again with the assistance of able general management. But it will cost money. We must remember that this is the third reorganisation carried out by a Conservative Government. I hope that it will be successful.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, like the two previous speakers, I shall confine myself to the National Health Service. The aims of the National Health Service remain those set down in the 1977 National Health Service Act, which says:
"It is the Secretary of State's duty to continue the promotion in England and Wales of a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement in the physical and mental health of the people of those countries, and in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness".
That is what the Act says. It goes on to say:
"and for that purpose to provide or secure the effective provision of services in accordance with this Act".
This evening, I want to invite your Lordships to examine the question of the extent to which the Secretary of State is performing his duty in accordance with the Act. Since 1979, the National Health Service has had to cope with substantial financial constraints. These constraints are additional to the inherent inability of any health service to meet the real or perceived health care needs of the population it serves. I do not want anyone to tell me that the health service cannot possibly meet every need. That is not the point.
One of the consequences of this is the extension of waiting time remarked upon by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and by my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell. I shall therefore not go into that matter again. However, there are other consequences, short term or long term, whichever way you care to look at it, which are very serious. One example is our continuing to fail the community in the field of renal dialysis. This is particularly annoying because it forces doctors to play God when all that is required is a modest increase of resources to try to meet the need. We are still providing only 33 dialyses per million of population when what is required is 50 or 60. The United States of America provides 102 dialyses per million of its population.
I have previously suggested, and want to suggest again, that resources for the treatment of renal failure should be provided on a national basis. But this does not seem to have found favour. The department should be willing to add the renal programme to the other supra-regional programmes. I gather, in fact,

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that paediatric haemodialysis and transplantation are already in this list. All that is required, therefore, is that it should cover all renal dialysis and transplantation. I hope that action along these lines will be seriously considered.
While on the subject of supra-regional programmes, there is need for a comprehensive service providing for research, education, testing, counselling and medical care for patients with sickle-cell disease. This should also be done on a supra-regional basis. A great deal of work is going on in this field, but there is an urgent need for finance. This is a disease that could affect a substantial minority of the population. I would remind your Lordships that, in accordance with the Act, it is the duty of the Secretary of State to provide facilities for prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
There is also a serious problem in the case of heart surgery. We are falling short of the required amount of coronary artery bypass, and again the problem is one of insufficient resources. It is wrong that people should be made to suffer and to lead unsatisfactory lives simply because the Treasury refuses to provide the necessary resources to meet their need. I was alarmed to read a report in the News of the World on 5th May about problems affecting premature babies having to be turned away from hospital. There again the allegation is one of a shortage of cash.
The Government continue to claim—we have heard it again today—that the National Health Service is not starved of funds and that, on the contrary, there is a steady increase in the amount of money made available for the health service. But the proof of the pudding is always in the eating thereof. It is obvious that the resources allocated to the health service are not sufficient to meet the needs. Moreover, the United Kingdom spends very much less on its health service as a proportion of its gross domestic product, and also per head of population, than any comparable developed country. In 1980, the United Kingdom spent 5·7 per cent. of its gross national product on health care. In the same year, France spent 8 per cent. So did Germany. The United States spent 9·5 per cent.
The United Kingdom percentage has increased slightly. It was 5·9 per cent. in 1982. That is the last figure I have. However, the last figure I have for the United States is for 1983, when it was spending 10·3 per cent. of its gross national product on health care. As for health expenditure per capita, the United Kingdom, in 1980, spent £180 per capita, while France and Germany both spent £310 and the United States £470. Even in 1982 expenditure still amounted to only £290 per capita, less than was spent by France and Germany in 1980.
Some of this can be explained by the greater efficiency of the British National Health Service. Make no mistake about that! But we are taking too much advantage of the fact that the British National Health Service is efficient. We are carrying this much too far. We should build on the fact that we have a more efficient service and try to meet the needs of the community. Our greater efficiency means that we require a smaller amount and a smaller addition of funds than is the case, say, in the other countries that I have mentioned. We ought therefore to provide that addition.
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Another area of concern is the effect of the application of the Resource Allocation Working Party recommendations. I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Ennals mentioned that that should be reviewed. There is not the slightest doubt that this matter needs to be refined. I was shocked to read that UCH and the Middlesex hospitals were proposing to close wards in order to meet required savings. For 35 years I practised medicine in Euston and those were my two main hospitals. They are very good and famous hospitals; and it is very sad to think that they could be reduced to this. The trouble with RAWP is that it is a blunt instrument. I was glad when my noble friend mentioned that fact.
If one takes the Thames region, that area is very much above its target. But the Thames region contains some of the most deprived areas and some of the areas with the greatest social problems. It is inevitable that those problems will reflect themselves in medical needs, and they should be taken into account in allocating resources. I therefore repeat that we need a refinement of RAWP. When I read of the RAWP allocations and hear of the problems that are created I feel that we are back again in this debate on allocation of funds to local authorities, because it is the blunt instrument of GREA and targets which have created a situation where the most deprived boroughs are regarded as the boroughs that are overspending and should spend less, when it is quite obvious that those are the boroughs that need to spend more. We are getting the same sort of situation in the crude way in which RAWP is being applied, and I appeal for the criteria for RAWP to be refined.
I want to comment on the manner in which the review bodies' recommendations are implemented. The review bodies report to the Prime Minister, who accepts the report and decides how the recommendations should be implemented. Having made the decision, the Government then expect the regional and district health authorities to meet the cost. The original grant which they received carried an amount to meet pay awards based on the Government's assessment of inflation and their hopes on pay increases. If the review bodies recommend more than that, the authorities are now expected to cut services to meet the pay awards. That is obviously wrong. For example, the under-funding of pay awards during 1985–86 led authorities to make short-term adjustments to the service. Some 17 authorities reduced current service provision; 25 authorities froze staff recruitment; 19 authorities chose to transfer capital to revenue.
Those authorities should not have been put in that position. If the pay awards are to be implemented, the difference between what is required to meet the awards and what was included in the original grant should be met from central funds. This should be routine and there should not be the difficulty which the authorities experience at the present time. These adverse developments can be corrected by the paying back of the sums of money withheld by failure to fully fund the 1985–86 pay increases. I am told that it amounts to over £100 million for England alone.
During 1986–87 there has been allocated an increase of 6·74 per cent. in the cash for the hospital and community health services. The Minister boasted

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about that a minute ago. But 5·8 per cent., even on the Government's optimistic expectations for cost increases, will be absorbed by pay and prices, and only 0·9 per cent. will be left for any development. Therefore, although the Minister was very happy about the increase, it will not make very much difference to the continuing deterioration of the service.
I should like now to say a word about the problems that have arisen over medical academics. That is another of these stupid problems which ought never to arise in the service but do so because of the procedure followed. The National Board for Prices and Incomes established the principle of parity in its report of 1968, which stated:
"since University and NHS jobs are interchangeable it follows that the salaries of medically qualified university clinical teachers must be linked to and move simultaneously with the salaries of full-time doctors and dentists".
That was a principle established in 1968. But since 1979 a body called the Clinical Academic Staff Salaries Committee has been dealing with that. That body is comprised, on the one hand, of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and, on the other, of the British Medical Association, the British Dental Association and the Association of University Teachers. The committee's remit is to assure the continuance of broad comparability of remuneration between clinical academic staff and their NHS counterparts.
Since 1982—and only since then—we have had problems. Since 1982 parity between the NHS doctors' and dentists' salaries and clinical academics' salaries has been threatened because of the lack of finance through the University Grants Committee. In 1982 and 1983 the Government gave an allocation from central funds to meet the difference between the salary increases and the university cash limit of 3 per cent. Last year, however, the government did not give an allowance from central funds despite the fact that the amount was comparatively small: it was £700,000. But the universities absorbed that. This resulted in a considerable delay in translating the award made to NHS doctors and dentists to clinical academic staff.
This year the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals stated that because of the severe financial crisis occasioned by the present and future reductions in levels of funding the universities are unable even to discuss the implementation of clinical academic staff salary awards until the outcome is known of approaches for additional funding made to the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals began informal approaches to the Secretary of State for Education in January 1985; that is, before the review body reported at all. The committee made a more formal application following the publication of the report in June. But the Secretary of State was still unable to give it an answer on the additional funding, which amounts to approximately £1 million. At a meeting held last month, on 16th October, he told the committee that he might be able to reply within a month, but would definitely do so within two months.
This matter occasioned great concern. The considerable delay in passing on to the university clinical staff the salary increases received by their NHS
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colleagues is having a deleterious effect on staff morale. That is now showing itself in poor recruitment and retention of staff. Clinical academic staff work closely with their colleagues in the NHS in the provision of NHS patient care. This harmonious relationship is under strain, as one recognises, because the university clinical academic staff are now the only group of doctors and dentists who have not received a salary increase following the last Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body award.
The BMA has already received evidence which it has passed to the Secretaries of State for Education and Science and for Health and Social Security that clinical academic staff posts are remaining vacant through lack of suitable applicants. This is in addition to the reduction of 21 per cent. of clinical staff numbers which has taken place over the past five years. The implications of this for the provision of National Health Service patient care should be clear. Acute services will be severely reduced in teaching districts, because in those districts clinical academic staff provide over 40 per cent. of patient care. In specialties such as pathology it will be worse, because in pathology by and large they provide between 80 and 100 per cent.
The research and teaching content of the work of university clinical staff has been affected by cuts in university funding, and the failure to attract suitable applicants will preclude any significant development. I hope the Minister will note that this applies not just in the acute specialties but also in the other specialties of importance to the community, such as geriatrics and community medicine. I find it difficult to understand why the Government behave like this. The medical academic staff are working in the National Health Service. They should be paid the same as others working in a similar grade in the service.
I began my speech by pointing out the duty that was laid on the Secretary of State by the National Health Service Act. Therefore it is his duty to see that the people who work for him are paid. I hope that when the Minister replies (I noticed that she was listening quite intently) she will be able to tell the House how this matter has been dealt with, because it is disgraceful that this should be going on. I hope that during the time I have been in your Lordships' House I have shown that the Secretary of State is not quite fulfilling his duty as imposed on him by the National Health Service Act 1977. He needs to fight the Treasury for increased funding. The £285 million promised in the Autumn Statement is a step in the right direction but it does not go far enough. We need double that amount.
On previous occasions I have indicated that an increase of 10p on a packet of cigarettes, 30p on a bottle of spirits and 2p on a pint of beer would give us £500 million. In fact, an increase of 20p on a packet of cigarettes would give us more than that. What is required is an immediate injection of such a sum to meet the present difficulties and a continuing budgeting for an increase of 2 per cent. over inflation. We should then have a service that we could be proud of. There is no doubt that if there is a will, there is a way. I am appealing to the Government to recognise the error of their ways and to turn over a new leaf.
6.36 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, may I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for initiating this debate. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, will forgive me if I repeat what he said in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, on his speech. I also say that it is difficult to join health and insurance, the supplementary benefits side, and it really warranted two debates instead of one.
Secondly, I never thought to join the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in supporting a divorce. I agreed with the noble Lord that it was an unnatural marriage to join the Ministries of Pensions and National Insurance and I only wish that a divorce could take place and they could again be separated. I think that small is beautiful and that should make for great efficiency.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for the generous remarks he made about me. But may I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, that my noble friends on this side of the House have also given me great support. They are among many of those who feel deeply and work for the vulnerable in our society. I mention two examples. The noble Lord, Lord Home of Hirsel, was able to help me in a project at Dr. Barnardo's the other day and my noble friend the Minister rescued and greatly helped a project for children in which I am interested.
I had not meant to speak about the health service; nevertheless I mention one facet of primary health care which includes general practice. I say this from deep feelings and experience of my work. If we are to have good primary care and a good general practice service I suggest that in our inner cities particularly we must look into buildings for surgeries. I once took a very ill child to a surgery in one of our big inner cities in a dingy back street. He said to me "Oh, Miss, have I got to go into that dump?" I know that many general practices have improved their buildings, their rooms and their surgeries. Nevertheless there are many—and I am sure that the many noble Lords in the House who are doctors will agree—where improvement is necessary.
I come from Oxford, where we had an outstanding medical officer of health, who was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, among other outstanding medical officers of health. He arranged and built seven health centres for a population of 110,000. These health centres are able to provide health care, social care and emotional care and far from keeping people away from doctors in their dingy surgeries, patients are willing and pleased to go. Where there is a good health centre patients will go to it rather than to the hospitals. I believe that that is a far better method of dealing with them.
May I also say, following I think the noble Lords, Lord Pitt and Lord Rea, that it is sad—and I am sure that the Minister will understand me if I say this—that it has not been possible to implement the Acheson Report and the Court Report.
May I now turn to the question of the social security side. I should like to make three brief points. First, the aspect of the social fund which deals with the lending of money, which replaces the present system of making grants. I am the first to admit that the present
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system has not always been wisely administered and needs inspection. I have sometimes been taken aback by the unnecessary profligacy of some supplementary benefits offices in making grants for carpets, washing machines, fridges, and so on. Some grants have bordered on the luxurious.
On the other hand, the making of some grants to meet basic needs has prevented families from breaking up and spared them severe physical deprivation. I consider that the giving of a grant for a cooker which can mean cooked meals and hot drinks is something positive and basic. To make grants for basic needs is cost-effective to the country. The cost of a child in care can be £2,000 or more, whereas the grant of a cooker and something simple may keep a family together.
As I understand the Green Paper, with some exceptions grants are to be replaced by loans. The repayment of the loan will be made by a 15 per cent. deduction from the supplementary benefit. I understand the principle, but the actual practice is simply not practical. If a family is living on supplementary benefit, which is just above the poverty line, to say that repayment should be made by taking 15 per cent. of their weekly allowances will, I fear, drive claimants to the loan sharks. Should not the supplementary benefit system bear in mind the dictum, "Neither a lender nor a borrower be"? It should be possible to make grants in such a way that a family can be re-established and held together not in a luxurious way but by meeting their basic needs.
I understand that social workers may be asked to write reports on claimants who are making application for a grant from the social fund. I do not agree with this. I do not consider that it is the role of the social services departments; nor do they have the personnel. May I return to this point a little later?
I turn now to the running of supplementary benefits offices. I was privileged to serve on the Fisher Committee, and I pay tribute to the chairman, Sir Henry Fisher. I have also visited supplementary benefits offices with claimants. I believe that the structure of our supplementary benefits offices needs to be reformed and revised. I pay tribute to all staff who work in supplementary benefits offices. They have one of the most difficult jobs in this country. Many of them work under good conditions, but some of them under sordid conditions. Emotionally, as well as from the point of view of discipline and intelligence, they have a difficult task to perform.
Having said that, may I ask whether we have the structure right? I believe—and I certainly found this in my own department—that the first impact of the claimant on those at the supplementary benefits offices should be on somebody experienced. As it is at the moment it is the younger staff who are on the counter; it is the younger staff who hide behind the glass so that you can hardly see to whom you are talking; and it is the younger staff who get the brunt of the bitter feelings that some claimants have. Do not let us underline, or say, how wrong it is for them to have bitter feelings. Many of us would have bitter feelings when things went seriously and deeply wrong. Therefore, one has to have the kind of person who will not be upset and who will not be distressed. It is amazing to me that some of the young staff on the counter do not get more distressed and upset, but it is an emotional strain.

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I would make a plea to the Government to look at the way that the supplementary benefits offices are manned. I believe that it would be cost-effective, because if you have a claimant who is dealt with with maturity, humour, understanding and courtesy his deep feelings will diminish and you will not then have the trouble and distress among the population and the claimants who have to call at the offices.
I equally believe that in each supplementary benefits office there should be a person to whom claimants who need counselling could be referred. I do not agree—and the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, will remember that I said this in a speech when he was at the Dispatch Box—that there should necessarily have to be people in the social services offices who have to pick up the bits from the Supplementary Benefits Commission. There should be social workers and counsellors in supplementary benefits offices. I know that this is asking for a large piece of work to be done, but I would suggest that managerially if we could reorganise our supplementary benefits offices in the way I have suggested we would diminish a great deal of the trouble and distress that we have.
Lastly, I shall come to the question of child benefits. The Green Paper, which I have here, stresses nine times in Volume 1 the essential necessity to support families with children. This is clearly outlined in the Green Paper. But, when we come to look at the facts, are we supporting the families with adequate means and help for the children? The case for maintaining the real value of child benefit was referred to in a debate last week. The financial position of families with children has deteriorated relative to that of the childless in recent years, and growing numbers of children are being raised in poverty. Child benefit forms a significant proportion of the net incomes of poor working families and only a minority of them could be protected by means-tested benefits against the effects of a cut in child benefit.
The Prime Minister and the Conservative Women's National Committee have emphasised the importance of child benefit. As things are I understand from the Green Paper that child benefits are to be paid in a different way. I speak as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, and as a member of the Barnardo's Council Executive Committee. We understand that the child benefit paid to the mother is now to be replaced by a family credit scheme, whereby payment is made through the pay packet. This means that the money will not be paid to the mothers. It will be paid to the family.
The Women's Equal Opportunity Commission in their report state:
"Support for low income families should be channelled through the person (usually the mother) who bears the main responsibility for child care.".
They go on to say:
"Child benefit is a significant benefit in this respect and its value should be maintained.".
I know that other noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, are to speak on this subject. Therefore, I shall not keep your Lordships' House. However, I ask the Minister whether there is any possibility that her right honourable friend will reconsider the whole question of child benefits.
6.51 p.m.
Lord Bottomley: My Lords, it affords me much pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. When I was chairman of the Select Committee on Race Relations in the other place, she gave me very valuable assistance in helping the committee to produce a unanimous report. On that committee was the present Secretary of State for Health and Social Security. I admired him for his compassionate and progressive views on social affairs and for that reason I was not surprised when he announced that he was calling for the first examination of the social services since the Beveridge plan was introduced. I had expected a statesmanlike approach from the Secretary of State, but I am afraid he has failed to live up to the qualities which I first admired in him.
There is no doubt that there was a need for reform and also a great deal of dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs. However, instead of improving upon Beveridge and bringing the welfare state up to a better standard, the main concern of the Secretary of State seems to be to reduce the cost of the social services. The Green Paper would make claims for social security benefits so difficult that many people would rather go without than submit to the new indignities imposed upon them by the Government's plan. I feel sure that what Sir William Beveridge would have wanted to do today would be to provide an adequate income for every member of society. This could be achieved by harmonising taxation and social benefits to create a coherent incomes policy.
The Government, to provide for reducing taxation have adopted a policy of selling off our national assets such as British Telecom, British Airways and British Gas. They are also pressing on with a plan to put the services of our National Health Service, such as cleaning, laundry and catering, into private hands. The declared object of these moves is to promote economy and efficiency.
As yet, this has been far from the case. In one large hospital in Cambridge, where the cleaning has been put out to contract, dust has been found gathering under the beds in the wards. Toilets were stinking, plastic liners, filled to bursting, were piled near the chutes and soiled linen was piled up in odd quarters. In another hospital, dirty mops were left lying about, a sink was blocked with dirty water and dirty crocks were left piled up for three days. There is bound to be a decline in quality and efficiency when private contractors, anxious to make the lowest tenders, hire low-waged, inexperienced workers and supervise them inefficiently.
The Government's reckoning is that by privatisation the cost of the National Health Service will be reduced. That is unlikely to be the case. Some health authorities have already found that they can run their own services more efficiently and cheaply than by private contract and have made the necessary changes. The Orpington Hospital terminated the work of a private contractor because it was not up to standard. At Gateshead, another contract was ended because of the failure to meet training and supervision specifications.
The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and leading medical authorities say that the

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waiting lists are growing and it takes much longer to obtain hospital appointments. I am the president of the Woodford branch of Arthritic Care. Last Friday, I took the chair at the annual general meeting. Many who were present told me of their difficulties in obtaining hospital appointments. One lady told me that she had been waiting for over 12 months for an appointment for a hip joint operation. I think it is shocking that the Government should allow a large number of health districts in the country to have no consultant rheumatologist at all. They really should do something about that.
Essential equipment is not being provided and hospital buildings are collapsing. The Government are encouraging private medicine. Private medicine is damaging the National Health Service by draining it of its resources and of National Health staff trained at the taxpayers' expense. National Health Service hospitals are much better equipped to deal with emergencies and complex operations than most private hospitals. Private hospitals are less able to cope with unexpected complications should they arise. The welfare state costs are rising, and we cannot ignore that, but they are rising substantially because of the Government's failure to ease the unemployment situation. That is compelling people to seek further aid from the state.
The Minister has said:
"Our tradition of state support for those in need is one which should be maintained and developed".
However, this certainly does not appear to be Government policy. The Government's recent restructuring of the taxation system increases the burden on the poor and lightens that of the better-off members of society.
Last December's Economic Trends showed that the richest 10 per cent. of the population had an income after tax of £60 billion while £16 billion was provided for the poorer 10 per cent. The burden on the poorer section of the community has increased since this Government came into power in 1979. Britain has a more unequal distribution of wealth and of earnings than any other Western country and a lower expenditure on health and social security.
The Government claim that the report, Reform of Social Security, presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, is bringing Beveridge up to date. Yet the Green Paper is not about reform. It is about economies at the expense of the social services. The Minister forgets that the Beveridge Report was not only a reforming instrument. It also had a moral appeal. Beveridge's promise of security inspired a generation that did not want to see a return to the poverty and indignities of the 1930s. It was The Times, then a paper respected the world over, which wrote about,
"democracy which maintains the right to vote, but forgets the right to live and work".
It is a poor situation. While proclaiming his faith in democracy, the Secretary of State forgets the right to live and work. I have faith in democracy and feel confident that when they have the opportunity to do so the people will demand a return to Beveridge and all that that meant.
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Let me conclude by thanking my noble friend Lord Ennals for introducing the subject for debate today and by saying that from my own point of view all those who have contributed—with the exception, I am sad to say, of the Minister—have given contributions which have made this debate of a very high standard.
7 p.m.
Lord Banks: My Lords, may I begin by agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Bottomley, about the need to integrate, to harmonise—which is the word he used—income tax and benefits. However, unfortunately that had to wait for a further investigation and a further review. I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for giving us the opportunity to discuss these two important subjects today; but, like the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, I feel that we might have done better to take them one at a time. I want to concentrate on the second part of the Motion, and on pensions in particular. I begin by declaring an interest in that I am an insurance broker specialising in pensions and life assurance.
There has been much criticism of the proposal to phase out the state-earnings related pension scheme, SERPS, the second tier of the state pension system. But I think that it is important to remember that SERPS is only a formula for determining entitlement. We often hear people say SERPS will provide a splendid pension at the end of this century or in the next century. Of course, SERPS will not do that; what SERPS will do is to commit the government of that time to provide those pensions, and the government of that time will have to turn to the working population of that time to provide the means.
It cannot be good policy to put on to future generations a commitment which we are not prepared to accept ourselves. I have always maintained that and have maintained it in all the various debates on the subject which we have had in this House. We on these Benches are committed to greater re-distribution of income so that we are prepared for some higher spending on current benefits; but that means grasping the nettle now rather than committing others to do so in the comparatively distant future. After all, good pensions are as necessary today as they will be in the middle of the next century.
It is interesting to see the weight of evidence which has been presented to the review body in favour of raising the basic pension. Among the bodies which have supported a significant increase in the basic pension are the Social Services Committee in another place, the Social Security Advisory Committee, Age Concern and the National Consumer Council. The Disability Alliance say that the consequence of failing to take steps to increase the real value of the state pension—and they are talking about the basic pension—when the Government are forecasting 2 per cent. to 3 per cent. growth in the output of the economy, is that pensioners' living standards will fall further and further behind the rest of the population. After all, SERPS, whatever its merit, does little or nothing to those already retired—some 9 million to 10 million pensioners. While the financial position of pensioners has improved throughout the post-war

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period, through an increase in the real value of the state pension and through the increase in occupational pensions, it remains true that about half the pensioner population is on or below the poverty line, defined as 140 per cent, of the supplementary benefit. SERPS pays a higher pension to the better off at the expense of the poorest and promises to pay more to tomorrow's pensioners than to today's. So I do not take fright at the suggestion that we might abandon the SERPS formula and seek another which would take all these factors into consideration.
However, the first criticism which I have of the Government's proposed new formula is that it makes no increase in the basic pension. The Green Paper proposes to phase out SERPS over three years for men under 50 and women under 45 while guaranteeing them accrued rights under SERPS to the date of abolition and enhancing those rights in the case of men over 40 and women over 35. Men of 50 and over and women of 45 and over will, according to the Government's proposals, remain in SERPS; and all those not remaining in SERPS will have to have paid on their behalf—2 per cent. coming from the employer—at least 4 per cent. into a private scheme. But the employer provides 2 per cent. and the employee supplies the other 2 per cent.
As I understand it, that private scheme may be either an employers' occupational scheme, a personal pension policy or a new 4 per cent. scheme; and simplicity is not the most notable feature of this arrangement. The employer, it would seem, would have the burden of administering the 4 per cent. scheme and, where there is an occupational scheme, of keeping separate records for the contributions of those remaining in SERPS, for the contributions of the remainder for the 4 per cent. scheme and separately for contributions for the rest of the occupational benefit. It is not surprising in the light of that that there have been complaints of complexity from both employers and insurers and those managing the pension funds.
We understand that the Government are having second thoughts on all this and I should just like to suggest how they might modify their own proposals for pension. The Government propose that all except those remaining in SERPS will pay national insurance contributions which will total 16.5 per cent., taking the employers' and employees' contributions together. To that will have to be added the 4 per cent. which is to be paid into the private scheme making a total of 20.5 per cent. in compusory contributions.
I would suggest that the Government should do this. First of all, end the SERPS formula as from 1987 if that is the date when it can be done; and that is the date that the Government have suggested it could be done. But I think that it should be a clean break at that time rather than one phased over three years which has administrative complications. Then the Government should preserve the accrued rights without enhancement to 1987 which would mean that virtually everyone in employment at that time would have when they came to retire, accrued rights of one kind or another; end contracting out because there will be nothing left to contract out of; and let everybody pay a national insurance contribution of £19–45 for
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employer and employee, which is the present contracted-in rate. And at the same time abandon the proposal for the 4 per cent. scheme.
The effect of that would be to transfer 3 per cent. from future benefits to current expenditure. That would be sufficient to increase the basic pension by 25 per cent. So we would have accomplished that with rather less being spent in compulsory contribution than the Government now propose. If the anticipated pension under the existing arrangements is compared with an estimate of what the pension would be under these proposals, it would be found that there has been some redistribution from tomorrow's pensioners to today's, and some redistribution from tomorrow's better-off pensioners to tomorrow's less well-off pensioners. The comparison is between the current basic plus current SERPS on the one hand and the increased basic plus accrued rights on the other. And of course of those who have already retired, the single person would receive an additional £500 and the married couple an additional £800.
Having got a reasonable basic through increasing it by 25 per cent. one thing remains, which is to provide an opportunity for an occupational scheme with employers' contributions for those not now covered. I say "an opportunity" and I suggest that all who are not covered by an occupational scheme should be able to save in a personal pension policy up to 3 per cent. of their earnings and have that voluntary contribution boosted by a matching contribution from a central account financed by a levy and all employers without a satisfactory occupational scheme.
The result of these proposals would be, first, to increase the basic pension by 25 per cent., and that immediately; secondly, to achieve this without any more compulsory contributions than the Government now propose; to ensure that no one is denied the opportunity to have a pension arrangement with an employee contribution if they are themselves prepared to save; to reduce the long-term commitment by about 15 per cent., I calculate, in the decade 2020 to 2030, while accepting that expenditure on state pensions needs to be increased further as circumstances allow; and, finally, to remove much of the administrative complexity of the current system while avoiding that implicit in the Government's current proposals, I hope that since we understand the Government are having second thoughts about these matters they will give these proposals, which are available in more detailed form, very serious consideration indeed.
7.12 p.m.
Lord Lovell-Davis: My Lords, I, too, would like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Ennals for initiating this most important debate and on the forceful way in which he opened it. This is a vast and complex subject, of which he has experience and knowledge to a far greater degree than I have. That is why I shall confine myself this evening to one aspect of the health service, but one which has become and will continue to be increasingly important as the population and patterns of care change. I refer to care in the community.
"Care in the community," as the noble Baroness the Minister has reminded us, is a declared policy of the present Government but it has become one of those

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deceptive phrases which the Government so often use to reinforce their belief in the dogma of the single answer to our problems, while at the same time concealing the real nature of those problems and, incidentally, the Government's true intentions.
Another one was, "The health service is safe in our hands". The idea is that if you keep on parroting these phrases people will go into a sort of trance state and believe that the Government are actually accepting their responsibilities and doing something. I think we are in the age of government by incantation.
No one could disagree with the concept of care in the community. There are people, many thousands of them, languishing in hospitals and mental homes, who simply should not be there. There are the elderly, who lead miserable, cut-off lives in geriatric wards, consigned to a lonely and meaningless journey out of this world. There are so-called patients in mental institutions who are no danger to society and who should not be forced to live their bleak lives in totally inappropriate surroundings. Some of them should never have been put there in the first place and then simply abandoned. I know of cases where people have eventually died, having spent 60 or 70 years in what are no more than the relics of vast Victorian lunatic asylums; and some of them were originally committed for quite trivial reasons.
There are people who remain too long in hospital after treatment, simply because their home background and the relevant community services cannot provide a proper level of care. Similarly children are often kept in hospital for longer than should be necessary because it is unsafe to send them back to a cold, damp home and because a proper level of nursing and medical care is not provided in the community. There will, of course, always be a need for a degree of institutional care, for secure or medium-secure accommodation for certain cases of mental illness, properly run homes for some psycho-geriatrics and other elderly people and hospitals for acute illness—but there is no doubt that a much greater degree of care should and could be delivered within the community.
But what exactly does this imply? It is one thing for the Government to present care in the community as the answer to overcrowded and therefore over-costly hospitals, but it is quite another to face up to what care in the community really means. For a start, it means supportive services so that people can stay in their own homes; it means purpose-built or converted accommodation where people can live in small groups in their own communities; specially trained nursing and other staff; specialist clinics to provide, for instance, centralised chiropody services for the elderly; training in new skills for nursing and other staff; more nurses themselves living in the community, instead of in vast homes, which the Government want to close down, anyway—though how nurses on their present levels of pay can possibly afford today's rents is another question left hanging in the air. More district nurses and health visitors are needed, and consultants who will emerge from their hospitals and deliver care rather than haul their clients into hospital.
The Government's commitment therefore is meaningless unless it is backed by real intent, and
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money. The family—another word used in an incanta-tory way by this Government—needs support if it is to be properly cared for in the home, in the community; and that costs money. Even being allowed to die at home with some shreds of dignity left to you is not a cheap option.
And there is another aspect to all this: monitoring, I do not mean simply applying performance indicators, which cannot measure the quality of care being provided, but the practical day-to-day monitoring of standards of quality. It is singularly lacking even today. As the population gets older and the health service reels under reorganisations, cutbacks, management reviews and all manner of Government interference—whatever happened to the Conservative promise of less, rather than more, central Government?—the private sector has moved rapidly into the geriatric business and is busily setting up more and more homes for the elderly and the infirm.
I am not saying that this market-led and booming activity means that we are back to sinister Victorian-style nursing homes. I am sure that many of them maintain high standards, although I am equally sure that some of them do not. You have only to look into their financing to feel uneasy about the care and comfort that is being provided. What I am saying is that we do not know what is happening because no one is monitoring the private sector. It should be monitored, and equally we shall have to monitor care in the community when it is delivered properly by the health service.
The present Government are always protesting that in real terms they are allocating more money to the health service than any previous Government. I always feel suspicious of that expression "in real terms" when it comes from a Government which I believe is quite unable to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal. I have to confess to a growing sense of unreality, as I think did my noble friend Lord Pitt, while I listened to the noble Baroness speak about the money allocated to various parts of the National Health Service and of having removed obstacles to the transfer of funds into care in the community.
I know that the Government "expect" health authorities to make improvements in care in the community. Until recently a district health authority member myself, I also know what a desperate time my district has had trying to determine where we could find the money even to start meeting those expectations.
The implementation of care in the community will cost money—a great deal of money. Where is it to come from? The Government say "efficiency savings"; the money must come from the acute units (the district hospitals) and through joint funding with local authorities. I am all for efficiency savings, as I am, with some qualification, for an effective management of the health service. But how far can health authorities go along the path of efficiency savings before standards of care in hospitals are threatened? It is a matter of growing concern among health authorities, community health councils and the doctors and nurses who have to deliver care on increasingly stringent budgets.

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Many of the schemes which are needed to provide care in the community involve buildings and local government services, and therefore have to be carried through by health authorities and local authorities working together and finding the money together. But how can hard-pressed, rate-capped local authorities be expected to commit the resources that are needed for these programmes? Their budgets are so overstretched that they cannot even maintain their housing stock, much less meet the desperate need for new housing.
Care in the community is a goal that we must pursue. We hardly need the Government to tell us that. What we need from the Government is a real commitment—and money to back that commitment; pump priming money, money for buildings and services and, above all, money to pay the extra people who will be needed to deliver this care. I am convinced—it has been referred to earlier in the debate—that the vast majority of our people would rather have an improved and properly funded National Health Service than the tax cuts for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is feverishly selling off everything in sight. It is astonishing that the Government do not see this "in real terms".
I should like to ask the noble Baroness the Minster, when she comes to reply, what the government are actually proposing to do "in real terms" to back up their words, and make it possible for the health authorities to disperse care into the community, thus improving the effectiveness of the health service and the lives of many thousands of people.
Almost the whole of my working life has involved travelling in many different countries and everywhere, even in the United States, our National Health Service was a source of admiration and envy. One could take pride in it, as one once could in many other aspects of British life. I only wish that one could feel the same about today's health service since it fell into the hands of Mrs. Thatcher's Government.
7.23 p.m.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, in what is a very wide-ranging subject, I have one main point to cover and one or two questions to ask. Since the procedure for applications by pharmacists and doctors to provide pharmaceutical services was altered by the recommendations of the Clothier Committee, a number of difficulties have come to light. Presumably, these recommendations were intended to improve services to patients as well as to resolve a dispute between pharmacists and doctors, but in a number of instances they have created considerable friction between patients and practice staff. The formal rules and boundary lines defined in the memorandum have restricted the rights of the patient, who does not seem to have been considered. It is to those patients who attend doctors with what are defined as rural practices that the greatest problems occur.
When the new procedure became effective on 1st April 1983, there was a review of patients deemed to be living in rural areas. As an example, a dispensing practice near Huddersfield was sent a list of 102 patients who were no longer deemed to be "dispensing"; that is, they could no longer have their prescriptions dispensed by their doctor because they
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lived within one mile as the crow flies from a pharmacy. A little later, there arrived a list of 61 patients to be added to the dispensing list, including the local pharmacist and his family.
Among those who had been removed from the dispensing list were several patients who lived alone or were elderly and crippled by severe chronic illness. A number were on the practice regular visiting list and relied upon the doctors to take their medication to them. To make matters worse, although they were within a one-mile radius of the pharmacy, which is in the same village as the surgery, they were correctly classed as being more than three miles from the surgery by the doctor's ordinary route and he qualified for rural mileage allowance.
These patients are now suffering considerable hardship. They must either rely upon the goodwill of neighbours, if they have any, catch and pay for public transport if it is available, or walk three miles or more in hilly country to have their prescriptions dispensed. They cannot understand why the doctor who still visits them cannot bring their pills at the same time, as he used to do. The strict adherence to the rules by some family practioner committees also means that some patients who live just outside the one-mile boundary, who live near a bus stop and have much easier access to the pharmacy and who may prefer to have prescriptions dispensed there, are in a changed situation.
Applications by patients to be put on the doctor's dispensing list on grounds of difficulty were almost all turned down, because they did not satisfy the family practitioner committee that the difficulty was due to "distance or inadequate means of communication." There is no definition of "inadequate means of communication" and no account is taken of age, social circumstances, infirmity or disease which would stop the patients from collecting their medicines. In this practice there is an 80 year-old lady living alone, suffering from congestive heart failure compounded by a pneumonectomy for bronchial carcinoma and pernicious anaemia. She lives up a steep hill but within a mile from the pharmacy, and can do nothing but rely upon a neighbour, who is also elderly, to collect the drugs that she must have. That is near Huddersfield.
Similarly, near Kirklees a patient with bronchitis and emphysema, who must have oxygen in the house, is not allowed to have medication delivered by his doctor. In Powys, a patient within the one-mile limit must make a 10-mile journey to collect his prescription from Llanberis unless he dons a wetsuit and swims the mile across Lake Padern. Appeals against decisions of the FPCs are useless. In other areas, the FPCs seem to be more sympathetic.
In Cornwall, for example, where patients may live one mile from a pharmacy but must travel 14 or 15 miles by road around an estuary, the one-mile rule is not applied and doctors are given outline consent to dispense for these patients. In Essex, also, I understand that the FPC deals sympathetically with appeals. In another situation, a patient who transfers from the list of a non-dispensing doctor to that of a dispensing doctor without moving his home is not automatically transferred to the new doctor's dispensing list. Thus it is possible for some members of a family to be dispensing patients, while others are not.

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I have given a few anomalies—there are many more. This Government profess to be the champion of freedom of choice, but patients have had their freedom to choose whether their doctor dispenses for them or they go to their local pharmacy removed under the Clothier rules. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, to look into the operation of these rules and to do all that is possible to iron out the anomalies. In particular, I ask her to investigate the serious difficulty provision. At present, there is no clear definition; "inadequate means of communication" is not clear. No account is taken of topography, age, disability or availability of public transport. The discrepancy between the one-mile rule and the three-mile journey needs to be cleared up, as does the right of some members of a family to be dispensing patients while others are not.
Doctors resent this further intrusion by the bureaucrats into the services that they can offer their patients, particularly the old and chronically ill. Patients, albeit a small number, resent the fact that their doctors no longer deliver medication to them as they used to, and blame the doctor for the change. It is the doctor who must explain at length the new regulations, not the pharmacist, member of the FPC or Ministers, for they are not on the spot.
After all the discussions we had on the limited list, I am sure that many of your Lordships will share my acute disappointment that the BMA has failed to agree upon the setting up of an appeals machinery for those patients for whom, for various sound medical reasons, the list is too restricted. There may be only two or three patients in each practice, but countrywide there are quite a number and they are probably those who would normally receive free medication. They are now having to pay for their medicines. I ask the noble Baroness to do all within her power to point out to the BMA the distress and hardship being suffered by patients of their members, and to ask them to reconsider their decision.
I realise that all the blame for these problems cannot be laid entirely upon the Government. Some must be allocated to those with whom they negotiate. But I do have a great deal of respect and admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, and I am sure she will do all she can to put forward the point of view of the patient; and what is more, my Lords, it should not cost a lot.
7.31 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I too should like to thank my noble friend Lord Ennals for his comprehensive survey of the state of the NHS. I was very impressed by his speech, which was constructed without the aid of a special adviser or a research assistant. It demonstrated the contacts that he has with the people who are at work in the NHS. Therefore, it appears to me that where my noble friend Lord Ennals gives a warning to the Government or alerts the Government to a risk, they should take note of his message.
The Government take comfort from the improved in-patient and out-patient throughput figures. I also welcome those figures. We must be concerned about
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the long waiting lists and we must be concerned about achieving good throughput figures, provided that the short duration of stay is not achieved by patients suffering as a consequence. I have no firm evidence that that is the case but I think it is fair that one should put in the caveat. The noble Baroness the Minister and indeed all health department Ministers, draw comfort from the fact that more money than ever before is being spent on the NHS, but the Minister will appreciate that that fact is at issue.
The difficulty that confronts the Government is that the additional funds which have been made available do not keep pace with inflation, pay awards, the continuing requirements of new technology, the new community and day-based services which are unquestionably important and unquestionably expensive, and the ever increasing patient workload. The Minister at least acknowledges the latter point. So there has been no real increase in NHS resources commensurate with inflation and all the increased demands which I have just mentioned. The increase in NHS resources comes nowhere near the 2 per cent. mentioned in the York study which was referred to this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock.
I have a feeling that the Government have made an assumption that there is an inexhaustible fat somewhere in the NHS. That at least could be one explanation for the underfunding, as we see it. Notwithstanding the consistent efforts of management over at least 10 years, if not 15 years, to make the service more efficient, the Government seem to think that the inefficiency still exists. If that is correct then it should be a matter of concern for noble Lords on all sides of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, drew attention to certain evidence which pointed in that direction.
I am reminded that an Under-Secretary at the health department once claimed that improved efficiency in the NHS meant either undertaking the same workload for less money, or undertaking a bigger workload for the same money. The health authorities have demonstrated that there is a third way of improving efficiency—by undertaking a greater workload for less money. I am not here to defend inefficiency. When I was active in the hospital service in Wales I did what little I could to make it more cost-effective. Of course, we want a more efficient service. One has only to look at the waiting lists which are today higher than they were 10 years ago. If we have regard to the waiting lists then obviously we must be concerned with efficiency; but at the same time it must be a humane service. The objectives are: a humane service and an efficient service. Those are not objectives which can always be easily reconcilable.
There is a very important difference between the NHS and other large-scale organisations. The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, referred to one aspect of it earlier on. The profit motive is lacking in the NHS. But there is another difference: the work that is done within the NHS relates urgently to people. If I may use the phrase without causing offence, it is people who are being processed, not things as in the case of factories. Patients may fail to co-operate fully. They may turn up late for appointments or indeed they may even fail to keep appointments. Patients very often prefer the local cottage hospital to the distant centre of

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excellence. There are many patients who have poor houses without an inside toilet and without a bathroom. They have inadequate facilities, to which they could be speedily discharged after hospital treatment. The NHS cannot rationalise a unit as if it were a factory producing things. I shall be very interested in the Minister's response to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, about the role of the manager and what the Government expect of him.
I return now to my original comment. On the one hand, we have the Government drawing comfort from the fact that the NHS has never had more money pumped into it. On the other hand, the critics of the Government point to evidence of strain and frustration within the service. They claim that it is very difficult to make more savings without damaging the service given to patients. That has been the evidence of the noble Lords, Lord Kilmarnock, Lord Wells-Pestell, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, Lord Bottomley and Lord Lovell-Davis. The Government may claim that the critics are exaggerating their complaints. I believe the Minister hinted at this; I am not so sure. But the Government cannot ignore the widespread and persistent criticism which has been voiced in this Chamber this evening.
I shall not detain the House long but perhaps I may give one or two down to earth examples of the considerable difficulties which are experienced in my part of the world. I live in Mid-Glamorgan, the heartland of industrial South Wales for the past 100 years. I do not know whether it will be the heartland for the next 100 years. The county itself faces immense industrial and social problems which I shall not particularise. The Mid-Glamorgan Health Authority covers one, of the biggest districts in England and Wales. It provides service to a little over 500,000 people, and the demands are growing.
Again, the throughput figures to which the Minister referred are reflected in Mid-Glamorgan. There was an increase of 7·8 per cent. in deaths and discharges for the year ending in March 1984; of 4 per cent. in outpatient attendances; of 12·7 per cent. in pathology services; and of 3·7 per cent. in radiology services. I have not seen the figures for 1985 but I am assured that demand is not standing still.
That authority faces deep-rooted financial problems. It has been obliged to bring in the well known firm of accountants, Deloittes, to examine its books and make recommendations as to how the service can be reorganised so that it can live within its budget. Whether that will lead in a month or two to a recommendation that wards or hospitals should be closed remains to be seen. In the authority, there is a marked shortage of community-based health facilities. It has been unable to develop day patient facilities and community-based facilities as it would wish. That is one effect of underfunding.
The authority has a large Victorian complex of hospitals for the mentally ill accommodating about 1,500 patients. It has also a large hospital for the mentally handicapped. The authority has not lost the message of Ely, which is only about 18 miles away, but those hospitals stand in splendid isolation in more than one sense. The movement of patients out of those
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hospitals into the community has almost ground to a halt.
The Government are interested in the machinery of increased efficiency. The Mid-Glamorgan Authority, which employs around 10,000 people and has a revenue budget of some £105 million per annum, has been unable to make an investment in microcomputers and new communications technology, which in turn could help it to evolve more effective cost-control of all its departments and to maintain more exacting and continuing scrutiny throughout its 37 hospitals.
I have mentioned some of the difficulties of one authority in a very difficult corner of the country. It is an authority that has striven for 10 years to achieve improved efficiency and which has brought about savings. However, I wonder whether the Minister will listen to the warning from the general manager of the Mid-Glamorgan Hospital Authority to that authority's members that:
"the continuing pre-occupations with financial crises can only harm the morale of managers and staff alike".
I do not know how the Government can make an optimistic assessment of the situation unless they take on board the very sombre words of that district general manager.
Looking south from Mid-Glamorgan—and I shall be brief because I have already spoken for 13 minutes and there are more speakers to be heard—we come to the South Glamorgan Authority which delivers a service for a population of 400,000. In a recent report, the general manager of that authority advised it to introduce short-term measures which will not provide a permanent solution to the problems. He recommended that the authority delay the filling of staff vacancies and the planned replacement of plant and equipment.
He recommended also that some wards be closed, but rightly points out that the true cost of doing all that will be increased work pressure on dedicated members of staff who are already overworked. Will the Minister say whether the Government have been advised by the departments—and I use the plural form because we have a Welsh Office and a Northern Ireland Office—of the serious concern on the part of experienced managers and staff within the NHS? The Minister—and I say this kindly—gave no indication that such messages were coming through to the departments. Is that the fault of the departments or is it the fault of the Minister? Is that message falling on deaf ears? It would be an achievement, and I shall be grateful, if the Minister will at the end of the day acknowledge the concern expressed by many Members on this side of the House.
There are numerous signs of serious difficulties within the National Health Service, and notwithstanding the opening of major new hospitals, which is obviously to be welcomed, there can be little doubt that the service is not advancing as it ought to be, to keep pace with the demands of a modern and complex health service.
I read in my own local newspaper of a hospital ward being closed. I will not say that the NHS is being dismantled just because one hospital ward is being closed but I am entitled to ask this question: when does

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the process of dismantling begin? I do not know a great deal about the mechanics of rundown. Perhaps there are management consultants who can explain when the process of dismantling takes place. For example, if there is a hospital of 10 wards, does the erosion begin when five wards are closed, or two wards? Or does the erosion begin when just one ward is closed?
I suggest that when even one ward is closed—and here is my caveat—provided there is a demand for its services then it can be said that one is chipping away at the foundation of that particular hospital. Why do I say that? It is because if one ward is closed, it means that one ward is no longer available for the community. That means in turn a lengthening queue, and a longer waiting list and longer waiting periods for people who are without the means to jump the queue.
I have only one other specific point that I wish to put to the Minister. My noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell drew the attention of the House to the in-patient waiting lists for a number of specialties. He omitted to refer to one specialty which causes me a great deal of concern. I refer to the specialty that is described in books as psychogeriatrics. I do not like that term one little bit. It refers to the elderly and frail who are suffering from senile dementia.
My noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell referred to the figures for March, when about 700 elderly, frail people suffering from senile dementia were waiting for a bed. I cannot imagine the conditions under which those poor people are living, and they are the least able in the country to fight for their corner. Will the Minister assure the House that the department is insisting that area and district health authorities give very high priority to the interests of those people?
I come to the end of my contribution. If we are concerned about the quality of life—and that was the message of the right reverend Prelate and of my noble friend Lord Bottomley—then our plea must be that there should be more resources allocated to the NHS. The priorities which determine what slice of our national resources is given to the NHS and the priorities which determine which proportion of the country's spending goes to health care should be urgently re-examined by the Government. Meanwhile, the work goes on in hospitals, surgeries and clinics and I am more than grateful for the outstanding work and contribution of the staff of the NHS, notwithstanding all their difficulties and pressures. I think that I ought to give expression to that; and with that I am sure all noble Lords will agree.
7.50 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I shall be very brief because, as your Lordships know, we have a very long list of speakers this evening. I start by congratulating and thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, on his speech this afternoon. I am glad that he is looking so much better, because he is in great difficulty. Last year I was on precisely the same two instruments as he is now on, and I know how very difficult they are.
I also congratulate my noble friend the Minister on the figures she gave this afternoon—especially the 800,000 more people who are being treated in
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hospitals compared with 1978. We must take great credit, and I hope the Government do, for those figures.
Although I am very interested in the health service, especially the voluntary sector, I am not going to make any comments on that this evening because I have one or two brief comments to make on the reform of the social security system. I deal first with a "Catch 22" situation which arises for the unemployed, those on supplementary benefit and ex-offenders. Those are people who have no fixed abode and very little, if any, money. They are offered jobs by employers who are anxious to take them, but they have no fixed abode. They try to get board and lodging from a landlady, but she of course wants money in advance. Unfortunately the job will not pay money until the employee has been in post for a week or a fortnight.
I hope the Government will take up the suggestion that when someone wants to employ one of those people—and there must be hundreds of them—the employer should write a note which can be shown to the social security people and also to the prospective landlady, saying that the employer will deduct the money that is owed to the landlady from the wages the employee receives in the first fortnight, three weeks or month. I think that if a letter can be sent stipulating that the money will be paid by docking it from the salary, more people, young people, will be able to take up work. This, I may say, would not cost the Government anything.
This evening I want to speak as chairman of the National Association of Widows. Few noble Lords will realise that 500 women are widowed every day. That is a vast number of women. Therefore I want to deal primarily, but briefly, with the Green Paper which refers to future widows. I welcome certain parts of the Green Paper. For instance, new widows are to be given a tax-free £1,000, which is to replace the amount now being paid over a certain number of weeks. The widow's allowance also will be paid immediately, I understand. However, as we know, so often unfortunately it is the funeral expenses that really hit hard at any family. We are pleased to learn that the money for funeral bills can, in certain circumstances, be obtained from the social fund as a loan. We are grateful to the Government for those imaginative steps.
However, there is a rub. The pension age is to be raised from 40 to 45 and the age for the widow's rate pension is to be raised from 50 years to 55 years. The present widows resent this very much indeed because of the reason given. We have been told that this five-year difference in both those categories is apparently to pay for the increase in the number of single parents. Widows are not single parents. They have been married and they have families of their own. The National Association of Widows thinks that this is very unfair.
There is one other point that I draw to the Government's attention. There are, luckily, very few widows who are made widows when they are pregnant, but there are some. Like other women, the widow who is pregnant will get the maternity grant. But even if she has been working before being widowed, she is not entitled to maternity allowance because that would

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constitute an overlapping benefit. As I have said, luckily there are very few pregnant widows, but there are some. Perhaps in due course my noble friend the Minister will draw the attention of those in her office to this seemingly very unfair anomaly. Those are my few comments, and I shall listen to the Minister when she replies to the debate.
7.57 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for initiating this debate at a time when he is having to find extra energy to get about due to his recent accident. My remarks will be kept mainly to the National Health Service side of this debate and I hope very much that the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, will in her summing up be able to say something to help raise the morale of many senior nurses throughout the country.
The last Government shake-up to the National Health Service has been far more disturbing to some people than many had envisaged. Perhaps this has been an opportunity of getting rid of deadwood, but many admirable people who have given years of good service have found, or are finding, that reapplying for their jobs which have been advertised nationally is a traumatic experience.
I have always been of the opinion that the best and most competent nurses should be closest to the patients, but with the complicated machinery of the National Health Service it is important that their many management and training needs are fully heard, understood and acted on at the highest level of management. Who knows better the needs of patient care than the nurse who has to be present 24 hours, seven days a week, and very often is the only person present in the ward apart from the patients?
Nurses at present have anxieties following the introduction of general managers and I hope that these fears are ill-founded. Some of their worries are that the experience and skills of the managers above direct care level may not reflect the needs of the patient or relatives. Career progression within nursing along the management line will disappear and other lines of career progression and recognition of responsibilities along the education or clinical specialist expert line have not been developed. This will affect the future development and retention of those already in the profession and deter new entries for the future.
There is also anxiety about the ability of the direct care staff at the level of ward sister, district nurse and health visitor, to plan for the future allocation of resources and manpower and to manage the delivery of care on a day-to-day basis. The sheer volume of the tasks involved would detract from the delivery of care. The individual trained nurses at that level already have responsibility for managing the delivery of care and for educating potential trained nurses. The nurses feel that the support of nurse managers who can negotiate and bid for the necessary resources will not be available in the future.
Nursing advice to health authorities on the appropriate environment for delivery of care and level of resources required to meet changing patterns will not be available unless a stronger advisory machinery is developed, and this will take time. Understanding by
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other disciplines and authority members of the role of the nurse in health services of the future will be difficult to achieve, especially in view of proposed changes in nurse education, as will professional accountability of the individual practising trained nurse, changing models of care and nursing, and changing expectations by the public and the consumer, if there is no nurse manager at health authority and other senior levels to give advice.
Nurses seem to feel that they have been demoted. I hope that something can be done to restore their confidence. Also occupational therapists are greatly concerned about their pending degree courses. They want to raise standards and keep pace with other professions. They were not happy after a recent meeting with the Minister.
From recent questions in your Lordships' House about hygiene in hospital kitchens, it has become evident that there is concern among many people about Crown immunity. Hospitals seem to be becoming very dangerous places with so many cross-infections and outbreaks of salmonella poisoning and Legionnaire's disease breaking out in various parts of the country. I did not have an answer to my question asking if health authorities should lay annually before Parliament a report on their kitchens. I wonder if the noble Baroness asked her right honourable friend the Secretary of State about this matter. The noble Baroness said that she would do so. I am sure that it is our duty to try to protect the most vulnerable members of society—the sick and the frail who go to hospital. I asked BUPA what they did about their hospitals and the reply which I have had states:
"The kitchens of our hospitals, and I assume of all hospitals in the private sector, are inspected regularly and vigorously both h\ the health authority and by the local authority.".
I should have thought that this practice should apply to all hospital kitchens whatever the sector to which they belong.
The Government should be congratulated on the serious and concerned way in which they are treating the terrible problem of AIDS—Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Having visited the haemophilia centre in Newcastle, I cannot praise enough the dedication and excellence of the staff who have been involved with many of their patients who have developed the AIDS antibodies through contaminated blood products. One of the hardest burdens which that team have to bear is not being able to look after their dying patients to the end, because they have to go to another hospital. I have also been told by a consultant from one of the London teaching hospitals that all the side wards in his hospital are taken up with AIDS patients.
I wonder whether some hospices should be set up to relieve the general hospitals of some of their AIDS patients and give the refuge of a dedicated hospital environment to these dying patients. Many hospices have expert home care teams who go out into the community. This would be of immense value. All patients should be able to die in dignity. The special care of the dying is not something for which busy general hospitals have much time, and the means for private counselling, which takes time and is vital for AIDS contacts so that the risk of spreading the disease is minimised, are generally inadequate or non-

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existent. As regards AIDS, the fear of the unknown is widespread throughout Britain.
The announcement of the setting up of a ministerial group for ensuring inter-departmental co-operation over AIDS matters seems a very wise move, but it is also vital that the Government should set up a task force, to encompass the many interested bodies across the board from both the voluntary and the statutory sides, so that no stone is left unturned and there is an up-to-date flow of information incorporating a confidential telephone advice service for all the people who need it.
It would be wrong not to mention that there is concern among many health service staff about the other horrifying, escalating problem of drug abuse, including the problem faced by paediatricians of babies who are born to mothers addicted to heroin and who are themselves addicted. At the moment I am looking at hundreds of excellent applicants for the Winston Churchill memorial fellowships. One of the categories is drug abuse, prevention and care. Many people, including doctors and nurses, have put in applications for the opportunity to study counselling. Sadly we can give only 12 fellowships in this category, and this is the largest number given of all the categories this year. Would it be possible for the DHSS to encourage health authorities to run courses for people who wish to educate themselves, so that in turn they can counsel and educate young people who are at risk? There is no doubt a continuing need for such a service throughout the country.
We hear a great deal about the youth training schemes. Like many people, I see a need for trained people working in the community to look after the growing numbers of the elderly and physically and mentally handicapped people. Care in the community will not be effective unless we have enough people to do the caring. Would it not be a solution to run YT schemes for training young people to do this work? They would then be assured of a job at the end of their training.
I end by mentioning the concern I feel when I hear that local education authorities will not be allowed to provide free school meals to anyone whose parents are not on supplementary benefit or income support, which is the new name. I visited a school on Teesside where the headmaster said that he had to give the children breakfast before they had lessons because they had come to school so hungry and tired; many of the parents were still in bed drunk from the previous night. I know that the Government want to make people responsible and stand on their own feet, but there is a percentage of totally irresponsible parents who cannot be educated overnight and who will use cash benefits for drink or drugs and the children will go hungry. I hope that the Government will take advice from the teachers who see and know these children. I cannot believe that hungry children is wise "reform of social security".
8.9 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for initiating this debate and I welcome the opportunity to comment again on the Government's Green Paper on social security. It is heartening to glean from
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newspaper reports, which hopefully on this occasion are accurate, that the Government are having second thoughts about some of their propositions. In particular it is said that the Government are thinking again about the proposition to abolish the state earnings-related pension scheme—SERPS. However, SERPS does not yet appear completely safe. It may, we are told, be modified rather than abolished. I hope very much that the Government decide in view of pressure from all sides to let it alone.
Here I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Banks, particularly in view of his acknowledged expertise in the area. But I am sure that he will appreciate that there are other experts who are in favour of the retention of SERPS. I must say that it was difficult to take in his elegant formulae aurally, but it seemed to me that what he was proposing was an option that was open to us many years ago before both parties agreed that they wanted to see state earnings-related provision, as mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
The present legislation, as has been said on many occasions, was introduced after 20 years of experiment in pensions and, as I said earlier, with all-party support. SERPS for the first time holds out to the mass of workers not in occupational pension schemes the prospect of a reasonably dignified and secure retirement. It provides beneficiaries with an additional pension of revalued relevant earnings on top of the basic state retirement pension.
Under SERPS employees do not lose out at all when they change jobs. The provision that the pension is based on the best 20 years' earning is very important, in my view. It makes it particularly valuable for workers with interrupted work patterns, of whom large numbers are women. It benefits not only those whose earnings reach a peak in their middle years, such as manual workers, but also those whose earnings fluctuate throughout their working lives. Moreover, SERPS provides a standard against which good occupational pension provision is measured. The proposition that it could be effectively replaced by providing personal private pension policies purchased on the market individually is, in my view, simply not viable. It makes sense only if it is the Government's intention that future generations of pensioners should have very low pensions.
The Green Paper concentrates on the public spending implications of future pension expenditure. However, if the role of the state is to be reduced, pensions would have to be paid for from the private sector or the pensioners would have to be poorer. If the Government believe that pension expenditure would become an insupportable burden for the state, it would be at least equally so for the private sector. The problem does not disappear because the costs are transferred from the state to the private sector; nor does such a transfer reduce administrative costs. The truth is the contrary. Major new financial and administrative burdens would be placed on employers if SERPS were replaced by compulsory personal schemes. Pensions schemes currently contracted out would face an increase of three percentage points in national insurance contribution rates.' It has been established that that could cost employers an additional £3 billion a year.

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The practical implications of the phasing out arrangements—the noble Lord, Lord Banks, made reference to that—are considerable. Until the year 2002, employers will have to divide their employees into four main groups: men over 50 in 1987, men under 50, women over 45 and women under 45. There may have to be further subdivisions to determine the level of private contribution and to whom the contribution is to be made. It is possible that many small and medium-sized employers will have to make separate arrangements for every one of their employees.
The Green Paper proposals will also have a significant financial impact on occupational pension schemes. Younger employees may choose to opt out of the scheme to avoid pension commitments and leave the scheme to older members and those nearer retirement age. The result, would be that increased contribution rates would be necessary in order to maintain the same benefits. At the same time, younger workers who had opted out might find that they had not made sufficient provision for retirement, which would require higher contributions in later years to ensure a decent pension.
Moreover, if SERPS goes, so would the yardstick against which occupational pension schemes are judged. The contracting-out requirements mean not only that schemes must provide benefits in line with guaranteed minimum pensions; they mean also that the benefits provided must be of the defined type rather than the money purchase type. The 1975 Act heralded a major shift away from money purchase schemes. The Green Paper quite clearly indicates a reversal of that trend. That will be strongly opposed by trade unions, since the basic shortcoming of any money purchase scheme is that it creates insecurity about the level of future provision for retirement.
But personal pensions also undermine the principle of collective provision for the workforce as a whole. The collective pooling of risk involves an element of cross-subsidy. The money purchase principle inherent in the personal pension notion implies that the risks are borne by individual employees alone.
That means that individuals will have to make a choice between schemes on the basis of the various sales claims. The employer will have no responsibility in the matter; and sales claims can be very misleading. They may imply very high rates of return on investment and fail to take account of inflation. The more responsible insurance companies may not want to mislead contributors in that way. I think that many of them will not want to do so, but they will be caught in the competitive trap of their less scrupulous rivals.
The financial risks involved in personal pensions will be compounded by the fact that they are extremely inefficient and costly in administrative terms. The Occupational Pensions Board—of which, incidentally, I happen to be a member and which is very much opposed to private personal pensions—has estimated that the average administrative costs of personal pension schemes will be between 12 and 20 per cent. of contributions, as compared with 1½ per cent. for SERPS.
The proposed 4 per cent. minimum contribution to personal pension schemes will be required to provide
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not only a pension but also survivors' benefits. When that is compared with total employer and employee contributions of about 15 per cent. in the average good occupational scheme, it is clear that that is inadequate to secure anything like proper provision in retirement.
Moreover, it is quite clear, is it not, that private personal pension arrangements will require monitoring? The Government have already indicated in their original blue consultative paper that that will be a problem. Unless that is done, private personal pension policies will open up a vast new field for the cowboy operator in the insurance industry. The consumer lobby—rightly, in my opinion—will campaign for proper protection for individuals who may otherwise be taken in by smart sales talk and put their money into inadequate or even fraudulent ventures. How that monitoring is to be accomplished over such a wide area, with possibly millions of small pensions, I do not know. What is certain is that it will add enormously to overall costs.
For all those reasons, and not least because doubt has been cast on the long-term prognostications of the Government about the ability of the economy to bear the cost of SERPS, the Government would be well advised to leave it alone. There is no pressing need to do anything about it, despite the assertions contained in the Green Paper.
Before I conclude, I should like to make a few remarks relative to the position of women in relation to the Green Paper and arising from the possibility that SERPS could be disbanded. I said earlier that the proposal could have a particularly disadvantageous effect upon women. That is very unfortunate, because, as I understand it, the Government are disposed to treat seriously complaints that there remain some discriminations against women in pensions, notably in regard to pension ages (which clearly should be equalised) and also in regard to provision for survivors. I believe at one stage it was stated that the Government acknowledged that discriminations existed and were prepared to do something about it.
It is to be hoped that those discriminations are finally dealt with, but it would be a pity if improvements on the one hand were balanced by considerable disadvantages on the other. Women remain the principal carers for children. Their working lives are interrupted, and they tend to do more part-time and low paid work than men. Those caring activities exercise a permanently restrictive effect on their ability to earn and thus to provide for themselves at a decent level in old age and in sickness. And many more women need to provide for themselves because of the much greater incidence of divorce, separation and births outside marriage. It is no longer possible to make the assumption made by Beveridge 40 years ago that women with children will always have male financial support. It is for these reasons that a system which bases pension entitlement on the best 20 years' earnings revalued is of such importance to women.
That brings me to another aspect also touched upon earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. Child benefit and family income supplement are not benefits directed solely at women but they have a special relevance for women as the main carers for children in two-parent families. However, considerable concern has already been expressed at the proposal to pay the

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new family credit through the wage packet of the principal earner—in most families, the man—rather than as a benefit directly available to the woman, who is normally the person with budgeting and purchasing responsibility for children's needs. At present, either partner can cash FIS orders. This, combined with the lack of commitment to increase child benefit in line with inflation—there has already been an erosion in the value of the benefit—will worsen the financial position of the woman within the family unit.
The diversion of resources away from being a clear addition earmarked for the family and available to the mother towards being simply an addition to the wage is all the more serious because of the proposal to abolish free school meals and welfare foods, which are at present given to needy families and which can be used only for their intended purposes. Instead a cash equivalent is to be built into the family credit. Overall the proposals seem to have concentrated on alleviating the poverty trap, in itself a commendable objective, but the need for the benefit to reach the carer, normally a woman, has been overlooked. The unequal distribution of resources within the family unit is a factor that cannot be ignored in developing family support policy.
Therefore, although admittedly there are some aspects of the proposals to be welcomed as of assistance to women, the overall impact of the proposals is likely to be to their disadvantage. Most importantly, the proposals do not sufficiently take account of the social changes of the last 40 years. We have said on this side of the House that we do not oppose looking at social provision and adjusting in the light of these developments. There is a case for greater simplicity but not for uprooting large sections of the system altogether and not for departing, as the proposals do, from the concept of universality in the direction of means testing, itself a recipe for confusion, uncertainty and complication. I hope therefore that when the White Paper is produced we shall see that the Government have heeded the many criticisms that have been made of them.
8.22 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, may I join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, on introducing this debate on such wide-ranging and important topics and for speaking with such verve despite his incapacity? My brief contribution will focus on my professional interests as a nurse because so many other Members of your Lordships' House, with far greater expertise than mine on other issues, have spoken on those topics. I shall limit my contribution to a few words on three topics concerning the National Health Service: funding, nursing salaries and the effects of reorganisation on nursing.
I begin by welcoming the Government's announcement of extra resources for health care. The appeal for an extra £250 million, made by the BMA, the Royal College of Nursing and the Institute of Health Services Management, has not been met in full. But the promise of an extra £220 million is obviously welcome in itself and as evidence that the Government have listened to representations made by the professions. It
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is therefore possible to this extent to say, for this relief, much thanks.
However, I must now reluctantly move from appreciation to concern. Nurses are deeply worried about the funding of future pay awards. Nurses' salaries are still unacceptably low, a point to which I shall return in a moment. But the profession is very anxious that future salary increases may have to be paid from money deducted from patient services. This creates an invidious situation which causes strain and tension for all concerned with patient care. It is a problem that has been mentioned by several noble Lords in the debate.
This leads me to the question of nurses' salaries. I do not wish to use your Lordships' House just to plead a special case. I believe, however, that most people, including I suspect many of your Lordships, are not fully aware of the continuing inadequacy of nurses' pay and that they would be deeply concerned if they knew the situation. Let me hasten to say that the profession is of course grateful to the Government for establishing a pay review body and for honouring their commitment to implement the pay review body's recommendations, although of course there was inevitably disappointment that the pay increases were phased and hence delayed.
The percentage increases which were recommended were generous in percentage terms and well above the national average. But even a large percentage of a small salary is still only a small sum. Consequently, even when the new salary levels are in operation after next February, a staff nurse will still earn only £6,000 on a salary scale that will gradually rise to a maximum of £7,500. Is a salary of £6,000 really adequate for someone who has successfully completed over three years' arduous training, who is likely to be carrying a large measure of clinical responsibility for patients and who, in the absence of a ward sister, may often be entirely in charge of a ward, perhaps in areas requiring specialist competence such as neurosurgery, cardiovascular medicine or terminal care? In addition to the strain associated with these responsibilities, there is the stress of working unsocial hours and the associated sacrifices that have to be made in terms of forgoing leisure activities which people in regular nine to five jobs can enjoy.
And, my Lords, the ward sister, the linchpin of hospital care, will still, even after the recent pay rise, only be able to earn a top salary of £10,000 even if she has been working in the National Health Service for 25 years, while her starting salary will still be a meagre £7,400. This is why many people hope that the review body will once again recommend sizeable increases for nurses' pay next year and why they also hope that such increases will not have to be funded in such a way as to detract resources from patient care.
I regret that there is another major source of anxiety for nurses in the ways in which some district health authorities are implementing the Griffiths reorganisation. This is a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, has rightly pointed out. This country has led the world in nursing, and our profession has an international reputation. But, in some districts, nursing is now fighting for its life because of proposals to abolish key nursing posts. Some of those threatened are management posts so that nurses would no longer

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lead nursing. Others are in the arena of patient care. In some places it has even been suggested that there is no longer a need for a ward sister and that this time-honoured post could be filled by a ward manager instead of a qualified nurse.
There is a real possibility that the nursing profession as we know it may be in danger of being destroyed, perhaps unintentionally, by those involved in reorganising the National Health Service. That the profession will not tolerate. The Royal College of Nursing has given notice of its intention to consider taking major measures to fight to protect the profession—not, I must emphasise, on grounds of self-interest but in order to preserve standards of professional care for the patients for whom they are responsible.
I earnestly hope that the National Health Service in general and the nursing profession in particular will not have to experience further unnecessary conflict and tension. The nursing profession has set an example to the nation over the years in its steadfast and principled refusal to undertake so-called industrial action to protect its own interests, although nurses in other countries have taken such action, with dramatic improvements in pay and conditions of service. It would be tragic if our country were to reward this dedicated profession not only with remuneration which falls far short of other professional salaries but also by dismantling its professional structures so radically that it would lose the very essence of its professional autonomy and accountability. The profession will not stand for it; and I believe that the public would not wish it. I sincerely hope that my noble friend the Minister might be able to say something reassuring on these deeply disturbing matters.
In conclusion, no one who knows the National Health Service can be in doubt that in many places morale is low and uncertainty about the future is creating anxiety and disaffection. It would be a tragedy if an institution which was the envy of the world—and which is still envied by many—were to be destroyed either from without or within.
Let us hope that all who are responsible for it—government, health authorities and staff—will retain or regain enthusiasm and commitment so that one of the greatest humanitarian ventures the world has ever known can revive and flourish to the benefit of all.
8.32 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I think there will be general agreement that if one is 21st in the list and one of the last speakers, one makes a long speech at one's peril. I am certainly not brave enough to do that. I should therefore like to confine myself, very briefly, to the second part of the Motion of my noble friend concerning the proposals for the reform of the social security system.
The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, in her opening speech quite rightly spoke of the need for a social security system which caters for today's situation and needs. That is exactly what we all want. However, it is the way to achieve it about which we disagree. The noble Baroness was good enough to say
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that she would welcome suggestions as to how to achieve this fair, efficient and speedy service. I should therefore like to make one or two suggestions, notably in the area of child support.
I know that this has been touched upon already by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and also by my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden, but I should like to amplify a little what they have said about, first, the downgrading of the child benefits scheme and the threat of further cuts in its real value in each year until 1989; secondly, the proposal to replace the family income supplement through the post office—in most cases to mothers—with the new family credit which is paid, as my noble friend said, through the pay packet; and, thirdly, the loss of free school meals to low-income working families, including many who will not qualify for family credit.
On my first point, there is indeed no recommendation in the Green Paper to increase the level of child benefit. Most understandably this has caused a public outcry. It is not as if the level of child benefits in this country is very high. The increasing rate for each child which is used in other countries in western Europe—notably Luxembourg, Belgium and France—helps families with young children to go through that very expensive time of their lives. It is realised in those countries that this source of income paid straight to the mother helps to fight the poverty trap and that it is the only way to transfer resources to taxpayers with dependent children at a time in a life-cycle when families most need help. There can be no doubt that the proposal to downgrade child benefit in favour of means-tested support will harm disadvantaged families.
The second change proposed in the Green Paper which will also disadvantage many low-income families, and consequently disadvantage the children within them, concerns the effect of the replacement of the family income supplement with family credit. This again has been touched upon, but I think there are many questions hanging over this new benefit which need to be answered. To mention but a few: how will poor, self-employed people be provided for under this? How is the scheme equipped to deal with people who have more than one job, who change jobs, whose marriage breaks up, or who move in or out of temporary work? How will they benefit from that fund? As I say, these are questions which many people are asking themselves and which need to be answered.
Furthermore, there is concern regarding the method of calculation and payment. There is concern that payment will be channelled through the wage packet when, as is known by all those concerned with child poverty, such funds affect the child in a more positive way if channelled through the mother. Of course in harmonious, stable families there is no reason why this should make any difference. But unfortunately not all families fit this description, and transferring child benefits from mother to father could threaten the interests of many children.
The third change closely affecting children is that regarding school meals. There is no doubt that until now the family income supplement has provided a passport to free school meals for those children who need them. However, under the family credit scheme, designed to replace that, the same will not apply. I

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know that the rates will be increased to provide some compensation, but the local education authorities will be confined to providing free school meals only to the children of parents who were on income support—which is replacing supplementary benefit—which means that thousands of children whose parents will not get family credit will lose free school meals and will receive either inadequate or no compensation. In either case, more childen risk not getting that vitally important nutritional meal in the middle of the day.
I think it would be true to say that the Green Paper contains a very basic contradiction. On the one hand, the Green Paper recognises that families with children are at present facing the most difficult problems; but, on the other hand, the review contains no proposal for overall redistribution to those families. I believe there must be general agreement among all those concerned with child poverty that the structure of family support—which gives pride of place to means testing—is at the same time inefficient and ineffective and highly divisive.
I should like to make one other point regarding the proposal in the Green Paper that when income support replaces supplementary benefit the current system of making single payments should end. I am concerned about this principally because these single payments are at present used extensively by community energy projects associated with an organisation called Neighbourhood Energy Action, with which I am concerned. These community projects, which are spread throughout the country, initiate home insulation schemes using the single payments to buy the necessary draught-proofing materials. These initiatives have gone a long way towards attacking fuel poverty and helping low-income families to do something about their energy efficiency and indeed to have warmer homes. It should not be forgotten that hypothermia is described as a British disease, and any practical and economic efforts made to eradicate that should be encouraged rather than sabotaged—which in this case has happened.
However, at the present time there are as many as 172 projects operating in this way throughout the United Kingdom. Furthermore, they employ 2,500 people under the community programme giving employment to these people. Around 100,000 of these insulation jobs—including loft insulation and hot water tank jackets, as well as the normal draught-proofing round windows and doors—are anticipated during the year.
The effect of ending single payments would be devastating, because claimants would not be able to pay for draught-proofing material out of weekly benefits and consequently many of these projects would have to come to an end, with the consequential loss of energy saving and of the employment of a great many people. Many lower-income families would still need the service but would not get it, and many small draught-proofing companies which supplied the materials would be seriously affected. I should like to ask the Minister if she will make some commitment that the White Paper will contain a provision to go on providing this highly important finance for a vitally important job about which the Government have
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always been extremely supportive. I hope the Minister will be able to answer that as well as my more general comments on child support.
8.41 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, as the first speaker below the line on the list of speakers at the end of a long and complex debate of this kind I am expected somehow or other to dismiss the whole of the universe in a few easy phrases. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who some four hours ago said that his experience of both sides of your Lordships' House was that debates of this kind usually turned out to be depressing and useless exercises. I think that is right if the Motion is drawn too widely. Here I shall agree strongly and perhaps unusually for me with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter,. when he criticised the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for the breadth of the Motion.
I have had cause to be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, in your Lordships' House on many occasions and indeed in another place. But on this occasion by lumping together the National Health Service and the complex matter of the difficult and threatening social security reviews that in a sense almost lets the Government off the hook. It has been my experience (today, for example) that if we ask the noble Baroness 80 questions—we have asked more than 80 already—we know what will happen. She will answer those for which she has good answers and she will promise to write to all the other noble Lords and where does that get us?
Earlier the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, was present at this debate. He has now gone and I do not blame him. He is a very distinguished doctor and I was reminded that at the time I qualified in medicine the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, was the external examiner in surgery. When I went in for my surgery oral examination, which in my recollection lasted for three-quarters of an hour, the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, did not ask me 50 questions and allow me to choose one or two to which I knew the answers fully. He probed about a bit until he found a weak spot and he stayed on it for the whole of the 45 minutes.
What I am trying to suggest is that had we made this debate a little more specific we might have had more specific answers. I accept that it has been an interesting debate; perhaps it has been enjoyable and we have all benefited from it. Whether we shall receive the kind of answers we really want is a little less certain. For example, on social security reviews (on which I shall not say very much) if we posed the one single question to the noble Baroness: "How have the Government managed to create alarm and despondency among the whole army of the young unemployed?"—it is a very large army, with the extraordinary muddle over the board and lodging regulations, and is something, to marvel at—had we asked her that and concentrated on it for many hours and covered the many aspects of that matter——
Lord Ennals: That is tomorrow, my Lords.
Lord Winstanley: ——we might then, my Lords, have had an answer. I say we might have had an answer but I am not sure because I suspect that the

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noble Baroness does not know the answer and I am convinced that her departmental officials out in the sticks, where they have to answer individual claimants, certainly do not know the answers. That underlines a point of immense importance, the problem of uncertainty and the damage that uncertainty in this field can do.
During my lifetime—not as long as all that, but fairly long—I have seen many changes in the public mood towards social security. I remember the length of time it took to persuade elderly people that pensions for them were a right not a charity. Many old people would not apply for their pensions. They did not want charity and it took us a long time to persuade those people that pensions were things for which they had paid through direct or indirect taxation or which had been paid for by others and consequently pensions were an entitlement.
Similarly as we moved into the 1950s and 1960s it seemed to me that we gradually gained the understanding throughout the whole community that benefits of one kind or another were an entitlement and that to get those benefits did not attract a stigma of any kind. That was an important exercise and it was successful. Indeed during the 1950s and the 1960s we had a time when there came upon young people a feeling of security in the knowledge that somewhere there was a safety net should the need arise for one. That was very important for those young people and did a great deal for the stability of society at that time.
It seems to me that with all the arguments, discussion, and uncertainty over these social security reviews and everything we have heard about the reviews and the possible outcome of them, that somehow the Government had managed to destroy that sense of security from the existence of the welfare state as it was in a few short months. It seems to me to be the work of an organising genius to destroy what took so many years to build up. I hope that the right honourable friend of the noble Baroness, the Secretary of State, will take on board the message that it is very important to end the uncertainty as soon as possible about many of these matters—I picked on just the board and lodging allowance as one example.
Baroness Trumpington: Tomorrow, my Lords.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, the noble Baroness says, "tomorrow". By doing that we can at least begin to restore the confidence of claimants. That is important, but we can also remove uncertainty from those on the other side of the counter when the claimants go along to make their claims. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, paid a well-earned tribute to the work of the people in the supplementary benefits departments. I know they work under very difficult conditions, but those conditions are made much more difficult when they do not know the answers to many of the questions put to them almost hourly by people who themselves are in great difficulties. As the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said, claimants are often frustrated and resentful and sometimes they do not behave in a way which is conducive to a happy relationship between the two sides. Anything we can do to remove that uncertainty would be very valuable.
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The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham referred to this change in mood. He was right. I he noble Baroness knows that I have close connections with these matters in the north-west where I give regular advice via television. We rely greatly on departmental officials from the Department of Health and Social Security who help us by giving specific advice about benefits, and so forth. They give us a great deal of help. However, even among the senior officials in the region I am now finding that when I ask for their advice they cannot give it because they do not know. There are so many things which at present are unresolved and which need resolving. But what is even more disturbing is the number of letters that I receive from individuals scattered about the north-west of England complaining of harassment in some of these offices. They complain of being subjected to humiliating questions in a public forum overheard by friends and neighbours, and they complain that the whole atmosphere has somehow changed. I think it has; however, the fault does not lie with the individuals, who as the noble Baroness said are working under difficult conditions, but with the circumstances in which they are now being forced to operate. I hope that we can do something to change those circumstances.
I now turn at once away from the social security reviews (on which many things will be said by others on many occasions) to the National Health Service in which I am personally more concerned and about which I know a great deal more. We have heard a great deal about funding. The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, gave us a number of calculations explaining precisely what was being spent on the health service, and more or less making the case that enough was being spent. The noble Lord, Lord Ennuis, also produced figures showing that not enough was being spent, and so indeed did my noble friend Lord Kilmarnock. He quoted his right honourable friend Dr. Owen in a lecture which Dr. Owen gave in the Royal Society, to which I listened, where he proved with a lot of figures that not enough was being spent.
Who is right? Everybody is right in the sense that enough will never be spent. That is the message which has to be taken on board. I would say in all sincerity that health could consume all the resources there are without any waste in a strictly professional sense. If everything which could conceivably be done usefully from a medical point of view was done for everybody, we would consume all the resources that there are.
But there are other things upon which health depends than health care, as indeed the Black Report on the inequalities in health pointed out. There are housing, education, and things of that kind. Therefore, there has to be an element of rationing. I accept that. Those who get the money in the National Health Service, understanding that it has to be limited, that it is not enough and never will be enough, have to be prepared sooner or later to do cost-effective exercises in relation to their own work to make sure that such money as they have is spent in a way that brings the most return in terms of relief of human suffering. So I repeat that there will never be enough.
What I would say to the Government is this—and only this so far as money is concerned—that they should try to spend as much as they possibly can because if they do that it will not be wasted. We have

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heard a great deal of talk about waiting lists; waiting lists for so-called non-urgent operations. The actual urgency of an operation rather depends on who is going to have it. If it is your operation, you tend to think that it is not so non-urgent after all.
In an ideal world nobody whould have to wait for any necessary operation, urgent or otherwise. We could never arrive at a situation under which there were no waiting lists, and that once it was decided that somebody should have a hip replacement, or whatever, it would be done on Tuesday. No, my Lords, but let us move as closely as we can to that situation; and we can only do that by spending more money. I say to the noble Baroness: let us not have these specious arguments that we are spending more, and how much more do we need to cope with demographic changes, and how much more to cope with new technology which consumes more money.
As we get better, the whole thing costs more. There are millions of people at the moment alive and requiring regular treatment who, 50 years ago, would not have been costing anybody anything at all. They would all have been dead. As we keep people alive needing treatment, so we need to spend more and more money. This was a point made by my noble friend Lord Kilmarnock, and others, and I am sure it is acknowledged by the noble Baroness.
There is now universal agreement among workers in the National Health Service and among those who use it that the service is now overstretched. There is general agreement among those who know that the service has only survived in its present state of excellence (and I say "of excellence" advisedly) because of the dedication of those who work in it. That dedication is provided at considerable personal cost. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has said something about that. I agree with every word that she said, and we should not forget it.
However, there is also on the other side a growing belief that somehow the National Health Service has become a second-rate service. I think that belief is misplaced. There is far too much denigration of the National Health Service at the moment. It is right to point to defects, and it is right to try to remedy them; but it is not right constantly to denigrate the service and create the general impression that it is a bad seŕvice.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, said that morale was low. She is right. Here I am going to do something which is again unusual for me and agree once more with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who a long time ago talked of the old days when we had a single Minister of Cabinet rank who was responsible for the National Health Service and for nothing else—and how much I agree with him. Lumping in national insurance and pensions (which are really Treasury matters) with health was a great mistake. The sooner we go back to a single Minister of Cabinet rank responsible for the National Health Service, the more rapidly morale in the service will be restored.
Noble Lords may remember that when Mr. Enoch Powell was a Minister in that situation he used to send a personal message to all National Health Service employees every Christmas. I accept that now it would
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be difficult for him to send a message because he would not know what the message was, but there is a point there. There was a feeling of solidity throughout the service with a Minister responsible who was of Cabinet rank. I have said that at least three times in your Lordships' House. Today we have heard the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, say it and also the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. We have seen noble Lords on the Labour Benches nodding their heads warmly in agreement. Perhaps in the end somebody else might do something. If they do, that would be to the benefit of the National Health Service.
I have said let us not denigrate it but let us accept that the Black Report on inequalities in health has shown that for some—and for far too many—the National Health Service is failing. An area in which the service still stands in high esteem is the general practitioner primary care service. That has been referred to by many noble Lords, and the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, herself referred to this, and so did my noble friend Lord Kilmarnock. Let me say about general practitioners that at present—and we have been bandying statistics about for a long time today—20 per cent. of hospital investigations, laboratory investigations and X-rays, arise from direct general practitioner requests. That is an important and illuminating statistic.
Secondly, the number of referrals by general practitioners to consultants for out-patient consultations, or to hospitals, is now half of what it was some years ago. Those figures, if they mean anything, mean two things. First, that general practitioners are now doing better work, work of a higher standard, than they were doing before; and secondly those figures mean that the primary care service, the general practitioner service, is now saving the hospital service a great deal of money.
We must keep it that way. If we see the Green Paper referred to by my noble friend on the financing of family practitioner services, let us hope that it does not include some kind of cash limits, bearing in mind that I do not say that it can be wholly demand led but I do not believe that this, or any government, can predict with accuracy how many people will suffer from which illnesses and at what cost in any future period. The service has to be demand-led, otherwise potentially it could fail.
In addition we must look at the question raised by so many noble Lords and noble Baronesses in this debate on the review bodies' reports. What is the point in this Government, or the past or any government, appointing a review body to determine salaries in the public sector in the National Health Service and so somehow to remove them from the political arena with the gurarantee that the Government will always implement the review bodies' reports except in conditions of grave emergency if, having implemented the review bodies' reports, they say: "That is fine. Pay them that, but your must get all the money out of services to patients"? This point has been made over and over again. It was made with regard to nursing, and it must be made again with regard to general practitioners. If we go on on that tack, then we are on dangerous ground.
I must finish. I should like to have followed a lot of other themes such as community care which was

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mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lovell-Davis. However, we shall have an opportunity to do that in a fortnight's time. I would say with him that community care is not a cheap option, but it is a better option for some patients and therefore somehow we should afford it. I should like to have followed the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in his question about the anomalies arising from the Vaccine Damage Payments Bill, and the up-rating from £10,000 to £20,000. I should like to hear the answer to his question some day. I should like to know the answer to another question relating to that; namely, what is now being spent on something much more important, which is the poineering and development of a vaccine that does not cause brain damage? I should like to say a little more about research referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and by others into AIDS, legionnaire's disease, drug addiction, and so on.
But I shall say no more except to finish by making a request to all those noble Lords and noble Baronesses in your Lordships' House who believe in the National Health Service and who wish to see it preserved in the form in which it was originally introduced. I think there are many in your Lordships' House—I should like to think all, but certainly they are in all parties and sitting in all parts of your Lordships' House. What I should like to say to those noble Lords is this. If any of you should have a need for medical services—as I cast my clinical eye around your Lordships' House, I can see one or two for whom that day is not all that far away, though I shall not name any names—and if you should have a need for health services, for goodness sake use the National Health Service. If you do not use the National Health Service, the next time that need should arise—should there be a next time—you could well find that the National Health Service is no longer there.
9.1 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I must say that, after this very long and very interesting debate I feel rather like the road sweeper after the Lord Mayor's Show. I know there has been some criticism about the fact that this Motion was so widely drawn and I know that has contributed to the difficulties of the debate. However, I would explain that we do not have many Labour days in the course of the business of the House and there was great anxiety among many of my noble friends because during the debate on the gracious Speech there was no opportunity to discuss these important matters. In fact, the gracious Speech itself was very dismissive and curt about this.
Because so many of my noble friends were anxious about the whole range of these subjects, we decided to let everyone have a chance to say what they cared most about. I think that is true of everyone who has spoken today. Your Lordships will be relieved to hear that I do not propose to comment in detail or to ask the noble Baroness another 80 questions.
If we had looked in depth at these subjects today in the spirit of the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, for instance, our debate would have ranged even more widely. For instance, we are waiting for the White Paper on social security changes, but I am even more impatient to see the Green Paper
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on personal taxation. I think it is a total nonsense for us to talk about social security separate from personal taxation. That is really at the heart of so much of the poverty, contradictions and problems in the country. If we are to have a situation where reduction in personal taxation is more important than increases in social security, then we get into an impossible muddle. Thus I hope we shall receive that Green Paper soon, so that we can take a look at the whole picture of incomes and benefits.
When one talks about expenses in the National Health Service, I must say to the House that again it is not possible to isolate these from other aspects of social problems. I know of sickly children who are costing the health service a lot of money, of mothers absolutely broken down by crises of neurosis because they are among the thousands of homeless families who are living in bed and breakfast accommodation, where there are no decent cooking facilities, the children live on take-away meals and there is nowhere to play. This is a housing problem. We are a? the lowest level for very many years in the building of houses. Thus, if noble Lords think that our debate has been too wide-ranging, I can promise them that it could have been made even wider. The question of unemployment is closely bound up with all these problems.
It seems to me that we are not reforming Beveridge, as the Government at one time promised, but distorting what he tried to do. Beveridge formed his report in the context of full or almost full employment. He thought unemployment was a wicked waste. Thus it is impossible to fit this enormous unemployment welfare cost into a Beveridge framework because he did not intend that to happen.
I have a solution which I commend to the noble Minister. I think we should stop distorting the welfare budget by unemployment pay and I should put it direct on to the Treasury. It is the Treasury's fault, and the Government's fault, that we are having to spend millions of pounds on paying people to do nothing. Until the basic economic policy is changed unemployment pay is bound to take up far more than it should of our social security at the cost of other matters.
I do not want to enter into a lot of details. We shall not get the details right until we have the principles right. The tendency that there seems to be in the Government's thinking, that we should try to have a closer look at the special payments and single payments, can be very dangerous. I do not know why the Government seem to take the view that too much money is going out on supplementary benefit payments, because I understand that the take-up rate of supplementary benefits is about 70 per cent. We should be trying to attract more people, not fewer. As regards family income supplement, the figure is only about 50 per cent. Thus, if we are to rely more on means-testing we shall have an even lower take-up rate.
In my view, the history of any improvements in the Poor Law has come from attempts to replace administrative discretion by legal entitlement. Othewise we are going backwards towards the kind of Poor Law guardians by whom, if one went to ask for some money to buy some coal, one was told to pawn the

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clock on the mantelpiece, because the emphasis then was entirely on the discretion of the interviewer and not on the rights of the claimant. Maybe that is what the Prime Minister meant by Victorian values, but I do not think we want to travel down that road.
The people of this country, especially those in need, should be able to look forward to having their rights clearly set out, and not in a complex, costly and difficult way so that when they go to this social fund there is a subjective judgment made by someone who interviews them and against which they are to have no right of appeal. I think that really is a very serious step backwards.
I then have to mention that we are to have lower scales for income support and for the social fund for people under 25. Why pick on people under 25? They may be married; they may have children. It is only if they are lone parents under 25 that they are to have the average help.
One could go on asking questions of detail which really would not be fair to the Minister or to the house. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us when the White Paper will come out and when the Green Paper on personal taxation will come out, so that we can take these arguments further. I imagine that the noble Baroness, like me, had her recess ruined by the mountains of representations that came from the interested bodies in reply to the Government's invitation. I was very glad to hear that there was such an enormous response. I brought down some of my papers in a taxi today and there was hardly room in the taxi for me.
We look forward to the consideration which the Government will give to all these representations; and I must say that the vast majority were critical in one way or another, as my noble friend Lord Ennals pointed out. There was an analysis of 60 charity organisations, voluntary organisations of the people at the sharp end of all these matters, raising very serious points. I thought I heard the noble Baroness say—and I made a note of it at the time—that among all this evidence there was some consensus. I was so worried by that that I went to the Library and looked up the word "consensus" in the dictionary because I thought that I must be misunderstanding the meaning of the word. I have to say that "consensus" means what I thought it meant: a general or widespread agreement. Anyone who has read those representations on the Green Paper cannot say that there was a general or widespread agreement, I am sure. So, if I misunderstood the noble Baroness, I am sorry.
The Green Paper has been criticised in many aspects by the Social Security Advisory Committee, which is a very responsible and expert body. But in fairness I will say that its final comment reads as follows:
"The Green Paper represents an attempt by the Government to tackle some extremely complex and contentious issues. As we have indicated, we support many of the proposals. Others we find deeply worrying especially in the area of provision for retirement".
I hope that those aspects of the social security report which they found deeply worrying will commend themselves to the Government for revision. I hope the noble Baroness the Minister and her colleagues in government will not hesistate to alter their minds and to come back with changes in the proposals.
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I leave her with a thought from one of my favourite authors, Emerson:
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines".
There is nothing little about the noble Minister opposite in any way. Therefore, I look forward to the revisions and to the serious consideration which I hope will be given to all the criticisms and all the proposals and I trust that we may soon have an opportunity for debate.
9.12 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, this has been a Goliath of a debate, with an average of 20 minutes per speaker for 23 speakers. Your Lordships will forgive me for giving a sort of potpourri of replies to your questions. It was a great relief to me that the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, kindly agreed in advance that I could write to him in reply to the points that he raised in his thought-provoking speech. I will write to other noble Lords if and when I fail them. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, whose debate this is, must realise that by coupling the National Health Service with social security his timing was unfortunate with regard to the latter subject.
Noble Lords can speculate on the White Paper in advance of publication; and it will be soon. I, on the whole, can merely assure them that their contributions today will be carefully noted by my colleagues in another place. This sentiment applies to the notable, as always, contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and to—if I may say so even if I did not agree with a word of it—what I thought was the damned good speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, claimed that waiting lists were lower under Labour and that the health services saw some kind of golden age then. Let me tell your Lordships the situation which we inherited when we took office in 1978–79. During the previous Government, when the noble Lord was Secretary of State for Social Security, health service expenditure had been cut in real terms, capital expenditure had been cut in real terms by about one-third; there had been a highly damaging industrial dispute and this had helped waiting lists to reach an all time high. I do not grudge in any way the noble Lord's good intentions towards the health service, but it is actions which count, and the record of his administration is by no means without blemish.
Let me turn to the very difficult question of the role of nurses in the new, post-Griffiths management structures. It was a subject which was mentioned not only by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, but by my noble friend Lady Cox and others. The noble Lord gave the figures for nurses appointed as general managers. I do not agree that this shows any diminution of nurses' influence and their role. I would have been more than happy to see more nurses en poste as general managers, but I believe that with more than half the appointments still to be made we have made a good start. I think the noble Lord may have had in mind the concerns that have been expressed in some quarters because not all authorities have appointed their top doctors and nurses to any management board or group they have set up. We have made our position very

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clear. It is that every authority must identify one doctor and one nurse who will be responsible for the professional advice to management and to the authority itself.
Clearly, to do that effectively they must have access to both as of right and be involved in the decisionmaking process; but we did not think it right to tell authorities precisely how they should achieve that. Most have appointed their medical nursing advisers to any management group, sometimes combining the advisory role with managerial functions. A minority have not done so but have made other arrangements to involve their medical and nursing advisers. If there is a genuine cause for concern that through these arrangements they are somehow missing out, we shall of course take this up with the authority concerned.
While I am on the subject of nurses, I should like just to take up the point which was made by my noble friend Lady Cox with regard to review body awards: the funding. She noted that the Government have implemented both the awards recommended by the nurses' review body in 1984 and 1985. These were very substantially higher than the average level of settlements generally within the public sector. Several noble Lords asked that the Government should commit themselves to using any additional cash available to fund any pay awards arising in 1986. I have to say that we have no plans to do so. The National Health Service cannot be insulated from the real world, which all other employers must face. Other employers recognised there may have to be a trade-off between pay and services, and the NHS cannot expect to be treated differently. The taxpayers' purse is not bottomless and it is unrealistic to think that it is. I am sorry: that is tough talk, but that is the way it is.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords——
Baroness Trumpington: No, I am sorry: I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, that I am not going to give way. I think that everybody has had just about enough—and they certainly will have done by the time I sit down.
To continue with the questions that were raised, this debate is really that of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and so I think I should give him the major portion of the answers. He spoke about the spending on geriatric in-patient services not having kept pace with the rising number of elderly people. In fact, spending on inpatient services specifically for elderly people has kept pace with demographic pressure. Moreover, the noble Lord fails to recognise that elderly people use many other services: for example, district nursing, outpatients, medical and surgical wards have all increased substantially, and expenditure on district nurses has increased by over 20 per cent. in resource terms.
Turning to children in hospital, the noble Lord asked: are our services improving or not? As in so many fields in the health service, I would not want to claim that we have achieved perfection. There is still room for improvement, but in April this year the Consumers' Association published in Which? an article reviewing the position concerning children in hospital, since they had already produced a report on the subject in 1980. The article said that since the
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report of 1980 it seemed that the care of children in hospital had improved. More hospitals now had unrestricted visiting hours, allowed parents to stay overnight and nurse children in children's wards. I think we should take pride in this real progress. I will not touch on the position of children in mental hospitals because I feel sure that the subject will come up in a fortnight's time.
I am trying to choose the most important subjects that most noble Lords have talked about. Measures to tackle drug misuse have been mentioned. First, we have already acted to produce a national education information campaign against heroin misuse, thoroughly researched and targeted and aimed at young people and their parents. Secondly, we have asked health authorities, in conjunction with local authorities and other agencies, to give high priority to the development of services for drug misusers. Thirdly, on an exceptional basis, we are operating a £17½ million central funding initiative for health services and voluntary sector projects or local authority training schemes. Fourthly, we have issued guidelines of good clinical practice in the treatment of drug misuse to all doctors. We do not wish to underestimate the threat posed by this horrible drug misuse and we are tackling it with, I trust, the support of all parties.
It is a misrepresentation to say that the review is only about cuts. I believe I am right in thinking that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham also came in on this subject. We are spending over £40 billion per year on social security—a vast sum of money! Can we really say that we are wholly satisfied with how this money is being spent and with the distribution of that money among those who rely on benefits in varying degrees for different reasons? The purpose of the review is to reform the structure of social security, to get a system that is coherent and reasonably simple and, above all, to get the money to those in greatest need. Indeed, I must say we have made it clear that we will be directing more, not less, money to the groups that we recognise as having a special case; for example, families bringing up children on low incomes.
With regard to cuts in social security, which the right reverend Prelate mentioned, I think he was talking about adding a 20 per cent. contribution to rates. At present, over 3 million people do not pay rates at all. We believe that this has contributed to a weakening of the link between payment for and use of local services. We need to make everyone aware of the connection between their local authority's rating policy and its spending plans. It is very important that those subjects are not divorced.
In answer to the proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and the right reverend Prelate on the cost of SERPS, if the review has made one thing clear it is that something needs to be done to reduce the cost of SERPS. Despite what the noble Lord said about the numbers supporting our proposals, there was widespread recognition that the financial burden of SERPS is just too much to expect of the next generation. By any standards, projected spending of £23 billion by the year 2033 means a major public expenditure commitment. My right honourable friend made clear when SERPS was being introduced that he

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had reservations about pay-as-you-go schemes, which are a blank cheque drawn on the future. He also warned that the financing of SERPS could have become extremely onerous. Latest projections have confirmed how right he was.
Turning to the question of AIDS, I can assure both the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, that we regard the reduction of the rate of spread of this serious virus infection as a matter of very high priority. I shall not rehearse all the steps that we are taking, but suffice it to say at this point that we have provided an extra £1 ·79 million to work on AIDS this year, which is in addition to the money that health authorities themselves are spending on the disease. There is certainly much more to do, particularly in educating people about the infection, and the Government are urgently exploring possibilities for a major health education campaign. With the help of the Government's expert advisory group on AIDS, we will continue to monitor the situation carefully in the light of further developments both in this country and abroad.
The noble Lords, Lord Ennals, Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Rea, asked when the long awaited Green Paper on family practitioner services would be published. We have been working hard on the Green Paper for some time but, given the importance and complexity of the issues involved and some ministerial changes over the past few months which have inevitably caused some delay, I can give no definite date for publication. But I can assure your Lordships that there will be no unnecessary delay.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, raised the question of the costs of community care. It is clearly acknowledged that the switch to community care involves some transitional costs as the old service withers and the new one is built up. That is well recognised and many regional health authorities have set aside bridging funds for that purpose. We have also said that in some areas community care may become more expensive, particularly where the standard of the service needs to be improved. The resources we are making available, authorities' own improvement programmes, and income from the sale of old mental hospitals will help to do that. In their report on community care, the Select Committee on Social Services made a number of recommendations about financing as well as on many other aspects. We are considering those recommendations and expect to reply shortly.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, asked several other questions but I fear that I shall have to write to him on them, although I have all the answers here. I am living in a forest of paper. If the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, had difficulty getting into her taxi, I hate to think what would have happened if I had been in there too with all the paper I have here.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who is actually a very dear man, was at his most waspish this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter did me a great service when he explained to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, that he and the Opposition Benches did not have a monopoly on caring. But both the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, queried waiting lists. We are
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making real progress. The latest figures show that, at 674,000, the waiting lists are some 80,000 fewer than at March 1979. It would have been lower still but for the industrial action in 1982 which led to a record level of waiting lists. They rose by a full quarter of a million under the last Labour administration.
The downward trend which we have achieved has taken place at a time when there is an increasing demand for treatment and the health service is treating more patients than ever before. To some extent waiting lists represent the problems of success. As the range of treatment available increases, demands and public expenditure rise. This was brilliantly put by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. There are no easy solutions but our objectives are clear and we are making real progress.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, commented on the fact that current spending on the National Health Service fell in 1984–85 and that spending has not risen by 17 per cent. but by only 4 per cent. The noble Lord suggested that we had been misleading the House and the country with our figures for health service spending. The noble Lord quoted figures from the social services Select Committee report regarding public expenditure. The bald facts, which the social services Select Committee implicitly recognised, are that the cost to the economy and to the taxpayer has risen by 20 per cent. since 1978–79. It is true that increases in National Health Service pay and prices have risen faster than prices in the economy generally, and that after allowing for this the inverse is somewhat lower. But the important measures are what the taxpayer puts in—20 per cent. more in real terms since 1978–79—and what the service delivers in terms of patient care, about which I have given the figures.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and the right reverend Prelate both spoke about SERPS and private pensions. I welcome my noble friend's recognition of the problem with SERPS and the question of the future cost. That is why we propose changes. We are aware of and will take full account of the concerns expressed about the pension prospects of groups who are specially favoured by the present scheme. Our final proposals for pensions will be in the White Paper that we shall be publishing very soon.
One of the major objectives of change is to increase the number of people getting a pension from their job. At present nearly half the workforce is without cover of an occupational scheme of any kind. Around 11 million people are in schemes, but more than 9 million are not. That position has remained more or less static for the past 20 years. It is a central aim of this Government's policy that that situation should be improved.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and the noble Lords, Lord Rea and Lord Winstanley, all asked about vaccine damage payments. The new increase to £20,000 is not retrospective. While we accept that the £10,000 payment has been eroded over time since 1979, to restore its value it would need to be about £ 17,000. We took the power to increase the amount in the new Social Security Act to £20,000, ahead of inflation, for new claims made on or after the announcement of the increase on 18th June. That seemed to us to be the fairest way of proceeding. We could not include those claims which were in the

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pipeline before 18th June. Some of them go back over many years and have still not been settled, mostly because various people have been trying to help the claimants concerned. Every time they have tried to help, the process has started from scratch again. Therefore it would have been very unfair to give the increase to some but not to others, and we took our decision on that matter in the fairest way that we could.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter touched on a matter that is very near and dear to my heart as Minister for war pensioners. He spoke about the elderly war widows. This issue has irked me ever since I was appoointed. The situation was not caused by the war pension scheme administered by the DHSS, because the rate of war pension is the same for those widowed before and after 1973. The difference is due to the occupational pension scheme introduced in 1973 by the Ministry of Defence for servicemen and women. It is simply not possible to make retrospective payments under the occupational scheme.
However, the point about elderly widows is heartbreaking to me—especially as I am getting older myself. The older I get, the colder I get, and the more money I shall need to keep me warm. I am trying desperately hard to find a way around the problem. The war pensioners' organisations are well aware of my efforts in this direction. However, I will plough on and hope that I achieve success before I am put out to grass.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said that renal dialysis should be added to supra-regional specialties. If supra-regional specialties are designated by agreement among regional chairmen the essential point is that these specialties are genuinely supra-regional, that they are best provided by one or two centres for the whole country and that money for them is allocated from within the total resources available. Renal dialysis, as the noble Lord knows very well, is more widespread than might justify designating it a supra-regional specialty. We have made clear that renal services are one of the key priorities for service development.
I fear that I will have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, about ward closures in Bloomsbury. With regard to child benefit, which was spoken about by several noble Lords and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, my noble friend Lady Faithfull and the noble Baroness Lady Ewart-Biggs, increases in child benefit cannot be viewed in isolation. Child benefit is, by its nature, expensive. It costs about £4.4 billion in a financial year. There is a need to direct resources effectively, and in determining future levels of child benefit we cannot ignore the need to concentrate resources on those families in greatest need.
The proposed family credit scheme will allow help to be directed to where it is most needed; but as the Green Paper makes clear, we are committed to keeping child benefit as a universal benefit for children, payable primarily to mothers, not means-tested, and tax-free. I think that my noble friend Lady Faithfull has misunderstood the Green Paper. Family credit is not replacing child benefit. It is paid in addition to it. Child benefit will continue to be paid primarily to mothers.
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My noble friend Lady Faithfull referred to staff in local offices, and I welcome her tribute to the staff. I should like to associate myself wholeheartedly with what she said. Staff do get the training supervision they need but many of the present problems stem from the complexity of our present schemes. That is why we want to reform the service.
As regards counselling services, when they come in we shall have specially trained staff to administer the social fund and we will be encouraging social links between officers and social workers. I must write to my noble friend Lady Faithfull with regard to social fund loans, because the answer is too long. The same applies to her question about implementation of the Acheson and Court Reports.
The noble Lord, Lord Bottomley, spoke about private medicine, and so on. He made two points about privatisation and private medicine. He said, first, that the Government saw privatisation as a way of reducing the cost of the NHS. That is not so. Our policy is one of competitive tendering to achieve the most cost-effective support services whether provided in-house or by a contractor. The savings made make a valuable contribution to the resources available for patient care. They do not reduce the cost of the service. Savings from tendering so far are expected to yield £28 million in a full year and still some 85 per cent. of services are to go to tender. That money can be used to improve patient care.
Secondly, the noble Lord suggested that private medicine is somehow detracting from the NHS. I do not agree. We are committed to the NHS as the backbone of the nation's health care but we recognise the important complementary contribution that the private sector can make to the totality of health care in this country.
The noble Lord, Lord Lovell-Davis, spoke about the Government's sense of unreality. I fear that his speech left me with a similar sense. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, suggested that the views of some managers in the health service were not reaching Ministers. I can assure the noble Lord that we and our officials keep in touch as closely as possible with views in the health service. For every example I hear of a manager carping about lack of resources and opportunity in the health service, I hear very many more from those who see great opportunities and challenges in the health service today. I must reassure the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that we have the highest sense of priority about the elderly and all those other people who need care and about whom he spoke.
The noble Countess, Lady Mar, raised the question of patients in rural areas being removed from their doctor's dispensing list, and she suggested that FPCs are dealing harshly with patients living on the limit—the one mile Clothier rule. She has also suggested that the rule of serious difficulty should be interpreted more liberally. I listened with great interest and some concern to her comments, but I am bound to say that I am afraid I cannot actually give her the answers this evening, so I shall write to her.
In a wide-ranging speech the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, had too many points for me to answer now and I shall write to her. However, in answer to her question about annual reports from hospital kitchens

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(I think I am right in saying that she asked me that question), my right honourable friend in another place liked her idea, but so far as I know no firm plans are yet in hand. I shall be happy to answer some more of her questions; really, it is up to your Lordships. I shall write to her, and I fear that the same answer applies to my noble friend Lady Macleod.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, in his refreshing and on the whole highly palatable speech, touched on the social security system. The single, most effective way of removing uncertainty among claimants and staff alike is to simplify the social security system, and that is precisely at what our proposals for reform are aimed.
I am very conscious that I have only touched on this debate. It would have been very difficult for me to do otherwise. I am also conscious of the fact that work in the health service is carried out not just by the staff about whom we have been talking; it is also carried out by other people whose work is largely unrecognised. I hope it will not be taken amiss if I mention in particular a service which rarely obtains public recognition, and that is the ambulance service. Behind the scenes, in central posts and training schools, as well as on the road, it is staffed by conscientious men and women, many of whom are now training in highly sophisticated resuscitation techniques, so that they can help to improve even further the quality of care available to the people in this country.
Of course there are many others whom we have not mentioned and I feel badly about that; but I hope that they realise that they are appreciated in every way by the whole of the country wherever their care is needed by members of the public. Not for a moment would I pretend that our health service and social security systems are perfect. We do not live in a perfect world. I recognise the genuine concern expressed by your Lordships today in the debate. The complexities and difficulties in the way in which social security operates are a prime reason why we are undertaking such a thorough review, and much remains to be done in the health service. Under this Government we have secured some major improvements and more are on the way. The Government are proud of their record and the people of this country have services which they value greatly. We shall ensure that the progress continues.
9.44 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will be delighted to know that I shall be extremely brief. I want, first, to thank all those who have taken part in this wide-ranging debate and especially to thank the noble Baroness for the large number of questions that she answered. I am one of her greatest fans. I think that she is absolutely marvellous. She is marvellous when she answers questions and she is marvellous when she does not. It was typical of her charm to send me flowers when I was in hospital, and her little note, "Get better slowly", was perhaps typical of her sense of humour! I wish to thank her. I am running a campaign for "Trumpers for Secretary of State". I hope that many noble Lords on all sides of the House will wish to join me.
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To be serious, it might have been preferable to have had a narrower Motion. As has been shown, there was a case for a debate on the health service alone, and also on social security. We chose social security and health as this was the last opportunity for this House to express its views to Ministers before the White Paper is published. I was quite delighted that the noble Baroness said that the points that had been made—and made forcefully—would be taken into consideration. In spite of the difficulty, it was worth while having this particular Motion.
Having thanked everyone for taking part, I make this last point. In the final operation of producing the White Paper, and after that the Bill, I ask the noble Baroness and her right honourable friend to seek consensus. They should try to ensure that, at the end of the day when the Bill has gone through another place and through this House, we have agreement and are not kicking around pensioners, disabled people, single parent mothers and all the other disadvantaged people in society. If we cannot achieve consensus, there is something wrong with all of us. I am certain that on all sides of the House we want to achieve it.
With those words, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes before ten o'clock.

  PRISONERS' DIET: CHANGES
  PRISONERS' DIET: CHANGES
  CRIMES OF VIOLENCE: PRISON SENTENCES SERVED
  CRIMES OF VIOLENCE: PRISON SENTENCES SERVED
  ANIMALS: CONTROL OF SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURES
  ANIMALS: CONTROL OF SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURES
  BIRMINGHAM PUBLIC HOUSE BOMBINGS
  BIRMINGHAM PUBLIC HOUSE BOMBINGS
  SCOTCH WHISKY: KOREAN IMPORT RESTRICTIONS
  SCOTCH WHISKY: KOREAN IMPORT RESTRICTIONS
  COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURE MINISTERS: BRUSSELS MEETING
  COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURE MINISTERS: BRUSSELS MEETING
  NORTHERN IRELAND: PLASTIC BULLETS AND DAMAGES CLAIMS
  NORTHERN IRELAND: PLASTIC BULLETS AND DAMAGES CLAIMS