Sitting of 25 April 1986

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

  Social Security Reform
  9.35 am
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: I beg to ask leave to present a petition on behalf of over 5,000 residents of Glasgow, mostly of the Hillhead division. The petition states:
  legislation based on the 'Reform of Social Security—Programme for Action' White Paper would be extremely detrimental to the residents of the United Kingdom who are in receipt of Social Security benefits. Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House do not pass legislation arising out of the Reform of Social Security White Paper. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray etc.
  To lie upon the Table.
  9.36 am
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: I beg leave formally to present a petition on behalf of some 60,000 of my constituents. Because I want it to be formally incorporated into the proceedings of the House, I shall ask the Clerk to read the body of the petition.
  THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE read the petition, which was as follows:
  To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
  The humble petition of the residents of the villages of Fulbeck, Leadenham, Caythorpe, Brant Broughton, Brandon, Stubton, Fenton, Beckingham, Stragglethorpe, and other places in the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham.
  Sheweth that your petitioners are wholly opposed to the proposal announced by Nirex to consider Fulbeck airfield as a possible site for the disposal of nuclear waste material; that your petitioners are also opposed to Nirex carrying out exploratory works at Fulbeck airfield; that your petitioners do not believe that burial in shallow trenches is a proper or safe way of disposing of intermediate nuclear waste material. Also that your petitioners do not accept that the geology or hydrology to be found at Fulbeck airfield are such as to make safe burial of short life intermediate nuclear waste material possible. Further, your petitioners assert that the roads in the area are inadequate for the safe transport of radioactive material. Your petitioners are also concerned by the proximity of dwelling houses to the proposed site and the impact upon their value of the proposal announced by Nirex.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House shall not approve any order which would cause or allow Nirex to carry out any works whatsoever at Fulbeck airfield.
  And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day

  Obscene Publications (Protection of Children, etc.) (Amendment) Bill
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Ms. Clare Short: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to object, to and to ask you to reconsider, your selection for today. You have not selected my new clause that seeks to amend the Bill, and I do not think that the reasons that I have heard are reasonable ones.
  My attempt to amend the Bill arose from the provisions of the Bill as put before the House on Second Reading, which included, for example, a list of visual images that were to be accounted obscene. I was not on the Committee, so my next chance to amend the Bill arises on Report, but a new clause related to the Bill as originally drafted is not to be accepted for discussion. There is enormous public feeling about this matter. When there is strong feeling outside that there should be some change in the law, but the matter cannot be discussed in the House, the House is brought into disrepute.
  Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Lady.
  I have explained to her why I could not accept her new clause. As she knows, her amendment is starred and was tabled only yesterday. The Bill was reported more than 10 days ago and it is not normally my practice to select starred amendments. It is quite in order for the hon. Lady to advance her arguments during the debate on the amendments on the Order Paper that have been selected.

Clause 1

  ACT TO APPLY TO TELEVISION AND SOUND BROADCASTING
  9.41 am
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 6 at end insert:
  'Provided that nothing in Section 1 shall be construed as affecting the responsibilities of the Governors of the BBC, or the duties of the members of the Independent Broadcasting Authority under the Broadcasting Act 1981 or of the cable authority under the Cable and Broadcasting Act 1984'.
  I would never dream of questioning in any way either the decisions of the House or the decisions that are taken by you, Mr. Speaker, on its behalf. You are a remarkable Speaker, by whom the House is extremely well served. The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) illustrates some of the difficulties that we faced during the passage of the Bill.
  When the Bill first came before the House I believed that there would be a fairly balanced examination, not just of the implications of changing the law to put extra restrictions on the broadcasting of material or on the display of indecent magazines, but at least, in a fairly responsible way, of the problems that any legislature faces when it is legislating for a society that changes its measure of moral interpretation over the years and which alters its attitude. In legislating, we must remain both reasonable and acceptable to the great bulk of the people.

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  The Bill has not been conceived or examined in that light or in that manner. From the beginning we have seen a demonstration of a number of strongly held prejudices. We have heard from many hon. Members that the need to take action on certain services such as broadcasting arose because of great abuses and out of the difficulties that are faced day by day by ordinary families seeking to protect themselves, and especially their children, from obscene material. If that is so, there is a great responsibility on the House to produce evidence and not just to say, "I am offended by some of the things I see and I would not want my children to see them."
  We need to produce hard, detailed evidence and such evidence has been sadly lacking, especially in relation to the broadcasting authorities, from the time that we started to look at this legislation. We have had demonstrations of items to which hon. Members have objected, but there is always a danger in Members waxing eloquently and indignantly about broadcasting. To start with, very few hon. Members see much television. If we asked hon. Members how many hours of broadcasting or even narrowcasting they saw in a month, they would find great difficulty in demonstrating that they had seen anything like one hundredth of the material that is normally seen by our constituents.
  Mr. Tim Brinton: The hon. Lady speaks about the difficulty hon. Members have in seeing much television. Because of the hours that we work, that is right, but is there not the other difficulty exhibited in the Bill that all we have seen are the two main offenders in the eyes of the supporters of this Bill—the worst extracts of two films that went out at midnight on Channel 4?
  9.45 am
  Mrs. Dunwoody: The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point, and it underlines what worries me. On Second Reading we heard constantly about two programmes and some hon. Members have since watched extracts from them. I certainly did not see the whole of one film because I was bored by it and turned it off. Before we change legislation that covers our broadcasting authorities, we have to be sure not only that we have a reason to do so, but that we can demonstrate that those broadcasting authorities are not fulfilling their duties and are not carrying out the tasks set for them after considerable care and examination by the House. We have arrived at this point in Third Reading without that ever having been demonstrated.
  We had a most interesting and unique Committee stage and we went forwards and backwards putting little changes into the Bill. As a result, the Bill that we are now debating bears little resemblance to the one that we debated on Second Reading. It is the function of the House to change legislation for the better, but to change the inadequate for the inadequate is extraordinary. The amendment seeks to make it clear that we will look at the existing legislation and accept that both the BBC and the IBA have their duties clearly laid out in existing legislation. So far, we have not demonstrated that those authorities are not doing the job that they are meant to do. That is the most important point.
  This may be the moment for me to say somehing about matters that have worried me for some time. There is a concerted attempt on the part of a quite small pressure
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  lobby to change a great deal of the legislation on the basis of that lobby's prejudices. That is quite legitimate and I have no objection to it, as long as the House is perfectly well aware of the fact that it is being pressured. I often ask myself if we are not changing the whole climate in which we examine broadcast material. I am not at all sure who the members of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association are, but I am sure that they are all upstanding and noble people. Whoever they are, they have been behind a concerted attempt through this legislation to change the attitude of the House towards the broadcasting authorities.[Interruption.] I am happy to have that confirmed by hon. Gentlemen on the Government side, but they cannot demonstrate that the broadcasting authorities are not doing what they are supposed to do.
  Where is the evidence of inadequate broadcasting control? We have gone through the whole Committee stage and I have seen no such evidence. Where are the names? In Committee I asked for hard evidence of these great obscenities eternally pumped out by both broadcasting authorities, and I was handed a most bizarre and amusing list containing adjectives that are common on most shop floors in Britain. The temptation to read it into the record was quite strong, but I resisted that temptation because it is about time that the House grew up in its attitude to important control. We are not here to write on to the statute book our own moral hang-ups; we are here to frame legislation that is sensible and balanced.
  Mr. William Cash: Will the hon. Lady accept that in an article written by Michael Winner he says:
  "Few doubted that Channel 4's screening of 'Sebastiane' was an error."
  He says exactly the opposite of the hon. Lady.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I have the honour to know Mr. Michael Winner extremely well.
  Mr. Brinton: Not too well.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I know him very well. One of my few criticisms of him is that he is a Conservative, but he will grow out of that eventually. I am pleased that he has been quoted, because "Sebastiane" was the only film, apart from "Jubilee", that was quoted throughout the passage of the Bill. It was shown very late at night and it illustrates the point I am making. We are proposing to change the entire responsibilities of the broadcasting authorities because two films upset some Members of Parliament.
  I am talking about something that is very important. Broadcasting authorities that fulfil their duties must be prepared to produce guidelines that they stick to and that grade material throughout a 24-hour period. After all, we are often talking about more than 18 hours of broadcasting per day. The authorities must try to programme so that the majority of people can enjoy the material. But today we seem to be saying that, no matter what time of the day or night the material is broadcast, it must be acceptable to children, because some children are up at midnight or even after that. On that basis, it does not matter what sort of material adults wish to see, as long as there is any possibility that one inadequate parent allows his child to stay up later than is normal for children. Apparently, if that happens we must change the law to protect that child. That is an exceedingly odd argument.

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  The other argument used by Conservative Members is that one need not even be present if a video recorder is used, and so long as the material broadcast is capable of being recorded and played back, it must conform with a viewing association's view of what constitutes adult material. That is extraordinary and very disquieting. It represents direct censorship of any material other than that which is suitable for showing to a small child.
  Mr. Jerry Hayes rose—
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I give way to our own Jack in the box.
  Mr. Hayes: I find myself in the embarrassing position of entirely agreeing with what the hon. Lady says—
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Sit down; I can't bear it.
  Mr. Hayes: I am sure that I will eventually grow out of it. But the position is even worse than the hon. Lady has described. Although the Bill was introduced with the best of intentions, it has tried to solve the problem by invoking one of the worst pieces of legislation to be on the statute book. That legislation is wholly discredited and unworkable and is universally accepted as such. I refer to the Obscene Publications Act.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I might have got a round to that point, if the hon. Gentleman had given me the opportunity to do so. But it is important to consider how the IBA and the BBC operate. I do not have the greatest admiration for the judgment of journalists. Indeed, I believe it to be sadly lacking on most important issues. However, before we change the law, we should be clear about what happens now. I shall tell hon. Members what the IBA says, because unlike the BBC, it has gone to great trouble to ensure that we have a clear statement of its viewing policy. The IBA's statement is quite helpful, because it says things that amount to self-censorship being operated before the material is broadcast.
  It is the IBA's aim not to broadcast material that is unsuitable for children at times when large numbers of children are viewing. The full text of the IBA's viewing policy, which forms part of the guidelines, makes it clear that the IBA believes that family viewing policy means that programmes are scheduled carefully throughout the evening to take account of the changing proportion of children and adult viewers and the responsibilities that parents should exercise as the evening progresses. The IBA also points out that that policy would be seriously prejudiced by the Bill.
  If the Bill was enacted, all programmes would have to be suitable for children, as it makes no distinction between viewing at different times of the day or night. The IBA points out that it is required to make value judgments at every level. If programmes go out for 18 hours a day, some programmes will obviously anger individual hon. Members. The sort of objections that I might make would probably be quite different from the objections of others hon. Members, who seem more concerned about sex.
  In am most concerned about violence and the constant conditioning that goes on. Some Conservative Members seems to find that perfectly acceptable, because the violence is shown in a sanitised American way that gives the impression that people can be thrown around the screen, that cars can be driven 18 times through any crash and that automatic weapons can be used with the victims being able to get up and walk away. As a good trade
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  unionist I might see some reason for producing constant work for stuntmen, but that would be the only justification for many of those television programmes.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Does not my hon. Friend's point go even further than that? Sometimes the portrayal of violence in an extremely shocking and revolting way, such as occurred—here I do not disagree with Conservative Members—in parts of "Jubilee" can sometimes have a far less damaging effect on those watching just because it produces revulsion, than the sanitised violence to which she has referred.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Hon. Members talk about violence, but not about the programmes that go out week after week that somehow give the impression that it is all right to knock someone six foot in the air and for him to break a bone.
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments that the hon. Lady has just expressed. But what steps does she believe should be taken, as clearly present arrangements are not working very well?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: The broadcasting authorities have guidelines. The IBA clearly sets out what is regarded as an offence to good taste and decency, and what is regarded as a portrayal of violence. But how often have Conservative Members objected to programmes such as "The A-Team" which come out every week? How often do they bother to sit down to write to the directors of the various companies saying that the implications of a programme are extraordinarily violent and amoral, because they suggest to young people that certain things are acceptable as long as the stuntman eventually gets up without any blood being split or obvious damage?
  Such programmes are deadening. They alienate people over a long period of time, then they become the norm, and people think that that is really what happens. If we change the legislation in this way, that will not be affected—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members agree with me, they should tell me why they are seeking to change the law in such an inadequate way.
  Mr. Robert Key: Will the hon. Lady answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith)? She says that programmes such as "The A-Team" become acceptable. That is our argument in favour of the Bill. What does she think should be done?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: With the greatest respect, that is not the hon. Gentleman's argument for the Bill. There was never any suggestion that the Bill was aimed at such programmes. When we asked what he intended to do about the constant drip drip of violence, we were told that that was acceptable, because it was, in effect, sanitised. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for, Ladywood has had to table amendments to the Bill because she feels that it has created a moral ambience that exploits women or that produces an atmosphere in which females are somehow only part of the sex fantasies of middle-aged men.
  Mr. Chris Smith: In response to the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), will not my hon. Friend say that the extension of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 to cover radio broadcasting and television will not do anything to meet the problem caused by the constant drip, drip of

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  violence witnessed in "The A-Team" and other programmes? There is no way in which one could say that such programmes tend to deprave and corrupt those watching them, within the terms of the law as it is understood.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: My hon. Friend has described the real position. Some of us remember the absurdity of the trials under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, the numbers of people who were called as experts, the extreme cost and length of the trials which took place—only to prove, in the final analysis, that human beings are much more difficult to corrupt by sex than we had ever thought.
  It is clear from the IBA code exactly what matters the authority considers to be important. There is a whole section, for example, on presentation and the young and vulnerable which I believe is very sensible. It is important that we should allow the IBA to exercise its role in a responsible and adequate manner.
  10 am
  The BBC has similar controls imposed upon it. If there is consistent evidence of failure on the part of those authorities, individual Members should be bringing those matters to the authorities' attention all the time.
  Ms. Clare Short rose—
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Hon. Members should not come to the House claiming that individual films are offensive and that therefore we must change the way the authorities operate.
  Ms. Short: I agree with my hon. Friend that there is no problem about obscene sexual material appearing on television. I did not see the two films which so upset Conservative Members. However, I believe that the drip, drip of sanitised violence makes that violence normal and shapes children's thinking and attitudes to violence. Can we not deal with that problem by considering the guidelines, and should we not consider amending them to require the BBC and the IBA to minimise the number of programmes showing repetitive and sanitised violence? Should we not be seeking that reform?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: There are a number of ways in which we could bring pressure to bear on the broadcasting authorities. It is perfectly possible to do that and I believe that there is already a great deal of self-censorship not only on sex and violence but also, I am sorry to say, about politics. There have been occasions during the past three years when the evidence has shown that the broadcasting authorities, faced with a programme which they believe might be politically sensitive, imposed self-censorship. Often it was only the reaction of the workers within the organisations which caused the material to be shown.
  We do not need to change the law; we simply need to change the way in which we proceed. That is the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) was making very clearly.
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Would the hon. Lady apprecciate that the drip, drip aspect of violence is not disputed but that many people are absolutely fed up with pious thoughts and no action? The measures suggested in the Bill are a way for those who are in despair over inaction in the face of pious thoughts, to have recourse to action themselves.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: The difficulty about that argument is that we should not deal with futility by doing something that is even more futile. That would happen under the Bill as it stands. Frankly, that has been my objection to this nonsense from the beginning.
  I care about children and pornography. The suggestion that somehow or other we should produce a Bill with a grandiose sounding title and put it on to the statute book, is not sufficient. Some people would run a coach and horses through the legislation, and it may be so badly drafted that any lawyer worth his salt could get away with anything he wants. It must be wrong, in the face of that, for an hon. Member to return to his constituency party, self-satisfied and happy on a Friday and say, "I have personally helped with the passage of a new Bill onto the statute book." The fact that that Bill is even more stupid than the previous Bill, does not say much for the intelligence of the House of Commons.
  Mrs. Bottomley: Is that not preferable to returning to one's constituency party and saying, "I have personally prevented the Bill from reaching the statute book?"
  Mrs. Dunwoody: It is a matter of attitude. I think that my constituents send me to the House to frame good, workable and intelligent legislation. If they only send me here in order to make speeches which satisfy my ego, I do not know why I am here. I could go and wait in my bathroom or lavatory and do something more constructive.
  We must make that distinction. We must realise that those who support gesture politics stand a real risk of the rest of the House saying that that is what it is—simply a gesture.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. I apologise for interrupting the hon. Lady, but, we must get back to the amendment. We should be dealing with the responsibilities of the governors.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is a terrible temptation to answer points raised by one's opposite numbers which causes me to stray from the issue under consideration.
  The Obscene Publications Act 1959 will in no way improve or cover the responsibilities of the IBA or the BBC. There are existing powers which ensure that the material that is broadcast can be monitored. I do not believe in control and I believe that the Houses of Parliament get into difficulty when they try to monitor every programme that is broadcast. Many of us remember the 1930s and 1940s and what happens when the State seeks to control the minds and thoughts of people who are responsible for broadcasting material.
  The authorities must be given clear guidelines—and they already have those. They must be told that the guidelines state their responsibilities, and they must be allowed to behave in a way which demonstrates that they understand their responsibilities. Simply quoting two films from the many hundreds of hours of broadcasting does not demonstrate that either of the broadcasting authorities are failing in their duties. That is what horrifies me about the Bill. We have had a discussion redolent of that kind of prejudice without any real evidence or facts.
  The least that we can do is accept the amendment. If we do not accept the amendment, if it is not properly drafted in some way, we should make it clear that the IBA and the BBC at present have adequate machinery to

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  organise their affairs so that they are not offensive to the bulk of the people and to ensure that they can operate without always fearing prosecution by any particular bigot. Perhaps it was unkind of me to say "bigot", although the world is full of eccentrics who see obscenity where ordinary people do not. People with real psychiatric problems should not have the opportunity to prosecute the IBA and the BBC on the basis of something that they thought they saw late at night on a programme.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): I am following the hon. Lady's comments with interest and I believe that she is making an important point. The obligations under the Broadcasting Act 1981 upon the IBA and the governors of the BBC are much tighter than the requirements of the Obscene Publications Act 1959. As the hon. Lady said, it is therefore very important to reassert that those Acts continue to apply. I would like to reassure her that nothing in the Bill, if it is enacted without the hon. Lady's amendment, will in any sense affect the obligations of the IBA and the governors of the BBC to apply a much stricter code than anything that is contained in the 1959 Act.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I am happy to have that reassurance. However, can the Minister also assure me that individual pressure groups will not be able to take action against the broadcasting authorities without proper evidence, by using the Obscene Publications Act? If that happens we will open the door to an extraordinary series of long litigations which will not improve or clarify the existing position but will muddy the waters to such an extent that people will not know what is acceptable and what is not.
  Sir Nicholas Bonsor rose—
  Mr. Mellor: I am sure that my hon. Friend was probably about to make the same point as me, as he is a lawyer. The hon. Lady has again raised an important point about bringing prosecutions; that matter will have to have the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: We can be comforted by the fact that the Director of Public Prosecutions, judging by the speed with which he acted in certain cases in the National Health Service, hardly rushes to respond to pressures. However, hope that that will be sufficient for us.
  I believe that the amendment would help, and I hope that the House will be prepared to accept it.
  I have sat through the passage of the Bill and I am still not clear what was in the mind of the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) when he brought it forward. The flexibility which he has shown in removing and reinstating clauses has made it clear that we are debating a different Bill now from the one which was before the House on Second Reading. The Bill as it stands has a different import from the original measure. At the end of the day it would be absurd if all that came out of our many hours of examination of the matters pertaining to the Bill was a change in the way that the broadcasting authorities operate which would put them more at risk and would not overcome the real problems that have been debated by some of the more sensible Conservative Members.
  If the House passes the Bill in its existing form, we will be into gesture politics with a vengeance. There has been no clear examination of the real difficulties surrounding the portrayal of violence on television. No real effort has been made to ascertain how the Bill will improve and
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  protect children. In debating this mish-mash of nonsense we are giving it weight, responsibility and seriousness that it does not deserve. I hope that the amendment will be accepted, because it will make it clear that we are not inadvertently making major changes without endeavouring to make them responsible and sensible.
  Mr. Churchill: First, I express my gratitude to the members of Standing Committee C for their helpful and constructive approach to the Bill. I have no doubt that the Bill has emerged from Committee significantly improved and I wish to acknowledge that fact. The Bill will fulfil the twin objectives with which I set out, which were to remove the specific exemption that applies uniquely to broadcasting, including television, from the provisions of the 1981 Act, and to make the more explicit sex magazines less accessible to children and young persons.
  This is a modest Bill and I make no extravagant claims for what it would achieve. If enacted, I believe that it would help to protect children at an emotionally vulnerable age. I thank the members of the public who have written in their hundreds, with 9:1 in support of the Bill.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: How many?
  Mr. Churchill: I have received nearly 1,000 letters of support.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has received that number of letters. Perhaps he will tell us how many he received on the Shops Bill? Many of us received nearly 1,000 letters both for and against that Bill.
  Mr. Churchill: I received about 50 letters on the Shops Bill.
  Mrs. Dunwoody rose—
  Mr. Churchill: If the hon. Lady would forgive me—
  Mrs. Dunwoody: No, I would not.
  Ms. Clare ShortThe hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) may be interested when I tell him that I have received 3,452 letters of support for my proposal in new clause 1 and amendment No. 25, and only 30 in opposition to it.
  Mr. Churchill: I shall turn to that issue at a later stage when we deal with other amendments.
  There is a broad measure of support throughout the country for the Bill and for something to be done to pull up the broadcasters and remind them rather more firmly than has been the case in recent years of their responsibilities to Parliament and to the public. There will undoubtedly be deep disappointment and concern—indeed anger—if their wishes are frustrated along with the will of Parliament, which was expressed so clearly on 24 January when the House voted by 5:1 in favour of giving the Bill a Second Reading.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: The House had a different Bill before it on that occasion.
  10.15 am
  Mr. Churchill: There would be that reaction if their wishes were frustrated by only a handful of Members. I hope that that will not happen and that the spirit of friendly and constructive co-operation which prevailed in Committee will be continued.
  Mr. Tim Brinton: Will my hon. Friend tell those people who will be angry if the Bill does not complete its passage through the House exactly what the Bill will do to help them if it is enacted?
  Mr. Churchill rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) responded to that invitation, we would be getting away from the amendment. We must discuss the amendment that is before the House.
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Member for Nantwich and Crewe (Mrs. Dunwoody) claims that the case for the Bill has thus far not been proved. The hon. Lady contends that the case has not been made that broadcasters have failed in self-regulation and suggests that thus far concern has been expressed only about two films—"Jubilee" and "Sebastiane". I hope to make it clear that that is not so and that concern is not restricted to those two films.
  In addressing myself specifically to the amendment, I express strong agreement with the proposition advanced by the hon. Member for Nantwich and Crewe that nothing in clause 1 shall be construed as affecting the responsibility of the governors of the BBC or the members of the IBA. There is nothing in clause 1 that would do that. It should go without saying that the Broadcasting Act 1981 stands in its full vigour and that the Bill is merely a backup measure of last resort that is aimed at ensuring respect for the guidelines and reinforcing the authority of the statutory bodies in upholding them. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has said, the standards of the guidelines enjoin each authority that
  "nothing is included in the programmes which offends against good taste or decency".
  Those standards are far higher than the minimum ones that the Bill aims to guarantee. The fact that the authorities have failed in their duty to uphold such standards should be obvious to all except the most myopic of television viewers.
  The hon. Member for Nantwich and Crewe referred to the films "Jubilee" and "Sebastiane", and I shall quote briefly from the reply of the Director-General of the IBA, Mr. John Whitney, of 27 March when he said, apropos these two films,
  "we had very specifically in mind the statutory requirements of the Broadcasting Act … that nothing should be included in programmes which 'offends against good taste or decency or is likely to encourage or incite to crime or to lead to disorder or to be offensive to public feeling'. It was our considered opinion that neither film would conflict with the Act, provided they were shown late at night and as part of a season of films chosen and introduced by David Robinson, the film critic of 'The Times' … Both were widely shown in public cinemas, and, as you are aware, were at no stage prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act."
  That is extremely relevant because one of the elements in the test of obscenity is to have regard to the audience. I can well understand that neither of the two films in question would be prosecutable if shown to an audience of 18-year-olds plus. However, I wish to draw the attention of the House to a reply of great significance from Mr. Alasdair Milne, the Director-General of the BBC, of 8 April. He told me that for the month of February, the most recent month for which figures are available,
  "the typical number of 4–17 year olds watching television between 11 p.m. and midnight ranges between 0·8 million and 1·8 million depending on the day of the week."
  He added that after midnight to closedown the viewership of those aged between 4 and 17 years is between 8 per
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  cent. and 13 per cent. What would be the fate of a cinema owner who regularly allowed 8 per cent. to 13 per cent. of his audience to be children from the age of 4 to 17 years? He would be prosecuted and his licence would be removed. I do believe—
  Mrs. Dunwoody rose—
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Lady has had her opportunity, but I will give way.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Those who seek to prosecute the cinema owner would have to demonstrate that those children were in the cinema. I would love to know where the BBC got the figures from.
  Mr. Churchill: The figures come from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. Both the IBA and the BBC draw their figures from that organisation.
  There are between 800,000 to 1·8 million children watching the many X-rated films which go out. Mr. Alasdair Milne made it clear that, in the course of last year, there were no fewer than 62 X-rated films broadcast on the BBC alone. That is a significant figure.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that at no point in the 24 hours will it be possible for anyone to show any material which is not acceptable to children?
  Mr. Churchill: What I am questioning and what millions of parents of small children and teenage children question is whether a broadcasting authority has the right—
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Parents have a right. There is a switch on the television—on-off.
  Mr. Churchill:—in defiance of its statutory obligations to broadcast material which would be held to deprave and corrupt young people, when those films are available to adult-only cinemas.
  Mr. Hayes: I understand my hon. Friend's point. I was horrified to learn that so many 14-year-olds are watching television at that time of night. Surely my hon. Friend must accept that it is most hypocritical for parents who have allowed their children to watch these sort of films to write and ask for legislation. The most worrying aspect is the lack of parental control.
  Mr. Churchill: It may be fine to talk of parental control in the cosy Hampstead garden suburb in which the broadcasting apparatchik may reside with their nannies or au pairs to look after their children. However, in the type of area which I and many other hon. Members represent—industrial Britain—there are tens of thousands of families per constituency, single-parent families, families where the parents are shift workers, where no one is left at home to regulate the children's viewing. The figures produced by the BBC reveal that there are up to 1·8 million children who watch television up to midnight.
  The idea that anything goes after 9 pm is a fraud and can no longer be used as justification by the broadcasting authorities. This week has been the horrifying case of a four-year-old girl who was raped by two 11-year-old boys.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Do not start on that.
  Mr. Churchill: Where do 11–year-olds get the idea of committing such a crime if it is not from either pornographic magazines or from a diet of sex and violence thrust on them in their homes by television?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Demonstrate the evidence.
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Lady asks for evidence. I mention a letter I received from someone in Leicestershirewho writes:
  "At about 10.45 am on 20 February I tuned in to Central TV, to watch the School's programme."—
  I stress school's programme—
  "The programme was one of a series called 'Starting Out'. Two youngsters take Y.T.S. jobs at an hotel, the lad in the kitchens and the girl as a chambermaid … The girl gets plied with drink by the manager and before long we are shown her in bed in the hotel and the manager has come naked and completely uninvited into her bed and we are shown him raping her. The scene is quite explicit."
  That is a school programme which goes out at 10.45 am on Saturday morning.
  Another parent from Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, wrote to the editor of the TV Times and said:
  "During the children's school holiday,. I turned on the TV at 10.45 am to see if there was anything suitable for my small children and heard: 'I expect he just wants to get into your knickers.
  Another letter on the same televison programme states:
  "We are not embarrassed: we are horrified that any school children are so exploited and subjected to such verbal muck."
  That is what the broadcasters are allowed to put out on schools programmes. The broadcasters smugly ask for the link to be proved between violence and sex on television and what is happening in the country.
  Broadcasters proclaim that this medium is the most powerful medium in the world for communication and for putting over ideas. If a television company is a commercial one it will try to sell a few minutes viewing time for thousands of pounds due to the viewing power of the medium.
  A letter published in the Lancet on 22 March offers a link between a programme and the results of that programme. The letter was written by two doctors of the department of medicine at Hackney hospital and it states:
  "On Sunday, March 2, the Omnibus edition of the BBC Television's soap opera Eastenders showed the character Angie taking an overdose. In the following week we experienced a 300 per cent. increase in the number of patients attending the accident-and-emergency department at the Hackney Hospital in East London for deliberate overdose … In the week after the Eastenders programme 22 patients attended the accident-andemergency department having taken an overdose. During the previous 10 weeks the average had been 6·9. During the previous 10 to years the average … was 6·7."
  Sue Bishop of Birmingham's Sunday Mercury said:
  "Shocking new evidence of the 'copycat' link between television violence and real life tragedies has been revealed by doctors in the Midlands. They say that during the week after the overdose drama in 'Eastenders' attempted suicide cases at their hospital almost DOUBLED. In one week more than 40 people were admitted after taking an overdose of drugs like Angie Watts in the BBC soap opera … And their message to viewers 'For heaven's sake don't copy what you see on television. Angie may have survived—but you could die'."
  I think the link is incontrovertible.
  Mr. Alfred Dubs: I understand what the hon. Gentleman has said and it is regrettable if there was such a sequence of events. Is he suggesting that if the Bill were to become law, sequences as that drug-taking sequence in "Eastenders" would no longer be possible? I suggest that the Bill would do nothing about it.
  Mr. Churchill: I was answering the point made by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich who suggested that the broadcasting authorities are living up to their responsibilities. I do not believe that they are and I think
  580
  this is clear evidence that they are not. That sequence was directly contrary to the BBC's guidelines for its programme producers.
  Sir Nicholas BonsorMy hon. Friend has demonstrated the link between what is happening on television and people's behaviour. On exactly the same principle, violence is copied.
  Mr. Churchill: There is no question about that. When I asked my local chief superintendent whether there was evidence of the public perpetrating copy cat crimes, he said, "You should see some of my constables. They think that they are Starsky and Hutch, whereas a few years ago—
  Mr. Dubs: It would have been Dixon of Dock Green.
  Mr. Churchill: Indeed, it would have been Dixon of Dock Green.
  10.30 am
  The governing bodies should take their responsibilities more seriously and get a firmer grip on what is broadcast before further damage is done. Amendment No. 1 is defective in two respects. First, the cable authority is outside the Bill's scope. Cable programmes are subject to a separate offence of obscenity, to be found in section 25 of the Cable and Broadcasting Act 1984. In any event, that section bites on the providers of cable services, not on the Cable Authority which, unlike the broadcasting authorities, is not responsible for the content of programmes distributed by cable systems.
  Secondly, the amendment omits to mention members of the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority, who are responsible for all programmes shown on that channel. In any case, the amendment is unnecessary. The duties and responsibilities of broadcasters are clearly laid down in the royal charter of the BBC and in the licensing and agreement with the Government. They are also set out with respect to the IBA and the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority in the Broadcasting Act 1981. Nothing ir the Bill bears on their existing responsibilities. The existing requirement, which is to put out nothing which offends against good taste, will continue to be the test and nothing in the Bill implies otherwise. I must therefore ask the House to reject the amendment.
  Mr. Ian Mikardo: My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) was diverted from her case a little by interventions from Conservative Members, notably the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley), on violence being shown on television. There is a good deal to be said on that subject. I had hoped that this would have been a decent Bill setting out standards, but I regret to say that it is not. If we have a decent Bill, we may do something about the violence on television.
  I sat through the Second Reading and the whole of the Committee stage. There has been no sign from the Bill's sponsors that they see a reduction of the showing of violence on our screens as any part of their purpose. It has been sex, sex, sex, and nothing but sex.
  Mr. Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that,, since 1982, the courts have included violence in the definition of obscenity so that, when applying the Bill to television, we are applying standards of obscenity which include violence? If he accepts that, does he accept that the Bill is necessary?
  Mr. Mikardo: I do not accept that because the definition of obscenity is so blurred—we had this over and again in Committee—that nobody can say what it includes and what it does not. I can only go on the speeches that were made in Committee and on Second Reading. They were all about sex. Conservative Members kept on about "Sebastiane" and "Jubilee". I did not hear anything in Committee, although it has just been mentioned lightheartedly, about "Starsky and Hutch", "The Professionals" or any other programme that shows violence. It was clear throughout the Committee stage that the sponsors are obsessed about sex and that that is what the Bill is all about.
  Mr. Churchill: I must remind the hon. Gentleman of what I and others said about "Jubilee" on Second Reading and in Committee. Although there was offensive language and an offensive portrayal of sex, the burden of the complaint from both sides of the House was its vicious cruelty and violence.
  Mr. Mikardo: If I were looking for examples of violence, I would not have thought that "Jubilee" was a number one runner. It was so interestng to the hon. Member and others only because it links violence and sex.
  Much emphasis has been put on copycat behaviour. Any senior police officer will confirm that newscasts most induce copycat behaviour. Do those who support the Bill propose that a horrendous rape should not be reported? According to the police, the greatest copycat influence comes from news reporting. A lot more people, especially young people, see "News at Ten" or the BBC's 6 pm news than ever saw "Sebastiane" or "Jubilee". Hon. Members must be careful when carrying their argument through to what, on the face of it, appears a logical conclusion, but which is nonsense.
  I support my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich because her amendment deals with one of the things that has become apparent during debates on the Bill—the principal motivation of the Bill's sponsors is a crude and massive prejudice against the BBC and the IBA. The hem of their skirt shows all of the time. To judge from behaviour on one occasion, to which I shall refer on a later amendment, there are some Conservative Members who prefer the standards of The Sun to those of the BBC and the IBA. That is not much of a tribute to their standards or their sense of morality.
  As it has come up again today, and doubtless will do so again, I want to try to dispose once and for all all of Conservative Members' obsession with "Sebastiane" and "Jubilee". I did not see "Jubilee", but I saw "Sebastiane". It had no tendency to deprave and corrupt.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: It sent me to sleep.
  Mr. Mikardo: It had a very strong tendency to bore me out of my mind. I object powerfully on two grounds to "Sebastiane" being shown. The first is that it was so boring and slow. Everything took such a long time. It took ages for anything to happen. I have always thought that those who engage in depravity are pretty sharp, alert and quick about it, but everything that happened in "Sebastiane" took ages and was very boring.
  Secondly, I objected to the fact that the characters spoke their Latin with an accent different from that which the Romans used.
  Mr. Mellor: Was the hon. Gentleman there?
  Mr. Mikardo: That is a fair question, as a giggle across the Floor of the House. I am nearly as old as that, but not quite. We now know, by research, how the Romans pronounced their Latin. They did not pronounce it in the Italianate way that was used by the characters in "Sebastiane". I believe, therefore, that the BBC ought not to have shown it. I agree with Mr. Winner, with whom I crossed swords on one occasion on "Any Questions", about that.
  The two groups of television authorities produce between them in excess of 30,000 hours of programmes a year. If we accept that those two films were an error of judgment, they represent a one hundredth part of 1 per cent. of the annual output of the BBC and the IBA contractors. All mortals are fallible. I wonder how many hon. Members could put their hands on their hearts and swear that during their activities both inside this House and outside it the clangers they have dropped amount only to a one hundredth part of 1 per cent. of those activities. If shackles are to be placed on the broadcasting authorities because we consider that they are unfit to do their jobs, perhaps we ought to consider whether we are fit to be Members of Parliament, because the clangers that we drop during our activities amount to more than a one hundredth part of 1 per cent.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich said that one will get what she, with here customary charitableness, called eccentrics taking up prosecutions. I say to the Minister, because he intervened on this point, that I am not altogether consoled by the fact that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions is required. In recent years there has been a good deal of evidence that the Director of Public Prosecutions is highly selective about the speed with which he tackles different kinds of breaches of the law.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: There was a great scandal about the sale of blood by the National Health Service to private sources, and I put down questions over a period of 17 months before any action was taken. When I asked why it had taken so long, I was told that the investigations had been complicated. However, other investigations are completed with astonishing speed.
  10.45 am
  Mr. Mikardo: My hon. Friend quotes a particularly graphic example. One would have to carry out only a few hours of research to find another dozen examples like it. Therefore I am not altogether consoled by what the Minister said on that point.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich said, this is not the Bill that was discussed on Second Reading. This is the fourth Bill. There was the original Bill upon which we voted. Then the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) produced a mark 2 version, which he then abandoned for his mark 3 version. After that he abandoned his mark 3 version for this Bill. As this Bill is different from that which we discussed on Seond Reading, we do not know for certain that the Bill as it now stands would have received a Second Reading. The hon. Gentleman quoted with pride his big majority at Second Reading. However, he does not know whether he would have obtained that kind of majority for this Bill. The hon. Gentleman's Bill contained matters that were so hair raising that it resulted in certain hon. Members salivating

  583
  with recollection and in many votes being cast for his Bill that he would not have gained had it been this rather cold fish of a Bill.
  Mr. Cash: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the amendments that have been moved and accepted and that now form part of this Bill might in some respects have been regarded as beyond the scope of the original Bill?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for the hon. Member.
  Mr. Mikardo: As you are aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that is not a point of order. It is not relevant to the points that I was making. If the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) gained some satisfaction out of making his intervention, I wish him joy of it, but I do not have to take any notice of it.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich is right to seek to ensure that we do not place further unreasonable shackles upon the broadcasting authorities. They go to great lengths to try to meet public opinion. Of course they will make mistakes once in a while, but nobody can charge them with showing indifference to the problems that we are discussing, and it would be wrong to seek to shackle them further.
  Mr. Mellor: As the House knows from other interventions that I have made at other stages of the Bill, the Government are neutral on the proposition as to whether broadcasters should be made subject to the Obscene Publications Act 1959 or whether the exemption that they have always enjoyed should be continued. That remains the Government's view.
  However, I make what I hope are a few helpful points about the amendment. It is apparent from the discussions so far that, with the possible exception of the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo), all those who have spoken or intervened have been at pains to point out that the guidelines that apply to both the IBA and the BBC are, in their terms, far tighter than anything that is prescribed in the 1959 Act. Most of them have either explicitly or impliedly indicated some dissatisfaction with the manner in which the guidelines are enforced by the broadcasting authorities. That is a matter for them. It is not a matter for me. However, I hope that the broadcasters will take seriously hon. Members' comments and some of the examples that they have given. There will be an opportunity for them to do so during the reconsideration of the BBC's guidelines that is being undertaken by a committee that is chaired by Mr. Wyatt.
  Always at the heart of the issue has been the question whether the imposition of a long stop—nobody can assert that the 1959 Act would be any better than a long stop—would have the effect of toning up the system or, as some have contended, whether it would have the effect of placing even less emphasis upon the significance of the guidelines than is already the case. That is not a matter that I want to go into in detail, because it has been covered in the general issues. However, if the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) is concerned that the requirements under the BBC charter or the requirements that weigh on the IBA under the Broadcasting Act would be ousted by the Bill if it were to become law, I hasten to reassure her, as I tried to do in my
  584
  intervention, that that would not be so. I hope that nothing that anyone has said is intended to do other than reinforce the duties of the broadcasters, which they clearly owe to Parliament, to observe the arrangements made under the charter and the Broadcasting Act.
  If that were the case I could well understand that the hon. Lady might say, "Well why not make the declaratory statement?" That is effectively what her amendment suggests. I would have no objection to that although it is not in the end entirely a matter for me. The trouble is that the amendment is defective—I make no complaint of that—in two material particulars. First, it makes no reference to the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority, although that is an oversight that I can well understand because one does not necessarily think of that authority as much as the BBC. I see the hon. Lady hiding her face in shame, but she need not do so because there are no Welsh Nationalists here today.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: We are all Welsh Nationalists.
  Mr. Mellor: One stood in Putney at the previous general election but he did not do very well.
  Mr. Dubs: Next time.
  Mr. Mellor: We shall have to wait and see.
  Mr. Nicholas Brown: He had an interesting sense of geography.
  Mr. Mellor: Secondly, there is a reference in the amendment to the Cable Authority but cable is separately regulated under the Cable and Broadcasting Act 1984 and is outwith the scope of the broadcasting arrangements dealt with here.
  I hope that, whatever else we may disagree about, the hon. Lady will accept two propositions. First, that the rules by which she sets so much store, as do I, will remain. They are not ousted by the Bill. Secondly, it is not unfortunately possible to accept the amendment as saying that they will remain. It would simply mean that there would need to be consequential amendments in the House of Lords which would be of no advantage.
  Mr. Dubs: The hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) referred to an extract from "East Enders" and talked about copycat tendencies and the influence of television on behaviour. We all accept that television is the most powerful medium that there is. Those of us who are old enough to have seen the transition in Britain from a non-television society to a television society have a better idea of the increasing impact of television on all aspects of life.
  Given that television is such a powerful influence, what part should be played either by the House or the BBC and IBA in saying that as there is a tendency to copy what is seen on television certain things should not be shown? The difficulty with that argument is that there is almost no end to it. Almost anything that can be seen on television might conceivably have a damaging influence on some viewers. Therefore, deciding where to draw the line is a difficult task which has defeated many people. Indeed, one of the reasons why there has been some criticism of the IBA and the BBC is because they may not have made the right decision.
  Much as I regret the possibility that a drug-taking scene in "East Enders" led to a number of impressionable young people doing likewise, I find it difficult to say that therefore "East Enders" should not have shown that scene.

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  I do not have the hon. Gentleman's advantage of having watched that incident, so I am basing what I say on his description of it. But I find it hard to say that a programme such as "East Enders" should not be allowed to depict incidents which happen, alas, all too frequently, judging from the newspapers.
  Mr. Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that in a programme I watched the other day a representative from MIND strongly condemned that particular incident because of the very facts that my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) has mentioned. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support MIND in that particular instance.
  Mr. Dubs: I respect MIND as an organisation, but without having seen the film it is hard to make a specific judgment or to contradict judgments made by others. All I would say is that overdoses of drugs are deeply regrettable, but they do happen, as British newspapers show. I find it hard to say that no film which depicts life as it may be should exclude incidents which are part of life, even if they are regrettable.
  Mr. Churchill: The perniciousness of what was shown rested in the fact that the television personality Angie downed an overdose of barbiturates with a bottle of gin and was saved. That is what gives rise to the grounds for concern. Many impressionable young people, having just finished an unhappy love affair, may think that they could do the same thing and also be saved. The fact that there was such a significant increase in the suicide and attempted suicide rate that week can only be a matter for grave concern. Indeed, it has been accepted by the broadcasting authorities that that should not have gone out and they did not include it in the repeat.
  Mr. Dubs: All I can say to that the is that responsibility lies more with the broadcasting authorities than with anybody else. But I still question whether, if the Bill becomes law, there is anything in it that would put a stop to such an incident.
  That brings me to the heart of what I want to say. I deal with what the Minister said earlier. The objectives and aims which we share—that there are things from which impressionable young people should be protected—can best be achieved by the operation of the BBC and IBA guidelines rather than by legislation which, particularly in the context of the example that the hon. Gentleman has quoted, would not achieve that end.
  Mr. Mikardo: My hon. Friend is right to say that if that criterion is applied, there is nowhere that it can end. For example, teetotal bodies might object to the fact that in the two series which have huge audiences—"Coronation Street" and "East Enders"—a lot of the action takes place in a pub. Does that mean that people should not be shown drinking in pubs for fear of copycat? What about smoking and the rest of it? What does it stop?
  Mr. Dubs: My hon. Friend puts his finger on the real difficulty of where one stops if the example of television is such a powerful one.
  I rest my case in the main on the fact that if we in the House are not happy about the way in which the guidelines operate, it is up to us to ask the BBC and the IBA what is the matter with their guidelines, either in the way that
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  they are being applied or in what is contained within them. That sort of dialogue with the broadcasting authorities would do more to protect children and young people than anything in the Bill.
  I do not share the belief that in drawing a parallel between television and cinema we can say that there are some films to which people under 18 are not admitted in the cinema and so that makes it all right. In fact, a young person—not a 10-year-old—in his or her mid-teens seems to find no difficulty in getting into a cinema, in London at any rate, even if there is an official bar on under 18–year-olds. But that is by the way.
  I know from my discussions with the BBC and the IBA that they are genuinely concened about the public's perception of what they show and they are genuinely concerned about the views of hon. Members. I am convinced that if the House were to tell the authorities that we want to see changes in the guidelines or in the way in which the guidelines are implemented, there would at least be a willingness to discuss and enter into dialogue. That is a more useful path along which to go.
  There is a matter of concern which is covered directly by the amendment. I feel that, despite the Minister's assurance—human nature being what it is—if there is legislation as a backstop the enthusiasm with which the BBC and IBA will apply their guidelines may be diminished to some extent. They will say that they do not need to worry too much about whether a film ought to be shown because there is the backstop of the new legislation. Because that might be the way in which it would operate, I am doubly concerned about the effect of this legislation. The effect might not simply be a blunt instrument. It might weaken the very protection which we are seeking to achieve.
  11 am
  There is another point to which hon. Members have referred and which I wish to discuss. I find the idea that, because some young people aged between 14 and 17 watch television until as late as midnight, all television ought to be based on that assumption, difficult to reconcile with the needs, ambitions and desires of an adult, mature society. I find it hard to accept what the hon. Member for Davyhulme said earlier, that television, under no circumstances, should show anything which would be unsuitable for a 15 or 16-year-old. The consequences for television as a medium of news, information and entertainment could be extremely damaging.
  I did not believe that the hon. Gentleman intended his Bill to go that far, but what he said earlier suggests that he does. We have to strive for a balance. On the whole, I think that the broadcasters have the balance right. The balance is that early in the evening many children watch and programming ought to take note of that. However, later in the evening things change. I shall quote from the "IBA Family Viewing Policy":
  "But it is assumed that from 9.00 pm onwards parents may reasonably be expected to share responsibility for what their children are permitted to see."
  It goes on to talk about what happens after 9.30 pm and 10.30 and so on. It says:
  "Violence is not the only reason why a programme may be unsuitable for family viewing. Other factors include bad language, innunedo, blasphemy, explicit sexual behaviour, and scenes of extreme distress."
  Those factors go much wider than the Bill and I think that they are absolutely right.
  Mr. Cash: Has the hon. Gentleman had the advantage of seeing the news released from IBA of 10 April? It says:
  "If it wished, Parliament could extend the Broadcasting Act to include the references to depravity and corruption contained in the 1959 Obscene Publication Act—together with the defence available."
  Elsewhere it says:
  "If broadcasting were to be included in the proposed Bill the Members of the Authority would be exposed to possible criminal prosecution."
  Effectively, it is saying that it does not mind tests of depravity and corruption being included but it does not want to be exposed to criminal prosecution. It is quite clear that a line has to be drawn and that is what we are trying to do in the Bill.
  Mr. Dubs: Of course a line has to be drawn. I am saying that we get better protection by the line that can be drawn under the guidelines than the line that can be drawn by the legislation. The quotation that I have read from the "Family Viewing Policy" represents some of the most sensible words that I have heard on the subject.
  Of course, the guidelines do work. We know that the IBA has deliberately not shown certain films. In a letter to me the IBA mentions some of the films it declined to transmit. It says:
  "the IBA has declined to transmit a number of feature films including, for example. 'Straw Dogs', 'Last Tango in Paris' and 'The Exorcist'.
  From my conversations with the IBA it is clear that it is well aware of the difficulties and it is aware that certain films should not be shown. A statement by the IBA says:
  "Even if, as some believe, it was a mistake to show one or two particular films—irrespective of the context or timing—the transmission of particular programmes will always be a matter of judgment, and at the margins there will be disagreement. Public—and political—reactions to films such as 'Jubilee' and `Sebastiane', or to other programmes at the margins of taste, are of course taken into account in the judgment of other programmes offered for transmission in the future."
  That seems to be an indication of the sensitivity of the authority to pressure and public opinion.
  Mr. Churchill: Would the hon. Gentleman consider that much of that is window dressing? The reason for what I say is a report in The Stage and Television Today of 27 March which says:
  "Showings of Last Tango in Paris and, it is claimed Mad Max have been postponed indefinitely.
  A Channel Four spokesman admitted there was a feeling that Last Tango with its notorious butter scene should not be shown in the current climate without substantial cuts which would mean it was not worth showing at all."
  It is clear that if the Bill fails that film will appear on television.
  Mr. Dubs: That is most unlikely. If the Bill fails I think that we will all still have a responsibility to keep pressure on the IBA and the BBC. I think that the hon. Gentleman may well have achieved something by drawing more attention to the guidelines and making the broadcasters more sensitive and aware of parliamentary and, above all, public opinion. It is public opinion and public attitudes which we have to take into account.
  I do not want to go down the path of saying that because a child may be watching a television programme—by that I mean somebody of 17—possibly as late as midnight, then every film that is shown on television should be based on the assumption that a handful of children may be watching late at night and we cannot have programmes which are suitable for adult viewing.
  As I have said, drawing the line is difficult. Based on the excerpts that I saw from "Jubilee" I would have
  588
  preferred it not to have been shown on television. Equally. I believe that there was nothing in "Sebastiane" to which anybody should take exception and which would make it unsuitable for child viewing. That view is based upon the excerpts that the hon. Member for Davyhulme arranged during the Committee stage. Those are subjective judgments based, as the IBA says, at the margins.
  I think that the sensitivity of the broadcasters and their ability to take note of feeling and public taste is greater than the blunt instrument of a court of law. Indeed, if one of those films were to be taken to the court under the arrangement in the Bill and the prosecution were to fail, I suspect that the effects would be very damaging because it would open up the floodgates. By having the guidelines we can keep constant pressure on the authority.
  There is one other point of detail which bothers me. I understand why an amendment in my name and that of my hon. Friends was not selected. However, I think that it is appropriate to mention it in the context of the responsibility of the broadcasting authority. Scotland and Northern Ireland are excluded from the Bill. I understand the technical reasons for that. However, many of the programmes we see on television are networked to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Indeed, I think with the exception of the main ITV channel the norm is that all programmes are networked. Even on the main ITV channel I believe that many programmes are networked throughout the United Kingdom.
  I find it difficult to see how the broadcasting authorities can act on one set of legislations for England and Wales and a different set of legislations for Scotland and Northern Ireland. That seems illogical and a bit of a nonsense. That is another reason why the normal responsibilities of the BBC and the IBA have to be the main safeguard rather than this measure.
  I agree with the aims of the hon. Member for Davyhulme. We all agree that children should be protected. However, it is not worthwhile to say "we must protect our children and, even if the method is defective, never mind we will have made our gesture." The needs of our children and our responsibilities to them are too important for futile gestures.
  Mr. Tim Brinton: I shall not refer to the remarks of the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) too much because that might incur your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but is is absurd that the Bill will apply only to England and not to Scotland. If any of the IBA or BBC people wanted to transmit a programme they could easily take it up to Scotland and transmit it without being caught by the Bill.
  I welcome the amendment because it illustrates vividly the main problem in the Bill. As the Minister said, the obligations or responsibilities of the governors and duties of the members of the IBA cannot be preserved in exactly the same way if the Bill becomes law. The Director of Public Prosecutions would become the editor-in-chief of broadcasting.
  The argument was put lucidly in a letter to The Times today by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. He is particularly nervous about the Bill's effects, although a good friend of my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill). He said:
  "I have over the years been actively engaged in considering the efficacy of legal censorship, particularly in relation to

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  literature and films. I have arrived at the firm conclusion that these are not matters that can be effectively dealt with in the dock at the Old Bailey."
  As the hon. Member for Battersea said, we are talking about individual taste. Over the years—nearly 60 years—we have set up a system of regulated broadcasting which by and large, with a few mistakes here and there, has stood the test of time and should not be pushed aside lightly. The Bill will substantially transfer the end responsibility for broadcasting to someone versed in the law from the members of the IBA and governors of the BBC who, through contacts with the boards of management and others in the programme companies, have built up an expertise in programme making, in audience reaction and in assessing public opinion at any given time.
  If the problem were as simple as making sweets it would be easy because the law would be clear. This Bill, as it has emerged, is, as the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) said, not the Bill that we discussed on Second Reading when I attempted to be called. I read the Committee proceedings carefully and the rapid changes made have changed the emphasis. That is not unreasonable. I was more against the original Bill than this Bill. The laundry list is now accepted as an absurdity.
  The Bill makes it clear in its preamble that the presumption is that under 18-year-olds in their masses will be watching television at any time of the day or night and that the ultimate decision for prosecution is to be left to one man—the DPP—in spite of all the duties and obligations of the members of the IBA and the governors of the BBC.
  If that were so, hon. Members who support the Bill would be gravely disappointed because the emphasis of all their speeches on Second Reading, in Committee, and now today, is that they want to stop the drip, drip, drip of constant violence. They want to stop those things which are affecting children. The Bill does not go near that. This is a Bill to deal with obscenity.
  11.15 am
  My personal and subjective judgment is that the extracts that I saw from "Jubilee" make me think that it should not be shown on television. I am more doubtful about "Sebastian". There must be a subjective judgment at the margin. That attitude gives the Bill a fair wind. I am trying to interpret my hon. Friend's intentions as kindly as I can, but I see more sinister connotations in the Bill, especially when I look back to the proceedings- on the Video Recordings Act introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Mr. Bright).
  We should be worried about the slow drip, drip, drip of censorship. The optimism of some of my hon. Friends that we are going to do something about the Starskies and Hutches and "The A Team" worry me intensely. That should be left to the BBC governors and to the IBA members. If we do not like their decisions they should be told in forceful terms. The Home Secretary has the power to sack the members of those organisations. If their decisions are so unsatisfactory he should take that action.
  I am not here to support obscenity, pornography or violence in any form. I hope that none of us are here for that. We all have different subjective judgments about what we mean by those words. That is the problem.
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  Therefore, great and good bodies must, if we are to keep regulated broadcasting organised, look at the problems for us objectively.
  My hon Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) asked the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) what she would do. I believe that many things can be done. The responsibilities and duties of the members of the IBA and BBC could be considerably enhanced as a result of my hon. Friend's Bill because it brings the problem to their attention.
  The principle of screening more adult programmes as the evening goes on is vital if we are to protect quality and standards in British broadcasting. Is there not a case for suggesting to the BBC and IBA that there might be a more efficient way of warning parents that the more adult programming is coming up? I should not be averse to a form of certification at the beginning of a programme. If we want to become really puritanical we could take as an example the clock at the corner of the screen during breakfast television. Instead of a clock why not put a programme designation there? That would not disturb the drama too much.
  Mr. Stuart Randall: Unless such information is provided it is impossible for parents to operate any form of self-censorship.
  Mr. Brinton: Since I am a supporter of a Government interested in giving independence and freedom of choice to the individual, I believe that that is where the responsibility lies, with the help of the bodies that I have mentioned. If parents are given an idea of a programme's content by a simple symbol and by a symbol in the newspaper programme schedules they could say, "Johnny, you watch that and you're in trouble." If that is not enough we can go further. Some form of electronic lock could be installed easily and cheaply so that if parents are not in they can lock up their television—as opposed to their daughters.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Such locks exist and are used by people who pay to watch a particular channel.
  Mr. Brinton: Such locking devices could be easily and cheaply installed.
  There are many ways to tackle the problem which the majority of my hon. Friends want to cure. They are shocked by obscenity, but I seriously challenge them to name one programme—and I include the two films of which my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme is so fond—the case against which would succeed if brought before a jury.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme mentioned the letters that he had received about a schools programme. He made a marvellous case for my view that the responsibility for education on television and radio should rest with the Department of Education and Science and not with the BBC and the IBA. I do not know what audience was being aimed at in the Saturday morning programme that he was so shocked to hear about. Perhaps it was a sociology programme. I certainly do not approve of the contents of that programme, but there are other forms of protection that do not involve putting responsibility on the Director of Public Prosecutions.
  The amendment may be flawed, but it is an insurance policy. If the Bill becomes law the amendment will at least remind everyone who interprets what we say that there

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  were institutions known as the BBC and the IBA and that they did not do too badly although occasionally they made horrid howlers.
  Mr. Randall: I sense from the speeches made so far that every hon. Member in the Chamber accepts that there are problems about television broadcasting and films that are being made available to young children under the existing arrangements.
  The IBA has a 9 o'clock rule. It deems itself to be responsible for films and programmes shown before 9 pm. I am sure that all hon. Members received the 10 April letter from the IBA which describes its policy as being
  "as far as possible not to broadcast material unsuitable for children at times when large numbers of children are viewing."
  The letter says that there are constraints on that policy, one of which is that there is no time of the evening when there are not some children, perhaps even quite substantial numbers, watching television.
  I have been in correspondence with the chairman of the IBA, Lord Thomson. I received a letter from him yesterday in which he said:
  "Family Viewing Policy, as you know, assumes a gradual progression after 9.00 p.m. towards programmes likely to be unsuitabl for young children."
  That is clear. The IBA says that it has control before 9 o'clock and that thereafter parents have the responsibility. Hon. Members who, like me, have young teenage children, know that 9 pm cannot be regarded as a sensible time for the IBA to decide to relinquish its responsibility. That is an absurd decision and not related to reality.
  I accept that the existing policy is complicated and that there is no universal solution to the problem. The hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) said that she wants to see some action, but there is not one solution to the problem. A number of elements will have to be taken into account, some of which will offer greater scope for improvement than others.
  A major problem is the difficulty of reconciling the interests of young children and of adults. It would be illiberal to prevent parents from seeing the films that they like to watch. I should like to tighten standards, but it would be morally wrong for me to say that I am able to make decisions for other people. They have to make decisions for themselves.
  The key responsibilities for introducing improvements rest with parents and the broadcasting authorities, particularly the IBA. Some may say that I am unfair, but my intuitive judgment is that the IBA churns out much more of the unacceptable stuff. The BBC's standards are generally higher, though I accept the drip, drip, drip argument.
  Mr. Greg Knight: The hon. Gentleman makes a strong statement when he claims that the IBA is not maintaining standards. Can he give us a few examples? Can he give us a list of programmes, with transmission dates and times?
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Evidence? We do not worry about evidence on this Bill.
  Mr. Randall: I will try to answer the hon. Gentleman's question.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Randall: In a moment. I shall be giving a specific example later.
  Mr. Hayes: I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about standards, particularly in the IBA and on Channel 4, but does he accept that, whether the Bill is passed or not, it has performed a tremendous service, because it has brought matters to public attention? As a result of our debates, I do not believe that the IBA would dare show films such as "Sebastiane" and "Jubilee" ever again.
  Mr. Randall: The Bill is a sledgehammer and is impractical, but I concede that it has brought out the arguments, and that is healthy.
  As for the proposed changes in the Bill, I am sceptical—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must address himself to the amendment. Hon. Members are tending to debate the whole Bill again.
  Mr. Randall: The IBA is muddled about what its existing policy and the Bill can achieve. In his letter to me, the chairman of the IBA said that he felt that the Bill would bite only at the extremes of pornography and unacceptable films. He said:
  "Although the precise parameters of what may be obscene may be altered, the Bill will at the end of the day only bite upon the extremes. It will not bear upon the kind of quite legitimate mainstream programming for grown-up people with which our discussions have been concerned."
  Those are the discussions that I have had with the chairman.
  "It will most certainly not provide the 'form of protection' you quite properly advocate. That is part of the function of the IBA and I am determined that we will despatch it effectively."
  The press release of 10 April, which all hon. Members have received states that, with the introduction of the Bill,
  "all programmes would have to be suitable for children since the Bill makes no distinction between viewing at different limes of the day".
  In addressing its responsibilities, the IBA seems to be rather muddled about the effects of the Bill.
  11.30 am
  Mr. Brinton: Far from being muddled, is not the IBA trying to echo rather more clearly the argument that I was trying to present, that the Bill will cause the IBA and BBC either to release their responsibilities and leave it to the ultimate—the Director of Public Prosecutions—which we would all consider to be very bad news, or to go for 18 and under-18 programming for the 24 hours? There are two alternatives. That is one of the difficulties with the Bill.
  Mr. Randall: That is absolutely right. I will not go far down this path, in case, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you rule me out of order again. However, I would like the companies and the parents to deal with the problem rather than the courts, and I sense that many people share that view.
  As for responsibility, I submitted some proposals to the chairman of the IBA just over a year ago after seeing on television a film called "The Squeeze". I frankly found that film offensive. I am reluctant to sound priggish, but I was not prepared to have such stuff shown in my house. I went to Lord Thomson's office and we discussed the matter. He told me that the IBA had reviewed the film again and found that it fell below standard. He gave me an assurance that it would not be shown in Britain again. The IBA had made a mistake.
  Lord Thomson told me that very few people write to complain. When we consider the role of the IBA in these

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  matters, hon. Members should make sure that they complain to the authorities, and should encourage the public to do so too.
  Essentially we need to provide parents with the means of imposing their own controls and influence on young people. I remember the occasion when I saw "The Squeeze". I had had a very busy day. When I reached home I sat down with a drink to watch a film. According to the newspaper, Edward Fox was to appear in the film, and he is an actor whom I admire. I sat down to watch it. Unknown to me, pornography—that is all it was—was about to be shown.
  I had no information on which to decide whether or not that film would be acceptable. I subsequently looked at various newspapers to see whether there were any critiques of the film or any information about it. There was no information at all.
  I made the same point to Alasdair Milne, the Director-General of the BBC, and to Bill Cotton, who runs the television side of the business, as I made to Lord Thomson. I said that if they could provide such information, that would be a big step forward.
  This is not just a whimsical idea. I propose that we adopt a scheme such as has already been implemented by at least one of the cable television companies. I have met Mr. Burchall, the chief executive of Premiere Television. He told me that his company has taken the responsibility into its own hands by providing viewers with information so that they can decide for themselves.
  We do not want mere gestures. We are addressing a specific amendment, and we are doing so because we want some action to ensue. Should we enable parents to decide on such matters themselves, or do we prevent them from doing so? In my view, we should provide parents with appropriate information. We could use little codes in the newspapers. A film containing bad language would be given an exclamation mark. For a horror film there would be a little axe dripping blood; for a family film, a profile of a family. Such a scheme is in operation, and Mr. Burchall told me that a very high proportion of viewers find it acceptable. The codes could also appear on trailers. We would go some way towards overcoming the problem that we face if we gave people the choice and the information on which to decide for themselves and their families.
  Mr. Churchill rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question put, That the Question be now put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 76, Noes 18.

  Division No. 157]

  [11.36 am

  AYES

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Cash, William

  Amess, David

  Chapman, Sydney

  Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

  Churchill, W. S.

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S)

  Beith, A. J.

  Cope, John

  Bendall, Vivian

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Bennett, Rt Hon Sir Frederic

  Dicks, Terry

  Benyon, William

  Dover, Den

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Durant, Tony

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Fallon, Michael

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Favell, Anthony

  Bright, Graham

  Freeman, Roger

  Butler, Rt Hon Sir Adam

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

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  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Normanton, Tom

  Gow, Ian

  Pawsey, James

  Greenway, Harry

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Hargreaves, Kenneth

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Howard, Michael

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

  Sims, Roger

  Jackson, Robert

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Stanley, Rt Hon John

  Key, Robert

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Lilley, Peter

  Sumberg, David

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Maclean, David John

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Marlow, Antony

  Viggers, Peter

  Mates, Michael

  Wheeler, John

  Mather, Carol

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Tellers for the Ayes

  Mellor, David

  Sir Nicholas Bonsor and

  Newton, Tony

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley.

  NOES

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

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Prescott, John

  Hamilton, W. W. (Fife Central)

  Randall, Stuart

  Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Skinner, Dennis

  McCartney, Hugh

  Wareing, Robert

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Madden, Max

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Mikardo, Ian

  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody and

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Mr. Chris Smith.

  Whereupon MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 32 (Majority for Closure).
  Question again proposed, That the Bill, as amended, be now considered.
  11.45 am
  Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: It is sad that this Bill will fail because of lack of parliamentary time. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) has blazed a trail and one day in the near future we shall probably see an improved Bill. I should like to thank him for drawing the attention of the public to a pressing need.
  The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who proposed the amendment, laid great emphasis on the fact that there was little evidence to justify this legislation. The hon. Lady alleged that she received more letters about Sunday trading than she received about the Bill. She sought to imply that that showed a lack of support from the general public for the Bill. I must record that I have received over 20,000 letters in support of child protection. That shows how deeply the general public feel about these matter.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I did not seek to show anything of the sort. I was trying to make it clear that Members of Parliament traditionally receive large numbers of letters about many pieces of legislation. The suggestion that, because the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) has received a large number of letters, that represents a unique occasion, is misrepresenting the normal situation.
  Mr. Dickens rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Armstrong): Order. I have allowed the hon. Gentleman to stray a bit, but he must come back to the amendment.
  Mr. Dickens: I shall return to the amendment and answer the points made by the proposer. The 1985–86 television season got off to a chilling start. One in three programmes shown after 6.30 pm on all four channels during the first week in September contained scenes of physical violence. "Jubilee" and "Sebastiane" have been well cited, but setting those aside, we saw, for example, a man having his throat cut with a kitchen knife and a close-up of the victim's throat. A man hit a woman with his fist and then battered her to the ground with a stick while the camera focused on her bloodied face. There was a sheriff with a pickaxe in his chest. Two men and a woman were portrayed beating a victim to the floor with wooden clubs, with blood seeping into the carpet. There was also a villian holding a pistol to his victim's head and then injecting him with a hypodermic needle thrust into his nose.
  Today, young people watch about 23 hours of television each week. Experts believe that, by a child's late teens, he could have witnessed 16,000 violent deaths.
  Let us consider the evidence. Since the ratings battle began, when commercial television arrived in 1955, violence has emerged as a crucial ingredient in television entertainment. During that same period, the number of reported crimes of violence against the person rose from 7,884 to 114,187 per year, and the number of rapes known to the police rose from 340 each year to 1,433.
  Many studies have cited television as a significant factor in that increase. Back in 1969, President Johnson's National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence ansserted:
  "Violence on television encourages violent forms of behaviour".
  More recently, in 1982, a major report by America's National Institute of Mental Health recognised:
  "Violence on television does lead to aggresive behaviour by children and teenagers who watch the programmes."
  A research project in Newhaven, Connecticut, observed three and four-year-olds at eight day-care centres over a full year. It was found that the children who watched the highest number of violent television programmes clearly showed the most aggressive behaviour. Canadian researchers in Manitoba came to the same conclusion.
  Some of the most detailed research has been conducted in the United Kingdom. From 1972 until 1978, Doctor William Belson of the North-East London polytechnic studied the behaviour of 1,563 London boys aged between 13 and 16. His conclusion was:
  "Television violence has a slow drip-drip effect on a young person, gradually eroding the training of parents and society against using violence".
  Dr. Belson found that the heavy television viewing boys had committed 50 per cent. more, violent acts. For example, they had used knives or broken bottles, and had vandalised cars and public conveniences.
  Since 1975, the average age for the onset of disruptive behaviour in primary schools has dropped to between three and five years. That was revealed after a study by Dr. Jean Lawrence and David Steed of London's Goldsmith college, which was published in the journal of the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association. Only last summer the study charted a four-year-old who had injured
  596
  his classmates, a five-year-old who had forced a friend's face onto a cloakroom peg and an eight-year-old who had been wrenched away from kicking and punching a teacher by two adults.
  Television is a major contributor to violence. That is as clearly and scientifically established as the relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. The Bill's provisions provide protection against the rapidly escalating instances of violent, sadistic and sexual crimes, as shown on television. If the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich feels that the Bill is such an irrelevance, why are the IBA and the BBC so excited about what we wish to do? The reason is that there are producers who are not following the guidelines, and who are inflicting the most dreadful material on our young people. One day the House will pass the necessary legislation, and we will protect our children from such filth.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: The Bill has emerged significantly improved from its Committee stage. Indeed, it has been changed out of all recognition, and perhaps that is why it has been improved. I share the widespread public concern over some of the things covered by the Bill. Like the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens), I believe that the real problem is violence. I am not sure why the hon. Gentleman concentrated on violence rather than on sexual matters, as the Bill seems to cover the latter. Perhaps it was because of his significant contribution a few weeks ago to The Sun. The article in The Sun said:
  "political heavyweight Geoffrey who represents Littleborough and Saddleworth is one of those red-blooded members confident of killing Labour kill-joy Clare Short … The jolly MP said `girls would give their right arm for a figure like Tracey's'. Another cracker tomorrow."
  Perhaps that is why the hon. Gentleman concentrated on violence today.
  Mr. Dickens: As the hon. Gentleman mentioned me by name, I am grateful to him for giving way. Contrary to the view put about by the Opposition, that article illustrates that I am not a prude or so obsessed with sexual matters that I have to support such a Bill. I am certainly not a prude. But the protection of children and shielding them from obscene and explicit material is a quite different matter.
  Mr. Mitchell: I wholeheartedly accept the hon. Gentleman's assurance that he is not a prude. However, we at least agree that violence rather than sex is a problem. But that violence comes not so much from British programmes, although it is creeping into them, as from imported American programmes, which place an emphasis on violence. Indeed, Americans lead a much more violent way of life, which is reflected in their programmes. But the problem is that the Bill does not do anything about the violence that the hon. Gentleman and I complain about. That is why I want to amend the clause.
  If the Bill makes protest noises about violence but does nothing about it, it is merely dealing in gesture politics. I do not see such politics as necessary. There is great intellectual confusion among the Bill's advocates. They create a climate of fear and alarm and then introduce this Bill as a solution to it. Yet it is irrelevant to most of those fears and alarms. Some years ago the report of the Williams committee said that to regard

  597
  "pornography as having a crucial or even a significant effect on essential social values is to get the problem of pornography out of proportion with the many other problems that face our society today."
  There is a climate of fear and alarm. Yet to concentrate, as the Bill does, solely on sexual matters is to ignore the problem of violence, and the other factors that create that kind of fear and alarm.
  The teeth have been taken out of the Bill, but it has been left with enough gums to chomp and chew at the institution of broadcasting. That is why I support the amendment. It takes effective steps to protect broadcasting from the dangers inherent in the haphazard interventions that the Bill would generate.
  Self-discipline on the part of broadcasting institutions and the audience is the solution to the problem, if there is one. That would be better than allowing unpredictable interventions, as the Bill does, and then allowing broadcasting to be subject to the criteria of its effects on 13 and 14-year-olds, who might be viewing at any time of the day. To reduce everything to the level of what is acceptable to them, particularly late at night, is to create a television of wall-to-wall Blue Peter rather than a television of entertainment, interest, involvement and information about the world as it is. We cannot subject tastes on such matters to that level of intervention and discrimination.
  People who do not take the trouble to discipline their children and the viewing habits of children who should not be watching television very late at night or watching the programmes which cause complaints, are effectively asking the State to discipline their children for them through legislation. They are imposing the consequences of their indiscipline on the rest of society. That approach is out of proportion to the problem.
  The problem concerns those children who are not controlled or subject to parental discipline, who are viewing programmes which they should not late at night. I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall). He said that nine o'clock in the evening was not an appropriate cut-off time for the IBA to hand the discipline of viewing back to parents. That cut-off point should come later.
  12 noon
  My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West also made the point about the need for information. More information leads to informed choice and that is what society is about. We need to know what is in the programmes and what the consequence of those programmes will be. That information should be freely available.
  The real problem is that such information will not reach the young people who are watching at times when they should not be watching and whose viewing taste is being made the dominant factor in the approach of the Bill. The information would not reach that crucial group of people.
  Mr. Randall: Would my hon. Friend agree that the information must reach the parents? It is impossible for parents to impose any form of parental control without that information being fully available in a form that will describe precisely what the film may contain.
  Mr. Mitchell: I hope that I was making that point. I agree that that information should be available to parents
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  and to young people. We should know what problems exist. The information would assist in making the viewing choice and help the assertion of parental discipline. The key problem is, however, parental discipline imposed on children. The rest of society should not be censored as a result of programmes being made acceptable and suitable for 13 or 14-year-olds. The universe is very different and adults' appreciation of it differs from that of children. The information should be available.
  The essence of freedom is the freedom to make mistakes and choices. That is the freedom of a free society and the approach to that is through self-discipline and discipline by the broadcasting authorities rather than an imposed framework of state discipline subject to totally unpredictable interventions by the Director of Public Prosecutions acting at the behest of moral groups or through the pressures and panics of others.
  I would like to stress that cable television offers the possibility of a universal choice of viewing with up to 40 channels. It offers a much wider choice of viewing. It should not therefore, be subject to the same controls and that is why the amendment does not deal with authority in that area. The essence of cable television is the freedom to choose what one wants to see. We must have the information, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West stressed. Choice is the essence of cable, and not the lowest common denominator programmes on the on-air channels at present.
  Freedom means the freedom to experiment and to state one's view of the world as an artist and producer or as someone making a television programme. The broadcasting authorities must then decide at what time it is appropriate for that programme to be broadcast.
  I would, frankly, prefer to leave the clause out of the Bill. The amendment expresses my only real objection to the Bill. I oppose the extension of the obscene publications legislation to the broadcasting institutions and I believe that the rest of the Bill, as drafted, deserves my support. However, I believe that the extension of the obscene publications legislation through this clause to the broadcasting institutions creates a dangerous situation in which the authorities will be subject to unpredictable interferences. The self-discipline that is so essential will be weakened because the authorities will become less responsible. I would have preferred the amendment to have been left out of the Bill. I am sure that if the amendment is dropped the Opposition would allow the Bill to pass without any other difficulties.
  However, the amendment is before us and the Report stage of this House functions in such a way that we cannot deal with clause stand part, we can proceed only by amendment and that is what we are doing now. We are seeking to offset the dangers created by the extension of the obscene publications legislation to the broadcasting institutions.
  Other amendments have not been selected. I would have like the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) to have been selected and I am sure that it would have been selected had she withdrawn her Bill on that matter. It is difficult to select an amendment that relates to another Bill before the House. I would have liked the House to have dealt with that problem as it would have exposed the hypocrisy whereby Tory Members of Parliament appear day after day

  599
  in The Sun newspaper to endorse its nudes and then pose as the advocates of the moral majority, censorship and discipline—as the new puritans against excess.
  We have not been privileged to deal with that matter as amendment No. 25 was not selected. Mrs. Mary Whitehouse is a strong advocate of the Bill and I do not criticise her. Indeed, in my view, she has performed a valuable service. She is a populist and I have great affinities with populism. She has demonstrated to the House, to the country and to the broadcasting organisations the degree of public concern about these issues. We tend to live in an ivory tower in this House and we are sometimes out of touch with public opinion.
  Mr. Brian Sedgemore: Before my hon. Friend becomes completely ecstatic about the virtues of Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, does he agree with her condemnation of radio and television broadcasts and films which she has not seen?
  Mr. Mitchell: I cannot answer for Mrs. Mary Whitehouse. She has, however, reminded us about a level of concern which all too often we forgot in the House. We must use our judgment on what Mrs. Whitehouse said, on her arguments and the views expressed through her organisation. Those matters are still subject to our judgment. The danger is that in revealing the extent of that opinion she creates a panic reaction in which people are forced, through panic and public pressure, to make changes which are undesirable and which are put forward as solutions to the problems Mrs. Whitehouse articulates.
  Mr. Harry Greenway rose—
  Mr. Mitchell: In other words, emption drives out rationality in these argument. It is right that concerns should be expressed.
  Mr. Greenway: The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) came a little nearer than he would have wanted to slurring Mrs. Whitehouse. This week, Mrs. Whitehouse sent to various hon. Members including myself, detailed researches into BBC television programmes detailing precisely, line by line, her objections against them. It is not really fair to pretend that she does not see what she is criticising.
  Mr. Mitchell: I am not seeking to praise Mrs. Whitehouse with faint damns. Rather, I believe that she has performed a valuable service in articulating a sub-stratum of opinion, an element of opinion that exists, of which we should be aware. She has also performed valuable work in providing that information and I accept that implicitly. However, arising from such concerns and pre-occupations put forward by Mrs. Whitehouse and others, there is an obsession with matters sexual rather than what I believe is the larger side of the problem, violence.
  Secondly, because of the pressure that is created by those opinions, we are prone to knee-jerk, gesture reactions that are designed to passify and to show that the House is doing something. These reactions are dangerous, because they do not deal with the problems that is the source of the complaints.
  It is important that we as Members of Parliament exercise our rationality and our judgment. We must be aware of concerns and seek to deal with them realistically. We must not be stampeded into taking actions that are possibly more harmful than the disease. In dealing with
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  issues to which the Bill addresses itself the House can be stampeded into panic reactions. It can be caused to rush in to show that it is doing something in response to public concern. When that happens we express our concern but we do not solve the problem itself.
  The real problem is violence. Those who accept violence on television justify their opinions by saying that violence is a part of life. Violence is not a part of my life, not even when I am involved in internal relationships within the Labour party. Violence is not a part of life of the great majority of our constituents. We are exposing people, especially young people, to a level of violence that they will not see in their own life. Violence might have been seen 40 or 50 years ago when life itself was far more violent but now it is not. Yet we are being exposed to a steady drip of violence, and I agree with the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth that people become innured to it. There is an accumulation—a sedimentation—of violence. Where I disagree with the hon. Gentleman is on the effect that the Bill will have. In my opinion the Bill will do nothing to reduce the amount of violence that is shown on television. That is the essence of the problem.
  The IBA code recognises the reality of violence and how to deal with it. It addresses itself to the problems that arise when people are exposed to violence. I do not think that the code is satisfactory.
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Gentleman has been saying. I understand his reasons for opposing the Bill and I recognise that it has an enormous defect in that it does not deal with the problem of violence. What does the hon. Gentleman think that the authorities should do that they are not already doing?
  Mr. Mitchell: I shall attempt to answer the hon. Gentleman's question in a moment. I have found a copy of the code to which I was hoping to refer, which deals with violence in a rather academic fashion. It states:
  "It may be asked why violence has to be portrayed at all on the screen. The answers are clear. First, conflict is the essence of drama, and conflict often leads to violence. Second, the real world contains much violence in many forms, and when television seeks to reflect the world in fact or in fiction it would be unrealistic and untrue to ignore its violent aspects."
  It continues:
  "The regular and recurrent spectacle of violence might lead viewers to think that violence in one form or another is being given the stamp of approval. Once violence is thus accepted and tolerated people will, it is believed, tend to become more callous, and more indifferent to suffering imposed on the victims of violence."
  That reservation is right for I think that that is what happens. Violence is being shown almost for the sake of violence, and that is especially true of American productions. It may be that life in America is much more violent than it is here, but it seems that imported American productions contain violence as an element of production, as though it must be present. It seems that those who produce them take the view that there must be an element of humour, a handsome hero, a malevolent villain and a quota of violence.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue of imported programmes is even more unclear because of the operation of the Customs Consolidation Act 1876? I tabled a new clause that was designed to deal with the problem and, regretfully, it has not been selected.
  Mr. Mitchell: I agree that the Bill does not deal with that problem. It is unfortunate that it does not deal with other problems as well.
  I was addressing myself to the way in which we should deal with the problem of violence. We shall not deal with it effectively by introducing Bills of this sort. In doing so, we are pursuing a hare down another alley, a hare which is irrelevant to what I, the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth and others see as the main problem. The only effective way to deal with the matter is by directing the pressure of opinion within the House and outside on the broadcasting authorities and causing them to recognise reality, which is that a steady accumulation of violence shown on television innures viewers to violence and creates an expectation in the minds of young people that violence is a part of life when it is not. This makes people behave in a violent fashion. They have seen it on television and they are innured to it. That is the danger. We must recognise the nature of the problem, focus on it and deal with it by putting pressure on the broadcasting institutions, which are very much open to pressure.
  12.15 pm
  Mr. Cash: In the video working party's report, which came out in 1983, there was a specific reference to the problem of violence on television. It stated clearly that
  "on grounds of social responsibility, broadcast television has also avoided giving the details of drug use".
  The programme "East Enders" is a good example of the broadcasting authorities ignoring their social responsibility despite understanding it. Against that background I should like to know what the hon. Gentleman thinks could be done to solve the problem.
  Mr. Mitchell: There is not much purpose in putting that question to me. The question should be put to the hon. Member for Davyhulme, the author of the Bill. We should ask ourselves what the Bill does to resolve the problem, and the answer is nothing.
  It is important that concern is being expressed about the portrayal of violence on television screens. It is important also that it is not channelled into a blind alley where it will thrash around impotently. It should not be thought that something will be achieved by enacting the Bill, when it will not, so that the heat is taken off the broadcasting authorities and necessary changes are not made.
  Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that "obscenity" does not include violence. There have been court cases since 1982 in which it has been stated that violence is included in obscenity. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.
  Mr. Mitchell: If the hon. Gentleman is asking me to trust his expertise as a lawyer and to accept that violence will be dealt with by the Bill, I must decline to do so. Violence is not dealt with explicitly in the Bill and I see no way in which the clause, even as we hope to amend it, will deal with it. The more effective course is to frame a code of practice which recognises the problem and deals with it directly. At present we are running down blind alleys and talking about sex, indecency and human sexual relations when the real problem is the changed attitude to violence which is implicit in the constant deluge of violence from television screens.
  In general, self-discipline is the answer. In general, I think that proper guidelines are the right approach. That
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  is the way in which the industry should go. We should not seek to interfere, especially when our interference is unpredictable. The codes on violence need strengthening because there is a problem, which has concerned many of us for a long time, which they do not deal with satisfactorily. The Bill would not deal with the problem satisfactorily, either. I refer to trailers of programmes which show scenes of violence in programmes that are to be shown later in the evening, which are put out at peak viewing time. Violence is used as something of production value.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Is my hon. Friend aware that changes in EEC legislation will mean that the amount of American material shown on our television screens may increase considerably? With the introduction of new satellites we shall find ourselves with very few means of controlling the material in the way in which we can at present. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be a good idea to consider that problem as well?
  Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend must not tempt me to talk about Brussels, from whence all blessings flow. I should like to cut down the number of imported American programmes. Such programmes go out at peak viewing times and have a steady build-up effect.
  I have been slightly diverted, for which I apologise. I conclude that the case for the Bill is not proven and, indeed, that the Bill is counter-productive. The real approach must be to make the IBA and the BBC aware of the strong public concern about violence. They should tighten up their codes of conduct. This clause does not tighten up those codes. Such controls will not be effected by chasing off down the blind alley of this clause but through pressure from this House and outside.
  Mr. Key: I support the Bill. I have listened to the arguments of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) in support of her amendment but I hope to illustrate why I cannot support it.
  I am not quite as impervious to the opinions of my constituents as the hon. Lady appears to be on this issue. Sometimes legislation is ahead of public opinion—one could cite the Shops Bill—but usually it is behind public opinion. This is the case with the Bill. We must seek a balance between reflecting public opinion and forming it. Legislation sets the tone for everyone in the community, not just those who break the law. The point is not that all programmes should be suitable for children. There is also the effect of the programes on adults especially the weaker adults in our society. Television often reinforced taboos, it reinforces male chauvenism and sexism.
  I have received a great deal of representation on this matter. The director of the Diocescan Board for Social Responsibility summed it up when he said:
  "We must start making connections on crucial issues which affect the moral and social well-being of our citizens and especially for our young people."
  For that reason, it is important to address ourselves to the responsibilities of the IBA and the BBC. I notice that there is only one hon. Lady present, although there were three from time to time. Those responsible in the BBC and the IBA are not responsive to women's views on this issue. Women are sick and tired of seeing their bodies used for men's sexual gratification wherever they look on films, TV, video nasties, magazines, advertising, sex shops, art, entertainment and so on.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: Will the hon. Gentleman also agree that women are sick of not having equal representation in this House and that that is one reason why there are so few of us here?
  Mr. Key: I am delighted to hear the hon. Lady say that, because there are more hon. Ladies in the Conservative party than there are in her party.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: That is because there are more Conservative Members.
  Mr. Key: I have always supported the need for equal representation in the House and we would discuss this matter in a more rational manner if there were more hon. Ladies in the House.
  The Salisbury Women's Media Watch Committee has been constructive in its attitude to women. It states:
  "The underlying attitude of society is that sex and women should be available for men on their terms and when they require it."
  The committee believes that men must learn to be responsible and control their sexuality as women have always done. I agree with that, but what is the IBA and the BBC doing about it?
  Most civilisations and nations measure their success in terms of the pursuit of the peace, beauty and culture which they bequeath to future generations. What will we be remembered for? There are more musicals in London than on Broadway—both in the west end and in the provinces—and our theatre is better than anywhere else in the world, but why do we under-value our international success by obscenity on television?
  Recently, The Sun newspaper had a go at me because I was not prepared to vote against the Shops Bill. In its leader "The Sun Says" it claimed that a number of us did not have the guts to vote at all. I wish The Sun would not see all the issues in black and white terms. Sometimes its judgments appear to be upside down, but perhaps that is natural in view of the nationality of the proprietor. The Sun implied that those of us who did not vote somehow let the side down; it asked how much freedom of choice we favoured. I shall attempt to illustrate how much freedom I would favour with regard to the Bill and where I draw the line.
  On the day on which The Sun castigated me, many incidences of sex and violence were recorded in that newspaper—on pages 3, 7, 11, 13, 15, 16, 22 and 24. I believe that The Sun and other newspapers could be an immense force for good if they seriously consider the issues involved.
  I believe that a culture of violence is being actively created not just by the makers of video nastier but by the makers of violently aggressive pop music. That in its turn spawns punk fashion and anti-social behaviour. The men with the money behind the video makers must share the blame.
  Mr. Greg Knight: I am very interested in what my hon. Friend says but can he give me an example of violently aggressive pop music?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not think that that relates to the duties of the IBA or the BBC.
  Mr. Key: I am aware of my hon. Friend's professional interest—and expertise in the pop world, and I shall have a word with him afterwards about it.
  Those who finance, write, produce or sanction television programmes tend to portray explicit sex and
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  violence as normal and acceptable. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) said that there is concern about such violence, but I rather doubt it.
  I utterly condemn the irresponsibility of the National Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts, affiliated to the National Council of Civil Liberties, which is urging us to defeat this Bill. It has written to a number of Members of Parliament that it regards the Bill as a
  "monstrously authoritarian measure, quite unnecessary and totally unacceptable in a society in which freedom of choice and freedom of expression are supposed to be paramount."
  I do not believe that freedom of choice and freedom of expression are paramount and I believe that the BBC and the IBA should take that into account. The NCROPA also believes that the Bill represents
  "an outrageous incursion on free artistic and cultural creativity."
  It suggests:
  "even if there were any justification in the need to take some action 'protect' children from possible exposure to sexual and/or violently explicit material (they are not inseparebly intertwined, as many seem to assume), Parliament has seen fit to legislate in a much less rigid and prohibitive fashion with regard to many other products."
  Mr. Brinton: Does not the hon. Gentleman concede that the NCROPA has one point: that the Obscene Publications Act urgently needs reform before any new amendments can be added to it?
  Mr. Key: That may be so, but it does not detract from the fact that it is trying to persuade hon. Members to squash the Bill for what I believe are fundamentally misguided reasons. We are discussing the matter because of the failure of the IBA and BBC guidelines.
  The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich talked of the need for evidence. The connection between violence on television and the increase in violent crime is self-evident. We have also found that children can repeat the details of the last crime that they saw on television, when asked or in play. Crime and fear are thus increased.
  Judgments at the Old Bailey regularly accept the defendant's statement that he has been influenced by what he has seen or read. It is accepted that defendants copy acts of indecency and violence. Such behaviour is well researched and was quoted at length in the study, "Video Violence and Children" in 1985, which was edited by Geoffrey Barlow and Alison Hill for the parliamentary group video inquiry. The organisation Kidscape has produced a mass of similar evidence.
  12.30 pm
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman has picked on the same argument as me and the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens). The central question, however, is what the Bill has to do with the evidence on violence and what it does to check the deluge of violence from the screens and its influence.
  Mr. Key: My hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) has addressed those arguments adequately and I shall not repeat them. I am convinced by those arguments and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not.
  The nation's opinion on the issue is slow to crystallise but, as with the link between smoking and cancer, the link between pornography, violence and sex abuse is accepted. Those who support the amendment have not addressed the fact that one in 10 British adults are sexually abused as children and that 75 per cent. of sex assaults on children are committed by people they know.

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  I should like to give some examples of the IBA's and the BBC's irresponsibility. I understand that, on 30 April, Thames Television is to screen an explicit programme on incest immediately after "Playschool." The IBA rescheduled the programme, but changed its mind. Why? We are asked to trust broadcasting authorities' judgment and then that happens.
  Mrs. Dunwoody: I do not take it upon myself to defend the IBA—I have my arguments with it—but the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that many people are sexually abused as children and then complain if television addresses itself to that real and frightening problem. I have not seen the programme, so I do not know what it shows or says but we shall never break out of the horrifying cycle—the crime has gone on for thousands of years—unless children, especially, are taught to realise that they have no involvement in the guilt attached to incest and told what support is available to those who are subjected to it.
  Mr. Key: I entirely agree that we must break out of the cycle, but I believe that the cycle is being reinforced and aggravated.
  The hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) mentioned the news. Recently, the first item on the news, whether breakfast television, midday news, the 6 pm news or the late night news, has been a horrific rape case. There is no time for a mother to rush to the set and switch it off when the news comes on after children's television. News producers and editors have a responsibility to take account of the time at which the news bulletin appears, and its substance.
  Like others present, I have read the guidelines. They are woefully inadequate. They refer to not dwelling on the heartache of parents or victims, but how often do we see that? I do not want to talk about censorship in terms of cutting out news items, but I want much greater sensitivity in their presentation. There is no need to censor the news, but there is every need to ensure that it is presented in the least offensive way possible, while retaining the facts.
  Mr. Mikardo: The hon. Gentleman is making a false point. He is advocating qualitative censorship. Censorship in totalitarian countries begins by influencing the content, and eventually it cuts it out altogether. The hon. Gentleman cannot get away from his dilemma. He is advocating the censorship of news programmes. Does he want to censor the News of the World and the other lascivious stuff that appears in newspapers?
  Mr. Key: The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to stray from the amendment and to say more about The Sun than I have already said about its reporting of events.
  Mr. Brinton: My hon. Friend has raised a very important point about television news. I have here a letter from the editor of Independent Television News that was written to Michael Grade on 19 February. It takes his point entirely and it should be put on the record. It says:
  "We at ITN are acutely aware of our responsibility to avoid the transmission of gratuitously offensive material, and are sensitive to the need for restraint during those hours when large numbers of children are likely to be watching."
  What is wrong with that?
  Mr. Key: Because they have utterly failed. I was watching "Breakfast Time" this week with my small children. The first item was an explicit description of rape and murder. That is why that letter is worthless.
  I introduce another point that I hope the Opposition will not take in a party political sense. A Labour party political broadcast used a child actor to portray a horrific scene in which a little girl left home, went through an underpass, heard footsteps and ran. It was meant to illustrate a perfectly respectable political point about law and order. This broadcast was drawn to my attention by a children's organisation. My worry is that that broadcast did not portray a law and order issue. Children need to be educated about how to cope with that kind of situation, but the broadcast showed that that child was afraid of the police. I am sure that that was not the intention of the broadcast, but it showed that the broadcasters do not perceive the problem from the child's point of view.
  No research that I have seen supports the view that there is no link between sex and violence on television. The BBC and the IBA are largely responsible for that. I applaud the ITV code of October 1971. It says:
  "This Code cannot provide universal rules. The programme maker must carry responsibility for his own decisions. In so sensitive an area, risks require special justification. If in doubt, cut."
  That is extremely good advice.
  The onus is upon those who oppose the Bill to provide a constructive solution. It is not, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) suggested, the media who need to be protected. It is our children who need to be protected. We teach children to cross the road safely and to be able to go near to water without being harmed. We do not find this difficult, because these are accepted risks. Not to teach children road safety and water safety would be considered foolish by most adults. Children are also warned about the dangers of talking to or going with strangers, not because the vast majority of adults would harm children but because a few deviants might. The vast majority of children are assaulted by those they know.
  Children must not just be warned about strangers. That is similar to warning them when they cross the road to watch out only for red cars. We must break through the taboos that prevent parents from discussing these issues and try to persuade the IBA, the BBC and all programme producers that they must adopt a responsible attitude. If we get no further than that with this Bill, we shall have achieved something.
  Mr. Chris Smith: I should say at the outset that I have an interest to declare in that I have a close working relationship with the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians, the film technicians trade union. That means that I have a particular interest in the impact of clause 1 and the amendment that we are discussing.
  The debate on this amendment has been characterised so far by almost universal agreement from both sides of the Chamber on two points—first, that there is a lot of genuine concern about the impact of television particularly of the portrayal of violence and, secondly, that there is a need to protect children. Those points are held in common by both sides of the House and by both proponents and opponents of the Bill.
  The key question that has arisen, and which I fear has not really been answered by anybody who has spoken against the amendment and in favour of the clause as it

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  stands, is whether the Bill will bring us any nearer to those goals which we all share. I fear that my answer is that it will not. In some ways, it takes us a bit further away from those goals.
  Conservative Members have strongly and genuinely made the point that in the face of what is happening in television, particularly the portrayal of violence on television, there is a need for Parliament, in the words of the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley), to do something about it.
  Justified as that response may be, it is no sensible basis for legislation. It has been said that it is the duty of the House to remind broadcasters of their responsibilities. I agree. It is the duty of all of us as Members of Parliament to reflect public concerns, to speak out about them and to remind broadcasters of what the public are concerned about.
  However, it is not the job of the House to put on the statute book legislation which is defective simply because we wish to carry out by that process that business of reminding broadcasters of their responsibilities. There are other ways of doing that.
  Let me refer Conservative Members to the debate that we had on a Friday morning many months ago in the House, before the Bill even had its Second Reading, on the impact of violence on young people and the rising tide of violent crime among young people. I spoke out then about my anxiety about a number of types of programme which are shown on television. That is the way in which we should be getting the message across, not by putting on the statute book legislation which will not tackle the problem about which we are all concerned.
  Mr. Cash: In a letter in The Times today, which I think has been quoted, Lord Goodman says that at the end of the day it is up to the people who are running the programmes to exercise a degree of social responsibility and that that is the way to solve the problem. That is really what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The video working party, in its report on violence on television, says that drug use should not be shown on television because of the problem of social responsibility. Will the hon. Gentleman accept that MIND has said that the drugs scene in "East Enders" has an adverse effect upon young people resulting in more suicides and that that is a sign of the failure of all the interconnecting alternative suggestions? That demonstrates that what the hon. Gentleman is saying has failed and that something else must be put in its place in order to prevent those young people from committing suicide.
  12.45 pm
  Mr. Smith: I am at something of a disadvantage in replying to the hon. Gentleman specifically. At present I do not read The Times so I have not seen Lord Goodman's letter. That is an act of self-censorship. It is an active choice that I am exercising as a Member of the public and which parents can exercise when they turn off the television set. It is precisely the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) was making some time ago.
  Mr. Churchill rose—
  Mr. Smith: I shall finish replying to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) then I will give way.
  I did not see the specific episode of "East Enders" to which much reference has been made. Of course, if there
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  is concern of the kind which the hon. Gentleman has identified, that is precisely the sort of issue which must be considered extremely carefully by the governors of the BBC, the board of the IBA and to which the guidelines which they issue must address themselves. If there are such failures the House should be bringing pressure upon the governors of the BBC and the board of the IBA to consider those matters much more carefully than they may hitherto have done. That is a responsibility of the House.
  When the hon. Member for Stafford says that something else must be done he is identifying precisely the problem about which I have been speaking. This Bill will do nothing to stop incidents of the sort shown on "East Enders". It will have no impact on such incidents. To claim, as he appears to by implication, that the Bill will in some way do what he believes should be done is not seeing the content of the Bill and what it will achieve.
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Gentleman admitted that he is not able to see The Times at present. Can he say whether that is a matter of self-regulation or is he bowing to the dictates of censorship by his own party machine?
  Mr. Smith: It is purely an act of choice on my part. As someone who only two evenings ago was standing with striking print workers outside the plant at Wapping to identify my support for their struggle, it is clearly a choice that I have made and would have made, whatever decision might have been made—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not be tempted further down that road. We must get back to the amendment.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell rose—
  Mr. Smith: I will give way as long as we are not trespassing on Mr. Deputy Speaker's ruling.
  Mr. Mitchell: We are not trespassing on it. I have an agreement with the News International reporters. They do not report a word I say, just like before.
  I agree with the point that my hon. Friend is making about the Bill. I wonder whether he agrees with my point that this amendment is the nub of our problem. If the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) will accept this amendment, since I understand that he is to accept all the other amendments in order to get the Bill through, he can almost certainly have his Bill. This amendment is the sticking point for the Opposition. If the amendment is accepted the Bill is acceptable.
  Mr. Smith: I am not sure that I would go along with my hon. Friend entirely. Although the amendment would improve the Bill it would still leave a number of defects. I might perhaps say in passing, had new clauses 1 and 2 been accepted for debate, and had the hon. Member for Davyhulme sought to include them within the Bill, that my attitude may conceivably have been different. However, I am afraid that that has not been possible.
  I accept the motives of the hon. Member for Davyhulme. Even if the Bill does not reach the statute book he will have achieved a considerable amount by bringing issues before the House. Evidence of that can be found in the IBA's spring 1986 quarterly journal, Airwaves, which contains an article by Robin Duval, the chief assistant of television, who says:
  "But all this activity is, at the least, a very healthy reminder that it would be a good idea to remind ourselves"—
  that is the IBA—
  "and everybody else of just what it is we do about section

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  4(1)(a). We have had a few shocks recently and we are publicising our case. But perhaps we should do it not just now, but again. And again."
  Mr. Duval is saying that the IBA has picked up from the activity around the Bill the message that there is concern and a need to examine carefully its own activities, not just now but in the future, on a regular basis. That is an achievement. That means that pressure is receiving a response.
  Mr. Nicholas Baker: We have discussed the subject on a number of occasions over the past seven years. We can agree about the boards and governors and codes of conduct, but we are worried that productions do not always conform with the guidelines. The producers of programmes do not seem to conform to the guidelines. How are we to tackle that problem?
  Mr. Smith: I am not sure that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. On the whole the guidelines are admirable. However, some areas are not covered in the guidelines. I glanced rapidly this morning through the IBA guidelines to see what they say about the taking of drugs and overdoses. That problem is not adequately covered in the guidelines and it might be sensible to draw that to the attention of the governors and the board.
  The hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) refers to the use of the guidelines by the producers. I had a long discussion only last week with a programme writer who made a programme which went out on 1 April. It was a spoof produced specifically for April fools' day. It was about Hitler's activities during the war. He told me that in making the programme he examined the guidelines closely because he was worried in case any material in the programme was offensive to anyone in the Jewish community in Britain. Having checked the guidelines, he amended his programme. The programme was then watched by high-level management in the broadcasting authority to check whether the guidelines were being observed. The guidelines are frequently operated in that way. It is a careful process and, on the whole, it seems to work effectively.
  Mr. Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman recall the recent court case in which the Director General of the BBC, Mr. Bill Whitney and Mr. Shaw, who is now with the Independent Televison Contractors Association, were involved? They made it clear that it was extremely difficult for the line of command to which the hon. Gentleman is referring to produce the results that he would like to see the guidelines produce.
  Will the hon. Gentleman also accept that the process of taking action under the Broadcasting Act to enforce the guidelines is ineffective because it involves judicial review under order 53, which no one can use to any significant extent? In other words, self-regulation does not work. Therefore, there is an obligation on Parliament to ensure that a criminal line is drawn at the bottom.
  Mr. Smith: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman for a number of reasons, principally because the operation of the guidelines is inevitably a subjective process. There are guidelines on a number of sensitive issues on which clear-cut, black and white, easy decisions cannot be made. Difficult and delicate matters are involved and they vary according to the context of the programme and so on.
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  For example, the IBA has television programme guidelines on bad language. They say:
  "There is no absolute ban on the use of bad language. But when used it must be defensible in terms of context and authenticity. It is one thing, for example, when such language occurs in a documentary programme, and quite another when it is introduced for its own sake in a studio production. Many people who would not be unduly shocked by swearing are offended when it is used to excess and without justification."
  The key issues are the frequency of use and the context in which bad language is used. It is not easy to decide on such matters. It is difficult for a court or a judge, let alone for the DPP, to make such decisions. It is easier to make the decisions during the careful process of considering guidelines for overwhelmingly responsible programme making.
  Imported broadcasting material must be considered under the guidelines, but there is a problem. Imported material is subject to the discredited Customs Consolidation Act 1876, which should be wiped off the statute book and be replaced by a new definition of obscene and indecent which relates to the definition for material produced in Britain. There are different standards, and there should be the same standard. I hope that the Government will consider legislation in the forthcoming Session to eliminate that absurd anomaly in the law, which increases the difficulty in the case of imported broadcast material or material intended for broadcasting. I am very sorry that my new clause designed to clear up that anomaly was not accepted.
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  If the clause is not amended, the major problem will be that the criminal law will effectively be brought into a field where at the moment we have the guidelines and the layers of responsibility that end ultimately with the governors of the BBC and the board of the IBA. The climate for producers and programme-makers will not be improved by that process.
  A number of hon. Members have referred to letters that they have received from constituents. I have received more letters from constituents opposing the Bill than from people who are in favour of it. One of my constituents wrote to me in February, saying:
  "I have five children of my own, all under 20. My wife and I regard the kind of society this … could lead to as more objectionable, in its intolerance, philistinism and authoritarianism, than the one it is designed to rescue them from … No one in his senses wants children exposed to degrading representations of sex or, even more pictorially available, violence … But this bizarre … bill simply won't do. It can be sure of years of tiresome and implacable resistance if it becomes law. If there is anything useful any of us can do at this late stage, please let us know."
  That letter graphically illustrates the problem. There is undoubtedly public concern in this area. Although in Committee the hon. Member for Davyhulme admitted that there is no evidence at all of any problem connected with radio, there is a general concern that the impact of television and radio may be deleterious to children. However, I do not believe that the clause, unamended, is the way to protect children and to make those concerns known forcibly to the programme-makers. I do not believe that legal restraint is the way to deal with such difficult, complex and subjective issues. There should be pressure, but the clause, unamended, is not one that I can support.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 23, Noes 76.

  Division No. 158]

  [1.05 pm

  AYES

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Madden, Max

  Barnett, Guy

  Marlow, Antony

  Brinton, Tim

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

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

  Randall, Stuart

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

  Dubs, Alfred

  Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

  Skinner, Dennis

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Wareing, Robert

  Hargreaves, Kenneth

  Wheeler, John

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

  Mr. Ian Mikardo and

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Mr. Chris Smith.

  Litherland, Robert

  NOES

  Amess, David

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Maclean, David John

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Major, John

  Bendall, Vivian

  Marlow, Antony

  Benyon, William

  Mates, Michael

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Mather, Carol

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Mellor, David

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Merchant, Piers

  Bright, Graham

  Neubert, Michael

  Browne, John

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Normanton, Tom

  Cash, William

  Pawsey, James

  Chapman, Sydney

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Churchill, W. S.

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Cope, John

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Dicks, Terry

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Dover, Den

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Durant, Tony

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Eyre, Sir Reginald

  Sims, Roger

  Favell, Anthony

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Stanley, Rt Hon John

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Sumberg, David

  Gow, Ian

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Grant, Sir Anthony

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Greenway, Harry

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

  Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  van Straubenzee, Sir W.

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Viggers, Peter

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

  Wilkinson, John

  Howard, Michael

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Jackson, Robert

  Jessel, Toby

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Mr. Robert Keys and

  Jones, Robert (Herts W)

  Mr. Geoffrey Dickens.

  Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Mr. Mikardo: I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 10, leave out subsection (4).
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 5, in page 2, line 11, after `article', insert
  'which has been edited and is otherwise completed for transmission'.
  Mr. Mikardo: Subsection (4) is very disturbing—
  Mr. Churchill: Before the hon. Gentleman goes any further, may I say to those whose amendments have been selected for debate that I am willing to accept all the remaining amendments, including that of the hon. Gentleman.
  1.15 pm
  Mr. Mikardo: I am deighted to hear that. The effect of the hon. Gentleman's comments will be seriously to curtail the observations I was about to make. I do not now need to persuade the hon. Gentleman or the House of the validity of the amendment and of the dangers that lie within clause 2(4).
  I would like, nevertheless, to say a word or two about something that may affect some subsequent amendments. The first line of clause 1(4) of the Bill, contains one of the 12 instances in the Bill in which the word "obscene" occurs. That word occurs in all the clauses in the Bill.
  I would like to say a few words about that as I believe it will affect our attitude to the Bill, and perhaps relieve me of the obligation of making these points on Third Reading.
  We all agree that the present law is defective in these matters, and the Bill is intended to amend the law. The evidence for the law being defective lies in the huge amount of litigation that the present law has occasioned. There have been a number of cause célèbre trials which have aroused much feeling, which has cost an awful lot of money and which have taken up a great deal of time.
  It was for that reason that I was absolutely delighted when I heard that the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) was bringing in a Bill to amend the present law. When I saw the Bill, I realised, as we have all realised, that his laundry list made the Bill very defective. Nevertheless, I had hoped that in the course of the Bill's proceedings, in Committee and on Report, we would manage to find a definition of "obscenity" which would enable us to amend the law in a sensible way.
  I voted for the Second Reading on those grounds. I did not like the Bill as it was, but I thought that we should have the chance to amend it and perhaps have a good Bill in the end. The great problem with the present law, which has not been avoided but made worse by the Bill, is that we are required to put ourselves into someone else's mind and decide whether there is a tendency to deprave and corrupt somebody. A judge must therefore decide what went on in the mind of the reader of a book or of the viewer of a television film. It is never easy to put oneself into someone else's mind.
  In one respect, obscenity is like beauty, it lies in the eye of the beholder. The line between prudery and prurience is very narrow and wobbly. We saw some evidence of that a few weeks ago when my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) moved a motion to introduce a Bill on a subject very much cognate with the Bill before us. On that occasion a number of Conservative Members behaved disgracefully and those hon. Members are supporters of today's Bill. They behaved in such a way as perfectly to illustrate the narrow boundary between prudery and prurience. They giggled in lascivious recall of what they had seen on page three of The Sun that morning. They reminded me very much—especially the hon. Members for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) and for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), and the hon. and highly temporary Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens)—of a 12-year-old boy in class, lasciviously looking through his first batch of dirty pictures, peeping at them surreptitiously because they are interleaved in the pages of his algebra textbook. They were totally immature. These hon. Members support this Bill

  613
  because they believe in a high moral tone, yet when my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood introduced her Bill they behaved in almost a lecherous fashion.
  We must now—I shall be brief in view of what the hon. Member for Davyhulme has said—ask ourselves whether we have managed in the Bill to put right the defect in the present law which arises from the fact that a person making a judgment is required to put himself into the mind of a different person. I am required at my age—most judges are nearer my age than that of most other hon. Members—to put myself in the mind of a child.
  Mr. Churchill: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be in order for the hon. Member for Bowand Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) to address himself to the amendment?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am listening carefully to the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo). Nothing which he has said so far has been out of order.
  Mr. Mikardo: I am obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am addressing myself to the key word, which is "obscene." I promise the hon. Member for Davyhulme that I shall not be long. If it is difficult for a judge to put himself into the mind of another adult, it is virtually impossible to put himself into the mind of a young teenager. I know that that is so. I find it difficult to understand the moves of my grandchildren and I sometimes find it difficult even to understand their language. The generation gap is widening all the time, and when it is a double generation gap it is extremely wide.
  I do not know what will tend to deprave and corrupt a 15-year-old. I do know that many 12, 14 or 15-year-olds know a great deal more about life than I did when I was 12, 14 or 15 years old. The attitudes of young people these days are different from those which obtained when I was young. Young people are very informed and they receive a wider education in many areas than we did. They read much more widely and the situation is entirely different now from what it was previously.
  We are not living in a Victorian world although there is much talk these days about returning to Victorian values. It should be understood that there was far more prurience in Victorian times than there is now. The mixture of prudery and prurience in Victorian times is illustrated by the fact that they put cloth round the legs of grand pianos because they thought that the legs could deprave and corrupt. What rubbish it all was.
  I am grateful to the hon. Member for Davyhulme for his willingness to accept the amendment. With all respect to him, I think that the Bill still remains gravely defective. I do not blame him for not having found the magic formula which would make good law instead of the present law. One day there may be Members of this place who are cleverer than we are—things may become easier with a change in the climate of the times 10 or 15 years hence—and the stage may be reached when we can make an improving amendment to the present law. To my deep regret, I do not think that the Bill is an improvement.
  In view of the observations of the hon. Member for Davyhulme, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is the hon. Member telling me that he is not moving the amendment?
  Mr. Mikardo: I cannot tell you that, because I have moved it, but I also observe that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) is seeking to speak and I do not want to prevent him from doing so.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Question is, That the amendment be made.
  Mr. Greg Knight: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) said that he was prepared to accept all the amendments on the Order Paper which were to be called. I wonder whether the House could receive some clarification from my hon. Friend regarding what he has said. With regard to this bunch of amendments, the amendment which has just been moved seeks to omit subsection (4) from the Bill and the amendment in my name, amendment No. 5, seeks to amend subsection (4). What is my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme actually offering the House?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member for Davyhulme would like to clarify the position?
  Mr. Churchill: When I said that I was prepared to accept all the amendments that had been selected, the effect of accepting amendment No. 4 would mean that amendment No. 5 would fall.
  Mr. Mikardo: Further to that point of order, I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker and to the House. I was in error. The hon. Member for Davyhulme cannot accept the amendment unless it has been moved and he cannot accept it if it is withdrawn. Therefore I was wrong in suggesting that I should seek leave to withdraw the amendment. If there are hon. Members who wish to speak I do not wish to interfere.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: In case the House is confused, we have now reached the position where amendment No. 4 has been moved and we are therefore discussing amendment No. 4 together with amendment No. 5, and if any hon. Members rise I shall call them.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Thank you for the clarification. However, I still have a problem because I do not understand the distinction. Amendment No. 4 leaves out subsection (4) but amendment No. 5, which will presumably be selected and will presumably be moved if we are to discuss it, leaves out a part of the subsection. I still do not understand what we are actually leaving out.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: This is a well-known procedure in the House. The discussion is taking place on amendment No. 4. We are discussing amendment No. 5 with that. It is perfectly in order to discuss both of them in this debate. When the debate concludes I will, of course, put the Question on amendment No. 4, which is the substantive amendment being discussed. The House will then have an opportunity to come to a conclusion on that, unless it is withdrawn.
  Mr. Brinton: I will console my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) by being brief. I rise, if I have understood the technicalities correctly, to speak in favour of amendment No. 4 which my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme has already accepted, so I will withdraw my own amendment. It is my understanding of subsection (4) that anyone found in possession of what is defined in the Bill as an "obscene

  615
  article" would be assumed to have it in his or her possession for gain. That needed clearer definition hence my amendment No. 5.
  The editor has to edit the film and the cameraman has to shoot it, but if either of them are found to be in possession of the shots that went the wrong way at the wrong time, they could be found to be in possession of film or tape for gain.
  Gain poses another problem. As far as I am aware, the BBC does not try to make a profit out of its normal operations in Britain—it uses licence payers' money. Who is considered to gain? I can understand the idea if any individual uses material for criminal gain on the black market, but will the staff producer or staff cameraman on a salary be considered to gain? I could have hoped that my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme would have defined more clearly who is responsible.
  1.30 pm
  Mr. Mikardo: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but there is an even worse element. Clause 1(4) weakens, if it does not break, the principle that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. There is such a thing as an offence of possessing goods knowing them to have been stolen. If anybody proposed that the law should provide that anybody who possesses stolen goods should be presumed to know that they have been stolen, every lawyer in the country would scream his head off in protest.
  Mr. Brinton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was about to argue that point, but will no longer do so as he has put it much more fluently than I could. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme will realise that there should have been a definition of who is responsible. It might be the governors of the BBC, the members of the IBA or the director-general.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: I want to speak to the amendment, not to bury it—which seems to have been the original assumption—but to praise it. I am still puzzled about the distinction between amendment No. 4 and amendment No. 5 and the effect on the Obscene Publications Act 1959, as amendment No. 5 would appear to narrow the scope more satisfactorily.
  Mr. Brinton: I have been a bit confused by the procedure, but my understanding is that, if amendment No. 4 is accepted, amendment No. 5 will fall. I rashly said that I proposed to withdraw my amendment. Perhaps I had better wait and see as the debate might change hon. Member's minds and my amendment might be accepted.
  Mr. Mitchell rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can help with the procedural point. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) is right. If amendment No. 4 is agreed to, amendment No. 5 falls, but if amendment No. 4 is not agreed to and the hon. Gentleman wishes the House to make a decision on amendent No. 5, I shall be preapred to allow a Division on it.
  Mr. Mitchell: I am most grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That clarifies matters in regard to the withdrawal or pursuance of the amendment. I should now like to ask about the effect on the Obscene Publications Act 1959. By defeating amendment No. 1, the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) has made the Bill unacceptable to me. I support the Bill in practice and principle, but
  616
  I cannot accept the interference with broadcasting institutions that is implicit in clause 1. Our amendment was a satisfactory way of dealing with that problem, by removing the broadcasting organisations—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now harking back to an amendment that has already been dealt with. He must deal with this amendment, which is concerned with publication for gain.
  Mr. Mitchell: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is absolutely correct. However, the failure of the amendment means that the Bill is now unacceptable. I wanted to support the Bill, but because of the failure of that amendment I am now unable to do so.
  Subsection (4) demonstrates the difficulties involved in interfering with the broadcasting institutions by means of legislation. Who is to say at what point the interference shall stop, or at what point the material becomes ready for transmission, or at what point it becomes subject to control? The broadcasting organisations have in their possession parts of programmes that might be considered to be obscene but which form a contributory element to the overall programme. They are there as part of the editing and stitching together of a programme in the process of building it up. However, part of that material could be regarded as obscene.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Does my hon. Friend accept that unless subsection (4) is removed from clause 1 the whole purpose of the Bill is likely to be negated? In the very act of looking at what might be deemed to be obscene and indecent, the programme producer is bound to have in his or her possession material that he or she is considering. The object of the Bill is to encourage that process.
  Mr. Mitchell: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, who is correct. However, my point is that the fact that subsection (4) ought to have been included in the Bill illustrates the extreme difficulty about legislating to remove the television and broadcasting exemption. When that principle is accepted, which is what the Bill does, it is difficult to know at what point the interference will stop and at what point it will begin.
  I recall examples of such material. They were not included in the nightly magazine type of programme with which I was concerned. That material was suitable and, indeed, compulsory for family viewing in Yorkshire. It was an extremely important and entertaining current affairs programme. However, material for other programmes that were intended to be broadcast late at night could, at different stages of its production, have been regarded as obscene. Had this clause not been removed it would have made the assembly of such a programme extremely difficult. That illustrates the difficulty of legislating to cover broadcasting material.
  What will be the effect of removing this subsection upon the existing legislation? I presume that we shall return to the status quo ante and that the Obscene Publications Act 1959 will apply. We shall have to consider at what stage the broadcasting exemption is to be applied. Somebody who makes a programme for transmission is making it for gain. The gain may be to the cameraman, whose wages will be paid, or the independent producer may gain, in the sense that his contract may depend upon the programme. Under the obscene publications legislation, the possession of obscene material for gain is an offence.

  617
  We have to ask at what stage the broadcasting exemption will be introduced if this subsection is removed. One therefore has to consider whether the definition that is included in amendment No. 5 will deal with this problem more satisfactorily than the removal of the subsection, which is the intention of amendment No. 4. It is important that the Minister should tell us the effect of removing that subsection.
  Mr. Brinton: Perhaps the amendment is too indirect and I should have written it more carefully. I was trying to achieve the position that once a programme has been edited, is ready for transmission and has become in every sense the property of the BBC or the programme company, the poor old DPP will know exactly who to go for, whereas earlier the BBC or programme company might be able to deny responsibility.
  Mr. Mitchell: That makes the point clear and I can accept that. He is saying that the exemption of broadcasting material from the Obscene Publications Act 1959 becomes effective at the point when an edited programme is ready for transmission. That is a clear and satisfactory definition which is workable.
  The problem is what happens to the material before that. We are now making that material subject to the Obscene Publications Act 1959. We all know that putting together a television programme is in some senses like building a Meccano—there is a collection of bits to put together. Those bits, some of them individually, could be indecent or obscene and all of them have been produced for gain in the sense that the people employed on them are either paid wages to produce them or are working on a contract to produce them and so make a gain from the production of that material. Therefore, they come under the 1959 Act. Any one bit, construed on its own could be indecent. Each is part of an entity which must be judged as a whole rather than in bits, but possession of the particular bits creates a danger. That is the difficulty in which we find ourselves as soon as we start trying to extend the legislation in this kind of way. Problems are created for the individual possessing particular bits.
  I hope that the Minister will be able to set my mind at rest on that. I would rather not be in this position. I would rather not have extended the legislation to broadcasting and television but that is what we have decided to do and that is the position that we must now face.
  I can remember people working in television who have taken material home or have put it out to production units, and where a programme has been put together bit by bit, Indeed, I can remember occasions where particularlysalubrious bits have been strung together in a Christmas film at which everybody giggles, nudges and winks and which is a great social occasion and a bit of fun. Nothing is seriously intended for publication but the material has been produced for gain, and is part—perhaps a discarded part—of a programme which needs to be viewed as a whole.
  What happens to such material and what happens to the material which is used in the programme in its incomplete state? What happens in the labs and in the editing? What happens if any pieces are taken out of the studio by those working on the programme? What happens if material is sent out to an independent unit? Large numbers of editors up and down the country are working on material under
  618
  their own steam at home, using their own video facilities. They may have facilities built on to the house. What will happen to them and the material under the Bill? That is the nightmare which we are facing.
  Mr. Brinton: The hon. Gentleman has forced out of me an admission that I had hoped to withold. In 1962 I was the first newscaster on television to be seen nude fully frontal on the screen. That happened on a recorded programme before the days of editing. I was doing a programme about Turkish baths, the logical end to which was that I whipped off my towel, jumped into the pool and swam across. The programme's director promised me faithfully that he would cut from camera one to camera two at the appropriate moment. His finger slipped, he was a little late and there I was for a second or so in all my splendour. Had my hon. Friend's Bill or any sort of Bill against nudity been in operation I might have been sued, the director might have been sued or, should it have been the managing director of the company? That is the problem.
  1.45 pm
  Mr. Mitchell: I suppose it depends upon whether that was regarded as a news flash or a shock horror probe. If the material is rescreened, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not ask me to endorse it publicly in the way in which so many of his colleagues endorsed the nudes in The Sun recently. That illustrates the problem.
  I have featured in Christmas films in the intimacy and privacy of the BBC or ITV studios in which material has been put together, much of it harmless, to make it humorous and, in some cases it was indecent. All of that material has been produced for gain, I submit, under the definition of the Obscene Publications Act 1959.
  Mr. Dickens: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the rug has been pulled out from under his feet and from under the feet of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton)—two hon. Members who have had close connections with the television industry for most of their lives—when the sponsor of the Bill has accepted every amendment tabled thus far through to the end of the debate? Now, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby is struggling and throwing foolish reasons forward. Judges and jurors are sensible people. They can decide where the blame for material lies and if it is inadvertently put into the wrong hands. Do you accept that he has been embarrassed and that he is now clutching at straws to try to sink the Bill which has satisfied every amendment thus far?
  Mr. Mitchell: I am sure that you are not struggling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not struggling. I can see that the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth is struggling to reconcile his endorsement of nudes on page three of The Sun with his stand on other matters of public decency. I wonder what position his constituency party took on that endorsement.
  Mr. Hayes: I hesitate to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth. However, I prosecute and defend obscene publications cases—I have probably seen more pornographic films than most hon. Members—and I do not think that I am depraved or corrupted. One of the reasons why the Obscene Publications Act 1959 has failed is that jurors differ from

  619
  county to county and from court to court. That is one of the difficulties, and often jurors are not the best people to decide. There is no consistency.
  Mr. Mitchell: That is exactly the point I am making. There is no consistency. When one accepts the general principle of interference, one opens up a Pandora's box which it is difficult to regulate or control because the pattern becomes haphazard.
  As for having the rug pulled from under me, my understanding of the speech of the hon. Member for Gravesham is that the rug was pulled from off him. I do not accept that the rug has been pulled from under me. I made clear my support for the general principle of this Bill. I cannot accept the interference in the broadcasting organisations and in the principle of self-discipline and self regulation, which is implicit. I asked the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) to withdraw amendment No. 1 and the rest of the Bill could go through without any particular problems. He did not do so. We are left with a Bill, the centre and dangerous part of which, is to allow interference in broadcasting institutions. The rest of the amendments to the Bill are acceptable and satisfactory. I am prepared to support them and there is strong public demand for them. However, under the guise of concern about violence we are creating a situation of unpredictable interference in the broadcasting organisations.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is again harping back to a previous amendment. We must talk about subsection (4), which relates to publications for gain.
  Mr. Mitchell: I apologise. That is correct and I am sorry that I was drawn to that area. I have to explain my position.
  Subsection (4) is straightforward. What are we opening up by removing the section? Once we accept the principle of interference, what scope will be left for inference with the broadcasting organisations, not just on the general principle of the programmes but on bits of the programmes before they are put together? Is this an attempt to hamstring the broadcasting organisations by acting on particular sections of programmes because they can be construed as coming within the context of the Obscene Publications Act 1959?
  Those bits might be intended for a different whole, but as bits they might be indecent or obscene because they have been created for gain. Gain is implicit in the making of a programme.
  It is wrong of the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth to get up in a flush of moral indignation and denounce me for expressing a realistic anxiety. We must be rational about legislation. It is no use making emotional gestures and rushing into spasms of activity. Our job is to use our reason, to evaluate legislation and to ask whether it is the most effective way of dealing with a problem.
  I think that the measure is inadequate and fails in this instance. I am right to express my concern, I hope that the Minister can set our minds at rest and tell us what will happen to bits under the 1959 legislation.
  Mr. Chris Smith: The hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) in his intervention seemed to say that by the sweeping acceptance by the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) of all the amendments, the House has been relieved of a problem.
  620
  It has not. Accepting the amendments in such a rush is proof of the problems that the legislation presents. The hon. Gentleman has said that he wishes to accept amendment No. 4, tabled by my hon. Friends and that, automatically, amendment No. 5, tabled by the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton), will fall as a consequence.
  I have considered the two amendments carefully and in spite of all the respect that I have for my hon. Friends I believe that amendment No. 5 addresses itself better to the problem than amendment No. 4. I am faced with a considerable problem.
  The key principle with which the amendments attempt to deal is whether a programme maker, when assembling the bits of a programme, will be liable under the Obscene Publications Act for the content of all those bits, whether or not they are to be shown on public television. It cannot be right that a programme-maker when putting together a programme, when assessing all the bits of footage shot for that programme and when examining archive material, should be liable under the Obscene Publications Act. It cannot be right that he should be liable for every single bit in his possession, even if it is not to be shown. The principle is clear. The measure should cover only items which are actually shown or on the point of being shown on television. That seems to be the fair way.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: I cannot understand my hon. Friend's reasoning. Why should that be the point at which material becomes immune? The component parts are as important as the whole and the threat to broadcasting can come from attempts to prosecute before the parts become a coherent, developed programme. Is not there a threat to the material before it is assembled?
  Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend misunderstands me. My anxiety is that in the putting together of all the parts of the programme, the programme maker should have as wide a range of material as possible available to him. The material that he is considering should not automatically be liable for action under the Obscene Publications Act. Only when the material has been put together and is about to be shown should such considerations arise.
  The removal of subsection (4) would leave us with subsection (5) which refers to publication of material that
  "was to take place in the course of a television or sound broadcast".
  That presents the same problems as subsection (4). That is why I prefer amendment No. 5, which makes it clear that articles for broadcast that are to be subject to the Obscene Publications Act should be those that have been edited and are complete for transmission.
  Inadequate as subsection (4) is, its removal will still leave us with a problem, because of the wording of subsection (5). However, if subsection (4) were amended by amendment No. 5 the intention of the House would be made clear.
  Mr. Greg Knight: The hon. Gentleman is making heavy weather of this point. I hope that he will accept the offer of my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) to accept amendment No. 4. Subsection (5) says:
  "Proceedings … shall not be instituted except by and with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions"
  and it refers to publication that
  "was to take place in the course of a television or sound broadcast".

  621
  Therefore, could not it be validly argued that an unedited film was not
  "to take place in the course of a television … broadcast"
  because some scenes would be edited out?
  Mr. Smith: The problem lies in being able to prove such matters to the court or to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The burden of proof placed on the programme makers would be considerable. That is why I think that amendment No. 5 would be preferable to the deletion of subsection (4). I must therefore express my concern at the way in which the hon. Member for Davyhulme has simply grasped at one amendment, although the other, which would be preferable, would be effectively ruled out of consideration if it were accepted.
  2 pm
  Mr. Mellor: I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight) a slight sensation that rather heavy weather was made of the amendment in the Mutt and Jeff act between the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith). Frankly, not much turns on subsection (4), and I am not sure that we should get very excited about whether it is included in the Bill. It states only that someone
  "who has an obscene article in his ownership, possession or control with a view to its being shown"
  shall be deemed to have that article for publication or gain.
  If the subsection is removed, the fact that he has that article in his possession for publication or gain will have to be proved; it will not be assumed.
  I am well aware that parts of the 1959 Act have caused difficulties and are much criticised. However, there is a similar provision in the 1959 Act in relation to books, magazines and cinematograph film, and it has not caused any difficulty. Perhaps a somewhat disingenuous attempt is being made to hoist my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) on Morton's fork. He thought that it would be sensible to include subsection (4) on the basis that it reproduces for television the precise provisions of the 1959 Act that already apply elsewhere. He was told by those who seem to want to stop the progress of the Bill that he should remove subsection (4). Having agreed with them, he is then criticised for doing so. For whatever reasons people may oppose the Bill, no one believes that much turns on subsection (4), because it does not.
  Mr. Dubs: The Minister's brief speech has not clarified matters. I have one or two doubts about what he has said. At this late stage in the debate, we owe it to ourselves and those whom we represent to be clear about what the amendment will do. When I first read subsection (4), I thought that what it sought to do was to overcome a defect which is in the Bill but not in the guidelines, and catch people at an early stage before an item has been shown. The danger of the Obscene Publications Act is that it tends to catch people retrospectively. I understood that subsection (4) was intended to overcome that and to ensure that if there was any belief that an obscene film or obscene footage for a film was in the possession of a television company, that would be an offence. Action could then be taken before the film was shown.
  That was a worthy aim, but it seemed to me that the consequences of the measure might extend well beyond
  622
  that simple intention. I have therefore listened carefully to the relative merits of amendments Nos. 4 and 5 in order to decide which of the two was more satisfactory. I am not very knowledgable about how television companies work, but I believe that there may be dangers in holding them liable to have committed a criminal offence when the procedures and the safeguards within the television company have not yet been brought into play. As the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) has said, they might inadvertently have some footage that could be deemed to be obscene and which the television contractors, if not the producers or the authority, would not have allowed to be shown. However, it might be possible for someone to be found guilty before those procedures and safeguards had been implemented—or at least for them to be brought to court. That is a difficulty and that is why the deletion of subsection (4) might be the sensible way to prevent this happening.
  The parallel with printed material is not a good one, and that is because of the complexities of the procedures within television companies, for which there is no equivalent in the case of publication of a book, where there are only two decision-makers, the author and the publisher. With television material there might be several sets of decision-makers. In the earlier debate, I said that the IBA had prevented the showing of certain films and on that point I shall turn to the possible effect of section 5. Let us suppose that the IBA is considering the showing of a feature film which has come to the IBA with a view to it being shown. I suspect this means it would come within the provisions of amendment No. 5 because it would have been edited and ready for transmission. At that point the IBA would still be about to go through the stage of looking at the film to see whether it was suitable.
  Mr. Brinton: My view is that amendment No. 5 could be invoked, but it is much more interesting to cast one's eyes ahead to amendment No. 7. It covers the position about feature films.
  Mr. Dubs: I thank the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that point. At any rate those are my reasons for thinking that the inclusion of subsection (4) in its entireity poses undersirable dangers and is unnecessary. In relation to subsections (4) and (5) I am not totally convinced either way. Either of them would be acceptable and preferable to leaving subsection (4) in as it stands.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Greg Knight: I beg to move, Amendment No. 7, in page 3, line 6 at end insert—
  '(7A) No order for the forfeiture of the said article shall be made if the owner can show that the said article is capable of being shown, played or broadcast in an edited form with the offending scene or scenes removed.'.
  In the light of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) I intend to be brief. I am pleased that my hon. Friend has given an undertaking to the House that he is prepared to accept this amendment. The essence of the amendment is to limit forfeiture and some of the points that I had proposed to make were made in the previous debate. Film can be edited but obscene magazines can not.
  My next point is that even if a film, when edited, is obscene, if the obscenity is not the central theme but is incidental to the film why should the whole article be forfeited? Why should we not allow those in possession of the film to use an edited version that is still a saleable

  623
  product? If the obscenity takes up 10 minutes and the running time of the film is perhaps one to one and a half hours, it is reasonable to allow that film to be retained and not to be forfeited. I am grateful that my hon. Friend has accepted that. The earlier point made by the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) is valid here. If, for example, the BBC buys a film for broadcasting and decides that some scenes in the film are not suitable for transmission, I should not like to see the BBC having to forfeit that film even though no scenes of obscenity were to be broadcast.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: I doubt whether this threat can be used as a means of forcing re-editing or censorship of existing films. If the amendment is accepted does the hon. Gentleman see a possibility of it being used in that way?
  Mr. Knight: No. I see the amendment only as a limit on the right of forfeiture. That is all that it is intended to be. It would prevent films from being seized that could be re-edited, or that are perhaps intended to be re-edited before being shown to the public.
  With those brief comments, I commend the amendment to the House.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2

  SPECIAL TEST OF OBSCENITY IN RELATION TO PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF I8
  Mr. Dubs: I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 3, line 17, leave out '18' and insert '16'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 15, in page 3, line 32, leave out '18' and insert '16'.
  No. 16, in page 3, line 40, leave out '18' and insert `16'.
  No. 17, in page 3, line 42, at end add
  `; except that this provision shall not apply in circumstances where the visibility or access is available solely by reason of a person's employment at a place of publication.'.
  No. 18, in page 4, line 2, leave out '18' and insert '16'.
  No. 24, in title, line 4, leave out '18' and insert '16'.
  Mr. Dubs: All the amendments seek to make one change to clause 2. We wish to change the age of 18 to 16 throughout. Of course, clause 2 deals with printed material and specifically with pictures. Its intention is to have a more rigorous test for those age under 18 for material that might be obscene or that might have a tendency to deprave or corrupt. A difficulty arises if the cut-off comes at the age of 18, because a jury would have to look differently at material seen by those aged under 18. It is particularly difficult to draw the line at the age of 18. We would all be very reluctant to allow children to see certain printed material and pictures, but the maturity of teenagers and the responsibilities that come to them both legally and in fact from the age of 16 onwards, make it difficult for any jury to decide that some material is unsuitable for viewing by those aged under 18—for example, by a 17-year-old—but all right for those aged 18 or over. If I was a juror and had to make that decision, I would not know how to react.
  Of course, there is some material that should not be published, but we are talking about material that is deemed to be all right for adults but not for children. If the cut-off line was drawn at the age of 16, it would be much more sensible.
  Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman had a simple argument to put. Now that he has put it, will he be good enough to allow us to proceed with the rest of the Bill?
  Mr. Dubs: I have been on my feet for only two or two and a half minutes. It is not always obvious that I have been so quickly persuasive as the hon. Gentleman now suggests.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: Unlike the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), I cannot follow the logic of the argument. If a jury was asked to assess the effects of such material on a juvenile, it would have to undertake a mind-boggling feat of imagination that would be difficult for any jury, whether the age involved was 15, 16, 17 or 18. Is it not more logical to accept the conventional age of majority, 18, and to say that adulthood begins there? I see no point in splitting hairs or in lowering the age to 16 or 17. What is the logic in inserting the age of 16, when we all now know that the age of majority is 18?
  Mr. Dubs: I understand my hon. Friend's point, but I do not agree with it. Ultimately, one must take a subjective view of the issue. If I had to serve on a jury, I would find it almost impossible to draw any distinction between the suitability of material for 18-year-olds and the suitability of material for 17-year-olds. The younger the age at which one has to make the distinction, the easier, in some ways, it becomes. That is the purpose of the amendment. After all, the age of consent for heterosexual behaviour is 16. That assumes a certain maturity, and I am applying that criterion to this set of amendments. That is why, on balance—it is a difficult balance to draw—I prefer the age of 16 for the purposes of clause 2
  2.15 pm
  Ms. Clare Short: I support these amendments for the simple reason that it is crazy to allow people to marry at 16 but to prevent them from buying at their local newsagents whatever porny magazines we unfortunately produce in this country.
  I have very little patience for the Bill or for those who support it. I do not believe that it will deal with the major problem in society which is worrying people. The Bill's first clause, applying the Obscene Publications Act 1959 to television, will not do much to change anything broadcast on television. It will simply create great uncertainty for the makers of television programmes. We all know that things that are found to be obscene are so extreme that nothing produced on television would be caught within that definition.
  The second part of the Bill provides that if porny magazines are supplied, if the amendment is accepted, to anyone under 16, or displayed in a place to which under 16-year-olds have access, there will be a test as to whether these magazines will deprave or corrupt an under 16-year-old.
  The likely effect of that is that the porny magazines that are displayed in newsagents will be put in packages. I believe that that would be welcomed, but it is a minor thing. In the meantime, every day of every week, of every year, more than 10 million pictures of naked women deliberately posed in sexually provocative ways are circulated up and down the land to men, women and children. These pictures are seen by at least double that number of adults and by many children. They have a really damaging effect on the population. That is the view of thousands of women.

  625
  The hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) said that he had received nearly 1,000 letters. I have received 3,052 letters and messages of support. Of those, 2,000 were from women and 1,000 from what I would call decent men. Of these letters, 1,241 came from a wide range of organisations—Tory organisations, church organisations, Labour party organisations and trade unions. Spontaneous petitions were collected in towns, cities and villages by women, and these were often supported by men.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell rose—
  Ms. Short: These petitions were supported by men. I shall give way briefly to my hon. Friend, but I wish to complete my point.
  Mr. Mitchell: I would like to inquire whether I would come within my hon. Friend's category of decent men? My hon. Friend might like to know that one Conservative Member who did express support for the page 3 girls was criticised by a group of Conservative associations. That was the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens).
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I realise that the hon. Lady is completing her preamble, but we must deal with the amendment. It covers a fairly narrow point—whether the age should be 18 or 16.
  Mr. Dickens: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have been named by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). Whatever views I might have about The Sun newspaper, which I deplore the hon. Gentleman bringing into this debate—
  Mr. Mitchell: I bet you do.
  Mr. Dickens:—I would like you to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that The Sun newspaper—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have allowed both the hon. Gentlemen to get that matter off their chests. We must now return to the amendments.
  Ms. Short: I am discussing the effect of the amendment and what it will allow under 16 year olds to see or prevent them seeing, and what will be and what will not be prosecuted. That is a very important consideration of the Bill as amended.
  I received a little more than 50 letters of opposition, 36 of which were obscene. These letters were interestingly obscene in that they followed a pattern. They tended to say "Get lost with your silly proposal," or "You only want to get rid of page 3 because you are jealous".
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady must be fair to the House and to the sponsor of the amendment. She must not discuss another Bill. She must discuss the Bill under consideration and the amendment.
  Ms. Short: I shall explain the way in which I am seeking to discuss the amendment, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am trying to discuss what the amended Bill will provide and what will be allowed to be circulated to those under 16 years of age and what will not. I believe strongly that the distortion of attitudes towards women and towards sex throughout society stems from the mass circulation of pictures of naked women posed deliberately in provocative ways. These pictures are circulated in schools and in
  626
  homes and are commonly to be found on kitchen tables, for example. The problem is glaring and massive. Conservative Members claim to support the Bill, a measure that will have only a marginal effect if it is enacted, yet they are opposed to what I am trying to do. I asked the Government Chief Whip not to oppose my proposal and I received a letter from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must ask the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) to pay attention to what I am saying. She is being unfair to the House. The amendment before us is a narrow one and the hon. Lady is trying to discuss another Bill, which is grossly out of order. I ask the hon. Lady to take notice of what I am saying.
  Ms. Short: Of course I take notice of what you are saying, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You are saying that I must discuss the Bill that is before the House.
  Mr. Dickens: The amendment.
  Ms. Short: Very well, the amendment to the Bill. The clause provides that certain kinds of porny material cannot be supplied to young people. If the amendment is agreed to, it will be illegal to supply this material to those under 16 years of age, or made available in places where they can obtain it. If it is made available, the test of whether it is obscene will be whether it is likely to deprave and corrupt those under 16 years rather than adults.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that much of the material about which she is speaking is available through daily newspapers with mass circulations to those who are between 16 and 18 years of age, to which the amendment specifically relates?
  Ms. Short: I agree with my hon. Friend. Surely it is in order to say that the ill that the clause is trying to remedy will not be dealt with fully by the clause as amended. Surely I can argue that the amendment will improve the clause. I have sat in my place since this morning because I wanted to comment on this part of the Bill. I had views on the earlier amendments but I did not intervene because I felt more strongly about the latter part of the Bill and did not want to take the time of the House by making constant speeches. I am now attempting to make a serious contribution and I am not trying to detain the House. I intend to conclude my remarks before 2.30 pm. Bearing in mind the sort of speeches that have been made, it is surely reasonable for me to ask to be allowed to make my speech.
  The Bill's approach, and especially that of the clause, even as amended, is mistaken. There is a problem throughout the country, and women especially are agreed that it exists. There is a decadent attitude to sexuality that is spreading and growing. It is fed by the soft porn that appears in newspapers, which are distributed throughout the country. The definition of "deprave and corrupt" is a bad one. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have said that the present obscene publications law does not work well. If we add to it through the Bill, it is still not likely to work well. We need to move in another direction. We must move against material that degrades women and human sexuality. That might be a healthier concept.
  The Bill will make no difference to the obscenity law. It is not good enough for the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) to say that there is a

  627
  problem, that people are worried about the mounting tide of sexual crime, that we must do something about it and so we shall agree to any inefficient piece of legislation that is introduced and throw it at the problem to try to pretend to the public that the problem is being dealt with. That is how I see the Bill and the provisions contained within it.
  The hon. Member for Davyhulme was not prepared to act on the mass circulation of pictures of naked women in newspapers. It makes me—
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Ladywood was back on track until a moment ago. I invite her to return to the amendment.
  Ms. Short: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn).
  Mr. Corbyn: Is my hon. Friend aware that many of those who write to Members of Parliament are far more concerned about the degradation of women in popular newspapers, which make a great deal of money from so doing, than about other issues that have been raised by the hon. Member for Davyhulme?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure the hon. Lady will not be tempted to answer that. It is not in order on this amendment.
  Ms. Short: My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North makes his own point and I agree with him. As it is out of order I shall not go down that road.
  I asked the hon. Member for Davyhulme to incorporate in the Bill my concern about women's degradation—it is a fight I have been trying to wage—but the hon. Member refused to do so. Many Conservative Members who support the Bill have refused to embrace this issue. We are left with a fairly useless Bill which does not deal with the major problems which we face and, indeed, it looks as if the Bill will not be passed. That is regrettable.
  Mr. Churchill: I am obliged to the hon. Lady. I understand her strength of feeling and her grounds for concern. What I find difficult is that, on one hand, the hon. Lady wishes to deal with a much milder form of offensiveness, namely, female nudity, but is not prepared to vote against the explicit pornographic magazines which are made readily available to children and young persons.
  Ms. Short: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. I support clause 2, as amended. I regret that the hon. Gentleman did not take the opportunity of his success in the ballot to deal with the most glaring problem, which is distorting attitudes in society. Instead, he has acted against pornographic magazines which are seen by only a small proportion of the population. However, I did support clause 2, as amended.
  I have been unable to say all that I wanted to say today. I had hoped that we would reach the Third Reading and then I would have been able to make the speech I had intended to make. Today, the hon. Member for Davyhulme and many of his colleagues have been exposed by the contrary positions they have taken on of the issues in the Bill. They claim to be against pornography and obscenity, yet they will not act against the worst element of it in our society. That is regrettable and it is regrettable that the hon. Member for Davyhulme did not introduce a better Bill.
  Mr. Mikardo: My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) was in error in one respect when he moved the amendment. My hon. Friend said that amendment No. 12 and the other amendments in the group are concerned with the reduction of the relevant age from 18 years to 16 years. That is not quite right.
  Amendment No. 17 makes a separate point. The clause as it stands provides that if a picture available is in a place where a young person may be which may deprave or corrupt that young person, an offence is committed. In general, I agree with that. Amendment No. 17 has become less important with the change from 18 years to 16 years. Many 16 and 17-year-olds may have left school and be working in places where such pictures are available.
  It would be absolutely wrong for anybody to be guilty of an offence merely because such a picture is available, not for the purpose of selling it to young people, but because the young person was around that place in the course of his employment. It is true that, by reducing the age to 16, we have cut out the 16 and 17-year-olds working in a particular place.
  Mr. Dickens: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have just received a voting list and would like your guidance. The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) and the Leader of the Opposition have joined in the filibustering on this Bill, which seeks to protect children. Last week, they were both telling the House that Sunday trading—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Dickens: Can I finish my point of order?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: What is the point of order?
  Mr. Dickens: Last week they were telling the House that the shops issue was the greatest moral issue that the country had known.
  Mr. Mikardo: You know very well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that is not a point of order. It was not relevant to the discussion but, apart from that, it was a verb good intervention.
  Mr. Churchill rose in his 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. Chris Smith(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Chair to accept a closure motion after only a limited debate?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Yes. I have accepted the closure motion and the House is now coming to a decision on it.
  Ms. Clare Short(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to clarify what we are voting on. I understand that we are voting on whether to end discussion on this group of amendments and that, if we do, we will move on to the next group.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is correct.
  Mr. Greenway(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you clarify the Bill's future following this Division and any later one? Am I not right in thinking that it will return to the House?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I cannot anticipate that. We are voting on the closure. If the motion is carried, we shall proceed at once to a conclusion on the amendment under discussion.
  Mr. Greenway(seated and covered): I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  The House having divided: Ayes 79, Noes 11.

  Division No. 159]

  [2.30 pm

  AYES

  Amess, David

  Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

  Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)

  Maclean, David John

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Major, John

  Bendall, Vivian

  Marlow, Antony

  Benyon, William

  Mather, Carol

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Mellor, David

  Bright, Graham

  Neubert, Michael

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Browne, John

  Normanton, Tom

  Cash, William

  Onslow, Cranley

  Chapman, Sydney

  Pawsey, James

  Churchill, W. S.

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Dicks, Terry

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Dover, Den

  Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Durant, Tony

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Eyre, Sir Reginald

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Favell, Anthony

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Freeman, Roger

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Gow, Ian

  Sims, Roger

  Grant, Sir Anthony

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Greenway, Harry

  Stanley, Rt Hon John

  Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Hargreaves, Kenneth

  Sumberg, David

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

  Hayes, J.

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  van Straubenzee, Sir W.

  Howard, Michael

  Viggers, Peter

  Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

  Wilkinson, John

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Williams, Rt Hon A.

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Jackson, Robert

  Jessel, Toby

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Mr. Geoffrey Dickens and

  Jones, Robert (Herts W)

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley.

  Key, Robert

  NOES

  Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Wareing, Robert

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Mr. Chris Smith and

  Madden, Max

  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody.

  Mikardo, Ian

  Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 32 (Majority for Closure).
  It being after half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.

Private Members' Bills

  DOG FIGHTING (PENALTIES) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Second Reading what day? No day named.

  PENSIONERS' RIGHT TO HEAT, LIGHT AND COMMUNICATIONS BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 13 June.
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speker. You may know which hon. Member makes an objection and from whom you accepted the objection in this matter but others do not. This is of great importance. The Bill affects millions of people in Britain and they have a right to know for what reason the Bill has been opposed yet again in the House.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman will know that that matter has been raised many times before. The procedure is that, if I hear an objection, I take that objection. It does not matter from what source it comes. It is the hearing of the objection which matters. That is the procedure.
  Mr. Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand and accept what you say, but the problem is that hon. Members are not aware who made the objection in this case. It is a matter of public record that an objection has been received. All other entries in Hansard are ascribed to an hon. Member and are so recorded. Why is it different in this case?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. It is my job to carry out the rules of the House as they exist. If he wishes to have them changed, the correct procedure is for him to suggest that the Select Committee on Procedure should look at this point.
  Mr. Norman Hogg: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not the case that "Erskine May" lays down that the hon. Member who objects to a Bill is required to rise in his or her place when making an objection?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: No, that is not the position. As long as the objection is clearly made, the Chair is obliged to take it.
  Mr. Robert N. Wareing: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like your guidance on how that ruling has come about. As you rightly said, it has been raised before. Indeed, I have raised it myself in relation to a private Member's Bill to which I put my name some years ago. Since, for many people in Britian, there is no greater obscenity than that old people should go without fuel and light, which it is the object of this Bill to eradicate, we need an answer to the question whether people have a right to object or whether it is only by convention—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. He has raised it before when I have been in the Chair. As I have said to the House, this is a

  631
  well-established procedure and it is the job of the chair to carry out the procedures of the House. If hon. Members want to have those procedures changed, there is a course open to them. But it would be wholly wrong for me to, as it were, do a private enterprise operation and alter the procedures of the House. I must abide by the procedures which have been laid down by the House and that is exactly what I am doing.
  Mr. Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Member for Newham, North-West making a different point of order? I have dealt fully with that point of order.
  Mr. Banks: Yes, Sir. That—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have a different point of order? If he does not, I am not prepared to rule a third time.
  Mr. Banks: It is related, Sir, but it is different. The point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr.Corbyn) was that hon. Members are entitled, for their own information, to know who has raised an objection. That is the point.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already dealt with that. If hon. Members do not like the existing procedures, I have explained the correct course which is open for them to follow.
  Mr. Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not seek to challenge your ruling, but I wonder if any Conservative Members ought to catch your eye to identify themselves as being opposed to this progressive Bill.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: We are on the same point. I have given my ruling and there is nothing further I can add. I do understand the points which hon. Members are making and I have given a clear outline of the way in which they can proceed.

  IMMIGRATION ACT 1971 (AMENDMENT) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 13 June.
  Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Notwithstanding your earlier rulings, which I fully understand and appreciate, may I ask for your guidance in circumstances where a Bill is not opposed when leave was sought to introduce it? That was the case with this Bill of mine, which seeks to give a right of appeal to visitors who are refused entry to this country. When there was no opposition to a Bill when it was introduced, do you believe that the ruling that you have given should still apply? Surely, if there was opposition to the Bill it should have been demonstrated by the person who has today objected to it, so that the arguments of that person could have been deployed and the House could have been given the opportunity of voting on this important measure.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the rule still applies.

  INDECENT DISPLAYS (NEWSPAPERS) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Second Reading what day" No day named.

  TOBACCO PRODUCTS (SPORTS SPONSORSHIP) BILL
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [21 February].
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Ms. Clare Short: On a point of order—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must complete proceedings on this Bill first.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 2 May.
  Ms. Clare Short: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is relevant to the points of order raised before. Obviously, any of us who have gone to the trouble to introduce a Bill are interested in who objects to it from the Conservative Benches. You moved so fast that, as I simply moved around to try to see who objected, you had moved on and not allowed me to name a day. The day I wanted to give was 13 June and I am grateful to you for accepting it.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I accept the hon. Lady's date of 13 June.
  Mr. Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Am I right in thinking that the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight) was the one who opposed that Bill?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not in order for hon. Members to try to have a debate on this. I have told hon. Members the procedures which we follow and I have given a clear indication of the course of action that is open to them if they object to the procedures.

  REDUNDANT CHURCHES AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS (AMENDMENT) BELL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Not moved.

  POLICE COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE (AMENDMENT) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Second Reading what day? No day named.
  Mr. Norman Hogg: I am trying to make that very point, Sir. With the leave of the hon. Member in charge of the Bill, Friday 9 May.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I beg the hon. Member's pardon.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 9 May.

  MARRIAGE (PROHIBITED DEGREES OF RELATIONSHIP) BILL [LORDS]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 16 May.

  COMPANY POLITICAL DONATIONS (GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Not moved.

  Prosecution Policy
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Neubert.]
  2.48 pm
  Mr. Graham Bright: I am grateful for this opportunity to bring to the attention of the House the tragic death of my constituent, Mr. John Williams. He was one of the many young men and women whose lives and careers have been cut short by the criminals who exploit the spread of drugs in Britain. It is impossible to measure the harm that has been caused to the families of such victims. Their suffering, which I know is understood throughout the House, makes deterrent action by the police, the prosecuting authorities and the courts essential.
  Had it not been for the remarkable courage of John Williams's family and, in particular, of his mother, in bringing a private prosecution for manslaughter, the criminal justice system would have failed completely. The role of the Director of Public Prosecutions in these events has to be clearly justified and explained.
  The circumstances of John Williams's death were particularly distressing. During a visit with friends to a flat in Dumfries court, Luton on the evening of 2 September, 1982, he was persuaded by the occupant, Gary Austin, to try an injection of a drug called Palfium, which is usually given in tablet form to relieve the pain of cancer sufferers. Austin gave him this injection at about 7 pm, John Williams collapsed almost at once and, according to the medical evidence, died shortly thereafter.
  For the rest of that evening, Austin prevented any expert help being sought by those present in the flat. Some of them even went out to local bars and an off-licence. It was not until 11 pm, that Austin decided to have the body removed. It was left in the street outside propped against a wall, where it was found at about 11.15 pm by the ambulancemen Austin had summoned under a false name.
  On arrival at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, John Williams was found to be dead.
  The subsequent police inquiries revealed that the drugs given to him had been stolen from a chemist's shop in Crewe by a man called Peter Panko. Both Panko and Austin were arrested and charged. The post-mortem conducted by Dr. Tan, the pathologist, revealed the presence of Palfium in John Williams's blood, admittedly at a relatively low level compared to that of patients taking the drug therapeutically.
  This evidence, it is worth stating, was sufficiently convincing for the jury at the inquest held in June 1983 to bring in a unanimous verdict of unlawful killing. But although Panko was convicted of theft and of supplying the drugs at Bedford Crown court in March 1983, Austin was charged only with possessing dangerous drugs and with theft. The two men were sentenced to terms of five and three years' imprisonment, respectively. To the surprise of the Bedfordshire police and to the amazement of Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided that no other charge could be brought. It was a decision to which he was to adhere throughout until he was forced to change his mind.
  I have set out the facts as clearly and as objectively as I can. Of course, I accept that criminal prosecution can take place only when there is sufficient evidence to make conviction likely. No one's interests are served by poorly mounted prosecutions resulting in inevitable acquittals.

  635
  The disquieting feature of this case is that no public action was taken until new evidence had been privately assembled and leave obtained from the magistrates' court to bring a rare private prosecution for manslaughter. There are, therefore, some extremely serious questions about the conduct of this case which have to be answered if public concern is to be satisfied.
  First, there is the issue of the evidence from the post-mortem conducted by Dr. Tan. Presumably, what he told the inquest jury—that John Williams's death was due to heart failure and that this did not occur spontaneously in a healthy person—was also told to the police. Logically, to use his own words, there had to have been an unnatural cause of death. He was perfectly clear about the presence of Palfium in John Williams's blood. No other possible cause of death was mentioned.
  Mr. Peter Corderoy, the senior scientific officer from the Home Office laboratory at Aldermaston, testified that deaths had been recorded from the injection of relatively small amounts of the drug. There was some published evidence already available from the work of Dr. Patrick Toseland, the specialist at Guy's hospital, to show that deaths had occurred with levels of Palfium in the blood even lower than that recorded in John Williams's case.
  I am bound to ask my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General to explain what happened when the DPP and his officials first looked at the medical evidence. Which experts, apart from Dr. Tan and Dr. Toseland, were consulted and what was their view of the reason for the death? Was it ever suggested to or by them that John Williams had taken Palfium on the morning of his death? If such a suggestion was made, who put it forward? The police's inquiries and the evidence at the inquest, so far as I am aware, revealed nothing of the sort. Were they aware of the distinction between the oral method of administering the drug which, due to its slower passage into the blood stream, permits higher levels to be tolerated and the more dramatic effects of injecting it?
  There is a further point that I must raise here. In a letter to me on the 12 December 1984, my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, explained that the DPP reached his decision not to prosecute Gary Austin in 1982. The police officers dealing with the case at Luton did not learn of this until 11 March, 1983. Austin had been remanded in custody since his arrest because it was thought more serious charges might be preferred. This delay in informing the police has to be explained.
  I have been equally concerned to learn that Austin was informed by the DPP then—and again in September 1983—that no prosecution for manslaughter would occur. The failure, moreover, of the DPP to offer any rationale for his decision to John Williams's parents at that time was quite mystifying. It left them without hope of justice. Their anguish and distress was inevitably increased by the inquest proceedings in June, 1983. The verdict of "unlawful killing" returned by the jury convinced them that criminal proceedings against Austin were possible.
  I know that the DPP looked at the case again, that he took further advice from counsel and that he adhered to his original view, that, without better scientific evidence, no prosecution could succeed. But simply informing Mr. and Mrs. Williams and their solicitor that his unexplained decision stood was hardly satisfactory. No explanation of the need for a more specific link betwen the injection of the drug and John Williams's death was offered until
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  December, 1983, six months after the inquest and at least a year after the DPP's original decision. Once again, I find that delay exceptionally difficult to understand.
  Every parent will know why Mrs. Williams refused to accept the DPP's decision. In fact, she was prepared to go out and pay for the necessary inquiries to be conducted by medical researchers. One expert had already informed her that he was convinced that Palfium had killed her son and that Austin should have been charged. By July, 1984, more specific evidence was available. Dr. Toseland had been able to analyse how the injection of the drug paralysed the brain centres controlling the heart very shortly after it entered the bloodstream. Taken in tablet form, it opperated much more slowly and much higher levels could be tolerated. That was the key piece of work which ultimately unlocked the case.
  Naturally, that analysis and the supporting views of Professor Spector, the head of the department of pharmacology at Guy's hospital, were forwarded to the DPP. Both men were prepared to state their views in public. I know that the Luton police and the DPP's representatives heard the new evidence directly from Dr. Toseland at a conference in the town on 2 Ooctober, 1984. What is more, Dr. Tan, the pathologist who had conducted the post-mortem, had been contacted by Dr. Toseland and was prepared to state that, in the light of his research, there could have been no other cause of death than the injection of Palfium. Professor Spector himself expressed the identical view in a further conference at Guy's hospital on 22 October 1984. Both Dr. Toseland and Professor Spector were sure that the possibility of John Williams having taken Palfium on the morning of his death was irrelevant.
  The DPP's subsequent observations that no proceedings could be brought against Austin because the new evidence was not good enough to link the injection of the drug to the victim's death make remarkable reading. What or who was his authority for this view? Even when Dr. Tan's letter to the Luton coroner in April 1985 with its explicit statement that it was now his oponion that
  "the death of John Williams was the direct effect of an intravenous injection of Palfium"
  came into the DPP's hands, nothing was done. If his opinion was sound enough for the DPP to rely on in not bringing a prosecution in late 1982 or early 1983, why was his revised view not valid enough to start one in 1985? I cannot accept that an undertaking given on the basis of medical knowledge in 1983 not to prosecute was still binding when new medical evidence was available.
  It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to understand why the professional judgments of the pathologist who conducted the post-mortem and of two of the country's leading experts in this field of medicine were rejected by the DPP and his colleagues. I have no doubt that they were afraid that a prosecution would fail. Why this was their view has to be explained.
  There is equally no doubt that they were wrong. It is greatly to the credit of Mrs. Pauline Williams that she has the courage, after all the setbacks that she had suffered in her struggle for justice, to bring her private prosecution against Gary Austin. The Magistrates before whom she made her application were convinced that there was a case to answer. It was her largely unaided efforts and the testimony of her expert witnesses that resulted in the case going to trail at the Crown court. The jury there brought in a unanimous verdict of guilt against Austin. I cannot

  637
  think of a more complete vindication of one person's determination to see justice done, however inadequate the sentence passed.
  The struggle that Mr. and Mrs. Williams have endured to ensure that the criminal justice system worked has won them great respect, but they have had to pay a high price for it. They have sacrificed their time and money and a great deal of effort to get it. Mrs. Williams has been attacked and threatened. It is a matter of absolute principle that these costs—for legal representation at the inquest and in the magistrates' court, for the costs of transcripts, photographs, telephone bills and scientific tests, for the cost of letters, envelopes and stationery—should be met from public funds. So, too, should the charges of her solicitor. Is there any possibility of some compensation for Mrs. Williams for the thousands of hours that she has spent in marshalling the evidence. Whatever charges are incurred in altering the terms in which the coroner's inquisition recorded her son's cause of death ought also to be met from public funds. This is a matter on which her judgment was not only better than the DPP's but on which she was proved absolutely right.
  Unfortunately, this tragic case has revealed the weaknesses of our system more clearly than its strengths. As long as drugs are available from criminal sources, other families are in danger of suffering similar tragedies. That is why it is so important that those who have the responsibility for initiating prosecutions exercise it correctly. There were grounds enough for questioning whether the right decision was made by the DPP in the autumn of 1982. It is alarming that nothing—not the verdict of the inquest jury, not the new medical evidence supplied by Dr. Toseland and his colleagues, not even the pathologist's explicit change of view, could persuade the DPP to change his mind. The outcome shows that his judgment was mistaken. Had it not been for the existence of the right to bring a criminal prosecution, justice would never have been done to John Williams or his family. The failure of the responsible public authorities to act must be fully explained and justified if our confidence is to be sustained. That is the fundamental issue that the death of John Williams raises.
  3.2 pm
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Mr. Bright) on securing this opportunity to raise an important matter in the House. Although my hon. Friend has very properly been concerned with the matter over a long period, in the interest of his constituents, it raises wider considerations. My hon. Friend's presentation of the matter today has again been a model of fairness and care.
  I agree strongly with my hon. Friend's opening remarks in which he condemned the evil nature and consequences of the criminal exploitation of drug abuse in this country. The death of his young constituent John Williams in 1982 constituted a tragic addition to the grim toll. Parliament has provided stern penalties for those convicted of offences of such a nature. The strict enforcement of the law by means of prosecution in every proper case is a policy to which the Director of Public Prosecutions rightly attaches the highest importance. That is a policy to which the Director of Public Prosecutions rightly attaches the highest importance. In that approach he has the full
  638
  concurrence of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. The public would rightly expect nothing less. No one need expect a lenient attitude on the part of the DPP. I shall come in a moment to the evidence in this case that was available at material times to the Director to place before a court, including the expert medical evidence bearing on the crucial question of the cause of John Williams's death.
  I shall, of course, answer my hon. Friend's question, but, first, I must acknowledge gratefully what my hon. Friend fairly said in an early passage in his speech. He said:
  "Of course, I accept that criminal prosecution can take place only when there is sufficient evidence to make conviction likely."
  That is correct, and it forms an important part of the guidelines for prosecutors published by the Attorney-General in February 1982 and deposited in the Library.
  Justice must be even handed and it would be a cause for complaint if the formidable prosecuting power of the State were to be exercised against a citizen where, to take a purely hypothetical example, it was thought useful to clear the air by means of a public trial. In all criminal proceedings arising from an unlawful killing, the onus rests on the prosecution to prove guilt. The standard of proof required is that guilt shall be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, the prosecutor has initially to assess the likely outcome of a prosecution by reference to this high standard. In the case of John Williams's death, a finding of guilt against Gary Austin demanded that the prosecution should prove beyond reasonable doubt that death was caused by Austin injecting him with Palfium. I have already described this as the crucial factor, and from the outset the prosecutor's difficulties centred here.
  My hon. Friend asked when the Director's officials first looked at the medical evidence. The professional officer assigned to the case had three meetings with Dr. Tan, the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem examination, the last of which was also attended by counsel. These meetings took place on 23 November 1982 and on 26 January and 23 February 1983. On each of those occasions Dr. Tan was pressed as to whether he could say that the cause of John Williams's death was the injection with Palfium. He repeatedly replied that he was unable to say what the cause of death was. He could only affirm that the mode of John Williams's death was pulmonary oedema.
  The Director consulted a further expert, a question asked by my hon. Friend, additional to Dr. Tan and Dr. Toseland and that was Mr. Neville Dunnett, an expert in toxicology and drugs at Aldermaston. On the basis of the expert evidence available to him at that time, the Director concluded that a prosecution was likely to fail for lack of the necessary proof of causation.
  My hon. Friend referred to Mr. Peter Corderoy, the senior scientific officer at Aldermaston. I have seen a transcript of his evidence at the inquest. He said:
  It is impossible to say whether the amount of drug in a 5 or 10 mg tablet if taken by intravenous injection would prove fatal or not. I cannot say that it would or would not prove fatal.".
  He did however say, after dealing with the ill-effects to be expected, that a person could acquire a tolerance to Palfium, and that factor too had relevance to the Director's decision. It brings in a further question asked by my honourable friend: was it suggested that John Williams had previously taken Palfium on the day of his death?

  639
  Statements had been made to the police by Mark Clews and Anthony Denton providing strong evidence that that indeed had been the case.
  The Director concluded, on a review of all the circumstances that a prosecution would be likely to fail and he so informed the police. There was no delay in informing the police of the Director's first decision. There was a final meeting with Dr. Tan, which counsel attended on 23 February 1983, and after that counsel advised. His advice is dated 2 March 1983. The Director then considered the advice, and informed the police of his decision by letter, dated 14 March. I apologise to my hon. Friend that a letter to him from me gave a misleading impression in this respect.
  My hon. Friend has asked why Mrs. Williams was not informed of the reason for the Director's decision. The Director, in a letter to the chief constable of Bedfordshire, who had reported the facts of the case to him, gave his reasons for concluding that a prosecution for any offence relating to the death of John Williams would not succeed and advised the chief constable against such proceedings. That letter was not confidential, but it is the Director's policy not to publish reasons for his decisions, especially where he has decided not to prosecute. I think that for reasons of fairness, that policy is correct. I can very well appreciate, however, the feelings experienced by Mrs. Williams and her family, which my hon. Friend has described, and I much regret them.
  I can understand only too readily how those feelings would have been exacerbated after the inquest's verdict in July 1983. The coroner's jury was evidently satisfied as to causation. That, however, did not relieve the Director of the responsibility of applying the standard of proof that would be required in a criminal court. The transcript records Dr. Tan as having been asked:
  "As far as your post mortem is concerned, is it possible for you to bridge the gap between the administration of an injection and the death as a result of pulmonaryoedema?"
  Dr. Tan replied: "It is not possible". The Director's opinion, having further consulted experienced counsel after the inquest's verdict, accordingly remained unchanged.
  It was not until 1984 that any significant advance was made—to the knowledge of the Director—in the state of medical knowledge about the actions of Palfium. My hon. Friend has asked whether the Director was aware of any difference between the effects of oral and intravenous administration of that drug. In 1983 no such information was available to him.
  It was not until after Dr. Toseland's letter to Mrs. Williams, dated 16 July 1984, reached the DPP in September of that year that he became aware of any difference. Dr. Toseland's views, expressed in that letter, were far from firm conclusions. He said:
  "If it can be shown that this was the first time your son had been injected with Palfium then it can be stated he would have no protection from a first administered dose, and that the amount injected is only as important as the speed of the injection."
  I have already referred to the evidence in that regard.
  Dr. Toseland conferred with a member of the Director's staff on 2 October 1984, but at a conference with Professor Spector on 24 October much stronger views as to causation were put forward. I believe that it is fair to say that from 24 October 1984 onwards—that is, two years after John Williams's death—there was a prima facie case against Austin. Why, then, were proceedings not begun?
  640
  I must here refer to another factor that was now faced by the Director. When the decision has been taken not to prosecute a suspect, it is normal for the suspect to be so informed. I believe that to be fair. The Director has taken the view—I believe it to be generally fair—that once a suspect has been so informed, that decision should not remain open for reappraisal and possible reversal, however long a period may elapse. In very rare cases where there is still a practical possibility that further facts sufficient to incriminate the suspect may be uncovered, the decision is expressed to have been taken only on the present state of the evidence. I can tell my hon. Friend that the Director has agreed to revise his practice in this regard. If, on a review of each relevant case, it appears that the public interest would be served by a prosecution in all the circumstances, this policy will be overriden. However, I must emphasise that that action will be taken only in exceptional circumstances and I think that my hon. Friend would understand that.
  In the case of Austin, the suspect had twice been informed that he would not be prosecuted—the second time being after the inquest verdict in 1983. The Director considered that his policy as to double jeopardy should be observed in the case of Austin after a careful review of the circumstances.
  No one can fail to salute the determination of Mrs. Williams to secure a criminal trial and the courage with which she pursued that aim. Once the magistrates' court had found that there was a case to answer and had committed Austin to trial, the Director stepped in and took over the case. The outcome is well known.
  I would now like to consider the question of Mrs. Williams's costs. The matters outlined by my hon. Friend have formed the subject of a claim for costs which was taxed by the clerk at Luton magistrate's court. It is fair to say that Mrs. Williams's costs, as claimed in the magistrates' court; either have been paid in full or will be paid in full. It is also fair to say that I know that there is an outstanding claim for costs in relation to the time which Mrs. Williams has spent on preparing the case. Apparently, some 6,000 hours was spent on that. The courts have ruled that a private prosecutor cannot be reimbursed out of central funds for time spent on the preparation of a case. The Director has no funds for the making of such payments, nor is there any precedent for doing so. I regret that I can accordingly offer no prospect of reimbursement.
  However, with regard to the question of the costs of the application to the High Court, in connection with the amendment to the death certificate which Mrs. Williams has also requested, I am able to say that the Attorney-General has agreed to act for Mrs. Williams ex officio and therefore no costs will be incurred by her in respect of that application.
  I have referred to the change in the Director of Public Prosecution's future policy. I only wish to add that, as a safeguard, no reversal of a decision not to prosecute will take place without the express authority of the Director or Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions.
  In conclusion, these decisions are always exceptionally difficult for the Director and his staff to take. In this case, the decisions were taken after the most careful and conscientious deliberation and they were taken for the reasons that I have given. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to explain the

  641
  background to the Director's decisions in this most painful case, which has caused Mrs. Williams and her family such understandable anguish.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Three o' clock.

NORTHERN IRELAND
  Entrapment
  Entrapment
ENVIRONMENT
  Nugee Report
  Nugee Report
  Houses in Multiple Occupation
  Houses in Multiple Occupation
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  General Certificate of Secondary Education
  General Certificate of Secondary Education
  Lancashire
  Lancashire
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Young Offenders (Yorkshire and Humberside)
  Young Offenders (Yorkshire and Humberside)
  Local Government Reform
  Local Government Reform
  Mr. Steffan Webb
  Mr. Steffan Webb
  Libyan Nationals
  Libyan Nationals
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Monetary Compensatory Amounts
  Monetary Compensatory Amounts
  Lancashire and Western Sea Fisheries
  Lancashire and Western Sea Fisheries
  Production Statistics
  Production Statistics
SCOTLAND
  University Students (Community Charge)
  University Students (Community Charge)
  Bus Services
  Bus Services
  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Hospital Waiting Lists
  National Health Service Beds
  National Health Service Beds
  Hospital Closures
  Hospital Closures
ATTORNEY-GENERAL
  Parrot Corporation
  Parrot Corporation
  Personal Injury Litigation
  Personal Injury Litigation
WALES
  Holyhead (Bypass)
  Holyhead (Bypass)
  Pig Industry
  Pig Industry
  Business Improvement Scheme
  Business Improvement Scheme
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  Export Credits Guarantee Department
  Export Credits Guarantee Department
  Export Credit
  Export Credit
  South Africa (Company Interests)
  South Africa (Company Interests)
  Ultraleisure
  Ultraleisure
  Export Licences
  Export Licences
ENERGY
  Departmental Advertisement (Hoax)
  Departmental Advertisement (Hoax)
PRIME MINISTER
  Sports Clubs (Rates)
  Sports Clubs (Rates)
  Libyan Nationals
  Libyan Nationals
  Member's Correspondence
  Member's Correspondence
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Diplomats (Recall Subsistence)
  Diplomats (Recall Subsistence)
  Argentina
  Argentina
TRANSPORT
  Al2 (Service Area)
  Al2 (Service Area)
  Motorways (Lancashire)
  Motorways (Lancashire)
  Heathrow (Landing Times)
  Heathrow (Landing Times)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Taxation
  Taxation
  European Monetary System
  European Monetary System
  Wilfred Aspinwall
  Wilfred Aspinwall
  Currency Markets
  Currency Markets
  Capital Taxation
  Capital Taxation
DEFENCE
  Nuclear Weapons
  Nuclear Weapons
  Water Tank, Walker Drive, South Queensferry
  Water Tank, Walker Drive, South Queensferry
  US Personnel and Equipment
  US Personnel and Equipment
  Nuclear Tests
  Nuclear Tests
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Board and Lodging Allowances
  Board and Lodging Allowances
  Departmental Staff
  Departmental Staff
  NHS Staff (Accommodation)
  NHS Staff (Accommodation)
  Aspartame
  Aspartame
  Invalid Care Allowance
  Invalid Care Allowance
  Family Credit
  Family Credit
  Departmental Staff
  Departmental Staff
EMPLOYMENT
  Fishing Industry
  Fishing Industry
  Self-employed Persons
  Self-employed Persons

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

Beef Products: EC Intervention Stocks
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many months' supply of beef products are currently held in store by the EC Intervention Board, at what annual cost; and what supply would they consider it prudent to store in a properly managed policy, at what annual cost.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, at 31st March 1986 about 39 days', or one and a quarter months', supply of beef was stored in intervention stocks throughout the European Community. Of the total amount of 603,660 tonnes, just over 79,000 tonnes were stored in the United Kingdom. The cost of intervention storage varies depending on the amount in store at any particular time. In 1985, the cost to the Community budget of storing intervention beef amounted to 326.3 million European currency units or about £192 million. In the Government's view, a properly managed policy, with less reliance on intervention to support the beef market, should encourage consumption and discourage the accumulation of costly surpluses.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very full reply which I shall examine with great care. Can he confirm that one of the factors contributing to this oversupply was the sudden policy of milk quotas last year which forced a lot of dairy cows on to the beef market? Can he also say how long good quality beef remains in good condition in cold storage before it starts to deteriorate?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes, my Lords, my noble friend is right that that is one reason for the current large surplus. There are others, such as over-production. Beef is bound to deteriorate. It depends on how long it is stored, but it certainly goes off in time.
Lord Sainsbury: My Lords, does not beef once frozen almost automatically lose a large proportion of its value compared with the fresh product?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes, my Lords, the noble Lord is entirely right, and he has more experience on that than most people in this House.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Earl the Minister has indicated what the policy ought to be. Can he confirm to the House that this precise problem is being discussed in the meeting of Community
1378
agriculture Ministers which is going on at the present time? Can he tell the House whether the meeting has come to an end and when we may expect a Statement?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, we consider that intervention is a wasteful and relative inefficient way of supporting the beef sector, and so in principle we support the Commission's basic approach of shifting the emphasis of producer support away from intervention more directly to the producer. We shall, however, need to look carefully at the Commission's alternative proposals, which would not as they stand provide adequate support for our beef producers. I am afraid that I do not know whether the meeting has finished or when we shall be reporting, but I shall let the Leader of the Opposition know that.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, will my noble friend reply to my first supplementary question about the length of time beef can remain in cold storage before deteriorating? Can he confirm the National Farmers' Union figure of about 18 months?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I shall have to write to my noble friend with that answer.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, following the figures that the noble Earl was kind enough to give to the House, can he confirm that the burden borne by the British taxpayer in respect of this intervention stock is between £40 million and £42 million per annum?
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I do not know the exact cost but it is certainly high.

London Airports: Rail Fares Policy
11.10 a.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider the policy for London airports should include comparable rail fares from the centre of London.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, rail fares for services to airports, as to any other destination, are a matter for the operators concerned.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I anticipated that Answer. Perhaps I may ask my noble friend whether, when one is talking of a London airports policy, it is really justifiable that the rail fare to Heathrow—the Underground rail fare—should be one-third of that from Victoria to Gatwick. Can he tell the House what percentage of rail passengers currently use the Gatwick service, which I say straightaway is very efficient?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as my noble friend will be aware, there are two different operators. London Regional Transport operates the Underground service to Heathrow and British Rail operates the service to Gatwick. Therefore it is not surprising that one has a slightly different price structure, together with the fact that they are at different mileage points from the centre of London. I am grateful to my noble friend for his reference to the success of the Gatwick British Rail link. I used it recently and I found it very efficient. I do not have the precise figures, but I understand that about 40 per cent. of the passengers use this mode of transport.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the fares to Gatwick are higher than fares to further down the line and that the sensible passenger can save money by booking to a further point and getting off at Gatwick?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that is the case, as I understand it, but I am advised—in fact, I have found out myself—that it is possible to do that with other destinations by using saver fares and other such benefits offered by British Rail.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, is it not a fact that a similar position exists with regard to the fares to Heathrow? Those fares are also specially geared at a price quite different from normal. The fare as far as Hatton Cross is lower and is designed to be used by residents of London, but the minute you go past Hatton Cross as far as Heathrow the fare is specially geared to be an airport fare for overseas visitors. Could it not be said that that is a principle similar to that in respect of Gatwick and that there is a special fare attached to airport travel at the present time?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I do not believe that the point made by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter is special to Gatwick. Indeed, I have had experience of being able to buy a ticket to a destination further down the line than the stop to which I wanted to go, for considerably less money.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the noble Earl said that it was a matter for the operators concerned. Surely we are not being asked to believe that the Government have no direct discussions with the operators on matters of this kind, particularly in respect of the British Rail service to Gatwick.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I confirm that it is the responsibility of the operators, but as the noble Lord will be aware my right honourable friend the Secretary of State set out guidelines for both LRT and British Rail.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister not agree that most members of the public would prefer the Government not to interfere in any way if it means an increase in the fare to Heathrow rather than the fare to Gatwick decreasing?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I can only concur with my noble friend.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that there is a large body of opinion in the country that says that we already give too many concessions to London airports and to airports in the South, as opposed to those made to airports in the North?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the subject of airports in the North was discussed fairly fully last Monday, on the Second Reading of the Airports Bill. With due respect to the noble Lord, it is not entirely relevant to the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that many of us who travel in the superannuated cattle trucks that Southern Region provides on its main lines look with envy upon the comfortable and usually half-empty trains to Gatwick? Can there not be some redistribution of comfort?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am sure that the managers responsible at British Rail will note my noble friend's point.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl can find out the answer to this question, because probably he does not know it. While the rail line from Gatwick to Victoria is excellent, one of the problems has been that there are no porters at Victoria Station. I am aware that one can get trolleys there, but it is not easy. Nor is it easy for elderly passengers. I understand that, in the past, British Rail has not had the finances to take on porters. Will the Minister be kind enough to inquire whether or not that position has improved?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, if my memory serves me aright, I had the help of a porter quite recently at Victoria; but I shall check on the situation.

Nuclear Waste: NIREX Investigation
11.15 a.m.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they are proposing to allow NIREX to investigate near-surface depository sites in Fulbeck, Elstow, Bradwell and South Killinghome in view of the widespread concern this is causing in these ares, and in view of the alternative disposal methods used elsewhere in Europe.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, because that is a proven way of disposing safely of materials that must be disposed of.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I ask him this: is it not contrary to the report of the environment Select Committee of the House of Commons? Does the Minister not believe that the questions raised by that report should be addressed and answered before further exploration of any sites takes place; not least, the questions raised about the handling of the public, experience of which we in Lincolnshire have not felt at all happy about?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I understand that the issue is a sensitive one, but the criticisms of the Select Committee were directed mainly at intermediate and high-level radiation from waste. We are talking now about the low-level end of the spectrum.
Baroness David: My Lords, will the Minister say whether there have been any responses made to the Special Development Order that the House was told was being laid at the time when a Statement was made on 25th February? The requisite six weeks are now up and we wonder what those consultations and representations have brought forward.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I regret that I am not aware of the response to which the noble Baroness has referred. I will write to her.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, will my noble friend tell the House, what is NIREX?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I find myself unaccustomedly lost for words. I now recall that it is the Nuclear Industry Radiological Executive.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, while accepting what was said by the noble Lord the Minister about the report dealing considerably and largely with high-level radioactive material, may I ask whether or not he is aware that it also devotes a lot of its work to low-level and intermediate material being deposited? It is very critical of the way in which we do that at this moment in this country. That situation causes very great anxiety to those of us in South Humberside and Lincolnshire, in respect of the possibility of the same methods being used in that area.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I take note of the criticisms of the Select Committee, and so do Her Majesty's Government. When I repeated the original announcement in this House—and I do not doubt that the right reverend Prelate has read the Statement that I made then and the exchanges that followed—I described the extremely elaborate system that is proposed. I remind the right reverend Prelate that all that is in question now is a Special Development Order allowing a survey to be made of four possible sites, to see whether they would be suitable for the disposal of such material. There will be ample time for further disussion of the detail of the method of disposal during the period of that survey. Given the need to dispose of that material and the relatively small difficulty of securing safety as compared with other radiological materials, it would not be right to postpone the search and the survey until after we had agreed upon the detail.
Lord Newall: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the duty of NIREX is to find the best possible option? In a recent best possible option study by the Department of the Environment, it came out quite clearly that using bore holes offshore is a much better option than burying the waste on land.
Lord Elton: My Lords, here we are again looking at the higher radiation end of the spectrum. Certainly we have not abandoned consideration of sub-seabed disposal, but we must be aware of international opinion on the subject.
Baroness David: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether the plan to build environmental impact assessment into the planning system, which was announced, I think, by the Minister of State this week, will have any effect on the eventual choice of site?
Lord Elton: My Lords, regardless of new procedures, we have always had careful assessments made of the environmental impact in this important matter.

US Nuclear Weapons: UK Operational Control
11.20 a.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now establish operational control over American nuclear weapons based in this country.
The Minister of State for Defence Support (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are satisfied with the existing understandings governing the use of US nuclear weapons based in the United Kingdom. These provide that no nuclear weapon would be fired or launched from British territory without the agreement of the British Prime Minister. Those arrangements have been reviewed and found satisfactory by successive governments of both parties.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that although what he says may be the case, the American Government have made clear that the Prime Minister has no veto over the firing of American nuclear missiles which are based on our soil? In those circumstances, without agreement within the parties on whether there is or is not a veto in the event of a dispute, the assurances that the Minister and the Prime Minister give to the British people are entirely worthless. Furthermore, is the Minister aware that without operational control, in a crisis political control is quite useless? Without operational control any assurance which is given on this point is shown to be entirely valueless.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as far as nuclear weapons are concerned I am afraid that the noble Lord is mistaken. The position is as I have described it.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, if the noble Lord does not believe that, let me quote chapter and verse from what Mr. McNamara, the Defence Secretary, said. He said that there is no veto—
Noble Lords: Order! Question.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it has been said by successive American Secretaries of State for Defence that as far as they are concerned there will be discussion and there will be consultation but that the final decision rests in the hands of the firing authority, which is the United States?
Lord Trefgarne: No, my Lords, the position is as I have said on a number of occasions. No nuclear weapon will ever be fired or launched from British territory without the agreement of the British Prime Minister.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for repeating that statement, which has been made on several previous occasions by him, by his colleagues in another place, and, indeed, by Ministers in a previous government of another complexion. Having said that, I ask the Minister whether he also agrees that there is an area of uncertainty that is causing a certain amount of public disquiet.
Does he further agree that the basic document describing the nature and range of operational control was the Attlee-Truman document, confirmed by the Churchill-Truman Agreement? They are over 35 years' old and there is a need now for a clear definition of operational control and what precisely it means. Will the noble Lord convey to his right honourable friend the desirability of a government Statement or White Paper which makes the situation absolutely clear beyond peradventure?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am afraid I do not share the doubts of the noble Lord. The arrangements to which I have referred are reviewed each time a new President or Prime Minister comes into office. They have consistently been found satisfactory, including, if I may so so, on the occasion that Prime Ministers from the Labour Party came into office.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that both the questions and the answers are familiar over many years and on all sides of the House? Will he say why there is objection to publishing the original document? I refer to the correspondence between President Truman and Mr. Attlee. Surely we are entitled to see the original undertakings?
A noble Lord: Why not, my Lords?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Lord is not entitled to see them. They are highly classified.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, will the Minister at least ask the American Government, in view of public disquiet, to issue a firm assurance on the lines
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that he has himself uttered? I think that if he does that he will get a negative answer, and that is why he will not ask for it.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, there is no need for the Government to put that question to the American Administration as the noble Lord suggests because the Americans, too, have confirmed the understanding to which I have referred.
Lord Soames: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that in view of the close association of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, with CND it is natural for him to try to add to public disquiet, such as it is?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it is not for me to impugn the motives of the noble Lord opposite, but the answers to the questions he has put to me are the ones I have given.

Housing (Scotland) Bill
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 11,
Schedule 1,
Clauses 12 to 23,
Schedules 2 and 3,
Clause 24.—(Lord Skelmersdale.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Dockyard Services Bill
11.25 a.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Many studies of the organisation of the dockyards have been undertaken over the last 15 or more years under successive administrations. There have been almost as many different recommendations as there have been studies, but all have agreed on the nature of the problems facing the dockyards. If they have differed on other matters they have been as one in agreeing that fundamental change in the way the dockyards are run is necessary if their long-term future is to be secure. Even the trade unions have accepted the need for improvement.
But, like the seasons, the reports have come and gone and for one reason or another, government after government have failed to make the sort of fundamental change which those who have studied the dockyards over the years have come to recognise as essential. No one advocates change for change's sake. What we are debating is too important for that. I am as aware as any of your Lordships of the proud history of the dockyards and the service they have given this

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country over the last 400 years. Certainly no one will ever forget the splendid efforts which the dockyards made during the difficult times of the Falklands crisis in 1982.
The question, however, is not whether the dockyards have performed well, but rather whether they could do better and by performing better whether they could provide a more secure future for themselves, an even better service for the Royal Navy and release resources to be spent elsewhere. The Government are firmly of the opinion that these goals can be realised and the Bill which we have introduced is designed with that purpose in mind.
Changes in three areas are essential for the most efficient operation of the dockyards. First, local managers must be given more authority to manage; secondly, the dockyards, as suppliers, must be clearly separated from the Fleet, as customer, and, thirdly, accounting procedures reflecting normal commercial practice must be introduced. After a period of consultation, we announced our intention to proceed with what had been our preferred option, the introduction of commercial management, but with the assets remaining in the ownership of the Government.
The option at one end of the scale of a dockyard trading fund within the Civil Service would not provide a commercially disciplined environment; nor would it go far enough in freeing management and workforce from the inevitable restrictions and interference of government. The two dockyards at Rosyth and Devonport currently have an annual trading turnover of £400 million. By any reckoning that is an enormous industrial undertaking and, quite simply, such a system does not lend itself to working within restrictions which the Civil Service machine necessarily imposes.
At the other end of the scale was the idea of full privatisation. I can say that there was no support from any quarter during the consultation phase for full privatisation. It was, and remains, the Government's strongly held view that, in the special circumstances of the dockyards, it would be inadvisable to go for an outright sale.
Commercial management, on the other hand, has many advantages. It would free local management from Civil Service constraints. It would enable a proper separation of the Royal Navy, as the customer, from the dockyards, as suppliers. It would allow a fully commercial approach to be introduced in the dockyards. It would provide the spur to ever greater efficiency by the prospect of periodic competition for the contracts. Commercial management would also mean that the strategic defence assets—the dockyard land, buildings and plant—will remain in government ownership, and the Government would be able to regain control of the dockyards if it proved necessary to do so.
The Dockyard Services Bill provides for the Secretary of State to introduce commercial management at the two dockyards, or to operate the dockyards himself, as government-owned plcs. We have long made it clear that if there were insufficient interest from companies in managing the dockyards, or if their responses to our invitation to tender were
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unacceptable for any reason, the Government s fall-back position was the formation of government-owned plcs.
It might be for the convenience of your Lordships if I were to outline the progress made so far. In doing so—and at risk of stating the obvious—I should emphasise that no commitment has been made; nor will any be made until the Bill (as I would hope) has been agreed by your Lordships and has been given Royal Assent.
The tender documents were issued by my department on the 3rd April to those companies which had submitted an adequate response to a pre-qualification exercise. Those companies which have been invited to tender for the contract in respect of Devonport Dockyard are Devonport Dockyard Limited, which is the company formed by the local management to consider bidding for the contract, and a consortium of Trafalgar House, Plessey and A and P Appledore. For Rosyth Dockyard, the companies are a consortium of Babcock Power and Thorn EMI; a consortium of Balfour Beatty and the Weir Group; and two companies which are considering bids on their own, Northern Engineering Industries and the Press Offshore Group.
So far as timescale is concerned, responses to the invitation to tender have been invited by the 1st August. Our aim is to consider the responses and then select the successful bidders in November. The contracts for the initial period of seven years would be signed in November and the contractors would work alongside the current management before assuming responsibility for operating the dockyards from the vesting day of 6th April 1987. That is the outline programme.
A copy of the invitation to tender was placed in the Library of your Lordships' House on 8th April, and a copy of the draft contract was placed there on 23rd April. The invitation to tender is complete, with the exception of the annex, which refers to the programme of work on which the companies are asked to bid. As your Lordships will appreciate, the refit programme is necessarily classified, but contractors have been informed of the core programme of work for each dockyard which will be equivalent to about 70 per cent, of the total refit programme. The remainder of the programme—the unallocated programme, which we plan to increase in size over the years—will be available for competitive bidding from the dockyards and commercial ship repair yards. Our intention, is that work entering the dockyards should increasingly be negotiated on a fixed price basis.
Also, while the dockyards have been within the Ministry of Defence, they have been largely unable to seek business outside. When commercially managed they will be free to compete in other markets. The many centres of excellence in the dockyards place them in a commanding position to secure commercial work. As your Lordships will know, the dockyard at Gibraltar has been successful in securing such work, and I see no reason why the dockyards at Devonport and Rosyth should not also do so.
I have already explained the benefits which we expect to result from the introduction of a commercial approach to the management of the dockyards. Those

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who stand in the way of fundamental change on the lines we propose ignore the obvious advantages to be gained from a competitive approach to this work. Instead, our opponents argue that commercial management will not result in savings to the taxpayer. I have to say that I think these people are wrong. Our latest estimate for savings to the taxpayer, to which the Committee of Public Accounts in another place have referred in their latest report, published yesterday, is that they will amount to some £21 million a year over the first ten years, during which time, for the purposes of accounting, the £70 million setting-up costs will be amortised. Thereafter the savings are expected to be some £28 million a year.
A saving to the taxpayer of £210 million over the first ten years and greater amounts thereafter is, we believe, a saving well worth making. If we can make savings of that order—and I believe that these are worst case figures—while offering the Royal Navy a better deal in terms of greater cost-effectiveness and more timely completion of refits, we would be failing in our duty not to press ahead with our plans.
Before I refer to the individual provisions in the Bill, which have now undergone some 80 hours of consideration in another place, there are two important areas on which I believe your Lordships would wish me to touch. Both concern our national security interests. The first is the question of foreign control of the dockyards, and the second concerns questions of nuclear safety under commercial management.
The foreign control safeguards will effectively be in three places. There will be safeguards in the articles of association of the dockyard company which my right honourable friend forms at each dockyard, in the contract which my right honourable friend will enter into with the successful bidder to manage either dockyard, and under the Government's normal security rules relating to any company which contracts for classified defence work. Each dockyard company will have a share capital of 50,001 £1 shares, and all but one share will be transferred on vesting day to whichever company has successfully tendered to manage the dockyard. The managing company will own all those shares for the entire period of the contract. The remaining share will be held by the Secretary of State and it will have special rights attached to it. One such right will be that no change can be made to the articles of the company or to its memorandum without the Secretary of State's specific approval.
We have made it clear that we could not accept that the dockyards should be run by foreign companies. Under the contract with the managing company my department will be able to satisfy itself that the level of foreign shareholding in that company—and hence the level of foreign influence over the dockyard company—remains well below the level of control. We propose to set the "trigger point" level at 30 per cent. If the foreign shareholding in the managing company exceeds this level, the Secretary of State will have power under the contract to act where the circumstances are contrary to the essential interests of security, and those interests require such action to be taken. In such a situation the Secretary of State will be able to terminate the contract. Several other courses
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would be open to him, but it would not be sensible to say that a 29 per cent, foreign shareholding is acceptable but a 31 per cent, share is not. We could all think of cases where even a tiny foreign shareholding would be quite unacceptable and of other cases where a foreign shareholding above 30 per cent, would be acceptable. Protection of security will, therefore, at all times be the paramount consideration.
Finally on the subject of foreign control, I should remind your Lordships that the managing company will be a list "X" company. This means that in order to undertake classified work the particular company has to satisfy the stringent government security requirements (physical as well as personnel) which have existed under successive Administrations.
As regards nuclear safety after commercial management has been introduced, the dockyard companies will be required to operate under a nuclear site licence. That will not be optional; it is a requirement imposed on the company under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965. My department has been working closely with the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive, to whom the companies will be responsible for ensuring that the requirements in connection with radiation protection for the dockyard employees are fully met under the terms of existing legislation. Safety has been among our highest priorities, and the safety of the workforce will be as high a priority in the future as it is now.
The heart of this Bill lies in Clause 1, under which the Secretary of State is enabled to form a Companies Act company at each of the dockyards into which the workforce to which the arrangements apply would be transferred on vesting day. I need hardly emphasise the importance we attach to the dockyard workforce. I readily acknowledge that it has been their skills and their dedication which has over the years provided the vital support to the fleet. It is no criticism of the employees to say that, while the Civil Service machinery serves this country well in many ways, it is not, as I have said, best suited to an industrial undertaking, and particularly not one of the size and complexity of the dockyards.
The Government are very conscious of the implications for personnel of our proposals, and it is against that background that we have addressed the personnel issues contained in this Bill. It has always been our intention that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 should apply in this case, and Clause 1 (4) makes the position clear. Essentially, the regulations safeguard employees' rights when a business is transferred to a new owner, and, with the exception of some factors resulting specifically from Crown service, their terms and conditions of employment—for example, pay, hours, leave, and allowances—will be the same as those applying in the Civil Service immediately before the transfer.
But there will be no break in employment. So, at the time of this transfer, employees are not in any sense redundant, and are not therefore entitled to redundancy compensation. Clause 1(5) and 1(6) addresses this point. I must emphasise, however, that these subsections do not in any sense affect the right to redundancy compensation of civil servants transfer-

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ring to the new companies if they were to be made redundant by their new employer at some time after vesting day.
As regards pensions, because the dockyard employees will no longer be civil servants, staff transferring to the new companies will not be able to remain members of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme, and the transfer regulations specifically do not apply to pensions. It is, however, the Government's intention to set up pension schemes, one at each dockyard, which transferred staff will join and which will, as far as possible, replicate the provisions of the PCSPS in terms of rules and benefits, including index-linking. Staff will be able, if they wish, to leave their accrued pension entitlements in the Civil Service scheme, or to transfer them into the dockyard companies' pension schemes. For those employees who opt for the second course, the Government will make transfer payments into the company schemes in respect of the accrued benefits. Pension schemes will also be set up for staff joining the dockyard companies after vesting day.
It is also our intention that, even though the means of payment will have to be different, the current Civil Service levels of redundancy compensation will transfer. So, too, will reckonable service for the purposes of redundancy. This means that, should an employee be made redundant by the new company, the calculation of redundancy compensation will be made on the total of service under the Crown as well as with the dockyard company. There are some areas which will need further discussion with the trade unions and the Inland Revenue, and we have recently issued a consultative document dealing with pensions and redundancy which we hope will form the basis of those discussions. A copy of this document, likewise, is in the Library.
Thus the workforce at the two dockyards will transfer to the new companies without a break in their employment, and on broadly the same terms and conditions as in the Civil Service. It is the Government's firm view that, in this way, the interests of the employees are well served, and the new companies set up on a basis that should significantly contribute to the successful operation of the dockyards in the private sector.
The Bill provides in Clause 2(1) for the MoD police who are to be retained in the dockyards after vesting day to have the same full constabulary powers as they have now. The MoD police will continue to provide the protective security of the perimeter and control the gates of the dockyard. They will continue to carry out patrols, and will have access to all premises within the dockyards, including any buildings occupied solely by the contractors. The MoD police will remain under the exclusive control of the Ministry of Defence and not the contractor, and he will not be able to replace the police in the duties I have described. The dockyard land and buildings will remain Crown property, and the MoD police will remain to protect it.
The Bill also ensures that the Secretary of State will be able to make or change bylaws throughout the dockyard after vesting day, just as he can now, and existing bylaws will continue in force. It also provides
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that dockyard land should continue to be exempt from the payment of general rates. Clause 2(2) ensures that the contractor will not obtain security of tenure under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. Under the Government's proposals, the contract with each successful contractor will run for a fixed term of seven years. Were the contractor to acquire security of tenure of land in the dockyard, it would conflict with the Government's intention that fixed-term contracts should provide the competitive spur to greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Finally, I come to Clause 3 which provides that the Secretary of State shall pay out of money provided by Parliament any expenses he incurs in connection with either the formation of a dockyard company at each dockyard or the operation of such a company as a Government-owned plc. The second part of Clause 3 enables the Secretary of State to meet expenses incurred in assuming responsibility for liabilities of a dockyard company.
The Government remain convinced that the introduction of commercial management under fixed-term contracts, with the assets of the dockyards remaining firmly in Government hands, will provide the spur to efficiency and savings which competition and renewable contracts will bring. It will ensure that the operational requirements of the fleet are met, and will continue to be met, and that strategic interests are safe-guarded.
I commend the Bill to your Lordships, and I beg to move that it now be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
11.46 a.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, we are all grateful to the Minister for his careful explanation of the Bill. I am grateful to him also for the supplementary information that he has sent to me from time to time during the passage of the Bill. But there, I am afraid, we shall have to part company. I have to tell him that we shall find little to agree upon either in the general debate on Second Reading or at the subsequent Committee and Report stages of the Bill.
The House is particularly fortunate in that it will have today the benefit of the observations of noble Lords on all sides of the House who bring to the debate their unique experience. The noble Lords, Lord Lewin and Lord Hill-Norton, have unrivalled, practical and successful experience. I shall listen with great care and respect (as, I venture to say, will others outside the House) to whatever they have to say. The noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, will virtually be speaking for Devonport. And, clearly, whatever she has to say will add a particular value to our deliberations. My noble friend, Lord Mulley, can speak from his ministerial experiences as a former Secretary of State for Defence. And the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, can contribute directly from his experience as a former distinguished Minister for the Navy. We cannot but profit from speeches based on such a unique and unrivalled background.
I wish to call as my first witness the Public Accounts Committee. The committee has strongly criticised the

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Government's proposals. It was particularly sceptical of the validity of MoD costings.
"Misgivings about the thoroughness and accuracy of the Ministry costings"
is how it was put. In an earlier report, the committee said,
"In view of our doubts about the costings of both the Government's preferred long term option and of the interim measures, we do not consider that the MoD have yet provided enough evidence to enable Parliament to assess the financial aspects of the options. We recommend that Parliament should be given some indication of the expected net savings from the different options when it is asked to consider the Government's proposals for the future and that the information would be more reliably based than that given to us".
Despite that censure, no further helpful figures have come forward until now, when we have the benefit of the 21st report of the Public Accounts Committee, to which I shall be referring later. There will always be a variety of sensitive areas in any proposed legislation that command the attention of the critic and upon which his attention will focus and to which answers need to be found. This is done against a background of the imperative for the legislation. So it is in this situation. We are talking about the future of the Royal dockyards. The basis for the Bill is to introduce private management into the dockyards while the Government retain ownership of the fixed assets—private management under fixed-term contract. It is said that these provide the greatest incentives to improving efficiency and reducing operating costs. Thus, when we concentrate on this Bill in this House, we have the benefit of reviewing what has gone on in another place, and what did not go on there. Alas, my Lords!—I have to say, not much.
When we engage the Minister as to how we shall try to improve this Bill we are faced with this bleak prospect. Despite the opportunities given to the Government to reflect on what has happened on costs it is now clear that, far from relieving the strain on the defence budget, commercial management would result in significant extra costs to the MoD. Since the Bill left another place, we have had the benefit of a sight of the Twenty-first Report of the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts. As it always does, it carries the authority of a high-powered committee with great experience composed of Members from all sides of the House. It would not be proper or prudent to refer to its evidence and conclusions at length. But the PAC committee, put bluntly, spells out the spoiling tactics of the MoD and the highly unsatisfactory basis on which the Minister wishes to proceed.
Let me enlighten the House by referring to one or two of the points which have been raised. In page xii on costings they say this:
"We note MoD's assurance that their costings are as reliable as they can possibly make them but they are still based on many assumptions, there are considerable uncertainties and they are almost certain to be revised again before contracts are placed for commercial management".
That is not a very helpful basis upon which we can be satisfied.
With regard to parliamentary control the report says this:
"We note MoD's reasons for proposing that the C&AG should not have access to the contractor's accounts and costings records but
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remain convinced that such access is essential to provide Parliament with an independent assessment of the success or otherwise of commercial management in securing value for money".
The report then continues:
"We recommend therefore that the Dockyard Services Bill should be amended to make provision for such access".
I ask the Minister, when he winds up, to give the House some indication—it may perhaps be too early—of the reaction of the Government to that very firm recommendation.
The Minister then sought to assure the House in a speech that the costings would turn out all right. I refer to page 2 in the evidence that was submitted to that committee by the Comptroller and Auditor General. This is what he says:
"MoD calculations have not yet included costs which might arise from the following, to the extent that they would only be incurred by commercial management:—

(a) costs of activities which might be created in or transferred to other areas of MoD such as the accounting and stores organisations and Fleet Maintenance Bases;

(b) costs of setting-up and operating a system of configuration control to ensure the existence of up-to-date drawings of the equipment state of ships;

(c) the possible effect on the UK contribution to the European Community in respect of VAT as a result of transferring dockyard activities to the private sector: I understand this might be about £2 million per annum".

So the Minister ought not to be complacent that he satisfies anyone, let alone this House, that there is a clearly undisputed cost benefit to the taxpayer in carrying out the policies which have been indicated.
I am grateful to the Minister for the care that he took in spelling out the foreign ownership aspect. But I want to tell him that there is great unease at the possibility that an undue amount of the ownership of the shares can fall into foreign hands. With regard to strategic interests, Britain's essential defence requirement will be damaged and the ability of the dockyards to maintain the fighting effectiveness of the fleet, in my view, will be impaired.
The Minister took care, and I am grateful, to deal with the aspect of nuclear safety. This is very important. But I wonder whether the Minister can tell the House more concerning the incredible news given to the committee in another place that the managing director of Rosyth dockyard has disclosed that Balfour Beatty—a company to which the Minister referred, one of the companies tendering for the contract—had asked for some basic nuclear training in order to help prepare the tenders where nuclear refitting is concerned. The managing director had said that advice had been given that they should take a two-week course, after which, of course, they would have the lives of millions of people in their hands. The people of Dunfermline and Rosyth, of Plymouth and Devon, I believe deserve better information and security than that. People outside this House will be asking continually: why, why, why? Improve, alter, or make more efficient, but why disturb the existing situation?
We are concerned with Britain's defence interests. The House of Commons Defence Committee have served Parliament and people well. In 1984–85 it said as far as extra costs are concerned,

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"There has been a coyness about the unwillingness of the MoD to come clean and publish some real financial figures to justify this leap in the dark".
The Minister has said something about redundancy payments. He will understand that I shall be taking advice and guidance from those outside the House who will from time to time, and particularly during the Committee stage, advise me that those arrangements will be satisfactory to them. It was the House of Commons Defence Committee who said:
"We were told that the Navy board had considered the national security implications of the preferred option, and was satisfied that there were no dangers. On the other hand, we were also told that the option did involve 'an additional risk' arising from possible disruption during a transition period, over and above that which has always been present from industrial disputes. However confident the Ministry is that"—
and this is the House of Commons Defence Committee speaking—
"'appropriate steps' can be taken to secure the nation's deterrent, the mere existence of additional risks must be regarded as worrying".
When the Ministry of Defence replied to those comments this is what was said:
"Our misgivings about the Government's intentions have not been allayed by the evidence we have been given, orally and in writing, since the last report".
I simply want to say to the Government that, however justified they feel that they have got it right, there is no authoritative source that I have heard so far, inside or outside this House, which is satisfied with the Government's attitudes to these matters.
Cost savings have been put forward as the purpose of this Bill. I suggest that as with transport, telecommunications, gas, airports as with ordnance factories—outrageously in my view—these proposals are justified by but two criteria. They take off the national payroll thousands of public servants and thus fulfil the Government imperative of cutting the Civil Service; and they provide the opportunity for private profit to be made out of public need and the defence of the realm. All other considerations are but dogma. We are also entitled to be deeply worried about the aspects of nuclear safety. That is something to which we shall return time and time again.
Let me review very briefly the options which the Government had before them. As the Minister said quite rightly, there is nothing that is original or has not been fairly thoroughly examined over the past few years. But in 1980 the then Navy Minister chaired a committee which looked at agency management and concluded:
"The disadvantages are that the management would have little incentive to make itself more efficient while the usual justification for an agent is that he has the resources and skills of the parent company to fall back on. In the case of the dockyards the reverse is more likely to apply. We do not therefore favour this option."
That is a quote from the Navy Minister who chaired a committee under this Government in 1980.
The Mallabar Committee of 1971 had this to say:
"The agency factory arrangement has, we know, been used fairly extensively in times of war emergency. But those of us who have had direct experience of its working are satisfied that this is the way to get the worst of both the commercial and the Government dockyard worlds. We would certainly not recommend it for the dockyards".
That is a quotation from a very respectable source.
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I want to turn very briefly to some of the local worries. It was the Member for one of the Plymouth seats, Miss Janet Fookes who said on 2nd December (at col. 45 of the Official Report, in another place):
"I accept along with other individuals, organisations and Select Committees, the need for some change in the organisation of the dockyards. In saying that I am paying no disrespect to the workforce, which can only be as good as those who lead it and the system under which"—
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for intervening, but I understand that he is not in order to quote a Back-Bencher in another place.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, even someone as authoritative as the Member I was quoting? I simply want to say that the Member representing the area of direct concern in Plymouth has certainly indicated to the other place, and I simply report to this House, that the workforce in Plymouth have done nothing to earn the enormous burdens and traumas which are being vested upon them at this particular time.
Already 2,000 jobs have been lost in the Plymouth area and in Rosyth as a result of changes which have been made. When we refer to Rosyth we are talking about no mean business; we are talking about a national asset of great pride and achievement, and the Government think so too. In recent years some £200 millions have been invested in that naval base. The major projects have included a new access road, new facilities for HM ships' companies, new police buildings, new stores and improved nuclear refuelling facilities.
It is planned to spend £200 million over the next 10 years. There are 8,500 direct plus 2,000 indirect jobs involved at Rosyth. There are 650 craft apprentices under four years' training. It has a health and safety record which is impressive by any yardstick. It has a disputes record which many large industrial companies would envy. That is what at present is in a high state of uncertainty and tension as a result of the actions of the Minister and the Government.
The trade unions representing the workforce in the dockyards have responded positively to all reviews and suggestions for change. That is not to say that the trade unions accept the criticisms of the dockyards made by the Government. I shall be arguing their case more specifically at the Committee stage, but they have said that one way to improve the customer-supplier relationship with the Navy, to give managers more authority to manage and to improve accounting procedures would be the creation of a trading fund. The Speed Committee advocated a dockyard trading fund as a total operating regime rather than a mere accounting change, and the trade unions support that.
The noble Lord the Minister will not need reminding that when we debated the ordnance factory legislation we had some anxious moments on assurances to, among others, members of the Defence Police Federation. I am grateful to the Minister for what I believe he did earlier, which was to repeat assurances that were given by his honourable ministerial friend, Mr. John Lee, that there would literally be no change in the status and operating

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methods of the police. When the noble Lord replies, I should be grateful if he would confirm that he has reiterated the assurances that were given earlier.
If the Minister will not listen to some unbiased and independent observers, perhaps he would care to listen to the views of a former Director of Dockyard Procurement and Support, Rear-Admiral Philip Marrack. He was responsible for production, programming and capital investment in the Royal Dockyards, including the contract procurement of warship refits. In a paper commenting on the Government's proposals he said:
"Strategic Defence installations of this nature must remain in Government hands, and the UK Government seems to accept this, but they are proposing to inject a contractual block between the Navy and its heavy repair force."
He goes on to say
"All that a contractual negotiation will achieve is a lot of delay and an increase in the Navy's cost by the Contractors' profit with inflated claims for so-called extras".
This Bill is one of the most ill-prepared, poorly researched and irresponsible Bills, which even this Government have introduced over the past six years. Franchising and agency arrangements may be all right for fast foods and hamburger joints or for soft furnishings, but surely such a complex, sensitive and crucially strategic arm of national defence deserves better than a franchising arrangement. This Bill is an irrelevance at the present time. It seeks to shatter the traditions and the achievements of generations of dedicated men and women who proved as recently as the Falklands crisis that they have the flexibility, the skills and the national interests to do all that this Bill wants them to do. All this Bill wants in the national interests is an offer by a government which believe in co-operation with the workforce of a service to the Fleet at all times and in all circumstances.
During the Committee stage we shall seek to stimulate the interest and experience in defence matters which exists on all sides of this House so that we not only save the jobs of thousands of fine workers, but we save the Government from their own stupidity.
12.6 p.m.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, the noble Lord spoke at some length about the Government's high regard for the workforce and their sensitivity to their interests. However, one would not have gathered that from the Bill, the simple purpose of which is to enable the Government to get rid of the workforce without delay, against the wishes of the workforce. The employees wish to remain servants of the Crown; they prefer to work for the Queen than for the chairman of Trafalgar House, or whatever company, and who will blame them for having that preference? However, the Government say "No", and have produced a Bill to that effect.
I find the actual wording of the Bill peculiar. It calls for:
"the transfer by the Secretary of State of persons employed in the dockyards from Crown employment to a company, which would become their employer".
It is a transfer against the will of the workforce, provided that the price is right. It is a strange concept. To me it seems autocratic, although it may not seem
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so to everyone. It seems a strange purpose for a Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, listed the reasons why the Government wished to do this. I suggest that there is another reason, which perhaps for reasons of delicacy the noble Lord did not mention, although the noble Lord, Lord Graham, touched on it. A major reason is that they wish to change the status of the workforce in such a way that Ministers can claim to have cut the Civil Service. That is the real reason. I was a Defence Minister in the Wilson Government, and we did the same, although our motivation was slightly different. We would hive off branches of the defence services, the defence forces, in order to show our political activists that we were cutting defence expenditure. The Government are doing exactly the same thing in order to show their political activists that they are cutting the Civil Service. Not only is this a major reason for the Bill, but it is the only aim in the Bill which stands any chance of being achieved.
The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, spoke about saving money; but, as the noble Lord, Lord Graham, pointed out, we have the 21st Report of the Public Accounts Committee. In his speech the noble Lord, claimed that, from evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, £21 million a year would be saved. However, a careful reading of this report shows the opposite. It shows in polite language that the Public Accounts Committee is saying that it does not believe the Government. It does not believe the £21 million. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, quoted to this effect. I could give many more quotations from this report. Of course, the costings which the Government give and which the noble Lord gave are totally inadequate to enable us to judge whether or not this £21 million means anything. We would need far more figures, far more facts, many more estimates, before we could accept this, especially in the light of the conclusion of the Public Accounts Committee.
Turning to the other reason—efficiency—there is a mass of evidence of impartial investigation now by the Mallabar Committee and by the Select Committee on Defence in the other place, which contradicts the Government's claim on efficiency. I was rather struck by a remark by the Minister of State for Defence Procurement in the other place on the Second Reading of the Bill. He referred to the refitting of Polaris at Rosyth. I had some personal responsibility in the old days for this kind of thing and I was struck when he said, "We have no complaint about the quality of that work; the quality is extremely high. But that is not the only work carried out at Rosyth".
It is surely interesting that the Government should be wholly satisfied with the refitting of the Polaris submarines at Rosyth. What is it that they do there that they do not do elsewhere? There is no competition, after all (is there?) in refitting Polaris submarines. Thatcherism has not yet got down to a free market for Polaris. There is no competition. The management system is the same. Why is it then that great results are achieved here which are not achieved in other parts of the dockyard? Possibly the noble Lord can enlighten us on this because it is done by Crown servants in the same way as in other parts of Rosyth and Devonport; and yet the Government are wholly satisfied with it.

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I think it is true that the Government believe they will gain in efficiency because the commercial interests of the contractors are bound to coincide with the defence needs of the nation. That is it. It is a theory. It is a doctrine: what is good for Trafalgar House is good for the United Kingdom. This is, I suppose, why it is a Conservative Government, because that is the basic ideology of the Conservative Party.
Suppose the contractors find that they can make more money by spinning out the work, by taking short-term views, by giving one contract priority over another, by cutting down unused capacity in ways that seriously undermine the readiness and operational efficiency of the fleet. It is pure dogmatism, pure ideology, to suppose that there is an automatic corresponding of interest between the financial interests of the contractors and the needs of the nation. Once this Bill is passed and the new system comes in, the navy will not be able to tell the contractors what to do. It cannot tell them to do this or to do that to its ships in this or that order of priority. It cannot do that at all. If it wants something done it must tempt the contractor, it must bribe the contractor, and if it wants something done urgently it must bribe the contractor outrageously because the strength of the position in which the contractor stands is perfectly plain to anyone who has studied this at all. In practice, nine times out often the contractor will be in a monopoly position because the delays and difficulties of taking the job elsewhere will be prohibitive. This will crop up again and again. As I say, the navy can only get its way by tempting the contractors on a basis of commercial profit.
As the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, indicated, there are a number of alternative ways of going about this: reforming the existing set-up, having a trading fund or a publicly-owned company. All have advantages and also some disadvantages. We shall no doubt be discussing those a great deal at Committee stage and they have already been exhaustively discussed in the other place. The one point they all have in common, in my judgment, is that they are better than the scheme the Government are now putting before this House.
Nobody really supports this Bill. The Public Accounts Committee does not; the Select Committee on Defence does not; the workforce certainly does not; Rosyth does not; Plymouth does not. We shall hear from the navy later in the debate. The Labour Party, the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party united against it. The Minister gave an excellent explanation of the Bill. I do not think he gave the impression of being swept forward by a sense of burning mission in support of the Bill; not at all. I doubt very much whether there is any passionate support for the Bill on the other side of the House.
I urge the Government that the new report of the Public Accounts Committee could give them pause. There is no need to rush into implementing this Bill. It is a bad Bill and we shall have to improve it as best we can during the Committee stage.
12.16 p.m.
Lord Lewin: My Lords, I must first declare an interest in the matter that is before us. I am a part-time
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chairman of a shipyard on the east coast which employs between 400 and 500 people. We are building a small auxiliary for the Royal Navy—a coastal survey vessel. From time to time we tender to the Ministry of Defence for the refit and repair of very small and minor ships and craft—landing craft, auxiliaries and that kind of thing. The business is very marginal to our affairs. I have another interest, and that is the efficiency and wellbeing of the Royal Navy. One may say that those two interests could be in conflict. From my first interest, I might wish that the dockyards should be inefficient so that we could pick up some of their business. I must assure your Lordships that it is the second interest that is paramount in my concern and in fact I see no conflict.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, was kind enough to refer to my experience and I shall, if I may, speak from my experience. Looking round your Lordships' House, I can see that only my noble and gallant friend Lord Hill-Norton would perhaps argue with me on which of us has the greater experience of ship refits in dockyards, by they royal or commercial. So long as there have been ships, the navy has had a love-hate relationship with the dockyards. The enthusiastic captain and his ship's company take their beautiful craft into the dockyard. They see her torn to pieces before their eyes and get dirtier and dirtier. They see the pieces of the jigsaw put back again. They see time running out. The completion far too often is hurried and far too often equally is late. They then take the ship out again and spend the next three months bringing it back to its former state of efficiency and beauty.
That is not to say that the dockyards cannot do a good job. Of course they can. I have the greatest respect for the skill and craftsmanship of the dockyard "matey"—and I use that term as a term of affection. I have fondest memories of taking "Hermes" out of Devonport dockyard after a two-year modernisation while she was still in dockyard hands and dockyard control to carry out engine trials. All the machinery, the main auxiliary, was manned by the dockyard. My small ship's company was responsible only for navigational safety and communications. After that two-year refit everything worked magnificently. One of my most treasured ship's company photographs is of myself surrounded by a dockyard matey ship's company of 500 people. I hope that some of them treasure the photograph as much as I do. The modernisation, I may say, finished a month late.
I agree with the noble Lord the Minister that it is not the skill and dedication of the workforce that is at fault, but it is the nature of the management. The dockyards, too, have always had this ability to rise to an emergency. The case of the Falklands has been mentioned, and indeed the dockyards did well. But I would not overstate that case.
The commercial shipyard did equally as well in their modifications in very short time to merchant ships, as did the naval support organisations of stores and transport and armament supply, and of the work that was done in the dockyards a proportion—perhaps quite a significant proportion—was in fact carried out by workers from contractors who supply the weapons systems, the sensors and the warning systems. The dockyards can do a good job. It is the management

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that is at fault. I am sorry to say that eager ships' captains would often put efficiency first, and are not too concerned about price. It is only later in their careers that they realise the effect of poor timekeeping and high cost on the navy as a whole and the total disposition of resources.
The long-standing dissatisfaction with the performance of both timekeeping and cost is reflected by the frequency of reviews in the dockyard organisation and performance, which the noble Lord the Minister has already mentioned. He mentioned 15 years. May I speak again from my personal experience of 25 years of dockyard reviews, which seem to me to have occurred at intervals of at least two to three years. Since each one takes something like a year to 18 months to conclude, and then the reports have to be studied and considered, this in fact means that the dockyards have been under almost continuous review for, in my personal experience, the past 25 years.
As a junior captain on the naval staff I sat on the Jarratt Committee (an internal committee) which was set up to reconcile how a projected dockyard overload could be tailored to the dockyard capacity. The committee sat for about 18 months. About half-way through our terms of reference were changed to see how dockyard capacity could be tailored to what was now a projected dockyard underload. Some other policy decisions had changed the nature of the load in that time. Fortunately by that time I was back at sea.
In the late 1960s, as Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, I was responsible for a study to decide what dockyard capacity the navy needed for a fleet that was going to be without carriers, the decision to dispense with the carriers having been taken. My recommendation was that we should close Chatham because its capacity would certainly not be needed. Ministers seemed to agree with this, but my naval superiors did not, and Chatham did not close. They were right, because in the ensuing years the dockyard productivity slumped to such a great extent that Chatham was in fact required. I believe that there is perhaps another Parkinson's law, which says that dockyard productivity automatically adjusts to match the load.
We went on through other more prestigious studies which have already been mentioned—Norfolk, Mallabar. In the early 1970s a quango was set up called the Royal Dockyard Policy Board. On it were put eminent accountants, industrial relations consultants, trade unionists. It was chaired by the navy Minister. As the Vice-Chief of Naval Staff I represented the customer. I can remember vividly taking these eminent gentlemen through the entrails of a nuclear submarine deep in refit in Rosyth dockyard, and it brought home to them the complexities of refitting a modern warship. Some time after I was lucky enough to be the First Sea Lord. The problems we suffered in the dockyards at that time—I am talking of 1978 and 1979—were one of my major headaches.
At that time it was my practice to write a newsletter to all officers in command, from the admiral commanding the fleet to the junior lieutenant who commanded a small patrol vessel, to let them know what was happening in Whitehall. I should like, with your Lordships' permission, to read what I said about
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the dockyards in two of those newsletters. The first was written in February 1978. I said:
"We have been taking a special look at the dockyards and the problems therein which have plagued us for years (centuries?). The management have the difficult problem of contending with a workforce whose pay and conditions of service are largely outside their control. Somehow we have to win the dockyards to our side, with a stronger sense of loyalty and motivation. The Chief of Fleet Support"—
who was at that time that excellent officer, Admiral Eberle—
"has been working on a new charter for the Royal Naval Dockyards which will recognise their special needs, provide a sense of stability and a new direction for the future. We shall not achieve any dramatic overnight improvement. It will be a long haul and we shall need both political and trade union help."
I went on:
"A complication has been the proposal, pressed on us politically for some years now, to run the dockyards on a trading fund principle. The unavoidable monopoly nature of the customer"—
the fleet—
"[to] the supplier"—
the dockyard relationship—
"coupled with the complexity of modern warship repair … just does not make sense, and we hope shortly to put the idea to bed."
We seem to have at least succeeded in doing that.
Fifteen months later I wrote another newsletter. In the intervening period things had not gone well. I said:
"The summer of 1978 saw the damaging industrial civil servants' pay dispute and its consequences, up with which you all had to put. The frustrating events at the Clyde submarine base, where naval ratings were used to load "Revenge" with replacement missiles, and at other naval bases and establishments are well known to you all. There was disruption of ships' programmes and aggravation and inconvenience for ships' companies both ashore and afloat. Now we are left with a large backlog of dockyard work, which means that we shall certainly have to cancel the second major refits of the Batch 2 Leanders, "and there may be more of the same medicine to come. Meanwhile the morale and motivation throughout the whole of what I look upon as the civilian part of the navy, because without them we cannot operate, remains at low ebb. This is our greatest present concern, for so far no adequate remedial steps have been taken."
I went on later in the same letter:
"To make up some of the dockyard capacity lost during last year's industrial dispute, equivalent to 10 Leander normal refits, we have had to put more refits out to contract with commercial ship repairers. This has meant further unwelcome turbulence for the ships' companies of some ships, but it has shown the dockyards that they do not have the monopoly that they thought they had. They have seen the ships emerge from successful periods in commercial yards where traditional trade demarcations have given way to a refreshing flexibility. If we can achieve a similar approach in our own yards we shall be able to increase our productive capacity to an extent that will allow us to undertake all but the marginal load in house."
Further down I say:
"I have re-read what I said to you 15 months ago about the dockyards. Then the mesage was the need to win the dockyards to our side, with a stronger sense of loyalty and motivation. Sadly, we have slipped back, and our task is now harder and will take longer, but the aim remains the same."
Again our hopes were not realised, and the situation has not improved since that time.
The Navy Minister, Mr. Speed, who has already been referred to, picked up the pieces of the trouble we were in in 1979 and did yet a further study in 1981. By that time I was no longer directly responsible for naval matters, but I understand that he put forward some sound proposals, but they were completely overtaken by the review of our capability undertaken by

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Secretary of State, John Nott, which made fundamental changes in the shape and size of the navy, removed half-life modernisations from the dockyard programme, and swept away all the basic assumptions which under the Speed review had been carried out.
So there came yet another study, this time by Mr. Peter Levene. This produced a proposal to put management out to commercial tender. This is not a new proposal. It has been looked at before, but never before has it been seen to be politically expedient. I rather suspect that the germ of the idea on this occasion came not from Mr. Levene but from some naval officer with deep experience of dockyard affairs.
I hope that I have not wearied your Lordships with this retrospective. I wanted to show that the dockyard problem is not new and it is very difficult. Indeed, if Lords Anson and St. Vincent, First Lords in their time, who wrestled with dockyard inefficiency with some success, were here today they would find the scene disturbingly familiar. Will these proposals work? In my view they have at the least a very good chance, because they tackle two of the most intractable aspects of dockyard management: the ability of the local management to manage, which as long as the dockyard management and workforce remain within the national Civil Service is impossible, and the ability to escape from the straitjacket of restrictive practices.
The performance of recently privatised ship repair yards and the greatly increased flexibility which it has been possible introduce in Portsmouth, where the dockyard has been subsumed into a maintenance base, give me great cause for optimism. Of course, I have some concerns. Cost has been mentioned. It is difficult without full access to all the facts and all the calculations to make a realistic assessment of costs and whether we shall save money or break even.
It is also very difficult to foresee the future and what may happen to upset any calculation of cost which may be made now. Even if we manage just to break even—I believe there is a very good chance of that—and achieve greater efficiency, we have succeeded. If we could cut normal refits by 25 per cent.—I see no reason why we should not with better management—time is money and we have made a considerable saving by increasing the operational availability of the fleet.
I have another concern. I understand that a new naval organisation under the Director General of Ship Repair has been set up. This organisation will represent the customer. It will specify the work package to commercial management, negotiate the contract and oversee the work. The place of this organisation in the future is crucial. I urge the noble Lord to ensure that it is given the necessary staff, adequate in size and with experience and capability.
The assets are to remain in the possession of the Government. I am concerned that these considerable assets, worth a great deal of money, will be properly maintained, updated and improved and the right level of capital investment to provide for the future is put in. I hope that the noble Lord will reassure us on what arrangement will be made for this.
I was concerned about security, but I was glad to hear that the Ministry of Defence Police responsibility
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will remain unchanged. I share your Lordships concern on nuclear safety. The present organisation for nuclear safety, which is largely naval, has an excellent record and is tried and tested. I hope it will be possible to retain this and to build on it.
My final concern, which I know all your Lordships share, is for the people. They have given us long, loyal and dedicated service. They must now have considerable anxieties about their future. They must be fairly treated. I hope that great priority will be given to their treatment and to proper arrangements for redundancy and retention of pension entitlement, which should be fully explained to the workforce as early as it is practical to do so. If it is not, we are heading for trouble.
I support this Bill. I believe that it has a very good chance of breaking us out of this long concern with the performance of the dockyards. We cannot go on tinkering and altering here and there. We have to do something radical. This in my belief has a good chance of producing the best long-term structure to meet the needs of a modern fleet. I understand that it is backed by the naval members of the Navy Board and I have great respect for their judgment.
12.35 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, in view of our pleasant ceremony last Wednesday, it may be thought indelicate to refer to the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Nevertheless, that is a reminder of the long history of the importance attached to the backup for the Fleet and particularly to the role played in this by the West Country.
It is not surprising that this debate has attracted a number of speakers, including the noble and gallant Lord who has just addressed us and his former naval colleague, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, who will address us later. The words that have just been spoken in support of the Bill by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, should convince those who do not bring to this political prejudice that it represents a possible, and perhaps the best possible, solution to a problem the history of whose innate difficulty we have heard recited.
However, I think that the noble Lord the Minister and his colleagues may have more work to do to convince everyone concerned of the desirability of the Bill, partly because, although Napoleon said that it was desirable that a constitution should be brief and obscure, I am not quite sure that that also applies to Bills. This Bill is both brief and obscure, and, indeed can be understood only in the light of the explanations that have been given to us today by the noble Lord the Minister and in other papers and documents circulated on the Bill's behalf.
There are two questions and two only that I should like to ask. One was touched upon by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, in relation to assets. One of the difficulties that must have been in the Government's mind was the handling of something which is not a totally independent company in the sense that it does not own the means of production, and the desirability of giving it managerial flexibility. Since managerial flexibility (freedom from Civil Service rules, if one wishes to put it that way) would in

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normal situations include decisions about purchases, new equipment, updating equipment and renovation of equipment, it is not clear on the face of the Bill exactly how this responsiblity is to be shared and whether the new management, even though it will be given the kind of freedom in relation to the workforce which is emphasised, understandably, in the Government's presentation, also applies to the acquisition of relevant assets and to whom these assets when acquired should belong.
If the Civil Service routine about purchases is not also removed there will still be a considerable degree of overhead control and that in itself is bound to be expensive. The House is entitled to somewhat more detailed explanation on this aspect of the proposed running of these companies than is apparent in the Bill.
The second issue on which I think one needs a little further conviction—because, after all it is making a considerable change which will affect both the Fleet and, as has been pointed out, the workforce and, indeed, all the inhabitants of the two towns which are principally involved—is whether the Government really believe in this Bill. I will support them with enthusiasm if I feel that that enthusiasm exists. It may be a curious question but there is in the third clause of the Bill a reference, to which the noble Lord the Minister referred, to the Secretary of State taking over the liabilities which the company might have incurred if he were to bring it back into public ownership.
Although the noble Lord the Minister did not enlarge on this, in other documents it has been suggested by the Government that they might require to do this—I think the phrase used is—"in times of tension or war." War, we hope, is not something for which they need to provide at any rate in the near future. Tension, however, I should have thought, is something that is always with us. I cannot see any prospect on the international horizon of a disappearance of tension. Therefore, one has to ask oneself why it is, if the Government are unconvinced that this new arrangement would work in a situation of tension, that they are keen to bring it about.
This may be a misunderstanding. It may be that what they had in mind was something quite different but it seems to me that, apart from circumstances of major war when a great many things have to be altered in relation to defence matters, the system under which one is working should be something in which one has total confidence that, whatever the pressures may be, it will respond. I should like to hear from the Minister, as I imagine would other noble Lords, that the Government are of the opinion that the proposed organisation would respond to the needs of the Fleet. Those needs after all, have brought us here this afternoon.
12.43 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, I should like to say a few words, first because of the close association of my family with the Royal Navy, with my elder brother in the first world war; my younger brother in the second world war, and my nephew in the Falklands, therefore, we are very interested in what happens to the Royal Navy. I am interested also in a close association with
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the City of Plymouth of which I was the Recorder in 1944. That is my interest. Then, when I come to read this Bill, I am aghast at the powers given to the Secretary of State to upset all that we have known of the maintenance and control of our Royal dockyards. The Minister, Lord Trefgarne, was good enough to say, "The ownership of the land will still remain in the Crown." What about the leases of the land, the fixed equipment, on which we spent millions and millions? That can be let out. The clause says it. What rent will the Government charge? It cost hundreds of millions of pounds to put it there. Will this commercial concern pay a fair and reasonable rent for it or not?
Also, the moveable equipment. That, I suppose, will be let out or even sold or whatever it may be. What is to be done about that? Even more important, what about the new capital cost, whether in new docks, new sheds or whatever it may be or modern devices? Is the company going to provide the capital for that? Surely, the Government would have to do it. Those are the questions in relation to this Bill which it seems to me those promoting it have not considered. That is in regard to the actual use of the property of the Crown in the Royal dockyards which have been the property of the Crown all these years and still remains the property of the Crown, but let out. That is about the land, the equipment, of our Royal dockyards.
What about the workforce? Through traditions coming down for centuries, the essential ancillary to the Fleet is the repair of its ships, keeping them in fighting order. And in the workforce the tradition has come down for centuries? What is to happen to them? Under this Bill they are to be transferred automatically, without any consent of their own, from the Crown to a company of which they know nothing. It is a fundamental principle of our law going back to a case called Doncaster Colliery v. Nokes in 1940. No man is bound to his employer to have him change without consent. That was a case where there had been an amalgamation of two companies. It was said in law the servant was bound to obey and to be employed by the new amalgamation company. The House of Lords said, "No. No man is bound to change his employer without his consent."
What is to happen to this Bill? All those dockyard mateys—and I, too, can use a Naval phrase—will be automatically transferred from the Crown, loyal servants of the Crown as they be, to a private contractor, with no more of the safeguards that they had had before, and contrary to the general principle. That regulation, which is referred to in paragraph 2 of the protection of employment regulations, deals only with transfers between two ordinary commercial concerns. Interestingly enough, there is a special exception for seamen on a British ship that if the ship is sold to another concern, a foreigner, the seamen is not bound to serve that foreigner. That is an exception to that transfer of employment. That is a seaman on a British ship.
What about a dockyard worker in the Royal dockyards? I should like to say that the principle of law still applies. He is not to be forced to take a new employer without his consent. There it is. This Bill overrides the dockyard workers in this. My noble and gallant friend Lord Lewin has said, "Of course, there must be change. The whole thing at the moment is

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inefficient; it is all governed by the Civil Service, red tape and the like. The work does not get done; it is not done properly; it is not done economically." I can see that. That is all quite right.
But what is the right solution? Is to form the company the right solution? The Bill tells us nothing about it. Although some reassurances were given by my noble friend the Minister, nobody knows anything about this company. So far as concerns the Bill, it is an unnamed, unknown, uncapitalised company. We do not know anything about the shareholders or anything like that. It is all in the Secretary of State's control. The Bill does not give Parliament any control. We are told that about 30 per cent. of the shareholders are British and all that sort of thing. Have your Lordships heard about nominees? Many shares are held by nominees and foreigners and the like. The formation of a company to run our vital dockyard services is a matter of special importance: its constitution, its charter, its formation, its shareholders and the like. Surely, it is a matter in which Parliament should have a say, and it should not be left entirely to the Secretary of State.
We were told that 1 per cent. was to be for the Government and that provisions in the articles of association and the like will give some overall control. But such matters ought not to be left to the Secretary of State. Parliament itself ought to have a say in the constitution, shareholding and management of a company such as this, which is to play a vitally important part in our defences.
I would just say this. Commercial management is not the sole criterion. National security must be remembered. Also, when emergencies arise, whether in the Falklands war or in the other wars we have had, all these services must be called upon at once. Like a fire brigade, they cannot be run commercially. They must be sitting in the rest room, or wherever it is, for six months but then a great fire comes and there is an emergency. That is why our forces in the dockyards are so important. They must be ready at once to step in when an emergency arises.
I would suggest to your Lordships that this Bill needs most careful consideration as it passes through the House to see that national security is defended to the uttermost and that our workforce is well and fairly treated. Subject to that I say let the Bill have a Second Reading and let us amend it a great deal in Committee.
12.52 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I am very pleased to have the opportunity of taking part in this debate, and I should like to start by thanking the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, for thinking about people, because a great deal of this Bill concerns people in the future.
Before I put forward my views on the Bill, I should like just to say something about Devonport. In 1689 the main threat to Britain came from the Dutch and the French. That was the time when the dockyard began to expand. With all the previous wars, the two world wars and the Falklands within living memory, I think that the dockyard, as the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken has said, has done a wonderful job. Devonport was second only to Coventry in being bombed by the Germans in World War II and people
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were so keen to do their work at that time that the workers went out and camped at night on Dartmoor so that they could get to work next day when perhaps their houses were being bombed in the city of Plymouth.
Since 1691 the yard has expanded and now encompasses more than 300 acres, with a waterfront which is more than three miles long. In considering the changes which are about to take place, I should like to pay tribute to those who have served and are currently serving in the yard. There is hardly a family in Plymouth which has not had members either working in the yard or serving in the Royal Navy.
Hereditary peers are naturally proud of the service of their ancestors, and I should therefore like to put on record my appreciation and the appreciation of the whole nation for the services rendered by those who have been serving in the yard for generations. I wish all who will continue to serve their country at Devonport and who will be the forerunners in the new technologies which will produce the safeguards for generations to come the very best in their endeavours.
I should like now to turn to the Bill which, as the Minister has said, seeks to introduce a system of management by contractor of Rosyth and Devonport dockyards. The most encouraging aspect of this plan is that it has shown the determination of the Government to do something in regard to the manner in which the dockyards are run. I know that I speak for everyone who is seriously concerned about the future of Devonport dockyard when I say that change is essential for the future of the dockyards. In that I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin.
I understand that both the management and the workforce are agreed about that point, and indeed I believe that the change will allow the dockyard to realise its full potential. The point with which I take issue concerns the style and the pace of change. Certain moves have recently been taken to improve the effectiveness of the dockyard, and it is important to note that they were taken jointly by the management and the workforce. Already notional attendance has shown a reduction; the refit of HMS "Superb" was completed on time and below estimate; and the comparator exercise COMPLEX showed that the dockyards stand favourable comparison with private yards.
If I may, I should now like to outline what I believe to be the major disadvantages of the management contractors scheme. Most importantly, a company which is awarded a contract to run the dockyards for a period as short as seven years is taking on an impossible task. That worries me. It will be impossible for both the contractor and for the dockyard. To take a dockyard as large and as complicated as Devonport and try to franchise its management, with a change every seven years, can be nothing more than an experiment. The management contractor will not manage in the best interests of the dockyard or the Fleet: he will manage in such a way that only his own short-term interests will benefit. His lack of motivation to manage for the long term will create enormous problems, especially at the end of the contract period. Evaluation of and dealing with such complicated work on such an enormous scale requires far sighted management and long-term plans.

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Secondly, this scheme will introduce a system of split control which will entail an enormous and costly organisation (mentioned by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin) called the Directorate-General of Ship Refitting trying to control the two dockyards at Devonport and Rosyth from its headquarters at Bath. I suggest that it will be impossible to monitor the contractor at such a distance and it will also create a variety of administrative problems. These will enable the contractor to blame the arrangements for any shortfall in his performance.
I know that I am not alone in my fears for this scheme. Plymouth City Council commissioned a survey to look at the many possible options for the future of the dockyards. The survey was made by Peat Marwick Management Consultants, which viewed the Government's scheme as an experiment. Reports by the Defence Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee in the other place have also cast serious doubts on these proposals.
I agree with many of the conclusions of these reports and should like to read some brief passages from them to illustrate my doubts. The Defence Select Committee accepted the criticism which was made by the majority of the witnesses, who claimed that the time allowed for consultation was too short and that the MoD's handling of the consultation process had been inept and insensitive. In paragraph 34, the Defence Select Committee stated:
"The MoD have supplied no precise information on how security would be organised".
We have heard a little more about that today. In paragraphs 40–43, it is said in the report:
"The Secretary of State said, 'the proposal is based on American experience' and cited examples of 'large organisations involved in defence being managed under this system.' It seems clear that this would be a misleading assumption. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the various government statements citing foreign experience as a precedent for agency management and a guarantee of the respectability of the concept, were not based on any kind of systematic investigation".
The Public Accounts Committee said of the scheme:
"We note that the savings may be as little as I per cent.",
and that these were
"within the normal margin of error for such calculations".
More recently, the head of the MoD Privatisation Planning Team announced that the scheme would cost some £70 million. That is almost as much as the project was intended to save in its first three and a half years. Surely the time has come to look again at an alternative future for the dockyards. A training fund is the scheme which has been recommended by successive dockyard reviews, including Mallabar and Speed. That would allow for the introduction of commercial accounting, make a clear separation between customer and supplier, make possible substantial gains in efficiency, encourage an element of competition and safeguard strategic interests.
Running the dockyard as a Companies Act company (a plc) was recommended by Peat Marwick. That, I know, is regarded by the Government as an alternative solution should there be no suitable bidder for the contract. I understand that the Government have commissioned Coopers and Lybrand to study the fall back option. That would guarantee strategic
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interests, allow the company commercial freedom and permit employees to take shares in their own future.
I should be grateful if the Minister could also clarify a point about apprenticeships. I hope that he will confirm—I have had information from a different source—that incoming management contractors at the two dockyards will be bound by law to continue apprentice training. Furthermore, I hope that he will be able to confirm that existing pension arrangements will be safeguarded.
To conclude, I should like to say what I believe would present the best possible option for Devonport, Plymouth and the nation. The present management of Devonport dockyard has shown its faith in the future by making a bid for the dockyard. I should like to see it taking control of the yard but not on a contract as short as seven years. It would then be able to continue to improve the manner in which the dockyards are run and to do so with an assured future for all concerned. The question of foreign control has already been mentioned. We should like to avoid the risk of foreign control and we think that management control would be the best way of doing that. It would make certain that a sense of continuity is allowed to prevail as improvements are made. I do not expect the noble Lord to answer today if he genuinely considers all the points that I have put forward, but I urge the Government to think again.
1.2 p.m.
Lord Hill-Norton: My Lords, like my noble and gallant friend Lord Lewin, I must start by declaring two personal interests in the Bill. First, I am retained as an occasional consultant to A & P Appledore, which is a member of one of the consortia seeking the management contract of Devonport dockyard, although I doubt whether it will entirely welcome what I am about to say.
Secondly, I am, as your Lordships will know, still on the active list of the Royal Navy. It will not therefore come as a surprise that my primary and overriding concern and interest in the Bill is whether it will provide the best available solution to the timely, economical and proper upkeep of the sea-going fleet, both in peace and in times of war.
I have been greatly struck by the failure to lay adequate stress on that truly vital matter in nearly all the speeches made about the Bill in another place, in most of the published literature and even in the speeches of the noble Lord the Minister and some other noble Lords this morning. It is not easy to read into the language of the Bill that that is the consideration uppermost in the Government's mind, as it most certainly should be.
Everyone connected with the dockyards, however loosely, over the years—I have an intimate first-hand knowledge of them going back more than 50 years—is agreed that change, and drastic change at that, is essential. At Devonport that is true of local industry, local Members of Parliament, the trades unions, the city council, and, above all, of the Royal Navy. Moreover, it is clear enough that both management and the workforce must by now be prepared for change so as to meet what I have called the overriding interest, by realising the latent potential of those great enterprises and by maximising their effectiveness.

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What I regard as the most important issue before your Lordships today is the solution that should be adopted to achieve those aims. I have serious doubts about whether the solution preferred by the Government is the best, if it is, as the noble Lord the Minister has said, straight commercial management, although the Bill does not expressly say so.
There have been a great many attempts, to which many noble Lords and the noble Baroness have referred this morning, to change the present system. Four major initiatives, which I think have also been described this morning, have been taken within the past 15 years. Although all those have failed for different reasons, the problems shown up and the criticisms made of the present arrangements have been common to all of them. They amount to the plain fact that today, and for the past 50 years or more, the dockyards have been inefficient and extremely costly. The primary reason for that state of affairs has been the inability, under the system which has been operating all that time, for management to manage, a point to which many noble Lords have referred this morning, and for the customer, to whom noble Lords have not referred, which is the Royal Navy, to obtain value for money.
The primary reason for that is because the whole workforce is made up of civil servants. Ministers have clearly accepted that analysis, even if they appear to be more interested in apparent tidiness, commercial considerations and market forces than they are in finding a solution which will best serve the navy, so be it.
In the Defence Open Government Document 85/01 the Government explained all those matters clearly. They set out what they believed to be the options for putting that right. I agree with that analysis although I do not think, as I have just said, that they have selected the option which will best meet the Fleet's requirements. I am not alone in that view. As the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and others have said, the Public Accounts Committee was extremely critical of ministerial claims of likely financial savings. The noble Lord the Minister has told us about them and other noble Lords have referred to them. We may save £21 million a year during the first seven years while the start-up costs of £70 million are amortised. It would rise thereafter to £28 million a year.
Those are useful, although they are not large sums, in the context of a defence budget off £18,000 million. There are those certainly in the trade unions who say that the start-up costs will be much higher. I have no view on that. I have no way of forming a view on that. I believe what I am told by the Minister.
If those other people are right and the start-up costs are much higher, the possible savings will be much smaller and might even disappear altogether. What I find deeply disappointing is that Defence Ministers have allowed themselves to be bounced by the Treasury so that, whatever savings come to hand, they will not benefit the defence budget. Indeed, the reverse is true. As the noble Lord, Lord Graham, has said, if those proposals are implemented as they stand, and the figures that we have been given are right, the defence budget will lose £21 million a year and later
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more. Even after all my years in Whitehall I can still hardly believe it.
The Select Committee on Defence was much more critical than the PAC in several respects, in particular over the consultation process, which it described as much too short, and ineptly and insensitively handled. From what I know of it, I would agree. What concerns me more than that is the view of that committee, which I share, that the preferred option is a high-risk one. I am sure your Lordships will agree with me that it would be most unwise to take high risks over what is the most important element of our defence policy, the Royal Navy.
What are these risks to which the Select Committee, and I, refer? Briefly stated, they lie in the possible change of management too frequently, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, has just referred, and thus an understandable tendency to have no long-term corporate plan, a weak investment in capital facilities, a confused and possible hostile workforce and a desire to maximise short-term commercial gains. These factors may, and could well, lead to the separation of decisions on investment from those on the day-to-day commercial management of operations. That is a recipe for trouble. The worst trouble to which it could lead would be the lack of adequate capacity in both human and material resources to cope with emergencies, the so called "strategic-surge", which has always happened in the past and is absolutely bound to happen in the future. Success in an enterprise of this nature can come only from management, workforce and the customer having a primary and shared concern in the long-term future. I do not think that this will necessarily flow from the sort of commercial management deal which Ministers have in mind. If it does not, then the Royal Navy will be at risk; and I am bound to find that unacceptable, and so should the Government.
Given the essential requirement of the ability of management to manage, to which I and other noble Lords have referred, and the need to take the whole workforce out of the Civil Service (but not for the reasons rather unworthily suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew)—without which there is no hope for improvement—it seems to me that the option of a government-owned Companies Act company which the Minister described as a fall-back position is much to be preferred. It seems to me to be much less risky.
There are, and are bound to be, some risks. It is a solution which the Government have used successfully before; for example, in the Royal Ordnance factories. The Government would retain, as they clearly must, overall control. Considerable commercial freedom would become available. Employee participation is likely to improve motivation and moral. There should not be any risk to public expenditure totals. Investment and operation would march hand in hand. I have a strong feeling that the navy would be perfectly happy with such a solution.
Like my noble and gallant friend Lord Lewin, I support the Bill. I do so for the reasons which he gave, but I commend most warmly to the Government the particular solution I have just described. It is certainly allowed for by the Bill before us, and I hope that, amid his very many deeply grave preoccupations, the new

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Secretary of State will carefully reconsider his position in the light of what I and other noble Lords have said in the debate this morning, with the fighting efficiency of the Fleet where it ought to be—at the very top of his priorities.
1.15 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I was encouraged to speak in this debate by the final paragraph of the Report of the Select Committee on Defence in another place, printed on 27th November 1985, the paragraph read as follows:
"We urge the Government to approach the debates on the Dockyard Services Bill with an open mind and a readiness to draw fully upon the opinions expressed from all quarters, in the best interests of the fighting efficiency of the fleet and of the defence and security of the nation"
I should like to say how much I agree with this paragraph and I hope very much that the Government will adopt an open mind when considering these important matters.
I am going to be as brief as I can be, but this is a complex subject and it is not easy to condense into a few minutes. I shall therefore address three specific problems which I hope will throw some light on the matter. First, what is wrong with the dockyards now, and why is some change in management practices needed? Secondly, how could this change best be done? Thirdly, to what extent would commercial management cure the problems?
The Defence Open Government Document talks of imposing commercial discipline on the navy by introducing a customer/supplier relationship. In several places it refers to introducing competition internally between the dockyards, and also between the dockyards and commercial firms outside. The document further implies that a customer/supplier relationship would make the navy more cost conscious and more thrifty in its demands on the dockyards. All these concepts indicate that the authors do not fully understand the nature of the essential relationship between the navy and its heavy repair force—the way refit work packages develop and are decided, and the impossibility of introducing real competition without making a complete nonsense of dockyard programming.
In most countries having sizeable navies, the naval repair yards are either part of the navy itself or of the country's Defence Ministry organisation—and for a number of sound reasons. The noble Lord, Lord Graham, has already quoted Admiral Marrack who said that stategic defence installations of this nature must remain in government hands. The Government seem to accept this but are proposing to inject a contractural block between the navy and its heavy repair force. The dockyards have to work as an intergral part of the fleet's upkeep organisation. This means that the civilian repair force needs to work almost as directly under the control of the navy's technical authorities as do its uniformed maintainers. The dockyards must be totally responsive to the needs of the fleet.
Under present arrangements this is the case, and when the need arises the Ministry of Defence can tell the dockyards what to do and where to put their
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priorities. But as the Ministry of Defence has often found to its cost, with the new construction shipyards it cannot tell commercial contractors what to do, as the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, has already pointed out. It can only ask, and if it is to the contractor's advantage to ignore the needs of the navy—for example, by diverting resources to another customers' work, or applying different priorities—he may well do so. It is very difficult to impose penalty clauses in contracts, particularly on monopoly suppliers like naval dockyards; and if commercial contractors were running the yard there could be no certainty that our ships would be refitted or repaired to meet the operational needs of the fleet to anywhere near the extent that they are now.
There is also a powerful reason why most navies prefer to own their dockyards rather than use commercial contractors. It is virtually impossible to produce any form of contract for a major warship refit that will give the customer real prospects of firm financial control. That is due to the size, complexity and uncertainty of the task. At the tendering stage, warship refit work packages can only be partial statements of the work that will be required. The congested interior of a modern warship means that much essential refit work only becomes known after the ship is dismantled in mid-refit, and the consequent extras as to a contract specification give a contractor carte blanche for heavy dislocation and delay charges, which a customer cannot normally refute. Fixed-price contracts are therefore virtually unworkable, although I was interested to learn from the Minister's opening speech that it is the preferred solution.
The alternative is the cost-plus contract, which is more practical but which literally rewards inefficiency. By cost plus I mean that the contractor charges the navy for the cost of the work plus his profit margin of, say 10 per cent. Contracting for warship refits is very expensive in administrative effort—specification, estimating, contract negotiation and overseeing. It is a recipe for spawning bureaucracy.
The talk of competition in the Open Government Document is largely window dressing, because major warships need costly facilities and teams of dedicated people with specialist experience. Each dockyard is therefore specialised for particular ship classes, and the yards could not sensibly compete except for the simpler jobs. The handful of commercial repair yards are all very small and they are not properly equipped for major warship refit work. The element of real competition possible is therefore small. But much more fundamental is the need to plan the main structure of a large warship repair yard programme well in advance. Without such planning, manpower and resources cannot be matched to the ship workload. Competition would, if it were possible, produce a random load unmatched to resources, and the inefficiency that that would create would be vastly greater than anything we have previously seen.
So much for the background philosophy. Now to the first question: what is wrong with the dockyards today? Before discussing that, it is worth reminding ourselves that dockyard managers at all levels are on average as good as their counterparts to be found in outside industry, and they are probably rather better than the majority of managers in the commercial

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shipyards. In the fields of technical innovation, project management, planning and production control, the Royal Dockyards are streets ahead.
There are major deficiencies in the dockyards that need correction. The most obvious weakness is the excessively complex trade structure of their workforce, based on a dozen or so craft unions with strictly-enforced demarcation. While there have been improvements over recent years, the demarcation and balance of trade problems still delay progress and reduce productivity. A more broadly-based trained and flexibly-used workforce could certainly do more work, and there are some who conclude from that that the dockyards are over-manned.
But perhaps the most damaging deficiency in the dockyard organisation is the fact that the dockyard management is allowed no control over the size of its workforce and little effective control over its shape. Complements, wages structures, conditions of service and recruiting policy are either directly or indirectly dictated by a branch of the Treasury, which recently took over that role from the Civil Service Department. The Treasury takes those decisions for the whole of the Civil Service on a countrywide basis, and there is no means by which the Ministry of Defence can shield the dockyards' production workforce from Treasury-imposed cuts in Civil Service numbers, or from imposed constraints on wage rates or recruiting.
That can often mean that when the navy's ship workload is increasing, the dockyard workforce will be declining—causing overloading, delays in refit completions, and increased costs; that when key dockyard manpower is being lost to other industries, the dockyards will not be permitted to increase wage rates or recruit leading to an imbalance of trades and ineffective use of manpower. Without the authority and ability to match its production manpower to its load, the dockyards' management cannot man effectively or conduct its work efficiently.
The main source of inefficiency in the dockyards would be removed if the dead hand of the Treasury could be withdrawn from dockyard personnel management. And given proper freedom to recruit as necessary and negotiate with unions, it seems reasonable to expect that dockyard management could unscramble the workforce trade demarcation problems and agree on broader training for improved flexibility. All that is required is for the Treasury to be told to stop interfering with the dockyards' personnel management, and to delegate that task to the senior dockyard management in the Ministry of Defence, who understand exactly what needs to be done and are fully capable of doing it.
If that would violate too many tenets of Civil Service uniformity—and I am aware that probably it would—then it should not be too difficult to restructure the dockyard service as a separate civilian auxiliary force of the Royal Navy within the public service. It would be largely unchanged initially, but would have the freedom to mould its conditions of service to suit the needs of the naval repair yards.
In a curious roundabout sort of way, I seem to have answered my second question: if some change in management practices is needed, then how can that best be done? The best way to achieve the necessary
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changes with minimum disruption is to leave the dockyards as they are, within the Ministry of Defence, and for the Treasury to delegate its personnel management to the senior management within the dockyard department. The departmental Vote system would ensure that that delegation would involve no loss of financial control. Restructuring the dockyard service as a civilian auxiliary force of the navy would be a viable alternative.
On to the third question: would the introduction of commercial management achieve the required changes? It would clearly be one way of formally decoupling the Treasury from the management of dockyard personnel, but a simple delegation of authority on the Treasury's part would be far less disruptive and much less costly for the navy. Whether commercial management would obtain the required flexibility from the workforce is more doubtful It is difficult to see any suitable commercial firms that have a surplus of able managers who would even begin to understand the unique problems of the dockyards.
The achievements of our larger commercial shipbuilders in that field have not been impressive. Therefore, I doubt very much whether commercial management would provide the whole answer to the dockyard's problems. Commercial management in itself would not even bring improved efficiency. It would have to function without the spur of competition because the dockyards cannot avoid remaining monopoly suppliers. Indeed, commercial managers in a dockyard would have every incentive to overestimate and overcharge, so that the navy would get less work for more money.
To sum up, if the efficiency of the dockyards is to be improved, the yards must generate greater flexibility in their workforce, and dockyard managers must be allowed reasonable freedom to manage their people and match dockyard complements to the load. Any increase in productivity needs to be ploughed back into better upkeep of the fleet.
Without being privy to any inside knowledge, it seems likely that the Government have looked at the productivity of the Royal Dockyards on the basis of the return on capital employed. I would respectfully make this suggestion. I see that the Chief of Fleet Support is sitting below the Bar and so I hope that he is pricking up his ears: he is, and that is good.
Lord Trefgarne: Order!
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I beg your Lordships' pardon. I respectfully suggest that return on capital employed is a very poor criterion for evaluating the efficiency of the dockyards. One can no more quantify in financial terms the improved military capability that one has put into a well-refitted ship than one can attribute a financial return to one's stock of submarine torpedoes. The real return from the cost of conferring an improved military capability may be vast or it may be nothing, depending on what calls are made on it in the future.
I must apologise for speaking at length but, as I said at the start of my speech, this is a complex subject and the overriding criteria should be that the navy gets the best possible value for money from its dockyards.

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From what I have said I hope it can be seen that I take a pretty jaundiced view of the Government's proposals, and I trust that the Government will keep an open mind when considering amendments to this Bill.
1.30 p.m.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, the noble Lord has no reason to apologise for the length of his speech because I thought it was quite excellent and I agree with a great deal of it. Indeed, I hope that when we deal with the detail of the Bill the Minister of State will have the open mind that the Government were recommended to have by the Select Committees. Unfortunately, it would seem that his colleagues in another place approached this subject with a closed mind. Although we enjoyed very much the persuasive speech of the noble Lord, I am afraid I fundamentally disagree with the solution proposed by him and the Government; although, I think with everyone else, I am bound to accept that there is need for change.
We are, of course, all familiar with the many inquiries and efforts that have been made over the years to obtain a different system. The Minister spoke of reports going back 15 years. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, spoke of 25 years. Not that it gives me any expert knowledge, and I certainly do not claim to have even a tittle of the experience and information that the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Lewin and Lord Hill-Norton, have—though, interestingly enough, they came to different conclusions—it so happens that the first parliamentary inquiry in which I was involved 35 years ago in another place, by what was then called the Select Committee on Estimates, was on the dockyards. I well remember going to Devonport and the Admiral Superintendent gave us such an excellent lunch that he had rather an easy run when it came to taking the formal evidence afterwards.
However, I agree with the Minister that the basic problem is that the organisation of supply for the navy is not best done through the normal Civil Service machinery. Over and above that, I think not only in this field but in many others the dead hand of the Treasury is largely responsible. I recall over 20 years ago, in another defence context, being concerned (at what I suspect was a very low level in the Treasury) with a tender for six married quarters which was rejected on the ground that they were a few hundred cubic feet too large by the standards that the Treasury thought appropriate for officers of the rank concerned. Although the scheme had the approval both of the senior military people and the Ministry of Defence, it was rejected. This was over 20 years ago, before we had chronic inflation. In the period we were redesigning the scheme to meet Treasury requirements the tenders we subsequently received were substantially higher for the much lower standard of building which the Treasury had insisted upon.
Although there has been some relaxation in Treasury control over defence, it has been very little. Our system, despite computers, and so on, is still subject to the criticism that Mr. Gladstone made all those years ago. He said that we keep our national accounts on a penny notebook system. The only difference is that I do not know where one can now buy
1416
a notebook for a penny. We just put income on the one side and expenditure on the other. There is no distinction between capital, revenue, expenditures and so forth. There is also the cut-off at the end of each financial year. Nowadays the actual Votes are changed many times during the financial year so there is no certainty or possibility of planning even for 12 months, let alone on a much longer basis. That is the real problem behind the dockyards.
May I say to the noble and gallant Lords who have naval interests that the navy is not entirely without blame? Repair and supply organisations in any field are extremely difficult to run. I do not know of anyone who would not have found occasion to be dissatisfied, whether concerning their television, domestic appliances or car, about the amount of time taken and the service they receive. May I also say to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, that if, after two years, he got "Hermes" back just one month late, that was not too bad an achievement? He will recall that when he and I were working together on some of these matters we put out some conventional submarine refits to commercial yards. The cost was twice that for other submarines which were being refitted in Royal Dockyards at the same time.
I would not pretend for one moment that the dockyards are or ever have been perfect. But the allegations and complaints tend to be exaggerated. Navy personnel, like other individuals, when they want something repaired want it done yesterday. It is a real problem and can be exaggerated. However it is accepted that change is necessary. Where I disagree is with what is proposed. Two or three years ago it would have been unthinkable that the proposal now before the House could have been brought forward. It was very much the philosophy of the then Secretary of State, Mr. Heseltine, and I believe it has very few friends. Perhaps significantly, although he is a busy man, Mr. Heseltine having ceased responsibility for the Bill after introducing it, was not able to vote for it on Third Reading; and nor were any of the other former Secretaries of State present at Third Reading in another place. Indeed, nor was the last Royal Navy Minister, Mr. Speed, who I know takes a very great interest in all matters connected with the dockyards.
This proposal is conceivable only by a Government who, after all these years, have considered the Royal Ordnance Factories with a view to privatising them, and are now buying an aircraft from Brazil for the Royal Air Force. As I understand it, they are now putting out, almost on a month to month basis, worldwide tenders for small arms for our defence forces. I cannot think of any other nation that is not concerned to have direct control of supplies which are essential to its national defence. Moreover, this comes from a Government who criticised me and my Labour colleagues for having sold defence short when we were responsible for it. Frankly, I find it exceedingly surprising that, as has been said, the Government are prepared to take these risks with national defence which is embodied in one aspect of the Bill we are now considering.
I hope that the Government will come a little cleaner about the actual costs involved. Unless one is directly involved, one must accept the figures that are given. However, the initial set-up cost of £70 million

1417
seems, from other figures I have seen, to be extremely low. I have seen figures of over £400 million. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether allowance is made in that £70 million for the pension fund that may be necessary, for redundancy payments and for similar matters. Indeed, I have seen estimates of over £400 million and that the annual extra cost could amount to £50 million more, without the savings that the Minister suggested.
As the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, said, I think we need to indicate the problems which come from the nature of the service that the dockyards provide. They are not providing equipment in most cases; they are providing a service. It is rather like the garage that services one's car. If you have faith in your garage, as I hope most noble Lords will have, when your car goes in for service and the garage rings up and tells you that while examining the car it has found that it needs to have the brakes relined or requires this, that or the other to be done to it, it is more sensible to have those repairs done then.
But in case you feel that you may be overcharged by the garage, before you take the car there you can employ—no doubt at a fee—an independent engineer to examine your car and bring you a list of all the things which need to be done to it. If you wanted an estimate beforehand, I am sure that the garage would add a little on to the figure for the unknown contingencies which may arise and items which may take a little longer to put right than it thought.
My experience is that on a fixed contract of that kind one is liable to be taken to the cleaners. In the complicated innards of any modern warship or submarine, many possible defects, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, has explained, may not be found until the ship or the submarine has virtually been taken apart. If an independent body is to be employed to go through it and draw up the list of specifications, it will be very costly.
But apart from that, I should have thought that it would be bound to miss some things and, as one is always told when building a house or something of that sort, "For goodness sake, don't have any extras, because when you have extras that is when the contractor takes you to the cleaners". I cannot believe that you can put out a complicated machine like a warship to a commercial contractor with such a tight specification of the price of everything and not be completely in his hands. I think that that is the basic problem to which we must address ourselves in this House.
I do not want to talk for too long, but in passing let me say that I was interested in what the Minister said and fully agree with him. It would not only be undesirable but unthinkable that there should be foreign ownership indirectly through these contracts of basic essential defence support. The Minister talked about a special share, but there is nothing about this in the Bill. It only says that a company "may" be set up to deal with these matters. Surely a matter of national importance ought to be in the legislation. Can we have an assurance today that he will introduce a clause of a character to make it unmistakable that the proper and ultimate decision will rest with Her Majesty's Government?
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Finally, perhaps I may talk a little about nuclear matters. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, I was involved in the problems that arose in the dockyards concerning the refitting and recommissioning of the Polaris submarines. I believe that we are the only country with nuclear capability of this sort which has a civil capability to do this. I am certain that in the United States and France it is carried out by military personnel. I am not familiar with how it is done in the Soviet Union, but it certainly could not go out to a commercial contractor. I shudder to think of people being let loose on Polaris submarines having had the fortnight's training to which my noble friend Lord Graham referred, which is apparently all that one of the contractors feels is necessary.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, it was not a contractor. My understanding is that it was the managing director of Rosyth who gave the advice.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, perhaps that little difficulty can be ironed out by the Minister, because I am sure that the nation will want to know about it. It the Government's plans for Trident persist, the refuting and recommissioning of Polaris will be an enormous problem, and there is also the nuclear safety problem. I am far from satisfied that the proper arrangements will be made, and this applies to both dockyards.
These are extremely serious matters and I join with those who have already spoken—though they have been rather critical—in appreciating the enormous dedication that dockyard personnel have given to the nation over the years, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, made quite clear, their desire and willingness to continue performing this job.
I had to deal with some negotiations in that connection and I entirely accept that it is not satisfactory that they should be subjected to the same Civil Service payscales as are applied to this grade of craftsmen performing all kinds of different work, such as, perhaps, mending things in the Palace of Westminster. Looking after a nuclear submarine is a completely different job and there should be a completely different pay structure.
The idea of having an auxiliary force may be one way of doing it. I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, who has vast experience, that we should let management manage. I think that a trading fund would be a possibility, though I did establish that for the Royal Ordnance Factories; and God knows why the present Government sought to privatise them, because I thought that they were doing extremely well and were very answerable to Parliament and under the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee.
It might be possible, but the best thing, as has been suggested, may be to have an independent management but one which was directly controlled by the Ministry of Defence, in the same way as the PSA is answerable to Parliament through the Department of the Environment or the jobcentres depend on the Department of Employment. That is possible if one wants to hive the dockyards off and count the personnel not as civil servants, which I believe is probably the exercise that is involved. Certainly, the management has to be given more responsibility.

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On that basis I think that maybe we could achieve the objectives which I know the navy and many others would like to achieve, but I doubt it. It is quite possible—and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, will come forward with some proposals—to bring into force his ideas (which I certainly support) in a Bill with such a vague and long title as to make arrangements for management of the dockyards, but that would completely destroy both the Bill and the Government's present intentions. I hope that the noble Lord will persist in that endeavour. I assure him that many of us would be very happy to support him.
We look forward to having at least an assurance today from the Minister, who after all has the title of Minister of State for Defence Support, and in my view this is an essential element of defence support—that he will keep an open mind on many of the matters which have been discussed today.
1.48 p.m.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, may I intervene for one moment? The noble Lord, Lord Mulley, said that he had been engaged in examining the dockyards 35 years ago. I was looking at them about 30 years ago, when I had the honour of being associated with the Royal Navy, and when we were engaged in a penetrating study in depth of the whole of the dockyards. Everything was to be turned upside down, though we could not do anything until the plan had been put in. I have subsequently found, from inquiries that I made, that the plan did not succeed. This was endorsed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, who said that there had been a series of subsequent plans, none of which had really worked. One is left with the impression that some drastic change really must be made.
I recall a conversation that I had with the head of the boilermakers' union, who was a splendid man. His name escapes me but I remember that he grew apples and lived in Newcastle. He was a delightful person to talk to. He had started work in the Royal Dockyards and then had gone over to what he called the private dockyards, which he called "my dockyards". I am afraid that I must tell your Lordships that he spoke with contempt of the way business was conducted at the Royal Dockyards. He left me in no doubt that in his view, for what it was worth, the standards of competence—and I think he meant management—were very much higher in the private dockyards.
We have heard an extremely interesting speech from my noble friend Lord Ashbourne. But his arguments must, I feel, have been examined by the series of committees that have considered this matter, to my knowledge, over 25 years and maybe much longer. The point that he makes, as everyone makes, concerns the Treasury. The Treasury is spending goodness knows how many billion pounds. It is a terrible responsibility for those people. What the noble Lord is really saying is that the Treasury indicates remote control. That is the objectionable feature. The Treasury is not directly responsible for what is happening. Frankly, what the Government are suggesting is exactly that. They are proposing people on the spot and wholly responsible.
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I am not underestimating what was stated by my noble friend Lady Vickers and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. This is a terribly delicate change. Like them, I am deeply concerned about the personnel. Take, for instance, a place like Rosyth. There, one has a small community almost wholly dependent on the dockyard. The Government have a great obligation to see that they continue to be properly employed.
Those employed at Rosyth are a magnificent body of men, carrying out a splendid job in a dockyard where there has been a great deal of modernisation. They are engaged largely in nuclear work and they are carrying it out, I understand, at a high level. One must not therefore underestimate the delicacy of the job. It is not only a matter of ensuring that the Act of Parliament is correctly worded but also of seeing that a man of outstanding ability is appointed to be in charge on the spot. A man of such calibre to be responsible for management and for overseeing the very delicate and difficult job of transfer will, I hope, be a priority of the Government.
1.51 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, during the debate your Lordships have rightly referred to the long and proud history of service that the Royal dockyards have for centuries given to the Royal Navy. There has also been mention of the high standards of workmanship in the dockyards and of the loyalty of the dockyard workforce. I echo those sentiments. However, as I said in my opening remarks, what we have to consider now is the future. It is our aim that when the dockyards have settled down under a system of commercial management they may be able to look forward to a secure future.
There has been a degree of agreement, I believe, that the Government are right in aiming to make changes in the three areas that I mentioned earlier—that local managers should be given more authority to manage; that the dockyards, as suppliers, should be clearly separated from the Fleet, as customer; and that accounting procedures reflecting normal commercial practice should be introduced. That much is, I believe, seen as a welcome and overdue way forward, and those changes are a fundamental part of the Government's plans to secure the future of the dockyards.
But another vital component in our plans is the need to inject into the dockyards—I can do no better than to use the words of the Select Committee in another place
"an entrepreneurial dynamism and a spirit of competition".
Important though that is, the Government have always had uppermost in their mind not only the need for better use of resources and more value for money but also, as was very much in the mind of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, the need to ensure that the operational requirements of the fleet are met and will continue to be met and that strategic interests are safeguarded.
I turn briefly to some of the points made during the discussion. I daresay that a number will be raised during later stages of the Bill. I shall therefore not deal with all the points that have been raised today in as full detail as they may later deserve. The noble Lords,

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Lord Graham and Lord Mayhew, referred to the cost of implementing our policy and to the likely savings. Both noble Lords referred in particular to the latest report of the Public Accounts Committee and suggested that it was critical of our proposals. The Government will, of course, be responding formally to that report in the normal way, and your Lordships would not expect me to do so today. All that I would say in respect of costs and savings is that the committee, to which much of the information was made available, has not suggested that savings will not be made. We remain satisfied that our estimate for savings is soundly based.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, referred to some possible additional costs. There may be further costs, but equally we expect that there will be some reductions in other areas. On VAT, for example, to which the noble Lord referred, ship work which is the major part of docking and works is zero rated. I would not therefore expect any VAT charge to have anything other than a minimal effect. As regards access by the Comptroller and Auditor-General to the accounts of dockyard companies, to which the noble Lord also referred, our position has been that the dockyard companies should be in no different position from any other contractor engaged in vital defence work. But we shall, of course, consider carefully what the Public Accounts Committee has said.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, asked me to confirm that the future status of the MoD police will remain unchanged. I am happy to give that assurance. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, said that the sole purpose of the Bill was to reduce Civil Service numbers. I was interested to hear how the Government of which the noble Lord was, for a while, a distinguished member reduced Civil Service numbers in the defence area. I have to say that if that was our sole aim, as he would suggest, we should not have to introduce commercial management to achieve it.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham, said that this House and others outside it, would do well to listen to the words of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin. I was happy to hear the noble and gallant Lord say that he supported the Bill as, indeed, for that matter did the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Hill-Norton. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lewin, spoke from a position of great experience of troubles in the dockyards over many years. The noble and gallant Lord was right to say that if we are to improve efficiency, then local management must be allowed to manage and that, in the present context of the dockyards, this would be impossible within the Civil Service.
My noble friend Lord Beloff asked about the acquisition of assets. The Ministry of Defence will remain responsible for major capital investment because timescale is measured in years and will span two or even more contract periods. Contractors will be able to make investments in the dockyards on the basis of their own investment appraisals and any residual value at the end of the contract will be paid by the next contractor.
My noble friend also questioned the Government's enthusiasm for the Bill. The Bill gives power to incur expenditure if the company is taken back into
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Government hands or remains in Government hands. We regard the first alternative as a fallback for use in time of tension or war but only if needed. Defence contractors—this is very important—have met the nation's needs in tension and war. I see no reason why a commercially managed dockyard should not do the same. But we would have been remiss in our duty if we did not retain a fallback power for use in extremis.
The second, retention of the company in Government hands, is also a fallback position only to be used if acceptable or advantageous bids are not received. The Government are enthusiastic about these proposals. We are firmly committed to making a success of commercial management.
I note the considerable links that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and his family enjoy with the Royal Navy. The noble and learned Lord asked about the level of rent for use of dockyard assets. Fair rental payment will be made for use of dockyard assets, first to ensure an adequate return to the Exchequer but also to ensure fair competition with commercial yards.
My noble friend Lady Vickers asked about apprentices. I can assure the House that the tender and contract both call for apprentice training to continue for dockyard and MoD employment. My noble friend asked me too about pensions. I am happy to assure my noble friend that existing benefits will be protected.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Hill-Norton, I think accepts that a major change is needed in the style of dockyard management. But the noble and gallant Lord sees merit in a government-owned plc as a way of avoiding conflict between short-term and long-term interests. I accept that we need to ensure that the risks involved do not damage national security. I see no conflict between short-and long-term interests. The companies interested in bidding are not, I believe, taking a short-term view. They are looking to a substantial long-term addition to their business. But under our plans they will have to fight for this and demonstrate that they should be allowed a second contract by good performance and competitive proposals.
Emergency capacity is not gained by having people and assets waiting idle. It comes from an efficient dockyard, from alteration to priorities at the time, from overtime and shift working, and from greater flexibility.
A number of noble Lords have referred to the customer organisation. I agree that this body will have a crucial role. The Directorate General of Ship Refitting, under a serving rear admiral in the first instance, will build up over the next few months, and will be responsible for acting, as the customer agent for the Royal Navy in securing the refitting and third and fourth-line repair of the operational fleet and of all support vessels in defence service. He will deal with the commercially managed dockyards and with the rest of the private sector as a sharp, commercially-minded customer, seeking value for money and an efficient turnround of ships in refit. To this end he will plan the refitting requirement, draw up specifications of work to be done, secure the finances necessary to carry out the approved programme, and negotiate the contracts for the work to be done.

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The Government's proposal to introduce commercial management to the dockyards offers, I believe, the best prospect of improved efficiency, achieves a full separation of customer and supplier, maximises competition, places the operation of the dockyards firmly in the private sector, retains in Government ownership the strategic assets of the dockyards themselves, and ensures that the interests of national security remain paramount. The decision to proceed with the introduction of commercial management to the dockyards has indeed been endorsed by the Admiralty and Navy Boards. Our policy, therefore, reflects the professional judgment of the most senior officers in the Royal Navy.
For years it has been proposed under successive administrations that there must be changes in the way the dockyards are operated. For years attempts to introduce change have come to nothing. For years there has been uncertainty over the future. Now we have the opportunity to end uncertainty. Now is the time to plan for the future.
The dockyards stand at the crossroads. A unique opportunity lies in our grasp. The Government firmly believe that the Dockyard Services Bill is essential if we are to secure the long-term future of the dockyards, and I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Housing (Multiple Occupation) Bill [H.L.]
2.4 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
I am glad to have the opportunity at last of bringing this little Bill before your Lordships. I think that it is very important and should give a much better standard of living to many people.
I am grateful also to the many organisations which have given me support and assistance in my endeavours to improve the protection afforded to the people who live in shared houses, bedsits, hostels and bed and breakfast accommodation. I should particularly like to thank the HMO Campaign Group, Shelter, the Institution of Environmental Health Officers, the Fire Brigade and many other voluntary organisations. I should like to say too that I have received letters from both the right reverend Prelates the Bishops of Southwark and Birmingham regretting that they cannot be here, as they would both like to have taken part in this debate.
It is a matter of great regret to me that the Government do not appear to share my concern, nor the belief that action is urgently needed, despite all the evidence which was put before the House many times, and by myself six years ago in this House. I therefore feel that their attitude to this Bill appears to be a reluctance to act.
It is clear from the reports of the results of the first part of the research commissioned by the Department of the Environment—which has recently been published—that there are a large number of houses in multiple occupation which are lacking adequate means of escape in case of fire, which are overcrowded,
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which lack adequate amenities for the number of people occupying them, and, very importantly, which are badly managed. This Bill seeks to ensure that local authorities do more to rectify this appalling situation. It is estimated that there are over 330,000 of these HMO houses in England and Wales and that 53 per cent. are unsatisfactory. However, the Department of the Environment's figures as reported at the IEHO Conference (which was held in April, and which I attended) in the April edition of Environmental Health are subject to some error, as many local authorities do not know just how many such houses exist within their districts.
It is argued that powers are available to local authorities to ensure safe living conditions. What is evident is that these powers are not being used. It is the intention that this Bill will make both local councils and the Government face up to the problem. If the local authorities did not use the legislation before expenditure controls became so tight, it is no good now arguing that they cannot deal with HMOs because of lack of resources.
Indeed, from the information I have received about the Greater London HMO survey, carried out with the same method as the DoE's National Physical and Social Survey, it is not unreasonable for the environmental health officer to inspect 20 HMOs in a three-week period. On that basis I would calculate that in a 4 5-week working year it would need approximately 600 EHOs to inspect the estimated number of unsatisfactory houses in multiple occupation. That figure represents just 10 per cent. of the membership of the organisation. They are often assisted by technical assistants.
It is therefore arguable whether my proposals are unrealistic so far as resources are concerned, and they will give the much needed impetus to improving living conditions for those most at risk from their housing conditions. It must be remembered that there cannot be a once-and-for-all attack on the problem, but there must be continuous programmes of inspection. Some HMOs require more frequent inspection than others—that is, accommodation at higher risk from fire.
Briefly, I should like to turn to the Bill. Clause 1 of the Bill clarifies and makes more specific the general duty upon local housing authorities to inspect their districts from time to time. It is clear from the data obtained by the DoE that many authorities are not complying with the existing duty, and it is unlikely that the Secretary of State will direct authorities to obtain the relevant information so far as HMOs are concerned. Certainly that power has not been exercised in the 17 years that it has existed, which is a very long time.
This clause will require local housing authorities to inspect their district within 18 months of the Bill becoming law and every three years thereafter. This is not an unreasonable requirement; but what is most important is that they prepare and make available for public scrutiny a programme or strategy for dealing with the conditions found as part of the inspection. As the Institution of Environmental Health Officers has said in its report on the legislation published in April 1985, too few local authorities have any comprehensive policy for dealing with the conditions found in

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HMOs. This clause will go a long way to overcoming this criticism, and also give landlords and tenants information as to what will be done to improve these houses.
Clause 2 imposes clear duties on local housing authorities to deal with certain conditions which may be found on inspection. Clause 2(a) will make it a duty to require the execution of works to render premises fit for the number of occupants, for example, by providing an adequate number of toilets, baths or other amenities, where the power to make a direction order limiting the number of occupiers is not used under Section 354 of the principal Act. According to DoE figures, 28 per cent, of HMOs require additional amenities, and in 1983–84 only 16 notices were served per 1,000 unsatisfactory HMOs, which I think noble Lords will agree is rather shocking.
Clause 2(b) removes the discretion to serve an overcrowding notice where there is overcrowding or over-occupation of the sleeping accommodation within HMOs. According to DoE figures, again 16 per cent. of HMOs are overcrowded or over-occupied, and yet in 1983–84 only six notices were served per 1,000 unsatisfactory HMOs.
Clause 2(c) again removes the discretion to deal with inadequate means of escape in case of fire—the most important consideration when dealing with the safety of occupiers of these houses. Clause 2(c) makes it a duty upon local housing authorities to require adequate means of escape in all cases where there is no such provision, not just the largest houses as at present (over 500 square metres floor area and over three storeys in height). It may be interesting to note that there is no provision at all for any houses of two storeys or less. It is estimated that 38 per cent. of HMOs require means of escape from fire. These figures indicate that the discretion of local housing authorities has not been used positively and it is therefore necessary to make it a clear duty to act.
Clause 2(d) repeals Section 365(2) of the principal Act which provides for the Secretary of State to specify by order the type of HMO where there is a duty on local authorities to require adequate means of escape. This section would be made redundant.
It is a matter of fact that houses in multiple occupation require good management, and yet it is estimated that 23 per cent. have unsatisfactory management, possibly because the managers or owners are ill-equipped to cope with the problems associated with a multi-occupied house.
Clause 2(e) makes it a duty for the local housing authority to make a management order applying the management code to all houses where there are unsatisfactory standards of management. There are currently about 78,000 such houses and yet very few management orders are made in any year. The truth is that the management code, as set out in regulations, should apply to all HMOs without the need to make a management order, just as the food hygiene regulations apply to all food premises. However, this clause moves some way towards improving the present unsatisfactory situation even if it is still not the ideal.
Clause 3 is analogous to Section 99 of the Public Health Act 1936, and enables any person living in a
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house in multiple occupation which is in such a condition as to be prejudicial to health, safety or welfare of the inhabitants to make representation to a justice of the peace—and this can be done at any time—who may then, if satisfied having heard the evidence, make such order or serve such notices as are appropriate to deal with the conditions. He can do both. The clause avoids the need to seek judicial review where a local authority has failed to carry out its statutory duty. Indeed, the justice of the peace may even make a control order, if the conditions warrant it, thereby requiring the local authority to take over the management of the worst HMOs.
It is quite clear from speaking to tenants' representatives and professional officers that much needs to be done to improve HMO legislation. This Bill is one small step, as I hope your Lordships will agree, and provides the Government with an opportunity to help the most vulnerable members of society. Much public money is being wasted by accommodating people in unsatisfactory hostels and hotels because there are not enough decent houses for them in the right location. This Bill, if given a Second Reading, will at least require local authorities to ensure that unscrupulous landlords do not exploit the housing shortage which makes the life of the tenants so impossible. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Vickers.)
2.16 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, I should like to support the noble Baroness in bringing this Bill before us and to identify myself with the sense of urgency with which she has spoken and the sense of urgency with which the matters in the Bill need to be dealt with.
The Churches in this country have always shown a very urgent concern for the issues represented by this Bill. In 1980 the Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Westminster and the President of the Free Church Federal Council all made a common statement to support the Private Member's Bill that was going through another place at the hands of the now Lord Dean of Beswick. Later in that year, 1980, with other Members of your Lordships' House, they succeeded in pressing the Government to bring in a limited duty on local authorities to require means of fire escape in large properties.
The latest expression of the Churches' concern about this whole matter comes in various parts of the recent report of the Archbishops' Commission on Urban Priority Areas called Faith in the City. The human concern, let alone the Christian concern, which lies behind this Bill is not surprising. We now have the initial findings of the survey of the Department of the Environment on the situation and we can now see that the number of people involved is far higher than was previously estimated: something like 334,000 HMOs involving 3 million people; and rather more than half of those, as the noble Baroness has said, are substandard. Their figures show that 38 per cent. need fire safety precautions; 32 per cent. need major repairs; 28 per cent. need proper amenities; 23 per cent. are considered badly managed, and 16 per

1427
cent. are overcrowded. Those are very high percentages and something like 100 people die every year in fires in HMOs. These circumstances often bear particularly heavily on the ethnic minorities. There is one borough in London where 90 per cent. of the people in HMOs are of ethnic origins.
As the noble Baroness has said, the government policy has been to say that the local authorities have powers, that they should use them and that it should be left to them. The evidence is, as she has also said, that the local authorities are not using their powers. Therefore, I very much support the Bill's proposals to exchange powers for duties so that local authorities have to act. For every 1,000 substandard properties in 1983 and 1984, the local authorities only served—nationally—28 notices with regard to fire safety, 60 notices with regard to amenities, and six with regard to overcrowding. Those are not very happy figures.
Any complacency that local authorities will act because of these circumstances affecting the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of people in this country needs to be set against the tempo at which local authorities actually take action. It has been calculated that over a million people would be waiting at this present tempo for remedial action—36 years for fire safety to be dealt with, 62 years for amenities to be improved and 167 years for overcrowding to be remedied. That is the current tempo of local authority action.
Another example of the lack of urgency is the handling by the Home Office of its draft code on means of escape from fire. As the noble Baroness said, two-storey hostels or houses are not included because local authorities have not found it necessary to control such premises, yet it is primarily in these premises that safety is most lacking. We get tragic situations such as the one in Clanricarde Gardens in Notting Hill where eight people were burnt and 100 people rendered homeless.
Again the Department of the Environment is issuing a circular to all local authorities with the 1985 Act, reminding them of their powers, but the DoE survey shows that many local authorities do not know exactly where their powers need exercising. While the survey shows 334,000 HMOs in England and Wales, the precise information provided by local authorities to the Department of the Environment related to only 3,000; less than 1 per cent. This gives great force to the duty laid down in the Bill for inspection of properties within 18 months of the Bill coming into force, and thereafter every three years.
Finally, I should like to affirm and welcome in the Bill the provision for the rights of residents in houses of multiple occupation to go to the magistrates' court and make complaints, and for the courts to have the power to order local authorities to serve the relevant notices. For all those reasons and many others which the noble Baroness has mentioned in her review of the Bill, I hope that it will receive the favour of your Lordships' House because it so greatly affects the welfare and quality of life of some of the most vulnerable people in our society who are least able to fend for themselves.
2.22 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I must apologise if any noble Lord has been taken aback by the change in the order of speaking. It seemed only right and proper that a Prelate should take precedence over a mere parish priest. I did my best to inform the necessary authorities but I am not sure that the messages got through.
It is right and proper that the Church should be speaking up on this occasion. It has already been mentioned that the Bishop of Southwark, my own diocesan, the Bishop of Birmingham, the chairman of the Board of Social Responsibility of the Church of England, regret that they cannot be here, but they have been good enough to let me know one or two of the things that they were going to say. The Church has something important to say in this field. It has an important witness to make. When I say "witness", I do not mean in the theological sense of the term, although I think it is important that the Church should speak up on these matters. I am also talking about the evidence of the Church.
Here the Church has quite a lot to say, because it is a sad fact that these days our society seems to be getting more and more divided. The number of institutions and individuals from the educated and middle classes who can give evidence at first hand of the effects of poverty is shrinking. That is not because, as most of us who were concerned about this problem in the 1960s thought, poverty is declining. When I initiated a debate in your Lordships' House in that decade I was sometimes less than politely told that I was exaggerating. Today no one would say that.
Yet, although there is general agreement on the existence of poverty, slums and appalling housing conditions, the conscience of "comfortable Britain", as the Bishop of Liverpool has termed it, is not as concerned as it once was. This can be put down in no small degree to the increasing segregation of society. In spite of the growing complexity of communications, the south of England is less aware of what is happening in the north, and the people of Kew, where I come from, are less aware of what is happening in Tower Hamlets. It is for this reason that the testimony of the Church is important, because not only does the Church of England, as a national Church, minister to the whole country, but its clergy, unlike a growing number of police, social workers and teachers—I am casting no aspersions on them—still live among their people and do not commute into the slums from the suburbs day by day. Therefore they are better witnesses of what is going on.
To turn to the particular interests of the Bill, the evidence we have from those living on the ground is horrifying. There are completely authenticated stories of hotels in the Southwark diocese and of HMOs with maximum allowed numbers of 113 holding 280 people. The extent of the work that is required by the notices served by the local authorities, when they get round to it, to bring the buildings up to even minimum legal standards, illustrates the conditions that the racketeers (for that they frequently are) are prepared to allow until they are caught. They are caught, very often, only when somebody dies.

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Incidentally it is a terrible thought that the only hotels and HMOs in Streatham, for example—thanks to the ill-considered board and lodging regulations that we have discussed once or twice in your Lordships' House, and according to at least one reputable agency—which now fall into the cost bracket which is allowed for these people are hotels of the kind which are lacking the amenities we are talking about and are lacking the necessary safety precautions.
It is important that this Bill, or something like it, should come on to the statute book. If there are to be any changes they should be changes to make it stronger. This is your Lordships' opportunity to give this Bill a Second Reading and then to consider it carefully in Committee to see whether more should be done and whether it should be strengthened, because it would be over-optimistic to think that this Bill could pass into law immediately. But if we can stimulate the Government to take it up themselves, or can get it into such a condition that it could rapidly be passed through Parliament in another Session, we shall have done something worth while.
One of the matters to which the House may wish to turn its attention in Committee, the Bishop of Birmingham has suggested to me, is the definition of a house in multiple occupation. The definition in the 1985 Act is officially described as "wide-ranging". It is far too wide-ranging, and the Association of Environmental Health Officers has suggested a much sharper definition. There are probably other amendments that we should take on board. It is sad today that we are not only without those two Bishops, though the contribution we had from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln made up for that to a large extent, but we also do not have the noble Lord, Lord Banks, who I understand would have liked to have spoken but who has unfortunately been prevented from doing so. We could have done with his very great knowledge of the whole of the social security field on which this Bill borders.
Will all that is being suggested cost money? Yes, of course, it will. But before that is made an excuse for doing nothing, may I remind your Lordships that doing nothing will cost even more. Recently, the City of Birmingham, in introducing its housing strategy, declared that disrepair in the private sector is now reaching such a level that unless major injections of capital are made an irreversible spiral towards long-term slum clearance will follow. We all know how much that costs and we all know how much are the social costs of wholesale slum clearances; and that, of course, is without counting the far more important cost, in terms of the quality of human lives, of what we are doing at the moment. It is only natural that our imaginations and those of the public should be caught by the fire hazards. The thought of people burning to death is not a pretty one; but the thought of individuals and families living in these surroundings is sometimes even worse.
I have just one excerpt to read from the many individual cases that I have. This comes from Newcastle.
"When I arrived at Hotel 'A' in early November, I was five months' pregnant. I was given a room in the attic. The state of the room was appalling. The skylight window was leaking, and when it rained the water dropped on to the floor. There was no heating.
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There was one blanket on the bed so I had to sleep with my clothes on. I had to wait a week until I was given another blanket. My friend had to give me one of her blankets because it was so cold. Two blankets still wouldn't keep me warm.
"After complaining about the cold, I was told by the landlady that there was no reason for heating as heat rises and the heat from the rooms below would be enough to heat the attic.
"I was visited by the doctor and he informed the landlady I would have to be moved into another room because if I had stayed in the room any longer it would have been dangerous owing to my condition. It was then I got another room".
That is just one example. I have long been a proponent of the idea that if possible central government should not take on responsibilities which local authorities can perform. There are always exceptions to that rule, and it seems to me that this is one of them. The whole question of houses in multiple occupation has become a national scandal, and it is time that the state stepped in. The Government really must act, and, if they do not, then the legislature must act on its own. I congratulate the noble Baroness on putting forward this Bill, and I beg your Lordships not to rest until it, or at least something like it, is on the statute book.
2.35 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I apologise for speaking without my name being on the list. I wish I had known before half-past twelve today that my noble colleague Lord Crawshaw was delayed by family illness and could not give the support which this party and the Liberal Party—the Alliance Party, in fact—most strongly feel. I wish to stress this, because we are used to these views being put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, but as he has chosen a different seat he can no longer speak for us.
My appearance, as your Lordships will realise, is almost entirely cosmetic, just to emphasise that we on these Benches do support this matter. Since half-past twelve I have not picked up enough to be able to say anything which is very useful, except one thing that I have developed while listening to the excellent exposition that we have had so far.
This is a fairly simple, limited problem which anybody with any courage at all—I was going to say "anybody with the courage of a woodlouse", but that is not quite right—could deal with. It is perfectly simple. If this Bill is passed there will be an absolute obligation on local authorities to do what they have to do—as the right reverend Prelate says, in some cases 176 years later. It is simply a question of each authority having an additional inspector—perhaps in some cases two and in other cases three—to inspect these places and see that the law is carried out when the law is made. This, with unemployment as it is, is a job for the Manpower Services Commission. The Government tomorrow, without any legislation whatever, could authorise the employment of something perhaps under 100 altogether or at any rate under 300 newly-employed characters, properly trained (the universities are turning them out by the dozen) to go out and deal with this matter at least on the basis of one to two years running.
If that can be done I am sure the thing would work. I will not say any more because it is superficial to come in late without having studied the problem; but I have studied property quite a lot in my life and I am

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perfectly clear that this is a prime instance of the weak being allowed to go to the wall and nobody bothering about it. I wish to congratulate the noble Baroness and if the Government will not accept this Bill, or something like it, we will all come back and make them.
2.37 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, let me join with the previous speaker in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, on behalf of myself and my party, on bringing forward this Bill. My one regret is that the Bill had to have a Second Reading on a Friday afternoon. I am sure, because of the all-party support this terrible problem has received, that if the debate had taken place at a more reasonable time on some evening during the week there would have been a much more extensive list of speakers. A number of speakers who were down to speak when the debate was previously due to be held have conveyed to me that they are desperately sorry that they are not able to come. They have asked me to convey their apologies. Among them are the noble Baronesses, Lady Denington and Lady Ewart-Biggs. I have no doubt that there are other Peers who cannot be present who will feel the same.
Having said that, I do not intend to go too much into statistics because that part of the case was adequately covered by the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, and by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, who caused me to feel some gratification when he referred to the fact that six years ago I was involved, with all-party support, in another place in an attempt to deal with this appalling situation. I will not go too deeply into what the present Bill is about. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said, this is a simple Bill. What it seeks to do is to make mandatory duties on local authorities which are at present optional and which are unfortunately not being carried out.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, referred to the question of death by fire. I want to give just one statistic that I do not think has been given so far which will indicate the appalling seriousness of the carnage of death caused by this kind of thing not being put right. In 1982 figures were issued which showed that between 1978 and 1982—four years—over 550 people were incinerated in this type of accommodation. That, I submit, by any dimension is a national scandal we ought to do our best to eradicate.
I want to go back for a few moments, to when I had the luck to draw a high spot in the ballot for Private Members' Bills in another place. The Bill I initiated was serviced by various voluntary housing organisations such as CHAR, and Shelter. The Institution of Environmental Health Officers submitted evidence, as it has recently done, on this difficult subject. I commend the association for that. Under the procedures of another place, my Bill was unfortunately talked out. Shortly after that, a housing Bill started on its passage through the other place. I was the Opposition Whip in the Standing Committee.
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The problem and dimension of some of the horrors that were taking place were drawn to our attention by an incident that occurred at a women's home in Kilburn, London. I have a letter from the mother of a girl who died in a fire there. In Committee, I had the poignant duty of reading the letter of the mother of an 18-year-old girl, who had done well in her education and was planning to get married two years later, but who had opted to do voluntary work in society (as many young people do, although they do not get credit for it). The girl left her home in Abbotsbury in Dorset and within 12 hours of leaving she and nine other women were dead as a result of a horrendous fire which, as your Lordships may remember, took place in Kilburn.
That shows the sort of thing that is happening. An incident may go out of the news, but the people who have lost dear sons and daughters do not forget. I frequently receive unsolicited letters from that woman. She wants to know what we are doing to prevent someone else suffering the same trauma and loss. I shall read a letter that I received from her only about two weeks ago. It says:
"Dear Lord Dean, This is the piece that I put in the local paper, the Dorset Evening Echo, this year:
'In Memoriam' Eilidh.—Six years since your death at 18, on March 18,1980. Still no legal requirement for fire precautions in voluntary hostels, like the one [where] you went to work on March 17, 1980. You would by now have been Auntie of little Elin, daughter of Adam and Hild, born in Iceland, November 26, 1985—Love and sadness from your mother Elsa.'
I don't normally go in for the more sentimental variety of these inserts! But I suddenly felt like saying something. Has any headway been made yet? Best wishes, Elsa Boadella.".
When I read that mother's original letter in Committee, I think that it played a part in moving the Government at that time. They introduced some measures, which at the time I referred to as hesitant and tenuous steps along the road of putting the matter right.
Without being too critical, I must say that there were pressures on the Government from organisations involved in the problem, including a number of housing associations. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln said, the Government were pressurised. At the time I was delighted to receive the fullest support from the Church body—I am sorry that I cannot remember its official name—which includes the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Catholic Cardinal, Cardinal Basil Hume, and representatives from the free churches and the Salvation Army. It culminated in a Sunday afternoon rally in Trafalgar Square. It was one of the more objective rallies that have taken place. Tremendous support was received on that occasion. I believe that it moved the Government.
This Bill does not attempt to score party points. There is wide support for it among many of the Government's supporters, one of whom, the distinguished noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, has moved the Second Reading. I ask the Government through the Minister whether, as the initial measures brought in are not dealing with the situation, they will undertake to give this Bill a chance to proceed so that your Lordships can debate it and put forward various points of view. There could be nothing more insulting than to allow this Bill, with its widespread support

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from all sections of the community, including the Churches, to be shunted sideways as something undesirable. The cases I have given of appalling loss of life will be repeated if something is not done. There will be that repetition and there will be other fires. I know that because of cuts in public expenditure local authorities have a difficult problem to deal with. Nevertheless, I believe that the nettle has to be grasped. I do not believe that we can afford to say in another four years' time that more than another 500 people have died in fires in this type of accommodation.
I have been delighted to be able to join noble Lords from all sections of the House in support of this Bill. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, success with it, and my party will do its best, as will other parties, to assist its passage through the House so that when it becomes an Act these people are better catered for than they are today.
2.46 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the House will be doubly grateful to my noble friend Lady Vickers. First, she agreed through the usual channels to postpone this debate from a very late hour on Tuesday 8th April until today; and secondly, she has today successfully drawn our attention once more to the problems of houses in multiple occupation. She has for many years, as your Lordships will readily recall, been a positive virago on the subject of environmental health. My noble friend has explained what is meant by the term "houses in multiple occupation" or HMO, and has drawn attention to the people who live in these properties and the conditions which, sadly, they can experience. I agree generally with what has been said here and I do not propose to go over the same ground.
Inevitably attention is being focused in this debate on unsatisfactory HMOs. Undoubtedly the conditions which can be found in bed and breakfast accommodation and some other HMOs are totally inadequate and unacceptable. Indeed, I am on record as describing them as nothing less than a scandal. But we need to keep matters in perspective. Recent press reports remind me that only bad news sells newspapers. We should, however, keep a sense of balance and not lose sight of the fact that properly-run HMOs provide a valuable service in the housing market. The conditions which exist in many HMOs are entirely satisfactory and owners of those properties are to be congratulated on the important contribution they are making to this country's housing stock.
The Government are aware of the representations for further legislation in this field but we took the view that before we could consider these fully it would be necessary to obtain precise information about the nature and extent of the problems associated with HMOs. It was for that reason that my department has undertaken major research on the subject. I shall be happy to write to any noble Lord who would like details of the research but I think there are a few points which I should emphasise now.
The research falls into two parts, of which the first was a postal survey of all local authorities in England
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and Wales. This was referred to by my noble friend Lady Vickers. The results were announced on 20th February at the seminar run by the Institution of Environmental Health Officers and show, among other things, that there are about 334,000 shared houses which could be classified as HMOs and that about 2 million people live in those houses. The other half of the work comprises a physical and social survey of a nationally representative sample of 550 HMOs. The contract for this work is not due for completion before the summer and the Government wish to see all the results before considering the need for further legislative measures. To act in advance of the physical and social survey would invalidate the information that it will provide. In the meantime—probably next month—the department will be issuing a circular to local housing authorities that will offer guidance on HMO powers and duties as consolidated in the Housing Act 1985.
From the attention given to HMOs in recent years one might be forgiven for thinking that unsatisfactory properties lacking in fire safety and basic amenities, poorly managed and overcrowded, are a product of life in Britain since the general election of 1979. That is palpable nonsense. That sorry state of affairs has a much longer history. So too do local authorities' considerable wideranging and mostly discretionary powers for dealing with the matter.
Much of the legislation goes back to the 1960s, though, as I shall describe later, there have been some significant advances since 1979. I shall not weary your Lordships with a catalogue of the powers available to local authorities (I can write to any noble Lord who wants details) but it is sufficient to say that any local authority that is determined to secure improved conditions in HMOs can do so under existing legislation; and many do.
I must go some way to disabuse the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick. The postal survey that I mentioned has revealed that in 1983–84, 3,853 fire notices were issued; 6,594 closing orders were made; 897 over-crowding notices were issued; and 3,866 management orders were enforced. That does not show me that, at this point, local authorities are not using the powers that Parliament has conferred upon them. The Government believe that discretionary powers are the most appropriate because each authority is best placed to know the needs of its own area and to assess priorities for the use of available resources.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, perhaps the Minister will allow me to ask him a question on that point. Does he seriously think that the Government believe that discretionary powers about enforcing fire precautions are better than compulsory powers? I cannot believe that I correctly heard the Minister.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, if the noble Lord will follow through with my speech just a little further, he will find that I shall meet his point exactly.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, the Minister is giving a misleading impression.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I suggest that a speech ought to be taken as a whole and not in little bits. How easy it is for an Opposition to find fault with a government—any government—in the exercise of their duties. Ah!—what it is to have instant "forgettery". The Labour Party when in government took no steps whatsoever to change those powers into duties. My noble friend, on the other hand, is prodding us to do just that.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords—
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, in a minute. As the noble Lord, Lord Dean, has said, there is one area where this Government have acted, and I believe rightly so. In recent years there has been much concern about fire safety in HMOs. The risk of being a casualty in a fire in an HMO is about five times greater than the risk in a single-dwelling occupied dwelling. Indeed, I was deeply affected yesterday when I went round a house in multiple occupation where two people died, and one was rescued unconscious, in a fire on Boxing Day last year. That made me realise why the Government have concentrated their actions on HMOs in the area of protection from fire.
Local authorities' extensive statutory powers governing means of escape from fire in HMOs were strengthened by Schedule 24 to the Housing Act 1980 (now Sections 365, 366 and 368 of the Housing Act 1985). That provides a local authority with three options where an HMO is found to have inadequate means of escape. It may serve a notice that requires the provision of the necessary facilities; it may ensure that part of the house is not used for human habitation; or it may opt for a combination of the first two solutions.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I must ask the Minister to make clear whether that is an option. If it is an option, then it does not have to be taken, does it?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, it is a duty.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am sorry that the Minister appears to have turned this issue into one of political argument. I made it quite clear when I introduced my Bill, which was the first Bill introduced in either House on this particular subject, that it was an all-party Bill. At no time did I or my party claim it as our sole entity. It is a little naughty of the Minister to start implying now that certain parties have only just woken up to this matter and that it has been a Back-Bencher from his own party who has brought it forward.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Dean, has misunderstood what I said. As the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will understand very well, I was talking about conversion of powers into duties. We are discussing what governments have done, unprodded—the noble Lord did some prodding and so did my noble friend—over the past few years.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I should hate to prolong the debate, but the Government had to be prodded by myself and other people to take the steps that they have done. They did not take them voluntarily. This Bill would not be here today if the Government had done the job that they should have done when they were asked to do it six years ago.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I honestly do not think that it helps the House to prolong this argument further.
Under powers included in the 1980 Act we made an order which came into operation in December 1981 and which places a duty, not a power—the point that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, was questioning—on local authorities to require adequate means of escape in the largest HMOs. This duty in no way diminishes the importance of inspecting HMOs which do not fall within the scope of the order but ensures that action is taken where the potential risk is greatest.
In this connection, I can tell the right reverend Prelate that the Home Office guide to fire safety in houses of multiple occupation is at present the subject of consultation with interested organisations, including CHAR. The Home Office will give further consideration to the scope of the guide in the light of comments received.
Since the Housing Act 1980 it has also been possible to make special grants for means of escape from fire in HMOs. Grants are generally discretionary, but following the 1980 Act the local authority can be under an obligation to give grant for eligible works which have been the subject of a statutory notice under Section 366 of the 1985 Act requiring means of escape, or under Section 352 requiring the provision of standard amenities.
This is not of course a general housing debate but I think that I should point out to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that the Government have swung their efforts quite considerably into the inner-cities, where most HMOs are. The House will have noticed that this was not much appreciated in another place by those representing shire counties.
I now come to the provisions of the Bill. Clause 1 would, if implemented, determine the frequency with which each local housing authority carried out inspections of HMOs in its area. Section 605 of the 1985 Act already provides a duty to inspect housing conditions and hence a means of acquiring knowledge of HMOs. Each authority is best placed to know how frequently conditions can change in the area. It is not clear to me how Clause 1 will be enforced; nor is it clear whether there is to be a time limit for the production of the authority's written statement, and if so, what that limit might be. It is possible that identification of individual properties in the written statement could be construed as defamatory of the landlords involved. The Bill makes no provision for such documents to be privileged; unlike, for example, Section 100H of the Local Government Act 1972 as amended.
Clause 2 would, if enacted, place a considerable financial burden on local authorities by converting

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certain discretionary powers into duties. I note that my noble friend did not offer an estimate of the cost when she spoke earlier. I trust that she will be able to do so in her concluding remarks. Clearly the House cannot disregard the resource implications.
The Bill makes no attempt to establish priorities. Many people, including the Government, are concerned about fires in HMOs. That is why we introduced a duty, now in subsection (2) of Section 365 of the 1985 Act, on local authorities to secure adequate means of escape from fire. The Government considered extending the scope of the present duty but took the view that it would be inappropriate to place a further burden on local authorities at present. An authority which is concerned about a particular HMO can use its discretionary powers to require adequate means of escape from fire. Although Clause 2 would impose a duty on local authorities, I should remind your Lordships that the existence of a duty in a particular case would depend on the local authority's opinion as to the adequacy or otherwise of the conditions encountered in the HMO in question. I think it would be difficult for someone to bring proceedings against an authority for failure to exercise its duty.
The powers in Section 352 to require the provision of specified basic amenities such as lighting, ventilation and drainage in sufficient quantity for the people accommodated in an HMO are undoubtedly an important part of the local authority's weaponry, but I find it difficult to believe that authorities should give the same priority to this work as to means of escape from fire.
Before turning to Clause 3, may I just note in passing that if Clause 2(b) is to be implemented—placing a duty on local authorities to take action under Section 358 on overcrowding—it would seem that Section 354 might equally be repealed. Section 354 enables an authority to reduce the number of people accommodated as a means of dealing with a situation where there are insufficient basic amenities.
Clause 3 appears to be based on Section 99 of the Public Health Act 1936 which enables an individual person to make a complaint about a statutory nuisance. The clause is, in the Government's view, out of place in housing legislation because local authorities do not make complaints or need to invoke outside assistance in order to carry out their functions in relation to HMOs. They take action where they consider it appropriate. If Clause 3 became law, it would be very difficult for local authorities to control their expenditure and deploy their resources to the best effect. There are no circumstances in which magistrates' courts have powers under the 1985 Act merely because a property is in multiple occupation. Whether premises are prejudicial to the health, safety or welfare of occupiers would doubtless be the subject of different conclusions by different benches of magistrates. The proposed power of magistrates to direct the authority to remedy the conditions is very vague. Is it limited to the measures contained in the present Bill or does it extend to other legislation on HMOs; and, if so, which?
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My noble friend Lady Vickers has done the House a great service today in drawing our attention to houses in multiple occupation. She had been most ably aided and abetted by the Institution of Environmental Health Officers, which she has served so well for many years. That organisation is a major influence in efforts to improve HMO stock, and it would be true to say that without its help our investigation into the state of the HMO stock would not be nearly so advanced as it is.
So where does that leave this Bill? The Government are of course traditionally but not invariably neutral in regard to Private Member's Bills. I must in all fairness say that its prospects are not good, for the reasons I have sought to explain, but the Government will not hinder its progress through this House. The House will note that over the years Conservative Governments have not been negligent in imposing duties on local authorities when this has been proved to be necessary, and so far as HMOs are concerned I have illustrated some this afternoon. We shall look forward to examining the results of our survey later in the year.
3.2 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for his reply, but I do not thank him for calling me a virago, because I do not think that I am. It think it is a very unfortunate expression. Also, I do not think it would have been necessary to have this Bill if the local authorities had been doing a good job. The environmental health officers and others tried to press them to do it, and they just would not; otherwise, we would not have over 1.25 million houses in this condition.
I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop for what he has said and also for mentioning the Bishops of Southwark and Birmingham. Certainly I shall be writing to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham to thank him for his suggestions. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, who so very adequately put his points of view forward, and for coming in rather at the last minute. I am most grateful to him. He has great experience, and this is what we need. Also I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, came, because he always has real compassion in his heart for many people and many things and he knows the conditions of so many of these people.
Now why would the Government have commissioned a survey which has now been reported to them (I have a copy of the report) to show the necessity of the need for action? When I was at the last conference of the environmental health officers they were feeling very desperate—and I think I can use that word quite appropriately—at the lack of chance they had of having any action taken. It is not so much a question of money. There are a great many people who could do a great deal more work. The local authorities, I understand, do not undertake their share.
As many noble Lords who would have liked to be present and who formerly served in another place know, an important part of the work of a Member of Parliament is the "surgery" where people come to talk about their difficulties. It is amazing what a Member of Parliament can do to bring these problems to the

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attention of a local authority. I believe that health officers would be happy if they could receive the same attention. The Minister would not need to say anything about this Bill if he or his department took action in response to the pressure of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, whose work in the past I well recall. I am calling today for action.
Sir George Young, the Minister, has said:
"I realise that local authorities would like more resources—that is human nature—but I cannot accept the lame excuse that simply because an authority has not been granted the HIP funds it requested that it must necessarily abandon all hope of dealing with HMOs, and in doing so abandon the modest hopes of people living in those houses".
The Minister has 4,000 of these houses in his constituency. Surely he must have knowledge through being a Member of Parliament of what is going on in his constituency. It is not just a question of the inner cities. I regret to say that Plymouth has 5,000 and that even Torbay has a great number. I have here a whole list. There is universal sorrow and anger among people in regard to the conditions in which they have to live. I hope that in moving that the Bill has a Second Reading I have the support of everyone here. I hope, too, that if we are not lucky here we shall have another go.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at seven minutes past three o'clock.

  LITTER IN THE COUNTRYSIDE: PLASTIC SACKS
  LITTER IN THE COUNTRYSIDE: PLASTIC SACKS
  GRANT RELATED EXPENDITURE ASSESSMENTS 1986–87
  GRANT RELATED EXPENDITURE ASSESSMENTS 1986–87
  NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS: INSURANCE
  NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS: INSURANCE