Sitting of 4 February 1986

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

  LONDON DOCKLANDS RAILWAY (CITY EXTENSION) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday.

Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

    Deaf-Blind Children
    Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received regarding the education of deaf-blind children; and what has been his response.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Bob Dunn): Representations have been received only from the National Deaf-Blind and Rubella Association, which is now called SENSE. A meeting is being arranged with SENSE at official level to discuss educational provision for deaf-blind children.
    Mr. Ashley: Is the Minister aware that children who are deaf and blind suffer from a unique disability which is different from either deafness or blindness, yet his Department makes no provision for them, providing teachers only for deafness or blindness? There is no mention of the deaf-blind in the Education Act 1944. Is he further aware that the devastating consequence of that omission is that more than half our deaf-blind children live in a complete vacuum with no contact with humanity? Is it possible for him to do something about training teachers for deaf-blind children?
    Mr. Dunn: As the right hon. Gentleman said, at present there are no training courses specifically for teachers of deaf-blind children, although the future training needs of such teachers are currently under consideration. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I await with a great deal of interest the outcome of the meeting to be held on 14 February with officials of the Department and representatives of SENSE.
    Mr. Freud: Is there not a good case for reviewing the procedure whereby deaf people with communication ability may qualify as teachers? Will the Minister tell the House what progress has been made in replacing circular 11/78?
    Mr. Dunn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. I shall write to him and let him have my views in due course.
    Mr. Greenway: Bearing in mind the enormous cost of educating deaf-blind children, and the wonderful effort made by the SENSE family centre for deaf-blind children in my constituency, where the Princess of Wales has helped enormously to raise funds for the centre, will my hon. Friend tell the House what financial commitment his Department is making to this especially important area of children's education?
    Mr. Dunn: As my hon. Friend will know, appropriate arrangements for the education of deaf-blind children are a matter for the local education authority in the first instance. However, I undertake to bear his point in mind.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: My right hon. Friend's questions are about the urgent claims of some of the most severely disabled children in this country. What are the Minister's reasons for having refused to institute a special training course for teachers of those children? Is he aware that our only qualified teachers of the deaf-blind were trained in the United States and Holland? Finally, is it not wholly shameful that because there is no appropriate education for them, many deaf-blind children are consigned to mental-handicap hospitals?
    Mr. Dunn: I acknowledge the force of the right hon. Gentleman's question. As I pointed out, the future training needs of those who will teach the deaf-blind are at present under consideration.

    Adult Education
    Mr. Haynesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will consider a further expansion of adult education.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. George Walden): Plans for central Government expenditure on adult education for the next three years and local authority expenditure in 1986–87 are contained in the recent public expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 9702). The Government will continue to encourage local education authorities and other providers to achieve the most cost-effective deployment of the resources available to them, taking account of both traditional and newly emerging needs. The Government's own expenditure plans on adult education are kept under constant review.
    Mr. Haynes: That is a shocking reply. When will the Minister wake up to the fact that his Government have put millions on the dole and that he is missing a first-class opportunity to give further education to many who need it? He should resign.
    Mr. Walden: The hon. Gentleman is being uncharacteristically unkind about Government policy. I remind him that the Government have introduced REPLAN, which the hon. Gentleman did not mention, which deals specifically with the educational needs of the unemployed. At the other end of the scale, the Government have also set up an effective mechanism—PICKUP —which deals with making sure that people will have jobs in the future, because they will have continuing training.
    Mr. Madel: Will my hon. Friend confirm that he is looking for more help from the further education colleges and polytechnics to provide imaginative retraining schemes in the new technologies for adult unemployed and that the Government are funding them?
    Mr. Walden: I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the response that we have had from higher education in general, and that the polytechnics in particular, in the matter of retraining and continuing training.
    Mr. Sheerman: Will the Minister accept that his answer will be seen as entirely complacent at a time when the Open University could provide tens of thousands of cheap retraining facilities for the unemployed and for those who want to upgrade their skills, but is stopped from doing so only by the Government's parsimony? Is he aware that he is stopping the individual development of many people, not only through the collapse of many of the programmes at the Open University, but through the complete collapse of the Workers Educational Association?
    Mr. Walden: There is a whole panoply of misconceptions in that question. On the matter of the Open University, the hon. Gentleman might like to know that we have not only added money to bridge the funding gap, but have specifically converted a loan to a grant to help the university's admirable development of continuing education. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are in continuing consultation with the Workers Educational Association. We are continuing to discuss the level of the grant and the ways in which it can spend it more effectively.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: Does the Minister accept that it is wholly unacceptable that the Government should be reducing the funding to the traditional residential education colleges, which in the present crisis of mass unemployment should be able to take up far more places?
    Mr. Walden: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman phrased his question in that way. We are concerned to ensure that those residential colleges, the work of which we do not underestimate, make the maximum use of their premises, which, of course, includes expanding the numbers who can attend such colleges.

    Student Loans
    Mr. Alan Howarthasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give further consideration to the introduction of a system of student loans.
    Mr. Walden: No, Sir. The possibility of replacing maintenance grants wholly or partly with loans has been ruled out at the present time by the Government.
    Mr. Howarth: Will my hon Friend consider the fact that since the Government announcement of a 2 per cent. increase in grant and the withdrawal of certain welfare arrangements, we are in altered circumstances? Does he agree that it is becoming a matter of growing urgency to find some additional means for significant numbers of students, and that growing numbers of practically minded people see nothing unreasonable about doing as many other countries do and introducing a loans element into our system of student support? Will he undertake to revise the review of student finance, which the Government put into abeyance last summer?
    Mr. Walden: I note the consistency of my hon. Friend's devotion to the cause of loans. However, the Government have weighed the pros and cons of loans, and, at present, the cons are seen as outweighing the pros.
    Mr. Fatchett: Is not the strongest argument against loans—particularly at a time when access to university
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    places is becoming even more restricted—that they will reduce opportunities even further for young people from working-class homes? If the Government went down the road of loans, would it not be a further indictment of their policy in higher education, and further evidence that they do not want working-class children to go to universities?
    Mr. Walden: I cannot except the hon. Gentleman's premise, but I note his view that there might be a danger, if loans were introduced at any stage, to the children from more modest backgrounds.
    Mr. Pawsey: Does my hon. Friend accept that his reply is somewhat disappointing to many of my hon. Friends? Will he review the matter, as there are serious anomalies in the present system, particularly where parents—I am one—do not top up their children's expenses at university?
    Mr. Walden: I would be the last to deny that anomalies exist within the present system.
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Is it not ironic that the Minister has been criticised by his Back Benchers for not introducing loans, when he is quickly moving in that direction through the unofficial loans that are increasingly becoming part of student life? Is it not contempt of the House that the Government promised last year a full review of students' grants, but when they discovered that that review would reveal the real poverty facing students they abandoned it? Should they not now reintroduce that review and abandon the proposals in the social security review to take rights away from students until we have had a proper review of the state grant system?
    Mr. Walden: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman finds room for irony in this situation. De facto loans, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, are private transactions between banks and customers, and it is up to students and their families to make sure before they enter into such commitments that they can be fulfilled.
    Mrs. McCurley: Is it not most important that students should spend all their time in higher education studying, to the benefit of Britain, and not having to sell beets, as they do on campus in the United States, to earn their way through college?
    Mr. Walden: My hon. Friend raises a good point. Obviously one of the advantages of the present British system is that it enables students to spend a good deal of their time studying. However, we live in the harsh real world and the search for outside employment does not have to overtake wholly the student's prime function, which is to study.

    Student Grants
    Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the current full rate of student grant; what was the comparable figure in 1979; and if he will express the current figure in 1979 prices.
    Mr. Walden: The full rate of grant in 1985–86 for a student living away from home outside London is £1,830. This is equivalent to £973 at 1978–79 prices. The corresponding full rate of grant in 1978–79 was£1,100, but students at that time could also claim excess travel expenses, which were worth, on average, an extra £3 per student.
    Mr. Foulkes: Will the Minister confirm that the paltry 2 per cent. increase in student grants is a reduction in real terms, bringing the total reduction in real terms since 1979 to 20 per cent.? Does he accept that this will be exacerbated by the change in social security provision which will make the student ineligible? What is the rationale behind making students suffer in this way, particularly students from working-class backgrounds?
    Mr. Walden: I do not deny that the Government's measures are calling for an extra effort from students and parents. At the same time, I would expect the hon. Gentleman and those students —
    Mr. Foulkes: What is the reason?
    Mr. Walden: If the hon. Gentleman will wait, I shall tell him. I expect the hon. Gentleman and those students and parents to understand that this effort is being asked for against the background of an unprecedented expansion in the numbers of students in higher education.
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not students on full grants who are suffering, but those whose parents are assessed but fail to pay? They are the ones who are obliged to take out what he is pleased to call de facto loans, which most people call overdrafts. This is a serious matter on which we wish the Department would change its mind.
    Mr. Walden: My hon. Friend draws attention to a real problem. However, I am sure that she would not want or expect the Government to regulate relationships between parents and children. As previous Governments have said, we hope that parents will pay their student offspring the required contributions to their grant.
    Mr. Madden: If the Government introduce their poll tax, how will it affect student grants, and what changes in grants will be implemented?
    Mr. Walden: The Government have not yet decided whether or how students could be compensated if the introduction of such a tax were confirmed.
    Mr. Cormack: Does my hon. Friend agree that people of 18 are adults and not children? If he does, will he please reconsider loans? If he is to penalise students, as he is doing, there must be some alternative, and a properly regulated low-interest loan would appeal to some.
    Mr. Walden: As I said in reply to an earlier question, the Government cannot deny that there are some anomalies in the present system. One is the long-standing convention that it will unfortunately be far too costly—a matter of hundreds of millions of pounds, I believe —to lower the independence age from 25.
    Mr. Wilson: In the light of the exasperation expressed by the Minister's Back Benchers, will he care to explain the educational reasons for grants declining in value by 20 per cent. in real terms during the past six years? Does he agree that that decline tends to discourage the take-up of higher education? It certainly causes hardship, whatever the educational implications might be.
    Mr. Walden: I rather doubt whether the hon. Gentleman has considered the educational implications. As I have already said, we have the largest ever number of students in Britain, and we have the largest proportion of the population in higher education.

    European Youth Ministers (Meeting)
    Mr. Lawlerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on Britain's role and position at the European Youth Ministers meeting.
    Mr. Dunn: As a member state of the Council of Europe, the United Kingdom was among those invited by the French Government to participate in the conference of European Ministers of Youth held in Strasbourg last December to mark International Youth Year.
    Mr. Lawler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. As participation was the central theme of that conference, will my hon. Friend outline what the Government intend to do to encourage participation by young people nationally and locally once the youth circular replies are all in? What will the Government do to advise local authorities on how they can encourage meaningful participation by young people locally in all bodies, ranging from tenants' associations to district-wide youth councils?
    Mr. Dunn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He will know that the need for young people to participate in youth service consultative bodies locally and nationally was stressed in circular 1/85. The appointment of three young people to the National Advisory Council for the Youth Service is an example of the Government's commitment. We are receiving responses to our circular from local authorities, and steps are being taken to ensure that we have a full response. Further statements will be made in due course.
    Mr. Fletcher: Do we have a Youth Minister? If so, why? Is it really my hon. Friend?
    Mr. Dunn: We have a Youth Minister, and it is a very good thing.
    Mr. Sheerman: I am delighted to hear that there is a Youth Minister. We are not quite sure who it is. Will the Minister go back to his European colleagues, who have well-established youth interests, and tell them that the British need to take a new initiative because International Youth Year left British youth worse off, worse employed, and worse trained than youth in any other western European nation? When will he learn something from the Europeans and then come back here and implement it?
    Mr. Dunn: Some 41 recommendations were agreed at the conference. The difficulty with having a Minister solely responsible for youth is that a number of Departments of State and agencies of state have a youth interest. Therefore, to have a designated Youth Minister in the sense that the hon. Gentleman would like might appear to be only a gimmick. As for future developments, the hon. Gentleman will simply have to wait and see.

    Teachers (Dispute)
    Mr. Greenwayasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the teachers' current pay dispute.
    Mr. Evansasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the teachers' pay dispute.
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the teachers' dispute.
    Mr. Spencerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the latest position in the teachers' dispute.
    Mr. Nichollsasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the latest position on the teachers' dispute; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): As I said in my statement yesterday, I welcome the provisional agreement reached at ACAS which holds out the promise of a settlement of the 1985 dispute, a return to normal working in the schools and constructive negotiations on pay, pay structure, duties and conditions of service.
    Mr. Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend join me in hoping that the unions which have already agreed with the ACAS deal will ratify it with their members? Does my right hon. Friend remember that the National Union of Teachers for many years, while it had the controlling majority on the teachers' panel on the Burnham committee, forced its views on the other unions so that they had to accept them whether they liked it or not? Will my right hon. Friend join me in urging the NUT to accept the majority deal, about which the other unions are happy, whether it likes it or not, now that the boot is on the other foot? That would be democratic.
    Sir Keith Joseph: I remind the House that the employers as well as the unions concerned have undertaken to consider ratifying the proposal. I, and I expect all hon. Members, hope that the NUT will call off disruption and co-operate in the negotiations.
    Mr. Evans: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, under the terms of the so-called provisional agreement, many thousands of teachers will receive an offer of less cash than they could have had last October? Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously expect intelligent male and female members of the NUT to accept such a ridiculous proposition? Why will he not recognise that the only way to bring peace and tranquillity to the education system is to produce much more Government finance?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the fact that it was the NUT's actions that led the unions to reject, after a mere 20 minutes, the offer to which he now rather yearningly refers.
    Mr. Dormand: In view of the possible settlement of the teachers' pay dispute, will the right hon. Gentleman say how much additional money is available for the 1986–87 settlement? How much importance does the right hon. Gentleman attach to the fact that the NUT—the biggest teachers' union—is undertaking its 14th ballot of members and that the previous 13 ballots have strongly supported all the actions taken by the union?
    Sir Keith Joseph: The first annual instalment of the £1·25 billion over four years, less the amount of money reserved for midday supervision, would be available during 1986–87 to be added to rate support grant if the agreement were made in sufficient time for that to be practicable and were a bargain within the terms laid down by the Government to be struck. We all very much hope that will happen. I recognise the way in which the NUT
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    has proceeded with ballots, but I still believe, first, that it is wrong for the teachers to disrupt the education of children, and, secondly, that, despite constant information available to the teachers, not all the teachers necessarily recognise how much difference to career and promotion prospects the money conditionally on offer from the Government would bring about.
    Mr. Spencer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that for some members of the NUT this is a blatant political strike and that their sole intention is to cause the Government to reorganise their economic priorities? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is essential that that view should not prevail?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I believe that that is true of some members of the NUT, but I remain convinced that most members have the interests of the children at heart and must be appalled at the damage that is being done to children's education.
    Mr. Nicholls: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fact that all the teachers unions but the NUT have agreed a settlement means that there is a changed situation? Is there not a distinction to be drawn between the unions which, belatedly, are facing their responsibilities, and other unions, such as the NUT, which do not even know the meaning of "responsibility"? Is this not the moment—perhaps for the first time —for the Government to make a gesture and to do something about extra funding for 1985–86, even if it is only a minimal gesture?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, but not with the latter. It was the NUT which, in December 1984, wrecked the prospect—by walking out of the then negotiations—of extra money from the taxpayer, if the Government had found that the bargain that they seek for extra pay for teachers had then been met.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: If the formula that has been engineered by the ACAS intervention is impossible to implement because of the lack of resources available to local education authorities, what other channels for a settlement will there be? Will the Secretary of State tell the House what assurances he gave to ACAS on the possibilities of funding to meet any settlement that it engineered?
    Sir Keith Joseph: No such assurance was sought or given. The hon. Gentleman is wrong in concluding that the outcome must founder on the question of resources. It will be for the local education authorities, in considering all the pressures that are upon them, to decide what they can afford in the light of the instalments that might be available over four years, if the conditions set by the Government for the bargain are satisfied.
    Mr. Favell: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great concern for the safety of children who are forced to leave school premises without notice being given to their parents? Will he issue guidance to education authorities and to teachers on how the matter should be tackled, both now, during the dispute, and for the future?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I am aware of the tragic incident that occurred in my hon. Friend's constituency. However, we cannot be absolutely sure that the child concerned would have been accompanied but for the disruption. I am aware of all that and of the dangers to children. I shall consider

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    whether there is any guidance that I can give. I am sure that the teachers' unions concerned are well aware of the dangers that they are risking and causing for children, and I condemn them again for the disruption that they are creating.
    Mr. Radice: The Secretary of State has told the House yet again that he is not prepared to give local education authorities extra money to help pay for the provisional agreement for 1985. Does he understand that unless he provides more resources, better pay for teachers —which he says he supports—is likely to be at the expense of the provision of books, equipment and the carrying out of school maintenance? Why does he not spend his remaining weeks as Secretary of State arguing the case for more money for education?
    Sir Keith Joseph: The Government accept that more money in aggregate from the taxpayer is legitimate for teachers in return for what the hon. Gentleman has changed his tune about. Only a short while ago the hon. Gentleman supported the Government in regarding the acceptance by teachers of their duties as part of that which the Government should seek. He has now departed from that. He has said that pay alone should be considered, and he has rejected the Government's view and, I believe, that of the country, that pay should go with what pay is for, and that duties should be part of the bargain.
    Dr. Marekasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will seek to provide additional sums of money to resolve the teachers' pay dispute.
    Sir Keith Joseph: The Government have already set aside additional resources for an increase in teachers' pay to recruit, retain and motivate teachers of the right quality and to improve the pay structure and clarify teachers' duties. I very much hope that we are about to see progress in negotiations which will justify the release of those resources.
    Dr. Marek: Will the Secretary of State tell us how much these resources would mean to the teacher on the average salary, in percentage terms, if they were accepted for 1986–87? Will he tell us also whether he believes that the teachers who belong to the National Union of Teachers have children's education at heart?
    Sir Keith Joseph: It is not possible to give an exact figure without knowing whether the individual teacher would receive promotion. The offer made by the employers in September, based upon the additional extra money available from the taxpayer, would have permitted 74,000 additional promotions. The general answer to the hon. Gentleman is that, for a substantial number of teachers, a substantial increase in pay would have resulted.
    As to the motivation of members of the National Union of Teachers, I can go only by the speeches of their leaders, who tend to speak at great length, when they have the opportunity, about the teachers' dispute, without once mentioning the children.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: What is the current basis for teachers' pay? From his discussions about pay, does my right hon. Friend believe that an independent review looking to the future and having regard to the dispute could only be beneficial for the future structure of teachers' pay?
    Sir Keith Joseph: The Government accept that the necessary basis for pay to teachers should be such as to permit the recruitment, retention and motivation of people of the right quality. That means changes to the present career and pay structures, as well as an aggregate increase. Regarding the inquiry, we hope to see the ACAS procedure fulfilled, subject to ratification. The point about an inquiry is that those who inquire are not responsible for finding the money. At least with the ACAS procedure, those who would have to pay —the local education authorities —are involved as well as the teachers' unions.
    Mr. Flannery: Does the Secretary of State realise that there are well over 50 questions on the Order Paper that mention the teachers' pay dispute? Will he stop weeping crocodile tears about our children, when the House knows that it is he who is disrupting our children's education? Until he gives more money to the teachers in their just cause, he will be keeping our children out of school. It is time that he went and that we had a new Minister who would see to it that our teachers received more money and that our children go back to school.
    Sir Keith Joseph: This particular Minister has persuaded his colleagues in the Cabinet that some extra money is legitimate for teachers on aggregate, but only on condition that they carry out their duties.

    Education Support Grants
    Mr. Chopeasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the latest progress in preparations for the implementation by local education authorities of the provisions contained in the Education (Amendment) Bill.
    Mr. Pawseyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many education authorities have made, or will make this school term, fresh arrangements for midday supervision of children in school, thus relieving teachers of the obligation to perform this duty.
    The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Chris Patten): Twenty-five English LEAs have submitted bids or draft schemes and a further 38 have made inquiries about the scheme. Of the 17 schemes which have been approved so far to go ahead this term, none relies upon the voluntary unpaid participation of teachers.
    Mr. Chope: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his reply. Does he share my concern that many local education authorities are not taking full advantage of the extra Government money presently available to provide alternative midday supervision? Can he confirm that there is now no excuse for a school not to provide full midday supervision?
    Mr. Patten: I share my hon. Friend's concern. He is correct in what he has said. The previous arrangements, which have long been criticised by the teachers' unions and others, have broken down. Our proposals should mean adequate arrangements everywhere.
    Mr. Pawsey: Does my hon. Friend accept that the Government's action in making funding available for midday supervision was widely applauded by teachers and parents alike, and that many of those parents are now most

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    disappointed that adequate supervision is not being provided, with the result that many children have to go home at lunchtime, to their disadvantage?
    Mr. Patten: I agree with my hon. Friend. Two thirds of local education authorities have been in touch with us about the new proposals. I hope that the remaining one third will listen to my hon. Friend's robust advice.
    Mr. Freud: How many local education authorities will not be able to bid for lunchtime supervision because it would take them into penalty? In those areas, what will happen at lunchtimes, and what will happen to the money that properly belongs to those local education authorities?
    Mr. Patten: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has said that he is willing to consider sympathetically any application to disregard expenditure approved for education support grant on midday supervision in 1985–86.

    Teachers (Dispute)
    Mr. Campbell-Savoursasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what meetings he has had since Christmas with the teaching trade unions to discuss the teachers' pay dispute.
    Sir Keith Joseph: None.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Has the Secretary of State read the report of the Secondary Heads Association, which states that teachers are leaving the profession in droves because of low pay? How does he intend to reverse that drift away from teaching?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I am aware that a number, not yet known, of teachers, including good teachers, are quitting the classroom. The Government deeply regret that. It is one reason why the Government have made conditionally available from the taxpayer sufficient extra money to transform career, promotion and pay prospects in return for the acceptance of duties.
    Mr. Maclean: Since the ACAS settlement has proved that moderate trade unions can reach a settlement when pay, conditions and duties are discussed together, does my right hon. Friend agree that the Burnham and CLEA committees should be scrapped forthwith?
    Sir Keith Joseph: That is the subject of the next question. I must warn my hon. Friend that the ACAS procedure has reached only its first stage. I welcome the progress that has been made, but there is still a great deal of progress to be made, even if the parties ratify the settlement.
    Mr. Radice: How many times has the Secretary of State met representatives of the teachers' unions during the year-long dispute?
    Sir Keith Joseph: Recently I answered a question and set out the exact dates and details. In general, I have made myself available, subject to overriding duties, whenever representatives of teachers' unions have asked to see me.

    Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965
    Mr. Haselhurstasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will introduce legislation to repeal the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965.
    Sir Keith Joseph: In response to requests from the local authority associations, I have made it clear that I am
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    prepared to consider proposals for changes in the present arrangements, but before coming to a firm view I would want to be satisfied that any new arrangements would offer the prospect of being a real improvement on the existing ones.
    Mr. Haselhurst: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the present arrangements for determining teachers' pay have few remaining friends, especially in the Conservative party, and that if he made it clear that he will have done with them, it could only assist the outcome of the talks at ACAS?
    Sir Keith Joseph: I well understand that, and I would be willing to go to my colleagues and ask for legislative time, but first I would have to be satisfied that the proposed alternative arrangements would improve the position. Scotland has arrangements that are roughly similar to what many people wish existed in place of Burnham, but the outcome in Scotland is not noticeably better than that in England and Wales.

    Student Grants
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what recent representations he has received about the level of student grants; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Walden: My right hon. Friend has received about 300 letters about his intention, subject to parliamentary approval, to increase student grants by about 2 per cent. We consider that this level of grant strikes a fair balance between meeting students' costs and the total expenditure which tax and ratepayers can reasonably be asked to contribute.
    Mr. Bennett: Does the Minister accept from earlier exchanges that there is growing anxiety in the House about the plight of students? Is it not time that the Government restarted the inquiry into student grants that was set up last year, but then abandoned in such a cowardly way in August? Is it not time that that review was published, so that the country can know the strength of the students' claims for decent support and the complete inadequecy of the 2 per cent. offer?
    Mr. Walden: The Government have made it clear several times that they have weighed the pros and cons of student loans and have decided, for the present, against them. Without the keystone of a consultative document, it is impossible to construct the arch.

    Ancillary Services
    Mr. Franksasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of local education authorities have put services ancillary to teaching out to tender; how many private tenders were accepted; and what savings have resulted for each of the past two years.
    Mr. Chris Patten: Information in the form requested is not collected centrally, but most, if not all, local education authorities contract out some of their services. A notable example of this is home-to-school transport. Two other services where large savings have been achieved by some local education authorities by going out to tender are school meals and school cleaning.
    Mr. Franks: Will my hon. Friend please consider extending the services which are contracted out and give every encouragement to those local authorities which should be doing so and are not?
    Mr. Patten: I accept what my hon. Friend has said. The Audit Commission, for example, has estimated that there is scope for saving about £50 million on cleaning services in schools.

    Save British Science Campaign
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received from Professor Joseph Lamb and Dr. Denis Noble, FRS, of the Save British Science campaign.
    Mr. Walden: My right hon. Friend has received an invitation to meet Professor Lamb and other representatives of the Save British Science campaign and he has agreed to do so.
    Mr. Dalyell: At that meeting, will special attention be given to the problems of post-doctoral research?
    Mr. Walden: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are problems at present. I am inquiring into those and discussing them with academics.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Dr. McDonaldasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Dr. McDonald: Is there a level below which the Government would not want the pound to slide, and if it continues to slide will the Government step in to raise interest rates?
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Lady is aware, the Government's main priority is to keep inflation down. It is also important that interest rates do not rise. We do need to have regard to inflation. As the hon. Lady is well aware, there have been no changes for some time.
    Mr. Budgen: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity of reminding all those who are interested in the future of BL that the company has already received over the past 10 years about £2 billion from the taxpayer and that it is unlikely that the taxpayer will wish to provide any more money for BL? Therefore, BL's future may be best safeguarded if it finds allies and friends in the private sector, whether they come from this country or abroad.
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend says, no one can doubt the Government's commitment to the future of BL. The taxpayer had already put in over £2 billion, and in addition there have been £1·5 billion guarantees under the Varley-Marshall assurances. We are determined to create an internationally competitive BL, and that is what the discussions which are now under way are aimed to achieve, namely, is to protect jobs in the long term.
    Mr. Kinnock: When British money has rightly gone into modernising BL, what possible excuse can there be for serving it up gift-wrapped to a foreign competitor?
    The Prime Minister: As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman heard, at the moment the Varley-Marshall assurances in the form of guarantees are of the order of £1·5 billion, in addition to the £2 billion that has already been put in. That cannot continue. We are concerned that BL should be competitive and the talks that are being entered into now are designed to achieve that and so secure the future of a strong BL.
    Mr. Kinnock: Would those or any other assurances offered by General Motors be valid in the case of BL? Are they not subject to change in decisions at any stage by a company that took over BL and its various assets?
    The Prime Minister: The discussions are taking place with General Motors with the full support and approval of the BL board. I have already mentioned the large sums, both of taxpayers' money and existing guarantees, that have gone into BL. BL will have a better future if it is in a position not to make a continuous demand on the taxpayer, because doing so means that it takes money that could well go to other things.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does the Prime Minister not accept that security of work, of technology and of orders, both for BL and for its component suppliers should command the highest priority? Can she tell us how she thinks any objective of security can be achieved by ensuring that a further set of colonisation takes place in the British economy?
    The Prime Minister: I note that the right hon. Gentleman appears to be against inward investment although many regions in his own Principality are competing for inward investment from other countries. One of the problems is that the capital required to create new models has to be spread over a comparatively small number of cars compared with our European competitors. The only way to safeguard jobs in BL, as elsewhere in the economy, is to compete successfully in domestic and international markets.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Will my right hon. Friend accept that many people who have built BL, and in this case Austin Rover, up into a successful enterprise resent very much the implication that somehow or other it is a financial leper? If General Motors and Ford are willing to back BL, why cannot our Government show the same faith?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend should not forget that the backing through the Government by the taxpayer, not the Government, has been enormous. During the lifetime of this Government it has been £1·5 billion. Again he must not forget the guarantees that rise annually. One is concerned for the future of BL. One is concerned, therefore, to have a competitive BL. That is what the talks upon which we have embarked are designed to achieve.
    Dr. Owen: If British helicopters were to go to Sikorsky, if airborne early warning was to go to Boeing, and if Land Rover was to go to General Motors, would the Prime Minister draw the line at 44·5 per cent. of the United Kingdom car market going to Ford? At the very least, will she give us an assurance that that would be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
    The Prime Minister: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that this country

    141
    also invests extensively overseas? There have been many years when our direct investment in the United States has exceeded the States' investment here. That investment gives us enormous advantage in the invisible returns, which help the balance of trade every year. Yes, we do have inward investment. Many right hon. and hon. Gentleman seek it for their constituencies. We have outward investment, which achieves income.
    Mr. John Mark Taylor: Will my right hon. Friend find time in a busy day to issue a word of reassurance to 8,000 Land Rover employees in my constituency?
    The Prime Minister: As I have already indicated, discussions are taking place with General Motors with the full support and approval of the BL board. Those discussions are about both Leyland Trucks and Land Rover.
    Ms. Clare Shortasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Ms. Short: Is the Prime Minister aware that she is in breach of the constitutional principle of ministerial responsibility in blaming her civil servants for the Westland leak? How can she possibly rely on the same principle to prevent them from giving their version of the truth now that they have been blamed publicly?
    The Prime Minister: No. I understand that there have been negotiations with the Select Committee on Defence and that the head of the Civil Service will be giving evidence—I believe tomorrow—before it.
    Mr. Walters: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the print unions harassed and bullied the very conciliatory Thomson organisation to the point of despair, until it sold to Mr. Murdoch? Are they not now paying the price for their very shortsighted greed?
    The Prime Minister: I think that my hon. Friend is right. Newspapers, as well as other industries, must not shrink from coming into the present technological age.
    Mr. Allan Robertsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Roberts: Why was an official in the Cabinet Office reprimanded or disciplined for his conduct in contacting the private offices of Ministers to see whether they were available for a meeting about Westland on 13 December? What form did the reprimand or disciplinary action take?
    The Prime Minister: Disciplinary action is not a matter for me.
    Mr. Marlow: Given the enormous success of the Government's programme of privatisation of nationalised industries, in that the consumer is better served, the nation has better value for money and the people who work in those industries are doing better than they would have done otherwise, will my right hon. Friend consider privatising such nationalised services as education and housing?
    The Prime Minister: I accept my hon. Friend's description of the success of privatisation. He is aware that
    142
    the effect of selling council houses is to privatise many of the assets that were previously owned by councils. I deeply regret that there are not so many direct grant schools as there were, and I believe that we must consider further the question of education.
    Mr. Tony Lloydasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Lloyd: Does the Prime Minister insist that Miss Colette Bowe corroborates the statements that the right hon. Lady has made to the House? If that is so, why is the right hon. Lady preventing her from appearing before the Select Committee?
    The Prime Minister: My statement to the House on 23 January and my speech on 27 January were checked for accuracy with all those concerned, including the head of the Civil Service, who conducted the inquiry.
    Mr. Thornton: Will my right hon. Friend take the opportunity this afternoon to restate her own and her Government's implacable opposition to dealing with any organisation that uses terrorism to achieve its ends? If so, will she offer a reassurance to those forces in South Africa that wish to bring about peaceful change concerning the proposed meeting between the African National Congress and a Foreign Office official, which seems to fly in the face of those principles?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is aware, Ministers have not met terrorist organisations, although there have been occasions, when we have had the Presidency of Europe, when we have met a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as part of another delegation. As for the ANC, we uphold our normal principle that we are absolutely against violence as a method of pursuing political ends. There have been no ministerial contacts. There has been contact between officials and the ANC.
    Mr. Willie W. Hamiltonasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hamilton: Since it is quite clear that the public do not believe that the Prime Minister has told the truth about the Westland matter, will she now agree to appear in front of the Select Committee so that it can drag out of her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
    The Prime Minister: I totally reject the hon. Gentleman's remarks in asking his question.
    Mr. Conway: Does my right hon. Friend share the widespread concern about the reluctance of the Indian Government to co-operate in the fight against drug trafficking, when it is reported that 49 per cent. of the heroin in the United Kingdom comes through the port of Bombay? Is not the Indian Government's reluctance a disgrace?
    The Prime Minister: From what I know of the Indian Government, they will do everything they can to cooperate in drug trafficking. They are just as anxious as the rest of us that we should try to stop this evil traffic.
    Mr. Terry Lewisasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Lewis: Despite today's token reduction in petrol prices, is it not time that the right hon. Lady acted against the oil companies' cartel, in the interests of the British motorist consumer?
    The Prime Minister: I understand that petrol prices are going down. Like the hon. Gentleman, I hope that they will go down further and faster.
    Mr. Nealeasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Neale: Has my right hon. Friend taken note of the commendable performance by miners at Tilmanstone colliery in Kent, who have reduced the cost of production from £120 per tonne to £40 per tonne, brought the pit into profitability and saved 500 jobs? Is this not an excellent example and a vindication of all that she has been saying about the need to be productive and efficient as the best way to protect jobs and expand the market for British made goods?
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that remarkable example to our attention. There has been a dramatic improvement in productivity at Betteshanger and Tilmanstone. That dramatic improvement has led to the saving of one pit and to the possibility of saving the other.

Business of the House
3.31 pm
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to make a brief announcement about the business for tomorrow.
In place of the debate previously announced, the business will now be as follows:
Until about seven o'clock there will be a debate on British Leyland. Afterwards there will be a debate entitled "The failure of the Government to provide cancer screening for all women at risk". Both debates will arise on Opposition motions.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether you can help us. Since when has it been the doctrine of Parliament or the British constitution that Ministers, however exhausted, have no knowledge of reprimands within their own Departments? Is this the way that we work?
Mr. Speaker: That genuinely is not a matter for me.
Mr. Alan Williams: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether you can give some guidance. Yesterday we had a statement from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in relation to British Leyland. Today we have had a series of answers by the Prime Minister. At no stage has any indication been given to the House of a major defence implication which is of profound importance in that there is a subsidiary of Land Rover called Self-Changing Gear which not only supplies components to the British main battle tank but also is in contention for a £200 million contract in relation to the American battle tank, and its main competitor is General Motors, to whom it is considering selling.
Mr. Speaker: I have no doubt that that may arise tomorrow.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, arising out of what the Leader of the House has said. I understood that, when there is a change of business, any Member of the House can raise questions on the business statement. Therefore, I should like to raise a question on the business statement.
Mr. Speaker: Since the Leader of the House made his announcement on a point of order, I will take one point of order relating to it.
Mr. Heifer: The point of order I should like to raise, Mr. Chairman—[Laughter.] I understood the Speaker of the House to be also Chairman of the House.
I ask that the Government also find time tomorrow for a short debate on the letter which has been reproduced in today's Morning Star from the solicitors of News International to Mr. Bruce Matthews, dated 20 December, which clearly shows that Mr. Murdock and his friends had already decided some long time ago that action should be taken to provoke a strike and to sack the workers in Fleet street. The Leader of the House should be prepared to consider a short debate on that important issue after 10 pm.
Mr. Biffen: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The business for tomorrow that I have announced relates to an Opposition day. Although I realise that the point raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is of general interest, I cannot offer any Government time after 10 pm.
Mr. John Butterfill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to mislead the House? Surely, the article in the Morning Star was saying that the newspaper involved was taking legal advice as to what—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that we have disposed of that matter. It is not one for me.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Genuine?
Mr. Skinner: Yes. It is as genuine as the series of misunderstandings that the Government have —[Interruption.]
Today, we have had business changed on a point of order. That practice is not greatly welcomed by those hon. Members, in particular Opposition Members, who like to use the rare opportunity to ask questions about the change of business. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) would have been within his rights to ask the Leader of the House about the business to which he wished to refer. I may well have done the same. In future, it would be as well to follow the well-worn practice of a business statement with business questions, and not a point of order when there is a change of business, from whichever side and for whatever reason.
Mr. Speaker: Entirely genuine. It is an unusual way of doing it, but it has been done.

Right to be Self-Employed
3.36 pm
Mr. Michael Forsyth: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to clarify the criteria used to determine self-employed or employee status for the purposes of tax and other legislation.
The Bill gives every worker the right to be self-employed. Any Government trying to create a climate for job creation must study the ease with which new firms can be started. That means producing a society in which people at all levels can make decisions, break into new ventures, and seek to exploit their skills and talents in new markets. It means a society with a variety of jobs and types of employment.
The Government have made huge strides in making the conditions right for people to start firms. There have been more than 100 measures, including the highly successful enterprise allowance scheme, and the proposals of the Secretary of State for Employment for lifting the burdens on business will help to remove some of the obstacles to success.
Further purposive action on taxes and regulations could bring rapid results. The Bill is a helpful measure, under which anyone can agree with his employer that he or she is henceforth to be treated as self-employed merely by completing a simple form. The Bill gives the Inland Revenue a right of appeal through the tax commissioners where there is any doubt about employee status. Employee status can be determined only by the commissioners where there is evidence that the taxpayer gains his earnings from one employer under one contract of employment only and where the taxpayer has the right, under his contract of employment, to be reimbursed for authorised out-of-pocket expenses. In other words, the Bill will change the burden of proof so that the inspector of taxes will have to make a case that a person cannot be treated as self-employed, whereas at present he has a complete and arbitrary discretion.
The Bill is entirely in line with Conservative philosophy. Our people should be encouraged and permitted to take the step of self-reliance and the route to independence. Self-employment is one of the most obvious escape routes from that sterile employee culture which was recently condemned by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
The immediate effect of the Bill will be to enable people to work without their employers having to calculate PAYE, and worry about the hassle of national insurance contributions, or about being taken over the threshold for registration of VAT because they have employed people. Employers will be able to employ people under contract when needed, without the fear of becoming locked in by employment protection laws and the other burdens on businesses. It is a short cut. At a stroke, employers will be relieved of that burden.
This one act, which the Inland Revenue seems so determined to prevent, would enable hundreds of thousands of people to be employed by small firms. It would, dramatically lower the cost of employing them, without lowering wage levels. The Treasury would still get its money in the end, albeit from self-employed people and after a delay.
The most important aspect concerns not the creative supply side effects but the iniquity of the retrospective way
148
in which the Inland Revenue determines self-employed and employee status. It has been waging a battle against the self-employed. The PAYE system is terribly convenient for the Inland Revenue because employers become unpaid tax collectors. The Revenue has been examining particular groups of workers to see whether it can challenge their self-employed status.
I was appalled to see in a written answer in column 387 of Hansard of 13 July 1983 that between 1979 and 1983, 7,000 self-employed taxpayers engaged in the film, television and radio industry—I hope that the BBC is listening—were reclassified as employees, following reviews by the Inland Revenue. A further 100,000 people in part-time or occasional employment were also reclassified by the Inland Revenue.
There are no cut and dried rules, and that leaves employers and employees vulnerable. I refer the House to the case of the umbrella man. [Interruption.] It has nothing to do with wets. The Times of Saturday 15 June reported about an umbrella man with a highly successful business, James Ince and Son, which employed people on a self-employed basis. Following a review by the Revenue the firm, which had had no idea of the consequences, was faced with back taxes and national insurance contributions because the self-employed workers were reclassified as employees. That small firm faced a bill for £19,000. But for the fact that it had a freehold, the firm would have been put out of business.
There may or may not have been justice in that case, and there are hundreds of others. The National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors are pressing for this type of reform. We must have defined criteria so that small businesses are left in no doubt about the status of their employees. Small businesses cannot afford fancy accountants and professional advice. They rely on professionals to audit their accounts, and they must make judgments as they go along.
The Bill would also end the bureaucracy surrounding the issue of sub-contractors' exemption certificates which enable self-employed people in the construction industry to be paid gross, without deductions. That system is thoroughly wicked. It effectively operates as a licence to work. To get an exemption certificate to be treated as a self-employed sub-contractor, one must show that one has been employed for three of the past six years. If one cannot show that, one cannot become self-employed.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth), who has drawn my attention to cases in his constituency of unemployed people who cannot take up employment because they cannot get the necessary certificate. The Treasury says that it has made a concession and that, if our constituents will put up a bond for £2,500 to the Revenue, they may operate as self-employed people. That is Catch 22, since those who are unemployed, those who are seeking work, have neither the money nor the record of employment with which to meet those criteria. That is invidious.
Pessimists in the House will say that the day of full employment have gone for ever. I believe that that is arrant nonsense. Some jobs are there now if only we made it possible for people to fill them. We must take the market at its own value and we must take the opportunities which it holds for our people. Our children should be encouraged to see self-employment as a realistic and admirable option in the schools. Far from fearing change and progress,

149
which follows from changing times and technology, we should embrace it. The Bill seeks to provide a secure base from which to do that.
3.46 pm
Mr. Eric S. Heifer: I should like to oppose the Bill. Although I do not understand everything that the hon. Gentleman said, I understand clearly what he was saying in relation to self-employment in the construction industry.
One of the great curses in this country has been the development of self-employment—the lump system—in the construction industry. Over the years the lump system has undermined craftsmanship, good workmanship and good products for the people in the industry. Some employers — a worthy number of employers —are opposed to the lump in the construction industry. However, it has grown up and it is consistent, with the philosophy which the Government have developed in the past few years.
It is a myth to believe that everyone can be self-employed, and it is rubbish to suggest that the answer to our unemployment problems is self-employment. It has done great damage to the people of this country and to our industries and I believe that the House would be wrong to allow the Bill to go through. Even though it is a minor Bill with no great consequences, it shows the basic philosophy and attitude of many—not all—Conservative Members.
The Bill would also undermine trade union rights which have been built up over hundreds of years. It also undermines the safety and health legislation that has been necessary to protect the interests of working people in industry over the years. Without making a great speech, I hope that hon. Members will oppose the hon. Gentleman and tell him that there is no place in our country for legislation of this kind.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nominaton of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—
The House divided: Ayes 174, Noes 125.

Division No. 59]

[3.48 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

Alexander, Richard

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Cartwright, John

Ashby, David

Chapman, Sydney

Ashdown, Paddy

Chope, Christopher

Aspinwall, Jack

Churchill, W. S.

Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Baldry, Tony

Cockeram, Eric

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Conway, Derek

Beith, A. J.

Coombs, Simon

Bellingham, Henry

Cormack, Patrick

Bevan, David Gilroy

Corrie, John

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Couchman, James

Body, Sir Richard

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Dickens, Geoffrey

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Dykes, Hugh

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Brinton, Tim

Fallon, Michael

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

Farr, Sir John

Bruinvels, Peter

Favell, Anthony

Budgen, Nick

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Burt, Alistair

Fookes, Miss Janet

Butterfill, John

Forman, Nigel

150

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Murphy, Christopher

Forth, Eric

Nicholls, Patrick

Fox, Marcus

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Franks, Cecil

Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

Freud, Clement

Page, Richard (Herts SW)

Galley, Roy

Parris, Matthew

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Pawsey, James

Glyn, Dr Alan

Penhaligon, David

Gorst, John

Pollock, Alexander

Gow, Ian

Portillo, Michael

Gower, Sir Raymond

Powley, John

Greenway, Harry

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Gregory, Conal

Price, Sir David

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Grylls, Michael

Raffan, Keith

Hampson, Dr Keith

Rathbone, Tim

Hancock, Michael

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Harris, David

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Haselhurst, Alan

Rost, Peter

Hayes, J.

Rowe, Andrew

Hayward, Robert

Ryder, Richard

Heddle, John

Sackville, Hon Thomas

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Sayeed, Jonathan

Hickmet, Richard

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Hicks, Robert

Sims, Roger

Hill, James

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Hind, Kenneth

Speed, Keith

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

Spence, John

Holt, Richard

Spencer, Derek

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

Squire, Robin

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

Steel, Rt Hon David

Howells, Geraint

Steen, Anthony

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Stern, Michael

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

Jessel, Toby

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Jones, Robert (Herts W)

Taylor, John (Solihull)

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Kennedy, Charles

Temple-Morris, Peter

Kershaw, Sir Anthony

Terlezki, Stefan

Knight, Greg (Derby N)

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Latham, Michael

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Thornton, Malcolm

Lilley, Peter

Thurnham, Peter

Lord, Michael

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Lyell, Nicholas

Trotter, Neville

McCrindle, Robert

Wainwright, R.

McCurley, Mrs Anna

Walker, Bill (T'side N)

MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Wallace, James

Maclean, David John

Ward, John

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Warren, Kenneth

McQuarrie, Albert

Watts, John

Malins, Humfrey

Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

Marlow, Antony

Whitfield, John

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Wiggin, Jerry

Meadowcroft, Michael

Wilkinson, John

Merchant, Piers

Winterton, Nicholas

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Wood, Timothy

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Morris, M. (N'hampton S)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Mr. Neil Hamilton and

Mudd, David

Mr. Gerald Howarth.

NOES

Anderson, Donald

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

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

Ashton, Joe

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Barnett, Guy

Clarke, Thomas

Bell, Stuart

Clay, Robert

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

Clelland, David Gordon

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Boyes, Roland

Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Crowther, Stan

151

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Marek, Dr John

Cunningham, Dr John

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Dalyell, Tam

Martin, Michael

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

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

Maxton, John

Dixon, Donald

Maynard, Miss Joan

Dobson, Frank

Meacher, Michael

Douglas, Dick

Michie, William

Dubs, Alfred

Mikardo, Ian

Duffy, A. E. P.

Millen, Rt Hon Bruce

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Eadie, Alex

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Eastham, Ken

Nellist, David

Evans, John (St. Helens N)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Ewing, Harry

O'Brien, William

Fatchett, Derek

O'Neill, Martin

Faulds, Andrew

Park, George

Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

Parry, Robert

Fisher, Mark

Patchett, Terry

Flannery, Martin

Pavitt, Laurie

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Pike, Peter

Forrester, John

Radice, Giles

Foster, Derek

Richardson, Ms Jo

Foulkes, George

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Garrett, W. E.

Robertson, George

Hamilton, James (M'well N)

Rogers, Allan

Hamilton, W. W. (Fife Central)

Rooker, J. W.

Harman, Ms Harriet

Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Sheerman, Barry

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Haynes, Frank

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Heffer, Eric S.

Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Skinner, Dennis

Home Robertson, John

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

Hughes, Dr Mark (Durham)

Snape, Peter

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Stott, Roger

Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

Straw, Jack

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

Lamond, James

Thorne, Stan (Preston)

Leadbitter, Ted

Torney, Tom

Leighton, Ronald

Welsh, Michael

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Williams, Rt Hon A.

Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

Winnick, David

Litherland, Robert

Woodall, Alec

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Loyden, Edward

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Tellers for the Noes:

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Mr. William McKelvey and

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn.

McTaggart, Robert

Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Michael Forsyth, Mr. Neil Hamilton, Mr. Christopher Chope, Mr. Michael Grylls, Mr. George Gardiner, Mr. Michael Fallon, Mr. Gerald Howarth, Mr. Robert B. Jones and Mr. Stefan Terlezki.

Right to be Self-Employed
  RIGHT TO BE SELF-EMPLOYED
  Mr. Michael Forsyth accordingly presented a Bill to clarify the criteria used to determine self-employed or employee status for the purposes of tax and other legislation: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 7 March and to be printed. [Bill 76.]
Orders of the Day

  Housing and Planning Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Speaker: I must announce that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. John Maxton: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. May I have your advice on this Bill? It is the custom and the constitutional right of the House that Scottish business be dealt with by Scottish Bills which are considered by Committees on which only Scottish Members serve. All too often the Government have breached that tradition by putting clauses that relate to Scotland into Bills largely concerned with England and Wales. That practice puts Scottish Members at a severe disadvantage.
  We have the same thing with this Bill, in which five major clauses relate to Scotland. I and other Scottish hon. Members are serving on a Standing Committee which is considering the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which contains many clauses that are exactly the same as clauses in this Bill. The Minister in charge of the Bill in Committee is the Minister with responsibility for local government and housing in Scotland. Because he is serving on that Bill, he will be unable to serve in Committee on this Bill and a Scottish Office Minister with no responsibility for housing and local government will be in charge of it.
  As the spokesman for the Opposition in the Committee considering the Housing (Scotland) Bill, I should like to make the Government an offer. I am prepared to facilitate the Government in removing the Scottish clauses from this Bill and adding them to the Housing (Scotland) Bill as new clauses. Scottish Members have some right to protection from the present abuse. What we really require, of course, is an assembly in Edinburgh.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall take the hon. Gentleman's point of order, but this is not a matter for me.
  Mr. Forth: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. How can Opposition Members suggest that Scottish Members are free to participate in English legislation but that there is a system of apartheid which prevents English Members from participating in and supervising what is going on north of the border?
  Mr. Allan Roberts: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not want to turn this into a battle between England and Wales and Scotland, but I hope to serve on the Committee which considers the Housing and Planning Bill, 90 per cent. of which concerns England and Wales, and I could not possibly have the knowledge or ability to speak on the Scottish clauses. The same is true for most of the hon. Members who will consider the Bill because Scottish law is completely different from the law affecting England and Wales. It is a fog and a mystery to English and Welsh Members. It is an imposition on English Members, even if they represent outposts of Ireland such as Bootle, to put Scottish clauses into the Bill.
  Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) has made an interesting suggestion, which I am sure could be taken up through the usual channels.
  4.4 pm
  The Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction (Mr. John Patten): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill has one underlying theme —the need to create the conditions in which available resources, private and public, human and financial, are released and mobilised to improve the conditions in which our people live, especially to help improve housing conditions and to tackle problems in the inner cities. I intend to consider housing, inner cities and then planning.
  The Bill marks one more stage in the development of the Government's housing policies. We can claim major practical achievements for our housing policies since 1979, but, perhaps even more important, we have won the argument about housing in the long term. Quite simply, the intellectual landscape of housing policy has changed, and the centre ground has shifted. Nothing could illustrate that more vividly than the gradual change in the attitude of the Labour party to our policy of council house sales. That policy has been so successful that we have irreversibly altered the perceptions of tenants of the choices and opportunities which should be open to them.
  Mr. David Winnick: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Tony Banks: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Dave Nellist: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: We have irreversibly changed the landscape of housing policy. There is no turning back.
  Mr. Winnick: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: Since the Government came to power, the status of council tenants has been transformed. The Bill would give tenants still more choice and still more control over their own homes.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: Perceptions of the role of public housing are changing all of the time and I believe that they are changing in all parties in the House.
  Mr. Winnick: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: Nobody would deny that public sector housing faces major problems. There is a legacy of bad stock, aging stock, bad design and poor workmanship. Much good work is being done by housing managers in local government, but too much of it is still remote from tenants and insensitive to their needs. In some authority areas, such basic tasks of property management as keeping down rent arears and arranging that houses are not left empty are sadly neglected.
  Mr. Winnick: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: Money alone is not the answer. Resources were poured into public sector housing in the 1960s and the early 1970s, and look at the result. Too often, the result has been vast, impersonal estates — the concrete
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  desolation in which few people would today choose to live. The problem in public sector housing does not lie with money alone. Of course there is a continuing role for public sector housing, but in the rest of this century and the next century it will be different. It will be smaller and more specialised. The old bureaucratic and paternalistic monopoly which has characterised public sector housing for too long must go.
  Mr. Winnick: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: Major changes of attitude will be needed. There will have to be more choice, more responsive management and, above all, an enhanced role for tenants.
  Mr. Heffer: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: We must get new agencies involved to draw on the resources of the private sector and to diversify the provision of rented housing.
  Mr. Winnick: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: One more passage, and I shall give way to at least one hon. Member.
  The keynote is not doctrinaire privatisation, but diversification and an end to bureaucratic control. I believe that the whole House shares that hope. I am sure that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), to whom I now give way, shares that view.
  Mr. Heffer: Is the Minister denying that thousands and thousands of ordinary people would not have lived in reasonable houses had there not been local authority housing? Does the hon. Gentleman think that that is wrong? Is the hon. Gentleman saying that, because sometimes great mistakes were made in relation to those houses, the principle is wrong?
  Mr. Patten: I recognise, as I said in my speech, that public housing will continue to have a role as far as I can see, albeit in a more specialised and narrower focus. The hon. Gentleman would do more for the city he seeks to serve if he persuaded the council to bring back into use the 10,000 or so empty flats and houses in Liverpool today.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: No, I would like to make a little progress. I am saving the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) for later.
  The first three clauses make important changes in the right to buy. They increase discounts on flats by 10 per cent. and provide flat purchasers with better protection against high service charges in the early years after purchase.
  Mr. Jerry Hayes: I am sure that the Minister's words will be of great comfort to many of my constituents who have been frightened to buy their own flats because of high service and repair charges, which sometimes they did not know about until after the sale.
  Mr. Patten: I agree with my hon. Friend that it is indeed sad that high service charges deter so many people from buying flats, particularly in city centres where it is so important to try to introduce more diversified forms of tenure.

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  We are also introducing the right to a loan enabling purchasers to spread the burden of particularly heavy charges. Sales of flats in the big blocks in our major cities have so far been relatively few. The provisions in the Bill will encourage further sales.
  Clause 1 also helps mobility by providing that the period during which discount must be repaid on resale will be reduced from five years to three.
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Does my hon. Friend accept that the people in Leicester who live in flats will be particularly grateful for the news he has announced today, and for the passing of the Bill, as only seven flats have so far been sold in Leicester, East? Can my hon. Friend ensure that the new proposals will be sent to the director of housing on Leicester city council to encourage him to sell more flats as the people in Leicester want to be able to buy their own flats?
  Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend has on previous occasions brought to my attention and to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment the goings-on in Leicester council. As he suggests, I will certainly write to the director of housing and to the leader of the council and ask them to explain to their tenants the new opportunities that we intend to give in the Bill should it become law.
  The Bill is not simply about purchase. It will also enable those who continue to rent to have more choice. With my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's consent, local authorities can already transfer ownership of estates to other bodies. Clause 4 will provide a statutory basis to protect the rights of tenants under such transfers. Under clause 6, local authorities will be able to retain ownership—
  Dr. John Cunningham: What about clause 5?
  Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman must not fear. I shall come to clause 5 in a moment.
  Under clause 6, local authorities will be able to retain ownership but to delegate the management of particular estates to other bodies. At present, authorities are able to delegate their powers only to tenant management cooperatives of which there are already about 20, with, happily, more on the way.
  Mr. Richard Holt: Does my hon. Friend accept that the period he picked, five years, is a spit in the wind? Would he also accept that a three-year period is also a spit in the wind? I would like to hear the intellectual argument giving the reason why there has to be any period whatsoever, particularly when that inhibits people from places like Copeland who want to move and get new jobs in other parts of the country.
  Mr. Patten: By reducing the length of time from five years to three years, we are attempting to increase the opportunities for job mobility. We shall keep the whole matter under review in further legislation. I believe that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) would very much like me to give way to him.
  Mr. Nellist: Does the Minister remember that the Conservative manifesto of 1983 stated that it was the Government's goal to make Great Britain the best-housed nation in Europe? How does the Minister set that alongside the Government's record of reducing to 20p in the pound
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  the spending on housing, thus making British spending on housing as a proportion of national income the lowest of any country in the Common Market?
  In clause 5, which ignores the 5 million damp and unfit houses in the country, the Minister introduces the power and authority for councils to flog off parts of their estates to private companies. Does the Minister recognise the validity of a comment made to me by a tenant in Stoke Aldermoor, in Coventry, South-East, on Friday night, who said that if the measure is carried out, there will be islands of affluence in council estates within a sea of effluent? Is that not the intention of the Bill?
  Mr. Patten: I thought, with respect to the hon. Gentleman, that I was probably wrong to give way because the hon. Gentleman can never resist making a speech when he should be asking a question.
  In response to the hon. Gentleman's first point, and his reference to the 1983 Conservative manifesto—and an excellent manifesto that was—it is indeed our intention to make housing in this country the envy of the rest of Europe. That is why we are seeking through the Bill and in other ways to mobilise all possible resources to bring that about. On many estates, like the one to which the hon. Gentleman referred, developers have been brought in to refurbish rundown council houses by Labour councils. Successful schemes such as those at Regent park, Salford or St. John's green in North Tyneside relieve authorities of a problem and give an enormous boost to the character of an estate, introducing a variety of tenures. Where blocks are only partly empty, it is fair that the remaining tenants should receive a home loss payment when they move.
  Clause 5 will enable such payments to be made. It also allows an extra ground for possession under the tenants' charter. That will be similar to the existing ground available since 1980 to local authorities when they carry out redevelopment. In all cases, tenants who move will be given suitable alternative housing as they are given suitable alternative housing by councils when councils redevelop their own blocks.
  Moreover, in the case of schemes involving private sector redevelopment, we are proposing the extra safeguard that all schemes will have to be approved by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Opposition are rightly and reasonably concerned about the welfare of tenants as are the Government. That is why the Bill safeguards them.
  All these proposals demand a fresh approach from housing managers. That will give public sector landlordism a much better name than it sometimes has at present. The Government want to help in that process and that is why clause 7 enables my Department to grant-aid training and to provide better finance for more management innovation. I will give way to the hon. Member for Bootle if he thinks that now is the right time.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: I hoped that the Minister might give way a second time.
  If the Government say that they are trying to do something about charters, why are they launching a major attack on the owner-occupier? Why are they cutting improvement grant moneys in their housing investment allocations to local authorities? For example, Sefton borough council asked for £5·5 million but it only has £1·1 million. Sefton can give only the minimum number

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  of improvement grants to owner-occupiers and only in improvement areas. Why, under this Government, has there been at least a fourfold increase in the number of owner-occupiers who have had to default on their mortgages because they could not keep up with their payments?
  Mr. Patten: The number of people defaulting on their mortgages is minute — 0·2 per cent. of all people holding mortgages. Since coming to office, we have spent a substantial sum on home improvement grants, £2·5 billion. This year, it is currently running at £500 million. If Sefton borough council wants to spend more on home improvements, it can do so.
  Mr. John Heddle: To underline his point, will my hon. Friend confirm that in 1979 the outgoing Labour Government gave only £94 million towards home improvement grants? Therein lies the difference between the Conservative and Labour Governments.
  Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is peculiar that the Opposition refuse to acknowledge such progress as has been made to the tune of £2·5 billion over seven years. Yet, in one year, the Labour Government were prepared to spend only about £90 million. That is an absurd point.
  Mr. Tony Marlow: My hon. Friend has been very tolerant in giving way. I am grateful to him. Under the Bill, my hon. Friend will enable councils to privatise some of their estates, should they wish to do so. We understand that many councils, including several enlightened Labour councils, will pursue that course of action. What will my hon. Friend do for those of our unfortunate citizens who live in the areas currently controlled by those Labour councillors who will be the Labour party's next prospective parliamentary candidates—the Hattons, the Bernie Grants and so on? Those citizens will still be imprisoned if council housing is controlled by these Labour barons who have no intention of providing decent housing. Can we move one stage further and require these councils to take action?
  Mr. Patten: The first piece of advice I would give those tenants is to vote Conservative in the borough elections in May. The second piece of advice to them is to shame — perhaps one should use the word "whitemail"—their Labour councils into doing the same things that excellent Labour councils such as Salford, Oldham and North Tyneside are doing because they care for their tenants and want to improve their lot.
  I turn to the inner cities. I hope that there is no hon. Member who says, "There is an easy solution to inner city problems" or "It is a matter of doing this or spending that and it will be all right." We already have a considerable range of instruments—some of which date back to the important 1977 Labour White Paper on inner cities—in the urban programme, derelict land grant, urban development grants, urban development corporations and the urban housing renewal unit. However, we need to do more to mobilise private sector resources in the regeneration of our inner cities. That is why part III enables my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to give financial support for expenditure on urban regeneration.
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  That will be an important power. It is well precedented. It will complement the powers that Ministers in other Departments already have to give financial assistance to industry and to training programmes. Part III is drawn in wide terms. It will be used selectively by Ministers. Our initial intention is to use it to tackle one problem with which existing grant regimes cannot cope. We are open to suggestions from hon. Members on ways of using this new power.
  Mr. John Butterfill: Does my hon. Friend accept that some of us are a little concerned about the wording in clause 11, which refers to
  "creating an attractive environment or ensuring that housing and social facilities are available"?
  Does my hon. Friend accept that there are facilities other than social facilities that should be provided —for example, shops? People would not want to live on a housing estate that did not have shops. It might be desirable to incorporate facilities other than social facilities. Would not a better word be "associated" facilities?
  Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend is right. We shall consider that point in Committee and tighten the provision. It is not within my gift to put my hon. Friend on the Committee—
  Mr. Conal Gregory: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Patten: —but it is within my gift to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for York.
  Mr. Gregory: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, especially as there have been so many interventions during his excellent speech. He has referred to inner city regeneration and the need to move more towards the private sector, as 62 per cent. of the population is housed by the private sector. As we are talking in terms of £75 million of housing stock in England being held by local authorities, will my hon. Friend consider in Committee imposing a requirement on local authorities to publish, at least annually, for council tenants in houses or in flats, the differential between continuing to rent accommodation from a local authority over a typical 20 to 25 year period and purchasing that property? Clearly, the effect would be to shift 9 to 10 per cent. more people from the public sector to the private sector. At the moment, many of the people who come to my surgery and to the surgeries of other hon. Members do not fully understand the equation. It is simple: it makes sense to buy one's house.
  Mr. Patten: That is an intriguing idea. I had not thought of it before. It is one that we must consider, along with repair costs. I shall draw that idea to the attention of my city council—Oxford city council—which has put out a scandalous little leaflet, as so many Labour-controlled councils have done, entitled "Bob and Betty buy their council house", which failed to point out many of the advantages to Bob and Betty of buying their council house.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Patten: I shall certainly not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on the same point before he moves on?
  Mr. Patten: I return to the ways in which urban regeneration grants can be used.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: The areas to which we intend to apply this grant generally share three characteristics.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way, on the same point?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) must not persist if the Minister has made it clear that he will not give way.
  Mr. Patten: A number of areas share three characteristics. First, they have a lot of derelict land, which is disused, underused or obsolete property—
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: Secondly, they are too big to be regenerated or redeveloped—
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East is not interested in listening to an exposé of the powers of the new grant, which will be of great use to his own city.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East must resume his seat. It is clear that the Minister is not giving way.
  Mr. Patten: I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman. I do not intend him any disrespect. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not give way again.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Minister give way on the same point?
  Mr. Patten'Secondly, those areas are too big to be regenerated or redeveloped by a single project supported by urban development grant. Thirdly, individual buildings in the area cannot be dealt with because of surrounding conditions.
  We shall be looking first for areas such as those—heaven knows there are enough of them—where the private sector is willing to contribute its share to regeneration. This use of the new power will be known as urban regeneration grant. I am placing in the Library copies of a paper giving more details.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: We are considering also whether this power can be used in connection with housing to back up the urban housing renewal unit's initiatives under the direction of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment—the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young).
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Anthony Steen rose—
  Mr. Patten: I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will forgive me if I do not give way. I have already given way quite a lot. I am conscious of the fact that many hon. Members will seek to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
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  Part II provides powers to establish simplified planning zones. They, too, will be of particular importance in the inner city. This is a radical new idea to speed up inner city and other development, exactly complementing urban regeneration grant.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: Each local planning authority will have to consider whether to establish one or more simplified planning zones.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: They must prepare a scheme for each zone. The scheme will grant planning permission for any development of the type or types that it specifies. For 10 years thereafter, developers will have the certainty that such a development can be carried on without the need for a planning application or the associated fees. I hope that those points will be widely welcomed. I believe that many local authorities will want simplified planning zones. The Bill provides that, if a local authority will not prepare a scheme, any person can refer the matter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment who can then direct the authority to prepare or alter a scheme.
  Mr. Robert Adley: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Patten: I give way, for the last time.
  Mr. Adley: I am truly grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. He is aware of my concern and that of the Christchurch council, which has been fighting to retain its character against the predatory activities of some large building companies. Will he make it clear beyond peradventure that local authorities will not be required under clause 9 to designate areas as simplified planning zones? As the Bill reads, it appears to make it incumbent upon local authorities to do so. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends who represent certain parts of the country are extremely worried about this provision.
  Mr. Patten: I know of my hon. Friend's concern and that of other of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Councils will be required to ascertain whether there are any areas within their responsibility that could benefit from designation as simplified planning zones. If they find that there are no areas that would benefit from such designation, it will not be incumbent upon them to designate one area here or there merely for the sake of it. I hope that my hon. Friend will take that reassurance from me. I shall consider the matter again in Committee to ensure that we arrive at exactly the right wording.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Patten: I turn to other planning aspects of the Bill that, to a lesser extent, complement urban regeneration grants and simplified planning zones, which together will be such valuable additional tools to those that we use already to implement our urban policy. We hope that the grants and zones will be another significant step forward for the inner cities.
  Thirdly, and lastly—
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: No, I shall nog: give way. Part IV is very important. It requires—
  Mr. Nicholas Baker: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that I rise on behalf of a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends who want to take advantage of my hon. Friend's extraordinary generosity in allowing important interventions to be made, especially those relating to simplified planning zones. I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you will restrain the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) from disrupting the process of the debate. His behaviour has caused my hon. Friend to refuse, quite understandably, to allow a number of us to intervene to make important additional points about the urban development of the south of England, and Dorset, especially.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The point of order of the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) gives me an opportunity to say that there is great pressure on time in this debate. Many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to participate in it, and interventions inevitably lengthen speeches.
  Mr. Patten rose—
  Mr. Nellist: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With the greatest respect, I am sent to this place by 50,000 constituents, half of whom are council tenants. When the Minister makes controversial remarks in his opening speech in introducing such a crucial Bill, it is my duty, and that of other Members, to attempt to question him.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I know that the hon. Gentleman is hoping to catch my eye, and I hope that he will not push his luck.
  Mr. Patten: I understand the deep concern of those of my hon. Friends who represent counties such as Dorset. I appreciate that they do not wish planning powers to be abused. In responding to an earlier intervention I attempted to explain that it will not be the duty of councils to define simplified planning zones at all costs. It will be their duty to ascertain whether any areas within the borough or district would benefit from simplified planning zone status. That is the whole, complete and utter story.
  Part IV requires the specific consent of the planning authority to the use of land for purposes involving the presence of hazardous substances. At present there is a yawning gap in planning control. It is possible, without any material change of use or any specific consent, to introduce highly dangerous substances on to land. We can no longer allow this to continue in the interests of public health and safety and of the environment.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: The theme of the remainder of the Bill is the efficient, simple and speedy operation of the planning system. An example is the provisions of schedule 8 on the award of costs against unreasonable planning authorities and applicants. I know that that is an issue of interest to some of my hon. Friends. Part V is another example of simplification. It brings to an end duplicate procedures for the control of opencast coal mining.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: We are using the Bill to get rid of some redundant statutes. The Bill makes equivalent provision for Scotland as it does for England and Wales, except for housing, an issue which was the subject of points of order
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  earlier, when Mr. Speaker was in the Chair. Provisions appropriate to Scottish circumstances are contained in the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which is presently in Committee.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the Minister now give way?
  Mr. Patten: Some of the provisions in the Bill are radical while others remove unnecessary regulation and introduce simplifications. Provisions to make regulations work more effectively may seem to be rather humdrum, but it is important that we get planning law right. Even if Opposition Members are not in agreement with every element of our policy, I hope that they will accept its general drift. I believe that we are all devoted to one end, that of mobilising public and private resources and releasing the energies of individuals, tenants, communities, company directors, managers, councillors, officials, investors and others to play a part in improving their own areas.
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Patten: No, I shall not give way.
  Where it is necessary to retain or increase control in the interests of safety, amenity and the environment generally, the Bill does just that. I am as hopeful of that as I am of the further important changes in housing which the Bill introduces, and the message of hope that it offers to the inner cities.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Patten: I commend the Bill to the House.
  4.38 pm
  Mr. Jeff Rooker: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "the House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which encourages the eviction of council tenants from their homes in order for them to be redeveloped and sold to other people, which will allow planning powers to be taken out of the control of elected authorities, which departs from the partnership principle for urban regeneration, which fails to reverse the real cut in the urban programme planned for 1986–87 or to provide any new resources to deal with the massive problems of urban decay, housing shortage and disrepair amongst home owners and tenants; and regrets the missed opportunity that the Bill presented to give new rights to millions of tenants to control the management of their public sector housing, if they wish."
  First, I give the assurance that the Opposition will facilitate procedurally anything that can be done to transfer the Scottish material from the Bill to the Housing (Scotland) Bill, whether we disagree with it or not. I think that there is a general feeling on both sides of the House that that material would be more properly set within the provisions of the other measure.
  Mr. Sydney Chapman: The planning provisions relating to Scotland that are set out in the Bill could not be placed in the Housing (Scotland) Bill because they would be without the long title of that measure.
  Mr. Rooker: It is quite easy to amend a long title. That is no barrier.
  We are debating housing and the other matters to which the Minister referred. The Bill is a somewhat miscellaneous measure but, essentially, we are debating the right of the citizen to have decent housing. That is what housing policy should be about. Housing is not confined to tenure, finance or the roles of central and local

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  government. All these factors play a part, but only a part. The formulation and conduct of policy must be aimed at achieving the central objective of providing decent housing for our people. If the policy does not achieve that, it will be seen by the consumer to be irrelevant.
  The housing crisis—
  Mr. Forth rose—
  Mr. Rooker: I shall not give way now. I shall do so in a few minutes. I do not want to delay the House unnecessarily. but I have quite a lengthy speech and I wish to complete it.
  The housing crisis is all around us. We hear so from Conservative Members who say that they do not want houses in their constituencies. The nature of the crisis in their constituencies must be different from what it is in the constituencies of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Britain has a diversity of housing, so no single plan can be held up to meet the crisis. There is no question of anyone arguing that that could be the case.
  It is a statement of the obvious to say that we should aim for homes that are dry, allow privacy, and are well maintained and secure. For millions of our fellow citizens that is not achieved. To be precise, 4 million households in England suffer that injustice. Two out of nine homes in England are either unfit, lacking in basic amenities, or in need of substantial renovation. That adds up to a coalition of several million badly housed people, owners and tenants alike. They will not thank anyone for seeking to erect artificial barriers of tenure and finance between them and a decent home. The best definition of decent housing is that in which people are happy. Happiness comes from control over one's life, including one's home. To meet that objective, we need a coherent housing policy. We must test the Bill against that aim.
  The Government's short answer is that they are not selling enough flats, but they fail to appreciate why. I claim that people will not buy what they cannot sell. It is a bad bargain at any price, as the owners of defective concrete houses have discovered.
  Mr. Forth: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Rooker: I shall give way shortly.
  So far, 29,000 flats have been sold compared with about 700,000 houses since the change in the law in 1980. That represents about 4 per cent. of a local authority flats stock of 33 per cent. of all council housing. It appears from clause 3 that the new right to a loan—I say right to a loan and not right to a home, because that is not what the Bill is about—is nothing more than a right for today's tenants of flats to become owners to pay for the necessary large scale renovation of our nation's flats. It is a loan secured against the flat, so their very home would be used to pay it off. That comes at a time when 72 per cent. of council tenants are on housing benefit.
  Why is there no promise in the Bill of reinstatement grants as there is in the Housing Defects Act 1984? We know that that is a con, but at least the promise of a grant is there if the resources are made available to back it up. The recent report of the Department of the Environment on the condition of the public housing stock is daunting reading. It should be sent as a financial health warning to those thinking of buying a flat. The Government know —because they are their figures—that £18·8 billion is required for public housing. No less than £6·5 billion of that is for flats.
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  From the Government's report, flat repairs will cost between £2,800 and £14,000 per flat, with an average of £5,000. Flat dwellers should be warned. The restriction on service charges does not last for ever, and the potential cost for flat dwellers buying on that basis is frightening. It would not be a bargain, even at a 90 per cent. discount, to be trapped in a home that one could not leave and on which one must borrow to pay off service charges to make good the structure. If the true financial burden is made clear, the Government's efforts in the Bill simply will not work.
  If the Government were serious about housing need, especially rented housing need, they would have proposed a portable discount for flat dwellers that would have enabled those who wanted to buy to do so, thus leaving a flat available for rent. The Labour party proposed such a scheme in Brent and it is working well on an experimental basis. That could have been taken up by the Government and we regret that they have not done so.
  Flats in tower blocks can be made highly desirable places in which to live, not by piecemeal selling off, but by imagination and flair of management, which needs to be as intense in the public sector as it is in the private sector. For a start, porters in tower blocks would be a sight more effective than entryphones. There are examples in my constituency of the doors being ripped off. Wages would be recouped by the reduction of damage and the consequent higher occupancy. The tenures can be mixed as easily as they are in houses. There are many examples from around the country, some of which are identified at length in the report on tower blocks by the South Bank polytechnic published by the Institute of Housing a year ago. We urge action along those lines and we regret that the Government have failed to take it.
  Mr. Forth: What is the policy of the hon. Gentleman's party in assisting people in those matters, for example by offering discounts when they want to buy property, whether it is a flat or a house? More important, what is his attitude to the local authorities' policy of threatening to repurchase, or repurchasing what tenants have bought from the authority in the first place?
  Mr. Rooker: The hon. Gentleman has not been listening. I have just castigated the Government for not taking advantage of providing a portable discount for flat dwellers. The implication is that we would give general support to that as an alternative to the Bill. I shall try to meet the hon. Gentleman's other points later. I shall make my speech in my own way.
  Mr. Marlow: The hon. Gentleman has put out a little bit of a scare story about service charges to flat dwellers. In the private sector people buy their flats and manage the service charges. I know that the hon. Gentleman says that they are too high, but in a lot of the private sector they are not, and on the Continent people buy their flats and they cope with them there. Why is it such a problem in the public sector?
  Mr. Rooker: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes to the Vote Office and reads the Government's report on quality and the need to spend on renovating public sector housing stock, which they are trying to sell off at a greater rate. The hon. Member should look at the figures, because they are exactly the ones that I have quoted.
  The Bill does little for the homeless. A few nights ago I visited some families stuck in bed and breakfast

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  accommodation in the Bayswater area. Families have been placed by authorities in 10ft by 10ft rooms. One of those authorities not only has 1,500 empty homes, but has so managed to arrange its finances as to underspend its meagre housing investment allocation by a cool £1 million.
  One young mother, in a hotel since last August with no offer or visit from those who placed her, explained that she cannot get on a doctor's list, cannot use the local nursery, cannot cook properly and has had three different rooms in a hotel that is subject to fires. In the first few weeks, when she was under terrible strain with her new baby, she rang her local social services department for help and advice and was told, "It is OK, whatever you do to your baby you will be OK." She will never trust a local authority social services department again. That is the type of pressure under which young families have been put by being forced to use that sort of accommodation. For the homeless, the formulation of policy is irrelevant, unless it brings about a decent home. I will gladly take the Minister to meet that family if he wishes so that he can explain how the Bill will help them in their circumstances.
  Before today's maiden housing speech by the Minister, as a Back Bencher he is on record as asking only one question on the subject. On 25 July 1979 he asked about housing construction starts in the public and private sectors.
  Mr. Nellist: Seven years ago?
  Mr. Rooker: He was a Back Bencher for only one and a half years. Just after his election he asked a question about housing construction starts in the public and private sectors. In answer to the hon. Gentleman, the Minister referred him to statistics which clearly showed that Labour were building 5,400 new homes a week during their period of office. Has he asked the question again since he became Minister for Housing? If so, he would have been told that the Tory record since 1979 shows not 5,400 new homes per week, but ony 3,400 per week — 2,000 per week short.
  Mr. John Patten: I am grateful to the hon. Member for the close care he has shown in looking up things that I said on earlier occasions. I am flattered by that. Does the hon. Gentleman recall that in his summing up of the debate on the inner cities he said that he abhored, in housing terms, playing the numbers game? Does he agree that much more important than bandying about statistics—amusingly put as his assertions are—he would be better advised to concentrate, as the Bill does, on ways and means to bring back into use hundreds of thousands of empty flats and houses in the public and private sectors, which would help the homeless and others? Does he agree that making use of the resources available is of paramount importance?
  Mr. Rooker: I could not agree more, and I shall deal with that in a few moments.
  Most of the worst housing in Britain is in the private sector—usually in the urban areas where Labour local authorities own the worst quality public sector housing. Since they own most public housing, it follows that they own most of the worst housing. Those urban areas are usually represented here by Labour Members, which is
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  one reason why the Labour Government were seized of the problem and organised their affairs so that they could build 2,000 more new homes a week than the Tory Government have done since 1979. Had the Government simply continued what the Minister suggests was Labour's meagre housing programme, Britain would have 500,000 more homes than it does now. That would make a massive contribution to solving homelessness.
  Mr. John Patten: We do not need them.
  Mr. Rooker: The Minister says, "We do not need them." However, household formation is greater than the population increase, and every serious analysis shows that the Government need to build at least as much as the Labour Government did. That is so even with the many empty houses.
  In any circumstances, but especially Tory circumstances, flats and houses that are needlessly standing empty in the private and public sectors are a disgrace. They should be homes for people, not monuments to inefficiency or prejudice. If the Government were serious, we would be debating the compulsory acquisition of some of the 540,000 empty homes in the private sector where, in the words of the Minister in answer to my question on 19 December, the
  "owners do not wish to occupy or sell them but are deterred from letting by the Rent Act." —[0fficial Report, 19 December 1986; Vol. 89, c. 264.]
  That prejudice is preventing the homeless from having decent houses.
  In the public sector, a much lower proportion—2·7 per cent. — of the stock is empty, as against 4·1 per cent. in the private sector. That still means 110,000 empty homes. The smaller percentage gives no excuse for failing to condemn the reasons why some of that stock is empty. I should also put on record the fact that the landlord with the worst record and the biggest proportion of its stock standing empty is central Government —6·6 per cent. of the housing controlled by the Government is empty. I know that it is a small number at 19,000, but that would go a long way to meeting the needs of homeless families.
  We should not pretend that all the reasons for empty houses in the public sector are financial. Some management practices are not as good as they might be. A lettings policy where the allocations are made on a quarterly basis is inefficient. It simply means that homes remain idle while awaiting the quarterly meeting. There is another quaint management practice called normalisation. It means that when a tenant leaves, gangs of workers, sometimes several and not all at the same time, are sent in to rip out any improvements that the tenant may have done, such as fitting ornamental stone fireplaces or pine wall cladding. I cannot think of a more futile, inefficient practice, besides being an insult to the previous tenant. Neither practice can be blamed on the House, the Opposition or, indeed, the Government, and I demand that they cease forthwith in the interests of the homeless.
  Local authorities who issue telephone numbers so that people can inform them when their properties are empty are at least aware of defects in management, but authorities who send notices to properties that have been empty for 12 years, asking the tenants whom they rehoused 13 years ago whether they still wish to move, should make some heads roll.
  Privatisation of management, as envisaged by clause 6, is not required to make some sense of this patent nonsense.

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  That does not mean that present management sizes are appropriate. No fewer than 23 authorities manage between 20,000 and 30,000 dwellings; another 16 manage between 30,000 and 40,000 dwellings; 13 authorities try to manage between 40,000 and 50,000 dwellings; and seven authorities are desperately trying to cope with the management problems caused by between 50,000 and 120,000 dwellings. I speak from the experience of my constituency, because the authority with most public housing is Birmingham, part of which I represent. The scope in that size of management for the bungling, depersonalised approach is amply taken up. Clause 6 also envisages tenants becoming involved in management, to which I shall return later.
  Contrary to what the Minister said, the Bill is short on new rights. It is about time that the leaseholders of flats had the right to obtain their freeholds. That right was given to leaseholders of houses by the Labour Government in 1967. As the Bill is drafted, it will create two classes of leaseholders of flats, which will cause further difficulties. The Bill should strengthen legislation on racial harassment in housing. Without that, the freedom to live in peace and tranquility is at risk. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) will return to those points when he replies to the debate.
  We must spend a little time on clause 5, which forms the central part of our reasoned amendment. The Labour party has set out many of its housing proposals in the document "Homes for the Future". We are committed to genuine choice, variety of tenure, and greater control of housing by the people. The choice between renting and buying cannot be genuine if there is a shortage, and clause 5 provides a further reduction in freedom of choice under the Conservative Government. The party that boasted of the tenants' charter in 1980 is reduced, in 1986, to removing the right of security of tenure of millions of council tenants so that their homes can be done up and sold to others.
  Council tenants who love their homes, are happy in them, and who wish to remain as tenants of the council, or to form a tenant management co-operative with neighbours will be unable to sleep peacefully if clause 5 remains in its present form. As it stands, their choice, freedom and, indeed, liberty to remain in their homes are under threat. I make no accusation that it is a further export to the United States, but it is as serious as that. Tenants will lose the possibility of staying in their homes.
  Mr. Nellist: I remind my hon. Friend that the Minister was asked by one of his colleagues, who has now left the Chamber, whether tenants would be told by local authorities how much better off they would be were they to buy their homes rather than pay rent on them. Does he agree that information should be given to all tenants showing how much extra rent they would have to pay to balance housing revenue accounts when, because of council house sales, fewer people shoulder the debt charges created by the building of council houses? If the Minister is interested in the provision of information for a balanced argument, he should explain to the House and to tenants by how much rents will increase because of that factor.
  Mr. Rooker: The right to information is also missing from the Bill, but we shall return to that in Committee.
  Clause 5 is required to kick tenants out because existing grounds for their removal are suspect. Our excellent
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  Library staff could not find a legal case on this issue. However, one example is about to come before the courts in the county of Cleveland, where at Langbaurgh three tenants are sitting tight on the Spencerbeck estate. I should say at the outset that that is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn), not the constituency of the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt). That estate contains 12 to 16-year-old Parker Morris standard homes — good in themselves but laid out appallingly. The lack of privacy and proper road access meant that many became hard to let or, more correctly, hard to live in. There are about 800 homes, and Langbaurgh district council was desperate to do something, so it sold a group of 177 houses to a developer—
  Mr. John Patten: A Labour council.
  Mr. Rooker: I do not seek to hide the fact. I shall come to that point later, and I shall balance the argument.
  Quite why the developer could not take the empty properties plus all those that the council could empty voluntarily, as it claimed that many wanted to leave, I am still unclear. That would have had the advantage of mixing up the tenures and giving scope for improving the layout. It would have preserved the liberty and freedom of choice of those who wanted to remain in their homes.
  Those three tenants now live in the middle of a building site. For people to knock on a person's front door and ask why he is still living there because his home is to be theirs is unpleasant, to put it mildly. We know that for the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young)—I regret that he is not present—it cannot sound too unpleasant. On the "TV Eye" programme last autumn he said that the Bill would be a "useful reserve power in those rare cases where, for whatever reason, one person is impeding a modernisation scheme".
  Unlike that or any other Minister, I think, I have been in the three homes concerned and I suggest that before we reach the relevant stage in Committee somebody from the Government Front Bench follows my example.
  Homes on that estate sold under the right-to-buy legislation are not affected. That shows that there is nothing inherently wrong with the quality of the construction of the houses. The three tenants could buy, but they do not want to. We would support their right t0 buy. Does the Minister support their right to rent their home? That is the question to which he must address himself.
  On Second Reading of the Housing Act 1980, the then Secretary of State for the Environment, after having talked about the new rights in the Bill, said:
  "Many tenants, having put their work into the dwelling, will want to own it and thus attract the capital benefit for themselves. If so, the way ahead will be clear. But there will be no pressure." —[Official Report, 15 January 1980; Vol. 976, c. 1454.]
  Those three tenants could get out of the jam that they are in by exercising their rights under the right-to-buy legislation. Because they do not wish to do that, they will be hauled before the courts and evicted. That is the only reason that that will happen.
  The rub here is that the standards of some of the houses have been reduced by the developer. The three-bedroom, two-toilet houses have been reduced to three-bedroom, one-toilet homes and they carry only a six-year NHBC certificate, not the normal 10-year one.
  It is not too late for me and my hon. Friends to ask our colleagues in control of Langbaurgh district council, the

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  leaders of which I met when I visited Cleveland, to come to a compromise with the developer which allows for freedom of choice and protects the right of those three families to live in tranquility in the homes that they love.
  Mr. Forth: Perhaps this is the point at which the hon. Gentleman could clarify his party's position. In the context of rights and tranquility, which the hon. Gentleman is rightly raising, will he give an assurance to all those who have bought their council houses that his party will give them tranquility by guaranteeing that never in the future will it give local authorities any powers to compulsorily repurchase any properties that have been purchased from them?
  Mr. Rooker: The answer to that is an unequivocal yes. Contrary to the lies that were told at the last general election, that has never been Labour party policy.
  Mr. Holt: The hon. Gentleman mentioned me and my constituency and I want to make it clear to the House and everybody else that those properties are in the constituency of the hon. Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn). The three tenants came to my surgery because they thought that they could get nowhere with the Labour council in charge or their local Member of Parliament. As a matter of convention I had to refer them back to their Member of Parliament in the hope that there would be a dialogue which would assist those people because they are nice people living in nice houses.
  Mr. Rooker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman has dropped a note to my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Mr. Tinn), who is not present, to tell him that he—
  Mr. Holt: I did. I have had no reply.
  Mr. Rooker: —intended to mention him this afternoon.
  Mr. Forth: You raised it.
  Mr. Rooker: I do not deny that I raised it. I have not criticised my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar. I gave the facts so that there was no misunderstanding about which constituency the three homes are in. That was in the first paragraph of the point that I made about Langbaurgh.
  That is an example from a Labour-controlled authority. It is only fair that I give an example, just as scandalous, from one of the authorities where the Liberals keep the Tories in power. I choose at random the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
  Fulham court is a mixed community in every sense of the word. It has 372 families, black and white, living in harmony with several generations of the same family around the estate. Ninety per cent. of them voted to remain there rather than be kicked around the borough and the community be destroyed when the Tory-Liberal council announced that it wanted everybody out so that the flats could be done up and sold off. There is not much sign of the tenants' charter there.
  In August 1985 that council was funding 127 families in bed and breakfast hotels compared with 39 in April 1984, despite the fact that the officers of the Hammersmith and Fulham council had estimated that it would work out £5,000 a year cheaper for each homeless family to be housed in the empty flats in Fulham court, even as short-life homes. There were 46 flats empty in blocks which will
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  not be empty for another year and a further 52 are empty in blocks which are not expected to be clear until 1988, by which time we hope that the controlling group on that council will have been justifiably booted out. Such is Tory-Liberal action in Fulham. Today about 170 of the flats are empty and 330 families live in temporary accommodation.
  Mr. Butterfill: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does that relate to the by-election or the Bill?
  Mr. Rooker: I am just giving another example of local authorities seeking to evict tenants who have security of tenure under the Government's legislation which is being removed in clause 5.
  Recently there were attempts to dispose of one of the empty blocks to the Addinson housing association as shared ownership along with a restrictive covenant tying the hands of any future council never to use any of the other eight blocks of fiats for rented housing. To its credit, Addinson said no.
  I call upon the Liberals to condemn what is going on in Fulham and join the Labour party and Nick Raynsford in calling for freedom of choice for tenants to remain in their homes and within their community.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: After that mini party-political speech in relation to the by-election, may I say that the hon. Gentleman has made it clear that there have been two authorities, one run by the Labour party and one by the Conservatives with Liberal support, which have pursued the same policy. I hope that he will agree that we are both striving for local authorities to have the power to make decisions on such matters, whatever decision might be made, not for the Government to impose eviction against the will of the local authority. I hope that the Labour spokesman on housing will confirm the right of local authorities against that of the Government.
  Mr. Rooker: Let us be clear that the Labour party is opposed to evicting council tenants for the sole purpose of their houses being done up and sold off. The hon. Gentleman did not condemn that practice. I have condemned it under the Tories, the Liberals and under a Labour authority because it is immoral. It is as simple as that. We still have had no condemnation of it from a Liberal or Social Democratic Member, and we await with interest their contributions.
  There are other examples from both Tory and Labour-controlled councils where tenants are being treated as worse than second-class. In November the Appeal Court in the case of Eileen Short and the borough of Tower Hamlets showed what a farce the tenants' charter is on the issue of consultation when tenants are about to be removed for such a purpose. That aspect must be strengthened because the Government's legislation of 1980 has been found to be defective and we shall expect Ministers to remedy it in Committee.
  From time to time there are many legitimate reasons for homes and people —both owners and tenants — to be separated. There are slum clearance schemes; road schemes; dare I say it, airport construction schemes and schemes to unlock parcels of land for house building. In all those there is due process. In no case is someone kicked out of a home for it to be done up and sold off.

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  It may be that the Tories say that there is no need for more rented housing in the public sector, in which case they would do well to look at the 1983 manifesto which has been referred to earlier. On page 25 it said:
  "Britain needs more homes to rent, too, in the private sector as well as the public sector."
  We are not dogmatically opposed to inputs of private sector cash to improve bad housing. We are for freedom of choice and the liberty of people. Those two things need not be incompatible. Clause 5 makes them incompatible in certain circumstances. That is why we wish to make major amendments to the clause.
  To redress the damage that would be done by the clause I want to put on record a quote from Labour's programme for 1976. It is as relevant now as it was then and highlights what I have just been speaking about:
  "There is a growing danger in this age of bureaucracy that the rights and freedoms of citizens will be infringed by the large and powerful organisations with which we have increasing contact. We believe there is a need to tip the scales away from public and private concentrations of power back in favour of the individual. There are several ways of doing this."
  When we reach clause 6 in Committee we intend to hold the Government to the commitment given by a Minister at the Dispatch Box at Question Time on 4 December that an amendment from the Labour Opposition to give council tenants a legal right to obtain control of the management of their homes, if they wish,
  "may well receive support from the Government."—[Official Report, 4 December 1985; Vol. 88, c. 296.]
  We want that commitment, given in good faith by a Minister, incorporated in the Bill.
  The Bill proposes that councils may make management agreements. That is nothing new; it has been Labour party policy for years. Because progress has been so slow, we said in our document "Homes for the Future" that tenants should be able to trigger the change. That is not in the Bill although the Minister paid lip-service to it. Tenants should be trusted because they know best. There are dozens of examples of successful tenant management co-operatives in Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham and London. With resources and commitment they have shown that they can control effectively and fairly the management of their housing. Many of the people are unemployed, single parents, blacks and Asians. It is an abuse of language to refer to them as elitist. They, not the landlords, know best how to run their housing. Some of the existing rules governing tenant management co-operatives need strengthening. After all, they were laid down 10 years ago by the last Labour Government in circular 8/76 which is still the relevant circular.
  I want to deal briefly with inner cities and urban renewal. Along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) I carried out a chore this morning which hon. Members are not often asked to do. Usually we are asked to open housing developments, but my right hon. Friend and I went to his constituency in the east end to close a house. There are five co-operatives in that part of London dependent on GLC funding and they cannot get a decision from the Department of the Environment. The people, many of them Bangladeshis who have no proper homes, have put an enormous amount of time and effort into trying to get housing co-operatives off the ground. Without a decision by 31 March they are doomed. Houses are deteriorating to such an extent that they are no longer fit to live in; hence the closure.
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  On behalf of my right hon. Friend and the five cooperatives which operate under the Solon secondary cooperative, I demand that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State gives reasons for the delay and an assurance that a decision will be forthcoming. A total of 150 homes in the Adelina, Sylhet, Grand Union, London Fields and Spitalfields co-operatives are to be lost. Is that what Ministers really want? We should like an announcement about a decision tonight.
  Mr. Tony Banks: I knew of the visit that my hon. Friend was making today. Is he aware that I have asked the Department for decisions on about 40 outstanding consents? The answer that comes back is that the Department is giving careful consideration to the matter. The Department is blocking the decisions and waiting for the matter to drop on 31 March. My hon. Friend has highlighted an absolute disgrace and scandal.
  Mr. Rooker: I hope that Ministers will reconsider the promises made when they decided to abolish the GLC. The only money that the GLC had to fund the co-operatives was capital receipts. Ministers promised that that money would be transferred. That is no good to a borough such as Tower Hamlets which does not have much in capital receipts. Firm commitments were given about the nature of the funding. I hope that we will not see many more houses being closed. I do not like it, nor do my right hon. and hon. Friends. There is no excuse for it because money is available. It is not forthcoming because of bureaucratic hold-ups in the Department.
  I wish to comment briefly on clauses 9, 11, 12 and 13. No hon. Member who represents an inner city area can be satisfied with Government policy. The position has got worse over the last few years. New measures are needed. The urban regeneration grant—I say "grant" although on reading the Bill I think it need not necessarily be a grant but may be a loan—is not a new resource. According to the financial memorandum, there will not be a larger input of cash. That is confirmed by the submission of the Building Employers Confederation on the Bill.
  The urban programme announced by the Minister on 27 January of £225 million is in real terms £20 million down on the expenditure for 1985–86 of £237 million. If we add on 5 per cent. for inflation, the Minister should have announced an urban programme of £245 million so that pound for pound it would be of the same value. Is the new scheme really to be paid for by cuts elsewhere in the programme or, worse still, by further cuts in the rate support grant? I cannot believe that is so. My constituents and constituents in other inner cities will despair if that is the only answer the Government can give to the problems of inner cities.
  The Minister for Housing was deprived of the opportunity to reply to the debate on 11 December when the House was treated to a charade by the chairman of the Conservative party. We are still awaiting a legitimate, rational Government response to the crisis in the inner cities. We need a commitment of new resources. It was reported in The Guardian on Saturday that the Prime Minister had ordered Ministers to make a statement this week on the inner cities even though it was not known which Department would make the statement or if there was more money available. That shows the disarray the Government are in.
  Mr. Steen: The hon. Gentleman is arguing that more cash should be given to inner cities. Is that not exactly what the Secretary of State has done in the rate support grant by shifting resources from the shire counties to the inner cities? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that more and more funds will solve the problem of the inner cities?
  Mr. Rooker: The hon. Gentleman has an advantage over me. I suggest that he uses the advantage of representing an inner city area and a rural area. He should go to see what is happening to the area that he used to represent.
  Mr. Steen: I have done that.
  Mr. Rooker: He tells us that the inner cities are getting money from the shire counties. That is pathetic.
  Mr. Chris Smith: Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to justify why in the recent announcement of partnership allocations for the next financial year every single partnership authority, with the exception of Birmingham, has had a cut in its partnership allocation in cash terms as well as in real terms?
  Mr. Rooker: My hon. Friend asks a fair question. I do not know why Birmingham seems to have done better than other areas. I do not wish to abuse my privilege by making a constituency speech, but Birmingham's inner city deprivation is the largest both in scale and intensity of any inner city, according to the Z index on the census. The other areas are only a little behind Birmingham. That is no excuse for the relative cuts between other inner city areas and Birmingham, compared with inner cities overall and the shire counties. One thing that is clear above all else is that my inner city constituents, of whatever age, black or white, will no longer tolerate resources coming to their area accompanied by workers on buses. They want the jobs. I warn the Minister that people are fed up to the point of desperation. They want the opportunity to work in schools and in the local environment, but they are not being given that opportunity.
  Whenever there is a local problem, the Government say that they have spent £20 million on the area and ask why people have rioted. However, what happens is that big business with outside workers comes into the area to do the work. It does not spend money locally and it takes off again. That leaves local people as bitter and depressed as they were before the work was carried out.
  A way must be found to involve those who live in the inner cities. All of them have skills. I cannot accept that there is any such thing as an unskilled person. Everybody has a skill to contribute, even if it means cutting across demarcation rules, rigid local government rules and the collective agreements of certain building firms. A quota of the work must be provided by consortia to local people. They will spend the money locally. That will assist in the regeneration of the economy of the inner cities. It cannot otherwise take place.
  Mr. Holt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Rooker: No, I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
  It is in the interest of business that the work provided by the urban regeneration grant should not be tied into the special planning zones. Furthermore, business should not refuse to work with the local authorities; it is in its interest to co-operate with local authorities. The simplified planning zones may be used to circumvent some of the
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  planning laws, but I do not believe that anybody who is involved in construction activities on a national scale will wish to ride roughshod over the wishes of democratically elected local authorities.
  It is in the interest of business to join local authorities in the consortia approach and to use whatever means may be provided by the Bill. Local people could be put on the boards of consortia which could also ensure that a quota of jobs is provided for local people. It is an extremely modest proposal, because no details have been given about the money that will be provided. Simplified planning zones could work. However, we have heard in this debate that certain Conservative Members of Parliament do not want to have simplified planning zones in their back yard.
  The Minister must have been told by the building industry that some Conservative-controlled local authorities do not want simplified planning zones. He must have been told that these authorities will use the appeal procedure that is provided for in the Bill and will come to the Minister who, because he is one of their friends, will not grant permission for simplified planning zones. The Minister must also have been told that he will probably grant consent for simplified planning zones against the wish of local authorities in urban areas because they are Labour controlled and that if he does so the companies will be piggy in the middle of a political dispute. He must have been told, too, that they do not want to fall out with the local authorities, whatever the nature of their political complexion. It would be better if the Minister said that he would grant permission, otherwise he would have a hell of a problem on his hands. He would be accused of acting in a partisan manner towards Conservative controlled authorities.
  The Bill defies belief in respect of the simplified planning zones. A firm promise was given on 11 May 1984 relating to the consultation paper on simplified planning zones: that conservation areas would not be included in the simplified planning zones. There was also a promise that national parks would not be included in the simplified planning zones. However, national parks are referred to in the Bill. Is the omission of conservation areas from the Bill a complete reversal of Government policy? Is the Minister saying that he will allow green belt and conservation areas to be included in the simplified planning zones? If so, he will find that he is faced with objections and opposition from all sides of the House. It may be an omission. The Government may have forgotten their promise —something that they are not unknown to do. Nevertheless, that commitment was given in writing and it has to be made good.
  It cannot be denied that the Bill is good in parts, bad in parts and neutral in parts. It may benefit certain individuals and companies. It may result in more jobs and faster regeneration of the inner cities but the points that are contained in our reasoned amendment are entirely valid, and that is why we shall vote for it in the Lobby.
  5.25 pm
  Mr. Ian Gow: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) has addressed the House for 49 minutes. It seemed to some of my hon. Friends to be a great deal longer than that—as, most emphatically, it seemed to be to me. It may be, Mr Deputy Speaker, that it seemed to be a great deal longer to you as well.

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  I remind the hon. Member for Perry Barr that quality of speech and length of speech are not the same thing. I would not dream of accusing the hon. Gentleman of deliberately misleading the House. If I were to do so, you would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, the hon. Gentleman deliberately failed to remind the House of a key aspect of the policy upon which his party fought and won the last general election.
  The hon. Gentleman said that freedom of choice and liberty for people were at the centre of his party's policy. By a strange accident, I have with me the exact words of the Labour party manifesto of June 1983. The hon. Gentleman must forgive people if they doubt the words that he used this afternoon at the Dispatch Box, because the policy of the Labour party, including the hon. Gentleman, who did not distance himself from that policy when he fought his campaign in Perry Barr, was contained in its June 1983 manifesto. It said that Labour would
  "end enforced council house sales, empower public landlords to repurchase homes sold under the Tories on first resale and provide that future voluntary agreed sales will be at market value."
  Those words were deliberately misleading. Stripped of the cloak with which the Labour party sought to engulf them, they mean that there would be an end to the right to buy, that if there were to be voluntary sales there would be no discount and that if any person who was a former tenant wanted to sell the house or flat that he had bought he would first have to offer it back to the local authority that had previously been its owner. That was the Opposition's policy.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gow: No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, of all people.
  Mr. Roberts: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gow: No, I have just said that I will not give way.
  Mr. Roberts: Why not?
  Mr. Gow: Because at the start of this debate Mr. Deputy Speaker appealed for short speeches — advice that was ignored by the hon. Member for Perry Barr.
  The hon. Member for Perry Barr, as official Opposition spokesman, disagrees with his predecessor's policy. I respect the view of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). He still believes in the policy that was set out in the Labour party manifesto of 1983. The hon. Member for Perry Barr, who is so keen to present himself as a man of principle, perceiving the electoral albatross that the Opposition have hung about their neck by seeking to end the right to buy, is trying to lead the Labour party away from these words, of which, to the hon. Gentleman's discomfiture, I have reminded him this afternoon.
  There is something else that perturbs the Opposition. Since my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister arrived in Downing street, 902,000 public sector dwellings have been sold, the great majority to sitting tenants. That of course is a great achievement. Even the Opposition have to take note of the truth. Those houses and flats were built by local authorities with the purpose that they should be occupied in perpetuity by tenants to whom we have offered, and given, the choice of which the hon. Gentleman spoke — the choice which the Opposition have sought to deny.
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  It is of course because my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction well understands that the overwhelming majority of the British people, if given the choice, would prefer to be owners rather than tenants that he has brought forward this excellent Bill, on which I congratulate him most warmly.
  My hon. Friend quite rightly has proposed that there should be increased discounts in respect of flats because, although a total of 902,000 dwellings have been sold since May 1979, only a small proportion—about one in 20—were flats. My hon. Friend rightly proposes to give an extra discount for flats.
  There is one point which even the hon. Member for Perry Barr got right. He asked why a tenant of a flat should buy his or her flat when it would be difficult to resell. I think that I have not misunderstood the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: It is impossible in most cases.
  Mr. Gow: The Opposition agree with me, as I hope they will agree with what I am about to suggest to my hon. Friend.
  Part of the problem in selling flats is the value placed upon them by the district council or by the district valuer. When a flat is in a tower block, whether on the fifth, the tenth or the fifteenth floor, and the local authority is invited to place a value on that flat, how does the wisest housing officer, the wisest director of finance, place a value on the flat, as he is of course required to do? If the tenant, disagreeing—as well he might—with the value placed on the flat by the local authority, appeals to the district valuer, which under section 128 of the Housing Act 1985 he has the right to do, what then does the wisest district valuer say?
  I am surrounded by chartered surveyors on these Benches, and I hope they will confirm what I am saying. How does even the wisest district valuer place a value on the first flat to be sold in a block, whether on the fifth, the tenth or the fifteenth floor? There is only one way in which one can find out the open market value of that fiat. 'That is to give it to the finest estate agent when it is empty. There are plenty of empty flats in tower blocks which are controlled by the Labour party — alas, there is no problem about finding an empty flat.
  I do not know whether I shall have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee which considers the Bill. If not, I hope that some of my hon. Friends will table an amendment in Committee to require that a tenant, if dissatisfied with the original value fixed by the council and with the valuation made by the district valuer—neither of whom is in a position to give a proper judgment—shall have the right to require that a flat as similar as possible to the one which he is seeking to purchase shall be sold and put into the hands of the finest estate agent in the area. No doubt some of my hon. Friends will be able to provide such a service.
  Mr. Butterfill: If I may assist my hon. Friend, as a chartered surveyor I know that the experience of many of my colleagues in the profession is that, when acting as valuers to building societies, they have been unable to sustain the level of value put on the property by the local authority and, indeed, by the district valuer. That frequently occurs.
  Mr. Gow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I believe that, if what I have suggested followed, we would find

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  very much lower prices being fixed for flats than those which have been fixed in the past. Therefore, the great majority of tenants — particularly with the increased discount proposed by my hon. Friend the Minister—would face the real prospect that the amount due in mortgage interest, especially after tax relief if they were entitled to it, would be dramatically less than at present.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gow: No. I gave way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) because he is a chartered surveyor and was on the very point, but I am now dealing with a slightly technical point.
  Mr. John Patten rose—
  Mr. Gow: I will of course give way to the Minister.
  Mr. Patten: Will my hon. Friend accept it from me that, regardless of whether he serves on the Standing Committee, the important point he raises is one to which Ministers will give serious consideration in the passage of the Bill? Secondly, will he accept that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and I are deeply indebted to him for many of the ideas and concepts in the Bill, which are his and not ours?
  Mr. Gow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?
  Mr. Gow: No, I am sorry; I think I ought to get on.
  My hon. Friend is proposing that, if a tenant has been a tenant for 30 years and is living in a flat, the maximum discount shall be increased from the present 60 per cent. to 70 per cent. I want to put a suggestion to my hon. Friend, and I hope that I will not be arraigned under the Official Secrets Act 1911 if I say that this is an idea which I discussed with my officials when I held the office which he now holds. If we are going to allow discounts of up to 60 per cent. after 30 years' tenancy in respect of houses, why do we not allow the discount to increase for every year after 30 years? We are engaged in a radical policy. Why not say that, if a person has been a tenant for 40 years, in the case of a house there should be an entitlement to a discount of 70 per cent. and, in the case of a flat, under my hon. Friend's proposals, a discount of 80 per cent.?
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Gow: I will not give way again. It may save the time of the House if no hon. Member tries to intervene.
  My hon. Friend will remember that when my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces piloted through the House the 1980 legislation, the qualification period in order to buy a council house or flat was three years. In the 1984 legislation, which was introduced by my hon. Friend's predecessor, the three-year period was reduced to two years. I therefore ask my hon. Friend, again in order to increase the opportunity to purchase, which is at the centre of the philosophy of the Conservative party, whether he will consider in Committee reducing the two-year qualification period to one year. That would be greatly welcomed by tenants.
  Mr. Nellist: What happens to the rent—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) is being very unfair to
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  other hon. Members who hope to speak in the debate. If such interventions continued, very few hon. Members would speak at all.
  Mr. Gow: shall deal with what I regard as an omission from the Bill. To my regret, there is no measure in this important Bill designed to revive the private rented sector. The Rent Acts, which were first introduced 70 years ago with the purpose of offering protection to tenants, have, in fact, injured the very people whom they were designed to help. They have injured them because the supply of privately rented accommodation has been and still is diminishing. Whenever a property falls vacant, most landlords do not look for another tenant. On the contrary, landlords try to sell.
  If there is to be an increase in home ownership—home ownership in England has reached the all-time record of 63 per cent. — it goes without saying there must be a diminution in other forms of tenure. Landlords are treated with inequity over security of tenure and rent control, but what is more disturbing is that today there is a supply of unused or under-used accommodation which would be brought into use were it not for the Rent Acts.
  There would be three advantages if we could bring about that reform, which I believe is long overdue. The first is that a landlord, when his property became vacant, would be able, reasonably, to look for a new tenant instead of automatically seeking to sell. Secondly, we should be able to bring into use accommodation which is at present under-used or unused. Thirdly, we should be able to attract private sector capital into building new houses for rent in the private sector.
  If we could revive the private rented sector, it would make more accommodation available and improve mobility. How should that be done? In respect of future lettings and tenancies — not in respect of existing tenancies—it would be right to allow the terms of the tenancy to be agreed between the landlord and the tenant. If that were to happen, the supply of privately rented accommodation would increase. Furthermore, those tenants who were in a less favourable financial position would be entitled to housing benefits as private sector tenants today are. If my hon. Friend the Minister thinks that that goes too far, I hope that he will consider removing from the present shorthold provision the requirement in Greater London and the tenant's option outside Greater London to have a fair rent registered.
  I repeat the congratulations that I offered my hon. Friend earlier on the Opposition's supreme discomfiture. The great majority of the British people are better housed today than ever before. Home ownership has reached record levels. It is the preferred choice of the people. The speech of the hon. Member for Perry Barr was great in length but short in wisdom. I commend the Bill to the House, as did my hon. Friend.
  5.43 pm
  Mr. John Cartwright: I propose to concentrate on the Bill's provisions on housing, but I should first like to comment briefly on parts II and III.
  On special planning zones, I am surprised that the Government have not produced realistic evidence to support the idea that they clearly hold, that essential development is held up by the application and operation of the existing planning mechanism. It is not realistic merely to point to the success of enterprise zones, because

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  they involve tax incentives. It would have been much more sensible to try a feasibility test of special planning zones in inner-city areas where there is a tremendous need to encourage new employment opportunities and new development of all kinds.
  I take the point made by the Building Employers Confederation, that if authorities have been awkward and used the planning mechanism to thwart developments, they are hardly likely to be the first to set up special planning zones and if the Minister has to be brought in to establish them, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) said, there will be the possibility of a knockdown drag-out political battle.
  Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the Bill's deficiencies, as drafted, is that the procedure necessary to set up special planning zones could lead to two public inquiries and take as long as three years? Does he agree that in Committee it might be better to simplify the procedure so that it is quicker and easier?
  Mr. Cartwright: I am in favour of simplification, but I would rather we had the simplified machinery tested in those areas that desperately need new development. The inner cities are obvious places for such an operation.
  Part III relates to urban regeneration grants. The proposals are welcome so far as they go. We should do more, however, and use public money and investment as a lever to try to attract more private investment. That is a sensible step. The sums about which we are talking are extremely small. If we read the financial memorandum, we see that we are talking about £10 million to £20 million only in 1987–88. That is hardly a princely sum, given the tremendous problems in the inner cities. There is also concern, already expressed in the debate, that the funds may be made available at the expense of other parts of the urban programme. That would be indefensible.
  I am also worried that, by making the grants direct to private enterprise and bypassing the local government machinery, we may have confusion and hostility between the local authority operating the urban programme and the Government operating the urban regeneration grants. We should be looking to the urban regeneration grants to complement the existing urban programme — working with local authorities and not competing with them. I hope that in Committee that point will be reconsidered.
  Turning to part I of the Bill, on housing, I wish to deal first with the sale of council flats. I have the clear impression that the Government are sensitive to the criticism that the right to buy has been extremely successful where we all expected that it would be—in the semi-detached houses with gardens. They are the most desirable council properties. It has clearly been nothing like as successful with the sale of flats and maisonettes. Only 4 per cent. of the stock of flats has been sold. That inevitably produces a risk of polarisation—where those who have to depend on rented council housing are increasingly restricted to flats and maisonettes the less desirable property, which is often less well maintained.
  I can understand the Government wanting to counter that criticism by seeking to sell more flats. I also understand their approach of increasing the discount and trying to deal with the problem of service charges. Some local authorities deliberately use the threat of massive service charges to deter people from buying. I have had cases in my constituency where tenants were officially
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  quoted service charges of £3,000 a year for a rather unpleasant two-bedroom maisonette in beautiful downtown Plumstead. I recognise that as a problem.
  I do not believe that the Bill will have a dramatic impact on the sale of flats and maisonettes. People will be reluctant to buy them, given a number of the issues which have been mentioned in the debate. First, there is the general environment of the average block of council flats or maisonettes. People will not invest their life savings in a maisonette in a block where the lifts are vandalised, where the entrance doors are smashed regularly, where the whole place is covered with graffiti and filth and where they cannot obtain the services for which they pay service charges. They will not buy properties which are in desperate need of renovation.
  The Department of the Environment's own survey shows that about 85 per cent. of flats and maisonettes are in need of repair and renovation. The most important point is that people will not buy flats and maisonettes when they are well aware that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to sell them if they have to move because of the problem of selling one privately owned flat in a council block. I am interested in the idea of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) of dealing with the original valuation, but, with great respect, that will not have a dramatic effect.
  Mr. Steen: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that all flats and maisonettes in inner-city areas, which are the most deprived areas, should have their weekly rental payments converted into a mortgage repayment, so that in 10 years the flat would belong to the tenant? Would that not be one of the most dramatic changes in our urban areas, which would turn public sector housing into private sector housing, and restore the pride of people in their area?
  Mr. Cartwright: That idea has been touted around for some time, but it is simplistic. I do not know what would happen to the long-term unemployed on housing benefit, if they suddenly got the dubious advantage of owning a rundown maisonette in a council block with repair, maintenance and insurance problems. The problem is more complex than the hon. Gentleman suggests.
  I wish to refer to the comment of the Building Employers Confederation, which clearly has an axe to grind, about ways of making flats and maisonettes more attractive for sale. It states:
  "Only if substantially more public resources are provided, specifically targetted to the renovation of flats, is the rate of sales of council flats likely to increase."
  There is a good deal of common sense in that.
  I am strongly in favour of the principle of devolving the management of council housing, and have been since my initial experience in local government about 20 years ago. This is not a party point, as some hon. Members in all parties are strongly in favour of the concept. We all understand the problems of centralised council management, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) referred to some of them. However concerned a council's members, and however skilled its housing staff, the system is inevitably insensitive to the needs of people as individuals. It is bureaucratic and slow-moving, especially when it must refer to committees for vital decisions. All hon. Members know of desperately needed homes standing empty for months because at least three council departments are involved — the housing department, the architect's department and the works

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  department. Then, because the property stands empty for so long, someone gets in and vandalises it, making the position worse. There is a desperate need for more local decentralised management.
  The first possibility is to decentralise council management. That is certainly an improvement, but the management remains locked in to the central control systems of local authorities. Although that system sometimes involves tenant consultation, it does not give tenants genuine control over their estates. The second possibility, management co-operatives, is by far the best because it gives tenants genuine power and control over the running of their homes and their estate.
  It is important to understand that that is not a panacea for all ills. First, tenants must want to participate in a cooperative, and understand what it involves. One cannot impose a co-operative on people who do not want one. A good deal of effort and investment is needed in explaining what it is about, and in providing detailed advice, back-up and guidance once the co-operative has been born. Some of us with a long record in the co-operative movement originally saw the Co-operative Development Agency as a way of developing the general advice and sponsorship of co-ops, but, sadly it has not been given the necessary resources.
  The third possibility is trusts, which involve tenants and outside interests. As long ago as 1982 the SDP proposed neighbourhood housing trusts to take over existing council estates. It is essential that the trusts are democratically based and accountable downwards to the tenants whom they represent, not to some external force. The most interesting example of that is the Thamesmead development. With the abolition of the Greater London council, somebody had to take over that estate. I argued strongly to Ministers that any trust set up to do the job would have to be democratically accountable to the people. I pay all credit to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), who listened to me and other local interests, and produced a model of local democracy. The model put to the people of Thamesmead gave them nine trust members elected by them, and three executives, who were to be appointed by the elected trust members and accountable to them. That is an important example of tenant and resident self-management.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Is that not a perfect example of a local authority, the GLC, building an estate on which people want to live, and of people being completely satisfied with control being left in the hands of the GLC? The tenants of Thamesmead had a choice of two private trusts, but were never given the option that they wanted, which was to retain the GLC.
  Mr. Cartwright: I would have to quarrel with some of that. I was not in favour of the abolition of the GLC, as the hon. Gentleman knows. But my Friday night advice surgeries would not bear out his point that everyone in Thamesmead was ecstatically happy with the GLC's management. [Interruption.] That was the implication of the hon. Gentleman's comment. He said that the residents would have preferred GLC management but they were not consulted about that. That is incorrect because the ballot gave the residents of Thamesmead three options — a community trust, which was finally adopted, a trust
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  controlled by the London borough of Greenwich, which was rejected, or neither of the two. They opted for a genuine community trust by a clear majority. It is a sensible system of tenant and resident self-management, and I hope that we shall develop it in other areas.
  We should not ignore some of the practical problems of development management. The first relates to the relationship with the local authority. There is little evidence yet that tenant co-operatives are cheaper. Many of them are locked into the central services of the local authority. We should also be worried about nomination rights. When a trust or co-op is set up, it inevitably runs the risk of becoming exclusive. It is important for it to keep its neighbourhood as it would like it. If no overall nomination right is held by the local authority, the management co-op may become inward-looking and selective in its acceptance of tenants. Similarly, there is a problem of mobility. I do not accept that there should be no right of exchange or of mobility for those involved in a housing co-operative. We need that right of mobility. I hope that we can deal with those practical problems in Committee.
  The idea of complete privatisation of ownership also flows from the Bill. Our experience in that area is mainly limited to the refurbishment of former council property for sale. In some areas that has a considerable role to play, especially where there is a dearth of owner-occupation for young married couples wishing to buy for the first time. Otherwise, we risk forcing young couples away from inner-city areas, which only aggravates the problems there. But equally, in many stress areas there is a continuing need for rented housing. When the private sector takes over the ownership of council estates, one is bound to ask whether it will be interested in letting those properties. Will the private sector get a sensible, adequate return, in its terms, on the capital investment involved in the purchase and rehabilitation of the estates? At the end of last year, the building societies were apparently warning the Government that rent control would have to be abolished if it were to make financial sense for them to take over a tenanted council estate and continue to provide rented housing. There must be a risk that the Bill will simply aggravate the demand for what council property remains.
  I want to refer to the issue of consultation with tenants when their estates and homes are privatised. Experience until now has been chequered. In some cases consultation has been limited and in others it has been non-existent. I resent homes being sold over the heads of people living in them. I suggest that there is a contrast with what the Government are doing in the Local Government Bill, where they require councils not to dispose of mortgages without consulting those who are hold them and paying mortgage bills. Ministers were indignant about the idea of councils selling mortgages over the heads of those who hold them. That may be a serious issue. I have no strong views about it but it is a much more serious issue to be selling homes over the heads of tenants without any involvement on their part.
  Clause 5 massively undermines the rights of tenants. The idea that councils would have the power to remove tenants from their homes so that whole estates could be sold with vacant possession is going too far. Under the existing arrangements, there are serious problems about decanting whole estates. Sometimes it has to be done where there are major problems but it does cause

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  difficulties especially if one is trying to build up a community feeling. Suddenly to empty the whole area causes major upheavel and considerable hardship to individuals. However, in such cases tenants at least have some ability to bargain. They can hold out until they get an offer of rehousing which suits them.
  My fear about the new arrangements under clause 5 is that that bargaining power of tenants will be substantially reduced. All they must have is one suitable alternative offer. Those of us who are used to housing problems all know that an alternative offer may look good on paper but in reality it may not be at all acceptable to the tenant concerned. The risk is that the tenants have no choice but to accept the alternative housing offered or make themselves homeless, with all that flows from that. That is an appalling way to treat people. It looks as if we are simply regarding tenants as numbers occupying units of accommodation rather than as flesh and blood people living in their own homes. I hope that clause will be changed dramatically in Committee.
  The issue of management agreements for managing council property in clause 6 goes well beyond devolving power to housing co-operatives, housing associations, tenant-based trusts and other such bodies. It opens the door to private management agencies which might be prepared to take on the management of council property in the hope of making a profit. In that situation, what protection is there for the tenant?
  As far as I can see in the Bill, the one protection the tenant gets is the right to buy. That is maintained for him, but what is the position of the tenant in relation to many other issues laid down, for example, in the tenants charter? What is the position on repairs, allocations policy, enforcement of tenancy, and the fixing of rent levels? What power does the tenant have to go to his local councillor when the management has been devolved to a private agency? Presumably, the council having given a management agreement to a private agency, local councillors will have no chance to pursue the roles which we all know to be their bread and butter in terms of housing management. That is also something we should look at in more detail in Committee.
  I think that the Bill has some useful proposals, some of which I welcome. However, I strongly endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Perry Barr, who, in his reasoned amendment, says that this is a missed opportunity. The Bill could have provided real practical help for tenants' co-operatives and tenant-based trusts. It could have been a real boost for self-management in housing. As drafted, the Bill is motivated by a belief in traditional privatisation and an attempt to revive the private rented sector in a new guise. For that reason, we shall vote against it.
  6.4 pm
  Mr. Sydney Chapman: It is self-evident that the provision of housing and planning land use are two vital political issues. Anyone who has listened to the debate so far will appreciate that those issues cause deep and bitter controversy. I think we are entitled to point out to our constituents that we hold totally different views in many respects but they are all sincerely held. I do not doubt the sincerity of the Opposition Members who have spoken.
  However, there are one or two ill effects of this political divide. The first is that the incompatibility between our
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  different political views has led to a certain unnecessary polarisation. There is a lack of consensus which is damaging to long-term planning for the provision of housing. It is also damaging to the necessary long-term planning to tackle the problems of inner cities and to promote urban regeneration. The second ill effect of the polarisation is that it has inhibited the best, and some of us would say the only, key to tackle the problems—greater co-operation and co-ordination between the public and private sectors.
  I would like to give some statistics to underline that. The urban housing renewal unit of the Department of the Environment has estimated that we need to spend about £18,800 million if we are to renovate and refurbish the public sector part of housing alone. I treat macro figures with some reserve, but I have heard it estimated that we would need to spend about £45,000 million to put our national housing stock in good repair. I do not think that there is the remotest possibility of the public sector satisfactorily and successfully being able to tackle that problem. Even if we could significantly increase public sector funding, it would not achieve that objective. I apologise for the partiality but I believe that it is true that if we significantly increased public expenditure on housing it would lead to inflation and we would move along the old, well-worn spiral of needing to spend more and more to achieve less and less.
  I believe that the public sector and the private sector should work more harmoniously. I suggest to the House that the
  "public sector has the authority and I think the public acceptance. It has the contact with communities and can identify the social needs of a particular area. It often owns the land that needs to be redeveloped. The private sector has the access to finance, the development experience and the skills and expertise needed to assemble parcels of land and undertake construction." — [Official Report, 20 December 1985; Vol. 89, c. 712.]
  The key to success will be the marriage of those two sectors. I believe that the Bill is important and that it moves in the right direction.
  I particularly welcome five points in the Bill. I welcome the further discounts and incentives to encourage council tenants to buy their own homes by increasing discounts by 10 per cent., so that they range from 42 per cent. to 70 per cent., as contained in clause 1. The merits of that have been eloquently testified to by my hon. Friend the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow). I welcome the encouragement to set up management trusts to encourage residents to run their own blocks of flats. I listened sympathetically to the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) when he spoke about that matter. I believe that we have now gained sufficient experience from the many experiments that have taken place. However, in many instances there is still what I would call trivial consultation by local authorities with their tenants, and not the genuine joint decision-making that we need to encourage. I believe that clauses 6 and 7 move those initiatives in the right direction.
  However much this displeases the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), I must point out that the amendment to the Bill is the same predictable, depressing knee-jerk reaction that we have come to expect from the Opposition, but I agree with him on one or two of his points. The Committee will have to look carefully into how clause 5 is to be operated, as both he and the hon. Member for Woolwich said, to protect tenants from unnecessarily being moved out of their homes. We must

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  look at this in a balanced way. It ill becomes people who have promoted wholesale redevelopment schemes in the past to pick up this point and pretend that there is some inconsistency in principle. Whether it is compulsory redevelopment, compulsory acquisition or moving people out of their council homes, the Government must carry out such measures only as a last resort.
  I welcome the introduction of an urban regeneration grant. My hon. Friend the Minister will recall that I had an Adjournment debate on 20 December on the need to encourage urban regeneration, and this was one of the points that I put to him. I suspect that other organisations and people must have made this point to him, because I cannot believe that he has necessarily taken notice of my point of view. However, I welcome clause 11. I understand, and fervently hope, that it is to be a complement to the urban development grant and not a substitute for it. It is a modest initiative on its introduction — some £10 million to £20 million—but one of the disincentives of the urban development grant is that it requires a 25 per cent. input from the local authority. I welcome this as another positive initiative.
  Anybody who thinks that the urban regeneration grants are a giveaway bonanza to developers should remember that such grants require —5 of investment by the developer to attract £1 of grant from the Government, as a sign of good faith. As I said on 20 December, public funding in these sectors can attract three or four times as much private investment. In the London Docklands development Corporation area, £180 million of Government money has attracted no less than £1,000 million of private investment. The ratio will undoubtedly be lower in other areas, but such a movement is to be encouraged. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will keep this under review and that the money will be forthcoming if, as I believe, the urban regeneration grant proves to be successful.
  At this stage, I prudently declare that I am a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute, although a non-practising architect and planner. I am also a non-executive director of a development company and a construction company.
  I welcome the introduction of the simplified planning zone which will specify types of development in specified areas not requiring planning permission. Therefore, I welcome clauses 9 and 10 and schedule 3.
  I also welcome the Bill because, as laid down in part IV and schedule 4, it has the objective of securing better control over the handling of hazardous substances. These are sensible policies.
  It will come as no surprise to anybody that we all have our own views and minor criticisms, although they are significant points, to make about any major Bill, especially one of this length. While I realise that some of these points may be better handled in Committee, it is only fair to my right hon. and hon. Friends to put down a marker by mentioning specifically two aspects of the Bill that worry me. The first comes in the simplified planning zone provisions. The hon. Member for Perry Barr has a point when he makes out the case that these areas, after due consultation with local authorities, might be designated, like an enterprise zone, directly by the Government. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the
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  Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) that the process of designating a simplified planning zone is somewhat long and complicated and could, as he said, involve up to two public inquiries. This process is too long, and I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to look at this point carefully.
  One aspect of the proposed simplified planning zone procedure is causing concern to environmental bodies. I mention the English Heritage, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Georgian Group, the Victorian Society and the Civic Trust, all of which are deeply anxious that simplified planning zones should not be designated in any part of a conservation area. I hope to press that point if I have the privilege of serving on the Committee. I do not believe that the Government would want to do this in any case, but they could give a reassurance that is badly needed.
  My second point of criticism is about listed buildings. As my right hon. and hon. Friends will know, anybody wanting to demolish a listed building has to refer the application not only to the local planning authority but at least to the regional office of the Department of the Environment, and probably from there to the Secretary of State himself. As I understand the Bill, this provision is to be removed. I understand that the Secretary of State has it in mind that he would activate this provision in the Bill only for a partial demolition of a grade 2 listed building. That would reassure me, but it would reassure me more if it were actually written into the Bill and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will sympathetically consider that point.
  The Bill can be criticised, as it has been, for not doing exactly what Government critics believe is their answer for housing and planning policies, or alternatively not going enough in the direction some Government supporters think that it should. I shall add my pennyworth, although I may not be popular for doing so. I should have liked to have seen in the Bill greater financial resources to be allocated to the renovation of properties, in particular council flats, because it is essential to encourage more tenants to buy and that would be helpful in achieving that objective.
  I return to the hoary chestnut. There are plenty of resources locked up by Government in the capital receipts of local authorities, and the Government must look at this sympathetically. Nevertheless, the provisions of the Bill move the Government steadily and surely in the direction that they believe to be right in tackling the task of urban regeneration. I share those sentiments, and I believe that the Bill should be warmly welcomed for two reasons. The first is that it encourages private investment, which will have a beneficial spin-off effect for public provision of housing—let no one underestimate that. Secondly, it makes the development control system less inflexible, and gives the opportunity for the planning system to take on a more positive role. For those two reasons, but not for those reasons alone, I warmly welcome the Bill.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call the next Back Bench speaker, I point out that 10 hon. Members on each side of the House—that is 20 in all—have expressed their wish to take part in the debate. I ask hon. Members to bear that fact in mind.
  6.29 pm
  Mr. Allan Roberts: I shall try to make all of my points as quickly as possible and not speak for too long. However, there are one or two matters I wish to raise in response to the debate so far.
  I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman), who is an architect and whose professional judgment, I respect. We both serve on the Environment Select Committee and I recognise his professional judgment although I disagree politically with much of what he advocates. I cannot be here for the whole debate because I and my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench have a meeting later with the Royal Institute of British Architects. It is appropriate to mention that since I follow the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet who is an architect.
  The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) refused to give way when he was reading from the 1983 Labour party manifesto in respect of our policy on the sale of council houses. The hon. Member was quite correct when he said that the Labour party was in favour, at the last election, of taking away the right to buy. That did not mean that we intended to stop councils which wished to sell council houses from doing so. The Labour party intended to give freedom back to local authorities to continue the sale of council houses if they wished. If they did not wish to do so, the policy was exactly the same as—
  Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: Liberal policy.
  Mr. Roberts: Yes. As the hon. Member points out from a sedentary position, it was the same as Liberal and Social Democratic party policy. The Labour party did not intend—as Conservative canvassers and, I might say, alliance canvassers said on the doorsteps at the last election—compulsorily to purchase or to give the power of compulsory purchase to local authorities to take council houses away from people who had brought them. There was never any suggestion of that, although that was the lie told by opposing canvassers on the doorsteps at the last election. It has never been our policy.
  Many former council tenants, who have purchased their houses in my constituency, would love Sefton council, or any other council, to have the option to buy their houses back at market value, because they cannot sell them. They have failed to sell them on the open market and see no harm in the council having the first option to purchase them back at market value. I see no harm in that either.
  The hon. Member for Eastbourne does not quote from "Homes for the Future", the Labour party's current policy statement on the sale of council houses. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) is not trying to force the Labour party to alter everything but he has succeeded in getting the Labour party conference overwhelmingly to accept the current policy in every detail. The Bill deals with the situation created by seven years of Conservative housing policy. The policies of the next Labour Government will also have to address that problem.
  When the Labour party comes to power—perhaps in the next 18 months or two years—it will face a housing crisis of 1945 proportions, with massively growing waiting lists, increasing homelessness and a deterioration of the housing stock. I believe in choice, but the Tory
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  choice in the sale of council houses has been choice at the cost of other people's choice. We predicted that if the Government forced the sale of council houses in 1979, only the best houses would be sold and councils would be left with the worst of the housing stock. We predicted that public sector housing would become stigmatised and ghetto housing estates similar to American welfare housing would develop. The Government are introducing the Bill because that has happened. The Labour party's prediction that only the best houses would be sold has come true. No one wants to buy flats and the Government are attempting to deal with the fact that only 4 per cent. of sales are flats, which represents only one third of the total housing stock.
  Mr. Winnick: It was not only the Labour party that predicted what would happen. In 1980, the Select Committee on the Environment, with a Tory majority, said, understandably, that only the best type of accommodation would be sold.
  Mr. Roberts: That is exactly what has happened. The Bill is the Government's closing-down sale. Every year, especially when the Government are near local elections, they up the discount to 30 per cent., 50 per cent. or 60 per cent. Now, with the closing-down sale, it is 70 per cent. It is an attempt to make the figures look better than they are and to get more and more sales as they approach a general election. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ferry Barr has said, it will not work. Do Ministers and Conservative Members honestly believe that a 70 per cent. discount, with a relaxation of service charges for five years, will encourage people to buy deck access, high-rise, inadequate and difficult-to-let flats? If they do, they are living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Families in those flats do not wish to buy them and 90 per cent. of them do not wish to rent them either.
  The families want to be transferred into decent houses — the houses which the Government have allowed councils to sell off. New houses are not being built. People are stuck in flats they want to leave, and most certainly do not want to buy.
  I know what the flats are like. There are some blocks which have been emptied, sold off to developers, done up and sold again, but there are many more that developers would not touch with a barge pole. I remember the first thing that happened to me when I became chairman of housing in the city of Manchester. The director of housing came to me and said, "We have had a telephone call to the housing department from a woman who says a donkey keeps going past her bedroom window." I replied, "What is wrong with that?" The director of housing said, "She lives on the eighth floor." I asked what he had done about that. He said, "We have rung up the social services department and they are sending a mental health visitor round." I then asked what happened and was told, The mental health visitor went round and was interviewing the woman and a donkey went past the window." They then found out that the guy at the end of the deck was keeping a donkey in the front room and at night he was bedding it down in the well of the lift shaft. That is the type of problem experienced in these deck access flats. I asked the director of housing, "What have you done about this?" He replied, "We have got the woman a transfer and the donkey is quite happy." With problems like that and in those types of flats, people will not buy no matter how much the discount is put up.

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  The Labour party has opposed the policy of selling off all of the best housing and leaving local authorities with the worst. There is nothing inconsistent in the Labour party policy. There is no point in continuing to sell off what has already been sold. The Labour party has to address itself to how best to help the people we predicted would suffer if the best housing was sold off—the people left in the worst housing, the families in flats. In "Homes for the Future" we propose to keep the right to buy, but we will introduce another set of policies that will deal adequately with all of the criticisms of the Government's sales policy. That will justify our opposition to their sales policy from 1980.
  We shall help people living in flats, especially with families, not by paltry measures such as are put forward in the Bill, but by giving them right-to-buy grants which will enable them to leave their flats and become owner-occupiers in the private market. The precedent has already been set by the Government in their policy towards tenants of charitable housing associations. We will help the families imprisoned in flats whom we predicted would be left in the worst housing.
  We opposed the sale of council housing because it diminished the stock and because there would be no relets. The Labour party will stick by the right to buy, but will say that for every council house sold by councils, including Tory councils, they will have to build a new one to replace it. What is wrong with that?
  In the early days, the Tory argument, in preparing the ground for the sale of council houses, was that sales would generate money to build more houses for rent. Of course, the Government have forgotten that, except when they are reminded by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet. That is what capital receipts were supposed to be for. The Labour party will ensure that every house which is sold is replaced. If people have the right to buy, what is wrong with their having the right to rent? Why cannot people on council house waiting lists have the right to require a local authority to buy a house on the open market and rent it to them if it does not have enough houses of its own? What is wrong with the right to sell? Why cannot elderly owner-occupiers have the right to require the local authority to buy their houses so that they become council tenants, especially when they cannot afford repairs?
  Mr. Michael Brown: The hon. Gentleman has rightly described a basic tenet of housing policy—the right to freedom of choice. Will he consider another right — the right to rent private accommodation?
  Mr. Roberts: I am in favour of people owning their own homes. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is. I am in favour of people owning their own homes as owner-occupiers, collectively through social ownership, co-operatives and housing associations and local authority home ownership. I oppose people owning other people's homes and making profit out of them. The hon. Member means the right to make profit out of housing. I oppose that.
  As is outlined in "Homes for the Future", I favour tenants having the right to buy off private landlords. They should also have the right to enforce improvements. The worst housed people with fewest amenities and fewest
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  repairs, are in the private rented sector. They must be given some rights as well. What is wrong with their being able to acquire their property?
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: The hon. Gentleman says that he does not favour the private sector producing rented accommodation when it makes a profit. Does he agree that he wants to place responsibility for providing rented accommodation squarely on the state, and that there should be no private sector participation? Does he agree that that is the logical conclusion of his argument?
  Mr. Roberts: I am against the state providing everything. I am in favour of democratically elected local government providing it, of co-operatives providing it and of housing associations providing it. Does the hon. Gentleman remember housing associations? They used to be the respectable wing of the public rented sector for Conservatives. Many a housing association management committee comprised people who would be at home on the management committee of a Conservative party constituency association, but then the Government started to attack them, cut their expenditure, restricted what they could do and thus stopped them providing housing for rent. Nobody is saying that landlords who rent off a room or a flat in their own home should be prevented from doing so, but tenants of absentee landlords should be given the right to buy.
  I hope that the urgings of the hon. Member for Eastbourne will be taken up by the Minister because that would ensure our winning the next general election. The hon. Gentleman wants another Rent Act 1957. He wants to destroy security of tenure in the private rented sector. I imagine that the people of Fulham who live in the private rented sector will be listening to that. Does the House remember the 1957 Act—the Rachman Act? I thought that the Government had already solved the problem with shorthold tenant agreements—the one that would bring all of the property into the private rented sector market because the landlord could get tenants out easily. What has happened to the assured tenancies in the Housing Act 1980 which enables builders to build back-to-back houses and let them free from Rent Act restrictions? I have not noticed a flood of such property revitalising the private rented sector and meeting housing needs.
  The Bill does nothing to deal with the real problem of resources, of which there is a massive shortage. It does nothing to tackle the public expenditure needed to build, modernise and improve houses, especially in inner cities. When, in October 1981, he was Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) said at the Conservative party conference that the principle of self-help was not applicable to inner city problems, that Tories must realise the true impact of unemployment
  "if the case can be made it may also be from extra public expenditure"
  that they have to solve these problems.
  The House should listen to this as the right hon. Gentleman might not be able to speak at the next Tory party conference. He continued:
  "In the inner cities, none of us can act on a scale and with a speed that has the measure of the present recession".
  He was right then and still is in the context of the Bill. We have only to consider the capital allocations of local authorities such as Sefton to see how inadequate is the money that the Government have provided for housing.

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  Sefton is a Tory-controlled council and, as I have said so many times before, it is at the bidding of the Government. It cuts everything that the Government ask it to cut and it keeps within Government guidelines. This year they asked for a restrained bid for 1987–88 of £19·5 million. The Labour party proposed a bid of £35 million because that is what we thought we needed and could spend to start tackling the borough's housing problems.
  Sefton received only £5·93 million. That is all. It is a housing manager's pocket money, and most of it is already committed. It depends for any continuing or new capital activity in the next financial year on capital receipts of £3·5 million and on £2·25 million from an urban programme. It will not be able to build any houses—it wanted to build only 107 sheltered houses and 90 for general needs, but it cannot. It wanted £5·5 million to provide improvement grants for owner-occupiers, but got only £1·1 million. It wanted to give housing associations £1·5 million to build special needs housing, but it got only £250,000. I could go on describing how the problems of my area are affected by the Government's refusal to provide the necessary money. There are 2,381 difficult-to-let houses in my constituency and 4,000 people on what the Government call the active waiting list.
  It has been implied today that the Government are likely to announce proposals concerning inner-city policies. It seems to be being suggested that the task force concept will be extended to other cities. If so, and if it is anything like the task force in Merseyside, other inner-city areas will not get very much. The task force on Merseyside has operated merely as a sub-office of the Department of the Environment office in Manchester. It has funded some urban aid projects which would otherwise have been funded with the same urban aid money through the local authority.
  The proposed special planning zones are modelled on enterprise zones. They too have been a failure. Ministers should go to Speke and have a look. Retail trades, which do not employ many people, have gone in to take advantage of low rates and no planning restrictions. There is no manufacturing, but bonded warehouses which employ very few people have moved from docklands in my constituency to the enterprise zone for the simple reason that they do not have to pay rates there. The concept of enterprise zones and the lack of planning, as is proposed in the special planning zones, does not work.
  I predicted some time ago that if the Government got a third term of office, they would set about destroying the planning system as we know it because they do not like planning. Green belt areas and rural seats would be affected. I did not think that they would start before the next general election, but they have here. They have set about destroying planning so that we shall have many Hong Kongs scattered through our inner cities.
  Mr. Steen: It would do no harm.
  Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman can have one in his constituency. He should go down to Devon and tell his constituents that he wants such developments there. We do not want them in Bootle. The trouble is that we are more likely to get them in Bootle because the destruction of planning is dear to the heart of the council in the area that I represent. I hope that the very reasonable reasoned amendment which the Opposition have tabled will be carried.
  6.40 pm
  Mr. John Heddle: I will adhere to your instruction to be brief, Mr. Speaker, and in the course of five or six minutes will make five points which no other right hon. or hon. Member has made so far.
  I yearn for the day when the House can debate housing on a non-partisan basis. I believe that today's debate has taken us a small step in that direction. I respect the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) for having said, not just in the Chamber today but publicly elsewhere, that he and other Labour Members genuinely believe that, deep in their hearts and minds, most people want to be masters of their own destinies, control their environment, own their own homes, and pass on the fruits of their life's labours to their children. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that and I hope that he can take other Labour Members with him. That can only be to the benefit and independence of our nation in years to come. The nation will not then have to depend upon people living in an impersonal concrete block with a donkey as a neighbour.
  I must declare two interests. I am a vice-president of the Building Societies Association and, as a former practising surveyor and valuer before I was elected, I am now a consultant to a practice which may well have clients who might benefit from the urban regeneration grants if the Bill is passed.
  In a spirit of trying to find the consensus to which I have referred, I would like wholeheartedly to endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) about giving people the right to rent. The hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) also made that point. Everyone should have the right to a roof over their heads. If they cannot afford the rent themselves for one reason or another, they should have the benefit that the state or another agency can provide for them, to keep them wind and watertight and safe from destitution.
  Will the shadow Minister for Housing, the hon. Member for Perry Barr, tell us, now or in the near future, why it will not include a provision in its next manifesto to repeal the shorthold provisions of the Housing Act 1980? I genuinely believe that one of the reasons why the private sector is not prepared to provide homes to let on a shorthold basis is the threat that, with the inevitable swing of the political pendulum early in the 21st century or beyond, another party in power might repeal the shorthold provisions.
  I would gladly give way to the hon. Member for Perry Barr if he would admit from the Dispatch Box that he agrees with me and that, in the interests of giving people the right to rent by shorthold tenancy, the Labour party will not repeal the shorthold provisions of the Housing Act 1980.
  Mr. Rooker: The policy of the Labour party is that we will repeal such legislation. That remains the case and there need be no doubt in anyone's mind about that.
  Mr. Heddle: The hon. Member is disagreeing with his colleague the hon. Member for Bootle, who has just said that the shorthold provisions are not working. I ask the hon. Member for Perry Barr once more: if the shorthold provisions are not working, is that not because of the commitment that he has just given from the Dispatch Box?
  Mr. Rooker: That is probably true.
  Mr. Heddle: I hope that the hon. Member for Perry Barr will give the matter a second thought. The House and the nation will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has just said.
  My second point is that every hon. Member at his advice bureau on Fridays and Saturdays hears sad cases of people desperately looking for homes, who know of homes down their streets, in their cul-de-sacs, which have been empty not for one month, two months or six months but sometimes for a year or more.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will give consideration to requiring local authorities to give reasons in their regular returns to his Department why such houses have remained empty for three, six, nine and 12 months or more. Perhaps a local authority which did not have a genuine will to rehabilitate, repair and improve should be encouraged by the Department to allow tenants on the waiting list to have the key and a rent-free period to renovate those properties at their own expense. That would save the ratepayer, the taxpayer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer the responsibility for doing so.
  Most council tenants and potential council tenants are do-it-yourself experts. They would willingly put in a new bathroom and redecorate the property themselves in exchange for a rent-free period. They would have a home, the home would then be occupied and the taxpayer and ratepayer would save money.
  My third point relates to council house rent arrears. Last year, those arrears were £187 million, a rise of £11 million over the year before. This year that figure is likely to exceed £200 million. The lack of that money prevents local authorities from providing, building, improving, modernising and extending their housing stock.
  Where has the rent collector gone? What has happened to the person who knocked on the door every Monday or Tuesday, twice a fornight, three times a month to remind the tenant that if he wanted a roof over his head he ought to pay the rent and that if he could not pay the rent there was another agency, the Department of Health and Social Security, which was prepared to help deserving cases? In such circumstances, the local authority can look to the DHSS for the payment of that money, thus relieving the tenant of the worry of that never-ending spiral of debt which the tenant never intended to get into in the first place but from which he does not have the courage or understanding to extricate himself.
  My fourth point is that the urban regeneration funding should be complementary and additional to the existing urban programme and not part of the existing budget, which I suspect it is. That should not displace the existing efforts that are being made by local authorities.
  My final point concerns vacant land and vacant land registers. At long last, my right hon. Friend is speeding up the process of requiring local authorities, other statutory undertakers and public bodies to bring forward land which has been locked away from public view behind corrugated iron and gorse bushes for years. That land is at last coming on the market through the exercise of section 98 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980. Why are those registers restricted to sites of more than one acre? Why is not every parcel of land, of a quarter or half an acre, included? Such parcels of land are often large enough to build a small cul-de-sac on or perhaps large enough to accommodate a little enclave of
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  mobile homes to provide temporary accommodation for people who are tonight homeless in the constituency of the hon. Member for Perry Barr—who is laughing.
  Mr. Simon Hughes rose—
  Mr. Heddle: Mobile homes provide a very adequate means of accommodation for those people who are living under the arches, and who cannot enjoy the right to rent.
  Mr. Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Heddle: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. He has intervened already and will no doubt catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Steen: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Heddle: I apologise to my hon. Friend for not giving way, but he may wish to take up my points in his own speech.
  In conclusion—I said I would speak for only a few minutes —I believe that the Bill is a good Bill. It is good for the tenant who wants to buy, and it is good for the tenant who cannot buy. It could be good for the building societies movement if building societies are given the opportunity in the Building Societies Bill, which is now in Committee, to invest directly in ready-made investments. They could buy the hard-to-let blocks of flats from local authorities.
  I do not share the view of some colleagues that, by increasing the level of discount to 70 per cent. and reducing the qualifying period from three years to two years—I welcome that move to some extent—sales will be stimulated. I do not believe that sales of high-rise council flats will be stimulated. By and large, those flats are inferior architecturally and environmentally. Their construction is usually inferior. Often, the tenants are on low incomes and, in some cases, it would not be in their best interests to buy. I would prefer the management of those blocks to be put out to more sympathetic, non-profit-making organisations, such as the building societies. The Building Societies Bill will enable building societies to do that.
  The Bill will be a good measure for all those estates that are grafitti-ridden and worse. It will be good for our inner cities and, therefore, for the heart of our nation.
  6.50 pm
  Mr. David Winnick: I do not know why the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle) concluded that there is consensus here on the legislation. There is nothing of the kind, as has already been demonstrated by my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker).
  We face a formidable housing crisis. New public sector starts are at their lowest level in peace time. It is unlikely that the total number of building starts in the public sector in the whole of the United Kingdom this year will be more than 30,000. That means that a large number of people are unable to buy, and stand no chance in the near future of being offered, accommodation by a council. That all adds to the housing crisis.
  Last year was the centenary of the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885; so we have had 100 years of council housing.
  Mr. Steen: It was a disaster.
  Mr. Winnick: It was not, however, an anniversary that the Government would wish to see celebrated. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) said in an intervention, council housing came about because of slum landlords, and so on. Although the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) said that council housing had been a disaster, I take a different view. Hundreds of thousands of people of successive generations have benefited from public sector housing, and we shall not apologise for that in any way, shape, or form.
  The purpose of the Bill is to reduce substantially the amount of rented accommodation in the public sector and actively to encourage privatisation of council estates. That would undoubtedly seriously undermine the rights and security of those tenants who do not wish to buy. A large number of tenants, of course, have no intention of buying. Under the proposed legislation, some of the accommodation will be transferred to private ownership. Conservative Members talk about tenants' rights and so on; but what about the tenants? They will have no say. They will not even be consulted, so let us not have hypocrisy about tenants' rights. We should be concerned about the way in which those rights will he undermined.
  Since the Conservative party took office, public expenditure on housing has been cut by two thirds. The housing investment programme allocation continues to be totally inadequate to meet the needs of local authorities in building and modernising. Since 1979, because of the Government's policies, and for no other reason, no council house starts have taken place in my borough of Walsall. What am I supposed to say to the people with children who come to me at my surgeries or write to me asking for accommodation or a transfer from a high-rise flat to a house? Should I say that they should buy? Many are unemployed and the incomes of others are totally inadequate to obtain a mortgage. Their plight is due to the Government's deliberate policy of making it virtually impossible for local authorities, such as mine, to undertake any new building work.
  Owner-occupiers in my constituency in need of improvement grants are regular visitors to my surgeries. They are in no position to pay for a new roof, roof repairs or other repair work without assistance. Once the 1983 election was won, the Government turned off improvement grants so that it became virtually impossible in many parts of the country—certainly in my area—to obtain such grants. Is there any protest from Conservative Members who are always talking about owner-occupiers? What about those owner-occupiers I have described—do they not have a right? Many are retired and desperately need improvements on their properties which can be carried out only through a grant. There is no help in the Bill.
  We must bear in mind that the demand for rented accommodation continues to grow. It is not obscene that, when thousands of families are forced to live in and bring up children in bed and breakfast accommodation, legislation is brought before us that does nothing to build a single new council house or flat? This will affect not only people in bed and breakfast accommodation who are homeless, but many others.
  The fallacy in the Government's case is the argument that most people, apart from the pensioners and the poorest people, can afford to buy. Is it possible in Greater London to find even a one-bedroomed flat for less than £26,000 or £30,000? The position is somewhat different in the west
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  midlands. House prices exclude many people, not just the poorest, from being able to buy. What is to happen to them? Should they be denied adequate housing? Should they continue to wait for years on council waiting lists because of the Government's deliberate policy of ensuring by financial means that local authorities cannot build? Apart from the large number of people who are not offered any type of accommodation, many other people, such as my constituents, have to wait a very long time for transfer to a house. Even if they have two children and live in a high-rise block of flats, they must wait years on end before there is any chance that the council can offer them a house. Is it asking too much to provide for them what we as Members of Parliament have—a house with a garden? They are asking only for that. Inevitably they are told by the local neighbourhood offices who certainly want to help, "You must wait." To have two children is not a good enough reason.
  Mr. Holt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Winnick: Because of the shortage of time, I shall not.
  It is interesting that the Government have continued to deny private tenants any opportunity to buy. We have asked a simple question: if it is almost a "sacred" right for council tenants to buy, as Conservative Members have argued, why not give private tenants the same right? Why not give that right to the tenants in the constituency of the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle), who complained to the local press? Why should private tenants, who in many cases—I would not say in all cases—are in a worse position than council tenants, not have a legal right to buy? When I asked the former Minister. the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), that question, he ruled the idea out entirely. I am willing to give way to the Minister for Housing to enable him to answer this question: why should private tenants not have the legal right to buy? It is understandable that there is silence because there is no real answer to the question. It is obvious that the Tory party is not in power to offend its friends in property companies and the large landlords.
  Many council tenants face a serious threat as a result of the Bill's introduction. Clause 5 will make it much easier for a council tenant to lose his or her security and for possession to be granted against the tenant when the local authority wishes to sell the accommodation to the private sector. We are told that there is provision in the Bill for suitable alternative accommodation to be found. but who decides whether the alternative accommodation is suitable? Will it be the courts or local authorities which decide? Council tenants will have no effective defence against eviction under the Bill. If the local authority decides to sell and the Secretary of State agrees, that is the end of the matter.
  It is understandable that many private landlords and property companies would like to see the same powers given to them. The hon. Members for Eastbourne and for Mid-Staffordshire argued, in effect, for a repeat of the Rent Act 1957. My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) was right to make the assertion that he did. I was a member of a local authority when that Act started to take effect. The authority's job was to do its best to rehouse those who had been evicted legally —not by Rachmanite means—as a result of the Act.
  When the Labour party won the 1964 general election the 1957 Act was so discredited—perhaps the Labour

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  party won the election because of the Act—that the then Tory Opposition did not vote against the Labour Bill to repeal the measure which they had introduced a few years previously. I believe that the Cabinet takes the same line as the hon. Members for Eastbourne and for Mid-Staffordshire. The members of the Cabinet would like to see the deregulation of the private rented sector but they do not have the courage to take the steps to secure that result. They believe—they are right to do so—that if there is one certain way to ensure that the Labour party wins the next general election, it is to deregulate the private rented sector. I believe that my party will win in any event.
  Mr. Heddle: The hon. Gentleman takes us down memory lane to the 1957 Act in every housing debate. I would rather look forward to 1997, when I hope that there will be more people in homes and more people having the right to rent. Does he agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) that in any new letting of any property having basic, standard amenities, such as a bathroom, hot water and electricity—a property which has been fully modernised and improved — in circumstances where the landlord and the tenant can come to terms on the rent that should pass between them in return for the right to rent, the result will be the provision of more accommodation for his constituents and mine? If so, will he tell the occupants of the Opposition Front Bench?
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman seems not to understand that the 1957 Act — I have gone down memory lane, and rightly so, for reasons which my right hon. and hon. Friends and even some Conservative Members will understand—demonstrated that deregulation does not provide more accommodation. More privately rented accommodation was lost as a result of that Act than ever before. When landlords were given the opportunity of obtaining vacant possession, they sold off their properties. We must recognise—the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire is unwilling to do so—that if we accept that there is a need for rented accommodation, the supply of it will come only from the public sector. Unfortunately, some Conservative Members do not seem to recognise the need for rented accommodation.
  The Select Committee on the Environment heard evidence from representatives of the private sector and they made it clear that they were not interested in shortholds. The Small Landlords Association and other such groups told the Committee that it would not work. In their opinion, it would not give them the proper freedom to operate. The sort of freedom that they wanted was available under the 1957 Act. Unless they are given that freedom, we shall see no revival of the private rented sector.
  Clause 6 encourages councils to hive off their housing management to private agencies. As long as the agents are approved by the Secretary of State, there will be no further obstacles to such an arrangement. The agents can take over the management of council estates and they are not likely to be overconcerned with tenants' rights and tenants' problems. As I understand it, these agents will be responsible for the allocation of council housing and the level of rents. It seems that they will be responsible for all matters concerned with housing management.
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  I am totally opposed to that approach. I believe that local authorities should continue to be responsible for housing management. That responsibility should not be given to the private sector. I am proud that the borough in my constituency pioneered local neighbourhood offices. The concept was sneered at at the time, and it was argued that it would not work. It has 32 offices and it is interesting that a number of local authorities, including non-Labour ones, are copying what was initiated in 1980 in Walsall. That is a form of decentralisation that should be encouraged. Although these neighbourhood offices have been subjected to all sorts of difficulty and stress —understandably so in view of the Government's policy—they have proved essential in securing good management practice. There is no need to privatise such functions.
  The Bill makes no provision for tenants to have any say in whether their homes are to be sold to the private sector or whether management functions are to be taken over by a private agency. Tenants will have no right of information. They will merely be told what has been done. For all these reasons we must be very much opposed to clauses 5 and 6.
  The Government are determined to treat the public housing sector with contempt. They are waging what can be described only as a doctrinaire vendetta against council housing. Ministers remain indifferent to the housing plight and misery of so many of our fellow citizens. The Cabinet has shown by the introduction of the Bill that it is interested only in trying substantially to reduce the number of rented dwellings.
  The Opposition are concerned to ensure that people are in the position to buy their own homes, and in the 1960s a Labour Government made it easier for many to obtain a mortgage under the option mortgage scheme. We are determined to ensure—it is one of the reasons why we are here — that those who cannot buy are housed adequately. They should have decent council housing and we shall do our utmost to expose their present plight. When we are in government, we shall ensure that policies are implemented that will result in such people being housed adequately.
  7.8 pm
  Mr. Robert B. Jones: I make no bones about believing that housing policy should be judged according to the criterion of how it measures up to the aspirations of the British people. There can be no doubt that the majority of the people prefer owner-occupation; that is especially true of those who form the youngest age group who are in a position to buy their own homes. I shall judge the Bill according to that criterion and accordingly I shall welcome it. Unfortunately, it does not go as far as I would like by the same criterion.
  Unlike many other Conservative Members, I accept the case for the right to buy for the tenants of private institutional organisations. I hope that that view will shortly become the view of many more of my colleagues, and in due course the view of those who occupy the Government Front Bench.
  I do not believe that the extension of the discount range by 10 per cent. on the sale of flats will achieve the purpose that my hon. Friend the Minister intends. It is true that the provision might nudge up the sales rate of attractive flats in three-storey blocks in my constituency, but I doubt whether it will have any great effect on sales in tower blocks in inner cities, which is surely where we are seeking

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  to promote owner-occupation more than anywhere else. We wish to do so because that is where it is to be found less than anywhere else.
  There are various ways in which the extension of owner-occupation in inner-city areas could be achieved. First, local authorities could be encouraged, or even required, to designate certain blocks as sales blocks so that those who bought would know that they would be joined by other owner-occupiers over a period of years. That would increase their confidence and it would lead to a greater market for the resale of houses.
  Secondly, I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) was right about the need to experiment by putting some of those flats on the open market to see whether we could establish a proper market value on which district valuers could base their views.
  Thirdly, there is more scope for refurbishment of existing blocks and existing estates than is contained in the Bill. I welcome the initiative money that my hon. Friend the Minister has announced. I am sure that it will result in many more experiments like that at Salford, which has yielded great benefits and owner-occupation at a low cost. That is more possible in the north and in the midlands than in the high-priced areas of the south-east.
  I welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) about portable discounts and I commend his proposal to my hon. Friend. However, it is extraordinary that the hon. Member should have been in favour of portable discounts for tenants of local authorities when he and his hon. Friends did everything possible to frustrate the Government's desire to give a similar opportunity to the tenants of charitable housing associations.
  I make no apology for discussing several omissions from the housing provisions of the Bill. There should be a legal requirement on local authorities to publish not only waiting lists for rented accommodation, but waiting lists for owner-occupation. Many of those on the waiting list for local authority accommodation would prefer to buy. A waiting list for that purpose would provide some guide to the local authorities in deciding housing policy.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne was right to say that the Bill should have contained measures to revitalise the private rented sector. I believe that decontrolling vacant tenancy would move us in the right direction.
  We have not heard much about planning law during the debate, but it is an important part of the Bill. I welcome the proposals for simplified planning zones. I detect some ancestry in my modest work on the planning system published a few years ago, which has sold many copies to the Department of the Environment during the past year and a bit.
  The main problem with the planning system is not the decisions that are made, but the slowness with which they are reached. In 1979 Slough Estates published a comparative survey showing that in the rival countries of Belgium, the United States and Canada it was much quicker to obtain planning permission for industrial development. In 1979, it took six weeks to obtain full permission for a 50,000 sq ft factory with 10 per cent. office content in Belgium, five weeks in the United States and four weeks in Canada. That compares with 32 weeks in the United Kingdom. It is little wonder that a mobile international company wishing to get its products on the market sooner than its competitors might seek to locate its
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  factories in Belgium, the United States or Canada rather than the United Kingdom, if all other things were equal. Much more attention must be paid to speeding up the planning system.
  The appeal system is one control over the speed of the planning system. Local authorities have eight weeks to make a decision on ordinary planning applications. If the local authority does not make a decision within eight weeks, the applicant can go to the Department of the Environment and appeal on the grounds of non-determination. However, that appeal takes 19 weeks to go through. What sort of sanction is an average appeal period of 19 weeks against a local authority that has not determined an application within eight weeks? The vast majority of applicants will tend to continue with the local authority system rather than going through the appeal system. They will use the appeal system only if the local authority decision has gone against them. It has no effect as a policeman of the speed of the planning system. That is something to which we should pay more attention.
  Nothing is said in the Bill about the other great problem in planning — the adequacy of the training of local councillors who make those decisions. By the very nature of local authorities, there is an enormous turnover of councillors. Many hon. Members will be familiar with the fact that half the councillors may retire every time there is an election, to say nothing of those who lose their seats. All over again, councillors on planning committees must be educated about planning law. When people come fresh to the system they think of it as a response to public opinion rather than what planning law tends to be about, which is precedent, comparative decisions and the historic use of a site.
  When new councillors are elected, many officers make strenuous efforts to inform and educate them, for example, by having seminars, but far too often local councillors choose to ignore the real planning law of the country, because they wish to play to the views of groups of their constituents. All of us know about the duress of having a large group in the public gallery that may not be representative of public opinion, but which, because it is howling down the necks of councillors, influences the way in which they approach the planning system.
  I recommend that, when he considers the planning sections of the Bill, my hon. Friend should seek to ensure that councillors receive proper advice, proper counselling and proper education.
  I welcome the Bill. It can be improved in Committee and I sincerely hope that when it returns to the Chamber it will achieve even more in moving towards its objectives of increasing owner-occupation for the British people, providing choice for the tenants of existing rented accommodation and speeding up and simplifying the planning system.
  7.16 pm
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I listened carefully to the Minister's opening speech. He said that the intellectual landscape had now changed and that we would not be returning to the local authority housing policies of the past. He called it "irreversible change". He said that the Bill was in line with continuing Government housing policy. I agree with the hon. Member. He is absolutely right. The Bill is another addition, cleverly introduced, to the counter-revolutionary process which has been going on in Britain since the Government were elected. All the

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  values, the traditions and the accepted modes are now slowly but surely — sometimes fairly quickly — being destroyed.
  It worries me that some people have a strange idea about why we had and have local authority council housing.—[Interruption.] I see the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) nodding. He is a strange example of that strange idea. In Britain we have never had really good housing on a mass scale for ordinary working people. That position improved, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) mentioned, when the first legislation was introduced to build housing for the poor. The first council housing began in 1919. The great breakthrough came in 1924, with the Act introduced by John Wheatley—one of those mad, wild Lefties from Glasgow who happened to be a marvellous Roman Catholic and who believed in building houses for ordinary working people who could not afford to buy homes.
  To listen to some people, one would imagine that those sections of our community have no problems. I do not know where some hon. Members have been hiding. Clearly, they have not been living in the real world. We could ask any of my hon. Friends who represent urban areas about what happens at their weekly surgeries, and they would tell stories of young people crying out for accommodation, sometimes having to live with their parents and sometimes separated from each other and their children. They cannot buy homes. Many of them are unemployed. Liverpool has 21 per cent. unemployment; in some areas of the city, the figure is between 60 and 65 per cent. On one estate, 80 per cent. of the people have no incomes except from state benefits. Where would they get the money to buy homes?
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle), who said that he represented the building societies, has left the Chamber. I would like to send those people along to him and say, "You get them a mortgage. You get them somewhere to live." They have nowhere to live, and the only organisations that can help them are the local authorities. Some co-operative associations can help, but most assistance comes from local authorities. The Church of England report makes that point.
  Some of my hon. Friends seem to be mesmerised by the word "choice". I hope that they will not remain mesmerised by it, because most working people have no choice. They do not begin to think in terms of choice. They cannot say "I will buy a house", or, "I will rent a house or go into a local co-operative housing association." Their only possible choice is that the local authority might offer them accommodation and allow them to turn down at least one offer. Even that is happening less and less.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Richard Tracey): I wish to pursue the hon. Gentleman's point about the availability of public sector housing to let. He is perpetuating the myth that we heard from the hon. Members for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) and Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). Is he aware that the public rented sector increased from 367,000 in 1979–80 to 410,000 last year? What is his explanation of that?
  Mr. Heffer: I do not argue about the exact figures. All that I know is that the working people of Liverpool have
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  no choice of accommodation, because there is no accommodation. Dwellings should be made available for them to rent.
  The Liverpool city councillors—I will not refer to the court case—began to tackle the problems of housing in the city. They built houses to rent and began to pull down the old multistorey blocks with which nothing could be done—
  Mr. James Hill (Southampton, Test): Sell them to the private sector.
  Mr. Heffer: Even the private sector in Liverpool wanted nothing to do with them, apart from two blocks. They are still standing as monuments. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know about the Piggeries, I shall tell him. Liverpool city council is building houses to rent and is helping people to leave their present terrible accommodation or giving youngsters an opportunity to have new homes. At the same time, it has been starved of financial aid by the Government. Its HIP allocation has been reduced—
  Mr. John Fraser: So has Lambeth's.
  Mr. Heffer: Yes, and the council has been unable to deal with repairs as it would have wished. That is what is really happening in housing.
  I do not usually make long speeches; I hope that I usually make effective speeches. I have listened to some rubbishy, long speeches from Conservative Members. Listening to the hon. Member for the building societies—which I shall call him from now on—I had a picture of my mother-in-law, who is aged 83, putting in a new bath, the poor disabled fellow who lives four doors away from her putting in a new bath, and the young girl who lives next door to her, whose husband died and who has two children, putting in a new bath. I have never heard such rubbish. It is time that they stopped talking rubbish and talked about building houses for the people, because that is what the Labour party intends to do.
  I end by referring to the document "Homes for the Future". Some hon. Members seem to believe that it was produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), but he was only one member of the committee. I chaired the committee and I moved the report at the Labour party conference on behalf of the national executive. It is not my hon. Friend's report or mine; it is party policy accepted at the party conference and we all contributed to it.
  The Government mention only one side of the story and try to suggest that we have suddenly accepted their philosophy. If they read the document, they will see that we reject their philosophy completely. We say that once those houses are built, there will be an opportunity for choice. If people have the wherewithal to buy homes, we shall help them, as we have always said we would. The report states:
  "Finally, we know that in some areas, such as the inner cities, the shortage of council houses and of land to replace scarce council housing raises special difficulties. These could be considerable. In these areas local authorities will be free to determine whether, in the light of local circumstances, council tenants should be able to buy their houses."
  We go on:
  "Council tenants who wish to buy a home in the private market would be helped by the more general assistance available to first-time buyers, as noted above."
  I shall not go into the details because they are all there. We are working on a scheme to help the first-time buyers.

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  That is our policy. I am not ashamed of it. I helped to get that through. The idea that there is a great difference of opinion between me on one side of the party and the Opposition Front Bench on the other is just untrue.
  We recognise that there will be areas where we cannot automatically say that council stock should be sold. But we do say that when we get to a stage when there are no longer any real problems — that will take some considerable time unfortunately, especially after the Government have made it worse by every Bill that they have brought in—we shall carry out our policy.
  Let us vote the Bill down and get it across to the people that once again the Government are putting their sectarian ideological views forward and privatising everything. The way that the Government are going, if they last a few more years we shall be paying out money to breathe the air that we need to live.
  7.30 pm
  Mr. James Hill: We have been down memory lane quite a bit this afternoon. Perhaps those of us who have been in public housing for many years will cast our minds back to some of the mistakes that we made. In my city of Southampton we bulldozed down, with disregard to the communities, many long streets of terraced houses that could have been modernised and rehabilitated. We broke up the families. We put people who were unused to flat dwelling into flats. We created the monster of the dissatisfied tenant.
  I am sure that anyone who served on the local authorities in the 1960s will agree that in those days we could have easily restored the community spirit in some of our inner cities. Not only did we bulldoze the terraces down, but we built high rise flats to provide the maximum accommodation to rehouse the people from the terraces. Then we created vast concrete areas, all under the grand umbrella of the Parker Morris standards, and wondered why the poor demented people, who had been forced out of their individual homes to live way up in the sky in areas that were dangerous to transverse at night, wanted to move. We suddenly found that one of the worst problems was not that tenants could not get accommodation but that practically every other tenant wanted to move.
  We must all accept that the problems arise from bad designs, bad workmanship and the fact that the high-rise blocks have become dangerous. We have had to evacuate the tenants from three high-rise blocks in Southampton, and they are another burden on the housing committee. All those mistakes happened when we as junior politicians were devising a housing policy. No one can blame anybody else. We are all responsible for the mess we are in.
  If the public in the Gallery who were so appreciative of the speech made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) were fair, they would recognise that there has been a series of mistakes since the end of the last war. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree that when one reaches the conclusion that there has been a series of mistakes, there must be remedial measures. The only way that we can take any remedial measures in this place is with legislation.
  I agree that we have had too many housing Bills. I sat on the Committee on the Housing Bill in 1972 which took five months to go through because we fought cat and dog all the way. Blood was on the carpet. Luckily it was verbal
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  blood. If it were not, we probably would not fight quite so much. At the end of the day we created another series of problems for the people whom we were trying to help.
  Having got to that point down memory lane we can start rationalising what is wrong. The Piggeries in Liverpool have been mentioned. That is a perfect example of what we are up against as politicians after many years of incorrect decisions.
  Mr. Steen: What my hon. Friend says is perfectly true, and I am sure the House will agree that there have been a lot of bad decisions at local government level in public housing. It was not just the high rise blocks, the comprehensive redevelopment programmes of the inner cities or the vast, soulless council estates that were the mistakes. Every decision has been a mistake. What does my hon. Friend see as a solution? Many of the estates that were built 10 years ago are being blown up. Part of a housing estate has been blown up in my old constituency in Liverpool. If all the problems of the past 10 years are put together, they are all the result of mistakes, so what is the solution?
  Mr. Hill: Of course, there have been mistakes, but I must reject my hon. Friend's argument that everything has been a mistake. One of the best periods of housing policy was when we brought in the general improvement and housing action areas. They worked successfully. It was back to my idea of the restoration of terraced houses in deprived parts of a city. One of the jewels in our policy was the housing action and general improvement areas.
  However, to get back to the high-rise blocks of flats, what is to be done with them? No tenant wants to stay there. Anyone with young children wants to move into a house with a little bit of garden. Frankly, the only solution that we have is in the Bill. We must convince as many people as possible of that. Whatever one says in political terms, home ownership tends to make people more proud of where they are living. They try to improve their environment and look after their properties that much more. But I can see no hope for the large, high-rise blocks of flats. They will have to go. They are dinosaurs in housing terms.
  But the tenants of blocks of flats that are perhaps four storey high, of which we have many in Southampton, will appreciate what is in the Bill.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The problem that the Bill presents is that we shall not be able to sell off the high-rise blocks even if local authorities want to do so. The more appealing blocks—the smaller, low-rise blocks—where the tenants most want to stay because they have a greater sense of community will be where there is most resistance to compulsory transfer from public sector ownership to somebody else or to getting the tenants out.
  Mr. Hill: It depends whether the Bill's success is such that practically everyone in a four-storey block of flats will benefit from further discounts and from having the repairs worked out beforehand by the local authorities so that they know their financial status. It is also important that the common parts of the building with the service should be controlled. Many of my constituents are fearful of the stories that go around. Someone buys a flat in a four-storey block which comes within the rolling programme of the local authority for repairs and maintenance. Suddenly the new owner finds that he is responsible for a percentage of

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  the cost of reroofing the whole building, the replacement of all the windows and the decoration of all the common parts. If he is on a low income but has managed to get a council mortgage by taking advantage of all the discounts, his financial budget is critical and he does not want the surprise of the extra expenditure. The Bill will eliminate that surprise. Many people will be induced to buy their flats because of the provisions in the Bill.
  Clause 5 deals with the redevelopment of a house. It may be considered politically as harsh or sympathetic. The same happens under compulsory purchase orders when unfortunate people do not want to leave their homes. The explanatory memorandum says:
  "The new ground (under which suitable alternative accommodation must be available) will apply".
  I am not a barrister, but as chairman of a housing authority I have dealt with enough compulsory purchase orders to know the problems. That provision is as hard as possible in legal terms.
  If a person wants equivalent accommodation or wants to live near his mother he may have problems if the local authority is inflexible. I hope that most councils will be flexible enough to give someone at least three alternatives. I think the suggestion from the Opposition was that only one offer should be made. That would be wrong when a local authority is dispossessing a person of his statutory home, which is what it is, because he is a regulated tenant and has possession.
  No matter how much a private landlord wanted to redevelop a site he could not do anything like that. In Committee — not that I want to be on the Committee because I served for five months in 1972 and that will last me for ever—my colleagues should make sure that the Bill includes a proviso that three offers of alternative accommodation should be made.
  I have the same doubt as has already been raised about simplified planning zones. It is a wonderful idea, but I do not see it working. The idea is that people should be able to build what they want and it seems that the developer would not even pay for the planning application. Everything is supposed to work smoothly. We have seen what has happened with enterprise zones and I am aware of the same thing with the freeport in Southampton. The schemes do not work as smoothly as seems possible when they are discussed in Committee. There are always obstacles that we politicians do not foresee.
  Southampton is a most attractive specimen of the mix of one third council accommodation and two thirds private housing. When I left the post of chairman of the housing authority we had 23,000 council dwellings. Not to my horror, but perhaps to my surprise, when I talked to the Labour chairman of the housing authority just before Christmas I found that the council still had 23,000 housing units, although a sale scheme had been in operation since 1967. People should not fear the sale of council houses. The scheme should be used to the greatest advantage. The Government should be more lenient in future about the capital receipts from the sale of council houses. Some local authorities may abuse their powers and waste money but we shall not be able to keep the neck of the purse tied so tightly.
  I hope that we are all on the same lines on modernisation, destruction of high-rise flats, the encouragement of as many tenants as possible to buy low
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  rise flats and the operation of simplified planning zones. However, I fear that there will be many a squabble in Committee.
  7.45 pm
  Mr. Chris Smith: In expressing my grave disquiet about the Bill, I want to concentrate mainly on the housing provisions. I begin by making a brief reference to the principle of simplified planning zones, which are of great concern to me. There has been a tendency in some parts of the Conservative party in recent years to throw much doubt upon the planning system. There are frequent calls to sweep away the delays, the bureaucracy and the decisions by grey, faceless bureaucrats in planning departments. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] The chorus of assent from the Government Benches demonstrates their attachment to that point of view.
  The principle of simplified planning zones is nothing more nor less than a simplistic attack on the planning system as a whole for the areas that are to be designated. In making that attack the Government Benches have forgotten the basic principle that lies at the heart of the planning system—that people in a local community should have some control over what is developed in that area. The mechanism of the private market, the profit motive and the ownership of land should not be the only determining factors in decisions that are made on how an environment develops. The proposal for simplified planning zones will effectively remove local democratic control from the area and thereby remove the decision by the local community on how the area should develop.
  Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman should appreciate that there is not on the Tory benches a desire to remove that control. The simplified planning zones will be brought into being by local authorities. On his general point, will the hon. Gentleman accept that the process he has described has been unsuccessful in representing the wishes of local people? That is demonstrated by many of the unsatisfactory housing conditions that we see in major cities. If what is happening is deemed to be the wish of the local people rather than the dreams of people in planning authorities and borough architects most hon. Members would be very much surprised.
  Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman has anticipated my argument. Many examples can be given to show where the planning process, as operated at present, has gone wrong. However, there are other examples where the planning system has gone right for a change. I point the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) in the direction of the Coin street site in Lambeth. The basic point remains the same. The way to deal with the problem of bureaucracy and the way to cope with the difficulties that are imposed upon areas by a remote planning system is not to do away altogether with planning controls but to look at ways of democratising the planning process so that people have a genuine and real say in how their area is to be developed. Simplified planning zones will not achieve the democratising principle that ought to be at the heart of any examination of how the planning system can be developed.
  I echo a point that has been made by several other hon. Members about the simplified planning zones concept. I am deeply concerned that designated conservation areas,

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  areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks—despite the brief, opaque reference in the Bill to national parks—are not specifically excluded from the possibility of being designated as simplified planning zones. I hope that during the passage of the Bill they will be excluded.
  Many criticisms can be made of the housing provisions, but two of them stand out as being detrimental to housing in this country. The first is clause 5. In his opening speech the Minister sped over its provisions. Clause 5 relates to the new ground for possession of council property. Opposition Members have eloquently pointed out that it will enable local authorities which are determined to sell council property to sell it over their heads and against the wishes of council tenants. I hope that during the next few weeks Conservative Members will talk to the tenants of the Fulham court estate and find out how they feel about the prospect of the estate being sold over their heads and against their wishes. That is precisely the power that the Minister, by this Bill, wishes to give to local authorities.
  The institution of a new ground for possession ought surely to follow the basic principles that seeking grounds for possession and allowing grounds for possession to be granted have traditionally followed for secure tenancies: either because a tenant has reneged on his tenancy obligations or because development or improvement work that is in his interests is taking place. Neither of those provisions pertains in the proposed new ground for possession. If the Bill becomes law, it will be possible for a tenant to be evicted from his home, not because his home is being renovated for another tenant to move into or for that tenant to move back into, or for the benefit of council tenants as a whole, but because it is to be sold and will benefit a private developer. That breaches the conventions upon which grounds for possession have traditionally been conceived. I hope that that provision will be defeated.
  Equally worrying provisions are contained in clause 6. The Minister and Conservative Members have rightly applauded the opportunity that clause 6 affords to establish management co-operatives on estates. I welcome that provision. Before I became a Member of Parliament I worked for several years for a housing co-operative. I am an ardent advocate of the benefits that a co-operative, either a management co-operative or an ownership co-operative, can bring to housing management and of the degree of control that residents have over their environment. However, there is a grave danger that the baby will be thrown out with the bath water. Clause 6 makes it possible not only to form a management co-operative on an estate but to privatise the entire management of an estate or a group of council dwellings. It is deeply worrying that an estate could fall into the hands of an organisation or an individual who has no connection with the co-operative or with the tenants.
  Whatever the failings may be—and they are many—of existing council housing departments, it is a horrifying prospect that private estate agents, or organisations, or private landlords could take over the management of accommodation. We would go from something that is frequently bad at present to something that would be, or could be, far worse.
  Mr. John Patten: I have listened with care to the hon. Gentleman because I respect his experience in the housing co-operative movement, but does he not think that he has over-polarised the argument between public authority management and/or tenant co-operative management, as
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  delegated by local authorities, and private sector management? There is a whole range of bodies in the middle to which local authorities might also welcome devolving management. Housing associations and building societies, under the new powers that are to be granted to them under the Building Societies Bill, are but two examples.
  Mr. Smith: The idea of a building society managing a local authority housing estate is horrifying. —[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] For the simple reason that building societies were not established for and have no experience in and are unlikely to have any interest in the management of rented accommodation. Indeed, they are extremely unlikely to have at the heart of their concern the interests of tenants.
  The principle upon which I hope any local authority housing department official or any Department of the Environment official will wish to operate is that the wishes of the tenants of an estate or of a group of houses are paramount. There are different degrees of tenant control, ranging from complete local authority management to full tenant co-operatives. The tenants may wish a housing association to assist them with the management of an estate, or some aspects of it. There is no problem about that, and I fully support it.
  I hope that tenants will be able to opt for any of the different forms of control and participation that are available to them. I would welcome such a system, but I cannot welcome the open provisions that clause 6 makes available to local authorities that wish to shuffle off the arduous responsibility of managing their accommodation to the highest bidder. The clause would allow them to do that, but it would not be in the interests of or benefit the tenants of such an estate.
  Even more worrying are the general assumptions that underlie the Bill. The Minister revealed those assumptions during the course of his speech. They characterise not just the Bill but the Government's housing policies in the last six years. He said, for example, that money had been poured into public housing in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the result has been vast impersonal estates. That as a bald statement of fact is probably correct. The vast impersonal estates that were built in the 1950s, 1960s and the early 1970s—and my constituency has its unfair share of them—are unpleasant places in which to live. They should never have been built in the first place and present management and maintenance headaches now for those who have to manage and maintain them. To leap from there to the conclusion that public housing as a whole is discredited and is a lesser form of tenure and a lesser form of housing enterprise than private home ownership is not sensible.
  I invite the Minister to visit my constituency and to see some of the housing development that took place under a Labour Government by a Labour council in the late 1970s. That development took the form of rehabilitation of individual street houses on a large scale. It took the form of rehabilitation of old inter-war estates into good quality accommodation. It was an attempt to preserve on those estates the existing community of tenants.
  The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) spoke about the preservation of communities. That initiative was developed and has been carried out on a considerable number of older tenants in my constituency. The tenants living on those rehabilitated estates found

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  them very comfortable, decent places in which to live. On York Way court estate, the tenants sadly face the prospect of cuts in the further programme of work on the estate because the Department of the Environment is not permitting the project control application for the full cost of the next phase of work. I will be taking that up with the Minister in another forum.
  The work which has been carried out to rehabilitate old existing council property, to buy up street properties and do them up and to build new houses with gardens in small closes and streets is very popular. It makes for good housing and provides decent homes for people to rent at prices they can afford. That was done by the public sector. To damn by implication the entire public sector by reference to the impersonal and inadequate work carried out in the 1950s and 1960s is unfair to the principle of public housing. One Conservative Member said that every decision has been a mistake, but I hope that he and other Conservative Members will reconsider their attitude to public housing which, at its best, in modern conditions and with an emphasis on quality, can indeed provide good quality accommodation for those who need it.
  Because of the operation of the project control system, the cost limits which the Department of the Environment is now imposing, the drying up of housing investment programme allocations, the restrictions on the use of capital receipts by local authorities and all the restrictive measures that the Department of the Environment is now applying, the ability by local authorities to carry out work of that quality for people who want it has become virtually impossible. Tenants on Bentham court estate in my constituency who had been looking forward keenly to further stages of the estate action programme are being told that they have to wait for several years before the work can be completed. As a result, there is a family of 10 in my constituency living in a three-bedroomed flat who have been waiting for four years to move from that flat because the local authority cannot build a large enough house for them to move into. This can be provided only by the new build programme. For that state of affairs I am afraid the Government's housing policy and their attitude to public housing as a whole is undoubtedly responsible.
  The Minister commented that public housing will continue to have a role, but a more specialised and narrower role. That means, in effect, that housing provided by the public sector will be concerned with the provision of housing for the urban poor. That is the future for public housing as seen by the Government. Their focus entirely on tenure and their assumption that the only form of housing with any validity is the home ownership form of tenure—assumptions which lie behind everything the Government have said — are against the wishes and interests of many thousands of people in the country. There should be available equally to everyone the choice to own or to rent. That surely is how we should be gearing our housing policy.
  Many thousands of people in my constituency will find nothing in the Bill for them. I speak of those who are badly housed, who are homeless or who are living in inadequate, damp, mouldy and condensation-infested housing. The Bill does nothing for them. Nor do the assumptions the Government have been making in housing policy during the last six years.
  8.6 pm
  Mr. Anthony Steen: This has been a spirited and thoughtful debate, although the Opposition seem to have mistakenly equated long speeches with good quality speeches. I hope that I can make an uncharacteristically short contribution on part II and part III of the Bill, which are concerned with planning and with putting public money into urban areas.
  With regard to the planning aspect, I welcome any move to deregulate planning legislation. It involves too much bureaucracy and too many delays. Planning legislation has grown to become one of the greatest blights of our time. It has done more damage to the urban areas than any other factor. Many of our cities could hardly look worse if we had no planners at all.
  The Bill simplifies one aspect of planning. However, rather than tinkering with the system, I believe that we need outright and radical reform. Planners see things in compartments. They see the inner city, the middle city, the residential zone and the vast council estates beyond the city boundaries, with industrial parks on the fringe. What they do not see is the individual needs of an area, and they are not flexible enough to be able to adapt to local problems.
  The one thing the Government could do to restore the cities is to lift planning regulations lock, stock and barrel as they apply to the inner city so that the only things which cannot be done would be activities which were noisy to neighbours or offensive by way of smell, and buildings which were too high or blocked light. If planning control were lifted, the inner city would start to revive much more rapidly. People would want to live there and firms would want to go back there. If we continue with the current planning regime and merely tinker at the edges, there will be little change.
  There is one matter about which the Bill is silent but which I feel that both sides of the House would like to see included. It relates to homesteading and shopsteading. Homesteading was started in London many years ago. It is practised all over north America. It is one of the most important factors involved in the revitalisation of the rundown inner cities.
  Homesteading describes a process where a local authority sells, for a nominal sum, private houses which it has acquired through compulsory purchase. Instead of seeing the private housing sector deteriorate, one of the most effective actions a local authority could undertake would be compulsorily to purchase private houses which are declining and which are to be demolished and let them for £1, for example, to young married couples to restore and revive. The only condition would be that they live in the house for five years. The same applies to shops. In many run down city areas there are shops which have been abandoned by the retailers. The owners cannot relet them. The most effective way to save those shops would be to allow shopkeepers to buy them once they had been compulsorily purchased by the local authority provided that they continue to run the businesses for five years. I should like to see homesteading and shopsteading included in the Bill.
  Zoning by planners is one of the most damaging things that happens to our cities. I represented an inner Liverpool constituency. I share with few other hon. Members the honour of representing a Liverpool inner city area, and also a rural seat some 300 miles away watching a city such

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  as Plymouth sprawling outwards towards the green belt outside. I understand the inner city and the rural problems. When I was in Liverpool a black man was doing some enterprising work in a small garage at the back of his garden. He found that there was a need for wrought iron gates. After a year, he was stopped, although he was employing two people, because he was working in a residential zone. He was not allowed by the planners to carry on, although no complaints had been received.
  My first plea to my hon. Friend the Minister is that we should lift planning controls in the inner city, subject to certain restrictions, and that the planning regime should include a new approach to homesteading and shopsteading.
  My second point relates to the need and desire to put more public money into urban renewal. The Government's greatest mistake is to pour more public money into inner areas. It will not solve the problems. Successive Government have poured billions of pounds of public money into a bottomless pit in the hope that it would result in urban renewal. The more public money pumped in, the worse the inner areas become.
  The urban aid programme started in 1968. Harold Wilson believed that inner urban area problems would be solved by throwing £20 million at them. He started the urban aid programme. I pay tribute to him for doing that. He believed that £20 million would solve the problem, but today, of course, the urban aid programme is running at £338 million, and the problems continue to worsen.
  In 1968, the Opposition shifted the rate support grant from the shire counties to the urban areas. They transferred £60 million from the shire counties to the inner urban areas in the belief that they deserved that help. Now the Conservative Government have done the same. They are shifting money from the shire counties to the urban areas. However, the Opposition voted against our proposal to help the ailing urban areas even though the Government have courted great unpopularity in the shire counties.
  Mr. Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman is right, but he has missed the crucial fact that between the two years that he quoted the inner city areas lost billions of pounds. That was thieved by the Government and put into the shire counties. The Government are merely marginally redressing the balance. As that august and completely apolitical man the Controller of Audit at the Audit Commission has pointed out, the inner cities have lost 20 per cent., in real terms, of their resources under this Government.
  Mr. Steen: I always find the hon. Gentleman's interventions helpful, but he failed to mention that between 1968 and 1986—he will be familiar with what the Government did — the Labour and Conservative Governments introduced the community development project, the young volunteer force, which I had the privilege to direct, neighbourhood schemes, quality of life studies, educational priority areas, the six towns studies, urban guideline studies, inner area studies, the urban deprivation unit, the comprehensive community programme and the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978. They were all designed to give additional money to ailing urban areas. It is wrong to say that nothing happened between 1968 and 1986. Labour and Conservative Governments poured more and more public money into the inner urban
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  areas. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on urban renewal by the public sector and yet the inner areas look worse, the people living there more deprived.
  The Bill changes that direction and pours public money into the private sector to help them to renew the urban areas. That is the correct shift. That is the difference between previous legislation and this.
  Mr. Butterfill: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is surprising that the parts of our cities that the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) wants to preserve—the conservation areas—were built by the private sector whereas the bits that he wants to pull down were built by the public sector? Does that not seem odd?
  Mr. Steen: Many things seem odd. My hon. Friend has made a good point. The Opposition has spoken with great commitment and emotion. Because we have spoken with less fervour it should not be thought that we care less. All of us in the House care a great deal about the problems of people living in the inner urban areas. We care passionately about the problems of people living in council housing. We recognise that they have a great deal to put up with. That does not mean that we believe the Opposition's solution is any better than ours. On the contrary, we believe that our approach has some hope of success. Pouring more public money into the inner areas does not solve the problem, as we have seen for years.
  There are three things that the Government should do to help relieve urban problems. The first, which I have mentioned before, is that the Government should explore the possibility of converting rental payments for council housing into mortgage repayments. People would not have to pay any more, and the benefits would be the same. If we could switch from public to private ownership, over five or 10 years, there would be the most dramatic change in the inner areas. People living in public housing would find that after five years they were living in private housing.
  My second point is of great importance. People living in inner areas are short of cash. They need cheap money. They cannot obtain cheap money if banks charge them the ordinary rate of interest, or more, because they have no security. We need neighbourhood banks. Neighbourhood banks in the United States have shown that if people can borrow money cheaply they can renovate their houses and start small firms. The most effective way that the Government can help the inner cities is to make cheap money available.
  My third point relates to the amount of vacant public land. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle), who is not in his place. He mentioned the vacant land problem. I estimate there to be about one third of a million acres of vacant land in public ownership. The vacant land on the register, despite the amount that the Government have sold, continues to grow. Therefore, the Government should include in the Bill a provision to sell vacant public land at auction. That is long overdue. The only way to get rid of all the vacant public land in local authorities, statutory undertakers and Government is to have a massive auction. There should be a covenant in each lot sold that whoever buys the land must develop it within two years or re-auction it. Although more public money to inner cities will do no harm, it will not do much good either.
  The Bill is a step in the right direction. It has the right ingredients to solve some problems, but the Government

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  must stop pouring public money into this bottomless pit. It is the wrong medicine. The best medicine is to lift the rules and regulations, and to reduce the amount of bureaucracy. In one fell swoop the Government could do more for the cities than successive Governments have done during the past 18 years.
  8.20 pm
  Mr. D. E. Thomas: I shall respond to the planning issues raised in the debate, in particular by the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen), but first I shall deal with the housing issues, especially clause 5, which has implications for security of tenure, and clause 6. I wish to democratise all forms of housing tenure, and the control and management of estates. I should like to see far more co-operative housing developments which straddle the two poles of private owner-occupation and public sector tenancy. Many of my hon. Friends and I, who regard ourselves as libertarian Socialists, see the need to pluralise the forms of housing tenure.
  I endorse all the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) on that count. He stressed the need for greater tenant democracy—greater self-management by tenants of their estates, and greater collaboration on a community basis. I am worried that clause 6 will emphasise management by contract or consultancy agreement, rather than by the control of tenants. Similarly, clause 5 represents a severe reduction of tenants' freedom and security. The Conservative party often talks in the rhetoric of freedom, but in reality the material freedoms that it offers are rather different.
  I share the anxiety behind part II, especially behind the notion of specialised planning zones. The zones originated in the infamous White Paper entitled "Lifting the Burden", in which planning policy was given the pride of place that the hon. Member for South Hams decried.
  Mr. Steen: Only for the inner cities.
  Mr. Thomas: I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman would not abolish the planning system in the Snowdonia national park. The hon. Gentleman argued that the inner cities should not be planned as they have been since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. That was the effect of "Lifting the Burden". The White Paper's emphasis was on extending the planning regime which was already established in the enterprise zones. Page 11 argued that the planning schemes had proved effective and successful in enterprise zones. However, we have had no evidence of how enterprise zones have been an economic success, let alone a planning success.
  Enterprise zones were proposed by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey East (Sir G. Howe) as a "Socialist alternative" and "liberation approach" to liberate private enterprise from over-regulation, which the Conservative party diagnoses as Britain's major disease. He argued for a simplified planning regime, rate relief, maximum capital allowances and exemption from development land tax, and the legislation enacted that. The zones were designed to facilitate new firm formations, but one of their most conspicuous effects was the redistribution of existing
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  activity so that the cost per job in enterprise zones was much higher than originally envisaged, as the Financial Times recently pointed out.
  Much of the debate about enterprise zones has been an ideological one. When the former Chancellor was establishing them, he argued that if Labour-controlled authorities were queuing up for enterprise zone status,
  "we shall have gone a long way towards winning the debate"
  between the two philosophies.
  The fate of the simplified planning zones will be similar to the fate and experience of the enterprise zones. The real inhibitions on growth in depressed centres and regions of the economy are the relatively high level of rents, rates and VAT and, in particular, the Government's deflationary policies. Those factors have inhibited enterprise, and they are not the planning practices of successive Governments.
  The responses to consultation documents in Scotland, England and Wales have been negative. District planners, who will be responsible for carrying out the legislation, have raised strong objections to the proposals. Recently, I was in correspondence with Michael Jones, the chief planning officer of Dwyfor district council and the chair of the Society of Welsh District Planning Officers. He will be well known to Welsh Office Ministers. The Society of Welsh District Planning Officers is worried about the direction powers of the Secretary of State to local authorities in preparing the simplified planning zone proposals.
  The Minister was slightly disingenuous when he said that if a local authority objected to a simplified planning zone, that would be the end of it. He implied that if a local authority was unhappy about establishing a simplified planning zone, and if there was an appeal as set out in schedule 3, the Secretary of State would not necessarily overrule that view. However, after careful reading of schedule 3, that does not seem to be the case. The Secretary of State has the power to direct the making of a scheme and the alteration of a zone. Clearly, this is yet another intervention in the freedom of local authorities. It is an insistence that local authorities shall pursue planning policies regardless of the view of the community and its elected representatives.
  When the Minister replies, will he refer to what his hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction said, and confirm that schedule 3 confers override powers on the Secretary of State? Will he confirm that Secretaries of State will be able to override the view of a local authority, which may not wish to have a specialised planning zone in its area?
  In Wales we are already familiar with the overriding planning policies of the Secretary of State. Only before Christmas the Secretary of State for Wales issued a most interventionist and fascinating draft circular for consultation with Welsh local authorities entitled "Housing for Senior Management". The blame for the Government's economic policies in Wales was laid, not at the door of the planning system, but on the lack of
  "attractive locations for individually designed residences commanding privacy and space for executives in industry."
  The document was released under his direction, but I do not know whether the planning section in the Welsh Office agreed with him.
  The document has been rubbished by Welsh planners. I quote Michael Jones again, speaking as chairman of the Society of Welsh District Planning Officers. He said that the

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  "combined intelligence systems of local and central government",
  had failed to decipher that there was such a shortage. He goes on to describe the draft circular in critical terms and proposes that the Secretary of State should withdraw it. No doubt the inroads into the planning system which the Secretary of State for Wales seeks to make in that aspect will be taken much further in the concept of the specialised planning zone.
  I want to turn to something which is not in the Bill. There is no power for district local authorities or planning authorities in Wales to protect communities against the proliferation of second, or holiday, homes. Those properties should not be called homes because they are leisure properties, which are used by people for leisure purposes. I want to put on record, as I have before in the House and outside, my strong, unequivocal and unreserved condemnation of the recently resumed arson attacks against property in Wales. The arsonists are a threat to our society. They are dangerous exhibitionists who are preventing the possibility of change in the law governing second homes. They are giving the Secretary of State the excuse to rub his hands in resignation—not resignation from office—and say that what goes on in Wales in that way has nothing to do with him and that if the Welsh Office were even to meet those of us who have been trying to get changes in policy it would be seen as giving in to violence.
  It is essential that legislation should be introduced to enable local authorities to control the increase in second and holiday housing. The Welsh Office should not be using its planning function, as it determines individual appeals, to override the attempts of local authorities to legislate in that area and execute policy in relation to local need.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Mark Robinson): The hon. Gentleman referred to the Secretary of State having intervened to overturn planning decisions. That is not the case. As the hon. Gentleman knows, planning decisions are looked at by an inspector and in the cases to which I think the hon. Gentleman is referring the decisions were made by an inspector. The Welsh Office has not intervened in the decisions of inspectors.
  Mr. Thomas: I am grateful to the Minister, but I remind him that the local clause, which appears as a restrictive covenant on the sale of housing for holiday homes, or the sale of local housing to prevent it becoming holiday homes, is one to which his Department objects. That is also the view taken by the Department of the Environment. It proves my point that we need legislation to enable local communities to control the housing stock of their area rather than intervention by a central Government Department.
  8.34 pm
  Mr. Gerald Bowden: There are many reasons why I welcome the Bill but in the interests of brevity I shall confine my remarks to one of its provisions. I welcome the Bill because it seeks to grapple with the thorny problem of management of blocks of flats where some of the flats have been sold and some remain tenanted by local authority or other tenants. It is a difficult problem to try to harmonise that mixture of tenures. I should like to draw the Minister's attention to a development within
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  my own constituency—Ruskin park house. I believe that that development provides a model of good practice in housing management where there is a mixture of tenure. It is a case study that might be looked at in detail when seeing how provisions in the Bill might work out in practice.
  I shall briefly give details of how this fine development and its good management structure came into being. It was built in the late 1940s and early 1950s by the London county council and was tenanted by London county council tenants. During the early 1960s some tenants began to buy their flats. There are some 240 flats and over the years more and more were bought. In order to manage them, the Ruskin park housing association was formed. That association, a properly constituted and professional management body, took a long lease of 99 years in 1972 from the owners of the flats, the Greater London council as it then was, at a ground rent of £250 per annum. That arrangement has existed very successfully over the past 15 years.
  It is interesting to note the proportion of owner-occupied flats to those that are still tenanted by GLC tenants. At present Ruskin park house is two thirds owner-occupied and has one third GLC tenants.
  To understand how the scheme works so successfully it is necessary to give an outline of the arrangements. The GLC remains the ground landlord. It has a reversionary interest after 99 years from 1972. The Ruskin park housing association is the head lessee and it holds that lease for 99 years. Under that head lease individual owner-occupiers hold a lease just short of 99 years as sub-lessees. Therefore, the sub-lessee owner-occupiers are members, with one vote, of the Ruskin park housing association. The GLC tenants are there in a rather unusual way. They are sub-tenants of the GLC, which is a sub-tenant of the Ruskin park housing association. The GLC is involved in two distinct and separate ways. It is the ground landlord in one instance and is also the sub-lessee of individual flats, which it lets to its weekly tenants.
  I feel the need to explain this in detail because saying that the arrangements have worked harmoniously with a mixture of tenants, tenure and occupants over the past 15 years implies a measure of agreement and good management which makes those tenants and owner-occupiers want to live there and enables the owner-occupiers to sell and pass on their interest in the property without problems.
  When the GLC looked like living for ever, the Ruskin park housing association made an overture to purchase a freehold reversionary interest, that is to say, a period some 80 or 90 years hence when the ground rent for the unexpired term is a mere £250 per annum. That was turned down. When it was known that the GLC was to come to an end in March of this year the Ruskin park housing association, in July 1985, again approached the GLC to try to negotiate the purchase of the freehold interest, thereby merging the head lease with the freehold interest. It received no answer to that application. It made a further approach to the chairman of the GLC housing committee who said in his reply that the freehold interest along with the sub-leases of the individual flats occupied by GLC tenants would pass to the borough on the demise of the GLC.
  Knowing what was in the Minister's mind and the legislation suggested in the Queen's Speech, I could not believe that that was right. I therefore wrote to my right

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  hon. Friend the Secretary of State asking what the position was to be on the demise of the GLC. I was horrified to receive a reply dated 28 January 1986 from my noble Friend the Minister of State, who replied on behalf of the Secretary of State, saying that on the demise of the GLC the freehold interest in Ruskin park house would pass to the borough. The individual sub-tenancies occupied by GLC tenants would pass to the borough. There must be a mistake or a misunderstanding somewhere because if this were to happen in this estate, it would be a negation of the Bill's provisions.
  I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the estate should be looked upon as a model of good management. One can imagine the pride of the Ruskin park housing association and its management body. I served on that body as a member of the GLC, representing those residents who were tenants of Ruskin park house, taking an interest in their affairs and making sure that their proper concerns were reflected vis á vis the owner-occupiers. One can imagine the horror that such tenants will feel when they discover that it is proposed that the freehold interest of the individual tenancies of the GLC flats are to pass to the London borough of Southwark. That borough is in the top league of mismanagement of housing, with rent arrears of about £23 million to £24 million. It cannot be in the spirit of the Bill or of good management that this should happen.
  I urge that, when examining this provision of the Bill, special account be taken of what is to happen to the freehold interests of individual tenancies of Ruskin park house. This is a matter of great concern to my constituents and it will be of little consolation to them if the Bill goes through but Ruskin park house passes to Southwark council.
  8.42 pm
  Mr. Derek Fatchett: The hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) will excuse me if I do not comment on the detailed constituency points in his speech. As I realise that other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate, I shall concentrate on a small number of points basically concerned with housing issues. However, I have some questions about planning and the relationship between central Government and local government.
  I am concerned about a drift in the Bill that is characteristic of the Government"s move to greater centralisation in the relationship between Whitehall and local government. Inner city problems, such as those in my constituency, are best tackled in a partnership between local government, central Government and the people who live in the areas.
  Clauses 11, 12 and 13 provide the powers for financial assistance for urban regeneration, but there is no mention of local government. I hope that the Minister will comment on this point, because it appears that local government will have no role in the allocation and distribution of urban regeneration grant, or its priorities. If that is the case, the Government are taking a retrograde step because we need partnership, and the Government seem to be going in the opposite direction. I hope that the Department envisages some role for local government in the urban regeneration grant system.
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  Some planning points have already been made. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) made a point in the way that I should like to make it about planning in the inner cities. We all have criticisms about the bureaucratic nature of planning and we can all point to examples in which there have been mistakes and delays or with decisions with which we did not agree. We all recognise that bureaucracy needs to be moved, humanised and made sensitive to the wishes of people in the local communities. I must confess that I do not see simplified planning zones as the way in which we can make the planning process sensitive to the wishes of the people in the inner cities.
  Many of my hon. Friends have said that we need a process whereby local people have the opportunity to participate in the way in which planning decisions are made if we are to recreate the climate that existed in inner cities many years ago before we made planning and housing mistakes, a climate of community and a sense that people help each and belong to each other. We shall not do that if we take planning decisions and decisions about inner city fund allocations away from the local community and place them in Whitehall. I should like a system—and perhaps the Minister will comment on this — whereby we can allow local people to plan their communities and have a say in their communites so that they can recreate a sense of community, which is crucially important in overcoming many of the problems in our inner cities.
  I wish to comment on the Bill's housing clauses. I represent an inner city constituency, and increasingly, when people refer to me at advice surgeries or in letters, the problem that comes up is that of housing. People are looking for housing repairs to be completed, for better housing and for the ability to move into an area that they consider more desirable. The stress in housing in the inner cities is probably the greatest social problem that we face. I say that recognising the problems of unemployment and poverty in the inner cities. Clearly one cannot often differentiate between those factors, because they hang together.
  Some problems have been accurately described in the debate. For example, there is housing that is decaying, often in owner-occupation. Estates have been badly built and conceived in the first place, and have developed a whole series of faults. In my city, there are many difficulties associated with system-built housing, high-rise flats and maisonettes in which people will not want to live and which do not provide the homes that many people thought that they would. In addition, the private rented sector makes accommodation available to the student population, but the quality of that accommodation is very low.
  Those characteristics of housing in the inner cities are almost universally recognised and accepted by both sides of the House. What has been the Government's response to them? I see their response in my city. Since 1979, the Government have cut the real level of the housing investment programme by two thirds which means that more people who come to me or go to the local authority or local councillors with housing problems cannot be satisfied, because the financial resources are not available to refurbish the housing that needs it or to repair, improve or modernise estates that need it. Work is crucially

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  required in the high-rise blocks and, above all, new build is urgent in the cities, because that would help to create confidence and regenerate a sense of community.
  The Government have cut back on housing in a way that establishes and magnifies the difficulties of the inner city areas, but the Bill offers no substantial additional housing resources. It places its faith in the belief that private enterprise will solve the inner city problems. That belief bears no reality to life in the inner cities. In my constituency, a high number of people are living on some form of state benefit. Those people will not be able to take advantage of any new owner-occupation build that may take place in the inner city through private enterprise. The Minister has offered no evidence that there is a demand for increased owner-occupation new build in the cities.
  As to the right to buy housing in the inner city, with the difficulties that individual tenants face it is unrealistic to believe that that right, for that population, with that accommodation and housing, is anything more than theoretical. In practice, people will not be able to buy their council house or flat because they have neither the resources nor, in many cases, a desirable property to buy.
  I suspect that the Minister would buy little of the council stock in central Leeds because he would recognise that it would be a bad buy. We need an effective partnership for housing in the inner city which acknowledges that there is a role for private enterprise in addition to the important contribution that housing associations can make. We need a partnership that perceives that the central role in tackling inner city housing problems should be played by local government.
  If the Government are serious about giving the people of Britain accommodation that is decent to live in and which they can call their home, they should not reduce resources but increase them. The Government should get off the dole queues people who have the skills to build the houses which are desperately needed by so many people. Sadly, the Bill will not help in that process. I shall vote against the Bill tonight because it offers my constituents little when they have so many problems which a sensitive and caring Government would deal with.
  8.50 pm
  Mr. Richard Alexander: I welcome the Bill. It is a work of art. Much work has gone into it. It is a Bill of many parts. I cannot speak to all of them in the few moments that I have, so I shall deal with some of the planning aspects which concern me. The Bill has important schedules dealing with town and country planning, but the detail will need close examination in Committee.
  Part II which proposes simplified planning zones is welcome in principle. It should reduce somewhat the load of environmentally unimportant planning applications in the planning machine at any given time. At the same time, I hope it will avoid the financial distortions which are sometimes implicit in enterprise zones.
  I think that most hon. Members have received a briefing from the Building Employers Confederation which raises a concern which I share. Many local authorities are hostile to development anyway and if it is left to the local authorities to decide whether they are to be a simplified planning zone there will be no encouragement to them to implement such a possibility. Therefore, the Building Employers Confederation suggest that it might be wise for
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  the Government to take the odium—if that is the correct word—of a decision to have such a zone and not leave it to the local authorities themselves.
  Part IV of the Bill introduces a complex system for the presence of hazardous substances on sites. We have not heard very much about that this evening, and I believe that it will need close examination to avoid new burdens on industry and undue uncertainty in the movement of hazardous materials. The regulations which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will introduce will need close consultation with industry and businesses before they are introduced and implemented.
  Part VI is miscellaneous and its implications and proposals will need close examination in Committee. The operation of the listed buildings procedure which clauses 24 and 32 will amend leaves much to be desired. Any reform which will make easier the prompt and appropriate amendment of local plans is to be welcomed.
  I welcome the fact that the schedules to the Bill can be understood without reference back to previous legislation. It is an extremely well drafted Bill and there is no need to go fishing in old legislation to decide what the Bill is talking about when it proposes reforms.
  In the few moments at my disposal, I wish to refer to the urban regeneration grants. So often in the past we have seen money simply poured into the local authorities either for council building or for regeneration. On many of those occasions there has been no commercial input in the decisions taken. We have seen some element of directive in Merseyside, in the London docklands and in Glasgow. We ought to see more of private enterprise taking an interest in these grants and the Bill will ensure this. Urban regeneration needs private sector enthusiasm—not soft-headed enthusiasm but hard-headed business enthusiasm—to see how one can best use the grants. Merely to give those grants to local authorities as we did in the past gave no incentives.
  I welcome the urban regeneration grant and I believe it will go a long way to bringing the private sector into the regeneration of some of our inner cities. Such a policy has been pursued successfully in many of the larger and poorer cities in America. I had hoped to expand on how successful the urban development action grants had been in the United States, but I must leave that to another debate. However, they have been outstandingly successful and they have brought in private enterprise in a way which the Bill is just beginning to do, and I commend that.
  In conclusion, I take one more thought from the briefing of the Building Employers Confederation—it sounds as if I am in its pay but I received the briefing, as did other hon. Members, the other day. It makes the valid point that urban regeneration is a good idea and let us go for it, but if it is a good idea do not take the money from the urban programme of grants in the first place. It is a good idea and let us have it on its merits. Let us have the funding and get on with it. In this way the Building Employers Confederation believes — and I share its belief—that there is much going for the regeneration of many of our worst inner urban areas.
  I support the Bill.
  8.58 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The Bill is primarily about housing and planning and, in the context of housing, it is about the relationship between individuals, local authorities and the Government. I and

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  my party believe that the test should not be people's aspirations, but their needs and their aspirations. We do not accept that Government policy, as expressed by the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin), should be to promote home ownership by all means. That is an insufficient housing policy. There has been a massive lack of Government investment and the Government have inhibited the expenditure of local authorities' capital receipts, yet it is proposed that £20 million should be found for urban regeneration grants. The Building Trades Journal described that sum as too little too late and as peanuts. The Government are not showing any commitment to resolving a problem which only they can resolve.
  Of course there has been bad management in some local authorities. Mine is an example, and the Minister knows that I criticise it. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) mentioned it—it has a housing stock of more than 60,000 dwellings. However, its size does not excuse many of its management inadequacies. Southwark experiences the problems of the inner city and dereliction.
  Hidden or exposed rolling privatisation, which is what part of the Bill is primarily about, and rolling deregulation, which is what the planning provisions are principally about, is not the required combination. The keynote should be true participation and true partnership. Although those qualities have been mentioned, they do not motivate the Bill.
  Our objection to clause 1 is that there is no compensation for local authorities for the loss incurred when additional housing stock is sold under the right to buy. That is a fundamental defect of the right-to-buy programme and local authorities desperately need the money.
  I welcome clause 2. The hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) and I know that one of the bugbears of the right-to-buy policy — I have just written to a junior Environment Minister about this matter again — is the enormously distorted service charge provisions and the amazing time that it can take for people to understand what they should pay and to discover whether they are paying the right amount. Those of my constituents who are grappling with the problem will be gratified to think that the service charge conundrum will be resolved. People will know how much they have to pay and the amount will be limited. They will have certainty. That will be welcomed.
  The advantage of clause 3—the right to a loan—goes only a minimal way towards what many people in inner cities need. The Minister is aware of the problem. People who want to get out of the public sector often cannot find sufficient accommodation at low cost. The London Docklands development corporation and others have produced some housing for sale, but very little at a cost which young couples, who we especially want to keep in the community, can afford. I hope that we shall have much more than clause 3 to enable young people to have accommodation which they can afford and afford to maintain. That is essential if we are to integrate communities to the benefit of our cities.
  Clauses 5 and 6 are clearly the most controversial. There is nothing like adequate protection in clause 5. The ground for possession—that the council have to offer suitable alternative accommodation — is inadequate.
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  Why do not the Government allow the right of appeal? Why do they not allow a statutory right of consultation, which was found not to be an existing right in a case that was brought against Tower Hamlets at the end of last year? Why do not the Government allow a public inquiry? The Housing Act 1957 provides all three rights in respect of compulsory purchase. To possess property which people do not want to give up and to give them no right and possibly only one alternative offer goes against all the basics concerning the right of tenants which we should all want to uphold.
  Clause 6 could be good. It enables co-operative management to occur, but I fear that it would also facilitate management that is not co-operative but private and in which tenants have no say.
  There is no evidence that planning zones as proposed will be an incentive to investment in the inner city. All of the planning organisations confirm that the incentive is fiscal rather than a planning one. I and my party are worried that the simplified planning zone provision allows the Secretary of State to make the ultimate decision, whatever might be the view of the local, democratic planning authority. I hope that the Minister will say that the Secretary of State will use the power only in extremely limited circumstances. We want to know what they are. Unless he exempts also conservation areas, areas of outstanding beauty, nature reserves and sites of special scientific interest, the zones will pose another danger to the local democratic planning process.
  I hope, too, that we shall hear that land and property, and title to them, will be registered publicly. I also hope that the proposals for urban regeneration will at all times involve partnership with local authorities and will not bring in the private sector on its own.
  The Bill should be a partnership Bill, but I fear that it is not. Therefore, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) said, we will be voting for the amendment and not for the Bill.
  9.5 pm
  Mr. John Powley: As there is a very short time left at my disposal, I will have to skate over the surface of the Bill. I apologise straight away if I oversimplify matters.
  I give a warm welcome to all the provisions in the Bill. I believe that the Bill is only one small step along the way to a much better housing philosophy. I believe, and I have written to the Minister expressing my view, that there are yet further measures which need to be taken to bring better housing stock and tenure back into operation. The amendment, which I hope the House will not support, is nothing more than a rehash of old sentiments put out by the Opposition. The Opposition do not have much to offer. I first worked on a local authority housing committee in 1967. In those days it was said that there was a housing crisis. They said there was a housing crisis between 1970 and 1974, another between 1974 and 1979 and they are saying the same thing again, that today there is a housing crisis dating back to 1979.
  When I worked in a local authority it seemed to be the idea of local authority councillors that more and more council houses should be built to resolve the housing problem. I did not see that as a basis for a solution. I found that the more council house building there was, the more the waiting lists increased. Local authorities were chasing a never ending tail which they could never possibly catch.

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  When I was elevated to the position of chairman of the housing committee, I reversed the whole procedure. While I accept that I am over-simplifying the case, by building fewer council houses in my local authority and working in other areas, we reduced the waiting lists. We rehoused the people who needed rehousing far quicker by that method than had ever been done before. That was a compassionate way to behave. I saw people on the waiting lists in my local authority who badly needed accommodation, who had not previously been housed. These people were housed quicker through our housing policy than ever before.
  I would like to make two important points. The first relates to local authority waiting lists, on which many local authorities base their HIP allocation, and the second relates to empty properties. The figures given by Shelter in the research document show that there are 1,217,000 people on local authority waiting lists. The local authority in my constituency has a waiting list, so they say, of 4,764 people. I beg everybody to look more closely at those figures. I suggest that those waiting lists are patently not an accurate reflection of the housing need. I discovered that through a personal examination of the lists when I was chairman of the local authority.
  In Norwich, the city which I have the honour to represent, the waiting list of 4,764 is split up between those people in shared accommodation, which form 75 per cent. of the waiting list, and those in self-contained accommodation, representing 25 per cent. of the list. Of those in shared accommodation, 80 per cent. are single people. That does not represent housing need. The criterion for entry on to the waiting list is so wide that virtually anybody who is single could put their name down and become part of the statistics. My son could become part of those statistics. There are single people living with their parents on the waiting list who do not have a housing need. They are perfectly adequately housed, their housing standards are up to scratch and so on. Quoting such statistics does not give an accurate reflection of the criteria for what must be spent on housing.
  According to the figures cited by the Department of the Environment, there are about 116,500 empty properties, 26,000 of which have been empty for more than one year. In my local authority area, there are 652 empty properties, 170 of which have been empty for more than six months and 300 of which have been empty for more than three months. That is a disgrace. Because of the number of empty properties, I believe that, instead of waiting for an indeterminate period before properties can be included in the housing stock, we should seriously consider the options. Some of the properties could be sold for owner-occupation, and the purchaser could do up the property. Some could be offered to people on council waiting lists, and they could do up the property. Empty properties could be brought back on to the market. That would be better than letting them stand empty for long periods while apparently nothing is done. People who badly want rehousing come to my surgeries. Something must be done about the length of the waiting lists and about the empty properties. Many local authorities do little or nothing about those properties.
  I support the Bill. I hope that I catch the eye of the Chairman of the Committee of Selection so that I can give my hon. Friend the Minister support in Committee.
  9.11 pm
  Mr. John Fraser: Three things are certain about the Bill—it is 158 pages long; it costs £8·60; and it is a long and expensive missed opportunity to deal with the crises in the inner cities and in housing which have been so vividly illustrated in the past 12 months. They have been illustrated in the worst possible way, with the streets ablaze in my consitutuency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) and with even murder becoming an ingredient of the inner city brew. They have been illustrated in a more thoughtful way in the reports that have thumped on to the desk of the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction and the Secretary of State for the Environment, which have usually been dismissed by the Prime Minister before officials have even had a chance to study the contents.
  We started the debate with great expectations. We had a new Minister with responsibility for housing and we even had the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Front Bench. We thought that there would be a stunning new announcement, a change of heart about the Government's financial policy towards the inner cities or some new, great initiative — financial or otherwise. Instead, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor departed as soon as the introduction of the Ten-minute Bill to reintroduce the lump. We now know from listening to the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction that there certainly is not a General Patten driving a new housing policy.
  There are parts of the Bill with which we disagree, and we have spelt them out in the amendment. There are parts of the Bill with which we agree, or do not disagree. Labour Members, and most recently my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett), agree that the contents of the Bill are dwarfed by the scale of the problem to which the Bill is supposed to address itself.
  I hope that the Minister will listen seriously to the constructive suggestions on what should be in the Bill and has been omitted from it. There is the right to rent. Every hon. Member—Tory, Labour and Liberal alike—agrees that the shortage of rented accommodation is our greatest afflication. Let us have some unanimity about introducing a right to rent. That argument has been well rehearsed and is contained in our policy document "Homes for the Future".
  Mr. John Patten: Private sector.
  Mr. Fraser: Let us have the right to rent private sector accommodation. Let us give someone who is in need of accommodation the opportunity to move into empty premises. Let us have the right to sell, which can be enjoyed by the elderly. Let us have the right to buy. If we are to have a Bill which furthers the right to buy for those living in flats, let us have that right extended to private sector tenants. That idea is supported by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones). That right should be available to private tenants and collectively to tenants of leasehold homes.
  Let us try to insert provisions in the Bill in Committee for repair and improvement grants. There has been a call from hon. Members on both sides of the House to take up that aspect of Government policy. It is true that the Government had a reasonably good record on repair and improvement grants from 1979 to 1983. As the amount of

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  money spent on new construction decreased, the amount directed to repair and improvement grants increased. The Opposition welcomed that in part, but that policy came to an abrupt and cruel end shortly after the 1983 general election, when the Government told us that it was not the job of a Government to repair people's homes.
  If there is one thing which can make a contribution to preserving the old terraces in inner city areas and the sense of community, preserve older houses for this generation and the next, bring local employment quickly into inner city areas and bring hope to those whose homes are in disrepair and who are on low incomes—perhaps they are retired or unemployed—it is repair and improvement grants.
  I am sure that I share the experience of many hon. Members on both sides of the House when I attend my advice bureau. Some of my constituents tell me that their roof is falling in or that they have discovered dry rot. Many of them are owner-occupiers and they do not know how they will spend the rest of their lives in a home which they are unable to repair. There is little chance of them obtaining local authority accommodation.
  Surely we could build on the coalition of interest that exists between the many poor, disabled and often elderly owner-occupiers — they do not have mortgages and consequently they do not enjoy tax relief — and the interests of council tenants whose homes are in need of repair, a fact which has been identified by the Government's investigations into the cost of repairing public housing. Surely we could bring together that coalition of interests and take action on repairs and improvements, whether in the private or public sector.
  The Government have virtually phased out repair and improvement grants in many of our inner city areas, irrespective of their political control. Everyone agrees that it is the shortage of housing investment programme funds that has brought that about. There is a contradiction because the Government have chosen to introduce the urban regeneration grant in clause 2. I am not opposed to any form of grant for urban regeneration, but the Government have introduced the principle of the urban regeneration grant for industrialists while phasing out the same grant that would have gone to owner-occupiers. That is a strange contradiction when dealing with the inner cities. It suggests that the Government have adopted the blindfold and the sticking of a pin in a board as their policy initiative.
  I hope that the Government will take into account the comments that have been made about simplified planning zones. There is great fear in conservation areas and green belt areas about the effect that they could have on the environment generally, and on unspoilt areas especially.
  The provision within the Bill that facilitates the selling off of local authority accommodation will allow some local authorities to abdicate their responsibilities. Example is a good teacher, and a good example is Fulham court. It is owned by the Tory borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and it should be said that the Tories are kept in power in that borough by two Liberals. I know that estate very well. I lived in Fulham, my agent used to live there and I used to go babysitting there. That estate is an especially good example. We can put the clauses to the test in the May local authority elections and in the by-election that is coming shortly. A Bill that enables the Tory
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  Hammersmith and Fulham council to sell off that estate is enabling the local authority not only to abandon ship, but to sell the lifeboats.
  It is not as if Hammersmith and Fulham does not have a housing problem. In the last financial year Hammersmith and Fulham had 1,493 homeless families. The Government are proposing to sell off an estate that has 200 vacant flats, so they will not remain available for letting. In the last financial year Hammersmith and Fulham accepted 635 families in bed and breakfast accommodation. There is no shortage of demand for rented accommodation in Hammersmith and Fulham, yet the Tory Government, in collusion with the local authority, are introducing legislation to divest that authority of accommodation that could be available to meet the needs of the homeless.
  A similar development is taking place in Westminster. I wanted to give the House the figures for the homeless in Westminster and for the number of people in bed and breakfast accommodation, but the Tory Westminster city council neglects its responsibilities to such an extent that it does not return statistics to the Department of the Environment to reveal how many homeless families there were last year and how many were in bed and breakfast accommodation. We must rely on the figures for 1983–84, which show that 964 families were accepted as homeless and 632—almost the same number as Hammersmith and Fulham—were in bed and breakfast accommodation.
  The most objectionable part of the proposals is that they will not only lead to a loss of housing accommodation within the control of local authorities, but the operation will be carried out against the wishes of the tenants. The hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) mentioned the extraordinary contradiction of a Government who increase the bureaucracy of local authorities by requiring them to obtain the consent of the Secretary of State to transfer mortgages, which they transfer only to generate funds for housing investment, and at the same time remove from local authority tenants the right to have some control over their landlord.
  It is clear from the Archbishop of Canterbury's report that we must try to remove the sense of despair and alienation from our inner cities and our problem estates. We must make people feel that they matter and that they will be consulted about decisions that affect their lives, buildings and surroundings. They must feel that they will not be overridden and ignored. Clause 5 allows some authorities to act as "winklers" and agents of gentrification over the heads of local authority tenants.
  During the debate, there has been much discussion about flats. From parliamentary questions we know that when the scheme first started about one flat was sold for every 54 houses. Now that relationship is narrowing and about one flat is sold for every 20 houses. However, it is clear that in many areas of the country, especially in the inner cities, it would not matter whether the discount was increased to 100 per cent. People would still not want to buy flats. Why will people not buy flats that are now being offered at market value with substantial discounts? They do not like to live in flats. They know that if they buy their local authority flat they abdicate the chance of a transfer to a house. Also, they do not want to buy flats because it is difficult to resell them. I do not believe that the people in the Gloucester grove estate in Peckham would wish to buy their flats and it is easy to understand why. A newspaper article states:

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  "The 1,200-home Gloucester Grove Estate in Peckham is already boycotted by doctors, social security staff, milkmen and cab drivers."
  In the words of Billy Connolly, even the alsatians go round in pairs.
  The estate is likely to be boycotted by prospective purchasers, even if the discount is increased to 70 per cent. People do not wish to buy those flats because they are unsafe, difficult to manage and defective. As the Government have identified, many of them are subject to horrendous service charges. The Government will not solve the problem with their clauses on service charges, because the local authorities will so exaggerate their service charges as not to make a loss during the first five years. That would be the responsible way of doing it. In other cases, there will be real problems. If a housing association makes a genuine estimate of its service charges for five years and then discovers an unexpected service item, it will be driven into a loss or will have to put the expenses, which cannot he recovered from the owner-occupiers, on to other tenants.
  Of course, not all blocks of flats are undesirable. Even in Brixton, some warden-controlled tower blocks are well maintained and people want to live in them. I am sure that other hon. Members have similar examples in their constituencies. It is a great mistake to categorise all blocks of flats as places in which people do not want to live. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) said, some council estates are ghettos. I would describe them as urban cages from which people find it difficult to escape. In some estates, there is great intrusion by noise and by burglars—
  Mr. Heffer: They are not all like that.
  Mr. Fraser: No, they are not all like that, but some are. They are called hard-to-let estates; as Professor Donnison said, they are hard to live in. None of those problems will be cured by increasing the discount to 70 per cent. This summer, the Government will have a sale and will knock down the price of flats. But the Government do not even act like business men. If a business man was selling old stock, he would put the receipts into new stock. The Government will not allow the local authorities to do that. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities calculates that local authorities will be left with about £450 to spend for every flat that they sell under the new provisions. At the same time, £6·3 billion is locked in the coffers of local authorities which could be spent on housing improvement.
  The Opposition do not object in principle to the sale of local authority homes, to people owning their homes, to co-operatives running estates or to local authorities being landlords. That is a matter of choice. However, we object to the freezing of funds that could improve those difficult estates. The Bill provides no hope to those who are locked in those flatted estates.
  The Bill does not take the opportunity to allow leaseholders of residential flats at least to improve the quality of their management. The Labour party's policy statement "Homes for the Future" had no doubt about what the new rights should be: the right to hire and fire the managing agents in blocks of flats; maximum limits for management fees; the right for leaseholders to examine the accounts of the freeholder; the right to extend a lease,
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  which already exists for the lessee of a house; and the right for the tenants collectively to purchase the freehold and to deal with any defects that arise in leased premises.
  The Government have received the report of the Nugee committee. Its recommendations do not go far enough because its terms of reference were limited, but I make this offer to the Government: if they will table the few clauses that are necessary to legislate for the limited recommendations of the committee, the Opposition will give them fair passage. Of course, we reserve the right in the future to legislate on the wholesale enfranchisement of leasehold flats, but the immediate problem of those in tenement blocks is so long-standing and urgent that we offer this compromise in the hope that it will be an offer that the Government cannot refuse.
  Secondly, we offer full co-operation for the Government to add to the Bill a clause against the racial harassment of tenants by specifically making racial and other forms of reprehensible harassment grounds for possession and a criminal offence. I understand that some forms of harassment which constitute racial harassment would perhaps be grounds for possession on the grounds of nuisance, but that is not always so. We in this House need to underline our detestation of racial harassment and to incorporate a clause which makes it grounds for possession. After all, if to want to sell to a private landlord is to be a ground for eviction it should certainly be a ground for eviction if somebody has been guilty of racial harassment against fellow tenants.
  Thirdly, the Government have always berated local authorities about the number of empty homes, although they fail to underline that often homes are empty because local authorities do not have enough money to spend on improving and repairing homes that they have acquired to bring into the rented stock. Labour members are against unnecessary empty homes, whether in local authority, housing association, private or Government ownership. As has been said, the Government are the worst offender.
  I came across some examples when I was in Leicester last week. Leicester has a private stock of homes of just under 70,000. It has a massive waiting list and a great housing problem, yet it has 4,000 empty privately owned homes. Why not introduce in the Bill a right to rent similar to the do-it-yourself shared ownership scheme which the Government had a couple of years ago? That was a successful scheme so they had to abort it. Let us have a right-to-rent arrangement which can be triggered off not by any bureaucracy or Government intervention but by the action of a person who is homeless or in need of a better home.
  The secret of improving our housing is to use the rights of occupants to trigger off action. Do not leave it to local authorities or to Government but to the tenants, occupants or residents to demand what they want. Allow people the right to demand that a local authority should buy an empty house to rent to them. Create the right for tenants collectively, if they are dissatisfied with the management of their private or public landlord, to form a co-operative. I know that the Bill deals with the privatisation of management, but it does not create the right for tenants and residents to bring those things about. If one creates rights, one can start to deal with the fundamental defects in the management and sometimes in the property itself.
  It was on the inner city that we expected the Bill to respond to the challenge which had been thrown down by the Archbishop of Canterbury's commission, and indeed

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  by the events of the past 12 months. Yet it is on the inner city that we find the Government's policy at its emptiest and most threadbare. Against all that has happened in the past year and all that may happen in the forthcoming year, we expected some new initiative, but what have we got?
  Between £10 million and £20 million has been allocated to an urban regeneration grant. That is less money than the Government fined Lambeth in the financial year 1984–85. I represent an inner-city area. We were fined about £17 million in penalty against urban aid of about £13 million. Liverpool was fined £3 million. One has only to multiply that by six to get the amount of the new initiative which the Government are announcing in the Bill. Islington was fined between £10 million and £15 million.
  We have the extraordinary situation at the moment where the amount of subsidy being paid by council tenants into the general rate fund exceeds the amount of money—£393 million—which is coming from the Government to aid local authorities that have deficits on their housing revenue account. After a year of riot, murder and criticism all the Government can bring forward is an initiative which produces £10 million to £20 million and which bypasses the partnership principle which has been regarded by many hon. Members as a useful way of tackling the inner-city problem.
  On 28 January we had the announcement about the new urban aid programme. There is not time to go through it all but the Financial Times said that the total
  "represented an overall cut in real terms of around 5 per cent."
  That is the scale of the Government response. There were ferocious riots in Birmingham. Commenting on the amount of aid for deprived areas, the Financial Times said:
  "The seventh, Birmingham, had its cash allocation held at £24·5 million, suffering a lower cut in real terms than the others because it 'has an exceptionally large scale of problems and a good record in the effective use of resources,' Mr. Patten said."
  If the Minister thinks an authority has a good record it still gets a cut in its allocation but its reward is that the cut is slightly less than the cut in, say, Lambeth.
  In the Bill the Housing Ministers had a chance to bring hope to the homeless, to bring imaginative proposals to owner-occupiers desperate for help with repairs and to take at least some steps towards emancipation and control for those who own leasehold flats. The Bill presented an opportunity to help the first-time buyer to jump the double hurdle of spiralling interest rates and house prices. It could have introduced meaningful rights for tenants to play a constructive part in the management of their estates. It could have dealt with the seething discontent and the social fragility of the inner city which erupted again last year. It could have captured the growing consensus about housing policy which we have seen in the debate and which is emerging from all the reports on the subject.
  What have we got? Instead of taking the chance to use a prime legislative spot to build a new housing edifice, the Government have presented us with 158 sheets of legislative corrugated iron. The Bill is a short-life property from what ought to be a short-life Government.
  9.37 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Richard Tracey): Despite what the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) has just said, we have had a most interesting debate on a useful Bill. We
  230
  have had, of course, the usual Armageddon-style reasoned amendment from the Opposition. We have just had some rather cynical, or what some might describe as concrete, rhetoric from the hon. Member for Norwood.
  Despite the way in which the legislation has been treated and despite the amendment, the variety of points raised by right hon. and hon. Members reflects the wide range of subjects on which the Bill touches. There has been broad agreement on many of them. We have heard from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) of the people's right to decent housing. We would not disagree with that, and we believe the provisions of the Bill will assist it. We have heard from the hon. Gentleman about the management standards of public sector housing. We agree with that and have made provision in the Bill for the training of managers. The provisions all contribute to the achievement of our aim to enable people to make their own decisions about their homes, to encourage urban regeneration, to protect the environment, and to reduce the burden of regulation.
  My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing referred in his opening speech to the major advances we have made since the Government came to office — not just successful individual policies, such as the right to buy, but much broader changes that we have brought about in the assumptions that people make about housing.
  We have won the big housing arguments. It was a joy to me to hear the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) claim credit for "Homes for the Future" which includes—in, I believe, a slightly tricky way—the right to buy. We have changed people's assumptions about who can expect to be a home owner; how much say tenants can expect to have in the way that their homes are managed; what is the dividing line between the public and the private sectors; and what contribution private resources can make to meeting housing needs. On all of these issues, perceptions have changed greatly.
  In the case of home ownership—the greatest of all the changes—since 1979 more than 900,000 council houses and flats have been sold into home ownership under the right to buy and similar schemes. Most of them have been sold to sitting tenants who would not otherwise have had the chance of home ownership. That has completely altered the climate of tenants' expectations. But it goes even further than that. Something like 90 per cent. of households in the younger age groups expect to be home owners sooner or later.
  Mr. Winnick: If the Minister and his colleagues take pride in the fact that council tenants have the right in law to buy the place in which they live, should not that right also be given to private tenants? We have not had a satisfactory answer to that question.
  Mr. Tracey: The hon. Gentleman will realise that public sector housing is public and that it is therefore subject to disposal by the Government, whereas private sector housing is not subject to disposal by the Government. Our policies recognise the change in expectations and build upon it. The Bill will improve the opportunity for tenants to buy their homes, a point that has won the widespread approval of my hon. Friends. There was an excellent contribution to the debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) who has made such a great contribution to housing in this country.

  231
  We also heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill), for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) and for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones).
  Mr. Nellist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Tracey: No; I must get on.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Tracey: Opposition Members may like to note what I shall say next. The Bill does not mean that the Government are neglecting tenants who cannot or who do not wish to buy. The statistics prove that today there are more public sector units for rent than there were in 1979 when the Government came to power. I pointed out earlier to the hon. Member for Walton, who failed to respond, that 367,000 housing units were in public ownership in 1979 and that 410,000 units are now available for rent. That is fair proof, surely, that the Government have the tenant in mind, too. This Government strengthened the position of such tenants by introducing in 1980 the tenants charter. The Labour party may carp, but tenants will remember that they were not allowed to carry out improvements to their homes. They could not even paint the doors of their homes the colour of their choice. That was the legacy which the depleted Opposition Benches left to us.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Tracey: The Bill will enable us to do more for tenants. It will open the way for new forms of management delegation. It will enable us to grant-aid new initiatives to improve the quality of housing management. It will enable us to get new agencies involved in managing rented housing. I point out to the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) that we shall consult, just as we consulted over the Thamesmead trust, of which he was a favourable observer. I was surprised, in the face of what he said, when he announced at the end of his useful contribution that he would vote against the Bill tonight.
  The suggestion that the Bill is a threat to tenants' security is laughable. In fact, there will be a new statutory guarantee of tenants' right to buy where occupied property is transferred to another body. I hope that that will go some way towards answering the points made by the hon. Members for Perry Barr, for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and for Bootle (Mr. Roberts). If property has to be vacated before disposal, the new powers in the Bill will come into play only where a redevelopment scheme has been approved by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
  As to the point on consultation, we will consider this in Committee. It will also be necessary for the court to be satisfied that suitable alternative accommodation is provided for any tenant who is asked to move.
  Mr. Rooker: What if they do not want to move?
  Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend will probably be well aware that between here and the Oval are several vast GLC-type blocks currently under the control of local authorities which are completely vacant and have been vacant for years. In fact, there are hoardings against the edges of them saying that they do not have the money to do anything with them. Will my hon. Friend take action
  232
  to ensure that, if the local authority cannot take any action, somebody else can, even if it is to provide housing for rent?
  Mr. Tracey: I have no hesitation in saying to my hon. Friend that this is a scandal and disgrace. Unfortunately, it is the sort of thing which characterises Labour administrations in too many parts of the country. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Norwood, who represents part of that borough, did not say something about it.
  At one point in the speech of the hon. Member for Perry Barr, the Spencerbeck estate in Langbaurgh was mentioned and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) intervened. I am aware that certain tenants are resisting the local authority's attempts to include their houses in the refurbishment scheme being carried out by the firm of Barratt. Whether the local authority is entitled to obtain possession is, of course, a matter for the courts. I understand that proceedings are pending. That being so, the House will not expect me to comment further on this aspect of the case.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Rooker: If I am correct, the sub judice rule does not apply to legislation, and there is no reason why the Minister cannot comment further on this. Is the Minister in favour of tenants who do not want to move being thrown out of their homes for the simple reason that someone wants to do them up and sell them—yes or no?
  Mr. Tracey: I am amazed, given the experience of the hon. Member for Perry Barr—he has been in the House longer than me—that he does not realise that we do not comment on specific cases.
  New initiatives are being pursued, but not at the expense of tenants' rights; rather, to make those rights a reality so that tenants get the housing conditions that they are entitled to expect.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne spoke about the sale of flats. He made some valuable suggestions which we shall consider about the realistic valuation of flats, about increasing the discounts after 30 years of occupation, and on the qualifying period. We are determined that the occupiers of public sector flats will have the opportunity to buy and will be assisted in dealing with—
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to raise a point of order?
  Mr. Nellist: Yes, Mr. Speaker. If I may be of assistance, the Minister has refused to answer a question—[Interruption.] It is a point of order.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman wants to be of assistance to me, that is a different matter, but I do not think that he will be of assistance to the Minister. What is the point of order?
  Mr. Nellist: The Minister has refused to answer a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). The Minister said that a court case meant that his answer would be sub judice. The Library briefing paper for tonight's debate mentioned Langbaurgh and the background to the case. I am asking you to rule, Mr. Speaker, on the point that if

  233
  the Minister is correct, the Library paper is sub judice. If it is not, the Minister should answer my hon. Friend's question.
  Mr. Speaker: If I may clarify the matter, the sub judice rule does not apply when legislation is being discussed.
  Mr. Tracey: I think that it would be better if I did not comment—[Interruption.]—on the details of the case. I shall return to the subject of the sale of flats.
  Mr. John Fraser: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Tracey: The sale of—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Only one Member should be on his feet at a time.
  Mr. Tracey: The sale of flats is critical. It has been said that it is impossible to sell some flats in the public sector—
  Mr. Fraser rose—
  Mr. Tracey: I shall not give way because I am short of time, and I have a great deal to cover.
  Flats can be sold in the public sector given the will. I draw the attention of the House to the borough of Wandsworth, which has sold over 4,000 flats to sitting tenants, all with vacant possession, because it had the will to market them.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Tracey: My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) mentioned Ruskin park house. The picture of Southwark's right-to-buy sales is not as black as my hon. Friend painted it. It is likely that during the current financial year Southwark will have sold about 200 units under the right-to-buy provisions and it expects to sell a further 100 units in 1986–87.
  Mr. John Fraser rose—
  Mr. Tracey: I shall not give way. The hon. Gentleman overran his time.
  In his opening remarks, my hon. Friend talked about the inner cities and said that it is the Government's intention initially to use the new powers to support area-based renewal. We believe in partnership. We want to encourage the private sector to use its resources and ideas. We cannot afford the projects without the private sector. The experience of post-war large-scale municipal development suggests that we should not, even if public sector resources were available.
  Urban regeneration grants are further evidence of the Government's commitment to urban areas and a natural development of their policies. Since we came to power we have expanded the urban programme from £93 million to £300 million. We have expanded the derelict land grant from £21 million to over £80 million in the current financial year and have concentrated expenditure on urban sites. We have introduced urban development corporations, with their dramatic effect on London and Merseyside docklands.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Tracey: We have introduced enterprise zones, removing obstacles and providing incentives to development. We have pioneered garden festivals in Liverpool
  234
  and more are planned in Stoke, Glasgow and Gateshead. We have introduced city action teams to guarantee the delivery of departmental programmes in the partnership areas, and we have introduced the urban development grant, which is levering private sector investment into inner city areas—£82·5 million of grant is expected to lead to a total investment of £436 million.
  Even by the standards of the cynics on the Opposition Benches, that is an impressive list. The introduction of the new power shows that we are not resting on our laurels. We have perceived a gap in our weaponry and are taking this opportunity to close that gap, and mobilise—
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. One at a time, not three.
  Mr. Tracey: We are taking this opportunity to close the gap, and mobilise the private sector further in the attack on urban dereliction. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We are coming to the end of an important debate.
  Mr. Tracey: I turn now to the planning proposals which make up the remainder of the Bill. They include the provisions on simplified planning zones, hazardous substances, and opencast coal, as well as the variety of other proposals in part VI. The town and country planning system has not changed in its essentials since it was established in 1947. The planning provisions in the Bill do not represent radical change. On the contrary, they are sensible incremental inprovements designed to simplify the system and increase its efficiency, and to strengthen the protection of our environment and heritage. We remain wholly committed to protect and enhance the environment in town and country, preserve our heritage of historic buildings and rural landscape, conserve good agricultural land, and maintain the green belts.
  On simplified planning zones, the principle of simplifying the arrangements for obtaining planning permission in selected areas has been applied successfully in the enterprise zones. It is right that it should now be made available more widely. The arrangements for making the schemes, which are set out in schedule 3, give special emphasis to public consultation and the consideration of objections. The process is similar to that for making or altering local plans. There will be ample opportunity for people affected by a proposed scheme to make their views known.
  Mr. Rooker rose—
  Mr. Tracey: I shall conclude on a major matter of doubt and difference which still exists in the House. In 1983 the Labour party said that it was against the right to buy. A recent statement of Labour party policy is given in the document "Homes for the Future" which the national executive produced at the 1985 Labour party conference. It states:
  "We believe it is right that council tenants should keep the right to buy their homes. Local authorities will be free to determine whether in the light of local circumstances council tenants should be able to buy their homes."
  Who would decide which areas? Would a council be free to deny tenants the right to buy? The document continues:
  "The local authority would have an automatic option to repurchase at market value any homes sold under the right to buy."
  How long would that take? What will happen if a council cannot afford to buy back? The document further states:

  235
  "This could present problems in relation to discounts."
  They will apparently be absorbed into Government help for all first-time buyers. Does that mean less discount? If so, many tenants will be deprived of their right to buy.
  The document is unclear on what the Labour party's policy is. It leaves the tenants completely in the dark as to who will be able to buy and at what price. Tenants will want to know. One only needs to note the example in Glasgow where there is intimidation of tenants who suggest that they want the right to buy.
  I began by saying that I believe that the Bill will be a useful piece of legislation. It is not a party measure. It will make a valuable contribution to the improvement of housing, to urban regeneration and industrial improvement, and to the protection of the environment. I commend it to the House.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 213, Noes 290.

  Division No.60]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Alton, David

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

  Anderson, Donald

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

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Deakins, Eric

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Dewar, Donald

  Ashton, Joe

  Dixon, Donald

  Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

  Dobson, Frank

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Dormand, Jack

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Douglas, Dick

  Barnett, Guy

  Dubs, Alfred

  Barron, Kevin

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Beckett, Mrs Margaret

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

  Beith, A. J.

  Eadie, Alex

  Bell, Stuart

  Eastham, Ken

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

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

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

  Evans, John (St. Helens N)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Ewing, Harry

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Fatchett, Derek

  Blair, Anthony

  Faulds, Andrew

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Boyes, Roland

  Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Fisher, Mark

  Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

  Flannery, Martin

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

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

  Forrester, John

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

  Foster, Derek

  Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

  Foulkes, George

  Buchan, Norman

  Fraser, J. (Norwood)

  Caborn, Richard

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

  Freud, Clement

  Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

  Garrett, W. E.

  Campbell, Ian

  George, Bruce

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Canavan, Dennis

  Godman, Dr Norman

  Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

  Gould, Bryan

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Gourlay, Harry

  Cartwright, John

  Hamilton, James (M'well N)

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Fife Central)

  Clarke, Thomas

  Hancock, Michael

  Clay, Robert

  Hardy, Peter

  Clelland, David Gordon

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S)

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Cohen, Harry

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Coleman, Donald

  Haynes, Frank

  Conlan, Bernard

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Corbett, Robin

  Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Home Robertson, John

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Craigen, J. M.

  Howells, Geraint

  Crowther, Stan

  Hoyle, Douglas

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Hughes, Dr Mark (Durham)

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  236

  Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Prescott, John

  Janner, Hon Greville

  Radice, Giles

  John, Brynmor

  Randall, Stuart

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Redmond, Martin

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

  Kennedy, Charles

  Richardson, Ms Jo

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Robertson, George

  Lambie, David

  Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

  Lamond, James

  Rogers, Allan

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Rooker, J. W.

  Leighton, Ronald

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Litherland, Robert

  Ryman, John

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Sheerman, Barry

  Loyden, Edward

  Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

  McCartney, Hugh

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

  McGuire, Michael

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

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Silkin, Rt Hon J.

  McKelvey, William

  Skinner, Dennis

  McNamara, Kevin

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

  McTaggart, Robert

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

  McWilliam, John

  Snape, Peter

  Madden, Max

  Soley, Clive

  Marek, Dr John

  Spearing, Nigel

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Martin, Michael

  Stott, Roger

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Strang, Gavin

  Maxton, John

  Straw, Jack

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Meacher, Michael

  Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

  Meadowcroft, Michael

  Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

  Michie, William

  Thorne, Stan (Preston)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Tinn, James

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Torney, Tom

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Wallace, James

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Wareing, Robert

  Nellist, David

  Welsh, Michael

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  White, James

  O'Brien, William

  Wilson, Gordon

  O'Neill, Martin

  Winnick, David

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Woodall, Alec

  Park, George

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Parry, Robert

  Patchett, Terry

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Mr. Ron Davies and

  Pendry, Tom

  Mr. Sean Hughes.

  Pike, Peter

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

  Alexander, Richard

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Amess, David

  Burt, Alistair

  Ancram, Michael

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

  Ashby, David

  Cash, William

  Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

  Chapman, Sydney

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

  Chope, Christopher

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Baldry, Tony

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Bellingham, Henry

  Conway, Derek

  Bennett, Rt Hon Sir Frederic

  Cope, John

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Corrie, John

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Body, Sir Richard

  Critchley, Julian

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Crouch, David

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Bottomley, Peter

  Dover, Den

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Dykes, Hugh

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Fallon, Michael

  Bright, Graham

  Farr, Sir John

  237

  Favell, Anthony

  Lang, Ian

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Latham, Michael

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Fletcher, Alexander

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Forth, Eric

  Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Lightbown, David

  Fox, Marcus

  Lilley, Peter

  Franks, Cecil

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

  Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Freeman, Roger

  Lord, Michael

  Fry, Peter

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Gale, Roger

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Galley, Roy

  McCrindle, Robert

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  McCurley, Mrs Anna

  Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Maclean, David John

  Gow, Ian

  McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

  Gower, Sir Raymond

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

  Grant, Sir Anthony

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Greenway, Harry

  Madel, David

  Gregory, Conal

  Major, John

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Grist, Ian

  Maples, John

  Ground, Patrick

  Marlow, Anthony

  Grylls, Michael

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John S

  Mates, Michael

  Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

  Mather, Carol

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Hannam, John

  Merchant, Piers

  Hargreaves, Kenneth

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Harris, David

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Harvey, Robert

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Moate, Roger

  Hawkins, Sir Paul (N'folk SW)

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Hawksley, Warren

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Hayes, J.

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

  Morris, M. (N'hampton S)

  Hayward, Robert

  Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

  Heddle, John

  Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

  Henderson, Barry

  Mudd, David

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Murphy, Christopher

  Hickmet, Richard

  Neale, Gerrard

  Hicks, Robert

  Needham, Richard

  Hill, James

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hind, Kenneth

  Neubert, Michael

  Hirst, Michael

  Newton, Tony

  Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Holt, Richard

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

  Howard, Michael

  Osborn, Sir John

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

  Page, Richard (Herts SW)

  Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

  Parris, Matthew

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Hubbard-Miles, Peter

  Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abgdn)

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Pawsey, James

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Irving, Charles

  Pollock, Alexander

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Porter, Barry

  Jessel, Toby

  Portillo, Michael

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Jones, Robert (Herts W)

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Price, Sir David

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Kershaw, Sir Anthony

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Key, Robert

  Raffan, Keith

  King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

  Knowles, Michael

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Knox, David

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Lamont, Norman

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  238

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

  Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Thurnham, Peter

  Rost, Peter

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Rowe, Andrew

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Tracey, Richard

  Ryder, Richard

  Trotter, Neville

  Sackville, Hon Thomas

  van Straubenzee, Sir W.

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

  Viggers, Peter

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Waddington, David

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Walden, George

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Walker, Bill (T'side N)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Waller, Gary

  Silvester, Fred

  Walters, Dennis

  Sims, Roger

  Ward, John

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Watts, John

  Speed, Keith

  Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

  Spence, John

  Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

  Spencer, Derek

  Wheeler, John

  Spicer, Jim (Dorset W)

  Whitfield, John

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Whitney, Raymond

  Squire, Robin

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Stanley, Rt Hon John

  Wilkinson, John

  Steen, Anthony

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Stern, Michael

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Wood, Timothy

  Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

  Woodcock, Michael

  Stokes, John

  Yeo, Tim

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Terlezki, Stefan

  Mr. Tony Durant and

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

  Mr. Francis Maude.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Main Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 41 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 42 (Committal of Bills).

  Housing and Planning Bill

    HOUSING AND PLANNING BILL [MONEY]
    Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Housing and Planning Bill, it is expedient to authorise—

    (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses of the Secretary of State under the Act and any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment;

    (2) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of sums received by the Secretary of State under the Act; and

    (3) the payment out of or into the Consolidated Fund or the National Loans Fund of any increase attributable to the, Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment.—[Mr. John Patten.]

    10.15 pm
    Mr. Dave Nellist: In opposing the money resolution, I should like to say that it is to be hoped that the Minister who replied to the previous debate does a better job at solving crime than he does for housing. His deplorable attitude in the 20 or 25 minutes of winding

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    up offered no comfort whatever to the millions of families who look to this place for some relief from the conditions in which they live.
    No fewer than 1·25 million houses are defined as unfit to live in and more than 2·5 million homes suffer some form of damp. That means that the House, people in the Strangers' Gallery and those who are reading speeches should have heard something from the Government to show that they take account of the suffering of more than 4 million households, but we heard nothing from the Dispatch Box about alleviating the problem.
    A line in the 1983 Conservative party manifesto ran:
    "Our goal is to make Britain the best-housed nation in Europe".
    That is laughable in 1986. The Government spend less—about one third—as a proportion of national income than any other Common Market nation on housing. Seven years of this Government have produced real cuts in housing expenditure of two thirds. For every £1 spent in 1979, 20p is now spent on public sector housing. One of the consequences is that 400,000 building workers—skilled chippies, plumbers, bricklayers and electricians—are condemned to life on the dole when they could be repairing, modernising and improving the decaying housing stock of cities such as Coventry.
    At current rates of house building, it is estimated that it will take until 2950 to replace the current housing stock. Nobody alive today will see that. Many generations will have to live in squalor if the Government's record is maintained. [Interruption.] I sat through the majority of six hours of the previous debate to make statements like that. According to Government definitions, Coventry has 1,000 houses that are unfit for human habitation and another 6,000 houses which lack one or more of the basic amenities—hot and cold running water, an inside toilet, a bath or a shower. We have 14,000 houses that need at least £4,000 spent on them to bring them up to an acceptable standard. Workers and their families in Coventry might have had an illusion of an expectation that the Bill and the money resolution would have offered some amelioration for one in six in the city.
    The statistics involving workers in the west midlands are equally worthy of mention. No fewer than 450,000 houses in the west midlands are deemed unsatisfactory for present-day requirements and another 100,000 are in serious disrepair. Just before Christmas, a group of eminent medical experts and officials from the area health authority in Coventry brought out a weighty document called "The Health of Coventry". Time does not permit me to give the details of that report, but one of its central contentions is that to protect, develop and enhance the health of working people, a basic requirement is a decent house to live in.
    According to the report, 402 families in Coventry are at serious risk because they need to be moved, but the council is unable to move them. In Coventry there are 5,000 houses without an inside toilet. There are 2,428 families—that means kids as well—do not have a bath or a shower. Some 1,266 people share a bath and 3,500 Coventry citizens cannot expect to have a hot water supply. [Interruption.]
    These facts seem to make Conservative Members laugh. I would like to inform you, Mr. Speaker, as you were not in the Chair earlier, that the House heard a speech from the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) in which, apart from gaining concessions from the Minister
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    with regard to cheaper methods of selling off houses under clauses 4 and 5, he made an interesting revelation about his colleagues seated around him. He said he was surrounded by chartered accountants.
    The chartered surveyors on the Tory Benches have no experience of the kind of problems that I hear in my constituency. People come to me weekly and fortnightly with their problems. For example, a young woman with two children under the age of five, living on the third floor of a council block, told me that she had to go down to the garden to use an outside toilet. She pleaded with me to get the council to install an inside toilet, as when her kids are ill they become sicker by going out into the wind and the rain. When I write to Coventry city council, all that I receive back are letters from the housing department saying that there is no prospect of installing an inside toilet for at least 30 or 40 years.
    In the face of that, Conservative Members wonder why some Labour Members get angry about the situation.
    Mr. Cecil Franks: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman feels very strongly about what he is saying. Can he explain why, apart from the Opposition Front Bench, there are just two of his colleagues in the House? Is it because they do not share his concern about the matter?
    Mr. Nellist: Apart from the fact that the hon. Gentleman cannot count, my remarks are—
    Mr. Greg Knight: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is any of this relevant to the money resolution?
    Mr. Speaker: If it was not relevant, I would have stopped the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist).
    Mr. Nellist: The central point about the money resolution is that it gives money and authority to the Government to fulfil and enact the Bill.
    The central clause in the Bill, clause 5, deals with increasing council house sales—both individually, by increasing the amount of discounts and shortening the time before that discount is applied, and collectively, by selling off blocks and estates. As I mentioned earlier in an interjection, one of my constituents in Stoke Aldermoor remarked to me on Friday evening that were the Government to get away with selling off council houses and place pressure on local authorities like Coventry to sell off chunks of estates, there would, in the midlands, be islands of affluence inside seas of effluent.
    If the Bill was to be carried through Committee and the rest of the stages in the House, why has there been no recognition tonight from Conservative Members of those people in greatest need? Why have we not heard any statistics about the people on council house waiting lists whom the selling off of council homes condemns to further years of waiting before they can get a transfer or an application granted for a house or flat? When local authorities sell houses, those in greatest need, those who have been on waiting lists for many years, see their chances of a flat or a house receding. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member deserves a fair hearing. All the chit-chat on the Back Benches is very unseemly.
    Mr. Nellist: Those people who come to see me in my surgeries with housing questions come about basic

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    problems. For example, some people want to move quickly as they have already waited six or seven years and others would like to have an inside toilet. If we pass the money resolution to give authority and effect to the Bill, those people will be ditched. Selling council houses reduces local authority housing stock and condemns to an even longer wait those in greatest need of public sector housing.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Nellist: I shall give way in a minute.
    I attempted during the speeches of the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) and the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment to ask a question on behalf of the thousands of tenants whom I represent: if the Government complete the Bill's plans and encourage councils to sell more local authority houses to their occupants and to private developers, collectively or individually, what happens to those who cannot afford to buy, or do not wish to buy? What happens to those who want to remain as tenants? What happens to the debt charges of £200 million in Coventry which lie on the backs of local authority tenants? If the number of houses and flats in Coventry is reduced from 25,000 to 20,000 or 15,000, the proportion of debt charges that must be serviced by rent increases to be paid by the tenants who are left will grow year by year.
    As I have had no answer from the Minister, I give way to the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames).
    Mr. Soames: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify a small point? Is it not now official Labour party policy to allow the sale of council houses?
    Mr. Nellist: When my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) was specifically asked by the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) whether a future Labour Government would take back into local authority ownership from tenants the houses that had been bought, my hon. Friend gave the unequivocal and categorical answer that a future Labour Government would make no attempt to repossess those houses. The hon. Member for Crawley may want me to expand on that point. The theme I am trying to develop is that those most in need of local authority housing do not gain any benefit from the sale of council houses. They would gain a benefit by massively expanding public sector building, as councils such as Liverpool have attempted to do in the past two years. I hope that a future Labour Government will take account of that fact. I hope that the Labour party will initiate these measures when it takes office in the next months or year or so.
    When the hon. Member for Eastbourne referred to the chartered surveyors and the estate agents who sat on the Tory Benches, it became obvious that the Tories mainly supported the Bill not because it gave people a rational, reasonable choice on the type of home they could have but because it was in the narrow interests of profit—the interests of the builders, speculators and others who hoped to take a slice of the £75 billion public sector housing which the Government intend piece by piece to continue to privatise.
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    Ministers talk not about homes and houses but about units. They talk not about improving houses but about recoverable loans. How can they understand what it is like to live in damp, inadequate housing when they are led by a Prime Minister who had a house built by Barratt for £400,000 in Dulwich? They do not comprehend what it is like to live in the inner cities.
    What has Coventry got out of the Bill? Absolutely nothing. We have had six or seven years of seeing our money for housing cut time and time again. In 1979, we were given £13 million by the Tories for repair, renovation and new build but this year, in cash terms, that has fallen to £7·2 million. In real terms, our city has lost £80 million over the past six or seven years. There are 3,000 or 4,000 building workers who could be working to repair buildings in the area represented by myself and other Labour Members, if the money were given back to Coventry. There are 8,000 people who desperately need a place in a council house or flat but have no opportunity to obtain it. There are people who live in overcrowded conditions, but the Government would rather spend £10 billion on Trident and sell chunks of our manufacturing industry to the Americans.
    The money resolution and the Bill seek to destroy everything that local authorities have built up in public housing. They seek to denigrate and attack those local authorities such as Lambeth and Liverpool that have tried to swim against the tide and maintain or extend their housing stock. The money resolution and the Bill seek to sell the fallacy that one can choose to buy a house, but this is done on the back of increased rents for council house tenants. They seek to increase the profits of the Wimpeys, Laings and Barratts, which wish like sharks to get in on the buying up of council estates, with no regard to those who cannot afford to move out or to buy the houses that they intend to improve.
    I urge that the money resolution be not passed and that authority be not given to the Government to act upon it. Let a report of the debate be made available to working-class people throughout the country so that the Government are chucked out of office as soon as possible.
    10.30 pm
    The Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction (Mr. John Patten): I make a surprise appearance at the Dispatch Box. I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) on his ingenuity in finding something to raise on the money resolution. However, to my mind he has not addressed the terms of the resolution as drafted. The resolution would have been drafted in the same terms if the Bill had included all the provisions which the Opposition wanted to see and none of things about which they complained.
    The essence of the resolution is that it is purely qualitative. It does not require any expenditure to be incurred, nor does it impose any limit on expenditure. Those matters will be dealt with by the House when Estimates and cash limits are under consideration. The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum sets out accurately and absolutely what we expect the effects on expenditure to be. Accordingly, I commend the money resolution to the House.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Housing and Planning Bill, it is expedient to authorise—

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    (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses of the Secretary of State under the Act and any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment;

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    (2) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of sums received by the Secretary of State under the Act; and

    (3) the payment out of or into the Consolidated Fund or the National Loans Fund of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment.

    Waste (Sea Disposal)
    10.31 pm
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): I beg to move,
    That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 8805/85, a proposal for a Directive on the disposal of non-radioactive waste se at sea; recognises the importance rightly attached by Her Majesty's Government to the protection of the marine environment; considers nevertheless that sea disposal may represent the best practicable environmental option for certain wastes; notes the existence of well-established and effective international conventions in this field; and is therefore not convinced that the adoption of this Community instrument is an essential element of environmental protection.
    I very much welcome this opportunity of setting out the Government's view of the important proposal which is contained in European Community document No. 8805/85. It is an important topic and it is good that the House should have an opportunity to discuss it generally, rather than, as so often, concern itself only with the radioactive issues. The Government attach great importance to the protection of the marine environment, and last year part II of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 increased our duties and powers to protect the sea and its living resources.
    We cannot issue any licence for sea disposal of waste without having regard to the marine environment, the living resources it supports and human health. We must prevent interference with legitimate uses of the sea, of which fishing and recreation are obvious examples. Furthermore, the Act requires Ministers to consider at all times the practical availability of alternative disposal methods.
    We are aided in carrying out the obvious duties which are laid upon us because in London we have the secretariats of the two key conventions on sea disposal, both of which play a major part in defending the sea. The United Kingdom is a founder member of the London dumping convention and the Oslo convention, and we have played an active role in the scientific work of both conventions. They have been successful because they have maintained a rigorously scientific approach to their work, which determines which substances may not be disposed of at sea and those which demand special care.
    The conventions' scientific work, their secretariats and the experts on which they draw provide a base for our decisions under domestic legislation. That is why the UK can take great care to ensure that each application for a licence to dispose of waste at sea is critically considered against the criteria that are set by the conventions for the protection of the marine environment. This is done through the considerable resources which we devote to our effort, especially through our fisheries laboratories at Lowestoft, Burnham-on-Crouch, Aberdeen and elsewhere.
    The sea may be the best practicable environmental option for certain types of waste, but we need to satisfy ourselves on each and every occasion that that is the case.
    The demands of employment do not allow us to treat these matters easily or without counting the cost. Industrial societies create waste. Waste must be dumped in the sea or on the land. Restrictions on waste disposal cost money and jobs. Necessary restrictions must be paid for, and paid
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    for with a will, but we in this House must not ask others to bear unnecessary restrictions, for it is not we who pay the cost or lose the jobs. It is against the background of effective control, accepted and supported by every member of the European Community with a coastline, that we must consider the proposal before the House tonight.
    We have a system which works. It has meant that all the members of the European Community — save Luxembourg, which does not have a direct interest in this issue—are able to see that the methods by which they control dumping at sea are kept clearly in line with the criteria produced by the two conventions.
    Now we have a suggestion for a change. These proposals call, first, for harmonisation. Nobody will say that I am not in favour of harmonisation. I begin by believing that it is better for us to do things together in Europe and to adopt similar standards. But harmonisation is not an end in itself, and the trouble with these proposals is that they would treat totally different places as if they were the same. They would treat the Atlantic ocean in the same way as they would treat the Mediterranean sea, and that is clearly wrong.
    We see how wrong it is by twisting the issue round the other way and asking what would happen if we insisted that measures suitable for the open and fast-flowing waters of the Atlantic and North sea should be the only measures applied to protect the landlocked and tideless Mediterranean. Those living along the Mediterranean coast would complain, saying, "Your situation is entirely different from ours. We have none of the natural cleaning properties that you have. We must deal with a totally different position, so we must have different ways of doing that."
    In reverse, that is what the Commission suggests we do here. It suggests that we have a regimen which meets the needs of the Mediterranean and is applied to a totally different circumstance in the Atlantic and North sea.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Some of the adjacent riparian states — for example, France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands—agree with this proposal. How can the argument that the right hon. Gentleman has adduced be valid if it is not accepted by countries in the same position on either side of the North sea which have no direct interest in the Mediterranean—type origins of a directive such as this?
    Mr. Gummer: Even so enthusiastic a supporter of the European Community as I can conceive of a situation in which Britain is right and they are wrong. This is such a situation. We have been more directly involved in the operation of the London dumping convention and in the use of the materials and information that has been put before us. We have taken, and continue to take, a lead in this area. Our record should not be condemned by others. We are saying that the present system works satisfactorily and that it need not become part of a European directive. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that other member states will go along with it, because they believe it to be perfectly reasonable. I hope that I can persuade hon. Members that their argument is wrong.
    First, it is wrong to try to harmonise two different seas. That is why we have two conventions. Secondly, if we tried to do that, it would be disadvantageous to EC countries as against others, because it would mean that we were setting an unnecessary limit on ourselves while

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    others would not do so. We would have the disadvantage that non-EC countries did not meet the requirements, for they saw no reason to do it, and the disadvantage of an uncompetitive position. Therefore, it is not true that we must harmonise to enhance competitiveness, which is often the argument put forward. It does not apply here.
    However, it might be said that it would be a good idea in any case for the Community to play a greater role than it does now. I believe that the Community should take urgent action in many areas; I want it to become more involved in matters in which it could do extremely well. But it is peculiar that it should decide that this is the area, where there is already adequate and effective international co-operation, in which it should operate. It is the area where the EC is least needed.
    Sir Trevor Skeet: I understand my hon. Friend's argument. Annex I substances cannot be laid at sea because they are prohibited on or under the seabed. Technology is beginning to move on, and it may be that later a drilling string will allow some of that material to be laid down a drill string. If we harmonised throughout Europe, does my right hon. Friend foresee the possibility that this will be precluded; but if it is on the basis that it be laid on the seabed only or prohibited from there, I do not want to see the other one excluded. What is my right hon. Friend's interpretation?
    Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend may be right. If we accepted the directive in its present form, several possible technical changes may be denied to us. I wonder whether my hon. Friend has noticed the other great difficulty before us. The directive contains nothing which would enable a distinction to be made between the waste dumped containing a minimal amount of a prohibited substance and the waste dumped being largely composed of a prohibited substance. That would be an intolerable method of operation. It means that if there are the merest trace elements, which would have been perfectly safe to lay under the previous conventions and under the most stringent conditions imposed by the scientists, it would be impossible to do so under this proposal because the operation is not as flexible as it was before.
    That position has occurred because—I put this as delicately as I can — some people have been in the business of control for a long time, and have learnt through long experience the difficulties and advantages of some methods of operation. The EC is a newcomer, and its proposals for dealing with the matter have not learnt the lessons that have been learnt over a long time by those who have worked under the London dumping convention and the Oslo convention.
    Dr. Norman A. Godman: Is the Minister satisfied that the present conventions and legislation have the power to maintain the cleanliness of the seas round Scotland, especially its islands and west coast; which is an especially fine area for the development of fish farming? Is he satisfied that the present conventions and legislation will maintain that pollution-free area for fish farms and other activities?
    Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman knows that I am particularly interested in that subject and take the issue seriously. I believe that we have got both the powers and the information to ensure that pollution does not endanger fish farming in that area. If we did not have the powers,
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    or if further changes in the law were necessary, we have all the information and all the scientific advice from our present arrangements and we would not benefit from the proposals before us. That is the point. If I thought that the proposals would help us, I would follow my natural reaction and say that this would be better done on a European level, but I do not believe that to be so.
    I do not believe that the proposals are based upon the rigorously argued scientific basis which we have come to expect from the two conventions. To give a second example, it says in the proposal that there should be a 50 per cent. reduction in the sea disposal of certain kinds of waste. That is to take for granted the view that sea disposal is intrinsically less desirable than land disposal. If I were very polite, I would say that that was at least an arguable proposition. In any event, it is certainly not a proposition on which to base an entire regime.
    Article 10 would impose a freeze and then a 50 per cent. reduction over five years in the quantities of certain kinds of waste for sea disposal. The definition is so all embracing that significant quantities of sewage sludge, liquid industrial waste and dredged spoil which are being perfectly safely disposed of at the moment under the criteria agreed internationally would have to be spread about on the land,. We have to get rid of it somewhere. If we do not put it in the sea we have to put it on the land.
    All that is in the face of serious scientific evidence that less than 5 per cent. of the metals in the North sea arise from sea disposal, while the atmosphere and rivers between them contribute up to 90 per cent. So the Commission's proposal is ill based scientifically and very costly and it would be unlikely to achieve any appreciable improvement in the marine environment. It does not have any of the advantages which one would look for either to protect the marine environment for fish farming round Scotland or to make a further quantum step in the improvement of the sea around our shores.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: I have followed the Minister's argument. Can he tell us what the Government's response is to the proposals of the Royal Commission on environmental pollution which in its tenth report recommended:
    "The Government should respond positively to the initiatives of the Federal German Government and the Commission of the European Communities concerning the North sea."
    Obviously I cannot go through all the recommendations, but in general terms they said that we are not doing enough, that the future health of the North sea cannot be assured if present processes increase and that the existing regime is not sufficient to protect the environment.
    Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman rightly says that we cannot go through each of the detailed recommendations. He might note that in some cases what we are doing or have agreed to do is better than is offered in the proposals under discussion. That is a problem we share. It is not that we could not argue about whether we are doing all the things that the Royal Commission has proposed, for there are obvious differences between us on that, but we are much more able to do something under the regimen that we have than under the proposals that the Commission has put before us. We could continue to argue as to whether we are doing enough. That is the right kind of tension. But what is proposed does not advance the hon. Gentleman's case. If we were to do what is proposed under the instrument, we would buy the 50 per cent. reduction

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    at the price of increased environmental pollution on land. The Commission's proposal does not seem even to begin to weigh the land and sea disposal options against one another, either generally or on the basis of specific scientific criteria, environmental impact, cost, or amenity.
    Many right hon. and hon. Members will want to raise points of concern, but I emphasise again that the Government stand firm in their determination to protect the marine environment. If we had thought that this proposal would be helpful and that it was a further step towards the adoption of a common view by all sides of the House, we should have approached it in an entirely different way. However, the Government believe that it is not helpful. This country has strengthened its domestic legislation on sea disposal. We continue to meet our international obligations and we devote considerable resources to evaluating the effects of sea disposal according to scientific criteria. If we thought that we could improve upon that record by supporting the proposals, we should do so. However, we believe the opposite to be the case, that there is no obvious net environmental gain and that there are obvious gross costs—not least in jobs. We do not believe, therefore, that this is a proper basis for Community action.
    10.50 pm
    Dr. David Clark: It may surprise the Minister of State to hear that I have a certain sympathy for some of his points, but I do not share his complacency. He appears to adopt the attitude that all is well and that this country has an excellent record. That is not so. It is hard to find anybody, either on the Opposition Benches or in Europe, who shares the Minister's attitude. He is also complacent about the seas around these shores. My hon Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) has already referred to the fact that there is concern in the Western Isles of Scotland. The 1984 Bremen conference said:
    "The survival clock of the North sea points to five minutes to midnight. In coastal areas entire eco-systems are already at the brink of extinction or reduced in extent. Birds and mammals are in danger of reduction in numbers and health."
    I do not believe that that accords with the Minister's description.
    The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) pointed out that in its tenth report the Royal Commission, which is an independent adviser to this Parliament, provided a very long roll-call of deficiencies in our protection of the marine environment. Therefore, I do not share the Minister's complacency, but I share some of his worries about European Community document No. 8805/85. Its objective is worthy and it deserves to be successful but it requires very close scrutiny by Parliament. The Commission has, I suggest, produced a premature document that contains gaps. I want to draw attention to some of them.
    The Government need to adopt a very much stronger policy on marine environment. I represent a constituency that borders the North sea. It has a large fishing industry, beautiful beaches and a large seafaring population. I am therefore very conscious of the dangers of sea pollution, especially of North sea pollution. Our European neighbours refer to us as the "bad neighbour" of Europe.
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    That worries me because, as well as being offensive it is true. I do not think that the Minister has helped us to resolve that problem.
    One has only to look at the facts. We debated this at great length when discussing part II of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985, which replaced the Dumping at Sea Act 1974. It is true that the United Kingdom dumps 99 per cent. of sewage sludge in Europe in the sea. It is true that 70 per cent. of industrial waste dumped in the North sea is produced by the United Kingdom. It is true that we are the second largest dumper of liquid waste and sludge. It is not a very enviable record.
    As the Minister said, there are already conventions the aim of which is to protect the North sea. I took a count and found that there are 13 conventions, 11 EEC directives and 17 national laws. Those add up, as I hope I have shown, not to a strength but to a weakness. It could be argued that to combine all those conventions, directives and laws into one would be a step forward. I see the logic in that. Just as air pollution recognises no national boundaries, so it is with the maritime regime. The real question is whether the logic is correct. I see an immediate plus in that if we did have a directive it would mean that rules would be laid down which, as a long stop, would be enforceable in the European Court. That power does not exist at present. I find it difficult to agree with the prime justification made by the European Commission for the new directive. As I understand it, the rationale is twofold; first, to harmonise the marine pollution controls in each of the relevant seas, and secondly, to ensure that there is no unfair barrier to trade and industry.
    I share the Minister's point of view. I am not sure whether the values and standards applicable in the Mediterranean are applicable to the North sea or whether what may be appropriate to the Baltic is appropriate to the Atlantic. I think that there are different problems, and it may be that they are better treated separately.
    There is another point of weakness in the directive. In regard to the North sea—and this applies equally to the Mediterranean—one of the principal riparian countries, Norway, is not a member of the EEC. Therefore, it may well be—I suspect that it is—better to try to deal with pollution of the North sea through the Oslo convention, to which the Norwegians are signatories, than to try to do this through EEC directive.
    Therefore, I have worries about this mania for harmonisation. I suspect that, although the intentions of the Bill may be good, the net product is that it may be premature and a setback to the marine environment protection policy.
    One of the key points in the directive is to make incineration at sea illegal in 1990 or some time thereafter. I agree with the main thrust of that approach. There are great dangers in the practice of marine incineration and in monitoring. It is almost as if this were being swept under the carpet so that, because we cannot see it, we are not too worried about it. I am also concerned about the alternative. The Minister—and I think that he is wrong—said that waste can be disposed of in one of two ways, on land or at sea. I remind him that it can also be recycled. We should give more attention to that option. In other respects, the Minister is correct. If we do not treat waste at sea, we may have to treat it on land. The hazardous waste inspectorate of the Department in its first report last year stressed that there is only limited land use capacity in the United Kingdom. The directive recognises the problem, because

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    it requires member states to promote alternative land-based methods of disposal. We are entitled to ask the Government what they are doing and what they will do about that. The Government gave their response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology in April 1985. Their response was inadequate. They said:
    "The Government recognises the importance of ensuring that specialist disposal facilities are available. That this must primarily be a task for industry itself and at present the Government sees no case to support these financially, nor to direct waste to them."
    That free market approach will no longer be appropriate if we ban incineration at sea. If the directive and the orders are to be effective, tighter controls over the incineration of waste at sea must be accompanied by Government action to ensure the availability of adequate alternative facilities.
    Sir Trevor Skeet: We have the worry in the North sea that to drill, drilling mud is required. How would the hon. Gentleman deal with that? Would he have it all brought ashore or would he allow dumping? Does he regard that matter as one of the anomalies that must be dealt with?
    Dr. Clark: I am sure how that point relates to incineration at sea, but it is an anomaly that should be mentioned. We are responsible for 90 per cent. of that activity in the North sea. It is a major problem which is not faced up to in the directive. That is why I am lukewarm about the directive.
    Even if the proposals on incineration at sea are not implemented there is an urgent need for the Government to turn away from their free market approach to the treatment of waste on land. That is essential. I hope that the Minister will feel able to say something about that when he replies.
    The second proviso to which the Minister referred related to the 10 per cent. reduction for five consecutive years from 1990. The directive states:
    "Member States shall reduce each year the quantities of waste authorised to be dumped by 10 per cent. of the quantity authorised in 1989 in the case of waste or other materials listed in Annex II, points 1, 2, 3 and 5."
    Does that mean materials covered by annex II, or does it apply to other general waste?
    I have spoken to many people outside the House who are knowledgeable about the problem and the impression seems to be that that point applies to all materials. Does it apply to sewage sludge, colliery waste and dredgings? It is important that the House and those people involved in the industry should have an answer to that question tonight. Is solid colliery waste—I am not talking about tailings—covered by that article? That point is of great interest to many people.
    My next point relates to the enforcement and monitoring of the dumping. That is covered by article 12. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food issues the licences and monitors the position. There is evidence that illegal dumping takes place in the North sea. I shall cite a specific case, of which I know the Minister is aware because we have corresponded about it. Immediately before Christmas fishermen in my constituency lost more than £500 worth of nets when they were destroyed by "illegally dumped colliery waste" in the Minister's words. Checks on legitimate authorised vessels dumping waste have yielded no clues. As waste was indisputably on top of the nets, there are two possibilities—an authorised
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    vessel located the dumping ground incorrectly, or unauthorised vessels were dumping waste. The Minister has been studying this and other cases, so could he comment on that? Is he satisfied that the key to the control of dumping depend on monitoring and the ability of authorised vessels to know precisely where they are? Is he satisfied that authorised vessels have the necessary instruments to locate their precise positions? For example, have they depth plotters? There are suggestions that those vessels do not have sophisticated location finders.
    It is often said along the coast that unauthorised dumping takes place at dumping sites at dusk and in the dark. Could the Minister set in motion an investigation about that? Will he verify whether that is the case? Perhaps he could ask the coastguards, who will have information about that.
    Finally, is the Minister satisfied that there are sufficient coastguards and other officials to monitor dumping? As the Minister knows, since the closure of the Tees station, the Tyne station covered by coastguards stretches from Berwick in the north to Scarborough in the south. The Government have made serious cuts in personnel. Has that applied to coastguards? It has been applied to Customs men and, recently, at least one foreign vessel on the Tyne, which our Dutch colleagues informed us was well known for running drugs, was left unchecked simply because the Customs men were pulled off as there was no overtime pay for them. Fortunately, that has been put right, but I suspect that what applies to customs men also applies to coastguards.
    Our record on the sea, especially the North sea, is certainly lamentable, and that opinion is shared by virtually all the experts who have examined it. We need to do more. This directive needs careful analysis before we endorse it. I certainly agree with its sentiments and objectives, but too many questions are unanswered. I would prefer to perfect the directive and meanwhile to work under the Oslo and London Dumping Convention to ensure that the sea is protected. I urge the Government to convert to the marine environment, just as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has given the lead to the Department of Environment on countryside matters.
    11.8 pm
    Mr. Simon Hughes: In two interventions during the Minister's speech I made it clear that the Liberal party opposes the wording of the motion. It states that the House
    "notes the existence of well-established and effective international conventions … and is therefore not convinced that the adoption of this Community instrument is an essential element of environmental protection."
    The Minister laid his cards before us. He said that that was not the appropriate method, that we must say that our European Community colleagues who are prepared to endorse the directive are wrong, that we have sufficient mechanisms through other international conventions and that we would prefer to follow them.
    There is, however, good general support— I have shown, in part, where it comes from—for the view that we are not doing a good enough job. As I recall, the House has not yet had the opportunity, which I anticipate it will have later this year, to debate the most recent report of the Royal Commission on environmental pollution. Last year we had a good debate on the 10th report and the 11th report

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    was produced at the end of 1985. That report was specifically on the subject of "Managing Waste: The Duty of Care".
    I have not heard anybody question the expertise, experience or authority of the Royal Commission and paragraph 13(2) of its report says:
    "In the waste management context we reiterate the comment in the Tenth Report that the United Kingdom should play a more positive role in the development of Europeam Community environmental policy."
    If one reads the rest of the conclusions and recommendations and ties them back to the conclusions and recommendations of the 10th report, with which the House is probably more familiar as it has been debated and followed up in more detail, one sees that the Royal Commission is clear that in general we should take a much more positive attitude. There are exceptions to that, and I share the view of the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) and the Minister that it is not a blanket endorsement that everything proposed is wonderful. There are comments in the Report which should act as a trigger to encourage the Minister to look more positively at the directive. Paragraph 12.28 has two sentences of that sort. The first is:
    "In most industrialised countries higher standards of waste management are being demanded."
    and the second is:
    "waste management must not remain the Cinderella of government and industry."
    I start from the premise that it is the general view of the experts that we are lagging behind and are not doing enough, in spite of the intention to do better than we have in the past.
    The Minister will be aware that his Department receives, on a regular basis, a considerable number of inquiries on this subject through parliamentary questions from hon. Members on both sides of the House. Pre-eminent among my colleagues in asking such questions is my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), who I note has asked several such questions. My research assistant found regular inquiries on this subject which demonstrate a regular level of interest and concern. Therefore, I understand and expect the Minister to say that he feels pressurised on this matter within his own Department and to be aware of a feeling that we could do much more.
    I would hope that it is the Government's policy, whether dealing with disposal of waste at sea or on land, that we should be aiming towards a society in which there is zero waste and where we actually reprocess all our waste. For example, we could use sewage waste as fertiliser. Heavy metals can be taken out of waste. Some of the waste to which this directive addresses itself is waste which has heavy metal components. We should be working towards the sustainable society, in which there is zero waste.
    The directive encourages us to use our waste more effectively. It is important to point out one or two areas where I would have hoped that the Government could have been more positive. If I had to justify my participation in the debate I could do so easily, because the Thames water authority, which is responsible for the city and which is particularly relevant to a riverside constituency such as
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    mine, dumps 5 million tonnes of sewage sludge waste each year nearer to the area of the hon. Member for South Shields.
    As we are the major exporters of sludge and slurry into the North sea, we have the prime responsibility. The Minister will no doubt agree that we are the country most likely to be most affected by the directive. No doubt, he feels that therefore we have the pre-eminent interest in not taking anything that the European Community as a whole might accept as readily as others because if affects our interest most. I accept that.
    Mr. Gummer: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that many countries export all kinds of things through pipelines into the North sea. We have taken the view that the kind of sludge that we put into the sea is a far better way to dispose of the waste. That means that regulations such as this fall on us in a different way from others, even though our pollution may be little, and theirs considerable.
    Mr. Hughes: I accept that entirely. However, this is little like the debates that we have with Department of the Environment Ministers about acid rain. We have a particular responsibility and start from a particular involvement, which should give us a particular keenness to try to co-operate as much as possible, because of the importance of trying to have European standards on such important matters as environmental pollution, which is not limited to national boundaries and of moving towards harmonisation where that is possible. For example, the Government should tell the House that they are prepared to look at ways to reduce the amount of heavy metal in sludge, and thus the pollution caused by sludge, and thereby reduce the damage to the environment.
    In spite of the excitement my speech is causing the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames), shown by the way that he is waving around some papers, I shall continue to make one or two points.
    I fear that, unless the Minister shows that he is proposing to be more positive than he was in his first speech, in which he went against the international trend by holding out—uniquely—against the proposal for a directive, there is a potential harm to us. There is a concession that I would make from my purist position, and it is one that the Royal Commission made in its turn. It is on the subject of a proposal to phase out incineration as suggested in the directive, which may not be both easy or practicable in the short term. There is a case in the immediate future for incineration being an immediate method of getting rid of nasty waste. That does not mean to say that it should not be far more severely controlled. I hope that, if the Minister is praying in aid those who say that we cannot get rid of incineration at sea immediately, he will at best say what further controls we should impose.
    Is it the Minister's view, and thus a suggestion that he could make, that if we were to agree to a directive, although not exactly in these terms, we should have quality objectives and limits on pollution at sea, rather than quantity conditions and limits? That may be a more acceptable way in which to judge, and it could be tested on the pollution of fish and marine stock, as well as on things that are washed up on the shore.
    It may be thought that this is a matter of concern only to industry and those directly concerned with operations at sea, whether oil exploration, fishing or the like. That

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    is not the case. I have had much correspondence, of which I have brought only one example. It comes from a colleague in Brighton, who says that there is a major campaign—I presume, on a non-party basis, because it is proposed by the Keep Britain Tidy group—trying to deal with the pollution that gets washed up on Brighton's beaches, including lethal chemical containers and so on. There is great concern that we should be doing something to deal with pollution at sea.
    I regret that the Government have said that they know better than anybody else, that they are satisfied that what they are doing is adequate, and that they can afford to be pretty, if not very, complacent. I do not find that attitude satisfactory. People who live around our shores or who know the facts about pollution would not either. The Royal Commission does not find it satisfactory and I hope that the Minister will say that the Government are prepared to be much more positive towards the directive than we have heard them he so far.
    11.19 pm
    Dr. Norman A. Godman: I share the reservations that my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) expressed. However, I welcome any attempt to reduce marine pollution around the United Kingdom. I shall concentrate on the interests of the inshore fishing industry and the fish farming industry. Both must be protected by measures that help reduce marine pollution.
    Scotland has witnessed some improvement in the control of pollution. We now have salmon in the Clyde again, largely as a result of the sustained efforts of the Clyde purification board and Strathclyde regional council. Fish farming and the fishing industry are important to the Scottish economy, especially to rural maritime communities. They need clean seas, rivers and sea lochs. One of the reasons why fish farming is so successful, especially on the west coast of Scotland, the Western Isles and in Orkney, is the cleanliness of the waters. It is essential that they remain pollution free.
    I recently visited a salmon farm in Orkney run by a Norwegian couple. It is a successful enterprise, aided by the Highlands and Islands Development Board, which was set up by a Labour Government, because the area is so pleasantly free of marine pollution. Salmon is important to the Scottish economy. Apart from being part of our national heritage, it is important to our tourist industry. That is why I welcome the Salmon Bill, which has just completed its passage through the other place.
    The salmon requires clean rivers and regulations which control the activities of salmon fishermen, legal and illegal. We need a cluster of conventions and marine pollution control regulations which enable both industries to develop.
    The proposal presents formidable problems for local and central Government. In Scotland, the regional authorities have a major responsibility in terms of sewage disposal. For example, Strathclyde regional council has an important role to play. Two vessels are in constant operation taking sewage sludge out into the Firth of Clyde. How will that council be affected by the proposal? The region has major plans, which are at an advanced stage, to develop a large sewage disposal plant close to my constituency. How will it be affected by the proposal? The plant is to be built in the constituency of the hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mrs. McCurley), but
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    it will involve my constituents as well. A sewage outlet pipe will extend into the Firth of Clyde. If Strathclyde has to make major changes in the next decade or so, will it receive EEC finance to change its methods of sewage sludge disposal? That is an important question for my regional council to consider.
    My next question concerns prohibition on the disposal of oil-based drilling mounts and oil from drill cuttings. As the Government rightly say in the explanatory memorandum, prohibition would present formidable problems for oil exploration activities in the North sea and for those activities that are taking place off the west coast of Scotland. How will they be affected by this rather odd draft Community instrument? That industry is important to the economy not only of Scotland but of the United Kingdom as a whole. It is essential that oil exploration activities are not too severely constrained. I know that this matter is not within the province of the Minister of State, but I seek some reassurance.
    No mention is made of the debris scattered on the seabed by the more reckless and disreputable offshore operators and offshore vessels. That debris does a great deal of damage to the fishermen's nets. The present legislation does not deal effectively with that menace.
    I welcome the concern of the EEC and of other north Atlantic nations about marine pollution, which must be reduced. However, I have serious reservations about this draft instrument.
    11.28 pm
    Mr. Gummer: I should like to answer some of the points raised in this interesting debate. I am pleased that the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) and I are of one mind on the main thrust of our discussion on this proposal. It is always possible to say — the hon. Gentleman is right to press me on this—that we should do more.
    I find it difficult to accept the charge of complacency, because the hon. Member for South Shields referred to criticisms of the Government which antedated the changes we made in the legislation we passed last year. The hon. Gentleman suggested that we were not aware of the improvements that we want to make. We have made the legislative changes that will help very much in that direction. The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) referred to the return of salmon to the Clyde. There are examples of improvements around the British coast. That is not to say that we do not need to do much more. Equally, it cannot be said that we should have attracted the opprobrium of the Bremen conference. However, the conference delegates did not attack us—they complained about particular trouble spots in the eastern North sea off the German coast where problems were caused by discharges from continental Europe, not from the United Kindom.
    When the conference delegates were talking about the problems of the North sea, far from attacking the United Kingdom Government they were attacking the Governments of continental Europe — the very Governments that the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow suggested could lead the way. That is not the case. He was right to say that much more could be done, and we are considering many possibilities. For example, on the problem of sludge from drilling, we now use nontoxic materials that have improved the position. That is

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    part of the operation that we are seeking to carry out. We are not saying that it is always wrong to use those substances, but that they should be made safe to use.
    The problem is ours because we do a great deal of the drilling in the area and therefore we are responsible for the use of those substances. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was right to suggest that that laid a special reponsibility on us.
    The hon. Gentleman claimed that the attitude of a number of our friends in Europe was different from ours. The discussions have not yet taken place. Our soundings lead us to believe that a number of them do not support the proposal. I accept that some do, but I believe them to be wrong. The hon. Gentleman is wrong to suggest that there are many enthusiasts for the proposal.
    The hon. Member for South Shields spoke of the United Kingdom's record on dumping. Although we dump sewage sludge, we go to considerable trouble to make it as safe as possible. We have spent much time, and there has been considerable experimentation trying to improve that. His point about the possible building in his neighbour's constituency is a case in point. It is an attempt to find a better way to deal with sludge. If that sludge shows trace elements of any of the metals mentioned in the annexe, it will come under this directive. The problems that I have outlined would then arise.
    The question that the hon. Gentleman asked has not yet been discussed to any great extent. I cannot, therefore, give him a direct answer. It is a question to which I believe we should not address ourselves because the basis of the argument is faulty. It is wrong to apply the same regulations to quantities of sludge irrespective of the amount of those elements within it.
    I am not ignoring the fact that we should try to remove those elements as far as possible, but to take about them as though there was a pure load of one dangerous substance is an odd way to approach the issue.
    We account for less than 10 per cent. of the sea disposal of liquid industrial waste. The suggestion that Britain is the dirty neighbour is unjustified, although I am not saying that we cannot do better. If we put the facts before the House, we are accused of being complacent; if we do not, we appear to be not supporting those who, over the past few years, have made major improvements. Many of them are concerned with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and I am concerned that their work should be recognised.
    The Commission rejected the concept of incineration at sea without any scientific advice. We believe that that option should be kept open and compared with other options. We must proceed with the best practical option while considering always whether there is not a better way in which to proceed. There are no grounds for saying, "This is the state of the art and we shall be unable to move forward." The Royal Commission on environmental pollution concluded in its eleventh report that marine incineration was a possibility under strict conditions and an acceptable option for the disposal of some wastes.
    If the option is rejected completely, we shall have to dispose of the waste in another way, and there are circumstances in which incineration would be preferable. Until we reach the Nirvana to which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey pointed, when no waste is produced, we must keep all the options open. The hon.
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    Gentleman's vision is a long way from realisation on any view of technology. I emphasise that we investigate all illegal dumping and I shall consider carefully all the issues raised by the hon. Member for South Shields that were directed to it. I know that the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to say more than that which I have set out in the letters I have written to him. We are continuing to undertake research in the areas to which he referred.
    The hon. Member for South Shields asked to what the 50 per cent. reduction referred to specifically. It must refer to sewage sludge, dredged spoil and some industrial wastes, because they contain minute quantities of the substances that are the cause of concern.
    Dr. David Clark: Does sewage sludge include colliery waste? Is any scientific investigation taking place into the effect of inert colliery waste on the marine environment? Many biologists have told me that colliery waste has no effect on that environment and the local fishermen in my constituency tell me that it causes no problems for them. I should like to know whether there is any scientific research taking place into the interaction between colliery waste and the marine environment.
    Mr. Gummer: Monitoring is taking place. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that it has been undertaken for 30 years or more. There are some problems of comparison and we are constantly seeking new means of dealing with the problem. Nothing has been found that would be remotely feasible or better environmentally. I have examined all the evidence carefully and I cannot counteract the evidence which the hon. Gentleman has brought to my attention. I am examining the matter closely, not least because of his interest and in recognition of his constituency interest.
    I would say to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow that, if there is more sludge to be dumped, the proposal that is before us will become more difficult to accept. If there are any trace elements, the terms of the proposal will be triggered.
    There was a real distinction to be drawn between the way in which the arguments of the spokesmen for the Labour and Liberal parties were advanced. The hon. Member for South Shields, who spoke for the official Opposition, said that we as a nation should do more, and that I should do more, to ensure that the environment is protected from the disposal of waste. He then examined the proposal carefully in addressing the House and suggested that it could not reasonably be supported although he had respect for its aims. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, who spoke for the Liberal party, ignored the fundamental problems that would arise in his constituency if the proposal were implemented and argued that we should accept it. He suggested that marginally he would go along with it and that the Government should do likewise.
    That is the sort of illogicality that we hear from the alliance Bench. It is suggested that we must support the proposal because it is concerned with conservation, irrespective of whether it is good, bad or indifferent conservation. At least the hon. Member for South Shields examined the proposal, applied it to the problem and asked whether it would work.
    The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey will support anything that comes out of the European

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    Commission on conservation just to show that he is on the side of conservation. He must accept that, from the conservation point of view, this proposal would not help.
    We have good arrangements already. While we may be able to do better, the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey must accept that the existing two conventions enable us to do all that he would like us to do. He may say that we are not doing enough, but this proposal would make no difference. All the possibilities already exist, and what is proposed would only make matters worse because it would restrict us.
    The people of Bermondsey would have their sewage turned into sludge and put on the land. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that that would help them to enjoy the Kentish countryside on those days when he allows them to go into the country? This suggests that he favours anything of a conservation nature simply because it might gain an extra vote for the Liberal party. The hon. Gentleman's argument is in sharp contrast to that put by the official Opposition and by Conservative Members. We see yet again why the hon. Member for South Shields, rather than the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, represents the official Opposition.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 8805/85, a proposal for a Directive on the disposal of non-radioactive waste at sea; recognises the importance rightly attached by Her Majesty's Government to the protection of the marine environment; considers nevertheless that sea disposal may represent the best practicable environmental option for certain wastes; notes the existence of well-established and effective international conventions in this field; and is therefore not convinced that the adoption of this Community instrument is an essential element of environmental protection.

  PROTECTION OF MILITARY REMAINS BILL [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Protection of Military Remains Bill, it is expedient to authorise—

  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any administrative expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the provisions of that Act; and

  (2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—[Mr. Boscawen]

  Horton Hospital, Banbury
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Boscawen.]
  11.42 pm
  Mr. Tony Baldry: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important subject and I thank the Minister for the care that he has taken so far in dealing with the representations that I have made about the Horton hospital.
  As both my parents have spent their working lives in the National Health Service—my father is a doctor and my mother a nurse—I have, naturally, always had an interest in the NHS, and since becoming the Member for Banbury I have taken a particular interest in the Horton general hospital. It is a first-class general hospital with well-qualified and highly motivated staff serving the medical needs of a wide catchment area stretching into Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.
  Any debate on the NHS is liable to become either a statement of statistics or an exercise in special pleading. I hope to do neither. Horton is a well run hospital. The local community has every reason to have confidence in the hospital's unit administrator, Dennis Baston, and his team. Whereas the average national daily cost per inpatient is £79, at Horton hospital it is only £66, and whereas the national average in-patient case cost is £577, at Horton it is £528.
  Some people seek to give the impression that the NHS is in a state of constant decline, is starved of resources and has ever-shrinking staff numbers. In fact, the figures show that local health services have never had so many resources devoted to them. Revenue spending on health services in Oxfordshire has increased by 101·7 per cent. in cash terms since 1979, representing an increase in real terms of 13·2 per cent. That means that the Health Service in Oxfordshire has a budget 13·2 per cent. bigger than it was in 1979. Revenue spending on Horton general hospital has increased by 103·8 per cent. in cash terms since 1979, which represents an increase in real terms of 14·4 per cent.
  During the past six years, about £2·25 million has been spent on new building works at the hospital, and during the next five years about £6,640,000 is planned to be spent on new building works. Since 1979, about £670,000 has been spent on new medical equipment at the hospital. There is no doubt that Horton general hospital is a more secure, better district hospital now than it was in 1979.
  Against that background of consistent achievement in the NHS and consistent extra resources for the hospital, I raise my specific anxieties, because, despite the consistent improvement, many beds at the hospital are empty for want of nurses and some financial resources. The first legitimate anxiety relates to RAWP which, as my hon. Friend will know, is the formula by which resources are allocated from central Government to regional health authorities. There are good grounds for suggesting that Oxfordshire regional health authority is underfunded. As my hon. Friend will know, it is one of the fastest growing areas of population in Britain, yet although in 1977–78 the region was 7 per cent. above its RAWP target, it is now 3 per cent. below target. It would appear to have had a more negative movement than any other region. I do not understand why Oxfordshire regional health authority should be in that position. The region's budget may be underfunded, so, however hard it tries, it will have

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  difficulties in meeting all its commitments. At the end of the day, that means that in a good district general hospital beds are not being used as they should be.
  In a letter to me last October, my hon. Friend the Minister acknowledged that Oxfordshire is not receiving its fair share of resources. He said:
  "It is true to say that Oxford RHA receives 3 per cent. less than its fair share of the available resources, whereas in 1977–78 it received 7 per cent. more than its share."
  What happened was that, just at the point when the region was on target to receive exactly its fair share, its relative need for health care increased because of rapid population growth. The target shifted. This had the effect of converting Oxfordshire health authority from an over-target region to an under-target region. In simple terms, that means that the regional health authority has insufficient funds for its means and is not receiving a fair share of the funds available.
  I appreciate that, this year, Oxfordshire is receiving about £1·4 million of growth money from the Government to pay for better services. However, that entire sum may be swallowed by unexpected bills: £344,000 to cover Oxfordshire massive rates increase; £700,000 to pay for higher than expected wage awards; and £250,000 to pay for a new national agreement on ambulance men's pay. I simply ask: when will Oxfordshire again receive its fair share of central Government money?
  Our second anxiety relates to the nurses that the district health authority can provide at the Horton. That is partly a consequence of the resources that the regional health authority can apply to the district and the district health authority can apply to the hospital. Recently, Oxfordshire health authority undertook a comprehensive review of nursing. That review is not yet completed, but its results so far demonstrate such low numbers of nurses at present on the wards as to give rise to great anxiety. It is neither fair, sensible nor acceptable to allow the numbers of nurses on wards and in the community to reach such levels that the staff who remain become demoralised It is unfair to the nurses and to the patients. I fully appreciate that some of the problems relate to difficulties in recruiting nurses. Horton, like every other hospital in Oxfordshire, is suffering and is finding it difficult to recruit either state registered or state enrolled nurses. Nursing services are extremely stretched. At Horton beds are closed because of a combination of recruitment problems and revenue difficulties.
  In a recent letter to the county's Members of Parliament, the district group manager, Dr Paine, observed:
  "The options will have to be those which will bring up the level of nursing staff on individual wards to such a level that they can feel that they carry out their duties effectively and without exhaustion and disillusion, as is too commonly the present case. It looks as though some reductions of service will be inescapable if this is to be achieved within even the optimistic predictions for the district's funding in 1986."
  That letter was written prior to certain of the unexpected expenditure which the district will incur, such as the rates increase to which I drew the attention of the House earlier.
  There is genuine concern that, because Oxfordshire health authority has not been able fully to fund the increases in nurses' pay, the number of nurses at Horton has had to be cut. That has meant that beds have had to come out of service and it has hit, in particular, cold
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  surgery so that the waiting times for operations have lengthened and on a number of occasions the hospital has not been able to use the operating theatres in the most cost effective way.
  I have read with interest the auditor general's recent study into nursing and I fully appreciate the argument that substantial savings can be made nationwide on redeploying nurses. However, having made several visits to Horton hospital, and having discussed the matter at considerable length with those involved, I am more than satisfied that in Horton the nursing staff are already being used as cost effectively and efficiently as possible, given the size of the hospital, the present 37½ hour working week which makes it difficult to provide 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week cover, and other contraints imposed by the Royal College of Nursing. I should be very surprised if anyone going into Horton could find a more cost effective way of using the money available for the nursing staff. The situation with nurses will be even more critical next year as each 1 per cent. increase in nurses' pay, which is not funded centrally, costs Oxfordshire health authority £8 million. When will we have a system of pay reviews that ensures that health authorities have available locally the resources necessary to honour pay awards agreed nationally.
  The last matter to which I wish to draw the attention of the House and which impinges upon the efficiency and effectiveness of Horton hospital is the effect of the recent introduction of the regulations on the maximum amount of money available to keep people in private nursing homes. I support fully the need to control such demand spending and understand why it was necessary to introduce the regulations. However, it is estimated that at any time there are up to 20 people in Horton hospital who are not really ill. They are old and would be far better off in nursing homes, but they cannot be admitted to private nursing homes because the Department of Health and Social Security cannot fund them. In consequence, they are costing the community far more by being in hospital and they are also taking up valuable beds which could be used by patients in need of acute medical beds.
  The chairman of Oxfordshire health authority and the chairman of Oxfordshire community health council have as a matter of urgency been carrying out an evaluation of all the private nursing provision in Oxfordshire. If it should be shown that the present DHSS levels have been set too low to enable private nursing homes to provide proper accommodation for those who are entirely dependent upon the DHSS for support, I trust that my hon. Friend will again consider the limits. It must be in everybody's interest that no acute bed in a general hospital is unnecessarily occupied.
  I hope that by the tenor of my comments I have made it clear to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and to the House that I do not approach this matter by way of special pleading. I hope that I approach it by way of balanced and objective analysis, wishing to try to discover how it is that at a time when more money than ever before is being devoted to the Horton hospital and to the National Health Service as a whole we find ourselves in the curious position that, notwithstanding, there are empty beds at a good, efficient hospital like Horton. The Horton hospital is a first class general hospital. We intend to ensure that it remains a first class general hospital that is able effectively and efficiently to serve the medical needs of local people.
  11.55 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Ray Whitney): I am very grateful for the opportunity to respond to this Adjournment debate. It is well known to the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) takes a very close interest in all the affairs of his constituency but particularly in the medical cover that is provided for his constituents—appropriate indeed for the son of a medical family.
  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for placing his entirely fair points in the context of the increasing and expanding medical care that is being provided by this Government. I do not wish to enter into a statistical knock-about, but it cannot be said too often that significantly and steadily, in real terms, this Government have increased the proportion of resources that are devoted to the National Health Service both nationally and regionally, including the Oxfordshire district and the Horton general hospital.
  The real terms increase in expenditure since 1979 will be over 20 per cent. this year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has announced that during the next three years we shall continue to give the same degree of priority to the NHS. Expenditure in Great Britain on the NHS is set to rise by nearly £2·8 billion to well over £20 billion in 1988–89. That represents a real terms increase in each year.
  I shall now refer briefly to the Oxford region. I represent an Oxfordshire constituency and therefore take a particular interest in the region. It reinforces my ministerial responsibilities. My hon. Friend referred to the resource allocation working party. Pressures continue upon the Oxford region. They spring largely from its rapid growth in population. The pressures on the Oxford region have been taken into account in the allocations. For example, the allocation to the region in 1986–87 represents an increase of 7·3 per cent. over 1985–86. That compares with increases in other regions that range from 5·7 per cent. to 8 per cent.
  This is a slightly lower allocation, in cash terms, than that which the region had hoped for or expected, but an increase of 7·3 per cent. is significant when there are heavy pressures upon expenditure generally. That allocation will put the region back on the course from which it was deflected. It will move towards its target of receiving a fair share of resources and it will correct the drift away from that target which has been a feature of recent years. The region, we estimate, is now within 2 per cent. of its target. The planning guidelines which we are now issuing to the regions, predict growth for Oxford of 1·7 per cent. in 1987–88 and 1·8 per cent. in 1988–89, and are designed to continue this process. I therefore submit that Oxford is feeling the benefit of the change in the RAWP formula in 1985–86 from past population figures to population projections for the year of allocation, a change specifically aimed to reflect more fully the needs of regions with rapidly growing populations. Coming from the region, as I have said, I well recognise that factor.
  My hon. Friend referred to the impact of RAWP formula. The regional health authority has put a paper on RAWP to Ministers, and it will have an opportunity to put to Ministers its arguments on this issue in a regional review which will be chaired by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health. We have also asked the National Health Service management board to undertake a review of the
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  RAWP formula, keeping the guidelines which aim at a general equalisation of health provision throughout the country. While the terms of reference of the review have not yet been finalised, the objective is to ensure that the RAWP formula is applied with common sense and sensitivity. This will provide an opportunity for the region to put to the department its particular concerns about the application of the RAWP formula to the Oxford region.
  I therefore hope that my hon. Friend recognises in the application of these figures that substantial funds are available. I hope that they have been applied flexibly, recognising the changing pressures in the regions, and specifically in the Oxford region and district.
  I deal now with other points which my hon. Friend made about the general pressures on the health authority to meet the pay awards. That is recognised, and it must inevitably be part of any arrangements of the funding of the Health Service. We have provided increases which are above the rate of inflation. It is important to understand that the cost improvement programmes are making available additional funds to authorities which go back into the kitty to cover not only the pay awards but improvement in the services. Resources released in this way through increased efficiency and cost improvements added something like 1·5 per cent. nationally to the money available for services and pay awards. Authorities are expected to improve on that next year. Oxfordshire has a cost improvement programme in 1986–87 of 1·8 per cent. In fact, in 1985 authorities have been able both to fund the 1985 pay awards and to develop services.
  Health authorities cannot expect, any more than employers in other industries and services, to be insulated from uncertainties about the level of pay settlements. It would be wholly unrealistic to expect the taxpayer to pick up whatever costs arise. We have no plans to increase health authorities' cash limits to fund pay awards. As we have made clear, there is an inevitable trade-off between expenditure on pay and on services, and the precise balance will vary from year to year. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that that is the way that we must conduct our services.
  Mr. Baldry: The difficulty is that district health authorities and others fix their budgets at the beginning of the year in anticipation of a pay award and halfway through the year they find themselves with percentage increases that they did not and could not have anticipated, because of review body decisions.
  Mr. Whitney: No one pretends that it is an easy problem. The pay awards must be contained within the steadily increasing percentage of the national wealth that is devoted to health. I hope that with cost improvements authorities will accept that and find sufficient flexibility. The awards are phased and that helps health authorities solve the problem which, I accept, is difficult.
  It may not be possible for me to cover all the points mentioned by my hon. Friend. Nationally, there has been an increase of about 50,000 nurses and midwives. My hon. Friend said that the shortening of their working week is a factor in that. We have significantly—perhaps not as much as we should have wished—increased the rates of nurses' pay in real terms. That produces pressures.
  I understand that there are problems at the Horton hospital in Banbury and with the Oxfordshire health authority. The authority has set a review committee to

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  work. I am not sure whether it has reported, but when it does we shall consider how the health authority can cope. It is a problem that must be solved locally, because the national picture shows a steady increase in the number of people employed in nursing since we took office.
  My hon. Friend mentioned those elderly people who would be better off in a nursing home. He referred to the level of supplementary benefit. From November, the allowance for an elderly person in a private nursing home was increased to £170 per week. That is subject to examination and review. Management consultants are studying the level and its feasibility. We have set in train studies on the assessment of old people to ensure that the service is being provided for those who genuinely need it. At £170 per week, the provision is not ungenerous.
  As a Minister with responsibility for social security I had the privilege of going around the country looking at nursing and residential care homes. It struck me as entirely possible to provide a good level of care in nursing homes with such funding. I hope that will continue to be the case.
  It is regrettable if facilities are not used. Because of the way in which we run our Health Service, many decisions
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  at local level must be taken by the district health authority. My hon. Friend was kind enough to accept that the resources made available to the Oxfordshire health authority and the Horton hospital were not ungenerous. The Oxfordshire health authority has gained substantially and expenditure on Oxford district between 1978–79 and 1984–85 has more than doubled, representing an increase of 13 per cent. above inflation.
  During the past six years £2·1 million has been spent on capital developments at the Horton hospital, and in 1983 four new operating theatres were completed. Next year a new phase will begin which will provide 100 beds for elderly people and a new day hospital at a cost of £5·2 million. There are plans to replace the accident and emergency unit. The upgrading scheme will be assisted by local fund-raising, which, as my hon. Friend says, demonstrates the support for the hospital.
  This is a good story. I understand the problems, but with the support that the health authority is receiving at national level, I hope that it can cope with them.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes past Twelve o' clock.

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Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.

Coinage System
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to simplify the coinage.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the structure of the coinage is kept under constant review. Nottingham University have been commissioned by the Royal Mint to look at various changes to our coinage system.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. May I ask him whether he agrees that the present coinage is much less satisfactory than the coinage which it replaced, and that there is serious risk of confusion between a number of the coins currently in use? Would he not therefore consider it to be in the public interest for a more logical sizing difference between the coins to be introduced progressively?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, far be it from me to say that the coinage is entirely satisfactory at the moment. I quite agree with the noble Lord that it is probably not. But, as I have said, there is research going on at the moment into possible changes. Various options—including, I may say, no change—are under consideration and especially involving the possible replacement of the 5p and 10p pieces. I must tell noble Lords that research is at an early stage and is so far inconclusive.
Lord Barnett: My Lords—
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his characteristic courtesy. Does not my noble friend the Minister consider that, with the increasing old age and short sight in the community, much confusion could be avoided and time economised by the introduction of a reform of the coinage suggested, with his characteristic public spirit, by the noble Lord opposite? This is particularly in relation to those tiresome small coins, the £1 piece, the 20p piece and the 5p piece, which cause great difficulty to those afflicted with one or other or, a fortiori, both the aforesaid disabilities?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I should like to say first that this research which is being undertaken by Nottingham University particularly includes the blind, the partially sighted and the handicapped when they are considering this problem. So far as concerns the £1 coin and the 20p coin, I think that the 20p coin has on the whole been extremely popular in its introduction. As regards the £1 coin—I know that we
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have been over this ground on many occasions—personally I think that it is quite popular, and, as I have already said, the 5p coin is under review at the moment.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, as the noble Lord the Minister is prepared to express a personal opinion about one coin which may not be universally accepted, or even accepted by the research body that has been set up, will he accept that whatever is done about the coins, something needs to be done about the notes? For example, will he agree that £5 is far too high a level for a starting point for notes?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: No, my Lords, I would not accept that. I think that the difference between the £1 coin and the £5 note, apart from the fact that it is fairly commonplace in other countries in the world, is a reasonable difference. There is, I suppose, a possibility that at some stage a £2 coin may be looked into; but at the moment I would not give any further encouragement than that.
Lord O'Brien of Lothbury: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister recall that in a debate in your Lordships' House in 1984 on the impending demise of the £1 Bank of England note, I urged the Government to rationalise the job lot of coins that we have as our coinage, and I invited them to take as their model the admirable Swiss coinage for doing this? If a study is taking place at Nottingham University, will the Minister be pleased to draw the attention of that university to the Swiss coinage, which has a lot to commend it?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I certainly hope that those involved in this research will take note of what is said in your Lordships' House this afternoon. I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord O'Brien—and I recall the debate very well—that the cost of completely revising the coinage would be something in the order of £250 million to the Mint alone, and that would not take into account the cost to other people such as banks, vending machine operators and the general public. In addition, it would be quite a major step for people in the community to accept, and particularly, if I may say so, the type of people to whom my noble friend Lord Broxbourne referred.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the researchers will have their attention drawn to the satisfaction in Scotland at the continued use of the £1 note, which causes English people to take their money to Scotland, change it into notes and then come back?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I know that the Scots are very keen on their £1 notes. They are legal tender in Scotland and are widely accepted in England as well. I hope that the Scots may be quite happy with the £1 coin which they had issued the year before last.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell the House what precisely is meant by "research"? He is aware that there has been considerable concern over the past few years about the new coinage introduced by the Government. Can he

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say whether the research takes account of consumers' views throughout the country? The House will be grateful if he can explain a little more about that.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I understand that the research mainly consists of human performance tests with members of the public, particularly including the blind, the partially sighted and the handicapped. Of course views of the public are noted as well because the research may result in some sort of conclusion, but it would be up to my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to decide at the end of the day what changes might or might not be needed. Therefore we would of course take into account the views of members of the public.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, in view of the criticisms from this House, will the noble Lord arrange for human performance tests to take place here?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am not quite sure how I should answer that. If the noble Lord would like me to arrange for a free handout of the different coins, I am not sure that I could arrange that.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, has the noble Lord ever read a history of our coinage? I am sure he has. In that case, can he confirm that it is a long, dreary history of hopeful pledges, wishful thinking and counsels of perfection invariably overtaken by events, leading from one mess to another?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am quite sure that the noble Earl is better informed on this matter than I am. I have to say, as I have said to the noble Lord, Lord O'Brien, that a complete change would be very impractical and therefore we must try to make gradual changes as and when they prove necessary.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, with regard to the terms of reference of the Nottingham research team, has it been asked to look at variations in the shape of coins? Those of us who fumble blindly in the dark to look for coins at night would be greatly helped if we could recognise a diamond as against an octagon, and as a consequence we would know what the coin was.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I know there are various possibilities regarding the shape of coins. The Royal Mint coin collectors' club magazine last year published an article about possible changes to the coins which included, for instance, a 5p piece shaped rather like the old threepenny bit used to be. That is one option, and I understand that they are looking into that kind of change.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, will the Minister, bear in mind that certain of our coins of different values are somewhat similar in diameter? Will he have a look at the French system whereby certain of their coins, as I seem to remember from the First World War, have a hole in the middle? That enables anybody, whether they are blind, deaf or just stupid, to differentiate between a coin of one value and a coin of another.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I understand that the possibility of a hole in the middle of a coin has
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been thought about. On the other hand, I do not know what the French have on the other side of their coins. My own opinion is that our Monarch might not be too pleased at having a hole through the middle of her head.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider letting the House have a picture of the design before coins go into production? Does he realise that colour is no use and thickness is no use? What is wanted is shape.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, as I already mentioned to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, there was an article in the magazine of the Royal Mint coin collectors' club which gave various options that might or might not be suggested for a change. I do not agree with my noble friend that colour and shape are of no use whatsoever. I think that in a coinage such as ours you do have to have different colours and you probably have to have different shapes as well.

Industry Year 1986
2.46 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they are giving to the campaign "Industrial Year 1986".
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, the Government fully support, both morally and financially, the designation of 1986 as Industry Year initiated by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. We have provided half the total central administrative costs of the initiative and have provided or funded secondees. This direct assistance is supplemented by funding and support of Industry Year activities run by other organizations. The Government have launched new projects for Industry Year and linked and enhanced existing ones.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that since his Government came to office one-third of the trained engineers in the North-West have not been replaced? What will be the result when this recession ends?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I recognise that there are in a number of industries skill shortages not totally related to the recession. One of the objectives of Industry Year is to stimulate engineers and other entrants into industry. With regard to the noble Lord's second question, perhaps I may remind him of the reply I gave last month to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, when I said that 1981 was the trough of the recession. Industry has steadily been moving out of that trough and signs are very encouraging.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, do not the Government think that it would be a somewhat unfortunate

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contribution to Industry Year if they take the opportunity to sell off the whole of the British motor industry?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it may very well be in the long term a significant contribution to sustaining an industry and those who work in it rather than letting it proceed in the manner in which it is now proceeding.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, speaking as one who strongly supports the campaign and the principles behind it, may I ask the Minister this question? Is he aware that a number of borough councils, particularly in London, have declared (I suppose for party political reasons) that they are not going to have anything whatever to do with the campaign? Would he like to make a comment on their stupidity?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it is extremely unfortunate that any authority or institution should take such a narrow viewpoint when one recognises, as I am sure your Lordships recognise, that industry is a great contributor not only to the nation's profitability but also to the wealth and wellbeing of the country as a whole.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we on this side of the House support the efforts of those quite disinterested people who are trying to make industry in the United Kingdom of greater importance to the population at large? Is the noble Lord further aware that one of the greatest services that the Government can perform is not by words of support but by actions in support of British industry? Is he aware also that the problems of British industry, far from being spoken about in the long term, are immediate and urgent? When will the Government take steps such as, for example, reducing interest rates, that are greatly in the interests of British industry and its competitiveness?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful for the noble Lord's first comment when he expressed his gratitude for the initiative. So far as his second point is concerned, manufacturing industry is participating in the recovery. Output is well into its fifth year of growth and is now 13 per cent. above the 1981 first-quarter trough.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, 1979.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I repeat, the 1981 first-quarter trough. As the noble Lord will know, interest rates are but one of a number of factors with which industry has to contend. The Government's policies are working, as my remarks have demonstrated.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that Industry Year (and I welcome the Government's great support for it) is really the start of a campaign to get industry and engineering properly appreciated in this country, and that it is not just a one-off, one-year event? I hope that my noble friend will support me in that view.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. The initiative that the RSA has taken in launching Industry Year is to draw attention to the opportunities and the need for industry. It is accepted, certainly by industrialists with whom I have spoken, that it is the start of an ongoing campaign.
Lord Somers: My Lords, if 1986 is to be Industry Year, does the Minister not agree that industry consists of management and designers as well as workers, and that therefore the selling of our motor industry to America is not a very good start?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, industry embraces all people, whether they are in management or are workers. Design of course makes an important contribution. I can tell noble Lords that my right honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Trade and Industry opened the design commitment conference a few days ago, on 28th January, to draw attention to the importance of design in industry.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that the North-West of England as referred to by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Blackburn, was traditionally the largest employer of engineers in the whole of Europe? Does he not understand that the disposal of British Leyland to companies outside our own country may well further exacerbate the decline of the areas concerned, which have almost become an industrial desert? Will he ask the new Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to reflect on the Government's decision to sell off British Leyland?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, as the noble Lord's question seems to centre on comments that were made in your Lordships' House yesterday, I can only add that at this time no decision has been taken by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I thought that I had made that point clear yesterday afternoon.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, in the light of the Minister's comments, can he tell the House when he expects the output of industry to be higher than it was in 1975?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: No, my Lords.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that one of the most important aspects of Industry Year is the strengthening of links between industry and schools? Are the Government taking specific action within their powers to stimulate that process?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the initiative is designed specifically to draw schools, education and industry more closely together. It is the aim of the Royal Society of Arts, supported by the Department of Trade and Industry, to encourage schools' interest in industry. That is being done by the mini enterprise project in schools, whereby we hope to operate a mini commercial or industrial enterprise in every secondary school before this year is out. There has been much success already in that area of activity.

Magistrates' Courts: Sentencing Guidance
2.56 p.m.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider the need for further guidance to magistrates' courts in regard to the imposition of custodial sentences on offenders in view of the wide differences in sentencing practice.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, sentencing in particular cases must remain a matter for the court, subject to the defendant's right of appeal. Fresh guidance on courts' powers and on the sentencing principles set out by the Court of Appeal will be given in the new edition of The Sentence of the Court due to be published later this month, a copy of which will be sent to every magistrate.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for responding so positively and promptly to the suggestion contained in my Question. However, does he not agree that the disparities in the use of custody, particularly as between certain urban and neighbouring magistrates' courts, are so serious as to reflect adversely on the quality of British justice? In those circumstances, would it not be a very useful and desirable step to improve liaison between magistrates' courts? Will his right honourable friend consider offering that advice high on the agenda of the guidance that he proposes to issue?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I accept that there are a variety of results. Consistency of approach in sentencing is something to be aimed for, but that will not necessarily produce uniformity of results. Magistrates must be free to reflect their knowledge of local concerns and problems. That is a major virtue of a locally-based system.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the first part of his original Answer was the statement of an important constitutional principle, and that the Government's adherence to it is to be welcomed? As my noble friend has indicated, disparity in sentences often flows from disparity locally, in different parts of the country, in the nature of crime and the amount of crime.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is right. I must stress also that Ministers have often reaffirmed that the Government favour the use of non-custodial sentences wherever possible. We have done so in addressing magistrates, for example. We also foster the exchange of sentencing information among magistrates. But quite properly, and as I said earlier, the role of the Government must be to advise and encourage rather than to direct.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the discrepancies between courts in one part of the country and another are so great that they could
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not possibly be accounted for by demographic or regional factors? In view of that experience, will the Minister take steps to ensure that when the Court of Appeal sends that valuable document The Sentence of the Court to all magistrates later this year it is properly absorbed by all magistrates and that magistrates have taken on board the contents of that document and have put them into practice in imposing sentences in their own courts?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am sure that the magistrates' courts will absorb the advice that is contained in that document. The analysis that led to the Question in the first place deals with sentencing for all indictable offences, which is much too large a category from which to draw clear conclusions about sentencing practice. As I indicated earlier, total uniformity is not the aim.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether his is aware that very many of the maladjusted, the mentally disturbed, and some young people with physical handicaps, are coming into custody? Does the Home Office regret doing away with approved schools?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, with respect I think that that supplementary question goes very wide of the original Question on the Order Paper.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the many thousands of magistrates who operate in the magistrates' courts throughout the country treat every single case individually? Is he aware that every case is completely different although to the outsider who is not in court it may seem that cases are the same? The background to every case is different and that is perhaps why to the outsider it seems that there are differences in sentencing.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I think she has put her finger on a most important point.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that there is a very general consensus now, certainly in the Home Office and certainly among members of the All-Party Penal Affairs Group, that community-based methods of dealing with young persons are far more successful than the use of the blunt instrument of custody? Nevertheless, the number of custody orders is now running at the horrific rate of 30,000 a year. Is the Minister seriously concerned about that and, if so, will he consider leaking these figures to his noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor in order to galvanise him to educate the magistracy? After all, they are doing their work in the public domain.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I have already indicated that we take steps wherever possible in addressing magistrates, and so on, to reaffirm the use of non-custodial sentences. The first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question goes rather wider than the subject of custodial sentences.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that we should perhaps consider the criteria arising out of the welcome decisions of the Court of Appeal and that these criteria should be incorporated into future legislation?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I note my noble friend's remarks.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that despite very high standards set by magistrates throughout the country, as rightly mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, the range of divergence in a sample of over 600 petty sessional divisions—from 6·2 per cent. of young males sent to custody at the lowest to 29·4 per cent. at the highest—is such as to cause some disquiet? Has the Home Office applied its mind to the reasons why two localities, roughly comparable in socio-economic terms, should have such a wide divergence?
Having said that, will the Minister accept the general welcome to the new publication of The Sentence of the Court, which is of excellent assistance? The last edition is, I believe, dated 1978 and it has been of very considerable help to all concerned with the administration of justice.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, of course the Home Office studies figures such as the noble Lord produced and I am glad that he welcomes the new publication. However, as I indicated, the analysis which produced the figures to which he refers deals with sentencing for all indictable offences, so it goes rather wider than the narrow area we are considering.

Anglo-Irish Parliamentary Body
3.4 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking in conjunction with both Houses of Parliament to provide appropriate constitutional and technical arrangements for the proposed Anglo-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Council.
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, the question of establishing an Anglo-Irish parliamentary body is, of course, ultimately one for the two Parliaments concerned. I shall be very happy to convey to my colleagues any views which your Lordships may express concerning this important matter.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his reply. Is he aware that questions are being asked on this subject today in the Dail in Dublin? Would it not help to make the Anglo-Irish Agreement more widely acceptable if there were proper parliamentary scrutiny of the proceedings of the Conference of Ministers?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I appreciate what the noble Lord said. I think I must stick to what I
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originally put forward. This must be a matter for the two parliaments concerned. There are many constitutional and technical arrangements to be decided. I shall be pleased to discuss this with any noble Lord who would like to talk to me about it, but we must proceed rather slowly on this matter at present.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, while I do not argue against the principle, does the noble Viscount not agree that it is absolutely essential, before any action is taken on a matter such as this, that there should be full and detailed consultation with every possible interested party?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn. I entirely agree with him. I hope that we shall have discussions through the usual channels. Indeed, I am prepared to have discussions most widely throughout the House before we commit ourselves to anything. It is for us to decide in this House what we wish to do; another place might have other views but it would be better if we could all be in concert together. However, I would not wish to do anything without making sure that we were taking this House, and all your Lordships so far as possible, along with us.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, the noble Viscount will understand that those of us who hope and pray that the Anglo-Irish Agreement produces some good results recognise that it has thousands of opponents—some of them very vicious. They issue rumours and statements that, frankly, frighten many of us who support the agreement and those rumours are not denied by the authorities concerned. There is one aspect which, I believe, came up in this House last week: the fact that what I call the "consultation procedure" of the council and the public generally is so bad. Will the noble Viscount look at that from the propaganda point of view? PR is important. If the Anglo-Irish Agreement is to succeed it must be seen to be succeeding.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, no one can appreciate more than I do some of the points made by the noble Lord. I accept them. I am as keen a supporter of the Anglo-Irish Agreement as anyone. I am so because I have experience of some of the problems involved. I agree that it is important to get the truth across. That is one of the most difficult things to be done in this particular area.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, does the noble Viscount not agree that one part of the truth which has not been fully stressed is that this is really the best offer the Unionists are ever likely to get?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I think it would be very dangerous for me to speculate on these matters, particularly since I realise that I would be offending against one of my own rules; that is, I would be answering a question very wide of the original Question.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, may I press the noble Viscount a little? What kind of timetable of progress towards setting up this kind of tier have the

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Government in mind? Or is it the view of the Government that there should be a period of further stability before moving forward to the setting up of such a body?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, I think the Government are very much in the hands of both this House and another place. I think it is important that that should be the case. I should like to see progress with the Anglo-Irish Agreement very much indeed, but we must consider how both Houses of Parliament in this country could help towards that. I believe that we must consider that very carefully.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, the noble Viscount has said that he is prepared to listen to suggestions from Members of both Houses when making up his mind about the parliamentary tier. To what extent can he improve the information that comes to Members of both Houses so that they can make a reasoned judgment? At the moment we have to rely on what I termed last week "puny press reports" in the Printed Paper Office, and nothing else.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, again I would be straying a little but this is an important matter so I will offend against my rules just for a moment to say that press statements issued by the British and Irish Governments describing the proceedings of the intergovernmental conference have been placed in the Library of the House and in the Printed Paper Office following each of the meetings which have so far taken place. We intend that that should be the normal practice. If we can do more to help this House and to get more information I hope that noble Lords will tell me, as I am anxious to respond.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, in view of the Government's pledge in Article 12 of the Agreement, should there not be a joint committee of both Houses to work out precisely what constitutional and technical support is required?
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, surprisingly enough I have Article 12 in front of me and it says here:
"It will be for Parliamentary decision in Westminster and in Dublin whether to establish an Anglo-Irish Parliamentary body of the kind adumbrated in the Anglo-Irish Studies Report of November 1981".
That is what I propose we should do. It will be for parliamentary decision. I think it would be quite wrong if it became a matter for government decision away from Parliament.

Prevention of Oil Pollution Bill [H.L.]
Report received.

Local Government Bill
3.10 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The first thing I must tell your Lordships about this Bill is that it is designed to ensure the proper conduct
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of local authorities in three areas of their business. It is not designed to bring about any fundamental change in the established principles of local government at all. It merely restates, in statutory form, standards of conduct in those three areas which, until quite recently, most of us took for granted.
The first of these three areas is the setting of the rate. The rate, as your Lordships well know, is the means by which a local authority raises from its residents money with which to pay for functions that it discharges on their behalf. It will be important to remember from whom the money is taken and on whose behalf it is spent, when we come to the next area touched by the Bill. I shall return to that in a moment, but the area with which we are now concerned is the getting of the money, not the spending of it.
As your Lordships also know, the rates do not provide the whole of the resources that a local authority can spend. A great deal is provided by central government in the form of rate support grant, and the Government also provide rather smaller grants for specific purposes. Other transactions, such as fees and charges, aside, it is the ratepayers who make up the difference between these large amounts of money and what the local authority spends. Given that domestic and non-domestic ratepayers between them provide 28 per cent. of an average authority's expenditure, it is clear, however, that the rate must be decided—or "made", which is the proper term—not later than the start of the financial year. That is necessary for any vestige of good management, and it is also desirable for ratepayers, who want to know exactly what they will have to pay.
That the rate ought to be made in time for the start of the financial year which they will pay for must seem so patently obvious that your Lordships must wonder what has possibly happened to make us want to make it a duty in law that it should be done. To explain that, I must say more about the context of this Bill. As your Lordships well know, the level of total local authority expenditure, and the high level of some local authority rates, have both for some time been of great concern to central government. It is not necessary for me to go into the history of this, or to detail the complicated arrangements of penalties and ratecaps with which we have sought to protect the interests of both the national economy and the local ratepayer. All that it is necessary to know is that some councillors have seen this as an activity of central government that they wish to resist. That decision has been expressed in political terms, justified on political grounds, and acted upon as a political campaign.
Your Lordships will have noticed that I have just referred to councillors for the first time in this speech. Hitherto, I have referred only to authorities. The distinction is important. An authority is that part of local government that persists, without interruption, from one decade to the next for so long as the Constitution remains unchanged. As such it is a politically impartial machine. The councillors, on the other hand, are the ephemeral group that controls that machine between elections, which can change political colour overnight as a result of an election or indeed a by-election.
Some councillors are prepared to use their power over the machinery of local government for political

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purposes. One way in which a handful of councils last year sought to carry out their own party's campaign against central government's financial controls of local authorities was simply to delay setting a rate. There were in fact 13 of them in all out of a total of 413 local authorities.
We do not believe that any councillors ought to throw the budgetary process of their authority into chaos and its ability to carry out its functions into doubt for any reason, and certainly not merely as a facet of a long and expensive campaign against Westminster's stewardship of the national interest. The victims of such behaviour are not balance sheets and bank accounts. They are the employees of the council itself and the population that it was elected to serve.
Futile though the campaign of the 13 authorities eventually proved, we cannot afford to ignore it. It is for that reason that Part I of the Bill places a duty on every rating authority to make its rate by a certain date. The date for the rate is 1st April, which is the start of their financial year and the obvious date to choose. I should add that it is right to give the district auditor clear guidance about the precise nature of the responsibility of councillors in relation to rate-making and this will serve that purpose also.
There is no rash new departure in this. As your Lordships know, no rating authority can make its own rate until the authorities that precept on it have issued their precepts—and those authorities are already bound by statute to set their precepts by a given date. In Scotland all rating authorities are already bound in law to make their rates by specified dates. We merely intend to remove from English rating authorities their odd, and hitherto entirely unimportant exemption from this common and common-sense requirement.
I referred earlier to the presumed, and expected, political impartiality of a local authority. I also mentioned that local councils have become steadily more political in recent years. It is not my business to deplore that. It is politics that bring most people into public life and politics that sustain every government, including this one, in office. The desire to serve the community at any level is good and the questions of how best to do it and what goals to pursue do very rapidly become political questions. Politics are therefore the motive force both of how society is served and of how it evolves. It is the change, and the prospect of change, of political control of the machinery of government, local or national, that determine both the speed and the direction of progression. Without it our country would first become stagnant and then, no doubt, fall into disorder. Therefore, political argument and political commitment are a necessary part of local government. It is not our purpose to remove them, but it is our purpose to prevent their expression in a way that breaches the specifically British tradition of local government. That tradition rests upon a number of concepts and conventions.
One of the most important concepts is that the political—and indeed the social—rights of a minority are in no way diminished because they are a minority. One of the most important conventions is the impartiality, which I have already mentioned, of the
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machinery of local government. That concept has hitherto always, I believe, been taken to extend to the resources of that machine, by which I mean the money at its disposal.
A very great deal of that money comes, after all, from the national taxpayer. He has no interest in the triumph of one party or another in any borough or district in the kingdom except his own. But even more important is the balance of that money. That does not come from the national taxpayer (and it is no inconsiderable sum). It comes from the ratepayers, both domestic and commercial, of the borough or the district in question. And in none of them—no matter which party is in power and no matter how big its majority—are all the rate-paying electors supporters of that majority party.
As I said earlier it is important to remember from whom the money is taken and on whose behalf it is spent. Ratepayers cannot refuse their rates simply because they disagree with the policies of the majority party in their council. It must therefore be utterly wrong for the majority party in a council to spend ratepayers' money in any campaign designed to drum up support for its party, and therefore against the minority parties, either locally or nationally. It cannot be right to use the force of law to extract money from any ratepayers and use it to advance the political campaign of a party to which they are opposed. And there is no party to which some ratepayers are not opposed. That must be an abuse, and it is the abuse that Part II of the Bill is designed to put an end to. Your Lordships will, I am certain, question in Committee whether it is drafted to achieve either more or less than that; I know that your Lordships will be well briefed, in part because I have seen a good deal of the briefing which your Lordships are receiving; but I trust that no single voice will be raised against the principle we are seeking to enforce—the principle that no man or woman shall have their money taken from them to pay for party political propaganda.
This was certainly the view taken by the Widdicombe Committee. Your Lordships will know that that committee is still at work on its main report but that it presented an interim report on local authority publicity in August of last year; the recommendations of that committee are the basis on which we have built the provisions of Part II of this Bill.
To achieve our purpose we must identify what is to be prohibited, and we also intend to clarify the definition of what is now permitted. We also believe that the time has come to re-establish well-recognised principles of good practice and proper conduct in this highly sensitive and potentially costly area of local government activity. There is clearly a need to deal with matters of tone and presentation which cannot be adequately embodied in primary legislation but which, nevertheless, are of great importance in local authorities' publicity decisions. A code of practice would set out broad guidelines on the content, style, distribution and cost of local authority publicity.
In many authorities such considerations would already be taken into account as a matter of good administrative practice, indeed as a matter of course. But a code of practice seems the most appropriate way of ensuring that all local authorities have regard to them.

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I must emphasise that the code the Government are proposing could not as a matter of law supplement the definition of prohibited publicity in Clause 2. It is not an aid to the interpretation of that clause, and its subject matter may well go much wider than the question of what is party political. An authority would be required to have regard to the code, but it would not be forced to comply with it so long as it was satisfied that its decision was reasonable and not in breach of its fiduciary duty to its ratepayers.
I turn to the second area of our concern. It was, your Lordships will recall, the use of the machinery of local government, and more particularly the cash supplied to it by the ratepayer for party political purposes, that triggered our original concern in this matter. You will not be surprised therefore to find in the Bill a provision for money used for any publicity purposes to be separately accounted for. This will be of assistance in monitoring the observance of this legislation by local authorities. It will also make many of those authorities whom Widdicombe discovered do not even know how much they are spending on publicity more accountable to their electorate and better able to control their own affairs. Given that £20 million or more has recently been spent on controversial publicity campaigns, a requirement that authorities should have a separate entry in their accounts for publicity seems the very least that one could ask.
The third area in which we think it necessary to ask your Lordships to legislate to protect the standards of conduct of local authorities is that concerned with mortgage finance. I have already described to those of your Lordships who were not familiar with them (and I suspect that they were few), the outlines of the major differences between central government and some local authority councils. The controversy was almost entirely about finance and central government's right to set the limits on what was accceptable for local authorities to do. A handful of local authorities resorted to a range of stratagems to avoid this control or to defer its impact. Much of it was done in a blaze of publicity. Some of it will I regret become public again when pledges entered into it in haste fall due to be redeemed; the councillors who caused the pledges to be made will in many cases, I may add, not then be there. It will be their electors who have to redeem them. The transactions we are concerned with, however, attracted less publicity; but seem nonetheless to expose the public to risk. I refer to the sale of mortgages without the borrowers' consent and without a full transfer of the financial risk.
Your Lordships will know that a great many councils provide mortgages for property in their areas. The buyers of the property are bound to make regular payments of interest and repayments of capital. The mortgages are therefore a form of security, and Liverpool in particular during the height of its self-induced financial crisis sold £30 million of its mortgages to a consortium led by a French bank as a quick way of getting cash to meet its commitments.
It did so without consulting the borrowers. We believe that the borrowers entered into the mortgages specifically with their local authority in the belief that they could depend upon it for reasonable conduct. They had no say in the change of mortgagee and there is no certainty that they yet know who their new
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mortgagee is. That seems to us a thoughtless and unfeeling way for a local authority to treat those who are, in a very real sense, dependent on it. We intend that in future no local authority shall sell any of its mortgages without both the knowledge and the written consent of each of the borrowers concerned.
I have now set out the main purposes of this Bill and the reaons why we think it necessary to ask your Lordships for the provisions which it contains. I have set them out in the order in which they are met in the Bill and I shall therefore be brief in the traditional capitulation of its clauses. They are as follows. Part I consists of a single clause which requires all rating authorities to make their rate by the beginning of each financial year—that is to say, 1st April.
Part II consists of four clauses. Of these, Clause 2 prohibits any local authority from publishing or causing or paying any other person to publish, material either designed to or likely to affect support for a political party. Clause 3 as a corollary tightens up the existing definitions of a local authority's powers and functions with regard to the handling of information.
Clause 4 provides for the Secretary of State, after the consultations required by Clause 4(5), to issue a code or codes of practice for the guidance of local authorities in dealing with publicity. Under Clause 4(4) a code so issued will not come into effect without the approval of another place. I should say here that we shall be bringing in an amendment to bring this House in on the act, so to speak. Your Lordships will notice that authorities will under Clause 4(6) have to have regard to such a code but it will not, as I have already explained, have statutory force of itself, nor can it be taken with Clause 2 to enhance the definitions therein. Clause 5 requires local authorities to keep separate accounts of their expenditure on publicity and, I should add, to give access to those accounts to the public. Clause 6 is the interpretation clause for this part of the Bill.
Part III of the Bill provides, in two clauses and a definitions clause, for the new requirements relating to mortgages. Clause 7(1) provides that a local authority must have the written consent of any of its borrowers before it transfers his or her mortgage to another mortgagee. Under Clause 7(5) the Secretary of State may make regulations saying what information must be given to a borrower before he gives his consent and in what form his consent shall be given.
Clause 8 sets out the circumstances in which a transaction of this sort does not give rise to capital receipts to the disposing authority. The definitions for Part III of the Bill are in Clause 9.
There remains only one item to which I have not so far referred. Clause 10 in Part IV of the Bill makes good our unfortunate failure, for which I apologise, to provide in last year's rather bigger Local Government Act for those giving their services to authorities set up by that Act to be able to claim attendance allowances. Your Lordships will sympathise with them.
The eleventh and final clause is the usual one dealing with the commencement and the Short Title of the Bill. There are, I am very happy to say, no schedules to the Bill. This is a short and useful piece of legislation and I look forward to hearing your

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Lordships' preliminary view of it this afternoon and to many interesting hours in Committee thereafter. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Elton.)
3.31 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, we are grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the Bill. But there our gratitude ends. We do not like the Bill, nor do the Association of County Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of District Councils, the Council of Scottish Local Authorities or the National Association of Local Councils, representing over 11,000 parishes and town councils. Rarely can there have been such unanimity in opposition to a piece of government legislation. It is not surprising. This is the twelfth local government Bill that this Government have introduced since 1979, not to mention four housing Bills. Each has in some way taken away from the powers and freedom of local authorities to do as they think best for the people they serve. These Bills have generally been too hastily prepared and presented, with, as a result, poor drafting, as is all too evident in this Bill.
Here we have a Bill which, if enacted, will mean totally different standards for local and central government. The major part of the Bill, Part II, is supposed to be based on the interim report of the Widdicombe inquiry. I hope to show, in discussing the clauses in some detail, that it goes far beyond it. I wish to make first a comment on Clause 1. We have no objection to a rate having to be made by 1st April but we hope that the Government will give some commitment to produce the necessary information on which a local authority's budget must be fixed by November of the previous year, so that there can be adequate time for proper planning and discussion. Can the Minister give that assurance?
I turn now to the controversial Part II. The Bill addresses five issues raised by Widdicombe. In four of these five the Government have ignored or gone well beyond the inquiry's findings; and in the fifth they have, by sloppy drafting, created an administrative nightmare. The first issue arises in Clause 2. This clause prohibits political publicity by local authorities and includes publicity issued under all or any power of local authorities. The Widdicombe inquiry was very aware of the advantages of local authority publicity. The chapter in the interim report on conclusions was prefaced thus:
"Local Government has an important and well-established voice on matters affecting its responsibilities. It is important at all times, but perhaps particularly in times of wide political differences, that our political system should accommodate the free expression of opposing views, and we have said that it is right for local authorities to be able to explain their views on controversial matters affecting them".
That appears in paragraph 221.
The committee's recommendation was that,
"there should be an express statutory prohibition of local authority publicity of a party political nature"—
that is, for a statutory declaration of the existing state of law. Widdicombe's argument was that this
"would highlight the current legal position and lend it greater force".
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This recommendation was made in the light of the fact that,
"the existing law already provides considerable limitations on advertising and information. Moreover, there is evidence that the process of cases coming before the Courts may result in the law becoming better understood".
That was paragraph 171.
A particular recent development has been the stricter interpretation put upon Section 142 of the Local Government Act 1972 in two recent cases brought by Westminster City Council against ILEA and the GLC. These cases established that Section 142 cannot be used for publication of purely persuasive material although lawful information can have a persuasive effect. These decisions date from December 1984 and January 1985. Following them, many of the examples of allegedly political publicity mentioned by Conservative Members and government spokesmen would not be lawful under existing law. The Government view is, and always has been, that there is widespread abuse by local authorities, the underlying assumption being that the Government's local government policies are unpopular only because people have been duped by party political advertising.
A whole range of statements from the Government before the publication of the Bill have made it clear that they considered that the existing framework of law inadequately restrained political publicity. Yet at Second Reading in the House of Commons the Secretary of State said:
"The Widdicombe inquiry recognised that it was implicit in the present law that local authorities should not spend public money on party political matters, but it recommended that that implicit prohibition should be given statutory effect. The Government agree with that view"—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/85; col. 42.]
I believe that the Minister made a similar claim at the beginning of his speech today. This looks like an attempt to disguise the fact that the Government, far from agreeing with the inquiry's conclusions, are—the Bill makes this clear—going far beyond them and introducing new and far more stringent controls.
The Government have made an improvement to the Bill by proposing an amendment on Report in the Commons which deleted reference to a,
"body, cause or campaign identified with, or likely to be regarded as identified with, a political party".
However, there is no change to the heart of the clause or of the Bill in Clause 2(1) itself. The crucial phrase is the one banning material which,
"can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect public support for a political party".
This inflicts a test of such severity that it goes well beyond a statutory declaration of existing law. It provides that if a reasonable person could think that the publicity might be likely to affect public support for a political party, it is banned even if the balance of opinion of reasonable persons went the other way. This test will almost certainly prevent local authorities from issuing publicity about proposed government legislation provided that the legislation has been the subject of political disagreement between any two parties in the land. This kind of publicity was explicitly defended in the Widdicombe report as a proper use of public money. It almost looks as if the Government's motive in introducing the clause in this form was to reduce the danger of the public being fully informed.

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However, the effects of the clause go well beyond even that. If, for instance, a council puts out information on proposed changes in the housing benefits system it is highly likely to affect the public support of those who rely on the system. It would thus be subject to prohibition not because it was inaccurate or untruthful, not because it was persuasive rather than informative, but purely because accurate and truthful information on this subject could be regarded as likely to affect support for the party in power.
Clause 2 would even make it difficult for councils to implement legitimate policies. A cheap fares policy needs publicity to ensure its success as a policy. It will not result in fewer cars on the roads and more passengers on public transport unless it is widely publicised. However, if the policy is opposed by the opposition on the council, or by any other political party, that publicity could also be regarded as likely to affect public support for the controlling group and therefore be open to challenge.
Clause 2 goes further still. The prohibition applies to material affecting support for any particular party. A local authority which publicised anti-racist material could find itself taken to court by the National Front. Material that would promote race relations could be reasonably regarded as likely to affect support for racist political parties. Widdicombe warned against new controls on the detailed discharge of local authority functions unless the case was a clear and strong one. That appears in paragraph 177.
The inquiry clearly thought that there was not a clear and strong case for new restrictions. The Government have ignored that conclusion. This major objection to the Bill would be removed if the words,
"or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"
were removed. This would leave the text as,
"appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party".
This would be a declaration of the existing state of the law with which Widdicombe and the Labour Party are perfectly content.
The second issue is in Clause 3. Subsection (1) of Clause 3 narrows the scope of Section 142. At present this section allows authorities to publicise "matters relating to local government". The Bill would narrow this to,
"information relating to the functions of the authority".
Section 142 was introduced into the 1972 Act—a Tory Act—partly to consolidate previous powers but also to give local authorities wider and more general powers than hitherto, in recognition of the fact that the role of local government goes wider than a mere agency for the provision of services. At that time it was widely felt that local government should be enabled to fulfil a role as the voice of its community.
This was a view that the Widdicombe Committee accepted. Local democracy (I quote from paragraph 134),
"goes further than the simple delivery of specific statutory services".
Widdicombe concluded:
"We propose that Section 142 should be left unchanged. It provides an acceptable and long established definition of the proper scope of local government publicity powers".
The Government have chosen to ignore this recommendation and the reasons for it.
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Campaigns and other forms of publicity, even the putting out of press releases against government policy on important issues of great concern to particular local authorities and to the welfare of their inhabitants, would be prevented by Clause 3(1). An example is Dover District Council's recent decision to campaign against the proposed fixed-link Channel crossing. Such a campaign would clearly not be information directly relating to the functions of the authority even if it escaped the prohibition of political publicity under Clause 2. Yet it is of vital interest to the area of the local authority and its inhabitants.
At present many local authorities use Section 142 to give grants to voluntary organisations for information or publicity purposes. Any restriction on local authorities' own use of this power would similarly limit voluntary organisations. Apart from the fact that a serious loss of funds can be expected the clause would create an administrative nightmare for voluntary organisations, who would have to ensure that a local authority which they were approaching had appropriate powers to "justify" a grant for publicity purposes under Section 142 and ensure that funds from one tier were not used on an activity "justified" by a function of another.
Clause 3(1) should be deleted in toto to bring the Bill into line with the Widdicombe inquiry's recommendation.
The third issue is Clause 3(2). As part of its proposals for tidying up the legal powers under which councils can issue publicity the committee recommended that Section 137 should be amended to prevent authorities using it to finance publicity expenditure. This is an area of uncertainty in the existing law. As part of his recommendation Widdicombe said that,
"The exclusion of Section 137 … would need to be framed so as to prohibit not only publicity issued directly by a local authority but also publicity issued on its behalf by a proxy body funded under that section".
The report goes on to make an explicit warning that,
"any such change should not prevent the funding under Section 137 of voluntary bodies who issue publicity for their own aims and objectives".
That is paragraph 190.
Clause 3(2) as presently drafted falls into that trap. It bans all expenditure on publicity under Section 137 except by way of a grant to a voluntary organisation where the publicity is incidental to the main purpose of the grant. It will be impossible for a council to give a grant to any voluntary organisation if publicity is the main purpose of the grant.
Voluntary organisations are not just passive service-delivery agencies. They promote the interests of their clients in many ways, and this often includes giving out information and running campaigns. This clause would severely restrict the ability of many voluntary organisations to do their job. Local authorities would not be able to fund an anti-drugs campaign, for instance, or the publication of information on social security charges. Many voluntary organisations exist specifically to disseminate information. If Clause 3(1) were removed, as suggested above, Clause 3(2) would be largely unobjectionable.
The fourth issue is Clause 4, which should never have been introduced. The Widdicombe Committee was worried about some aspects of what it termed tone

1023
and presentation of local authority publicity. But it expressed a strong preference for a self-regulatory structure. Clause 4 rejects self-regulation in favour of regulation by the Secretary of State.
The report discusses the usefulness of a code of practice. I quote from paragraph 211:
"While it might be possible to develop such a code over time we do not think this would be a simple task".
The report goes on to illustrate the difficulties and dismisses the central government conventions as a basis for a code of practice. Clearly a code of practice was not seen by Widdicombe as the answer.
In Clause 4 the Government have ignored both Widdicombe's strong preference for self-regulation and the Committee's reservations about codes of practice. Even more significantly, Widdicombe decided that more work was needed on this subject. The Committee announced its intention to
"consider this particular aspect further with the local authority associations".
The Government have ignored this clear and explicit statement. In doing so they have clearly acted to preempt and prejudice the main report.
During Committee stage the Government circulated an outline of a draft code of practice. This demonstrates the level of detail that the Secretary of State intends to go into in these codes. Of particular concern is the first paragraph, which draws a distinction between paid publicity—advertising, exhibitions—and unpaid publicity, both of which would be covered by the Bill. The category of unpaid publicity includes,
"council and committee reports, consultation documents, press releases, press conference statements, media interviews, etc".
Apart from the fact that this paragraph constitutes an illegitimate use of power by the Secretary of State it shows how far the Government are prepared to stifle debate. The last item presumably means that a local politician cannot make statements about the views of the council if they could,
"reasonably be regarded as likely to affect support for a political party".
The Government's action in introducing this clause appears to have achieved the objective of precluding the Widdicombe Committee's further deliberations. The secretary to the committee has recently written to the local authority associations to say that in view of the provisions of the Bill they did not now intend to return to examining the possibilities of self-regulation in the context of their study of the general framework of regulation of local authorities' activities for their main report.
The fifth issue is Clause 5. Separate accounting is not of itself objectionable. It is the only part of the Bill which follows Widdicombe reasonably faithfully. However, "publicity" is defined so broadly in the Bill that the clause could prove unworkable. "Publicity", according to Clause 6(3) of the Bill, means,
"any communication, in whatever form, addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public".
As with much else in the Bill, it is unclear exactly how wide this definition goes.
It is clear, however, that it includes very much more than the kind of paid advertising that Widdicombe
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and, ostensibly, the Government are worried about. It would apply not only to all the uncontroversial forms of publicity, such as statutory notices and job advertisements, but also a whole range of other communication. If, for instance, a housing manager writes a letter to a certain number of council tenants—how many is an open question; how do a number of individuals become a section of the public?—the costs of that communication will have to be accounted for. The costs of posting the letter would need accounting for, as would a proportion of the manager's salary, typist's salary, office and accommodation costs, etc. There could be complications too for local education authorities in their communications with parents.
This clause makes the Bill a godsend for accountants as well as for lawyers. The clause in itself is unobjectionable but the definition of publicity in Clause 6(3), which makes Clause 5 unworkable, should be restricted at least so as to apply only to paid publicity.
I must say again, in summing up, that this Bill is a direct attack on local authorities' freedoms. It comes close to censorship. The real problem that the Government ought to be considering is how best local government can be organised to provide the services it is its duty to provide, services which affect the lives of everyone, every hour of the day, at a time when so many new methods of management, etc. are available. The debate on science and technology in local government last week highlighted that.
As it is, with this piecemeal and steady biting at their powers, local councils and their councillors are demoralised. It is significant how many excellent officers are volunteering for early retirement. If councils are to become mere agents for carrying out government policies, good and dedicated councillors will not be willing to stand for election. Central government must decide whether they will trust local government and give it a proper democratic role to perform, or whether they will go further down the road to central control with mere agencies around the country to deliver and monitor the services.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in his book The Dilemma of Democracy distinguishes between two theories about the nature of democracy and the nature and function of government: the theory of centralised democracy, called by him elective dictatorship, and the theory of limited government or freedom under the law. The noble and learned Lord himself preferred the second. However, this Government appear to have scorned his advice and gone all out for elective dictatorship. We on this side of the House are for freedom under the law.
3.51 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, the most substantial and controversial part of this Bill is undoubtedly contained in Part II; but before getting to grips with it I should like to make some brief comments and ask one or two questions on Parts I, III and IV. As regards the obligation to set a rate by 1st April, we do not oppose that; but, as the noble Lord referred to the existing obligation on precepting authorities to meet a deadline, can he say whether they too will be covered by Clause 1(3) and, if not, should they not be so covered?

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Part III, on the sale of local authority mortgages, appears to be merely a device to limit the means by which an authority can raise immediate cash. Why therefore introduce this cumbersome system of consulting all the mortgagors concerned? Their interests are not affected either way—indeed a French bank might be a better mortgagee than the City of Liverpool—and they are simply being used to discourage local authorities from raising cash by this means. That being so, would not some more direct prohibition have the merit of honestly revealing the Government's intention? We would have opposed it because we are against the restrictions on capital spending from local authority sales. But to do it in this way seems tortuous and less than frank as to the Government's real intentions.
As regards Part IV, I am glad to say that we are able to welcome the correction of the omission from the big brother of this Bill, so that councillors attending meetings of successor bodies, such as joint boards and the reconstituted ILEA, may now claim allowances for their duties. This is obviously necessary and right. However, I think I heard the noble Lord suggest that we would be sympathetic to this because of our own allowances. Perhaps he would correct this, because your Lordships have no allowances, only expenses, and it would be unfortunate to give the wrong impression.
I now turn to the meat of the Bill which is contained in Part II. I believe that it is very widely accepted that there have been grave and some would say gross abuses of local authority powers. Islington has provided some of the most glaring instances. Can it be right blatantly to publish a political free community newspaper which then goes bankrupt to the tune of £100,000? Despite this experience, I understand that a monthly successor is being planned in the run-up to the borough elections. Of course there are other well known sinners. We are talking of perhaps 20 to 30 authorities in all.
We on these Benches want to set local government free to ensure that it has greater freedom from central interference. However, frankly, this aspiration has not been helped by Islington, Greenwich, Liverpool or Leeds. Therefore reluctantly we have to agree with Mr. Widdicombe's Committee that:
"some of what has been done by certain local authorities goes beyond what should properly be done out of public funds",
and with its general conclusion that:
"there is a problem that needs to be dealt with".
Our preferred remedy for these excesses is, as the House by now knows and as we shall not desist from reiterating, the introduction of a system of proportional representation for local government elections, so that the likelihood of any single and unscrupulous party, whether of the Left or Right, gaining control of the local government machine and manipulating it for extraneous purposes would be much diminished; and agreement to publicise one or another party's national political views at ratepayers' expense would not be easily obtained.
As the House will recall, my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich, introduced a Bill to this effect; and a similar Bill, which was promoted from the Conservative Benches by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, went through all its stages in your Lordships' House
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without amendment. That is something which the Government should have taken up themselves and ensured a safe passsage for in another place. They did not see fit to do so and I believe that they will live to regret it.
Therefore, we have the present Bill before us. The Alliance supported the Second Reading in another place in the hope of improving the Bill during its passage so as to make it less restrictive where this was not necessary and to reduce the "overkill" of which they were accused by one Conservative Member at the Report stage on 22nd January. ("Overkill" was his word, my Lords.) It was also our aim there, as it will be here, to mitigate unintended side effects, if unintended they are. There are serious difficulties of interpretation of the main Clause 2(1). As the National Union of Journalists asks:
"Does it mean for example that no authority can publicise environmental improvements for fear that this might be regarded as likely to affect support for the Ecology Party?".
Will publicity produced by the community relations councils be banned on the grounds that it would be likely to affect support for the National Front?
When we come to Clause 3, which reduces the present permission to publish information on:
"matters relating to local government"
to the much more restrictive:
"information relating to the functions of the authority",
how would this affect Dover Borough Council's objections to the Channel Tunnel scheme, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady David? Would they not become illegal if this Bill is enacted as it stands?
There is another area of concern relating to the quite usual and proper circulars issued, for example, by parish councils to rally local opinion against some move such as the closure of a railway station, a bus route or a sub-post office. Would that be held to be overtly political on the ground that the proposed closure stemmed from the policies of the party in power nationally?
As has already been mentioned, these uncertainties extend to voluntary bodies whose dismay and alarm will I am sure be ably expounded by the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, when he speaks, so I shall not dwell on their problems at this stage. However, they are already considerable as a result of the abolition Bill and are likely to be made much greater by the Bill now before us, even as amended. I believe that everyone will agree with the need to eliminate bogus or front organisations set up to engage in party political activities at the expense of the ratepayer. Yet the original Bill would have caused great difficulties for legitimate voluntary bodies which have traditionally relied for some of their financial support on grants from local government.
After discussion with the NCVO and others, the Government agreed to change the wording of Clause 2(1)(b) and then eliminated it altogether. However, I understand that there is still continuing and growing concern over the effects of Clause 2(3) which brings within the full scope of Clause 2 any voluntary body funded in any way by a local authority.
As the clause is currently written, it would appear that a charity concerned with, for example, homelessness, receiving a local authority grant would

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be unable to stimulate public concern over a problem which we all know is widespread in London on the grounds that it would be "likely to affect public support" for the party in government, whose policies might well be seen as conducive to homelessness. There must be many other instances. I have just received a letter from the Royal National Institute for the Blind from which I should like to quote. It expresses its concern as follows:
"For example: if a disability organisation published material about disabled people and put a case for improved benefits, such as an allowance for blind people, and if a political party accepted this case and included it in its election platform, then it is hard to see how the material could escape being liable to be regarded as having to do with affecting political support for that party. But that would not have been the intention and it would not be reasonable for such material, published in pursuit of the organisation's non-party political objectives, to fall foul of the law against local authority funding for party propaganda."
That is the view of the organisation for the blind and I think that attention should be paid to it.
The Government have said that they seek to legislate on the basis of the Widdicombe Report. However, in some respects they go well beyond Widdicombe and even directly contrary to Widdicombe. In his interim report—for that is what it is; the main report is still to come—Widdicombe recommended that Section 137 of the Local Government Act 1972 should expressly exclude advertising of any nature whatsoever. But it went on to say that this should not prevent bodies receiving grants under Section 137 from issuing publicity for their own aims and objectives, so long as they were not acting as proxies for the local authority in unauthorised advertising.
Widdicombe also proposed that Section 142 of the Act should be left unchanged. Now that is not the effect of the Bill. It is thus hardly surprising that the local authority associations, all of them regardless of political hue, are extremely worried. They agree with Widdicombe's paragraph 244(a):
"that there should be an express statutory prohibition of local authority publicity of a party political nature".
They do not dispute this, but they believe that as at present drafted the Bill not only fetters the legitimate information process but is so confusing as to be inoperable and will give rise to a spate of expensive and time-consuming litigation.
I do not want to stray too far into Committee stage territory but it seems to me that this Bill will attract a lot of amendments and I would therefore like to signal our main areas of concern and to indicate where we shall be seeking clarification and improvement. Clause 2 is clearly the nub of this part of the Bill. The Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, on 16th January, sent to Mr. Waldegrave an alternative version which seems to us to have some considerable merits. I shall not go into the arguments advanced that the main test should be the material itself rather than the "intention" or "effect", but an amendment on these lines, if not in the same words, would certainly not be wrecking, beginning, as it does:
"a local authority shall not publish any material that is of a party political nature".
I shall reserve the rest of our thoughts on that until a later stage of the Bill.
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Next, on Clause 3 we shall want to pursue the question of the narrowing of Section 142 merely to "functions", against Widdicombe's advice. At col. 378 on 22nd January in another place Mrs. Rumbold said:
"we would not wish to impose unreasonable restrictions on a local authority's information process. There is a case for considering the scope of Section 142 to see whether something should be done to accommodate the fears expressed…".
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Elton, this afternoon whether the Government have had any further thoughts in that direction? Also Mr. Waldegrave, at col. 384 on the same day, acknowledged the legitimacy of the worries expressed about what parish councils can do or say in relation to the services of other local authorities. He spoke of the possibility of an amendment in this House, and I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Elton, can tell us of the progress of Government thinking on that too.
We are also concerned about the likelihood of a clash between the Bill before us and the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985, introduced, I believe, by the Conservative Member, Mr. Squire. What is to happen to the minutes of local authority meetings if they incorporate expressions of dissatisfaction with the government of the day on, say, the rate support grant or rate-capping? Will they simply be blue pencilled out by a censor, or left as asterisks, before the record of the meeting can become public? We would welcome Lord Elton's thoughts on this.
I come finally to Clause 4, which contains the provision for a code, or codes, of practice. The draft placed in the Library goes to ludicrous lengths which would embrace press releases (as the noble Baroness has already mentioned), recruitment publicity and unpaid publicity of various kinds such as council and committee reports, which might well, as I have just suggested, bring it into conflict with the access to information Act.
I had assumed that this was merely a draft. I do not know whether I heard rightly the noble Lord, Lord Elton, say that the Government are preparing to introduce this code. I should be interested to know whether the Government are committed to this version. In fact, it is all quite unnecessary. If the Bill is properly drafted, Its broad principles, as interpreted by the courts, are sufficient to achieve its objectives. There is adequate self-regulation through the IPR code, the legal advice given by local authority lawyers, and the heavy penalty of personal surcharge for unlawful expenditure by councillors.
It is ironic, is it not?, that Ministers are currently piloting a Financial Services Bill through the Commons which chooses self-regulation to check flagrant abuses in the City and at Lloyd's, yet for democratically-elected local councils they propose detailed rules which are likely to stop most types of information coming out of town halls and county halls, whether Conservative, Labour or Alliance controlled.
By dropping Clause 4 altogether the Government would be bringing the Bill more closely into line with the Widdicombe interim report which rejected conventions or guidelines in favour of a clear statement of the law. If there were to be a code, it

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would be much better as a self-regulatory one concerned with tone and presentation which could act as an extension of the statute rather than a rigid part of it.
There is of course a matter of direct concern to your Lordships' House here which has already been mentioned. As a result of a concession forced on the Government in Committee in another place which appears now in Clause 4(4), any code has to be approved by a resolution of the House of Commons. There is no reason I can think of why this should not be extended to include this House as well; and, given the expertise revealed in Lord Campbell of Alloway's recent debate on codes of practice—and I am glad to see that he is going to speak this afternoon—there seems to be every reason why the House of Lords should be included. Mr. Waldegrave seemed to concede this in the other place, at cols. 387 and 388 on 22nd January, and I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Elton, confirm it. If this is so, it is only right and proper.
In this House we do not vote against Second Readings or Third Readings, but there are no inhibitions or conventions which restrict our revising role other than the understanding that we do not wreck a Bill passed by the Commons. We have no intention of doing this or attempting to do this, but if a large majority of authorities and some of their voluntary clients are to be made to suffer for the ill-judged activities of a few, it is more than ever necessary that we should exercise our vigilance and ensure that the Bill achieves its main purpose without a disastrous fall-out over perfectly legitimate and respectable areas of information. The Bill does not meet this criterion at present. We shall do all in our power to see that it will do so.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, would he mind telling us what the IPR code is?
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, it is the code of the Institute of Public Relations.
4.7 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester: My Lords, in the shire counties, and therefore in the shire dioceses as well, there are still some people waiting to be converted to the doctrine that the politicisation of local government is a good thing in itself. Be that as it may, it must surely be for the general good of society that the public funds administered by local authorities should be seen to be devoted to the provision of services which will benefit the community and not to foster party political ends. In broad principle, therefore, I speak as one who warmly welcomes the Bill.
However, it seems clear that as drafted, perhaps inadvertently, it may have unhappy consequences for a number of voluntary organisations which work closely with local authorities; and the churches are not infrequently involved in these organisations. Therefore, in putting down markers for subsequent discussion in Committee, I beg leave to join the growing chorus of those who are concerned about the drafting of Clauses 2 and 3.
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I shall give one or two examples. The City of Gloucester has, to many people, a surprisingly high proportion of citizens who are ethnically of West Indian or Asian origin. I understand that it is as high a proportion as obtains in the West Midlands region itself. In consequence, we have a vigilant and active community relations council, partly funded by the local authority. Part of the work of this body is certainly to counter the racist propaganda which is occasionally disseminated within the city, and so to preserve the thankfully peaceful relationships which generally prevail.
To take a hypothetical case, the community relations council might wish to give support to an individual family seemingly unfairly penalised by the decisions of immigration officials. Such an incident could easily become the subject of correspondence in the local press, and the community relations council might wish to take part. Would it not be only too easy to argue that in both these instances the CRC's actions were likely to affect public support for (shall we say?) the National Front, as has been already observed by the noble Baroness, Lady David? Therefore, the CRC would be deprived of local authority assistance under Clause 2.
Let us take another example. Care for the particular needs of deaf people in the county of Gloucester is largely in the hands of an association founded many years ago by the church and still used by the county social services as an agent for this work. A generous subvention from the county council helps substantially to pay the full-time social worker who heads this association. From time to time to discharge its responsibility to care for the interests of the deaf, this association may need to be publicly critical of decisions made by the local authority itself, whichever political party is in power at the time.
We have a church-based youth officer in the county in a similar position. Should we not also be concerned about the position of such organisations as MIND and the Association of Mental Health, of whose county branch I am president?
In none of the areas I have mentioned is there likely to be any intention to enter the party political debate directly or indirectly. That would be quite improper and rightly prohibited by law, but who could deny that the unintended side effect of the work of these voluntary bodies might be persuasively portrayed by ingenious people to be political? Understandably the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives has voiced its fears that the Bill as drafted will result in far too much litigation.
It is surely one of the most valuable features of our way of ordering affairs in this country that there exists around the statutory organs of government, both national and local, a penumbra of voluntary bodies working quite clearly in close collaboration with government departments, pursuing largely the same aims, yet at liberty to diverge from, and at times be critical of, particular policies and politicians. Some of these bodies are grant aided by local authorities and some could not function without such aid. The danger that seems to be exposed by this Bill is that this valuable and productive hinterland of government, where the statutory and voluntary realms overlap,

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might be eroded away through the compulsory withdrawal of public money from voluntary organisations under either Clause 2 or Clause 3.
That surely can scarcely be the Government's intention. Let us hope not. Therefore, let us hope positively that, by redrafting Part II, the Bill can be reformed to make it far more widely acceptable and its main purpose achieved.
4.13 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, before I seek to trouble your Lordships with one or two arguments on the general policies of the Bill, I wanted to ask my noble friend to answer, not now perhaps but when he winds up, three specific questions about it. I am happy to tell your Lordships that those questions have become two because my noble friend indicated that he was proposing to amend the insult to this House which at the moment stands in Clause 4(4). It would be wholly wrong to entrust the approval of these important codes of practice only to another place. I was glad to hear my noble friend acknowledge that. If he had not indicated that he was proposing to put down an amendment, I should have done so. Even now we may have to race to the Committee office.
However, I want to ask him two questions which I hope he will answer at the end of the debate. The first concerns Clause 1. What is the sanction if a local authority, contrary to Clause 1, does not make a rate by 1st April? From subsection (3) it looks as if it is contemplated that this might happen. Is there a sanction on the local authority, and therefore on its ratepayers, or is there, as I hope there is, a sanction on the individual councillors who seek to defy the law?
The other question relates to a matter which was discussed considerably on its merits earlier in this debate. I am asking for an interpretation. What in Clause 2(3) is the precise meaning of "person"? I understand the meaning of "person" as an individual and I understand a legal "person", an incorporated body. But does "person" also cover—this is material here—unincorporated private associations of people? If it is so intended the provision is rather curiously framed and, if it is not so intended, it is obviously inadequate.
Having said that I should like to consider the general issues. I feel a regret, I think shared by all your Lordships, that it has been necessary to introduce this Bill at all. But there I differ from the noble Baroness, Lady David, because it seems to me that it is quite inevitable that such a Bill should be introduced and that any Government which failed to tackle this problem would be failing in their duty. With respect to the noble Baroness, it is not a case of restricting the freedom of local authorities because the truth of the matter is that this activity by local authorities of using public funds for party political purposes is a comparatively new growth. It is an abuse. And where power is abused, as all history tells us, sooner or later the power has to be removed.
Your Lordships who follow the history of local government in this country will know that it is only in the past few years that the policy of using public funds to support parties and party politics has grown up. It
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has grown up coincidentally in point of time, but perhaps not coincidentally in point of causation, with the development of the militant movement in the party opposite. It is in local authorities such as Liverpool, Lambeth, the GLC, Southwark and others where a Militant is in control, and the type of Labour councillor whom one has always greatly respected has been ousted, that these abuses have taken place. I think it is largely if not wholly due to the growth of Militant and its policies that the action has been taken of using public funds for party purposes which this Bill has to deal with.
I am sure it was due to inadvertence or a wish not unduly to trouble your Lordships that the noble Baroness, in the course of her speech and during her reference to various activities which might be inhibited by the Bill, did not, as I understood her, answer "aye" or "no" the basic question: is she, is her party, in favour of allowing local authorities to spend public money on party politics? If the noble Baroness would like to answer, I am glad.
Baroness David: My Lords, if the noble Lord reads my speech in Hansard tomorrow he will find that I said that we supported what Widdicombe wanted and that the Labour party does not approve of ratepayers' money being used for party political purposes.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Baroness. Of course, I shall read her speech. I shall do so with enormous pleasure from a literary point of view if from no other. But I did not understand her to give that clear assurance. However, that is a Second Reading point. With great respect, most of the other things to which she referred are Committee points.
They arise on the question, which I know your Lordships will want to discuss very closely and carefully, whether the actual framing and drafting of the Bill will go further than your Lordships would think desirable, or whether they merely go far enough to deal with the major objective. However, the major objective is that it is shocking to use either ratepayers' money—or, of course, when we are dealing with local authorities it is even more taxpayers' money, as the rate support grant very often comes to more than 50 per cent. of a local authority's expenditure—to use that money to promote the interests of a political party.
Equally, your Lordships know and the noble Baroness knows that this is being done at this moment by a substantial number of Labour-controlled, often Militant-controlled authorities. It is being done in Liverpool. It is being done by the GLC, whose leader has just announced a further campaign for a super council for London to be brought into effect, as he puts it, after the next General Election: straight party political propaganda for the Labour party at the cost of the ratepayers, in this particular case adding a further £2 million of expenditure of that money to the £10 million whose expenditure he authorised in connection with the abolition Bill last Session.
One does not need to weary your Lordships with example after example. We have the example of Lambeth, where the leader of the Lambeth council has announced that he is permitting the use of council

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vehicles for a political demonstration and says, in clear terms, that his intention is to secure the defeat of the present Government.
We see this in Liverpool, where, as the The Times reported only the other day—and how glad we were to see that The Times is still reporting, despite the efforts of trade unionism gone mad in the printing unions—an official had been appointed to a branch of the city council and immediately transferred that afternoon, still paid by the council, to a militant front organisation outside it.
There is case after case of this, and it really is no use trying, with the problems that may arise at the periphery, the problem that may well arise in respect of some voluntary bodies, to distract the House from the main and central issue, which is: are your Lordships prepared to countenance the continuance of this grave, serious and offensive abuse? I hope your Lordships will feel that the Second Reading of this Bill is the moment for the discussion of that issue.
I was delighted to hear the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester say he repudiated it. If I may comment, (though it is really for my noble friend on the Front Bench to do so) on his speech, it really did not seem likely that the worthy bodies in his diocese to which he referred would be affected by this Bill as it stands. He indicated that they might wish to criticise the local authority itself. It really seems difficult, on the reading of Clause 2, to see that Clause 2 interferes with financing of criticisms of the local authority by the local authority. However, if the right reverend Prelate is right, this could all be thrashed out in Committee; though I express a doubt as to this, as I express a very strong doubt as to whether the noble Baroness is right when she says that an anti-drugs campaign might fall foul of the section. I have yet to hear that any political party in this country is in favour of the taking of noxious drugs. I have yet to hear that any such body welcomes it or expects support in that way.
It is a little difficult to see, on a careful reading of Clause 2 of the Bill, how on earth this could be affected. I think an unnecessary amount of alarm and despondency has been created. The voluntary bodies are nervous, as we all saw during the abolition Bill of last Session. As the event proved, their nervousness was at any rate very seriously exaggerated. I guess it is so again. However, it is right that they are respectable, worthy and admirable bodies and it is right that their fears should be ventilated, as I understand they will be in a few moments by the noble Lord, Lord Hayter. I say to your Lordships at this stage that it will be advantageous to have these matters out now so that my noble friend, when we come to the Committee stage, can be prepared to deal with this matter. I suspect that his dealing with it will be very much on the lines of disabusing these bodies' fears. Equally, I know my noble friend well enough to know that if there is any reality in them, it is certainly not his wish that these voluntary bodies should be damaged in any way; nor is it mine.
Some of your Lordships may remember that I had the honour to serve for some six-and-a-half years as what was then called Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. I worked closely with all the major voluntary bodies in the social sphere in this country and I conceived an enormous admiration for
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them. Most of them do work which Government departments are not flexible enough to do and they also generally do it at a much lower administrative cost. They are admirable bodies, and, so far as I know, it is still the policy, certainly of Conservative governments, to encourage and to support all respectable and responsible bodies. I do not say to support all bodies—not, for example, that body supported by the GLC, the gay and lesbian forum, or bodies similar to that, which I hope will soon disappear with the disappearance of the GLC itself, but all the responsible bodies, the charities, the good bodies for which the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, among others, speaks. They surely should have confidence that this Government have no intention whatever of harming them.
I equally hope that those elements in this country who wish to enable Militant to use public funds to improve its grip on the country and its grip on the party opposite will not succeed in distracting the attention of your Lordships or of the Government from the need once and for all to stop the abuse which has grown up in these years. It is for that purpose that this Bill comes forward and for that reason that I fully support it.
4.28 p.m.
Lord Hayter: My Lords, when the abolition Bill was before us last year one noble Peer after another disclaimed any pretensions about wrecking the Bill. Sometimes they were believed; sometimes they were not. I hope that I was, because I have no party political angle coming as I do from these Benches. Now once again, as an independent. I hope that your Lordships will absolve me from any accusation of trying to vv reek this Bill.
There are three reasons why I felt I should speak. First of all, I have listened to the voluntary bodies. I shall not list them all. At a conference just recently there were 64 of them and I gather that all of them were worried about this or that angle of the Bill. There is still widespread concern, despite the slight concession made on Clause 2. Secondly, I know your Lordships' interest in voluntary bodies. I should think there is hardly a person here who is not associated in one way or another with some voluntary organisations, and many of you are mixed up with a whole host of them.
Thirdly, although I am not going to detail any possible suggestions by way of amendments, I can speak to your Lordships because fundamentally I expect that my aims are the same as those who have drafted this Bill. But it is not the aims of the Bill about which I am worried; it is the drafting of it that I think is wrong. If on this side of the House—perhaps with some allies—we are successful in changing this phrase or that phrase we may upset our lawyer friends, because this Bill is a lawyer's paradise and they may not get quite so many briefs. On the other hand, we shall satisfy some of the judges, because they will not then be in a position to decide on party political issues, which is the last thing they want to do.
Let me illustrate the dilemma that we find in trying to discover what is going on behind the mind of the

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Government. When this Bill was in the Committee stage in another place the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State said:
"The Bill is not designed to impose new restrictions on activities of voluntary organisations. It is not intended to prevent voluntary organisations from putting forward their views on issues of political controversy or from campaigning on them. We seek only to prevent ratepayers' money being used by voluntary organisations for purposes that the authority itself will be prohibited from doing".
If we thought the Bill did that, I think most of us on this side of the House could sit down and not say another word.
The same Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State said on a different occasion, again in Committee:
"If voluntary organisations' aims are of a campaigning nature they will need to be extremely careful about how they word or go about their campaign".
That is shades of Big Brother or, in this case, Big Sister.
When we come to Clause 2 of the Bill and try to get some light from it, we have this sentence which has been quoted before:
"A local authority shall not publish any material which … appears to be designed to affect, or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect, public support for a political party".
This year is 1986, not 1984. Those phrases in that subsection could come straight out of 1984.
Again, when we turn over the pages, we come to Clause 6 and find what this word "publish" is supposed to mean. It refers to
"any communication, in whatever form, addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public".
Shades of South Africa! In fact, the only safe place where you can speak is, I presume, the House of Lords, or perhaps the other place as well. So we have our worries. Still in Clause 2 are the words,
"can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect".
That is the stumbling block in our eyes, so far as this Bill is concerned, particularly as Ministers have made clear that the test of political publicity throughout will be the publicity material itself. This, I agree, is the most objective test to use. However, as presently drafted Clause 2 refers both to the intention of the material and to the effect of the material. This means that material which was never intended to affect public support for a political party could nevertheless be prohibited simply because a few reasonable people—I will come back to that phrase in a moment—might think it could have this effect For example, legitimate campaigning by a voluntary organisation on the issue of pensions could be "regarded as likely" to affect public support for a political party simply because the force of its argument might lead members of the public to question a political party's policies on the issue. In this example, the voluntary organisation was doing no more than issuing publicity in pursuit of its own aims.
I hope your Lordships will not think that I take too simplistic a view—I know that I am grossly oversimplifying it—but in a way volunteering is making good the deficiencies of government. In an ideal society—maybe Plato's or Aristotle's; I have forgotten my Greek history—government would be doing all the things that voluntary bodies do now. It is only because they are not done by government that these things are taken up. Therefore, to join the right
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reverend Prelate, there is this interplay between voluntary organisations and political parties which is sometimes very difficult to define.
My City livery company has a big charitable trust which is devoted to the rehabilitation of prisoners and keeping youth out of prison. Most of those little organisations which are doing those things are supported partly by us and partly by local authorities. The rehabilitation of prisoners might be considered a reflection on the Government's policy of getting them back into public life. As for the young people—and this phrase has cropped up before this afternoon—they might be going to prison through unemployment; they might be going there through bad housing; they might be going there through the use of drugs. Any one of those gets back into this no-man's land of how one can affect public opinion. So a possible solution to some of those problems is to rely solely on the test of the intention of the publicity material.
Then we come onto a curious point—the definition of "political parties". Would not the National Front or communism be political parties? If so, they could complain that publicity material would affect public support for them and therefore they could challenge the very financial assistance that they were getting from a local authority. Thank heavens I have never been in a position to draft a government Bill, but I often wonder whether, when the drafting takes place, the phrase "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" is sometimes in the minds of those who are devising these Bills, because they may reverberate and rebound on those who are getting them out.
I have always thought—and here I suppose I speak as an innocent—that codes of practice, which after all are a comparatively new form of so-called legislation, are a confession of weakness. You cannot define what it is that you want to do and therefore you have a code of practice which, if you read this Bill, can be altered in any way you want. But if there is to be a code of practice then I hope—as indeed it should be, as laid down in the Bill—that there will be consultations with the voluntary bodies to see whether we can get the right answers. I feel that rightly or wrongly people at large will interpret this Bill as it stands before redrafting as a diehard attempt to muzzle the free speech of the voluntary organisations. I go no further than that. I repeat that it is not the aims of the Bill that are wrong; it is the drafting of it. For all our sakes, let us try to get it right.
4.39 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, may I begin by apologising to your Lordships for the fact that I shall not be able to stay until the end of the debate; yet having played a small role in the original setting up of Widdicombe I feel that it would be proper for me to say a few words on this occasion. It will be no surprise when I say that I agree with and wholeheartedly support the Bill. Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady David, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. The local government of which she spoke is the local government of 20 years ago—perhaps 10 or maybe even six or seven. It is the local government of the many authorities which still try to maintain the high standards of public service, of

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elected members whose sole concern is the local (and I stress the word "local") betterment of the lot of the people who put them into office.
This Bill is surely not aimed to constrain those people or those authorities. The Bill, as I understand it, is aimed at helping them. The disrepute which the activities of the Labour Left has brought on local government has a serious impact on the scope and credibility of the majority who work seriously and hard to provide better and more cost-effective local services for their citizens. They have all to gain and nothing to lose by this Bill.
Many of us have watched with growing frustration the excessive abuse of power of many—not all by any means but far too many—of the Labour controlled authorities. To talk of the legitimate dissemination of information, of merely keeping people in the picture as regards a council's activities, of justification of a council's policies—all this is light years away from what is actually happening today in this sphere of much of local government activity. The massive public relations departments, the non-elected political advisers, the millions—yes, millions—of pounds being spent on the most blatant political propaganda, on anti-Government campaigns: what on earth has this to do with providing local services? Let there be no misunderstanding, no distortion. This Bill is aimed only at curbing the spending of ratepayers' money on political propaganda. If any party puts up its own money, it can spend it on whatever it likes. The key words are "its own money", presumably raised for party political purposes.
As my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said, the list is very long, and I have no intention of delaying your Lordships by going all the way through it. But the scale of what is going on should cause everyone great concern. The noble Baroness, Lady David, said that it is no part of the Labour Party's policy to support the spending of ratepayers' money on political purposes. If the noble Baroness says that, I hear it with much pleasure; but she must not mind if I then say to myself, "But why on earth have they not spoken out in the past against what they know is going on?" It is not enough now to say, "We do not support it". There is a time to come out and say so, and the time is not when a Bill of this kind comes before your Lordships' House.
We read, for example—I shall not give many illustrations because it would take too long and I would have to speak for at least an hour to give just some instances—that Islington's 1985–86 press campaign and publicity unit is likely to spend more than half a million pounds. Even worse is the fact that last year, in July, they advertised for a chief press campaign and publicity officer at £19,000 a year. The advertisement specified:
"Campaigning will be a major activity, and flair and experience in this area will be very helpful".
Could anything be more explicitly politically partisan than that? But I heard no complaint then from the Labour Party about it.
I am not going to reel off, although I have it here, a whole list detailing what each of the authorities to which we are referring is spending on this kind of public propaganda, paid for, I say again, out of ratepayers' funds. The fact is that there are huge public relations departments spending tens of thousands,
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hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds a year on this kind of activity. Frankly, how they have the nerve to plead poverty when they can spend such sums on these campaigns is beyond me. As one who for years was responsible for spending ratepayers' money, I am appalled at the profligacy and the irresponsibility.
My own City of Leeds, which is not one of the way out Left-wing authorities—it is moving in that direction but I would not class it in any way with some of the others I could mention—spends hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on public relations and political propaganda. As my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter also so rightly said, prior to 1979 in Leeds both Conservative and Labour administrations, despite our bitter antagonisms against the governments of the day, would not waste ratepayers' money on such diversions. The leadership of' both parties were their own people, not bowing to the local party machines. They acted as elected councillors should act and worked solely for the benefit and wellbeing of local people. How that has changed!
There is another aspect of this political spending. We know where the money has come from, but how is it that such vast sums are available for this politicking purpose? On what pretext was this money raised in the first place? What services was it said the money was needed to provide, or are those services now having to go without? Are they being denied? If the authorities in question are as short of money as they never cease telling us they are, what sort of priority is that for spending other people's money? How does it equate with the need for housing repairs, for restoring empty accommodation, for social services and for educational needs?
We are told from time to time that the amounts involved are marginal. I have said before in your Lordships' House, marginal it may be but millions and millions it is. When I think of what could be done with those millions and millions in terms of providing local services, I could weep for local government as it has now become. Only this week we read that seven authorities in London will each put up £1 million—a total of £7 million—to continue to run the various defunct GLC peace committees, women's committees and the like. Those are the very authorities which tell us they are the poorest in the land; the very authorities which say, "We have 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 empty dwellings which we cannot bring back into a state of use because we cannot afford it". They are the very ones who lead the campaigns about cuts. What hypocrisy, if ever there was such a thing!
One of the recent Labour slogans—indeed it was one of the local government slogans—was "Keep local government local". I go along with that. But when we see spending of moneys on campaigns against national government policies, what is local about that? The exploiting of local government as a weapon for co-ordinating publicity campaigns against, for example, national defence policy is not what local government is about. That is a sinister development. We have seen local ratepayers' money poured down the drain on publicity material regarding the miners' strike, civil defence, immigration control and nuclear disarmament. We see it daily squandered on peace committees, women's committees—why not men's

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committees? We should start doing something about that—and police monitoring committees: and all in the name of local government. I say, what humbug!
There are far too many councils, sad to say, for which local government is no longer about the administration of social services for the benefit of all but about acquiring a political power base and the ratepayers' money that goes with it to thwart the Government of the day and to promote their own ideas of society.
I finish on this note. The noble Baroness, Lady David, talked in terms of an attack on democracy and freedoms. I have the greatest respect for the noble Baroness. We have crossed swords for many years on many matters, and surprisingly, I think and privately, agreed on many others. There are those, including the noble Baroness, Lady David, who say—and I myself would like to say—that spending ratepayers' money on political advertising inhibits free speech. That has been said in the past in criticising the objective of this Bill. I say that that is turning reality on its head. In my view it is totally wrong to claim that preventing party political propaganda being paid for compulsorily by all ratepayers' money threatens democratic freedom.
Is it not ironic that no group of people today does more to threaten democratic freedom and to stifle free speech than do the extreme Left? Where else in this country do we see people denied the right to speak from private and public platforms if not by the extreme Left? We should compare that situation with the narrowly-defined limitations that this Bill seeks to impose.
There are many people, and I am among them, who would go much further than this Bill seeks to go and who would gladly justify doing so. When we reach the Committee stage and discuss amendments, I hope that I may try to do so. I conclude by saying that I am among those who weep over that which the Livingstones, the Hattons, and Bernie Grants and others of their ilk have done to the name, reputation and standing of local government in this country. I support this Bill without the slightest hesitation. I say again that I only wish it went further than it does.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, I am sure that the House and the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not follow him in the path that he had taken and in the arguments that he has articulated. All I will say at this stage is that I personally regret very much that a person of his distinguished standing in the realm of local government should have chosen to make so fiercely partisan a speech on this subject.
The noble Lord the Minister in opening the debate and proposing the Bill said that in his view very little change to local government would be brought about by this measure. With the greatest respect to him—and I have great admiration for the Minister's skill, integrity, balance, fair-mindedness and other excellent qualities—I disagree profoundly with the noble Lord on that matter. In my judgment this Bill will have a massive effect upon local government, not only in its direct consequences but also in the climate of thought and attitude that it will engender.
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The Bill has to be seen in the context of the very delicate balance that exists between central government and local government; a balance that has been very considerably changed over the past seven years. The Bill must be seen also against the background of menacing financial controls imposed by central government upon local government in the past few years, and against the possibility of far greater controls, again of a financial nature, to be imposed if the proposals contained in the Green Paper that was published last week are to be implemented.
As my noble friend Lady David has said, this is the twelfth local government Bill to be initiated by the Government since 1979. All of them have one thing in common: they all constitute to some degree or another an attack on the scope, freedom and very ethos of local government. Above all, we must ask this question: how does this Bill measure up against our own vision of what local government should be?
The Wheatley Report of 1969 put the matter very modestly, in this way:
"Local authorities should in some degree provide a means for the self-expression of local communities".
But 100 years or so ago, Gladstone, when inaugurating the first county councils in 1889 under the Act of the previous year, touched the very heart of the truth when he said:
"Our aim is to create a system of local self-government".
That ideal, cherished by many, and cherished I hope by his successors in title in the Liberal Party today, even though they voted for the Bill on its Second Reading in another place, still remains unresolved.
I believe that we must consider the effect that this measure will have upon the realisation of such a dream. Since this is a miscellaneous provisions Bill it is axiomatic that, like the curate's egg, there must be some good in it. I readily accept that both Part I and Part IV are utterly unobjectionable. Again, I readily concede that in regard to the principle of making it impossible for public money to be used for the purposes of any political party the Bill is highly laudable.
The noble Lords, Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Bellwin, suggest that the Labour Party has tarried in making clear its position in relation to that matter. That is not so. The spokesman for the Labour Party in another place said on Second Reading on 18th November that he wanted to make it abundantly clear that that was one matter on which there was no difference between the party and Her Majesty's Government. Indeed, when the full Widdicombe Report is published it will be seen that the very evidence given by the Labour Party was exactly on those lines. I may say of the Widdicombe Report that I believe it to be well researched, well argued, and presented in a most fair and balanced way. However, it is an interim report and it should be remembered that of the five members of the committee one thoroughly disagreed and issued a dissenting memorandum, while one other member noted very serious reservations.
One could be very simple and say that it may well be that the motivation of Her Majesty's Government in bringing forward this measure now and in having the Widdicombe Committee make an interim report was

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perhaps less than honourable; that they wished to stifle certain robust voices in local government. I do not make that charge. I do not believe that such can be proven. Indeed, it may be that such a thought never crossed the minds of Ministers in Her Majesty's Government. I believe that this matter has to be looked at according to its merits or demerits. Its demerits have been very clearly shown in the most excellent speech of my noble friend Lady David. I recognise that much of what I have to say in the next few minutes will be an underscoring of the points that my noble friend has already touched upon.
It is important to remember that this Bill not only goes wildly beyond the recommendations of Widdicombe but that it flies directly in the face of many of Widdicombe's specific recommendations. As far as Clause 3(1) of the Bill is concerned, and as the House well appreciates, it has the effect of cramping very considerably the present scope of Section 142 of the Local Government Act 1970. That provision has been part of local government legislation since at least 1948, and it may have been in existence some decades earlier.
It is also right to remember that that particular provision, which allowed a local authority to spend money for local government purposes, was very considerably curtailed, as my noble friend has already told the House, in two judgments in the High Court, by Mr. Justice Glidewell and Mr. Justice Nolan, in 1984. What those judgments amount to, as I understand it, is this: for an expenditure to be legitimate, first it has to be connected with a local government purpose, and, secondly, in so far as it seeks to campaign, that campaign must be something utterly consequential to that local government purpose. In other words, it narrows very greatly, at least, the superficial grammatical meaning of the words in Section 142.
Widdicombe has a certain vision of local government. It is the broad generous vision. It is not the vision of local government as being confined to the sum total of its limited statutory functions. It is a vision which it sets out in paragraph 34 of the report. I can do no better than quote it to the House. It states:
"The relationship between central and local government should be an open one, and changes affecting local government should be the subject of consultation".
It goes on to say—and this is my main point:
"Local government has a duty to inform the public within its area as to the exercise of its functions and on local government matters generally. Parliament has given local authorities powers to issue information on local government matters. Local authorities should be able to use their powers, with incidental persuasive effect, in support or opposition to proposed legislative changes".
In other words, it does not conceive of a local authority's function as ending with merely carrying out obligations laid upon it by statute.
Paragraph 31 of the report should be looked at in this light. It states:
"Our political system needs to be able to operate in circumstances of reduced consensus. It is most important that there are means by which political differences can be expressed within our democratic institutions. Such means not only provide an opportunity for the issues to be properly debated, but also provide a stabilising factor in our political system. On this view it would appear right in principle that local authorities should be able to put their side of the argument on issues of political controversy affecting them".
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That is what this Second Reading debate is about. It is not about whether or not funds should be utterly misused in a thoroughly corrupt way as they would be, of course, if they were used to propagate the views or position of a political party in a direct way. The debate is about whether a local authority is entitled to live its full life, as local authorities were intended to act and live, or whether they should be "cabined, cribbed, confined" to a degree that we regard as utterly intolerable. If Clause 3(1) becomes law I believe that such confinement will inevitably occur.
As regards Clause 2 there are, in my submission, two fundamental objections to the clause as it now stands. First, it is extremely wide in scope. Secondly, it is woefully imprecise in its objective. I first deal with the question of the width of its scope. Clause 2(1) is, of course, a prohibition upon publishing a material which,
"appears to be designed to affect, or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect, public support for a political party".
Those two nets are massively wide and they cover different areas, although there may be an element of double cover.
The first does not deal with the question of what is the intention of the particular group that publishes material, but what it appears to be. That is a totally different test. It is a subjective test, not an objective test. The second, as I understand it, again is a subjective test of what could reasonably be regarded as likely to bring support for a certain political party. That is the widest test imaginable.
I suppose it can be said that it is virtually impossible for us to have a debate upon any matter in this House and for any Member to take part in that debate, whatever the subject—whether it be theological, about French apples or the nuclear holocaust—without one political party or another benefiting to some degree or being prejudiced by what is said in that debate. Such are the different outlooks of millions of people that such a result is utterly inevitable.
However, the Bill does not talk about political support to a substantial degree; it merely talks of political support. Where do you draw the line? If you conceive that perhaps 10 people might be affected by it, that 1,000 might be affected by it, or that millions might be affected by it, where do you draw the line? Again, the Bill speaks of support for a political party. What of a campaign against a political party? Clever psephologists tell us that, in the main, at elections people hardly ever vote for anyone at all—they vote against people. I well remember, as undoubtedly your Lordships do, the most effective campaign in 1979 and the poster published by the Conservative Central Office stating:
"Labour isn't working".
It is not for me to comment at this stage as to the accuracy of that poster or, indeed, as to the irony of it in the light of subsequent events. Be that as it may, it was a very powerful piece of propaganda. Is propaganda against a party to count? Or is it interpreted that anything that is against Party A must be for the benefit of parties B and C; but which of them? It is a very much more difficult task to decide who benefits, as it were, on the rebound as compared with the tests set out in Clause 2(1).

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The second effect with regard to imprecision is, I believe, still more deadly. At paragraph 175 Widdicombe expresses this pious hope:
"We wish to avoid new controls that will be imprecise, or raise major definitional problems, and are aware that it is easier to identify a problem than to encapsulate that problem in a legislative formula".
I am sure that we all heartily endorse those words.
In my submission the words of Clause 2 are open to illimitable varieties of interpretation. If they become law in their present form they will lead to endless litigation. Worse than that, they will bring Her Majesty's judges into the very centre of the arena of acute controversy. I have not the slightest doubt that those judges will do their duty in a most even-handed way; but will that be seen in the same way by ordinary members of the public, or will Johnny Citizen say, "I believe that that judge is manipulating party politics"? It is grossly unfair and it is a grave and critical situation that Her Majesty's judges should be exposed to such a peril.
I am afraid I cannot deal with many of the matters I intended to cover; I have taken up more time than I should already. It has been put that this is really a clever argument now being put forward by the Opposition to try to destroy the heart and centre of the Bill and that, in reality, there are only fringe difficulties. I believe the difficulties in relation to Clause 2 to be quite immense—Clause 2 in conjunction, of course, with Clause 3.
As for Clause 3, it means that a local authority will never be quite sure exactly on what it can expend publicity or indeed exercise unpaid publicity as far as the codes are concerned. It means that where something happens in relation to a local authority, be it the closure of a railway, the making of a reservoir, the building of an airport or some such matter, which affects the people of that locality to an acute degree, if it is not part of the statutory function of that authority then it will be only at its peril that it will spend publicity on educating the public about that particular issue and leading public opinion upon it. That is a very real matter.
I have a letter which was handed to me today from the chief executive of the Gwynedd County Council. It is a cri de coeur as regards the attitude of persons who have to advise local authorities on this matter. Again, I am sure it is the experience of many noble Lords in this House, as it is my own, of appearing in certain local inquiries where there is a consortium of local authorities all joining together to contest, let us say, a railway closure. Some of them will be county councils, and it may well be that they say that they have certain obligations under the various transport Acts. Many of them will be district councils and they have no such obligations at all.
As I understand it, under Clause 3 only at their peril and under the shadow of surcharge will they be able to risk spending money upon publicity. The mention of surcharge reminds me of one point that I wanted to take up in relation to something which was said by the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin. We have to look at this situation in a balanced way. Widdicombe was not able to unearth one single instance of money being directly
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used for the purposes of a political party. As for the money that was used at all on publicity, the report came to the conclusion that out of half the sample authorities less than one-tenth of 1 per cent. of the money was spent on publicity.
If the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, is correct and there were blatant and obvious misuses, why were those people not surcharged? Why were the matters not brought before the courts? It is an extremely limited problem but I am afraid that the way in which the Government propose to tackle it creates an even greater difficulty and a grave danger.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I do not wish to pick up the various points from the statesmanlike speech which was made from the Benches opposite. I can only say that I hope I shall take rather less time in the interests of those who are yet to come. I had rather hoped that the noble Lord would recognise that there are evils abroad now and that he would come up with constructive suggestions. He does not like the Government's suggestion and I should like to hear what could be done. It is a difficult problem and we are all trying to find the right boundary between information and propaganda.
Ten years ago I sat on the Royal Commission on the standards of conduct in public life. It took a long time and produced a very long, erudite report. I read the evidence which the Labour Party gave to that commission and it was good evidence. It said that all councillors should maintain higher standards than those which were legally enforceable. So they set a higher standard than the law. That was 10 years ago and there has been a terrible change since that time.
In some areas the Labour Party has been hijacked by Militant and some other hard Left factions. The standard of conduct of the new breed of Labour councillor is degrading and utterly different from the honourable standards set by their predecessors. I served for 20 years as Member of Parliament for Hendon and I came to know councillors there of all persuasions. They were honourable men desperately trying to carry out their duties and doing so very honourably. They would turn in their graves if they could read what some of the hard Left are now up to; and this Bill is seeking to try to put a stop to it. I hope that we shall have support from all sides of the House on the general principles of trying to beat the hard Left at their game.
The Marxist Left have moved in on local government in the way in which they have tried to gain control of the trade unions and the way in which they have shamelessly gained control already of some parliamentary seats, of which the saddest example was last week when Michael Cocks, who was Chief Whip of the Labour Party and who was much respected by all the people who served in the Commons as a firm and fair Chief Whip, was hounded out of his seat by the hard Left. This is revolution by stealth, which must be disturbing to the Labour Party and the SDP; and with good reasons, because their name is being tarred by the activities of people who are calling themselves Labour. This Government have enacted a number of measures to combat the problem. They did it in the unions to give democratic control of those bodies to

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their members, and it was therefore only a matter of time before a Bill was needed in order to restore probity to local councils.
The GLC have now spent £7.6 million of ratepayers' money on their campaign. That is the sort of sum which is not spent even by the main parties in a general election campaign covering 650 constituencies. They do not spend sums of that sort. It is about equal to what the Labour Party and the Conservative Party will probably spend at the next general election, and I suspect that it is two or three times as much as the SDP can afford. When you have that happening, surely something must be done and this is what this Bill is trying to do. In so far as—
Lord Elystan-Morgan: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? Will he accept that in so far as part of that expenditure was spent on a campaign to seek to preserve the life of the GLC—and that indeed must have been the major part of it—it does not place the GLC in a situation any different from Rutland County Council, the Isle of Wight County Council and the county council of Fife in the early 1970s, who did exactly the same thing?
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, they did not spend moneys of that sort because they did not have moneys of that sort to spend. So far as this Bill goes, I welcome it. Unfortunately I believe that it does not go far enough, as my noble friend Lord Bellwin and the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, both pointed out.
When councils spend more on an individual campaign than the major parties do in fighting a general election, there is something wrong with the State of Denmark. The Government appointed the Widdicombe Committee and I am sure they are right to bring forward an interim Bill. We shall await the second part of that report. The Government, I thought, had some strange reluctance in the House of Commons to go any further than the Widdicombe Interim Report, but let the Government please recall that it is the Government who were elected to decide these matters and not Widdicombe. By all means weigh Widdicombe; it is most useful that it should be doing a thorough job. Weigh it carefully in the deliberations, but in the final analysis it is the Government who must take responsibility for what appears on the statute book. It is the Government who must govern.
The Left argue—and it has been said today—that this Bill atacks freedom of speech. I find this rich coming from Left-wing activists for whom free speech means that the cost of their propaganda is met entirely from ratepayers' money. No councillor is being denied freedom to express any views that he likes. But this Bill ensures that he must pay the costs of his party political advertising himself and not pass it on to the public at large.
Your Lordships will agree that it is the job of elected MPs to represent the views of their local constituents to government. It is not the job of councils. They exist simply to provide local services, and a great number of them try honourably to do that. Councils are the creation of Parliament and they are subject to it. They are not its rival and are not entitled to oppose and frustrate the will of Parliament. If councils are to be given a new constitutional role representing constitu-
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ents in place of MPs then this is a matter which surely should be enacted most carefully and most publicly. To create a state within a state is not a change that should take place by stealth.
Examples of the way in which councils have conducted massive publicity campaigns are all too self-evident and they have been quoted. There was the rate-capping saga last year when Labour councils spent millions lying to the public about the consequences of rate-capping. I saw that Leicester council, for example, issued publicity saying that services would be destroyed. Such a statement was very common: that there would be massive lay-offs of council workers. Strangely enough, that council is now employing more workers than it did before rate-capping took place.
Ken Livingstone's report to the GLC Labour Group, which I looked at on 15th March last year, admitted:
"Telling the public that government policies will lead to immediate massive cuts creates real problems for the credibility of the party when those cuts don't happen".
That is exactly what has happened.
The lies can rebound, but millions of pounds of ratepayers' cash has been spent in the meantime. Unfortunately, I am not entirely happy that under the Bill such activity would be prohibited because councils will still be permitted to publish information relating to their functions provided it cannot be said to affect support for a political party. The GLC's anti-abolition campaign alone cost £7.6 million. I wonder how many meals-on-wheels could have been bought for that sum.
One of the most prolific growth areas for propaganda is the funding of outside groups. Some of them have fine-sounding names, like the Institute for Race Relations and the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. They sound good, but they provide cover for a Marxist think-tank which does its best to poison good race relations and is a far-Left pressure group dedicated to state interference in the media.
It seems to me that the Bill does nothing to prevent councils from giving money to such groups for some purpose other than publicity and thus keeping them alive and active. I have here a list 13 solid pages long, but for the sake of time I shall not quote from it. It is produced by the Ethnic Minorities Committee of the GLC. It is dated 2nd December 1985. The money to be spent in the current year totals £6·76 million. All sorts of ethnic minorities are mentioned, including the Afghans and the Irish. I have never looked on the Irish as being in need of much support in this country. They speak for themselves and sometimes act for themselves rather too vigorously. But in the eyes of the GLC the Irish are a racial minority in need of ratepayers' money. I could go on until the cows come home.
It seems to me that the Bill does nothing to prevent councils from giving those groups money. There are 441 groups getting aid from the GLC. That is just one committee of one council in one year. Doubtless many of them are quite reputable organisations. But who knows what they do? Who will check to see that they do not use the cash for publicity purposes? I do not think that the Minister appreciates the scale of the difficulties. Who is to police the legislation? The difficulties are considerable. As an example, seven of

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the staff of the NCCL are funded by local government. It is impossible to check whether any of their activities for the NCCL during the year breaches this Bill.
A whole network of Left-wing militants live off the local government sector; they are parasites who suck the ratepayer dry to feed their propaganda machine. I have already mentioned the Institute for Race Relations. It works in close collaboration with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and its sister organisation, the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Those organisations are established acolytes of the Soviet propaganda machine. A past director of the Transnational Institute, Orlando Letelier, was discovered after his assassination to have been in close contact with Cuban intelligence. That is the measure of the people who are receiving ratepayers' cash to pay for their propaganda.
The Institute for Race Relations is named as an umbrella group to hold as yet unknown thousands of pounds to pass on to other groups after abolition, by courtesy of the GLC. The London Transnational Information Exchange, which is another affiliate of the pro-Soviet Transnational Institute, is also GLC funded. One of its sponsors, Dr. Michael Cooley, is a director of the GLC funded GLEB; and that organisation has some awkward questions to answer.
The Institute for Race Relations' editorial committee includes Tony Bunyan, a paid GLC officer in charge of the notorious anti-Police Committee, and Lee Bridges, both of whom are serving or past officers of the Libertarian Research and Education Trust, which is also GLC funded. Bunyan has been active in attacking our security services, and is now campaigning to abolish the office of constable and to turn policemen into local government officers, like social workers. He wishes to hand political control of the police over to London borough leaders like Bernie Grant, Ted Knight and others.
Those are the people with their hands on ratepayers' money and those are the people who the Bill must stop. I believe that the Bill will need careful scrutiny in Committee. It is regrettable that it contains no measures to help ordinary people and decent councillors to ensure that its provisions are not broken. It is the militant extremists who are driving out conscientious, moderate councillors (and the last speaker, I am sure, is in touch with those) of all political parties. Not only Labour people are becoming disillusioned; Liberals, Tories and ratepayers' representatives are all becoming disillusioned in the face of the attack.
It is difficult, I concede, to define a clear boundary between information and propaganda. That is what we have to puzzle out in Committee. In 1984 there was a law case, which I think the noble Baroness mentioned. It was reported only last month. It was R v. ILEA, but it was brought by the Westminster City Council, as the noble Baroness mentioned. Mr. Justice Glidewell found that, whereas advertising about its policy was legitimate, publicity expenditure to influence the electorate against Government policy was unauthorised under existing Acts. Up until now there has been doubt about the boundary between information and political propaganda, and it is highly
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desirable that that boundary should be more clearly established.
Currently councils under hard-Left domination are spending millions of ratepayers' money on millions of pamphlets. Surely local and national papers will report what is important. I was in a marginal constituency for 20 years, and we always had to raise funds for the monthly magazine to tell our supporters what we were about. Now it seems it all has to be done by the council with ratepayers' money. Surely party political pamphlets should be spread abroad by voluntary contributions rather than by using ratepayers' and taxpayers' money.
Noble Lords may have read yesterday's Daily Express lead story which revealed that the GLC and other metropolitan councils are, before abolition, desperately squandering £140 million of ratepayers' money to local organisations that they favour. It has been established by Professor Regan of Nottingham University that councils have spent £10 million in the past five years to sabotage the Government's civil defence plans and to establish so-called nuclear-free zones.
I support the Second Reading of the Bill. During its passage we must try to strengthen it so that reasonable information is permissible, but extreme propaganda will no longer be financed by the public. Surely in this House the vast majority of Liberal, SDP, Cross-Bench, Labour and Tory Peers will realise that something now has to be done and will support this case.
5.27 p.m.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, the fact that this Bill has had to be introduced at all is a sad reflection on contemporary standards of integrity in much of British public life. The conventions which have governed the conduct of local government for generations have broken down, or rather they are being progressively dismantled by a growing group of political activists who, as the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, said, having failed to achieve a power base in national politics now turn to the local councils to seek and to seize power which they use both to propagate extremist political dogma and, through the new concept of the local state, as it is called, to pursue policies in areas of national importance which are reserved constitutionally, as other noble Lords have said, for this Parliament.
As the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said the facts are clear. Those people use the tax-raising power of the rates to redistribute wealth. They use their funding powers to finance all manner of organisations, some of them clearly, and often openly, subversive. They provide jobs for their political allies not only by giving public money to pressure groups that those friends organise but also by employing them in the local councils that they control.
Mr. Livingstone of the Greater London Council said in an article on 10th August last year in a London-based Gujerati magazine that the chief executive of Ealing council will need to be dismissed when Labour comes to power and further that
"there will have to be the removal of a lot of chief officers"
in councils of which Labour may gain control—to be replaced of course with Mr. Livingstone's political allies!

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I suppose that this could be called—in a phrase used in your Lordships' House this evening—early retirement. But to some of us, it will have somewhat more sinister connotations. This new breed of extremist councils furthermore exploits the co-option system to give its friends seats on committees. That in itself is bad enough. But those seats carry votes. Recently, an SDP candidate who won a by-election to the Inner London Education Authority was denied a seat on any of the authority's committees while his Labour opponent, who lost the election, was co-opted on to the ILEA committees with full voting rights. That is a contempt for the electoral system of which it is hard to find a comparison since the days of the rotten boroughs.
Most spectacularly, it is in the field of publicity that the abuse of the system has developed. Whether we call this publicity, propaganda or information is an interesting semantic and philosophical point. But what is happening is what matters. Councils are using simple legislation which was designed for the proper purpose of giving information about their services and some measure of discretion in the expenditure of, a small proportion of the rates to conduct massive political propaganda campaigns. It is this last issue—political propaganda on the rates—with which Part II of the Bill that we are discussing seeks principally to deal.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I apologise for not having been present in the House earlier. If my question has been dealt with already, I apologise again. Would the noble Lord justify the use of enormous sums of money by central government to propagand their own purposes?
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, no. In the context of this Bill, I am not prepared to comment on the use of money by central government. My understanding however—since the matter has already been brought up in the House—is that propaganda by the major political parties in this country in terms of national government is paid for by the political parties themselves and not by the Exchequer.
The Earl of Longford: my Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again.
Noble Lords: Oh!
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, may I interrupt again? It is obviously, if I may say so, not so. The vast sum of money spent on government public relations officers is certainly not provided by the political parties.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I believe that this might turn out to be a somewhat futile exchange. There is a vast difference between the expenditure of money by government public relations in putting forward the policies of the Government and the action of extremist political parties in local authorities peddling the propaganda of their parties and not of their authorities.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was generously disposed to accept the implications of full political commitment in local as well as in national
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government. I believe that it will be generally accepted in your Lordships' House that one of the tests of democracy is the ability of governments, national or local, to be changed at the ballot box. In my view it is just as lethal to the democratic system for a party to hold on to power by abusing the system to make political propaganda as it would be for that party to hold on to power by the use of violence. There is no difference, in my view, in the damage that it can do to the democratic system. In so far as this Bill seeks to prevent the corrupt use of public money for political advantage. it is welcome and indeed, in my view, overdue. But will it succeed in its purpose? As the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has rightly said, it is not appropriate to go into too much detail at Second Reading. But a few observations might be permissible and relevant.
The Bill prohobits a local authority from publishing material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect, or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect, public support for a political party. Given a certain amount of attention at the Committee stage, that is fine so far as it goes. But, in another place, for example, the Opposition argued that even a rate demand showing no increase in the rates was in itself likely to affect support for a political party. The noble Baroness, Lady David, put foward analogous and similar arguments in your Lordships' House today. I do not believe that the courts would be so wide in their interpretation of the Bill. But it does, it is true, pose a question of where they will draw the line. This is something, as many noble Lords have suggested, that will have to be looked at in detail in Committee. So indeed will the question of what it is that constitutes a political party. Obviously, the Bill, which charts new legislative waters, will give rise to many questions that only the Committee stage can hope to resolve, and in due course the adjudication of the courts can answer.
The Bill also seeks to ban councils from funding outside organisations for the purpose of publishing the type of material that councils are banned by the Bill from publishing themselves. It is, as already stated, a scandal that councils hand out ratepayers' money to organisations which conduct partisan political campaigns. As the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, has said, Professor David Regan, of the University of Nottingham, recently published a report called, ironically, It Costs a Bomb, pointing out that over £10 million had been spent by councils on this incredible farce of the nuclear-free zone within local authorities. This is clearly not a minor problem. The Greater London Council, as we have already heard, in the last days left to it, is organising a massive hand-out of millions and millions of pounds to what it terms voluntary groups. Many of these, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter said, are worthy bodies, active in the fields of medicine or the arts. But many of them will be concerned with straightforward political propaganda.
Indeed, one only has to inspect the minutes of the committee that is organising this pay-out. I have them here. It is a group that calls itself the Voluntary Sector Forward Funding Sub-Group. The minutes are those of a meeting held on 10th January. We do not know exactly how much money will be given away. However, from one of the paragraphs of the minutes, we can get an idea of the cynical contempt with which

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this authority manipulates the letter of the law and re-arranges its affairs to circumvent legislation. In explaining in the minutes that grants, which are called appendices, must not be given under Section 137 of the 1972 Local Government Act in excess of the amount requiring consent from the Secretary of State (which is a provision of the 1972 Act) council officials are told clearly how to write reports to circumvent the provisions of the Act. I quote from the minutes.
"The individual appendices"—
or grants—
"will need to explain that fresh information has been received from groups about their activities indicating that a re-apportionment of funding powers is now considered appropriate with a brief explanation of why this is so".
If I may translate that into English, what it means is:
"Say that the circumstances have now changed so that you can give the grant under other legislation and so avoid having to obtain the consent of the Minister".
Such blatant cynicism if it continues (and it almost certainly will) will quickly undermine a provision that bans councils only from funding groups for publicity purposes. The councils will simply say that the grant is for some other purpose—for running costs, for example—and the groups will use the money that they do not need for running costs to pay for publicity. I have here the Camden contact list issued for the Year of Peace, 1986. That contact list contains the addresses and telephone numbers of 129 groups, every single one of them a radical campaigning group. Of those, 63 are directly connected with what are known as the peace movement and unilateral disarmament. That is how Camden Council conducts its publicity: by publishing the names of these radical groups, every single one of which campaigns on behalf of the party which is in power in the Camden Council.
Many of these matters, such as terms like "function", "information", "propaganda", "description of services", will have to be considered again when we come to Committee stage. For example, it is disappointing that the Bill sets no overall limit on the amount which a council may spend on publicity. That is something which we may look at at a later stage.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, may I interrupt on the question of Camden, because I know a little about Camden? Has the noble Lord any proof that all those organisations campaign in favour of the Labour Party in Camden? That is what the noble Lord said.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, it is proof, experience. I have looked through this list and checked every single item on it. I have looked into its background. There is not one single group on that organisation which does not campaign in a sense which is favourable to the ruling group in the Camden Council. I shall give the noble Lord this list and if he can show me one which does not I shall withdraw accordingly.
As the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, has said, it is what the Bill does not do which gives me, at least, the greatest cause for concern. So far as I am aware this Bill contains no provision of any kind for its enforcement. If a Bill has no adequate means of enforcement I think that it can be argued that it can do positive harm by bringing the law into contempt.
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What are the remedies if the provisions of the law when this Bill comes into force are contravened? There is the remedy of complaint to district auditors. That has proved ineffective time after time. It is slow. Some auditors will not even investigate until after the time when they audit the books covering the expenditure which is complained of. It rarely results in any surcharge of councillors; and any publicity which was the subject of such a complaint would, in the time that elapsed, continue unchecked and the Bill would have proved to be ineffective.
A ratepayer can of course apply to the courts for remedy. But I submit that it would be a dangerous venture. Should he lose, the public-spirited ratepayer could face costs running into tens of thousands of pounds. The ratepayer stands alone; the council is backed by the ratepayers' money whether it wins or loses in the courts. It is hard for me to understand why the Bill does not follow its two predecessors and extend to voters as well as to ratepayers the right to sue in the courts to enforce the Bill.
There are many other matters that I should have liked to deal with but I shall hope to return to them at a later stage of the Bill. I shall conclude by saying that I regard this Bill as a very modest Bill with a substantially useful contribution to make to administrative law. It could be a major instrument for the defence of the democratic system. However, if it fails to give ordinary citizens who are to police and enforce the Bill's provisions the means with which to do so then it will almost certainly fail in its purpose.
It is not too extreme to say that we are seeking in this Bill to deal with people for whom the laws enacted in this Parliament exist only to be defied, undermined and held in contempt. It is our duty to make that course as difficult and dangerous for them as we possibly can.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, after his most impressive speech—one of many such speeches, but a particularly good one. I shall have to apologise to my noble friend the Minister, and indeed to the later speakers, because I may not be able to stay to the end of the debate owing to a long-standing engagement. I am extremely sorry for that because it has been a very good debate so far, albeit perhaps rather lengthy.
I fully support the Government's intentions in all parts of this Bill for the reasons given most clearly by my noble friend the Minister in opening the debate so skilfully. It is not for me to add to the very powerful speeches of my noble friends Lord Boyd-Carpenter, Lord Bellwin and Lord Orr-Ewing, as well as that of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. They have made it abundantly clear to us why this Bill is so very necessary.
I thought that it was sad when the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, picked up the point made by my noble friend Lord Bellwin as though he was being unreasonably aggressive—if I may put it that way. I thought that my noble friend Lord Bellwin spoke from the heart as a long-standing "local governmenteer"—if there is such a phrase—who was genuinely sad at what was happening on those councils to which other

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noble Lords have referred and whose shortcomings in the general area of running local government have been so very fully exposed.
With regard to the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, to my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing that the Isle of Wight County Council in the 1970s did no more than the GLC did last year, I hope the noble Lord will remember that the Isle of Wight County Council at that time was a Conservative council, the Government in Whitehall was a Conservative Government, and the Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight was Conservative. Speaking for them in this House, I too was a Conservative. One could not therefore say that it was a party political issue in the sense of what Clause 2 of this Bill is designed to deal with.
Having said all that, I have very little more to say on matters of detail about this Bill in relation to certain bodies who have briefed me. One of them is the Advertising Association, which clearly accepts the Bill as it stands, feels that it has been amended part way towards what is necessary to make it good from its point of view, and would hope that there will be some further amendments in matters of detail. Those will be a matter for later stages of the Bill.
My main information comes from the National Association of Local Councils, of which I am a vice-president. I was most surprised to hear the noble Baroness, Lady David, say—when opening for the Opposition—that they, like the Association of County Councils and others, were against the Bill when it was first introduced. I think that that is probably true, but it is very clear from their latest statements on this Bill that much of what they disliked about it in its earlier stages has been corrected either by amendment in another place or by discussion with the Department of Environment. There is not very much left which they would seek to have amended and that I shall hope in due course to put before your Lordships.
There is one area which they find difficult in relation to parish councils. It is worth making the point that, happily, parish councils are still not political. It is probably a sad reflection on how we have developed in this country that at the higher levels local authorities are now so political. It is perhaps one of the reasons why they are nothing like as efficient as they used to be.
Therefore, parish councils want the Bill to be in such a form that it will not unnecessarily hamper their attempts to represent the views of the local people at their level. One matter which fusses them concerns the functions of the authority in Clause 3(1)(b), which, as noble Lords who have been briefed by the higher levels of local government will know, is also a matter of concern to the county councils. I quote:
"It has also to be remembered that some important activities are not categorised as functions. Economic development initiatives which both Government and local authorities are so keen to see promoted are a case in point. There must be a real doubt whether publicity aimed at attracting industry or commerce to an area would be permitted. And what about the related aspect of tourism and publicity connected with the holiday trade?"
Matters of that sort are absolutely crucial to a county like the Isle of Wight, where I come from. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can reassure us today, or at a later stage when a suitable amendment is tabled, that when the Bill leaves this House there will be no
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question of those very important points not being able to be expressed as fully as necessary, and that this Bill will not prevent that.
Having said all that and, in effect, having said that there are worthy reasons why some of the points in this Bill should be, if you like, softened in order to accommodate some of the matters contained in my previous remarks, it will be extremely difficult for us eventually to provide a Bill which accommodates that and which at the same time accommodates the very serious problems which were raised in the immediately preceding speeches by my noble friend Lord On-Ewing and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. How can we have legislation which is sufficiently strong to protect the rest of us from misuse of legislation by contriving authorities, if I may use that word for authorities which seek to use legislation to achieve their own aims and contrary to the purposes of that legislation? How can we produce legislation which will safeguard the rest of us against that, and at the same time make legislation flexible enough to deal with the problems of the worthy little local councils or the genuinely striving county councils? That is the problem.
However, we must produce such legislation and I believe that the Committee stage and later stages of this Bill will be extremely important. It is also very important not to forget what the Bill is all about in the first place. It should not be here. It is only here because there are scheming people who seek to turn this country to their own purpose and to overthrow the ordinary processes of parliamentary government. We must make quite certain that they cannot continue to do that. Therefore, I hope that during the later stages of this Bill noble Lords of all parties will join with the Government in trying to make this Bill a proper Bill which achieves its main aim.
5.54 p.m.
Lord Denning: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Mottistone, I may not be able to stay to the end of this debate, but I want to say a few words in support of the general objectives of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Chalfont has dramatically described the evils which are present in our society, and in particular in some councillors in some councils. Like my noble friend Lord Mottistone, I have been concerned only with the lowest level of local authorities—parish councils. I was the president of their national association. I always told them that they must be completely independent of party politics, otherwise I could never be their president. I exhorted them all when they were elected that they should stand as independents and not for any political party. As they grew bigger, I was distressed to find that gradually electors could only know the candidates by their party label. Therefore, I am afraid that throughout our local administration party politics have come to stay.
On this particular Bill I should like to speak as a judge because I am very anxious that nothing should be done in this House or by any legislation which would bring the judges of England into the political sphere. For that purpose, it is essential that the words should be clear and definite, not vague and misleading, so that the task of the judges is simply to interpret the

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words. That indeed is borne out by the Widdicombe Committee Report, which at paragraph 175 says:
"We wish to avoid new controls that will be imprecise, or raise major definitional problems, and are aware that it is easier to identify a problem than to encapsulate that problem in a legislative formula".
I would agree with every word of that. However, the report then went on to deal with imprecise matters. The committee made just one recommendation as regards legislation at paragraph 244:
"We propose that:
(a) there should be an express statutory prohibition of local authority publicity of a party political nature;".
I think and hope that everyone would endorse that recommendation; indeed that is at the forefront of Clause 2 of this Bill.
However, I ask: if the matter comes before the judge, what is the meaning of a political party? Does it mean one of the great political parliamentary parties, as this House and another place know them to be? Is it confined to the Conservatives, the Liberals, the Labour Party or perhaps any others, or does it extend to the National Front? Does it extend to the anti-Fascist organisations? Does it refer to the Institute of Race Relations? We have a problem at once. What is a political party within this paramount clause? That matter must be solved during the Committee stage.
I do not see why a list of those which are regarded as political parties should not be appended. I would certainly put the National Front among political parties, as well as many others. However, it would ease the task of the judges if they are told exactly what they are to do.
My noble friend Lord Chalfont asked about enforcement. At the moment this Bill does not tell us how its provisions are to be enforced, and all Bills should do that. Suppose a local council is doing wrong. It is paying money to its own political fund, or supporting an organisation which is using the money for political purposes. How is that to be enforced? The law can do it at the moment, and I suggest that is what will happen. Any person aggrieved can apply to the High Court for a judicial review, and the judges will then inquire whether the local authority is misusing its powers, and if it is misusing its powers then the High Court judge can grant an injunction or deal with it as he thinks right.
Now what I ask about that is: who is going to bring those proceedings before the judge? If it is the party in power in Parliament which has offended, I imagine the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General might, but any ratepayer can. As my noble friend Lord Chalfont suggested, let a voter do it. If it was propaganda in favour of the Conservative Party, let a ratepayer or a voter for the Labour Party complain, or vice versa.
Any person interested or aggrieved should be able to go to the judge and say, "This council is disobeying this Act of Parliament. It is giving publicity for party political purposes, and it ought not." That is the remedy. But I would hope that it would be that any ratepayer or any voter interested in such a matter could bring it before the court.
That brings me to the next point. If that is so, the position must be put precisely and definitely to the judge. If he is given an overall discretion in imprecise
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terms, he is bound to decide in favour of one political party or the other. He would at once be brought into political controversy. It is fundamental, to my mind, that everything should be clear and precise so that the judges have to do nothing but interpret the words of Parliament as they have been set down.
I must say a word, I am afraid, about the code of practice. It is no doubt well intentioned to give guidance to local authorities about what publicity they should give, or the like, but is has no force of law. The judges cannot do anything against the local authority if they say, "Yes, we had regard to that code. We don't think much of it. We don't think we should give much weight to that. We will have regard to it. We will give a little weight to it. We will give much weight to some other things."
The judges would be in great difficulty in going by that code unless the following additional words are put in:
"shall have regard and give due weight to"
certain proposals. You can have regard to something in the code, but a judge will say, "I don't think much of it. I will have regard to it, but that is only a little matter". That is having regard to it. But if you are going to make this code work then you ought to have in it the words,
"shall have regard and give due weight to".
Then if the local authority have not given the proper weight to the matter, the judges can interfere.
What I have said is really a plea for the enforcement of this Bill. It is a good Bill in all its objectives, but for goodness sake make it clear and precise so that the local authorities, and in particular the judges, can interpret it as it should be, and is intended by Parliament to be, interpreted. I fully support the Bill, but I hope that in Committee stage we can make it much better than it is at the moment.
6.5 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, I support the objectives of this Bill. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, that it is a sorrowful day when it has been necessary to introduce a Bill such as this into your Lordships' House. It seems to me sad that it is necessary to stem the tide of party politicisation in local government instead of having, as we have had in the past and as is still the case in many local authorities, a sense of great service to the community.
I agree with what I imagine is the intention of Clauses 2 and 3 in Part II of this Bill, but surely the wording is such that the interpretation in practice and in law is far from clear and would result in stifling the democratic process in the arena of local authorities; and I include parish councils and voluntary organisations. Perhaps I may ask my noble friend the Minister whether the intention behind these clauses is to prevent local authorities or voluntary organisations from publishing information or campaigning for the sole purpose of either supporting or denigrating the policies of any one political party.
Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, I am concerned on behalf of the voluntary organisations. If a voluntary organisation or local

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authority carries out its work with integrity and the intention only of serving its clients, then inevitably it makes known the needs of its clients and publicises how such needs can be met. In some cases it may accord with the policy of the government of the day, or with the opposition of the day.
Last week there was an excellent debate in your Lordships' House on a report on housing by a body chaired by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh and instigated by the National Housing Federation. My noble friend the Minister, Lord Elton, replying to that debate paid tribute to some of the recommendations, but he disagreed with others and said that they were not in accord with government policy.
Under this Bill as drafted where would the National Housing Federation be, or indeed His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh? I suppose that both would appear before the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, or his colleagues now in office. The same might be said of publications by Shelter; Age Concern; Mind; and the many voluntary organisations dealing with children; parish councils and local authorities. They communicate with the public and with governments, and the two-way communication between government, local authorities, and the community is one of the ways that we make good laws.
I quote from the Charities, Trusts and Social Welfare Report of 1979 by Professor Chesterman. He said:
" … charity and politics are inextricably intertwined. In consequence of failure to appreciate this or to take full account of it, most of the recent official recommendations simply seek to 're-draw the line' between charitable and political activity by developing variations on the theme that 'politics' is permissible if it is subordinate to 'charity'. In fact, while not all charitable activities are political in the same ways and in the same degrees, any assertion that there is a hard-and-fast dividing line between the two forms of activity, even in theory, is itself a political affirmation rather than a statement of abiding truth".
Surely politics should always be charitable, and charities and local authorities must sometimes be political. But the intention should surely be to serve the needs of clients and the public and not to use those needs to promote or denigrate a party political policy.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I intend to follow the advice and precept of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to keep off the detailed clauses of the Bill and only to reflect briefly on the context in which it is being presented to us. I invite your Lordships to reflect frequently on this context when we reach Committee stage so that we may better amend the Bill.
Local government is not in good shape and relations between central Government and local government are in deplorable condition. I grieve about that every bit as much as my noble friend Lord Bellwin. But grieving is not enough. We have to find a way to put matters right.
The fact is that over the last 11 years local government has stumbled under a wholly flawed system of finance. It was therefore with great relief that I heard my noble friend last week announcing that the Government are now prepared to tackle this fatal and fundamental flaw. My view is that they have adopted the right diagnosis. We must now make sure that they select the right cure. However, those are all matters for another day.
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What is relevant for today and for the debates on this Bill are two serious faults which have flowed directly from this failure and neglect of successive Governments to deal with local government finance over the past 11 years. They are of a very different kind. On the Left there is the cancer of the Militant Tendency. My noble friends Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Bellwin and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, all set out in clear and graphic terms the damage that that cancer is doing. How it can best be dealt with I shall come to in a minute. When my noble friend mentioned 13 councils in this connection I imagine he was referring to those which have wholly succumbed to the cancer of Militant Tendency and are entirely in its grip. I hope he will forgive me if I say that to leave it at that is to risk underrating the harmful effect.
I like to believe that in the ADC I have only one council that has wholly succumbed to Militant Tendency, but that is not to say that it is not around in substantial strength in large numbers of councils, seeking all sorts of ways to bring its baleful influence to bear. We are dealing with a substantial phenomenon.
On the Right, and to some extent as a result of that cancer on the Left, and also as a result of many other things, we have a haemorrhage. By that I mean the steady desertion by businessmen from local government. Local government over these years has steadily been deserted by the businessmen who used to be the mainstay of local government. Some have left out of disgust at the antics of Militant Tendency, others have left out of despair at the time-consuming complexity which now besets local government, chiefly in the area of finance, as a result of the 12 Bills that we have had trying in vain to deal with the symptoms of this fundamental flaw, and others have left in dismay at the extent of interference and dictatorship by central Government in areas which ought to be left to those who have been elected locally to deal with. We have to deal with both these: the cancer and the haemorrhage.
In my view the surgery, which is the only remedy for dealing with Militant Tendency, can only be applied by the party opposite. It is, alas!, in their councils in which Militant Tendency has thrived and is now latched on as parasites. It is their job and it can only fall to them to get rid of it. We must ensure that we design a Bill which helps rather than hinders them in their task.
I should like to take this opportunity of saluting my fellow president of the AMA and his other more sensible friends (he has more sensible friends than we sometimes credit him with) for the work they are doing to root this horror out of local government. It is far too late and it is far too little, but they must persevere. I do not think anyone else can do it.
Turning to the haemorrhage on the Right, I wish I could salute the CBI, the Institute of Directors, the chambers of trade and the chambers of commerce for what they are doing to deal with the haemorrhage. I have to say that I can hardly detect that they are doing anything. They will have to attend to this because dealing with the Militant Tendency on the Left, dealing with the matters that this Bill deals with, and all the other issues that a proper form of local finance might do, will not in themselves be enough if the people whose vocation it is to create the wealth in the

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local council areas do not return to take a direct part in the running of local government. It is absolutely essential. One of the worst features about Militant Tendency is that the only expertise its members possess is an ability to spend other people's money.
The key characteristic and attribute of the businessmen in local government is that they understand and appreciate the factors that lead to the creation of wealth. We need them in local government just as much as we need to get the cancer of Militant Tendency, which is causing us so much trouble, out of local government.
It is with those reflections that I hope your Lordships will consider the details of this Bill. The Association of District Councils, which is still Conservative controlled, and the London Boroughs Association, which is also Conservative controlled, have both voiced their objections and your Lordships will have seen in detail what they amount to. Briefly, they amount to support for the intentions of the Bill and support for the Widdicombe Committee, but not support for the Bill in its present form. We shall have to work very hard and carefully to get it right.
6.17 p.m.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I begin by apologising as I may not be able to stay to the end of the debate, but I shall do my best to remain. Previous speakers have mentioned the 12 Bills produced by this Government since 1979 aimed directly at local authorities. In reply to a Question by Dr. Cunningham in another place the Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment gave a list of 26 pieces of new legislation involving local government—in column 476 on 9th December. Of those 26, 14 apply directly to local government finance. That legislation has been produced by a party in Government who most of us will recall made bitter attacks when they were in Opposition against too much legislation and too much government interference. It comes ill from them in that context.
Many of those 14 Bills have been rushed, panicky Bills, cobbled together to deal with a symptom of a wider, more severe problem. This Bill is no exception. We have already mentioned the Bill abolishing the GLC and the metropolitan counties. We could mention rate-capping. A previous speaker mentioned the possibility of a further rushed Bill on poll tax to deal with yet another symptom of a serious problem, the problem of domestic rates and that aspect of government finance. So the list of these kinds of panic measure to deal with symptoms goes on. Now we have this Bill. Clause 2 is the main object of criticism in this Bill. That is intended to prohibit political publicity and otherwise restrain local authority publicity. I would suggest that, if we had the time, it could take years of discussion in Committee just to get definitions of that one clause and all the attendant pieces of it. Thus again it is a kind of rushed, blurred attempt to deal with what may well be some exceedingly real problems.
There are those who have argued, which argument I certainly support, that we have enough legislation, if we could implement it or even bring it up to date, to deal with the many of the aspects that are being dealt
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with in this Bill, so we do not need another legislative steamroller, as it were, to crack a few nuts—because that is what is apparently being done. It is not my intention to defend all the practices that were outlined by the noble Lords, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, Lord Orr-Ewing or Lord Bellwin. I certainly do not intend to defend the practices that they outlined. Neither do I intend to reply to all the examples nor to match them with other examples that exist, though I may perhaps mention a couple, if only to illustrate the futility of that line of approach to this particular problem.
For instance, we know that Westminster City Council spends a higher proportion of its budget on publicity than does the GLC, and those figures are available. Councils like Wandsworth have mounted very high profile campaigns on issues like the sale of council houses. One can recall that Wandsworth actually produced blue hats and badges that had on them, "Wandsworth, No. 1 for council house sales", and mounted a campaign including cash prizes for potential house buyers.
I do not want to go down that road. There are many more examples. If one wanted to take sides, one could say, "You give one on your side and I'll give one on mine", and so on. That is not the approach and certainly not my approach. I say that what we need is the updating of the many excellent inquiries into local government that have taken place, inquiries and commissions that took place in the 1960s and the 1970s, like Redcliffe-Maud, like Layfield, and like Wheatley and Bains. We really should update them and relate them to the new and developing role and purpose, and financial and administrative structures of local government, as well as the relationship of local government to central government and the public accountability of both.
That is what we need. Then we could bring up to date existing legislation, or introduce new laws, after careful consideration and debate. I thought that paragraphs 114, 115 and 116 of Widdicombe, really laid the basis for that kind of discussion and debate and for proper legislation at the end of it.
Unfortunately, this Government have taken the road to more and more centralisation of these issues. That is a new situation, among others, which needs to be inquired into. How much centralisation should there be? When do we say that that is enough? How much more autonomy should local authorities have? That is a very important and vast area that cannot be dealt with by panicky, instant legislation. Thus we must look at that. To aim to prohibit, as does this Bill, publicity, and otherwise restrain local authority publicity, without first examining the effect on our local democratic institutions and making constructive changes, is in my view to misread the present state of local government. I think anyone who reads the Widdicombe report, cannot come to any other conclusion. Widdicombe says in a number of paragraphs that that is what it is about.
A major criticism that I certainly have of this Bill relates to its origin. There was no manifesto commitment to do this. Therefore there was no electoral mandate to do this. There was no measurable public demand to do this. I have heard it said that it was as a result of public demand, but again, if we go back to the Widdicombe report, on page 14,

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paragraphs 52 and 53 of that report, after discussing a number of surveys that have taken place on these issues, says:
"We believe that it would be unwise to draw any general conclusions about the nature and degree of public concern from any of these surveys".
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, will my noble friend give way?
Lord Stallard: My Lords, yes, of course.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that, if it was the case that there was a public clamour to get rid of these practices, the democratic way would have been to allow elections to proceed in the metropolitan counties and the GLC and then we should have seen whether people wanted to abolish those authorities for those purposes?
Lord Stallard: My Lords, of course, I entirely agree, and I think I have said so on a number of occasions during debates, as have many Members of your Lordships' House.
Perhaps I may continue with the examples in the Widdicombe report of public support or the lack of it. Paragraph 53 goes on to say:
"The numbers of complaints about political advertising"—
these are complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority—
increased from 100 in 1983 to 177 in 1984. Of these, 22 in 1983 and 52 in 1984 concerned local authority material".
However, the report goes on to say:
"We noted that 62 of the 177 'political' camplaints in 1984 concerned the Kleinwort Benson advertising campaign on the flotation of British Telecom".
That is balancing one against the other, as I have said. Thus there is no evidence, even in this interim report from Widdicombe, of widespread public demand for this massive steamroller with which we have been presented tonight.
Then what are the origins of the Bill? If it did not come from any of the sources that I have mentioned, where did it come from? It came from an announcement at the Conservative Party Conference last year. It was announced at that conference. We all know the hysterical atmosphere that surrounds those conferences, and the competition for standing ovations. This was one of the items that came from that conference. I am no cynic, but it certainly gave me the impression that the issue had already been prejudged. It gave me that impression and it must have given many others the same kind of impression. There was a request from the Secretary of State for an early report, an interim report. He could not wait for Widdicombe to report: he wanted something immediate. Again, that must raise in the minds of some cynics, though not mine, some further suspicions as to why he now needs an interim, rushed report. He alleged that it was because of the use made by some local authorities of discretionary powers to engage in overt political campaigning at public expense. That demand for an early report of course meant that consultation had be to curtailed on that part of the Widdicombe considerations. This request for an early report from Widdicombe was criticised by almost every expert, and some not so expert, but everybody
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involved in the whole field of local government. Again perhaps I may quote from Widdicombe. I can assure your Lordships that the paragraph is relevant so far as this question of an interim report is concerned. In my view, the need for legislation was set against that totally political background of the Tory Party Conference, rather than arising from a need for a general rethink about the whole issue surrounding local government—something for which there is massive public and local government support. There is support for that kind of consideration in the new circumstances that we find outlined throughout this report. The Government's insistence on an interim report on one aspect of the problem will prove, in the view of most people who understand these matters—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has already mentioned a few—an expensive mistake. Of the five members of the Widdicombe Committee, one was moved to issue a note of reservation and another published a memorandum of dissent. That left only three and we do not know whether they were totally in favour of the interim report. So the whole basis is not as strong as we are led to believe.
Most people asked: "What is all the rush? What is all the hurry about? Why do they need it like this? What are the Government worried about?" We do not have to look far for the reason for introducing this rushed, badly drafted legislation, together with the atmosphere created by ministerial speeches, press comments, television reports and so on. The reason is the local elections in May. It was essential to get some kind of censorship, some kind of gag on local authorities who were known to be hostile to national government policies. That is not surprising. That has happened under most governments. But it was necessary for a whole number of reasons to gag that kind of publicity, and there are views about that. Certainly that to me is the real reason why this was rushed, why the interim report had to be brought forward and therefore why we have this piece of legislation this evening.
The Government themselves had already given an undertaking to Widdicombe that they would not prejudge the outcome of the full report in any way. But nobody believes that now. How can they believe that the outcome of the Widdicombe Report will not be prejudged by this Bill and by the comments that we have heard in this House this evening? How can it not be said that the end result of the Widdicombe reporting session will be fair and not prejudged? It is impossible. So the Government have broken that pledge, among others, that they gave to Widdicombe and it is quite disgraceful for any government to act in that way.
We have known too of the massive opposition to this Bill and it is no good trying to downgrade the quality of the opposition. The opposition comes from all those who spend their whole lifetimes in local government work. Lawyers and chief officers have all joined with their associations. If I had time I could read out a whole list of those from town clerks and chief executives right through, who are worried about the outcome of this Bill if it goes through in its present form.
We know—and I have given one or two examples—that there are many useful campaigns, but

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if they are repeated or if similar campaigns are mounted they will be banned under this Bill. If I may give another Westminster example, the voluntary organisation in Westminster, which is funded partly by Westminster City Council—I think that the president is the leader of Westminster City Council—published material on the effect of the abolition of the GLC on voluntary organisations. I happen to agree with lots of it. But that kind of report and activity will be banned under this Bill and there are many others who will be affected, right through to the campaigns on welfare rights.
The campaign for co-operation with the police could be banned under this Bill, as could many others. Indeed, because of the proposals to narrow down Section 142 of the 1972 Act, which is another part of our criticism, councils will in general be unable to fund activities in areas where they have no function. That is not just narrowing it; it is almost entirely destroying the principle of it.
So I say that the Bill is an attempt to silence local councils from the spring of this year, gagging them in their run-up to the local council elections in May. Otherwise there would be no need for all this rush and hassle. However, this Government have already proved to me in a number of Committee stages in this Chamber that they are not listening to anyone. After the presentation of a Bill, it is almost as if it were sculpted in stone. They are not listening to anybody at all. Nothing in any Bill can be changed. That is the general impression that I get after the last couple of years in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, shakes his head. He is one whom I have never heard criticise any Bill that has come forward so far—
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to intervene? This House has on many occasions carried amendments to government Bills, including the major Local Government Bill of last Session. In so far as his personal argument to me is concerned, he may care to recall that on the nationality Bill I carried an amendment against the Government giving British citizenship to the citizens of Gibraltar.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I stand corrected so far as the noble Lord is concerned. I was not present in the House when he moved that amendment or I would have supported him. I was certainly not present when all those other marvellous amendments which the noble Lord mentioned were carried. But even the amendments to the Local Government Bill were not carried with any support from the Government. In no way would the Government listen to any punctuation mark being moved on that Bill; nor will they on this Bill—
Lord Elton: My Lords, I really must put the record straight. I shall not go into the detail, but I stood at this Box for hour after laborious hour. If the noble Lord thinks that nothing said on the other side of the House had any effect on anything written in the Bill he is greatly mistaken. If he were right, perhaps my reputation in the Conservative Party would be greater than it now is!
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I do not want to damage the noble Lord's reputation in the Conservative Party. I am sure he can do that quite well himself! I do not withdraw anything I said about the Government's attitude to Bills in Committees that I have witnessed and sat on in this Chamber. There is no willingness, there is no give, there is nothing at all. If amendments are forced through that is good, but it is no good trying to get credit from a situation after the Government have been forced into it by the weight of opinion here or elsewhere. So in spite of that, and because of the importance of the issues involved to local government and to our local democracy by this Bill, I shall do my best with others to try to amend and make it a better Bill before it leaves this House.
6.37 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, like many other speakers tonight I regret that I shall not be able to stay because I am committed to duties for the Inter-parliamentary Union. I try never to leave a debate in advance, but I feel that when one is meeting a delegation from another Parliament abroad one must honour that commitment. I was rather amused by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, saying that this is all rush and hassle, because he certainly did his best to slow things down a bit with 20 minutes on the monitor by the time he sat down. I am hoping that I shall be able to be a little more brief.
I welcome Part I of this Bill, which has received little comment here today because it is not a controversial part. But as someone who last year was involved in absolutely ridiculous, expensive and time-wasting play-acting across the water at County Hall, where we had three full meetings in order to decide whether or not to set a rate, and we as ordinary members had to pay out of our own pockets for a legal opinion as to whether we had to be there to set a rate, I can tell your Lordships that it is a very good thing to have it laid down clearly for councillors that there is an obligation to set a rate and by what date that rate has to be set. So I welcome that aspect of the Bill.
I am more concerned about the other parts of the Bill, because I am now very aware of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. I know that the Labour Party at County Hall is meeting behind closed doors, plotting what to do with the £150 million to £200 million which we know is surplus at the moment at County Hall. That is ratepayers' money and the ratepayers should have some say in what happens to it.
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, mentioned the minutes of the forward funding sub-group meeting on 10th January. I too have a copy. There were 28 people present but there was certainly no sign of Alan Greengross, the leader of the Conservative side there. So far as I can see, there was no Conservative representation at all. It was a caucus meeting deciding those matters. Even up to this moment we still have no idea when we will see the papers about what is to happen to that very considerable amount of money.
I believe that next Tuesday, 11th February, is the crucial day because we have only two more meetings of the Greater London Council—on 11th February and on 27th March. We have already received notification that 27th March will be a ceremonial day only—more or less a conclusion—so the real business

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all has to be wound up on 11th February. I believe that those papers will come to us at the very last minute. If, as I believe will be the case, that money is to be employed for purposes outside the law, our side will take action, but time will be running out and time will be desperately short for us to be able to deal with that matter. An important point was made by an earlier speaker. Who as a private individual can afford to take on the GLC? The GLC has unlimited funding for its side of any legal action but ordinary ratepayers have very little to support their side and it could be a very costly matter.
I think it very important in terms of this Bill today that whatever is brought forward in Part II, which is the controversial part, should be extremely clear and should also be simple and not cumbersome or costly to implement. This is the problem now. Councillors are much more interested in whether or not they will be disqualified or surcharged than they are about anything else. It really does not worry them too much what happens to the council money: that is not their money; that is ratepayers' money. Because of that they are quite happy to spend it in any kind of legal battles. I say this to the Minister. It is important that whatever is done in this legislation should be clear and should enable a ratepayer or someone really concerned to follow it up to see that money is not being wasted on something that is against the interests of the public.
Points have been made by so many speakers about the very fine line between information and publicity. I agree that it is a fine line. People do need to be informed; and certainly in terms of the help that would be available they need to be clearly informed, because so many of the leaflets from the DHSS, even though I know the department is now getting awards for plain English, are still fairly difficult for a lot of people. But there is a clear point at which any and all of us see that resources are being used purely for party political purposes. I do not have to remind noble Lords here of the £10 million spent on the awareness campaign last year by the Greater London Council. That £10 million could have done quite a lot for the ratepayers of London, but spent in the way it was it helped those firms who had the contracts but I would not say it did very much more than that.
My appeal to the Minister is to make something simple and easily enforceable. I hope also that at this moment the noble Lord will bear in mind what might be happening on 11th February, and that he will think about London ratepayers even at this very last minute.
6.43 p.m.
Lord Ellenborough: My Lords, I support this Bill. My noble friend the Minister may be interested to know that the National Union of Ratepayers Association, of which I am president, also supports the aim of the Bill.
It is certainly a sad commentary on the state of affairs in local government that this Bill should be necessary. It is a pity that, despite the publication of the long awaited Government Green Paper Paying for Local Government, the actual reform of the proposed rating system is still a mirage on the horizon. Until such time as all who are able to pay a contribution towards the cost of local government do so and are aware of doing so, I am afraid the abuses of local
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government highlighted in this Bill must to some extent remain. Very few indeed of the really spendthrift and irresponsible local authorities would be re-elected today if there were closer relationship between those who vote and those who pay the bills.
The object as set out in Part I of the Bill is irrefutable. It is totally unreasonable to expect ratepayers to pay the bill and then suffer the consequences of irresponsible behaviour of a minority of councils which indulge in a kind of political brinkmanship and refuse to set a rate by the start of the municipal financial year. This causes confusion and chaos and an utter waste of ratepayers' money.
Part II of the Bill, which is the vital part if rather controversial, will need some amendment and clarification in Committee. The grey areas must be blotted out. It must be, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said, "clear and definite". There is no doubt at all that there is a problem which needs to be dealt with as indicated in the Widdicombe Inquiry. Far too many councils are producing material of a highly partisan nature, published more for political advantage than informing the electorate. The intention of the Bill is to prevent this. It is clear that it is not going to be easy to achieve it without endangering a local authority's obligation on occasions at least to explain to the public what it is doing in various spheres as a result of actual or impending legislation.
The problem lies in where to draw the line in defining material which is intended to win support for a particular political party, and which should therefore be banned under this Bill, without at the same time affecting a local authority's right to give information concerning its existing functions and responsibilities for the benefit of its electors. It is essential to ensure that local authorities spend money on publicity relating to their functions. If there is to be a code, it must be effectively enforceable and must establish beyond doubt what is proper. The difficulty is that if there is the slightest hole, flaw or defect in the Bill, it will be got through at once. It will not take a Derek Hatton to do it: a coach and horses will be driven through it in no time at all—indeed, before one can say "district auditor".
Far too much of ratepayers' money is being spent on quite unacceptable political propaganda which is not wanted. Instead of helping the less well off and paving for essential services, this money is simply being squandered. This is much resented by ratepayers who want to halt and reverse the appalling growth in political advertising as instanced by the mass of so called newspapers, publications and litter that find their way into our letter boxes—indeed, "litter" is the right word. Some councils are actually cutting down the collection of litter from the streets so that they can afford, on the rates, to publish more litter which comes into our letterboxes. This is a most objectionable development in local government.
Another cause for concern is that there are far too many so-called voluntary groups that are set up as front organisations for thinly disguised political propaganda, not least in London by the more extreme Left-wing councils. This has been mentioned this afternoon by various noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing who has given some examples.

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I closely followed the proceedings of this Bill in another place as I was at some pains to see how many Conservative controlled councils were castigated by Opposition Members. I could find only two: one was a derisory reference to Wandsworth and there was also a reference to Westminster. Both these councils were mentioned this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, who very wisely kept off the subject of his own council of Camden.
On the other hand, the Labour controlled councils criticised by Government and Alliance Members of another place were depressingly numerous. It was not just the GLC and the loony Left-wing London boroughs—of course, Liverpool was mentioned—but many other councils which are not normally in the limelight, councils that one does not usually hear about. One expects them to be quite moderate—councils such as Newcastle, Leeds, Leicester and many others; one could go on.
A particularly virulent propaganda on the rates is expenditure on matters totally outside the confines of local government. That point has also been touched upon this afternoon. I refer to such matters as peace studies, the Troops out of Northern Ireland campaign, anti-nuclear material, and so on. Two noble Lords have mentioned Professor Regan's study in which he disclosed among other things, that the GLC alone spent £3 million on anti-nuclear material.
I often motor up to London and when I travel through Lewisham I am informed by posters and placards that I am in a nuclear-free zone. However, I have yet to see as I enter Bromley or Kent that I am entering an area that is protected by NATO or by an independent nuclear deterrent, or some such infantile slogan as that. That sort of thing is all wrong. That political propaganda on the rates, one sided or not, should be paid for by ratepayers of all political persuasions is to be thoroughly condemned. The public needs to be more aware of the abuse by councils of political campaigning on the rates. I support this Bill.
6.51 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I can give an assurance at this stage of the debate that I do not have all that much to add to the points so admirably made by previous speakers—in particular, by my noble friend Lord Hayter, what now seems rather a long time ago.
I was formerly chairman and I am currently vice-president of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, and I am chairman of MENCAP. I should like to add just a few comments in view of the anxieties that Part II of the Bill is still causing voluntary organisations, notwithstanding the amendment that was made to Clause 2 in another place.
Like everyone else who has spoken, I am against the use of ratepayers' and taxpayers' money for party political purposes. However, to achieve that end it seems to me—again, like previous speakers—that the Bill goes too far beyond the Widdicombe recommendations and opens up a number of doubts that extend beyond drafting points to be explored in Committee.
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Anyway, as I recall, the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said that it would be of some advantage if such doubts could be paraded at this stage.
As has been pointed out, Part II of the Bill at least does not say anything about remedies. I have assumed that the thought is that an aggrieved party could go to the courts for a judicial review—not a particularly cheap exercise—or make representations to the district auditor. That latter course was one that my noble friend Lord Chalfont viewed with something falling short of enthusiasm.
If such an issue came before the courts, some of the questions may not be all that easy to determine. There is the test of reasonableness both in Clause 2(1) and in Clause 2(2)(b). There would be questions about what is political and what is a political party—although I believe that there are some precedents on that issue. There would also be questions on how to assess public support and a number of other questions touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan.
I am conscious that from time to time the courts have to determine for the purposes of charity law whether a charity is designed for political purposes and can therefore not be accepted as being for the public benefit in the manner that the law regards as charitable. In that context it is the courts themselves that lay down the rules. They are not enforcing statutory provisions as they would be in this case. I must say as an aside that I hope that it does not occur to anyone looking at this Bill that comparable statutory provisions should be made for charities.
Leaving that apart, I know that everyone would agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Denning's remarks about the judiciary not becoming involved with political issues and being required to rule on matters of a political opinion. Although it is not possible to speak with any certainty, I confess to some doubt—like my noble and learned friend—whether that danger can be altogether avoided by the Bill in its present form.
There is then the uncertainty of certain provisions, particularly those in Clause 2, to which a number of previous speakers have referred. I am well aware that in another place the junior Minister said:
"I reiterate that it is only overtly political publicity that will be caught by the provisions of this Bill".—[Official Report, Commons, 22/1/86; col. 330.]
Try as I might, I cannot find in the text of the Bill itself, whatever in the end might be said in the code of practice, any reference to "overtly political publicity". One cannot rule out the possibility of the courts being faced with applications from aggrieved ratepayers or from aggrieved political parties relating to issues that were not overtly political but might be argued nevertheless to fall within this Bill as at present drafted.
As regards voluntary bodies, one need look no further than the example to which a number of speakers have already referred, of those bodies concerned with racial equality. Any publicity material that they issue would no doubt be argued by the National Front to be likely to affect adversely public support for that political party; and I feel in no doubt that the National Front would in law be regarded as a political party.

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In a sense, it could be worse than that. We are talking about the possibility of cases coming before the courts, but in the present atmosphere some local authorities would be extremely cautious about taking risks and could easily withhold support from a voluntary organisation on the argument that although the activities of that body were possibly perfectly all right and within the law, there was just a possibility that it might be challenged; and it would be simpler and better not to take the risk of becoming involved.
There is one other totally unrelated point on which I would welcome the Government's views. Seeing the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, in his place this evening reminds us that he has before this House at present a Bill to incorporate the European convention for human rights into our laws.
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive me, I would rather he described it, in the terms of the Long Title and the Memorandum, as a Bill to bring within the jurisdiction of the British courts matters of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, that shows what suffers as a result of trying to use shorthand and trying to speak briefly. I entirely accept the noble Lord's point. Nevertheless, that caused me to look at Article 10 of the European convention. That provides that everyone should have the right to freedom of expression. It goes on:
"This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."
As always, the exercise of these freedoms is subject to various restrictions permissible in a democratic society; but it is not crystal clear that any of these exceptions actually cover what is provided for in the Bill.
I am sure that the Government have a perfectly good answer as to why this Bill is consistent with the provisions of the article, and that we are not at risk of endless arguments at Strasbourg or, if the noble Lord has his way, in the courts in this country. However, it would be interesting to know what that answer is.
I promised to be brief and I shall say no more than that I end by reiterating that there is much anxiety among the voluntary bodies. I believe that that is not an anxiety to be lightly set aside.
7.1 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I have listened with enormous interest to all the speeches made this afternoon, and more particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, whose experience is fascinating and whose speech I found extremely interesting.
I intervene for only a brief moment because I have spent so much of my life in local government—29 years on the county council—and the rest of my life always working for voluntary organisations. While this Bill is admirable in many ways some of us—and I am one of many here—are a little worried about some of the measures in Clause 2. I should like to say at once that I very strongly approve of the first point, which is to fix a date for the rate support grant proposals as has been done in the Bill. I well remember when I was
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chairman of local government committees that one had to be quite sure that all one wanted to go forward for approval for grant aid was ready by November so that it could be approved before the end of March. That was extremely important and I am glad that it is now in a Bill, because it means that everyone has to conform.
I also agree with the clause which refers to the selling of mortgages, and the new definition of that in the Bill. I am sure that it is very wise and also very fair.
On the subject of voluntary organisations, I should like to make one or two observations. I entirely agree with the principle that local authorities should not use their money, nor the voluntary organisations which they grant-aid, for any political purposes. I absolutely agree that voluntary organisations should not engage in party political propaganda. There are voluntary organisations for that purpose. All right, let them be; but they are not the sort of voluntary organisations that those of us who have been working in voluntary organisations believe should have support from the rates.
It may be difficult but it is quite possible to distinguish between what organisations are political and what organisations are designed to help local authorities in the work that they want to do. I spent a great deal of my life working for youth organisations. Those organisations were at that time all working in the same spirit as the education authority from which they received their grants; namely, they would do anything which would help young people when they left school, or perhaps in the last year of school, in the main community. That is an excellent and admirable way in which local authorities can help voluntary organisations.
I remember—I think it was just before the war, in 1938—when the first paper from the Department of Education came out urging local education authorities to be prepared to help voluntary organisations. It was a very important moment because no education authority in those days had any youth committee or any method of helping voluntary organisations. I spent a considerable amount of time in those years just before the war, and during the war, urging local education authorities to help the voluntary organisations. Today there is not a single local authority which does not have a youth committee and does not help with youth work, all of which I think is admirable. It means, of course, that the voluntary organisations, certainly on the youth side, are now three, four or five times the size they were 20 or 30 years ago. That could not have happened without the support of the local authorities.
There are many other voluntary organisations which are also vital—for instance, those connected with social work. I am thinking of all that is done for social work committees by the Women's Royal Voluntary Service and other organisations, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, dealing with MENCAP and handicapped people of all kinds. If one is chairman of a social work committee for years, as I was, one sees what the voluntary organisations contribute to that work. It is simply tremendous. Naturally, we were only too delighted to give what help we could, although it was only in a very small area, so that that kind of voluntary work and service should continue.

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That work was enormously valuable and considerably helped the local authorities. If the local authorities had had to provide all that it would have cost far more; but we got all those services from the different societies and when those societies asked us for help we tried to give it to them. However, the greatest help by far was what they did for us voluntarily. Therefore, it is extremely important that whatever clauses are in the Bill dealing with voluntary organisations should not hamper that work in any way because that is an admirable way of using the rates—very much better than many of the other ways in which our rates are used.
Clause 3 contains two measures which affect voluntary organisations. There is a reference in Section 88 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 to change in the information relating to the functions of a local authority rather than information as to local government matters affecting the area. This would seem to prohibit a district authority from finding information on matters like drugs, matters affecting ordinary people in the community or careers advice, which is often given, and helping to deal with those matters which I think are important and where the local authorities could help. Publicity by voluntary organisations to counter some of the evils of the day should not be treated as political propaganda but as bringing out some of the important responsibilities which fall on voluntary organisations, work for which the grants they receive are essential.
I have in mind, for example, all the problems of today in connection with drugs, with much of this disagreeable cruelty, and so on. Voluntary organisations can, with their publicity, help stop these things just as much as local government can. I do not think that such matters should be treated as political. I believe that with some careful redrafting of these clauses it would be possible to draw a distinction between information vital to preserve the good of the community and propaganda designed to influence people politically. I think that one can make that distinction; after all, many of us—and I am only one of many—have been engaged in both independent voluntary organisations and in political propaganda. The two could be kept perfectly separate. Not for one moment did I allow any of my political feelings to impinge in the case of voluntary organisations. It can be done. But of course if people want to distort the relationship they can do so, and that is where we have to be very careful.
I think that all this work which has been done by the social services and by the voluntary organisations is something which we must protect, and I very much hope that, when we are dealing with this Bill in Committee—I think we really all agree on this—the Government will be able to find some wording which can be brought forward as amendments which they will agree with and which will really meet the desires of almost everybody in your Lordships' House.
7.10 p.m.
Baroness Vickers: My Lords, I should like first of all to make my apologies for not having been here for the whole debate but I had to attend a Red Cross blood transfusion meeting which went on rather longer than
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I had anticipated. However, may I say how pleased I am to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, because we worked together both before and during the last war, and she did a magnificent job. The only points I wish to make now concern the question of local government officers.
This Bill has caused great concern in local government, and after all it will be the local government officers who will have to pay the price. As we know, it was designed to prevent some of the excesses of the Greater London Council but it goes far wider than that. It also goes far wider than the recommendations of the Widdicombe Committee which gave advice to the Government on the problem. The draft code to accompany the Bill would go far beyond the restriction of expenditure. It would restrict freedom of speech and the traditional democratic role of local government to act as spokesmen to central Government on behalf of their local inhabitants.
Then, we have the words "publicity", "publish" and "publication", which refer to any communication in whatever form which is addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public. There is the question of the definition of "publicity". It is very wide indeed. It is not clear whether it would catch a television interview by members of the local authority, or would include going to "Any Questions" and answering questions, which after all is a political matter. Then the words in Clause 2(1) could well make a lawyers' paradise. Uncertainty in any law is very bad. Therefore I should be very grateful if the noble Lord who will reply can give me any ideas about this, or perhaps he will write to me.
The Bill also affects local authorities' powers under Section 142 of the Local Government Act 1972 (which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady David) to provide information on matters relating to local government. The Bill changes this to "information relating to the functions of the Authority". "Functions of" is far narrower than "matters relating to" local government. There are some important activities of local authorities which cannot be categorised as "functions". Economic development initiatives, which both Government and local authorities are so keen to see promoted, are a case in point, as there must be doubt whether publicity aimed at attracting industry and commerce would be permitted. This is a very important point for local government.
Campaigns against Government policy on important issues of concern to particular local authorities and to the welfare of their constituents could be prevented. The Association of Parish Councils is particularly concerned by the limits which this clause would impose on them.
The principle of separate accounts is reasonable. However, the provision in Clause 5, together with the interpretation in Clause 6(4), relating to the duty to keep accounts, which would include the publicity connected not only with tourism but also with job advertisements, is much too widely drawn. I think those are two very important matters. It would also include statutory notices under various Acts, letters and many other minor communications addressed to

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sections of the public, not to mention reports of various sorts which are published on planning and similar matters.
Statements at press conferences, media interviews, etc., are to be caught. It is not clear whether this is intended to apply to the individual members of a local authority or only to official statements by its officers. As at present drafted, it must apply to both, and it is difficult to see how this can be anything other than muzzling local democracy and freedom of expression. Debate about the Okehampton By-pass, which many of your Lordships will remember recently took place, and about the Devonport Dockyard, would both risk infringing the code. There was a model of the south route of the Okehampton By-pass and I gather that such a model might be out of order in the future if this Bill goes through.
This Bill would probably prevent discussion of these subjects. The Devonport Dockyard is a Government function and service and will be of great importance to the local people in the area of Devonport. The people in these areas will expect the local authorities to express their views on these issues.
I should like to end by paying tribute to the late Herbert Morrison. For eight years I was on the London County Council and he ruled it well and truly. Always in the Opposition we were allowed to say what we wanted to say. We never had any trouble and we worked together marvellously—and working together makes all the difference, because time is not wasted in having so many disagreements. My Lords, I hope that when this Bill goes through we shall see it working smoothly and well in the future.
7.16 p.m.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, perhaps I should begin by boasting that I intend to be one of the happy few who stay until the end of this debate. I must say that I share with my noble friends their condemnation of the use of public money for party propaganda. I accept the Widdicombe Report.
I am very worried about the Bill. It seems to me that in going for the villains the Government have upset a lot of good people who are engaged in local government and in voluntary movements. They have upset a lot of good people, including many good Conservatives, and they will have to think very seriously about this Bill. As other noble Lords have pointed out, the trouble with this Bill is that it attempts the impossible.
Its object is to deter a local authority from publishing anything which is likely to affect support for a political party. Yet whenever a local authority justifies its policies to the ratepayers, as it is its duty to do, and that local authority is governed by a party with an overall majority, then the party as well as the authority itself will get the credit. Ratepayers are not fools, particularly those who use their votes in local elections. They know which party runs the council and they judge the party on the way the council carries out its business.
One of the tests about whether the material falls within the prohibition is whether the material refers to persons identified with a political party. Does this mean to say that the material may not mention the
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name of the chairman of the authority or the chairman of one of its committees?—for it is certain that a person of such local eminence is known both as a councillor and a politician. The publicity for the work of his committee must be of advantage to him and a disadvantage to his opponents at the next election. I think it is very difficult to legislate fairly and sensibly on this subject other than in a way which will deter the grossest abuse of public money. Surely what is needed is some kind of convention, a code of good municipal practice which recognises the realities but imposes sensible limits. There are such conventions for national government and they work acceptably if not well.
I remember on one occasion my newspaper was asked by Dick Crossman to do a popular version of his White Paper on state insurance. It was by no means intended to be a political pamphlet. The object was to produce a serious guide for trustees of vocational pension funds. After we had agreed to do that he had to seek agreement, whether with the Opposition or the higher Civil Service I do not know, and that was obtained easily because he could cite a precedent in that the Opposition had sponsored such a publication.
But perhaps the Government feel that they could not trust a local authority to follow a code unsupported by legislation, and I am not surprised if the code that they have in mind is as constraining and repressive as the tentative one that they have published. But I shall deal with that later.
The publicity aspect of the Bill is inevitably seen as one more example of this Government cutting down the local authorities to size. All governments are impatient of dissidents and regard them as unpatriotic, but this Government are less tolerant of dissent than any government that I can remember, even of dissent among their supporters. Local authorities when they criticise Whitehall are most dangerous critics, for although their powers derive from central government their right to exercise them comes from the same source as the Government's power; that is, from the people, from the electors.
Local authorities are political bodies run by the parties, the parties that engage in national politics too. Do we expect today, for example, local authorities in the Midlands to be silent about plans for the disposal to foreign firms of British Leyland which gives so much direct or indirect employment to many of their citizens? Is that to be beyond the sphere of local government in the West Midlands? Concern will surely be felt by all councils and not simply those where the Opposition are in the governing majority. Should they not publicise their concern?
One feels that this Government would like to have minimum local government; to reduce further the role that local government has come to play in the welfare state. As such, local government is undeniably and rightly self-assertive. It must keep its citizens informed of the benefits that they can claim, for if they are ignorant there will be unnecessary suffering. I remember an example at national level which stirred me considerably. A Conservative Government to their credit provided a new benefit, family income supplement, but after some months only a fraction of those entitled to it were claiming it. The poorest of the poor were suffering unnecessarily. I looked at the

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application forms provided in the post office. They were well beyond the capacity of the potential beneficiaries. So my newspaper set out to explain the scheme, giving it generous space over several days. We asked our readers to explain the scheme to anybody who might benefit from it.
That is precisely the kind of explanatory role that local authorities today play very well. They should be encouraged by the Government and not discouraged or constrained, as they are by the Bill. We should thank heaven that local authorities have begun to use the imaginative and appealing techniques of modern advertising. They are using the ratepayers' money to give the ratepayers the information that they require.
We see that publicity is being used in all kinds of new circumstances. Great public companies are using shareholders' money to acquaint them with the facts and arguments of a takeover as seen by the directors. The BBC has produced at low cost a brilliant television commercial reminding the viewer of the richness of the service that he gets for his licence fee. Many firms today produce an annual report that will interest not merely their shareholders but also their own staffs. That is one of the leads that some enlightened authorities have followed. They may produce a small newspaper once a year or once a quarter to let the ratepayers know how the council is using their funds.
That is of great importance. There was a time when the majority of people were hardly aware of themselves as ratepayers because they paid a weekly lump sum for rent and rates and the rates were thus invisible. Only the minority who owned their houses were self-conscious ratepayers. Indeed, they formed themselves, as the noble Lord has reminded us, into ratepayers' associations and ran candidates who would keep local services to a minimum, since they were hardly used by those middle-class citizens in the association, and by restricting services they would keep the rates down.
Today something like 60 per cent. of homes are owned by their occupiers, and those people know only too well the size of the rate bill; but, like the occupiers of rented houses, they are consumers of the services that are financed by the rates and they need to be told just what they are getting for the considerable money that they have to pay out.
The Widdicombe Report is a sensible and generous document which recognises the need for publicity—for publicity which uses the best current techniques, which recognises that a local authority is more than a body carrying out statutory duties and which recognises the political nature of local government. It also recognises that the scale of the publicity might become too large, the content too intense or the subject outside the local level and wrongly pitched at the national or international level.
The Bill does not, however, fully reflect the wisdom of the Widdicombe Committee. My union, the National Union of Journalists, which has members serving as public relations officers of local authorities, fears that unless the Bill is amended, and above all unless the draft schedule is changed, those people will be confronted with hopeless professional dilemmas.
Those of us who are interested in the Bill have received many representations. I was particularly
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impressed by a missive from the London Boroughs Association, perhaps because it was the briefest and most succinct of the documents and because it was unanimously approved by all political parties. That association is concerned, first, with the problem of publicity for council policy, which is also the policy of the majority party on the council. It is concerned, secondly, with the problem of persons identified with a political party who are also identified with the council. Those are two subjects which I dealt with earlier. Thirdly, it is concerned with the restriction of Section 142 of the Local Government Act 1972; and, fourthly, with the nature of the proposed code of practice.
As for Section 142, the Widdicombe Committee recommended that it should remain unchanged. Clause 3 of the Bill would restrict publicity to,
"information relating to the functions of the authority".
It would narrow the present provision which permits publicity of,
"information on matters relating to local government".
Thus the authority would not be able to publicise many matters of legitimate concern such as, for example, its continued existence, its boundaries or new legislation that it may wish to see enacted.
As for the code, the association (and I agree with it) would prefer to have not a statutory code but a voluntary one which could easily be amended in the light of experience, without seeking the leave of Parliament. As the association points out, the code even seeks to control the content of council and committee reports. This code seems to have been drawn up in a hurry. Nobody has mentioned its provenance. It is hastily adapted from the code which is used at national level.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I have refrained almost all along from intervening. I do not want to protract proceedings. But there is, I believe, a misconception around about the status of the code that at the moment exists and that is now in the Library of the House. It is entirely embryonic. It is merely designed to show the format and subjects that might be covered. It is our intention to discuss fully with those concerned. The noble Lord is right to attack, if he so wishes, the principle of having a code. I would ask him not to exhaust himself attacking the detail of what is in it, because I do not intend very vigorously to defend that.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord has given that explanation. I was not attacking the principle of the code. I was supporting the principle of the code. I was, however, saying that this was one hastily cobbled together from the national code. Although it works very well at national level, it does not work well at local level.
I shall not go further into that. We are all agreed that public money should not be used primarily to affect support for a political party. We are all concerned to prevent abuse of the powers under Section 142. We are all concerned to see that publicity stays within the ambit of local government. For although it is a wide ambit, this does not mean that it is unlimited. The Government share these objectives but the Bill goes beyond them. We must hope that wise amendments can be devised and that the Government will be willing to accept them.
7.31 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, and I share many views in common. On this particular occasion, as I understand it, he proposes a code of administrative practice whether statutory or voluntary and not legislation. That opinion I cannot share with him. If only the traditions of local government had not been traduced, if only the conventions of impartiality had not been flouted, if only these untoward dealings in mortgages had not occurred, if only rates had been duly set, and if there had been no abuse of ratepayers' money for party political purposes, this Bill would have been neither requisite nor welcome. As to the constitutional considerations, to which my noble friend the Minister adverted, constititional government has been flouted and put to mockery. That is the order of the attack on democracy and freedom which this Bill seeks to preserve.
However, the intention of the Government, behind the means of implementation proposed, in particular in Clause 2 and also Clause 4, warrants clarification. Under Clause 2, I would ask respectively: can the civil courts order reimbursement of sums improperly expended on political publicity as well as grant injunctions and declarations, the type of sanction upon the councillors to which my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter referred under Clause 1? Will Clause 4 afford some form of extra-judicial sanction available to central government to withhold rate support for breach of code, a circuitous route to those slippery slopes of potential administrative abuse? I hope not.
As to Clause 2, this prohibits direct or indirect political publicity. The civil courts must reach a decision having particular regard to subsection (2) on an objective basis, intention being irrelevant. I question, with the greatest respect to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, to the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, and to others, whether it is really necessary to redraft to accommodate the fears of the voluntary bodies. I should have thought that those fears could have been largely allayed by a massive process of consultation on the code of practice to be Issued under Clause 4.
I was much heartened and indeed greatly instructed by the speech of my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood as, in her experience—I have none—of local government, she saw no practical difficulty in deciding which voluntary organisation was indulging in political activities. That was not the sort of judgment that I myself could ever pass until I had to decide it. I have never had to do so. But the experience of my noble friend, given totally objectively, is a source of comfort to me and, I hope, to the right reverend Prelate who spoke on this matter.
That being so, is the distinction between the two limbs of subsection (1) a viable distinction or a distinction without a difference? If so, the complex drafting and the second limb could well be excised by deletion of,
"can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect or to achieve",
in Clause 2(1) and Clause 2(2)(b) respectively. The position, put quite simply, is this. Surely, likelihood to affect public support for a political party under the second limb must inevitably involve "apparent
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design" under the first limb. And, surely, a finding of apparent design to affect public support for a political party under the first limb would render the second limb otiose.
As to Clause 4, my noble friend the Minister has made it plain that these sets of administrative recommendations, varied from time to time, to be embodied in a voluntary code of guidance on various specified and unspecified but related matters on all aspects of publicity, are not for enforcement in the courts. If that is so, why, I ask my noble friend, impose a mandatory statutory duty to have regard to a recommended practice that conveys the semblance of legal efficacy but affords none? Why not, for clarification, delete subsection (6) and include at the end of subsection (1) "for the guidance of local authorities", because that is what I understand to be the true intention of the Government?
In this context, it has to be said that subsection (6) represents one of the types of trigger clause in current usage to introduce a code of practice that has given rise to very much concern. It is, as your Lordships know, the "shall have regard to" type of clause directed to a local authority in the realm of public administrative law. The judicial approach is that such codes lack legal significance as affording no jurisdiction on judicial review to challenge the local authority. So here there is no available challenge in the courts to the decision of a local authority to incur expenditure on publicity in breach of the code save in the rare and wholly exceptional case where no reasonable authority, mindful of its duties, could possibly have made such a decision. With respect to my noble friend the Minister, he might accept that as the more accurate, judicial expression of legal status rather than a decision being reasonable and not in breach of a fiduciary relationship with ratepayers. That, with the greatest respect to him, is a new one. The traditional concept, as I have sought to explain it, arises in the totally rare and exceptional case. I make this point because that concept of residual safeguard by judicial review in the wholly exceptional case would obtain without subsection (6) in any event.
In conclusion, as your Lordships well know, approval by Parliament—and we are now to have approval by both Houses—confers no legal efficacy. That is confirmed when the trigger clause receives Royal Assent. The approval by Parliament approves only the exercise of the statutory power of the Secretary of State to make the code—no more, no less.
Your Lordships, with respect, ought to know that I have raised these matters at the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Henderson, who is unable to attend as he is engaged on committee duties elsewhere in your Lordships' House. However, he having drawn these matters to my attention, we both share the anxiety for the clarification which we have sought.
7.42 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, on rising at this late hour to wind up this debate on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches it clearly behoves me to be brief. In any case, I would not be speaking now on this subject had not my noble friend Lord Evans of Claughton, as a result of ill-health, been unable to be here. I very much regret that his great experience and

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wisdom in local government matters have not been available to us in this debate. I earnestly hope that the noble Lord will be sufficiently restored to health to play a full part in the later stages of this Bill which I am quite sure will be extremely important and perhaps contentious.
In addition, I also missed some of the speeches in the middle part of the debate owing to the need to attend one of your Lordships' Select Committees. Again I shall try to be brief, and as it is late I am very anxious indeed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Elton, fill some of the gaps which I think the noble Lord left, perhaps deliberately, in his opening speech.
I listened to that opening speech with great care. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for his clarity in the way that he took us through this Bill and for the clarity in the way he told us what he thought the Bill means. I am quite sure, however, that he must know that others think that the Bill means something very different indeed.
The fears of the voluntary bodies—so clearly illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, in an excellent speech—cannot be wholly illusory. Nor can the anxieties of the local government organisations listed by the noble Baroness, Lady David, at the beginning of the debate, all of whom have said that they are opposed to the Bill, be wholly illusory. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, would think their fears are illusory. They are real fears and I think that the noble Lord clearly has a duty at the end of this debate to do everything he possibly can to put them to rest.
The problem with regard to the voluntary bodies referred to in the speech which I have just mentioned of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, is that the publicity campaigns of all voluntary bodies must inevitably appear to be anti-government. They are very frequently designed to persuade governments to modify, or even reverse, policies, in so far as those policies affect the well-being of the particular voluntary body's client group. Therefore voluntary bodies have always appeared to be anti-government; anti-this Government, anti-the last government, and no doubt anti-the next government. How much is that political? It is very difficult to say.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said that he would follow the example of others and keep off all detailed provisions of the Bill and focus on the context in which the Bill has been introduced. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, developed that theme and the failure of successive governments to tackle the major problem of local government finance. On that point I would wholly agree with him. That is a matter which has lain on our agenda year after year and will have to be sorted out sooner or later.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, also looked at the present tendency of the domination of local authorities by the militant tendency in certain authorities. He raised the specific question of the amount of money which is being spent on what are obviously wholly improper activities. I agree with him on that. The problem is how and by whom they should be stopped. That is what we are talking about in this Bill. Like the
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noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I should like to look at the Bill in its context, but I see that as being a slightly different context.
It seems to me that in this country we have spent about eight centuries building up a system of local government, a job which has been done by many different governments, even a republican government. It has been done under all political parties at different times. We now have accumulated a vast edifice of local government apparatus which is costly, time-consuming, inclined to be extremely bureaucratic—to a troublesome extent—and we have done all that on the pretext that somehow this edifice of local government gives local people control over local decisions.
The context in which I am speaking is that it now appears, since the present Government took office in 1979, that they are determined that local government should give local people nothing of the kind. We have seen an apparent continual tendency to limit to an increasing extent the powers of local government.
I have already agreed that improper spending of local government money on improper purposes should indeed be stopped. But, as I said a moment ago, who should do the stopping? It seems to me that it is the electors who should do the stopping. I am bound to say again—it has been said already—that had we had a satisfactory system of local government elections the people spending the money improperly would not be in a position to spend any local government money at all. They would never have been elected. As has been said earlier, had more notice been taken by the Government of the admirable Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich and the noble Lord, Lord Blake—a Bill which passed all its stages in your Lordships' House—then we might not be in this position at all.
I think that the Government accept, as I do, that local government must have some powers to spend some of its money. Whether it should have total control over its own money is in part what we are arguing about.
At the beginning of the debate the noble Lord, Lord Elton, talked about the whole question of the local government finance by rates. There is the requirement to set a rate by a certain date. Occasionally it seems to me—and I think that this point was mentioned in my absence by another noble Lord—that sometimes local authorities have been put in some difficulties because they have been required to set a rate before they have had sufficient detailed knowledge of the precise nature of the rate support grant. Perhaps that point can be dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, when he comes to reply. However, we must accept that to give local government real powers—and I believe that it should have real powers—must also mean giving local government real powers to raise its own finance. If it has those powers, it should have the powers to dispose of that finance.
However, I accept, as do all noble Lords, that the local authorities which need the most money will always raise the least, and those which need the least money are in a position to raise the most. It is for that reason that we must have some kind of equalising means, and we have it by way of the rate support grant. I say at once that the rate support grant is essential in

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order broadly to equalise the finances in relation to the needs and requirements of different local authorities; but as that is provided by central government, clearly central government has a right to a pretty big say as to what is actually done with it. However, whether they have the same right to a say over what is done with local authority money which the local authority raises is, I think, another question.
However, a different matter arises with regard to having a say over what is done with the money provided through the rate support grant; it is the general question of the extent to which the rate support grant money going to local authorities should be hypothecated. Of course, it is not; at present it is regarded as money that can be spent on almost anything. We have examples of that at present. Following the abolition of the metropolitan counties, we now have extra money going to certain of the metropolitan districts in order to enable them to fulfil some of the functions which were formerly exercised by the metropolitan counties. However, there is no firm guarantee that the money given to local government for those purposes will in fact be spent on those specific purposes.
I understand, though I was not present at the time, that yesterday in your Lordships' House some anxiety was expressed about Sadler's Wells, which I believe relates to the same point. I should like to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has to say about the question of hypothecation in relation to the rate support grant, because I believe that it has some relevance to this whole matter.
In conclusion, if we are to go down the path on which this Government embarked in 1979—namely, gradually and continuously reducing the powers of local government—we could finish up by beginning to think, "What is the point in having local government at all?" If we carry those arguments to their logical conclusion and say that we will not have local government, then the director of education will not be an employee of the local education authority, but will be an out-stationed officer of the Department of Education and Science. There have been times when, as a parent, which was quite a long time ago, I wanted to see the local director of education if I could find him (and after local government reorganisation it was not always easy). If I did find him and put my point to him, he would say, "I entirely agree with you; you are entirely right. But I cannot do anything about it because it is controlled from Whitehall." If it is all to be controlled from Whitehall, why do we pay for this huge edifice of local government?
I am the last person to advocate the abolition of local government, but if we substantially weaken the powers of local government, as a corollary I think we must do something to limit the powers of central government in certain ways and to make central government much more accountable to people than they are now. For example, if more and more functions previously exercised by local authorities are to be taken over by central government, somehow we must have reforms of the way in which the business of central government is carried out so as to make the officers and those concerned much more accountable locally. Frankly, that is what this whole debate is about. It is about accountability.
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I accept that some local councillors have taken deplorable decisions. I think that we all agree about this. I do not think that any noble Lord has stood up and said that it is entirely right that ratepayers' money should have been spent on these various purposes which have been itemised in the course of this debate. I do not think that anyone has said that. However, the real argument is: who should put a stop to this?
I personally am a little suspicious about a central government which think that it is necessary to step into local government to the extent to which this particular Government have done during recent years. Like other noble Lords, I shall look forward with interest to the later stages of this Bill. I hope that we shall receive greater clarification of many of the points about which there is a great deal of anxiety.
However, even before that happens, I am quite sure that shortly the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in reply will be able to lay to rest some of these anxieties. I cannot believe that all the fears which have been expressed by noble Lords all round the House and which are contained in all the papers which we have accumulated from valuable and important bodies are groundless. If they have reason to express those fears to us, at the end of the debate the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has a duty to put those fears to rest for our sake as well as for the sake of the people who have written to us.
7.55 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I believe that it would be useful if, right at the outset of my remarks, I reiterated what my noble friend Lady David said when introducing her speech. She said that the Labour Party fully concurs with all the expressions of opinion and that we in no way support payment for political propaganda out of the rates, by the ratepayers. Let there be no dubiety whatever on that point.
In his very useful introductory speech the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that the Bill was based on the Widdicombe recommendations. However, strangely enough the noble Lord did not use Widdicombe to justify the Bill. It is for that reason that I propose to concentrate my remarks on Clause 2 and on points in the Widdicombe Report. Various noble Lords have quoted certain extracts and I am afraid that I shall quote other extracts so that I shall not be accused for my interpretation of Widdicombe, which noble Lords might think is wrong.
First, like other noble Lords, I must ask: why the haste? The interim report was published in, I think, July last year; then we had had the Queen's Speech, and this was one of the very first Bills that the Government brought forward. It ignores a great deal of what Widdicombe said and, frankly, in some respects it turns Widdicombe's recommendations, proposals and comments on their head. Widdicombe tells us that the main report is expected later this year.
In paragraph 7 the committee expresses sympathy with the view of many who gave evidence to the Widdicombe Committee, that it was unfortunate that the committee was asked to produce an interim report ahead of the rest of its remit. The committee comments that it is pleased that the three Secretaries of State accept that the recommendations of the interim report cannot be taken to prejudice their eventual

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findings and broader judgments. The committee returns to this point in paragraph 13 and, commenting on the limited time available to prepare the interim report, states:
"… we must reserve the right to return to the subject in our Main Report".
At paragraph 23 Widdicombe says:
"We shall consider in our Main Report some of the wider arguments about the role of local government and its place in the political system. The task will not be an easy one".
Yet on the basis of an interim report we have this Bill. As other noble Lords have said, the Government appear to have acted in haste and, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said about the Bill for abolition, I think there is general acceptance that that Bill was not thoroughly thought out; the Government thought up the answers as different problems came along. It would appear from the comments of many noble Lords from all parts of the House that this is likely to be the case with this particular Bill which is before us.
The arguments about a few authorities have been put forward, but the Bill purports not to deal with just a few authorities; it endangers all local government in general and local authorities in all parts of the country. Why are all the local authority associations so strongly opposed to it? As we have heard from the other noble Lords, not just the three major associations are opposed to it but also the Association of Local Councils and the London Boroughs Association.
They believe in the type of local government to which the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, referred. They are not members of Militant. I know a little about Militant. All three major local government associations, and the others to which I have referred, are strongly critical of the major parts of this Bill. What consultation was there with the local authority associations folowing the publication of Widdicombe and before the Bill was brought forward? My knowledge is of the AMA, and I can assure noble Lords that if there was consultation the Government completely ignored everything that the AMA would have said about the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan asked me to apologise because he could not stay. He has important legal matters he has to get back to. He drew attention to the sections in Widdicombe dealing with local government publicity and the political system. He mentioned that paragraph 34 sets out five general principles which the committee kept in mind when preparing its interim report. I should like to repeat one of them. It is the fourth, which says:
"Local government has a duty to inform the public within its area as to the exercise of its functions and on local government matters generally".
In paragraphs 111 and 112 Widdicombe comments on political developments which have affected local authorities. In paragraph 112 there is reference to a situation where a rating authority sends out a demand for a higher rate which does not result from what it has done itself but arises from reduced government grant or the increase by a precepting authority. Widdicombe comments:
"It is perhaps ironic that financial constraint might well create a greater need to inform, although reduced resources with which to do so".
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All this led Widdicombe to emphasise that local councils are intrinsically political bodies and to declare in paragraph 122 that it is not,
"wrong in principle for local authorities to issue material dealing with matters of political controversy, not to express a view on such matters".
Paragraph 117 refers to big expenditure by central government in support of their privatisation proposals, particularly for British Telecom, their expenditure in connection with the abolition proposals and also in conection with various other matters.
Widdicombe, following up this point, states—and I do not believe that this has been referred to by any other noble Lord—in paragraph 123 that their attention was drawn by the Association of County Councils to a statement made by the Government in the Commons in 1983 during the Committee stage of the Local Authorities (Expenditure Powers) Bill that (I quote):
"Local authorities are essentially political bodies elected on political mandates, and run by politicians. Political consideration must affect the balance of the individual decisions they reach—and that applies to Conservative councils taking decisions on privatisation as much as Labour authorities reaching conclusions on, say, the right to buy. Therefore, we cannot simply stop local authorities acting politically".
That was the statement made by the Government in 1983. All the three local authority associations say that the Bill contradicts that statement made by the Government in 1983.
Widdicombe goes on in paragraph 221:
"it is right for local authorities to be able to explain their views on controversial matters affecting them".
Later the report says:
"that includes issuing information about abolition and rate-capping".
Those are two of the issues on which campaigning has been referred to today as wrong, and yet that is a definite statement made by Widdicombe. By the same argument that could include campaigning by the local authorities about the position of buses under the Transport Act. The Government must face the position that local authority associations are worried as to a number of other issues that would become illegal under the present wording of the Bill.
I was talking this afternoon to a representative of one of the local authorities in Kent. They may be arguing on aspects of the Channel tunnel. Where will they stand? Local authorities in my county, Essex, will be arguing about Stansted. Others will be arguing about the fifth terminal at Heathrow and issuing campaigning material about it. There is sure to be campaigning by certain local authorities about proposals for privatisation of their airport under the airports Bill which is shortly to come before us.
There has been campaigning by local authorities throughout Scotland on the threatened closure of Gartcosh. Inevitably there will be publicity campaigns on the Government's rating and poll tax proposals. Can we have a definite assurance that under the present wording of the Bill these will not be illegal? The local authority associations believe that they will. Council officials will be chary about giving advice that they are not illegal on the present wording of the Bill.
In paragraph 126 the committee drew a distinction between material issued on a matter of political

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controversy or which may reflect the political views of the majority party but which is issued in furtherance of the interests of the local authority, and material issued in furtherance of the interests of a political party. But it went on in paragraph 128 to say that the distinction can be a difficult one in practice, and the areas often overlap. Then in paragraph 130 it says:
"We do not believe that it is possible to draw a simple distinction by which all persuasive material is considered improper".
During the debate on an Unstarred Question that I asked a few months ago regarding the threatened closure of a local hospital I praised the local district council, which has an overwhelming Conservative majority, for its campaigning efforts against the closure of that hospital. I have its piece of material in front of me. It was distributed to all the households in the area, with a petition form. It called upon residents to send in the petition form to stop the closure of this hospital. That district council would be extremely worried as to whether that would be permitted under this Bill. People of legal background who know far more about that aspect than I do are chary of giving advice on matters of this kind on the present wording of the Bill.
The National Association of Local Councils says, in a communication which many noble Lords may have received, that it was told that the department draws a distinction in regard to making information available but that the Bill would prevent expenditure on distributing it. My council must have incurred some expenditure on distributing that document, and I am glad that it did. I give praise to the Conservative district council for so doing.
I must repeat what some noble Lords have said about the fears of the National Association of Local Councils: that on local matters which are of primary concern to parish councils they may be debarred under the Bill from engaging in publicity upon particular items. Let us remind ourselves of what some noble Lords have said, and I may include one or two other matters: the closure of a village school; the closure of a local post office; the closure of a local railway station; a campaign for a by-pass; a campaign trying to press against a proposed lorry route; campaigning for a bus service which might be taken off as a result of the recent Transport Act. All of them argue that the present drafting of Clause 2 could present problems in carrying out campaigns on all those items. Clerks will be wary of giving contrary advice.
We have heard a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Hayter and Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, stressing the worries of the voluntary organisations. I must tell the Minister that sympathy about this problem will not be enough. I am sure he will understand what I am saying because what will count is what judges will decide in the future on the wording of the Bill. If the fears of the voluntary organisations are to be allayed there must be amendments to the Bill which will relieve their worries.
Reference has been made to the provision in Clause 4 for the statutory code to be issued by the Secretary of State. It is a wide provision. I quote:
"recommended practice as regards the content, style, distribution and cost … and such other related matters as he thinks appropriate".
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The whole House will welcome the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that the code will be considered and must be approved by both Houses by an amendment which the Government will be bringing forward. But will this simply be through an affirmative order? From the Opposition Benches we never oppose something that has been carried by the other House. Therefore we shall just have a nice little debate upon it and that will be the finish. Will it be in the schedule to the Bill? Will there be opportunities to amend the proposed code of conduct? Otherwise it becomes a debating exercise and will be dealt with later.
In paragraph 242 of Widdicombe the report stresses that the control of tone and presentation should be exercised, but goes on to say that it would be best if this could be done by self-regulation within local government itself or through the agency of the local authority associations. The Widdicombe Committee says that it proposes to consider this matter further with the local authority associations. Obviously the Government have rejected both those proposals. They have rejected the proposal of self-regulation through local government made by Widdicombe. They rejected the idea of allowing local authority associations to draw up a code. It would be interesting to know why the Government have not followed either of those proposals made by Widdicombe.
As we shall have a more definite code of practice all I shall say on the one that has been presented as a possible code is that it indicates what the Government want to do in a code of practice. That is why we are worried about certain points which have appeared in this draft code. The suggestion that a code will include unpaid publicity was never suggested by Widdicombe, yet it was put in the draft code. Everyone must agree that the suggestion that local government politicians should be debarred from making statements on council business and reports which may be politically controversial would be a denial of free speech and would be wholly unacceptable to local government throughout the United Kingdom.
Why have the Government ignored what Widdicombe said on controls? My noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan referred to paragraph 175. I shall repeat it because I wish to make another point later. Widdicombe says in paragraph 175:
"We wish to avoid new controls that will be imprecise, or raise major definitional problems, and are aware that it is easier to identify a problem than to encapsulate that problem in a legislative formula".
But the report goes on under the heading of the undesirability of restrictions in local government. In paragraph 177 Widdicombe says:
"We would not wish to propose new controls on the detailed discharge of local authority functions unless the case was a clear and strong one".
The local authority associations believe that the case has not been made out. These points were not properly discussed or considered with the local authority associations. A number of noble Lords have made it absolutely clear that the matters in the draft code are so imprecise that it would be a lawyers' paradise. Lawyers have said that, not non-lawyers like myself. The Government must have second thoughts on the proposals in this part of the Bill. We hope that they will have listened carefully to the criticisms made and will

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themselves propose amendments at the Committee stage.
I conclude by referring to a point made by my noble friend Lord Ardwick that Widdicombe recommends that the scope of the local authorities' general powers to issue publicity shall remain as laid down at present in Section 142 of the 1972 Act, and Section 88 in Scotland. I must emphasise that in paragraph 233 Widdicombe suggests that this should be left unchanged. I quote from that paragraph:
"It provides an acceptable and long established definition of the proper scope of local government publicity".
The last reference I shall make is a quotation from paragraph 235:
"We reject the view that this is too wide a scope for local government publicity. We think that local authorities should be entitled to inform those living in their area of the consequences of the proposed changes in or affecting local government".
The Government have ignored that and many other proposals made by Widdicombe. I am rather surprised that the Minister did not use Widdicombe to justify the Bill because most of its proposals would not have led to a Bill of this kind. We hope that following our debate here today numerous amendments will be tabled to improve that part of the Bill.
8.17 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to a large number of very interesting and illuminating speeches—a number of which, I might add, went on for longer than my introductory speech to this debate. Your Lordships will forgive me if I now too speak for a little longer than my introductory speech to this debate. Even if I do there is no way whatever that I can answer every point made, but this is not the purpose of a Second Reading. It is the Committee stage that is designed to take on board a great number of your Lordships' anxieties. I shall pick up as many as I can of these points.
This small Bill—physically it is a small Bill compared with a great many that we have handled in this House on this subject—deals with very large matters that come close to the heart of local government and on which your Lordships have strong and understandable feelings. I shall start with what have been revealed to be the less pressing matters and come afterwards to that which has clearly preoccupied your Lordships for much the greatest part of today's debate.
The first matter was the question of a date for the rate. Your Lordships are agreed that good practice requires councillors to do what this Bill in Clause 1 would require them to do in law. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood for her clear confirmation of that. A number of questions were raised on it especially by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. As to the question of what is the sanction for failure to comply with Clause 1(1), my right honourable friend said in another place that if a rate is made deliberately late two consequences might follow. On the application of an interested party, a court could require the council to fulfil the duty and could make an order of mandamus. In addition the breach of duty would provide prima facie evidence of willful misconduct and the auditor, who is completely
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independent of the Government, might initiate action against councillors for the recovery of any resulting loss of funds. Clause 1(3) allows for the remote possibility that it may be physically impossible to set a rate, for example, because of an epidemic. I emphasise that that is not a let-out; the obligation remains.
The clause places a statutory duty on a rating authority to make the rate by 1st April. If it fails to do so, then any person with a sufficient interest, as I have said—and that could be a council or it could be a ratepayer—can make an application for judicial review, seeking an order to which I have referred.
If a loss or deficiency is caused by the delay in making the rate—and this brings us back to the sanction—the sanction is that the auditor, if satisfied that the loss was caused by wilful misconduct, may certify that the amount of the loss should be repaid, and if the amount exceeds £2,000 the person responsible must be disqualified from office.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked if we could give a commitment for providing the necessary information for making a rate in November. The Government aim to lay the rate support grant report before another place as early as practicable each year. But before the settlement we must consult local authorities, we must take the necessary decisions in the light of those consultations, and we must undertake all the really staggeringly large and complicated calculations and check them before the report can be laid. Because of this, the middle of December, rather than the end of November, has tended to be the earliest feasible date. We think that a minimum of three months between mid-December and the end of March ought to provide local authorities with ample time to set their rates.
My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing asked about the question of enforcement, to which I shall return at a later stage because it really is more to deal with Clause 2 than Clause 1. In the context of Clause 1, the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, asked whether precepting authorities would be covered by Part II. While they will not be caught, of course, by Clause 1, because they already have a date, they will be caught by Clause 2, as the noble Lord suggested would be appropriate, and the other publicity—
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I asked whether they would have any protection under Clause 1(3), the same protection as is provided for the rating authority in case of emergency—an epidemic, or something of that kind.
Lord Elton: My Lords, they will continue to have whatever protection they already have. As they are not caught by Clause 1, they will not be threatened by it and therefore they will not need to be, as it were, protected from its effects. I feel rather like a paper hanger in a high wind but I shall struggle on.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, also raised the question of mortgages and asked whether we were not simply dealing with yet another device to stop local authorities from getting the money they wanted to get. We do not want to stop local authorities selling their mortgages, and I can tell the noble Lord that we have encouraged them to do so as a useful way of generating

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capital receipts and also on the more general grounds that mortgage business is something that properly belongs in the private sector, anyway. The Bill is designed not to prevent sales but to ensure that, if they are made, they are made properly and completely.
The borrower's interests are, after all, affected by the disposal, and I should remind the noble Lord who thought that some borrowers might welcome the transfer to the care of a French bank, that it is the new mortgagee who sets the interest rate and that is a matter of intimate concern to them. The lender may be less sympathetic in dealing with arrears, for instance. The local authority may have a well-established and precedented way of dealing with arrears; the borrower may have it in mind that that will be the way he will be dealt with if he falls into arrears, and be in for a very nasty shock if he suddenly finds that, unbeknown to him, his debt has been transferred to somebody else who has a completely different system and much less interest in the individual. Thus I do not think that this is necessary. If the local authority wants to count a capital receipt from the disposal of a mortgage, then of course it ought also to dispose of the financial risk entirely. Otherwise, it is not, after all, a disposal that is taking place but a borrowing.
The noble Lord raised the matter of proportional representation. I congratulate him, I must say. I think it is a marvellous achievement to bring in PR. So long as he deals with it as courteously and intellectually as he did this afternoon. I shall refrain from the inevitable temptation to rejoin to the umpteenth or trillionth reference to PR with the cry, "PR ha, ha!"
A matter that was raised by one or two of your Lordships in passing was forward funding by those local authorities that will cease to exist at midnight on 31st March. I have seen numerous reports of plans by the GLC in particular, and indeed of certain of the metropolitan county councils, to use unspent resources to fund activities after the abolition date. Their plans involve the payment of forward funding in grants to a variety of organisations, including a number of voluntary bodies, some of which are no doubt highly meritorious and others which your Lordships may think are less so. Very significant amounts of money, perhaps in excess of £100 million, as my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, have pointed out, are reported to be at issue.
It is not appropriate for the GLC and the metropolitan county councils to incur significant expenditure on major new initiatives without the expressed support of all successor authorities in their areas. Where spare financial resources are available, they ought to be passed on to successor authorities under the proposals for the distribution of balances which we have already outlined. Decisions as to the funding of post-abolition activities from ratepayers' money are unarguably the province of successor authorities.
I should remind the House that Section 97 of the Local Government Act places the GLC and the MCCs under a duty to exercise their functions so as to facilitate abolition and the transfer of functions, property and staff under the Act. Where any successor
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authority takes the view that forward funding activities are unreasonable, that authority can have recourse to the courts to seek a judicial review of the activity concerned. Indeed, I understand that in Greater Manchester one of the metropolitan districts has already initiated an action to challenge decisions which were taken by the Greater Manchester County Council last week.
In addition, the councillors of the GLC and MCCs should not forget that their decisions will still be subject to audit challenge, and they to surcharge and disqualification, even after the abolition of their councils. The ratepayers, from whom these resources were in large part taken in the first place, will be very interested indeed to know what has been done with them if they are not returned to them in the person of the successor bodies after abolition. I hope that that goes home where it should. However, I in fact digress from the main content of this Bill, and I have to tell your Lordships that my short answer, having given the long one, is that the question of abolition does not actually fall within the parameters of this Bill.
I therefore return to the Bill and to that part of it that has exercised so magnetic an attraction upon your Lordships this afternoon. In my opening remarks I referred in a general and rather muted way to the evil to which Part II of the Bill is addressed. I assumed, and I was right, that my noble friends would deal with that matter fully and effectively; and that they most certainly did. My noble friends Lord Bellwin and Lord On-Ewing opened on a theme which the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, brought, in spite of interruptions, to an unanswerable crescendo.
To listen to the noble Baroness, Lady David, who I greatly admire, one would scarcely think that there was a really serious problem at all. I hope that she and her noble friends paid close attention to what my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, from the Cross-Benches, have told them today about this. For there is, I think, no serious doubt that the use of public cash taken from private people, as well as private businesses, ought not to be used by local authorities for party political propaganda. The political parties themselves ought to pay for that, and nobody else.
The anxieties which your Lordships have expressed about the way we do this have focused not on what we are trying to do, but on what the results, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, put it, of that effort may be. That turns, of course, on definitions and they can only be teased out in Committee, not in Second Reading speeches. There are, however, some useful points that I can make now.
The first definition that we need, according to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, is a definition of a "political party". Without it, he told us, his learned friends the judges, some of them noble, would be in trouble. With great respect, the judges always seem to have looked after themselves pretty well in political trouble ever since that small question of who was boss in the days of James II. In this case I think there is proof that they can cope quite well, because there are already Acts on the statute book which refer to a political party without defining the term.

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For instance, I refer your Lordships to the Companies Act 1967, to various Finance Acts and also in Section 175 of the Local Government Act 1972, which deals with allowances for attending meetings of bodies the objects of which are wholly or partly political. All these are done without definition. The first of them was done in 1967, so we are only asking the learned judges to continue their invaluable and fearless labours under the interpretations deemed or established for up to nearly 20 years. If I may say so with great respect to the noble and learned Lord, from whom I have learned a very great deal sitting on this Bench in recent years, that is better than the sort of list which he suggested we might use, which could be rendered out of date overnight by any body on it simply resorting to the simple and cheap practice of changing its name.
The main depository of definitions in Part II is in Clause 6 of the Bill and it was to that definition that is in subsection (3) that the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, directed our attention. The definition of "publicity", "publish" and "publication" is, I concede, extremely wide—maybe the noble Lord did not expect me to concede it—but it must start off by it, in order to deal with an extraordinary range of activities. We are not talking just about posters or advertisements in the local newspaper. Lambeth, for instance, have used firework displays. Liverpool have written letters to enormous numbers of parents. But I think I can best give the flavour of this matter if I read out the list of items on which I understand the Greater Manchester County Council authorised expenditure for publicity purposes on 18th March 1985.
It was decided on 18th March to order, I understand, 30,000 balloons at a cost of £1,000; 20,000 car stickers at a cost of £ 1,800; 45,000 carrier bags at a cost of £2,400; 40,000 badges at a cost of £1,700 and 20,000 lapel stickers at, I think, a discount price of only £140, making a total expenditure of £7,040 which ought to be within the definition of the Bill if it falls on the other leg of the definition, that they are used for specifically political purposes.
I ask the noble Lord to remember that the definition applies only in the context of a local authority's party political publicity, and so far as their publicity is not party political it will not, of course, be affected. Councillors are not the local authority, so they will continue to be able to say what they wish. We are not inhibiting free speech. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, whom God-speed to the Western Provinces, raised this matter also, and I would say that the Government recognise that they have gone further than the Widdicombe recommendation in respect of Section 142.
The Government believe that this adjustment is necessary and desirable, in order to include matters such as national foreign policy or defence policy, which are not in the accepted sense, I submit, local government matters at all. The term has been so widely interpreted by some local authorities that they appear to have their own defence and national policies, as my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing sensibly reminded us. But they are not mini-independent states and it does not make much difference whether they
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have a nuclear-free policy or not. So the Bill seeks to ensure that, in future, their information activities relate to services and to matters relating to the functions of the authority.
Continuing on definitions, both the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester were concerned that material campaigning for improved race relations might be caught by the prohibition. I am not sure whether the noble Baroness had this specific example in mind, but it certainly was of the same genus that she had in mind. I can reassure them both, and the outside voluntary bodies who are concerned, that our firm view is that the courts would construe Clause 2(1) in the light of the purpose of the provision, bearing in mind the statutory duties on local authorities and the matters to which they are asked to have regard, as set out in Clause 2(2). Against this background, the Government do not consider that the courts would hold that material promoting racial equality or dealing with race relations questions should, of itself, be prohibited as opposed to material either attacking or promoting a particular position, such as that of the National Front or any other political party, directly.
That brings me to the question of the voluntary movement. I recognise the anxieties and it is important that we should address ourselves to them. Some noble Lords fear that the Bill will restrict their capacity to campaign on matters concerned with their aims and objectives, and I should like to reassure noble Lords, and especially the right reverend Prelate, on some important points. First, the mischief which the Bill seeks to remedy is party political propaganda paid for from the ratepayers' pocket, and the Government do not intend to prevent local authorities from assisting voluntary bodies financially, and publicising within their area the valuable services which they provide, or enabling them to publicise those services for themselves. Under the Bill, voluntary organisations will continue to be able to use local authority money to campaign on matters of concern to them, including government policies, so long as the presentation of local authority-funded publicity does not contravene the terms of the prohibition in Clause 2.
First, since we are concerned with the use of ratepayers' money, the Bill does not restrict the use that a voluntary organisation can make of its own funds. Voluntary organisations, in so far as they are not limited by charitable status or other restrictions outside the Bill, will be free to produce even explicitly party political publicity at their own expense.
Secondly, noble Lords have asked about the effects of Clause 3 directly on the organisations. This clause will not restrict unduly the powers of local authorities to fund non-partisan publicity by voluntary organisations. That is a bland statement of view which your Lordships may wish to test in Committee, although I do not wish to provoke your Lordships into putting down a single extra amendment. We are essentially implementing in this the recommendations of the Widdicombe Committee, that it should be made clear that Section 137 discretionary spending powers may not be used for publicity but that any such change should not prevent the funding under Section 137 of

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voluntary bodies who issue publicity for their own aims and objectives. I believe that we have provided such protection for voluntary organisations, and we have made clear what our intentions are.
In short, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, that the Bill is not designed to constrain voluntary organisations in pursuing their aims and objectives. But, in so far as they are using public funds supplied by local government, they will, of course, have to take care that they do not fall foul of Clause 2, which is set to catch the misconduct that I think we are agreed we should.
Very quickly, may I say that on the question of parishes, in which both my noble friend Lord Ellenborough and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, were interested, I can affirm that we are looking carefully at the drafting of Section 142, in particular to ensure that it does not unduly constrain parish councils. The Government propose to bring forward appropriate amendments at a later stage. They are rather difficult to grasp and it may be Report stage before I can get them on to the Marshalled List, but I shall do my best to speed it up.
On the enforcement of all that we have touched upon, the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, were both concerned. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, said—if I may paraphrase him—that auditors were slow and weak to act and asked why there should not be a power to sue.
Perhaps I may first say that the provisions of Part II will be subject to the normal sanctions for illegal expenditure in local government law to which I have already in part referred. The auditor acting under Section I 9 of the Local Government Finance Act 1982 for unlawful expenditure is one method of approach. Another is judicial review by the courts at the instigation of a person with a sufficient interest. I referred to that and also to its consquences, which may be in an injunction or more. Finally, civil actions in very limited circumstances if a person can show that a private right has been affected, or I think on the direction or recommendation of the Attorney-General. I have to say that this must be seen in the light of the fact that Widdicombe is looking at the public rights of challenge in his main report, and it may well be that when we act on his main report there will be another string or other strings to that bow.
What is the practical effect of Clauses 2 and 3? Here I leave aside Clauses 4 and 5 which do not constrain the powers of local authorities, and look at the combined effects of Clauses 2 and 3 and touch on matters that are of most interest to my noble and mobile friend Lord Sandford. I should first make it clear that we are talking about information. The courts have held that material which is designed to persuade is already outside the scope of Section 142. Clause 3(2) ensures that Section 137 cannot be used to get round this limitation. We are talking about information and, by virtue of Clause 3(1), about the distribution of material which gives information about local authority services.
The effect of Clause 2—one has to look at the whole clause—is that local authorities will not be able to put
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out party political material. The clause talks of material which,
"appears to be designed to affect, or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect, public support for a political party";
but I shall use "party political material" for short.
First, this provision emphatically does not mean that local authorities cannot put out information which touches on issues of controversy, whether these are local or national. Perhaps I may illustrate with two examples. First, at the local level, the information which local authorities put out about their services will naturally aim to emphasise the achievements of the council. It is perfectly reasonable for an annual report, while strictly factual, to put the work of the council in the best possible light. Indeed, the code of practice under the 1980 Act encourages councils to show how their performance compares with that of others.
In this debate it has been said that an annual report of the kind I have described could be caught by Clause 2 because it might be seen as affecting the choice before local electors—for example, at the next elections. I do not think that that is a correct interpretation. Of course, the local authority could well find that Clause 2 restricts the way in which it expresses its achievements. Subsection (2) is relevant here—but there is certainly nothing in the Bill which would prohibit publication of material setting out the achievements of a local authority.
Secondly, at the national level, it is clearly reasonable that local authorities should be able to express their views publicly on the way in which central government policies affect their services or indeed their existence, to go back to an example quoted earlier. Factual information on issues of controversy is the lifeblood of democracy. It is only if the material is designed in such a way as to be party political that it will be caught by Clause 2. So it is not right to suggest that the Bill will stop local authorities from putting out information on matters of political controversy. It will ensure that they consider very carefully the material they use to ensure that it will not in any way be party political.
Nor does anything in the Bill prevent local councillors or groups of councillors from putting out party political material at their own expense. What it does is to bite on material which is put out by councils themselves and therefore paid at somebody else's expense—that is to say the ratepayers. There will still therefore be plenty of scope for local parties to put their political views to electors, and they must pay for them themselves. That is the point of this clause and that part of the Bill.
I had intended to spend a little time on codes of practice and what was said by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway. I will merely say that I paid close attention to what he said and will also take close advice. I am grateful that my noble friend gave me some warning and it embarrasses me therefore to have left no time. I ought to repeat, because I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, could have been listening when I said it before, that the draft code to which your Lordships are referring is so draft as to be embryonic. It is merely put out so that people can see the sort of thing it might deal with and the sort of shape

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it might be in. Therefore, the noble Lord's lengthy anxiety on that subject can be allayed, though of course it may be aroused later on—
Lord Underhill: My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister give way?
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the House will observe the time on the clock and stop counting, I will give way. We will be generous.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for that. I made it absolutely clear, as Hansard will show, that I accepted what the noble Lord had said. The question I really asked is: what form will the code take? Will it be in a schedule in the Bill or will it be an affirmative motion? That is the important point.
Lord Elton: My Lords, it will be an affirmative motion. This House has great experience of codes of practice like this. I refer your Lordships to all your Lordships' enthusiasm when we had the codes of practice incorporated in the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, for instance, so I am a little puzzled by this anxiety about it now.
I shall not deal with the two Westminster cases except to say that Widdicombe recommended an express declaratory provision notwithstanding the two judgments, which disposes of that. I come belatedly to my conclusion which is brief.
My regard for the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, is certainly no less than his regard for me; nor do I think him any less fallible than I am either. I have to tell the noble Lord that the reason why he thinks this Bill provides the wrong answer is that he has asked the wrong question; and I am sorry that he is not here for me to put him right. How, he told us to ask ourselves—and he spoke for those on his Benches—does this Bill measure up against our own vision of what local government should be like? If local government in all its manifestations was as any of us would like, we would not need to have this Bill at all. Even if it was halfway perfect we could leave it as it was.
However, it is not the vision of noble Lords opposite of what local government ought to be to which this Bill is addressed. What this Bill is addressed to is the present condition of local government as it is seen in a few narrow respects and as it is conducted by a few narrow and fundamentally misguided councils. That is not the vision of local government as noble Lords opposite would like it to be; it is the vision of local government that has made my noble friend Lord Bellwin say that it made him weep to look upon. The noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, told us that we were attempting the impossible. On the contrary, we are tackling the inescapable, and with your Lordships' help in Committee we shall accomplish it well.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Museum of London Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Outer Space Bill [H.L.]
8.48 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
One would not want to be frivolous either about the Bill which my noble friend behind me has just moved nor indeed about the Bill which we are now to consider, but perhaps it is a long way between local government matters and outer space. Nevertheless this Bill is an important one. It is intended to enable us to fulfil a number of international obligations concerning the use of outer space. These obligations arise from a series of United Nations conventions, the first and most important of which is the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies—the Outer Space Treaty for short. We signed this treaty in 1967, the year it entered into force. But there are two other conventions which are dealt with in the Bill: the 1972 Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects—which I shall refer to as the "Liability Convention"—and the 1975 Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space—or the Registration Convention for short.
Some noble Lords might wonder how we have managed to meet our obligations in the almost 20-year period since the Outer Space Treaty was signed. Simply put, the answer is that we have had little difficulty, since all the outer space activities for which we have international responsibility have been carried on in the public sector. In the case of governmental activities, we have been able to meet our obligations directly, and informal arrangements have sufficed in the case of other public sector activities.
However, with maturing technology, space now provides commercial opportunities as well as scientific and experimental ones. We must anticipate that private sector companies which can see profit in certain sorts of operational satellite services might wish to procure, launch and operate satellites themselves. When a private sector satellite project occurs, we shall need a legal framework to deal with it. This Bill provides that necessary framework.
That possibility is real. An example of a private sector satellite service is direct broadcasting by satellite—or DBS as it is commonly known. Last year, a consortium concluded that it was not a commercial proposition for them at the time, but the situation is being reviewed and the possibility of a commercial DBS project in the foreseeable future cannot be ruled out. Other examples of privately-operated satellites come from the United States, where there are a number of private sector satellites used for domestic telecommunications and, where, as I understand it, they will quite shortly be used for remote sensing.
Turning briefly to the United Nations conventions, those were negotiated in the United Nations

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Committee of Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and the instruments that it has produced and which the United Kingdom has signed are notable achievements in the development of international law. The obligations that the various conventions impose on the Government, and with which the Bill deals, with can be summarised fairly simply. If there were a United Kingdom private sector satellite project, we should have to authorise and supervise it; we should have to pay compensation—possibly very considerable compensation—if unhappily it caused any damage; and we should have to enter details of any private sector satellites into a register of space objects. I shall now explain those obligations in greater detail and give an indication of how the Bill deals with them.
The obligation to "authorise and supervise" arises under Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty, which provides that any "national activities" in outer space must be subject to authorisation and continuing supervision if they are carried on by a "nongovernmental entity". That obligation is dealt with in the first six clauses of the Bill. Clauses 1 and 2 set the scope of the Bill and ensure that it applies to all national non-governmental activities in outer space. Clause 3 deals with our obligation to authorise, by requiring a licence for such activities. Clause 3 also makes provision for activities to be authorised and supervised by another state if that is more convenient and consistent with the conventions.
Clause 5 provides for supervision of the activities through the use of licence conditions. Those conditions will ensure that our obligations under the United Nations conventions are met. Breach of a licence condition will be an offence—as will be carrying on an unlicensed activity.
Next, there is the obligation to pay compensation. The liability convention makes the Government absolutely liable to pay compensation if an activity for which we are internationally responsible causes damage to another state or to its nationals or companies. We see no reason why the Government should bear that risk in respect of a commercial venture, and Clause 10 of the Bill provides the right to recover any amount the Government have to pay out in compensation as a result of any activities in outer space to which the Act applies. There remains a problem that a licence holder might have insufficient assets to reimburse the Government, but that can be dealt with by using a licence condition to require him or the company to take out suitable liability insurance.
Lastly, there are our obligations under the registration convention. Under that convention, we must keep a register of space objects and furnish the United Nations Secretary-General with certain information about each object on the register. We have so far kept a voluntary register, but Clause 7 of the Bill will put it on a formal and statutory basis. Licence conditions will be used to ensure that we receive the information we need so as to pass it to the United Nations.
I should also mention particularly Clauses 8 and 9. They contain powers to deal with unlicensed activities and with breaches of licence conditions. Clause 8 allows the Secretary of State to give directions to a person breaking the law if that is necessary to secure
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compliance with our international obligations. Those directions are enforceable by injunction or, with a warrant issued under Clause 9, by direct action if that should prove necessary in any particular case. Those powers have been included because of the potentially harmful effects of improperly conducted outer space activities.
What I have said about private sector satellites applies equally to public sector, no-governmental satellites such as those which have been launched by the Science and Engineering Research Council and by the University of Surrey. So far, we have been able to fulfil our obligations under the convention in respect of those satellites informally, but there seems to be advantage in bringing them within a statutory framework now that one is being established. We recognise that in some respects scientific satellites ought to be treated differently from commercial satellites, and we have built sufficient flexibility into the Bill to take account of that point.
The Bill imposes the minimum degree of regulation necessary to enable us to meet our international obligations. It contains sufficient flexibility to allow the degree of regulation to be adjusted to the needs of the case. It is, I suggest, a modest measure, but one that is important to the private sector and that will allow the private sector to plan outer space projects with knowledge of how the legal framework will operate. I commend it to the House and beg to move that it be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
8.58 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for having introduced what he has described as a little Bill so concisely and so persuasively. In considering this Bill it might be a good thing if we noted for once and laid some emphasis upon the fact that it has proved possible over the past 20 years for nations with many different objectives and political ideologies, made up of people with different faiths and different colours, to co-operate successfully together.
We become so accustomed to talking about countries whose ideologies differ from our own in somewhat hostile terms that it does no harm to emphasise that the existence of the treaty itself, and of the conventions to which the noble Lord has referred, illustrate that very much behind the scenes, almost entirely out of the public eye and therefore away from public controversy, those conventions and the treaty have, so far as I know, been meticulously adhered to by those concerned. If the noble Lord has any information to the contrary, I shall be very pleased to have it.
True enough, the conventions which follow on from the treaty are now somewhat aged. The Convention on International Liability for Damage caused by Space Objects (Cmnd. 5551) was published in March 1974 and the Convention on the Registration of Objects Lodged in Outer Space was presented to this Parliament in 1978, even though it was concluded on 14th January 1975. It would be helpful if at some time, whether by letter placed in the Library or by an

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arranged Answer to a Written Question, the ratification can be brought up to date. In looking at the concluding sections of these conventions, one finds that a number of states had not, at the date of publication, ratified them. They may since have done so and it would be useful for us to know just what is the present state of play.
I can understand the necessity for the Government to bring in a Bill at this stage. It has become clear over recent years that operations in outer space are no longer the exclusive province of governments themselves or indeed of government agencies. There are numbers of private companies, either alone or in consortium, who are now in the business of launching rockets to take satellites into orbit. There is the manufacturing of the satellites themselves, their subsequent use for the relaying of programmes, the retransmission of news, pictures, and all kinds of information. These are now becoming increasingly within the realm of the private sector. I am glad that the Government have taken some steps to regulate them.
The practical implications of this in so far as domestically launched satellites are concerned is at the moment very restricted. Most launches of satellites, in terms of the launching of a rocket from a pad into outer space so that it can dispose of its satellites, are carried out either in America on the top of Centaur rockets or else on the Ariane rocket which operates from French Guiana. So far as I know there are no substantial launch pads in the United Kingdom and there are unlikely to be for some considerable time, mainly because of the uneconomic nature of launching satellites by means of a rocket from anywhere that is too far from the equator. For example the satellites launched with the aid of the Ariane rocket, nearly on the equator, can actually be sent up at a lower cost than those propelled by the Centaur from American territory. The differential is about 15 per cent. in cost, or an extra 15 per cent. in payload.
As is probably well known, proposals are being negotiated at present whereby it might be possible to launch rockets from very large tankers at sea, on the equator. That is a possibility. The advantage of such launches is that there is less likelihood of civilians being involved in the event of failure in the rocket apparatus itself. I have not of course mentioned the space shuttle which has had such an unfortunate disaster recently. We all regret that. I think it will be some time before substantial use can be made of the shuttle to put satellites into orbit without government support. Therefore, I think that in the foreseeable future we are likely to rely on rockets.
The whole launching operation and the manufacture, supply, fitting, maintenance and operation of satellites is very expensive. That is why I think the Government are very wise in drawing up the Bill in the widest sense; in particular Clauses 1 and 2. For example, if a British national or a British firm is to participate in the activities that are governed by the licensing provisions of the Bill, it is clear that most British companies will be unable to sustain the entire operation, including launching, themselves.
In practice what will happen, and what it already happening, is that consortia will be formed. One part
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of a consortium will deal with the manufacture of the rocket; another will deal with the launching; another with the supply of a satellite, and so on. British private interests will participate not from the territory of the United Kingdom but from either French Guiana, using Ariane, or from America, using Centaur, and possibly in the future launching from the sea in the manner I have described—but certainly not within the United Kingdom.
Nevertheless, as the Government have apprehended there will be a British participation in it—British companies and/or British nationals—and it is quite right that the Government should take the view that from wherever the operation is launched, and whatever happens, the people responsible for either the launching or the satellite, its construction, operation and so on, if they are British nationals, in effect should be responsible to the British Government for anything that occurs which throws a liability under the original treaty onto the British Government.
I have one or two queries about that aspect of the matter. Clause 1 states:
"This Act applies to the following activities whether carried on in the United Kingdom or elsewhere—
(a) launching or procuring the launch of a space object".
I am not quite sure whether the word "procuring" is sufficient to cover all the operations; or on the other hand perhaps it may be too inclusive.
I invite the noble Lord to explain a little more fully what "procuring" means. For example, let us say that in the United Kingdom there was an individual or a group of individuals who had the bright idea that they ought to gather together x, y, z and a into a consortium for the purpose of launching a satellite into space, securing the advertising revenue for it, marketing it, co-ordinating its construction, and so on. Would the author of the idea, who would possibly be paid a fee for his (or their) services be held to come within the procuring section? If that is so, I fear that the net will be cast very wide.
In declaring a very indirect and as yet remote financial interest in the subject of this Bill, I may say that I am acting as a consultant at the present time for a group of individuals who have this idea very much in mind. I would not want to tender my advice on the basis that, if anything eventually went wrong with the satellite which the consortium had sent up into space, then I as the originator of the idea would suddenly be descended upon by the Government, who would invite me to contribute to their liability. Noble Lords will see exactly what I mean. I just want to define the limits within which that will operate.
The other point is concerned with something to which the noble Lord has already referred; that is, the question of insurance. I assure the noble Lord in advance that were I to be held liable for procuring in this sense my own personal slender means would certainly not run to meeting any bill for a satellite which has descended on the middle of Paris. Of course the question arises of whether one would have insurance in those cases. The noble Lord has referred to insurance, presumably in the belief that insurance for projects of this kind will be easy to obtain. I am very well aware that a number of projects which have gone up in the past and are operating quite successfully

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have been insured at Lloyd's. Indeed, Lloyd's must be one of the leading markets for this. I should imagine that unfortunately, owing to the terrible disaster of the shuttle, the premiums will go up very significantly in the future.
I wonder whether the Government are prepared to consider a back-up in the case of insurance premiums becoming too extensive in this particular field? Of course there are precedents for this, albeit in different areas. For example, the noble Lord will be aware that in the United States there is a federal deposit insurance for individual deposits with banks of up to 100,000 dollars, and if they fail the state pays out depositors up to that figure. So even in a free capitalist society there is a precedent for the state standing behind a private insurance. I wonder whether the Government have given this aspect any thought, because it is quite clear that with the type of operation that is now envisaged the amount of potential damage is very considerable.
I must not quote my authority for it, but I believe this statement to be true: that there is a degree of minimisation of damage owing to the fact that if satellites are at a very great height they tend to burn up before they re-enter the atmosphere and possibly in some cases the damage is likely to be minimal. It is the launching apparatus that normally presents the greatest hazard to human life and to property.
I observe that the Secretary of State is to license the activities: he may specify by order the activities that will be covered. I think that is right. But, as with other such Bills which tend to be rather important, I am not too happy about that being subject to the negative procedure. I hope that before we reach the next stage of the Bill the noble Lord will have carefully looked through it to see whether in a matter of increasing importance it is not wise to adopt the affirmative procedure so that matters may be more easily drawn to the attention of Members of this House and of another place, rather than it being left to vigilant people to watch for negative resolutions. I think that may be prudent, and the Government would not suffer thereby.
The Government have faithfully followed in the Bill the registration principles set out in the convention. I gather from the treaty, and on the assumption that the treaty has been complied with, that the appropriate United Nations agency already has a complete record of all launchings and objects that have been put into space. There is an obligation on every state to notify the United Nations, which keeps a register, and there is an obligation on individual states to keep their own register.
Already some hundreds of these objects are whizzing about in space or are stationary, as the case may be, although they are moving around in the space in which we are revolving. Is it intended to start the register with what is already recorded by the various states and the United Nations? It would be useful to know from where we start.
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These matters do not attract much public attention, but the public, or at any rate the press which could then inform the public, would be interested to know just what is up there. I note that the register is to be public. I hope that from the beginning it will be up to date. I note that a fee will be charged, and I sincerely hope once again that it will be reasonable. Perhaps the noble Lord will indicate at a later stage in the Bill what the fee will be. I think he may be surprised at how much the public take advantage of the facility.
I shall not go over the description that the noble Lord gave, because he did it so well. But I come now to the offences part of the Bill. One phrase fascinates me. Clause 12(3), on page 6, reads:
"Where an offence committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to neglect on the part of, a director, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or a person purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate is guilty of the offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly".
What is the nature of the offence and what will be the punishment? Will it be an indictable offence or a misdemeanour? Will it carry a maximum term of imprisonment, a fine or what? The term "punished accordingly" seems to give the courts remarkable latitude over whether they incarcerate the poor chap for life or let him off with a fine. At Committee stage the Government may have to define that a little more closely. After all, it is the courts that have to enforce the law.
The Bill itself is quite unexceptionable. I repeat that it is something that is required at the present time. I pass no criticism upon the Government for not having introduced it before, because the involvement of British persons or British bodies corporate in these affairs has been comparatively limited. Some corporations have taken part. Dare I mention British Telecom, now in the private sector? British Telecom, making use of Ariane, Centaur or the shuttle, has already sent a number of satellites of enormous use into space. It is a commercial body. It does not come under the category of scientific bodies, to which the noble Lord has referred, or governmental bodies.
Will this Bill, when an Act, be retrospective so far as poor old British Telecom is concerned? Say that half-a-dozen of its satellites cause damage now—I sincerely trust not and I was going to say "Heaven forfend" that anything happens to them—before the Act comes into effect, will it be liable? Will the Act have any retrospective effect at all? I would imagine, in any case, that all people, all companies, all consortia, that are at the moment actively engaged in what we loosely term the space business will pay considerable attention to this Bill. I sincerely hope that they do so. It is absolutely necessary for the proper regulation of their activities. We, on this side, commend the Government for introducing it.
9.22 p.m.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, we on these Benches naturally understand the purpose of the Bill and welcome its introduction. I have a few queries and it is perhaps appropriate that I should set them out now. Many of them, and one major one especially, may arise, as I hope, from my misunderstanding of the Bill. If so, the noble Lord can no doubt quiet my apprehensions.
The first query is one of information. Does the passage of the Bill enable the Government now to ratify the three conventions? The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, asked about ratification by other Governments. What about our own Government? I notice that the main convention, the 1967 one, in the form in which it is available to Members of this House today carries the legend on the front that the treaty has not been ratified by the United Kingdom. However, we have, of course, signed it.
Secondly, can the noble Lord the Minister explain Clause 3(2)(b) and Clause 3(3) giving the Secretary of State power to let a lot of people out of the licensing arrangements altogether by order, the order to be laid before both Houses of Parliament? Does this mean that each individual enterprise is to be exempted from the operation of the Act by an individual order to be laid before Parliament? Or does it refer to whole classes of persons? If so, what classes of persons? If it is a case of individual enterprises, which the Secretary of State will be free to exempt, why does he not simply give them a licence? Is not a licence a much more suitable instrument for permitting an individual, whether a corporate legal individual or a flesh and blood individual, to do something, than an order to be laid before Parliament?
Another minor inquiry relates to Clause 6(1). This states that a licence may be transferred without the consent of the Secretary of State in such cases as may be prescribed. Prescribed by whom? What sort of cases do the Government have in mind for this transfer of a licence without the consent of the Secretary of State?
I come now to my main worry. It is a worry about whether this Bill catches enough people, not about the kind of thing it does, which are clearly right, but whether there are classes of legal persons who may find their way through it. Let us look at where it applies. It applies under Clause 1 to activities carried on in the United Kingdom "or elsewhere". Good!—that means "elsewhere" where the United Kingdom Government are responsible, whether dependent territories or ships. Can the noble Lord confirm that? I see him nodding. That is good news. So we are not talking about things which may be done worldwide, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, explained, which may only be able to be done for physical reasons from ships near the Equator.
If we turn to the whole purpose which is set out in the convention, what the convention requires of its signatories, and of civilised nations in general, is this. It says that the responsibility for national activities in outer space shall be borne by "the appropriate state party" to the treaty. That leaves one with quite a lot of alternatives.
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In Article 7 it states that each state party that launches or procures the launching of an object is responsible; and each state party from whose territory or facility—presumably including a ship—an object is launched is internationally liable equally. So there is dual responsibility under the convention. This Bill, quite correctly, seeks to give effect to that.
Let us look at the class of persons who may be called to order by the Secretary of State, or licensed, compared with those who may not. Let me announce my worry in advance. My worry is that I do not see how the Bill applies to foreign corporations acting through their own employees in Britain or on British facilities—ships, colonies, etc. We find that the Act applies to United Kingdom nationals and bodies incorporated under the law of any part of the United Kingdom. It does not apply to bodies incorporated under the law of another country.
Turning to Clause 3(2), we find that a licence is not required
"by a person acting as employee or agent of another".
That is to say, only the principal must be licensed. But the principal, so far, we see, is a company incorporated under the law of the United Kingdom, not under the law of any other country.
We turn now to Clause 12(6) and find that:
"A person other than a person to whom this Act applies"—
which I think includes a foreign company"—
"is not guilty of an offence under this Act ‖ except—
(a) an offence of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring, conspiracy or incitement in relation to the commission of an offence under this Act in the United Kingdom"—
not elsewhere. That is, not in its dependencies, not in British ships at sea. Or, the foreign corporation can be guilty, under Clause 12(6)(b), of
"an offence under subsection (3) (liability of directors, officers, &c.) in connection with an offence committed by a body corporate which is a person to whom this Act applies".
That is rather obscure. How a person to whom the Act cannot apply can be guilty in connection with an offence committed by a person to whom it does apply is rather obscure. I think that it would be advantageous if the noble Lord, after taking legal advice at a later stage, could spell that out.
My fear is of the foreign registered company which exploits our responsibility without being liable to any responsibility of its own under this Bill as drafted. I hope that I have got this wrong. Perhaps the noble Lord will explain it.
One last worry is about insurance again. I am very glad to hear the noble Lord say that the Government propose to use insurance to the hilt. This is a principle that we on these Benches have long supported.
Therefore in general one must welcome the appearance of insurance, not in the Bill but in the explanatory speech of the noble Lord. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, is right, but perhaps he did not go far enough when he spoke about the difficulty of getting insurance. Yesterday, in a more heated debate than this one, I asserted that at the moment it was impossible to insure activities in space. I do not know whether that is literally true in every case. Even

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if it is literally true at present, it may not be true for long. However, it is certainly true that it is extremely difficult to get insured for space activities at all, even at a high premium. I know that the noble Lord would not have spoken to this House about it without being fully informed of the state of the insurance market. I rejoice in what he said. I take it this means that if a person wants to do something and cannot obtain insurance for it, he will not receive a licence for it. That is the right principle and I hope to see it applied in space as well. We believe that the insurance industry is grossly under-used by the Government. As a general principle, we should tell people that they can do something if they can obtain satisfying insurance. That would solve a great many of the problems of permission-giving and licensing in our economy as a whole.
I have one last inquiry. The Bill says nothing at all about the military uses of space. Does the Bill impinge on that? For instance, would a foreign government using a British registered merchant ship in the tropics, using British soil or a British dependency—we have to think of everything; this is not the moment to laugh; this is the moment to get it right—would such a government, using a "British facility", in the words of the convention, to communicate with military space satellites for receiving the read-outs, the encrypted material and so on, fall within the Bill? If not, what is the frontier? And what about foreign registered firms undertaking military research? The Bill says nothing about all this, and at some stage it would be useful if the Government would spell it out. In general I repeat that we welcome the Bill.
9.33 p.m.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for their genuine and broad welcome to this measure which has been introduced in your Lordships' House tonight. I did not realise that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, was a consultant in this area. I know him to be a man with diverse and different interests. I find it encouraging that he is particularly interested in this measure which no doubt will enable the House to get through it with the least possible delay.
As both noble Lords have given a welcome to this measure and have raised rather particular questions, the best I can do this evening is to answer as many as I can. I know that your Lordships will be generous enough to accept that I do not have the answers to some of the questions, particularly the legal ones. Noble Lords may be assured that if I do not answer their questions tonight, I shall either answer both noble Lords in writing and place copies of my letters in the Library—which is the convention of your Lordships' House—or we may have to wait until the next stage.
I should like to deal with one or two points that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, made. First, I very much welcome his comment that here we have conventions which are some 20 years old, and nations have been able to work in harmony along the lines of those
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conventions. Let it not be misunderstood: in no way has there been a misunderstanding which has resulted in this Bill coming before your Lordships' House tonight. It is time we had such a measure because of the new frontiers that are being explored.
The noble Lord specifically asked me about breaches of the conventions. I am not aware of any, and I think that that in itself is a tribute to the durabilitiy of the convention. So far as concerns ratification, the latest information I have is that over 80 countries are bound by the outer space treaty; nearly 70 are bound by the liability convention; and over 30 by the registration convention. Additionally the European Space Agency has declared acceptance of the rights and obligations under the liability convention and indeed the registration convention. I think that probably answers the noble Lord on that point.
The noble Lord asked me about the use of the word "procuring" in Clause 1. This is included in Clause 1 since the registration convention and the liability convention include it as one of the ways a state can acquire liability for an object. A person in this instance procures a launch if, for example, he asks Arianespace to launch a satellite for him. The author of the idea—I think that was the noble Lord's own phrase—will not need a licence unless he personally carries the idea through. We would expect that it would normally only be the satellite operator who needs the licence. Others involved in the project, such as the manufacturer or the subcontractors, would not normally procure the launch or operate the satellite, so they would not normally require a licence.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and the noble Lord, Kennet, asked about insurance. We believe that certainly the Lloyd's market is robust enough and strong enough, and has a sufficiently high reputation, to insure anything in this world, and in that I include the other, the outer space world.
Lord Bruce of Donington: This world and the next.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: Well, it may be the next. The liability insurance involved in the Bill would, we believe, represent only a very small proportion of the total cost of the operation, unlike the insurance of a satellite and a launcher, which of course are insured. In any case, the state itself is liable for damage under the liability convention. As a result of the introduction of this Bill I shall probably have more detailed information on that at a later stage that I could communicate.
The noble Lord asked about the register. The present voluntary register is kept by the British National Space Centre. It contains details of the four United Kingdom satellites launched since we ratified the registration convention, and one satellite launched before then. The information on that register will be transferred to the new statutory register when it is established. The one space object on the register which was launched before we ratified the convention, has already been notified, and so that will be included.
Regarding the fee for inspection of the United Kingdom register, I anticipate that that would be of a modest nature. The noble Lord will appreciate that the United Kingdom register would only contain details of those registerable under this Act, not of course across

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the world. The noble Lord moved on to the question of offences and punishment. He asked me what "punished accordingly" means in Clause 12(3). The offences may be tried summarily or by indictment and whatever penalties may be imposed are dealt with in Clause 12(2). We can return to this if the noble Lord wishes, but I assure him that it is adequately covered.
The noble Lord asked me about British Telecom and retrospection. I am advised that none of British Telecom's present activities falls within the scope of the convention, so it will not need a licence. There would be no retrospective effect of the Bill. Communications satellites are currently operated by intergovernmental organisations, so that would be the exclusion there.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, asked me a number of questions. I believe I have answered his first one relating to ratification.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, I asked the noble Lord to tell us when the United Kingdom ratified the 1967 Treaty.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, my understanding is that we have already ratified it.
Lord Kennet: When, my Lords?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I cannot tell the noble Lord that, but I shall do so in the fullness of time. I do not know. The Bill before us is purely to bring into force the convention; that is, our treaty obligations which we signed whenever it was—I mentioned it in my opening remarks.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, it was 27th January 1967.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most obliged to the noble Lord. In January 1967 we signed the treaty, which is the ratification.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, on reflection I believe the noble Lord will agree that signature is not the same as ratification. Ratification is a separate act and according to the constitutional convention in this country if legislation is required ratification comes after the legislation, and here is the legislation.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, if I am wrong then I shall ensure that that s corrected. If I have this wrong I shall return to it, but I am fairly confident that we have ratified these conventions. The noble Lord asked me particularly about Clause 6(1), the description of "prescribed". It means prescription by regulations made by the Secretary of State under the powers given in Clause 11. Clause 6 provides for the transfer of a licence from one licensee to another. That might be desired if, for example, a satellite is to be sold while in orbit. Transfer will normally require the written consent of the Secretary of State. That gives him the opportunity to reassess the situation if that is necessary. However, if, with experience of administering the Bill, it appears that there are commonly occurring situations in which consent for a transfer is granted then the Secretary of State can make regulations avoiding the need for written consent.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I may assist the noble Lord by informing him, and through him the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that both of the conventions have been ratified by the United Kingdom. They are both confirmed in the Command Papers which were published on the subject.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, again I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite. I thought I was right, but I could not recall exactly when it was done.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, asked me about Clause 3(2)(b) and (3). That deals with the Secretary of State's ability to exclude certain people by order. The purpose of that procedure is to exempt from licensing certain classes of people such as the research councils, not that each licence will necessarily call for an order.
I have dealt with the question of licensing. The question from the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, which I think I should answer tonight was his last one. That is: does the Bill effectively impinge on the military use of space? He asked: what about, for example, foreign persons using British facilities? The Bill will not directly affect the activities of foreigners, but if in providing facilities to foreigners a United Kingdom company carries on an activity to which the Act applies, then that United Kingdom company will need a licence.
I think I have answered all the outstanding and important questions which I feel should be on the record in Hansard. I accept that there are one or two, I think perhaps of lesser importance, which I have not directly answered, particularly two of those requiring legal advice which I do not have readily available. If I may, I shall write to both noble Lords and, as I said earlier, ensure that copies are placed in the Library. If necessary, of course we can pursue the matters at a later stage. With your Lordships' agreement, I think I should now conclude and ask that the Bill be read a second time.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Bishops (Retirement) Measure
9.47 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bishops (Retirement) Measure, has consented to place her prerogative and interests, so far as they are affected by the measure, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the measure.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester The Lord Bishop of Rochester rose to move, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Bishops (Retirement) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for Royal Assent.
The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, I should like to speak to the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper, standing as they do, between outer space and fresh meat.
This first Measure seeks to simplify the law and removes the necessity for the retirement of a diocesan

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or a suffragan bishop to be confirmed by the Queen in council. That is why the Measure requires Her Majesty's consent which, as we have just heard, she has graciously given. The Measure sets out the only methods open to a bishop or archbishop for resignation and retirement in normal circumstances. It also consolidates, with some minor amendments, the relevant law concerning the resignation of a bishop because of his incapacity due either to physical or to mental disability.
Perhaps I should make clear that the procedure contained in the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963, concerning cases of misconduct, is unaffected. It should also be noted that an order in council will continue to be required before the resignation of an archbishop.
Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that there has been considerably more enthusiasm for this Bishops (Retirement) Measure than there was for the luckless Appointment of Bishops Measure. Indeed, it was passed in all three Houses of the General Synod without a single vote against, the vote being 301 to nil.
There has, as your Lordships would expect, been the closest consultation throughout with the representatives of the Crown, with the Lord Chancellor's Department, and with the Home Office, and the Measure, as I now present it to your Lordships, has of course the support of them all and has been found expedient by the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament. Accordingly, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Bishops (Retirement) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for Royal Assent.—[The Lord Bishop of Rochester.]
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Ecclesiastical Fees Measure
9.50 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester The Lord Bishop of Rochester rose to move, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure be presented to Her Majesty the Queen for Royal Assent.
The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper and which may take me about a minute longer than the one I have just moved. This Measure makes new provision for ecclesiastical fees and replaces the Measure that was passed nearly a quarter of a century ago, in 1962. As under the previous Measure, the various fees will continue to be specified by order, but this new Measure introduces certain changes to simplify the procedure in General Synod for making such orders.
This new Measure stems from a report of the Parochial Fees Commission received by the General Synod in November 1979. The changes of procedure it proposes provide for wider consultation in the preparation of orders prescribing fees payable for legal officers. It provides for the right of members to amend some draft orders—a right which they do not at
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present enjoy—and at the same time it provides for the saving of time at meetings of General Synod where there is general agreement to do so. The Measure provides for the making of three different types of order. First, there are Parochial Fees Orders. These relate to the fees charged in parishes for marriages and funerals. Secondly, there are the Legal Officers (Annual Fees) Orders. These deal with the annual retainers paid to registrars. Thirdly, there are the Ecclesiastical Judges and Legal Officers (Fees) Orders which relate to the fees charged by the ecclesiastical courts.
The Measure replaces the existing Fees Committee, which consists of only three lawyers, with a new Fees Advisory Commission which will include, in addition to three lawyers, representatives of the Church Commissioners, the Central Board of Finance of the Church of England and the Standing Committee of General Synod. This increased membership will more fully reflect the role of the bodies with financial obligations towards the remuneration of legal officers. Parochial Fees Orders will, as at present, continue to be prepared by the Church Commissioners.
The changes in the procedures of General Synod are modest but time-saving. The obligation for every draft order to be debated is removed but members of Synod retain the right to discuss an order if they wish and indeed may give notice of their wish not only to debate but also to amend an order. Such an amendment will require the support of 25 other members of Synod before it can be debated but, as I have said already, this right to move an amendment is new. A similar right to ask for a debate on a Legal Officers (Annual Fees) Order is provided, although as at present there will be no right to amend an order.
This fees Measure first came before the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament in May 1985, and was subsequently amended by the Synod to ensure that all fees orders are subject to parliamentary control. The present Measure has since been found expedient by the Ecclesiastical Committee, following a vote in General Synod when it was passed in all three Houses by a total of 192 votes to 10. Accordingly, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, I beg to move that the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure be presented to Her Majesty for Royal Assent.
Moved, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure be presented to Her Majesty the Queen for Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of Rochester.)
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, may I ask the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester a question on Part III of the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure, Clause 8? It reads:
"Where an archbishop or bishop has paid any sum by virtue of any order made or deemed to be made under this Measure and the liability to pay that sum was imposed on him as archbishop or bishop, the Church Commissioners shall reimburse that sum to the archbishop or bishop".
I am quite certain that General Synod has given due consideration to this clause, but perhaps the right reverend Prelate could say a little more about what the obligations of an archbishop or a bishop might be, and

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how that clause could be discharged without prejudice to the public purse.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester: My Lords, I think this refers to the fact that all the legal fees payable by a bishop for all kinds of services provided by the legal officers, such as the installation of first dignitaries and so on, are not paid by the bishop personally but by the Church Commissioners on his behalf. The clause on which the noble Lord has picked merely puts that on the record so that any fees that the archbishop or bishop has been required to pay are reimbursed to him by the Church Commissioners in the perfectly normal way.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Residues in Animals and Fresh Meat: ECC Report
9.55 p.m.
Lord Gallacher Lord Gallacher rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their reponse to the report of the European Communities Committee on Examination of Animals and Fresh Meat for the Presence of Residues (3rd Report, 1985–86, H.L. 42).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, there is a clear need to monitor the presence of potentially harmful substances in meat. Most member states of the Community already have national systems for governing sampling for residues of substances such as hormones and pesticides. Pressure to change the status quo has come from two main sources. First, consumers throughout the Community have become increasingly concerned about the possible effects of diet on health. Although certain hormonal growth promoters were banned after a scandal in Italy five years ago, consumers are still concerned about the presence of residues in meat. Secondly, the plan of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, to complete the internal market by 1992 calls for common levels and policies for veterinary and plant health and the alignment of national standards to common standards as much as possible in order to facilitate intra-Community trade.
The Commission has accordingly issued a draft directive proposing a uniform system of monitoring for residues. This proposal has been broadly welcomed in the Community and by the relevant trade associations, as well as the National Farmers' Union and the Meat and Livestock Commission in the United Kingdom, although the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food expressed reservations over the cost and practicality of the scheme.
The United Kingdom currently performs 300 tests for residues a year on each principal species of farm animal. With the exception of Luxembourg, which has few farm animals, most member states carry out many more tests than in the United Kingdom. In West Germany more than 220,000 samples are taken each year, while in Italy the number of samples taken increased more than three-fold from 119, 117 in 1981 to 387,792 in 1982. Although there is no direct correlation between the number of samples taken and the degree of protection afforded to the consumer, the United Kingdom's approach to sampling is regarded as minimalist by other member states.
These considerations led the sub-committee to welcome the Commission's attempt to set up a common residue monitoring regime which would institute a standard system within the member states. The sub-committee considers it to be a step towards facilitating Community trade and furthering the completion of the internal market. While believing that the Commission's proposal is based on a response to pressure by consumers in certain member states rather than on any scientific evidence, the subcommittee considers it important to maintain consumer confidence in meat and meat products.
The sub-committee makes a number of observations on the draft directive. It recommends that standard procedures should be established to be used by all member states and by those third countries with which the Community trades on a large scale. It recommends the establishment of common residue limits. It deprecates the fact that the Commission's proposal does not extend to poultry meat. It regrets the absence of any estimate by the Commission as to the possible cost of the proposed scheme and recommends that the cost should fall at the same point in each member state, in order to avoid possible market distortions.
It recommends that research should continue to be carried out into cheaper practical methods of testing for residues. It recommends that animals and meat imported from third countries should be subject to the same tests as those carried out on animals and meat produced within the EC. It recommends that the majority of testing should be carried out at the point of slaughter, and, finally, it disapproves of the proposed derogation for members states with fewer than 10 per cent. holdings with more than 20 animals.
While the committee was undertaking its inquiry, the Commission issued a further proposal to ban the use of all growth-promoting hormonal substances in animal production apart from use for therapeutic purposes. The Commission was responding to intense pressure from sections of the consumer lobby and in particular to a resolution carried by a large majority by the European Parliament on 10th October 1985. The committee was grateful to Mr. Ken Collins, Member of the European Parliament and rapporteur to the European Parliament for its report on the use of hormones, for his help during its inquiry.
The Commission's proposal was agreed by the Council of Agriculture Ministers in December, despite the strong reservations expressed by the United Kingdom Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As a result of Mr. Jopling's strong resistance to the proposal for a total ban, the United Kingdom secured a one-year derogation from the ban, which will come into effect in all other Community countries from 1st January 1988. The committee had insufficient time to take evidence on the Commission's proposal, which is outlined on pages 22 and 23 of the report. Its reaction to it is summarised as follows: it agreed not to make a recommendation based on incomplete scientific evidence. It notes, however, that the use of hormonal substances in animal production has increased the quantity of meat available to the consumer. One effect of a total ban on the use of hormonal substances for growth promotion would be to reduce the quantity of lean meat available.
That is the sum total of the committee's response to the Commission's proposal for a total ban. In outlining the conclusions of the report, I have been speaking in my capacity as chairman of Sub-Committee D—the Agriculture, Food and Consumer Affairs Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on the European Communities. With the leave of the House, I should like to conclude on a personal note by raising three points with the Minister.
First, I should like to ask the Minister whether he believes that it is desirable that the Commission should issue proposals—or that the Council of Agriculture Ministers should adopt proposals—that are based on incomplete scientific evidence and may be seen more in terms of a reaction to political pressure. Secondly, does he agree with several of those who gave evidence to the committee that the imposition of a total ban will make the need for monitoring for the presence of residues more, rather than less, important? And finally, I should like to ask the Minister whether he agrees that the one-year derogation from the total ban allowed for the United Kingdom is likely to cause disruption to the United Kingdom export trade both in the short and in the long term; and, if he does not agree, whether he will enlighten me on the reason behind a derogation that, to me, is inexplicable in trading terms.
10.3 p.m.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I rise to take part in this debate although my knowledge of the subject was only gained through sitting on the committee and listening to all the admirable interviews that we had with different people. I should particularly like to thank our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, for the very brilliant manner in which he chaired the committee and for the encouraging way in which he managed to secure so much information from those who gave evidence.
As your Lordships may know, I am a very old farmer. I knew nothing about this problem until I listened to the evidence given by so many experienced people. Even now I find the name of the different hormonal substances impossible to understand. If your Lordships care to look at paragraphs 7 and 8 of the report, you will see some of the terms to which I am referring.
In my farming activities I do not use hormones, so I have no experience of the matter. On the other hand, I have connections with the subject through the Consumers' Association. The association has received many letters from the public because there is anxiety about the residues in cattle and about the effect that they could have on meat sold to consumers. I feel reassured in this because of the central control exercised by the Veterinary Products Committee, which can issue or withdraw licences for the use of hormones according to whether it considers there is any risk to the consumer. This is described in paragraph 16—control of residues.
This surveillance continues under the auspices of the Food Science Division of the Ministry of Agriculture. We are not the only European country which operates tests. West Germany, France, the Netherlands all have these operating tests. In
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paragraph 22 there is a whole list of countries outside the EC which also have a national monitoring scheme. That of course is also reassuring.
The FAO and the World Health Organisation co-operate in the testing of whether there are any bad residues resulting from hormones. Support for a monetary standard was also, according to our evidence, quite strong. The Meat and Livestock Commission, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the National Farmers' Union and the National Federation of Meat Traders all gave evidence to our committee. All were concerned that a standard should be adhered to which would maintain the confidence of the consumer who in this case is the really important person.
Our committee agreed about this and is prepared to support a codified system which will reassure buyers and consumers of the quality of the meat. For this it may be necessary to increase the tests and we thought, as the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, said, that these should be carried out at the abattoirs and should apply to meat that we import as well as to meat that we export.
A discussion took place about the cost of this monitoring and we came to the conclusion that, if necessary, the charge should go to the Government under the same regulations in each member state. This would also apply to the meat which is imported from third world countries.
This is a highly technical report and a highly technical subject. It does not apply to all agriculture but it does apply to those who use meat and are meat producers. Our committee has made a contribution which I hope will be of use and value to the Ministry of Agriculture and I am sure that we shall hear from the Minister of State that he will give answers to some of the questions that we have put. I have great pleasure in supporting our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher.
10.7 p.m.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, I, too, start by expressing appreciation of our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, for leading us through this labyrinth of technicalities and for drawing the information so carefully from the various people whom we interviewed.
It is a very difficult subject. The purity of food is very high in everyone's priorities and when impurities involve such things as hormones commonsense seems to go out of the window, together with reason, and the whole matter seems to approach the area of panic and hysteria. It seems that something of this nature has happened in Strasbourg. As the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, said, harmonisation of residues in meat was the primary object to start with and that is what the report is about. The objective seemed entirely laudable. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will feel that the report is well worth while.
In the meantime, there was this harmonisation on how to test residues and how we can reconcile our own way of doing it with, say, Germany, which tests much more thoroughly, or Italy, which tests in a different way, or with countries outside the Common Market which might be sending meat to the Common Market.

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While all this was going on, the regulation came out, which in a way made the whole report obsolete and accomplished harmonisation in one by telling us that implants of a hormonal nature were not to be used any more, and the English farmer was given a dispensation—an achievement of the Minister of Agriculture—so that we do not have to put this regulation into effect until, I think, 1989.
As has already been brought out, that decision was made by a feeling in the Parliament in Strasbourg which was completely unsupported by scientific fact. That is why I mentioned panic and hysteria earlier on in my very brief speech. The fact of the matter is that there was a committee appointed by the commissioners, under the chairmanship of Professor Lamming of Nottingham, which was to study the whole question and submit suggestions as to whether there was or was not danger in residues in meat.
The decision and the regulation came out before this committee had even reported. In fact, they had not even held their last meeting. I think that we should bear this in mind when we are thinking of the whole business of the banning of hormones and overruling, so to speak, this very careful report, and the thought that has gone into this question of meat residues previously.
So suddenly the question broadens and the production of meat becomes more expensive so far as the producer is concerned, and as a result meat may become more expensive so far as the consumer is concerned. I do not think that the situation is completely overcome because, surely, there still remains a problem between ourselves—that is, the countries within the Community—and those outside the Community, where implants are still allowed; for trade with them presumably will still take place.
I think that certain questions are raised about how the Government should react to this situation. As I said, not only will meat be more expensive to rear—that is almost certain and it can nearly be quantified—but it would appear on the face of it that certain research problems will lose their point and perhaps be cancelled in times such as these, when there is not much money about for that sort of undertaking. Though it sounds a little vague to say it, to me an alarming pattern of Community legislation has been set simply by the fact that scientific evidence has not exactly been overruled, but having been commissioned, has not even been received.
Perhaps, then, I may suggest to the Government that they should consider various matters, and ask my noble friend whether he thinks they are reasonable to consider. The first point I thought I would raise, which I fear he will say is not reasonable to consider, is that the Government should approach the commissioners—or the Council of Ministers, I suppose—to see whether, through the manipulation, if you like, in some way of the Treaty of Rome, at some stage or other the process cannot be put into reverse. On the whole it seems to be such a bad decision that such a thought might at least be allowed to pass through our minds.
I also ask my noble friend whether we can have an assurance that experimentation and research along the lines of meat residues should continue. In our deliber-
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ations, or rather when we were taking evidence, it became clear, as one has always known, that research on one subject may well lead to important breakthroughs or discoveries in another area. That came out particularly strongly in the evidence from the Animal and Grassland Research Institute, as given by Professor Prescott. It seems once more, because of that barbarous and to me arbitrary decision, wrong that we should perhaps stop putting money into such research.
Finally, the question remains of harmonisation. Although banning hormones within the Community is fine, there is still trade with the United States and many other parts of the world. I shall be interested to hear whether my noble friend thinks that banning hormone implants in this country is helpful to world trade.
With the greatest respect to those in Brussels, the situation seems to be muddled. It seemed to be a little bit of a muddle when one noticed, as is said in the report, that they were examining meat residues only in red meat and leaving out poultry. That seemed quite wrong. Now I feel that they have produced something in Brussels that is so unfounded on scientific fact that I hope one day it will be reversed.
10.16 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, for asking this Unstarred Question this evening, as it gives the Government the opportunity to make comments on this rather important, if slightly esoteric, subject.
The report states in the second paragraph of the introduction:
"consumers throughout the Community have become increasingly concerned about the possible effects of diet on health".
I think that every noble Lord will be aware of the growing tide of interest in health foods, and the growing number of health foods and health food shops bear witness to that. Diet has received a great deal of publicity lately, both in magazines and on television, and the connection between a healthy diet and long life has been demonstrated.
The successful campaign to advise people that smoking can lead to cancer has had a very satisfactory impact on people's minds. Now the publicity given to the excessive consumption of polysaturated fats, leading to heart strain, has made people much more concerned about what they eat and what is contained in their food.
The Commission has reacted to all that pressure for a healthy diet and has now brought in draft proposals for the prohibition of all hormonal substances for fattening purposes, despite the fact that it had appointed, as my noble friend Lord Radnor mentioned, a Scientific Working Group on Anabolic Agents in Animal Production:
"to assess the risk to public health of the use of five hormonal compounds for fattening purposes",
under the distinguished chairmanship of Professor Lamming. We were greatly assisted by the evidence that Professor Lamming gave to the committee. There would appear to be no scientific evidence to ban the use of the five hormones at present used for fattening animals. Three are natural hormones and two are

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synthetic. But, as we have heard, before the scientific working group could report, the Commission went ahead with its plans for a total ban.
The importance of this report is that it evaluates the attempt of the Commission to set up a common residue monitoring regime which would institute a standard system within the member states. There will be difficulties ahead, and not least of these is the absence of any form of tolerance level in the draft directive.
The United States of America has since 1979 maintained a national residue programme plan to detect the presence of illegal residues of pesticides, animal drugs and several hundred other potentially hazardous chemicals that may contaminate meat and poultry. The plan for 1985 lists the criteria for the inclusion of substances in the national plan and specifies the method of analysis for individual compounds and residue limits for a wide variety of animal drugs and pesticides. The FAO of the World Health Organisation has defined residue limits for many antibiotics in meat, milk and eggs. Tests will have to be done on meat to detect substances that are there naturally. I am thinking here of testosterone and progesterone especially, as well as the possibility of these natural substances having been administered for growth promotion purposes.
The Memorandum prepared by the Meat and Livestock Commission and published on page 37 of this report makes the following statement under MLC Comment 11:
"The interpretation of measurements of natural hormones is not possible, as those derived from implants cannot be differentiated from hormones which are endogenously produced by the animal".
It goes on to illustrate with data the typical oestrogen levels in various classes of beef animals and the anomalies that can be produced.
I should be grateful if the Minister of State in his reply can inform the House how it is intended to overcome this very serious problem. Perhaps he would be prepared to say if some guidelines can be made available to farmers so that they are made aware of the complications involved in the testing procedure and given advice on the preparation of their animals for sale and slaughter. All this monitoring and testing will be done at some cost. It is a matter of regret that the Commission has not seen fit to include any estimate of the possible cost of the proposed scheme.
However, the cost of the ban on growth promoters will be felt most keenly, and the cost of that ban will have to be met by the farmers. A great deal of the meat sold as beef today is from the fattening of steers from the dairy industry with the widespread use of Holstein and Friesian breeds. These animals, growing naturally, take a long time to develop and do not furnish themselves as well as beef breeds when being prepared for market as fat animals. The use of synthetic hormonal growth promoters has improved the performance of these animals and it is widely accepted that value of the carcass is increased by as much as £50 a head. Many of the traditional beef breeds put on too much fat too quickly and therefore now have to be slaughtered at a lighter weight than before in order to fall in line with the all-important consumer preference for lean meat.
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It is a bad time for farmers to face this pressure on their margins, as the mounting surpluses will have their own financial pressures on prices in the next two or three years. However, the industry will have to come to terms with the new situation and adjust accordingly. I believe that it is necessary to examine animals and fresh meat for the presence of residues, for the health of people at large, for the furtherance of trade between Community countries and for the confidence that such testing and standards will give to third countries, and I believe that it should be required from third countries for the good of international trade in meat. I commend the report to the House.
10.24 p.m.
Lord Middleton: My Lords, having heard what the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, and my noble friends have said tonight about the matter in Appendix 4 of the report, I would like briefly to intervene in order to reinforce their view of its importance. They have referred to the chain of events leading up to a decision at the Council of Ministers to ban the use of the three natural hormones in meat production. We have heard how that decision stemmed from an October vote in the European Parliament. The Select Committee—as the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, has told us—wisely, in my view, agreed to make no recommendation on what in mid-December was a new turn of events without full scientific evidence, for the reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, set out.
I regret that the members of the European Parliament were carried away on what seems to me to be a tide of prejudice, based on insufficient knowledge. Yet, as we have heard tonight, expert advice was at hand, or would very soon be at hand, so it is hard to understand why the Commission allowed themselves to be caught up by the same current of impatience and irrationality.
Nevertheless, they went ahead and they produced draft Directive 10284/85. The Commission, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Radnor, had previously set up a committee of European scientists, inviting them to provide evidence on the use of hormones in meat production and on the effect, if any, on the health of the consumer. Although Professor Lamming's committee was within weeks of reporting, the Commission cancelled the working party's final meeting at short notice, thereby depriving themselves of the scientific advice that would shortly become available.
I have not heard that there exists any evidence that these banned growth promoters have any harmful effect on the human body. Evidence, however, suggests that these substances, properly used, enhance the economic efficiency of meat production, and, as Appendix 4 points out, raise the quantity of lean meat available to the consumer.
In view of that it is not surprising that our own Minister, in dissenting, took the stand that he did at the December meeting of Ministers; and I applaud his action. The vagaries of the European Parliament, I suppose, have to be accepted. What is difficult to accept is the performance of the Commission in this matter. It appears that they were swayed by uninformed political opinion which constitutionally they were not bound to accept. I wonder with what

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degree of enthusiasm eminent scientists will in future greet any request to work for a European Commission which seems prepared to ask for expert advice without being willing to receive it.
I echo the noble Lord, the chairman of the sub-committee on which I serve, in asking—as my noble friend Lord Radnor has also done—what action is contemplated by the Government; or indeed if any course of action is available. Although it is a matter outside the main part of the report, it is one which closely relates to future meat production by British farmers, to the meat trade generally, and to the ability in future for British consumers to buy what nutritionists say is good for them at a reasonable price.
10.23 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, for the able, brief and efficient way in which he put this report in front of your Lordships. I thank the noble Lord not only for that, but also for the very efficient and able way that he handles our committee and the witnesses. We are all very grateful to the noble Lord for that.
First, I have to declare my usual interest. I am a farmer and I use hormones on my animals, unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, who does not need to do so, although I understand that they are used a little on sheep but not so much as on beef cattle.
I do not need to say a lot about the report; it speaks for itself. As I said, our chairman has put it in front of us very briefly and very well. However, like other noble Lords, I think that it was a very unfortunate episode—if that is the right word to use—that our report was overtaken first by the Parliament's decision, and then by the Commission's decision to ban all hormones in live animals.
We all applaud the Minister's efforts to help us. However, I am not sure that this year's delay will not do more harm than good. I understand that one of the reasons he pushed it very hard was because we have many chemical companies in this country which would not have sufficient time in order to arrange to hold-back production and get rid of stocks. This applies not only to farms, because I looked into my medicine cupboard only a few days ago and I was horrified to see the stocks of unused medicines that I had, including a great many implants. It would certainly take a while to get rid of them. Manufacturers and mechants would all have stocks. However, I do not think that that was worth doing, bearing in mind the damage to the export trade. Two noble Lords have pointed this aspect out. France does not need much of an excuse to stop exports from this country into France, and this is a major instance that they could use. I think that we should ask the noble Lord the Minister to do something about rescinding the situation during this year. I am sure that it would be acceptable.
The banning will not do away with the need for testing because they will have to test imports into the EC and they will have to test for illegal use. Therefore, our report will not be wasted by any means. A great many of our conclusions will still have a bearing on the
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situation. Perhaps I may just mention one or two of the main ones. The standard of testing is one. My noble friend Lord Gallacher has mentioned how the different number of tests in various countries would need to be clarified. The cost aspect also has to be considered. I understand that the Minister would be very worried if we did the same amount of testing as is conducted in Germany. We were given information that tests could cost as much as £50 a time. That would be a very expensive affair.
To turn to the matter of reassuring consumers, the consumers are the people who are eating the meat and we must see that they are reassured. Like the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, I think that the Commission and the European Parliament paid a little too much attention a little too early in that case. To leave poultry meat out of the picture, bearing in mind the amount that is eaten today, seems to me slightly ridiculous. I do not know why the consumers have not created hell about that; but so far as I know they have not done so.
There is also the point that research should continue. I should like the Minister to reassure us that there will be no playing down of research on this subject. After all, I think Dr. Prescott said that they had one experiment taking place—and it would take a while before it was proved that the activity was perfectly safe—where 30 per cent. more milk was obtained by the use of this particular hormone. The economic advantage of that is enormous. The noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, also mentioned that aspect in respect of beef. Therefore, it would be terrible to throw the advantage away if the experiment could be proved to be successful. In their wisdom the Commission decided that they did not want any proof whether or not it was safe. This has had a very bad effect on farmers' minds. Professor Lamming carried out a programme on it, although he did not give this to us in evidence. He pointed out that 100 per cent. more hormones were left from eating cabbages than there were from eating any meat. I am just wondering whether surplus cabbages fed to beef cattle would lead to more hormones than we could ever push into them by implanting. Someone made the point as regards implanting in the ear that if there is any residue left in the ear nobody eats it anyway. I am not so sure about that.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, is not present. Many years ago he and I went to Russia, and before we left Kazakstan, halfway between Alma-Ata and Bakash, we were given a party at which a stew was produced which was called "five finger stew" because it was so small that you needed all your five fingers to eat it. In the middle of it was a sheep's head complete with eyes and ears. There were four guests, Lord Nugent, Sir Peter Greenwell, Professor Noble and myself. Two of them got eyes and two got the ears. It was a nice gesture. I got an ear, and fortunately I had a big pot of flowers in front of me and I managed to dispose of it. If that had been an implanted ear and I had been a good enough guest, or a polite enough guest, to eat it, who knows what would have happened to me? I might have had a change of sex, and in that case I should have been big enough perhaps to hold my own with the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington.

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The question of research and what can happen must be looked into. I hope we are going to have assurances from the Minister on that point. Then there is the question of meat from other countries, and the testing must be done there. The other point is the point of slaughter. If there is illegal use of hormones, that is the point where the animal loses its identity. If farmers are going to be pulled up for illegal use then all the testing must be done at the point where the animal can be identified. We make that point very strongly.
Then there is the question of exempting states less than 10 per cent. of whose holdings have more than 20 animals. They should be tested too. That can amount to a lot of animals. I know that there are not supposed to be many animals in Luxembourg but there are other states which come under this, and we make that point and it is a strong one.
I would emphasise what the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, said about the Commission's banning without the support of Professor Lamming's committee. Here was an eminent body of scientists from all the countries. Admittedly Professor Lamming had a difficult job. There was the language question, and problems in getting the members together, and everything else. But to carry out the operation of banning just before he was due to make his last report was a dreadful thing to do, and should be condemned. I give the report every support.
10.37 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I should like to pay tribute to the work of the Select Committee in its consideration of the Commission's proposal for a directive which is designed to harmonise the arrangements for testing meat for residues within the Community. The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, as chairman, and the members of the committee were aware, in looking into this proposal, that negotiations were proceeding both on this issue and on the related question of the use of hormonal growth promoters in the Council of Ministers, to which all your Lordships referred, and which the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, has referred to in terms with which I broadly very much agree, including the view the noble Lord expressed in his speech about the discriminatory effect of the proposals that have come out of the Commission.
I should like to congratulate the committee on producing within a short timescale an informative and valuable report which will continue to prove useful as the discussions on the residues proposal continue in the Council of Ministers. This proposal for a Community directive is concerned with the detailed arrangements for the examination of the Community's meat supply for the presence of a range of residues, in particular residues of veterinary substances, in order to protect public health. As the committee itself made clear, it will also remove impediments to trade which can arise through the introduction of national residue requirements.
The Government therefore support the aims of the proposal for this directive. The arrangements for sampling and testing would be based on a centralised
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system involving the testing of a certain number of samples taken on a random basis from a given animal population. From the results it would be possible to calculate the extent to which a residue problem may or may not be present in that animal population. The proposal would also require action to be taken where the results demonstrate the use of a prohibited substance or residue levels in excess of recommended tolerance levels. This system in a number of respects broadly reflects the present monitoring system in Great Britain.
Indeed, I should like to pick up the view expressed by noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood that it is highly desirable to have national systems of monitoring. We in this country have a regular testing programme called the national surveillance scheme, which for some time has included a test for a range of antimicrobial substances and a test for the growth promoter, stilbene, the use of which is banned in the European Community. Monitoring for other growth promoters is being introduced into our programme. Under separate arrangements there is monitoring for synthetic hormonal growth promoters, for pesticides, for heavy metals and for other specific classes of veterinary drugs.
To return to the proposal for the directive for the Community, it is the proposed scale and complexity of the level of sampling proposed by the Commission that is of concern to the Government.
On this latter point, I note that the committee, while it considered that some increase in monitoring may be required to maintain consumer confidence, shares the Government's view that the sampling levels proposed were not scientifically based.
My noble friend Lord Ullswater made the point that the proposed arrangements would undoubtedly be costly to operate. There are inevitably difficulties of quantifying the expenditure implications of this proposal with any precision. The cost is, at least in part, dependent on the tolerance levels mentioned by my noble friend and methods of analysis which have yet to be proposed. However, I am confident that if the Commission had prepared even a broad estimate of the potential resource implications, as we and other member states have pressed them to do, the substantial cost of the proposals would have been demonstrated.
The Government remain unconvinced that the object of the proposal can only be achieved by adopting the sampling strategy proposed or similar systems involving sampling at corresponding or higher levels. We shall therefore continue to try to ensure that full weight is given to the financial implications of any proposed sampling arrangements. It would be regrettable if arrangements were adopted which foundered because they were not pragmatic. It will also have to be borne in mind that, as the committee concludes, any arrangements should be capable of being operated by those countries outside the Community which export meat and meat products to member states so as to provide consumers with a corresponding assurance about the safety of third country supplies, a point which was brought out very clearly by my noble friend Lord Radnor.
I have attempted to touch on a number of the conclusions of your Lordships' committee. As for the

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remainder, the Government will take the committee's conclusions fully into account in our future negotiations within the Community. I should, however, refer to the question of the inclusion of poultry meat in the proposal, which the committee favours. The reason for excluding poultry from the scope of the draft is one of timing rather than substance. The general view within the Community is that it would be sensible to assess the operation of the arrangements for red meat before bringing in poultry.
I should reply to two direct questions asked during the course of the debate. My noble friend Lord Radnor and the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, both asked for an assurance that research into meat residues would continue. I can assure both noble Lords that the Ministry of Agriculture sees a continuing need for research into residues in meat. The Government's programme of expenditure is continually reviewed to ensure that it reflects current priorities. My noble friend Lord Ullswater asked whether advice could not be given to farmers on the proper use of hormone growth promoters. The Ministry of Agriculture last year issued a code of practice to all farmers giving guidance on the safe use of all medicines. Strong emphasis was laid on the observance of proper withdrawal periods, which, as your Lordships know, is the safe way to avoid residues at undesirable levels.
Before I finish, I shall finally deal with the use of hormones. As all your Lordships have spoken about the hormone ban perhaps I may tie my reply to the three questions which the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, asked me. Other noble Lords put these matters to me but the noble Lord put them into the order of three questions.
The noble Lord's first question was this. Do the Government believe that the Commission's proposals and the Council's decision should be based on scientific evidence and not on incomplete evidence? That is a question which the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, most certainly supported in his speech. The Government believe that it is essential for decisions on the authorisation of veterinary products to be based on a careful assessment of relevant scientific evidence. Clearly, the health and safety of the consumer and of the animal, and the protection of the environment, must be paramount. But the evidence available gave no scientific grounds for believing that the correct controlled use of hormone growth promoters presents a danger to human or animal health, and that is why we opposed the proposal.
The United Kingdom voted against the proposal also because it regarded the legal base as incomplete, since the proposal was based on Article 43 alone and was inconsistent with previous decisions on this subject, which we believe means that the present decision should be based on Article 100, the article which requires a unanimous decision.
I should like to make it absolutely clear that my right honourable friend has made clear at meetings of the Council and in writing to the Commissioner, Mr. Andriessen, that my right honourable friend deplored the action of the Commission and the Council in disregarding the evidence on the safety of the three natural hormones and in not waiting for the scientific evidence of safety on the other two.
Lord Raglan: My Lords, before the noble Lord moves on, may I ask him this? Has the Commission given Her Majesty's Government any reason for adopting these proposals; or is it, as Commissioner Andriessen is reported to have said while on a visit to this country a couple of months ago, that it is a good way of reducing the beef mountain?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I do not think that I should comment on the noble Lord's last suggestion, but I think there is no doubt at all about it that the Ministers in the Council had regard to what they believed was consumer opinion, and there is no question about it all that the decision was not based upon the available scientific evidence.
The second question of the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, was this. Will the derogation be disruptive for United Kingdom trade? We are of course in a different position from other member states in raising steer beef, which means that we need hormone implants. Adjustment of production to ban on hormone growth promoters may take longer than two years. The derogation would be a useful provision to have, therefore, to deal with that particular problem. However, there is no bar, of course, to individual producers raising and selling animals which they guarantee to be untreated by hormone growth promoters. Nevertheless, time may be needed to market meat from animals which have been implanted before the adoption of this directive.
I am therefore in essence saying that I believe that the one-year derogation for the United Kingdom would give us elbow room to sort out some of these problems. On the other hand, I realise that there are contrary arguments to which the noble Lord very briefly referred. As the precise form of the derogation has not yet been produced by the Commission as a proposal, I think we had better wait until we see the form of the derogation before making up our minds as to whether we need to implement it. Meanwhile, I was very grateful to my noble friend Lord Middleton for supporting my right honourable friend's successful efforts in getting the right to a derogation which, in the end, we may still find that we need.
The third question of the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, was this. Will monitoring for residues be more, or will they be less, important? At a Community level, some additional controls have been adopted by the Council and it is already agreed that animals or carcases would be sampled for residues. If illegal residues are found it is agreed that further tests would be carried out at the farm of origin, and these requirements enter into force by 1st January 1987. So for hormones, it is only a decision on the scale of something that is outstanding.
I think that answers the questions that I have been asked. I am very glad we have had the opportunity to debate this particular report, because it enables the House to acknowledge the work of the Select Committee on an issue which is of concern to both consumers and exporters.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I feel that his noble friend Lord Radnor and I would like a little more assurance, not that there will be research into residues only. We were

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anxious to have research into new hormones and everything else, and the noble Lord rather emphasised the research on residues. I think that the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, is nodding his head and would like a little more than that.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, as I understood it, the question which my noble friend Lord Radnor asked me was: would there be continuing research into residues?—although it is perfectly true that the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, made it clear that the question he emphasised was: would there be research into hormones? I think there are two points that I ought to make on that.
The first is that the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, will know better than I do, from his experience in Government, that it is not just a form of words when I say that the need for research programmes is constantly monitored to see whether they are meeting the necessary priorities of the day. This is the truth and there is a system, as the noble Lord very well knows, whereby one keeps on having reviews of R & D commissions to see whether they are up to date and whether the money is being spent as effectively as possible. Therefore, I must rely on that point in saying that when we next do our review we shall have to look in the circumstances of the time at what resources ought to be devoted to research into hormones.
The second point which I ought to make is that, again, it was not just a mere form of words to say that we need to see the shape of the proposed derogation when it comes from the Commission, which has not yet been produced. The only disagreement which has been registered this evening is that it is quite clear that the chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, was in his very interesting speech counselling caution so far as the derogation was concerned, whereas I think others of your Lordships were saying to the Government that the derogation might very well be useful and was, anyway, a way of showing the Community that we resented the way in which the decision on the ban had been taken without scientific evidence.
As so often in these matters, the Government stand in between. It is true that my right honourable friend has won the right for a derogation, but I think we want to see the shape of the proposal and, taking into account all points of view, we then need to decide where we go as to whether we put the derogation into effect or whether we do not. That, of course, will have its effect on whether or not resources ought to flow into research and development of hormones. For that reason, as well as for the first reason, I am afraid that I cannot give any further answer either to my noble friend Lord Radnor or to the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie.
May I again thank your Lordships for taking part in this debate, and also thank the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, and members of the committee for their very interesting report.
House adjourned at five minutes before eleven o'clock.

  NORTHERN IRELAND: SEXUAL OFFENCES STATISTICS
  NORTHERN IRELAND: SEXUAL OFFENCES STATISTICS
  LICENSING HOURS IN SCOTLAND: OPCS REPORT
  LICENSING HOURS IN SCOTLAND: OPCS REPORT
  NURSING MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE
  NURSING MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE
  OIL AND GAS: UK TOTAL REVENUES
  OIL AND GAS: UK TOTAL REVENUES
  PUBLIC SECTOR CAPITAL SPENDING
  PUBLIC SECTOR CAPITAL SPENDING
  BRITISH CONTINENTAL SHELF: GAS FLARING
  BRITISH CONTINENTAL SHELF: GAS FLARING
  LORD LIEUTENANT OF GREATER LONDON: OFFICES
  LORD LIEUTENANT OF GREATER LONDON: OFFICES