Sitting of 18 February 1986

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
ABERYSTWYTH HARBOUR BILL (By Order)
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  HARWICH PARKESTON QUAY BILL (By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday 20 February.

Oral Answers to Questions
  EMPLOYMENT

    Graduate Enterprise Programme
    Mr. Patrick Thompsonasked the Paymaster General how many graduates are now being trained on the graduate enterprise programme.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. David Trippier): In 1985–86 graduates are taking part in the programme at Stirling university, St. David's college, Lampeter, the Cranfield institute of technology and the London enterprise agency with the Central Polytechnic of London. There are plans to expand the programme next year, when Durham and Warwick university business schools will join it.
    Mr. Thompson: I welcome that and other measures to improve the employment prospects of graduates. May I ask why the numbers are so low? Does my hon. Friend agree that we must encourage further incentives and initiatives from private industry to improve and increase the numbers of talented graduates who have the right attitude and motivation? We must do more, and I hope that we are doing more.
    Mr. Trippier: It is important to stress that those are only pilot schemes. They form part of training for enterprise, which is a massive programme, on which we are spending £14·3 million in helping more than 25,000 people. I note the thrust of my hon. Friend's argument. I am anxious to develop and strengthen the programme as quickly as possible.

    Special Measures
    Mr. Dixonasked the Paymaster General if he intends to take any action on the Employment Committee's report on special employment measures and the long-term unemployed; and if he will make a statement.
    The Paymaster General and Minister for Employment (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): We are studying the report very carefully and will give a detailed response to the Committee as soon as is practicable.
    Mr. Dixon: Does the Paymaster General accept that the greatest crisis facing this country today is the fact that 4 million men and women are unemployed, of whom 1·6 million have been unemployed for many months? That is a tragedy. Why does the Minister not take note of the constructive suggestions of my hon. Friends, who have spent many hours on the Select Committee?
    Mr. Clarke: When the report was produced I welcomed the Select Committee's contribution and agreed with its choice of subject and concentration on age and the long-term unemployed. The Government are already spending more than £2·5 billion on training and employment measures aimed at the same target. I gave a preliminary view on some of the suggestions put forward which did not seem likely to achieve the objectives described.
    Mr. Rowe: In his consideration of the report, will my right hon. and learned Friend give careful thought to the possibility of offering some of those people a guarantee of employment? If the political will were there, that could be achieved. It was achieved with the Christmas guarantee for the youth training scheme. Would it not be the most humane and practical way of helping the long-term unemployed?
    Mr. Clarke: As my hon. Friend says, we have given a guarantee to 16-year-old school leavers. Experiments are taking place to try to give guarantees to the long-term unemployed in Bolton, among other places, within existing schemes. All those measures are worth considering. We cannot give a guarantee of employment to the long-term unemployed until we have worked out schemes to give them work experience, training, or a job. That is why we are rapidly expanding our community programme and other programmes.
    Mr. Wainwright: As the Select Committee report directly involved the work of the Manpower Services Commission, will the Paymaster General tell the House about last night's report, according to the papers this morning, that his right hon. and noble Friend, Lord Young, has taken over from the Paymaster General personal responsibility for the direction of the Manpower Services Commission, which means that there will be no one directly answerable for the commission in the House of Commons, which funds the commission?
    Mr. Clarke: My right hon. and noble Friend, Lord Young, has no more ousted me from responsibility for MSC matters, than I have ousted him from responsibility for industrial relations, inner cities, race relations, and areas in which I play a more prominent role. We have been reduced from five to four Ministers, with the transfer of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) to the Department of Transport, and we have reorganised the distribution of the day-to-day routine work of the Department. Otherwise, we continue to work together.
    Mr. Thurnham: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the success of the Government's policies is evident in the falling numbers of short-term

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    unemployed? When will he consider that the lessons learnt from the pilot schemes can be used to reduce the increasing numbers of long-term unemployed?
    Mr. Clarke: We are trying out pilot schemes in selected cities and concentrating on giving individual attention to the needs of each long-term unemployed person. That is obviously required to bring back into the world of work people who have been away from it for a long time. We are anxiously considering the results in the pilot areas to see what success we are achieving, and we shall certainly build on our achievements as rapidly as possible.
    Mr. Leighton: Has the Paymaster General noticed that the meticulously researched and unique report of the Select Committee has received a warm welcome from the quality press, including the editorial in the Financial Times on Friday? Has he further noticed the recognition that, if we are serious about tackling unemployment and money is available in the Budget, it is better spent on special employment measures than on tax cuts? When can we expect the White Paper that he has promised in response to the report, and when can we have a proper debate about it?
    Mr. Clarke: The Government propose next year to spend £2,670 million on employment and training measures. We are not rejecting the idea of spending money purposefully on ways of assisting the unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed. We must consider the Select Committee's proposals. Can we provide one-year jobs in the building industry without displacing other workers? Can we find 100,000 new useful jobs in the National Health Service and social services? Is it right to subsidise each long-term unemployed person to the extent set out by the Select Committee, thereby displacing many people from existing jobs? The proposals must be considered anxiously, but we must find remedies that work. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government will not turn their back on them.
    Mr. Hayes: I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend says. When he carefully considers the report, as I am sure he will, will he bear in mind that many Conservative Members are deeply worried that not enough is yet being done to help the long-term unemployed?
    Mr. Clarke: We are trying out initiatives, such as job restart courses and job start allowances, in nine selected areas and expanding the community programne as rapidly as possible so that each month a further 10,000 people can be taken on. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall consider every opportunity of giving more assistance to the long-term unemployed. We are arguing, not about the aim, but about the mechanics for achieving it.
    Mr. Evans: Does the Paymaster General accept that the programme proposed by the Employment Select Committee, which has a built-in Tory majority, would create 750,000 jobs for the long-term unemployed—people who have been out of work for more than 12 months? Does he acknowledge that until his Government or the next Government adopt such a programme, the long-term unemployed, such as those in St. Helens, will have no chance whatsoever of finding a job?
    Mr. Clarke: I do not accept that the Select Committee's proposals would produce 750,000 new jobs. We shall consider the proposals carefully and give a
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    considered, detailed response in the White Paper. Direct measures have played an important part in the Government's policies during the past few years. We have spent far more on and put far more effort into them than our predecessors. We shall continue to consider new and effective methods.

    Youth Training Scheme
    Mr. Proctorasked the Paymaster General how many persons are currently on YTS courses in the Billericay constituency; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Trippier: At 31 December 1985, the latest date for which statistics are available, there were some 700 young people in training on the youth training scheme in the Basildon local authority district, which contains the constituency of Billericay.
    From 1 April 1986 YTS will offer two years of vocational and work-based training for 16-year-old school leavers and one year for 17-year-olds, giving everyone who takes part in it the chance of a vocational qualification recognised by industry. It will be a partnership between Government, industry and trainers and will help to produce the better qualified young work force which industry needs.
    Mr. Proctor: Despite the attempt by some Labour politicians to rubbish the youth training scheme, will my hon. Friend confirm that 80 per cent. of youngsters who have completed the course believe that it is worth while?
    Mr. Trippier: My hon. Friend is correct. More than 80 per cent. of the youngsters who have taken advantage of YTS have been well satisfied with the training that they have received. I am a little confused as to where the Labour party stands on this issue. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), in the debate a week last Monday, said that broadly he supported the scheme, but some of his colleagues are content to rubbish it. I often wonder how many youngsters are deterred from going on the YTS because they believe that kind of cant.
    Mr. Sheerman: The Minister is well aware that the Opposition support two-year training under the YTS or any other banner. He should not compare Billericay, with its 20 per cent. of young people who do not finish with a job, with the 40 per cent. and over in the northern region with no jobs after YTS. What will he do about the disparities between places such as Billericay and the others which have been doubly hit by the lack of employment opportunity at the end of YTS and the Government's wicked way of closing mode B provision and not replacing it with premium placings?
    Mr. Trippier: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's earlier remarks. They were a reaffirmation of what he said in the debate a week last Monday, that, broadly, the Labour party supports the scheme. We regard it as a quality scheme. The House will be interested to hear that 86 per cent. of the places available on the two-year scheme have already been found. The fear that he expressed in the debate a week last Monday seems to be unfounded.

    Jobcentres (Registration)
    Mr. Wattsasked the Paymaster General if he will take steps to introduce a requirement for unemployed persons in areas of low unemployment and severe skill shortage to register at jobcentres.
    Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Paymaster General how many of the unemployed are registered at a jobcentre; and what percentage of the overall total this represents.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Ian Lang): Job seekers whose skills are in short supply are already encouraged to register at jobcentres. We have no plans to reintroduce general compulsory registration. There are some 420,000 people registered at jobcentres. However, records do not distinguish between the unemployed and employed people seeking a change of employment.
    Mr. Watts: Does my hon. Friend accept that I find his answer deeply disappointing? Does he agree that it is scandalous that in the 14 travel-to-work areas with unemployment of less than 8 per cent., where there are 138,000 people drawing unemployment benefit, only 14,000 people are registered at jobcentres, and that in Slough, of 4,500 unemployed people, only 210—less than 1 in 20 — are on the register? What will he do about that scandal?
    Mr. Lang: I take careful note of the point made by my hon. Friend. In his constituency, the Government already assist through the national priority scheme and the adult training strategy in the short term and through YTS in the long term. He might also like to know that the European Community is interested in promoting a study on skill shortages in the Thames Valley area.
    Mr. Ralph Howell: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. I am disappointed that he replied in the way that he did, when only about 12 per cent. of unemployed people register at jobcentres. Does he agree that an unemployed person who cannot be bothered to register at a jobcentre is not keen to obtain a job? Will he assure the House that closer links will be established between unemployment benefit offices and jobcentres and that it will be necessary for all unemployed people to register at jobcentres?
    Mr. Lang: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words of welcome. I listened with interest to what he said because of the authority that he brings to the subject. I am sure he will agree, however, that compulsory registration is not a cost-effective way of testing availability. Although we are unhappy about the adequacy of the present work test, the Manpower Services Commission has reported that in 1984–85 there were over 14 million substantive contacts at jobcentres.
    Mr. Eastham: The Minister trots out the figures for skill shortages, but is he aware that the Conservative Government decided to close down the skill-centres—the places that would answer some of the needs of the nation?
    Mr. Lang: I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware of the care with which jobcentres try to match job seekers to job vacancies. They circulate details of hard-to-fill vacancies and maintain a computer bank of vacancies likely to be hard to fill locally.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that some of his Tory friends who speak about people not registering for jobs have a cheek, when between them they have more than 700 moonlighting jobs, directorships and consultancies, and some of those Members do not have the guts to register their jobs in the Members' Register of Interests?
    Mr. Lang: I am not sure of the relevance of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary to the question. The Government are as anxious as he is to do something about unemployment. We are bringing as many and varied measures to bear on the problem as we can.
    Mr. Butterfill: Is my hon. Friend aware of the widespread problem in the tourism and leisure sectors? A glance in my local paper reveals that the number of jobs available substantially exceeds those looking for them. Will my hon. Friend take steps to convince people that jobs in the tourist industry and the service sector in general are worth while and real jobs that should be taken up?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. The importance of the service sector cannot be overlooked.

    Youth Training Scheme
    Mr. Sean Hughesasked the Paymaster General what progress has been made in promoting the YTS.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: On 27 January my right hon. and noble Friend, together with the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission, the director general of the CBI and the general secretary of the TUC launched an advertising campaign to promote the new two-year YTS.
    Mr. Hughes: Have not the Government yet again had to resort to using actors, this time to promote the YTS? Does that not demonstrate the implausibility of the miserable sums that are on offer?
    Mr. Clarke: The advertising is necessary to ensure that we have people, including employers, coming forward to provide the training that we want and also to make young people generally aware of what is on offer now that we are going for a two-year good quality training programme available to all of them. I do not know what the hon. Member means by "miserable sums". By 1987–88 we shall have passed the £1 billion mark each year in spending on youth training.
    Mr. Bellingham: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is imperative that the unions support the YTS? Is he aware that there are 50 youngsters engaged in YTS in Norfolk county council whose second year is being threatened by the National and Local Government Officers Association? Will my right hon. and learned Friend have a word with NALGO and give it a prod?
    Mr. Clarke: The TUC supports the YTS and the scheme is run by the Manpower Services Commission, on which there are three trade union representatives as commissioners, including such leading figures as the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union. I agree that some unions still prove to be difficult in practice in some localities, and NALGO is less than helpful. However, I do not have the influence on NALGO that the Opposition might have if they took a more constructive view.
    Mr. Foot: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman had a chance to look at the matter that I raised with him two or three weeks ago—the extra burden that is being put on local authorities to bear part of the burden for the YTS? How much of the burden is being put on local authorities? When the transitional payments are exhausted, will the Minister take steps to ensure that the

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    whole burden is borne by the central Exchequer rather than by local authorities with the highest unemployment in the land?
    Mr. Clarke: Local authorities are supported in the same way as other employers, and the contribution made to the employers must reflect the fact that, certainly in the second year, the trainees are often adding some value to their service or business. One of the main problems faced by local authorities comes from NALGO, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Bellingham) said, because payments to young trainees need to be topped up far above the necessary levels. Therefore, the local authorities saddle themselves with unnecessary wage levels. That is a matter between the local authorities and NALGO. There is no reason why central Government funding should contribute to such payments.
    Mr. Terlezki: Does my right hon. and learned Friend not find it very difficult to promote the YTS when the Opposition invariably try to discourage young people by stating that it is slave labour? They know nothing about slave labour whatsoever. They should encourage young people to join the YTS.
    Mr. Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend. The payment made to trainees on the YTS reflects the fact that they are in training. It is a realistic payment for those going straight from school and receiving their first training at work. Sixty per cent. of them go straight to jobs when they have completed their training. The Opposition's position is quite ridiculous. They say, through clenched teeth, that they support the two-year YTS, but then, as my hon. Friend says, they launch into destructive publicity which puts young people off.
    Mr. Prescott: I congratulate the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment on joining the Front Bench. It coincides with a time when much of the responsibility of the Department is being transferred to another place.
    When the Paymaster General had direct responsibility for the Manpower Services Commission, did he endorse the appointment of the Tory public relations agency, Saatchi and Saatchi, whose black propaganda reminded us at the election that Labour policies were not working, when unemployment was a third of what it is today? Did the Paymaster General also endorse the propaganda in the national newspapers to the effect that apparently Japan has to look out for Spikey Dodds in a youth training scheme which has fewer resources, qualifications and job opportunities when compared with YTS in other countries?
    Mr. Clarke: I have given the reason why we are promoting and advertising the youth training scheme. We want the providers of good quality training and young people to know what is on offer, because they will benefit from it. It would be absurd to spend £1 billion on the programme and to spend nothing to promote the programme that that money makes available.
    On the matter of Spikey Dodds and Japan, I think it is important to underline the fact that this country has to be competitive in an international market which is very often dominated by Japan. Better quality training for our young people and a more skilled work force will help us to achieve that.
    Mr. Cyril Smith: I want to refer to the question of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) on the cost to local authorities of the YTS. In my constituency it is over £500,000 a year. If one accepts that authorities should contribute, can the Minister at least persuade his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment that such expenditure should not be subject to rate capping?
    Mr. Clarke: Much local government expenditure does not arise directly from the youth training scheme or the Government's rules for it. Such expenditure arises from the fact that local authorities give way to political pressure and pay wage rates to those being trained which are higher than necessary and higher than those provided by many private employers. I cannot stop local authorities from doing that. It is absurd to suggest that we should divert money from our training budget to subsidise local authorities which do that.

    Solihull
    Mr. John Mark Taylorasked the Paymaster General if he will indicate the extent to which unemployment has fallen in the Solihull constituency since 1984; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lang: The number of unemployed claimants in the Solihull parliamentary constituency fell 1·1 per cent. between 12 January 1984 and 9 January 1986. Male unemployment fell by 10·5 per cent. over the same period. There is an extensive range of Government assistance to attract new investment and new jobs to the west midlands.
    Mr. Taylor: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply, and welcome the trend in Solihull. However, may I ask him to have a word with his right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Trade and Industry in case General Motors' proposal for Land Rover in Solihull reverses that welcome trend?
    Mr. Lang: I thank my hon. Friend for his welcome and take note of his advice. My hon. Friend might like to know that in the Birmingham travel-to-work area unskilled vacancies have risen by 4,588 — up 47 per cent. on January 1985.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Ray Powellasked the Paymaster General how many people were unemployed in May 1979; and how many are currently unemployed in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Allen McKayasked the Paymaster General how many people are unemployed in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: On 9 January the number of unemployed claimants in the United Kingdom was 3,407,700. An estimated 1,218,900 people were claiming unemployment benefits in May 1979.
    Mr. Powell: I am surprised that the Paymaster General can adopt an attitude of complacency when he is announcing such figures to the House. In Ogmore, the unemployment figure was 3·7 per cent. in 1979. It is now 18·7 per cent., and in some areas 25 per cent. of the work force are out of work. When will the Minister listen to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who suggested in his speech last weekend that if we began

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    to spend money on roads, schools, hospitals, sewers and other social improvements, unemployment might be substantially reduced? The unemployment figure is as frightening to my constituents as was the Prime Minister's speech last night, when she said that she would continue in office. If she continues in office much longer, everybody will be unemployed by the time she leaves it.
    Mr. Clarke: There has been a steady growth in employment since 1983 — [Interruption]. Of course there has. Obviously we need to generate more employment to tackle the problem. The hon. Gentleman's constituency has been affected by coal mining closures. I do not know to what extent he believes that Ogmore's problems will be solved by spending more money on roads, schools, houses and the other projects which his right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer appears to think will solve all our problems. I trust that the work of the new enterprise agency and the training schemes that are being promoted by the National Coal Board in South Wales will have the effect of stimulating again the economy of the valleys.
    Mr. Allen McKay: When does the Paymaster General expect the growth in employment to reach my constituency where unemployment is over 20 per cent.? When does he expect the unemployment figure to peak, and at what figure? When does he expect that figure to return to the level at which it stood in 1979?
    Mr. Clarke: The number of people who are being placed in jobs by our jobcentre in the Barnsley travel-to-work area is increasing substantially, although it needs to be further increased. By coincidence, the hon. Gentleman also represents a coal mining constituency. I hope that he will encourage his constituents to take more advantage than they have done so far of the training oportunities that are provided by our skillcentres, financed by the National Coal Board, which will help to revive the economy of the area.
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: Is my right hon. and learned Friend absolutely certain that these figures are accurate? In Bracknell in my constituency 7 per cent. of the work force is allegedly unemployed, yet at the jobcentre there is a large number of unfilled vacancies. All the employers express concern that they cannot find the right kind of people for the jobs for which they advertise.
    Mr. Clarke: I am satisfied that the figures are accurate when people understand clearly what they represent. We are always quite clear when we say what it is that we are measuring. I agree with my hon. Friend that there are large parts of the country, particularly in the south and in the midlands, where it is perplexing to find that there are large numbers of unemployed people when employers say that they are short of labour. When we try out new schemes in pilot areas, we discover that considerable success can be achieved by directing the long-term unemployed to jobs or to training after they have been contacted and given help and support.
    Mr. Budgen: Will my right hon. and learned Friend estimate how many people would price themselves into work if the wages councils were to be abolished?
    Mr. Clarke: The estimates vary between 8,000 and 300,000. We have made proposals for the reform of the wages councils, but I agree with my hon. Friend that when
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    setting the rate of pay for jobs one must take into account the fact that people will be paid for jobs so long as their pay does not exceed the value that they add to the business.
    Mr. Wigley: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell my constituents in the county of Gwynedd, where unemployment is over 20 per cent., and where there have been no coalmine closures, how countries such as Sweden and Norway are able to keep their unemployment at a fraction of ours and why we have failed completely to bring ours down?
    Mr. Clarke: I do not have time to debate the experience of Sweden, which is not quite so straightforward and untroubled as the hon. Gentleman implies. The problem of rising unemployment exists throughout western Europe. Many countries are taking the same measures as ourselves, and many of them are imitating the measures that we have taken on both the economic and employment fronts. We are creating more new employment in this country than is being created in the rest of the European Community put together.
    Mr. Nicholls: Will my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one can make sense of the unemployment statistics only if one looks at the employment statistics? If one person in seven is unemployed, it means that 86 per cent. of the work force are employed, and that this country has a greater proportion of its work force in work than any other European country.—[Interruption.] Should not my right hon. and learned Friend be emphasising that point as well?
    Mr. Clarke: Shouts drowned my hon. Friend's valuable last point, which is that a higher proportion of people are in work in this country than in any other western European country. It is also the case, of course, that the size of our labour force is still growing, which is why, although we are creating many new jobs, we are still having difficulty in getting on top of the unemployment figures.
    Mr. Prescott: Does the Paymaster General accept that the growth in population during the period for which the Labour party was in office was twice as great as in this Government's period of office? I ask him this simple question. While most of the increases in jobs have been in part-time equivalents, can he put that into full-time equivalents and accept, as the Bank of England does, that, with the increase in jobs which we have seen since 1983, it would take over 50 years to reach the level of employment that his Government inherited in 1979?
    Mr. Clarke: Demography, I agree, has acted against both Governments, Labour and Conservative. There is a growth in the labour market, it is continuing, and it will end, I think, in three or four years' time. The fact remains that the Labour Government presided over a doubling in the rate of unemployment and left us deep in a recession and a financial and economic crisis which helped to make unemployment worse in the two years that followed. I cannot, without notice, turn part-time figures into full-time equivalents. The growth in part-time employment in the country goes back way into the 1970s. There has been a growth in part-time employment here and in other countries. It reflects changing social patterns. It is no good the hon. Gentleman trying to dismiss part-time employment, which is wanted by many people, as though part-time employees are not genuinely in jobs.
    Mr. Parkasked the Paymaster General what is his estimate of the total number of people currently in full-time employment; and what were the comparable figures for May 1979.
    Mr. Lang: Estimates of full-time and part-time male employees in employment are not separately available for these dates. There were 16,450,000 male employees and female full-time employees in employment in Great Britain in September 1985. The comparable figure for June 1979 was 18,777,000.
    Mr. Park: We are frequently told in the House about a recovery, which has apparently been going on for several years. When will this recovery make an impact on the employment figures, since in my constituency there are areas where unemployment levels are at 36 per cent.?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Member is unduly gloomy, because the information for which he asks paints an incomplete picture. His question ignores the fact that part-time female jobs are up over 500,000 since the 1979 election, and the numbers of self-employed are up by some 750,000 since June 1979.
    Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Will my hon. Friend recognise the fact that if it were not for the huge increase in the size of the work force over the past three or four years, unemployment would be substantially lower than it is now? Why does he think that Opposition Members are not prepared to recognise this?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The labour market has increased by some 1·75 million in the last decade. The Opposition ought to recognise that fact.
    Mr. James Lamond: Is the Minister aware that unemployment in the north-west of England is considerably above the national average and is under further threat because of the very weak MFA which has been negotiated by his Government, as is well known to some of the members of his ministerial staff?
    Mr. Lang: I quite understand that there are areas in the country where the unemployment problem is very much more serious than it is in others. That is why the Government have designed a wide range of schemes to try to tackle the deep-rooted problems.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will my hon. Friend accept that the long-term potential for employment in the country is probably better now than it has ever been for the last 25 years because of the Government's policy relating to inflation and trade union reform? Will he do his best to ensure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not introduce any measures in the Budget, such as increasing dramatically excise and tax on hydrocarbons, which might prejudice the future potential for employment?
    Mr. Lang: I note my hon. Friend's point and will certainly refer it to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that keeping the inflation rate down is of predominant importance, and is crucial in creating new employment.

    Youth Training Scheme
    Mr. Leightonasked the Paymaster General what will be the qualifications that trainees receive after completion of the two-year YTS.
    Mr. Trippier: Our aim is that all YTS trainees should have the opportunity to obtain or work towards a recognised vocational qualification. To help in this aim, we are establishing a new YTS certification board whose job it will be to ensure that there are relevant qualifications suitable for trainees of all abilities.
    Mr. Leighton: Following the advertising campaign referred to earlier, may I ask whether the Minister has any evidence that the Japanese are frightened by the progress of YTS in Britain? Will he admit that, were that to be the case, the scheme would have to reach the level of higher education? Does he agree that the credibility of YTS will depend upon the quality of training? Can he give us an assurance that, after two years' YTS, each trainee will receive a valuable qualification which will be a module towards a recognised vocational qualification?
    Mr. Trippier: I do not know whether the Japanese are frightened by YTS, but they will be as impressed with it as are Conservative Members. Of course we are anxious that all people on the YTS scheme should have a certificate. They should receive certificates in the form that I mentioned in reply to an earlier question. As a result of the appointment of the new certification board, we hope to improve the qualification. In addition to the certificate, 39 per cent. of those who complete YTS courses qualify for other qualifications.
    Mr. Greenway: Will my hon. Friend accept my thanks for the central role that he played in a highly successful conference on education and training which I promoted in my constituency yesterday?
    Mr. Rogers: Get off your knees.
    Mr. Greenway: Get off your knees. Does my hon. Friend agree that a central message from the conference was that education and training should be brought together? What will he do towards that end?
    Mr. Trippier: That question gives me the opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on organising a seminar in his constituency, which was yet another example of what can be done. He brought together industrialists and educationists, which is a major theme of Industry Year 1986.
    Ms. Richardson: Does the Minister recognise that young women on YTS courses do not always get the same, limited, training as do young men, and that they often emerge with fewer qualifications? What can he do to improve this scheme and their chances?
    Mr. Trippier: I am anxious to meet the point that the hon. Lady draws to my attention. I hope that the certification board will do that, but I shall consider that problem. If she wishes to raise specific examples with me, I shall be happy to consider them.

    Young Worker Scheme
    Mr. John Fraserasked the Paymaster General what is the best available estimate of the number of new jobs which were created for young people as a result of the wage cuts induced by the young worker scheme; and how many of these were previously adult jobs.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: About 90,000 new jobs for young people resulted directly from the scheme, according to our latest estimates. None of this number involved the substitution of young people in place of older workers.
    Mr. Fraser: Does not the evidence given to the Select Committee, including that from the Minister's Department, show that about 80 per cent. of the jobs that were found for young people came from older people? Is there not a more constructive way of providing jobs than throwing someone else off the roundabout?
    Mr. Clarke: The figure that I gave is the one that we calculated, making allowance for any displacement that is caused by such a scheme. It was highly successful and helped to contribute to the fact that unemployment among young people has been decreasing steadily for the past three years.
    Ms. Clare Short: The Paymaster General is misleading the House, I am sure inadvertently. The evidence shows clearly that about 80 per cent. of the jobs that were subsidised would have existed anyway. Of the 10 per cent. of new jobs for young people, the overwhelming majority were adults' jobs. Does the Minister concede that, given those facts, his claim that exempting youngsters from the protection of wages councils will generate jobs is palpably false?
    Mr. Clarke: All that I can say in response to the hon. Lady is that it depends on which facts and evidence one takes into account. The figure that I gave was reached by those who provided most of the material for the study of the young workers' scheme. After making allowances for inevitable displacement, the scheme created 90,000 new jobs. There is clear evidence of a reduction in youth unemployment, largely because we are returning to more realistic pay levels for school leavers and because of the growth of the two-year youth training scheme.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Hicksasked the Paymaster General what is the estimated number of new job opportunities currently being created each month; what was the corresponding figure 12 months ago; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lang: The latest available estimates show that there was a net increase of 10,000 monthly in the employed labour force during the third quarter of 1985. This compares with an average monthly increase of 23,000 in the same period 12 months ago. There have now been 10 successive quarterly rises in the number of jobs, leading to a net increase of 709,000 since March 1983.
    Mr. Hicks: I welcome that trend, but does my hon. Friend agree that, because of job losses, we must have still greater investment in labour-intensive activities such as house building and home improvements, and that the Government must accept their responsibility in those areas?
    Mr. Lang: I note what my hon. Friend says. I am sure that he would not want to underestimate the amount of public and private capital expenditure that is taking place and that he agrees that the overriding concern must be to keep inflation low, as inflation destroys many jobs.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Gouldasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagments for Tuesday 18 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, including one with the Prime Minister of Turkey.
    Mr. Gould: Will the Prime Minister confirm what she appeared to say on television last night— that a firm such as Land Rover must choose between being British and being successful? Is it this despair about the future of British industries which makes her so keen to act as a broker for American interests in the proposed sale of Land Rover?
    The Prime Minister: I am anxious that there should be good jobs here in companies here which have a great future. I am anxious that Land Rover and Freight Rover should have as big a market and as big a distribution service as possible, and I believe that we must consider the bids that have been made.
    Sir Julian Ridsdale: Will my right hon. Friend find time today to congratulate Balfour Beatty on the successful conclusion of a joint venture with Japan to build a hydroelectric plant in Sri Lanka? Is this not a way forward in which we can balance our substantial trade imbalance with Japan and help the developing world?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend knows that this will be the second dam project with which we have assisted in Sri Lanka. The earlier project on the Victoria dam was extremely successful. The present one has been assisted by overseas aid and will bring great prosperity to Sri Lanka. I hope that it augurs well that we are cooperating with Japan.
    Mr. Steel: As it now seems clear that going ahead with the Trident missile programme means jeopardising a successful deal between the United States and the Soviet Union on nuclear weapons in Europe, will the Prime Minister tell our American allies that she is willing to give up this expensive and unilateral escalation of British nuclear firepower?
    The Prime Minister: No. I think that the right hon. Gentleman has fallen for Soviet Union propaganda. There is no question of Britain giving up her independent nuclear deterrent, and there is no question of the Trident programme being involved.
    Mr. John Carlisle: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as hon. Members enjoy freedom of speech and the right to reply in this place, that same right should be allowed to hon. Members in universities and places of further education?
    The Prime Minister: The whole House will sympathise with my hon. Friend on the nasty incidents that he has experienced. I believe and hope that the whole House agrees that upholding freedom of speech in our institutions of higher education is vital and that we would like to express our view to that effect. I hope that the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals will make strenuous efforts to ensure that that right is upheld, so that hon. Members can speak freely at universities. Freedom of speech consists of being able to say things that are not acceptable to everyone.
    Mr. Meadowcroftasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 18 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: Does the Prime Minister recognise that what is happening in the British computer industry, in Westland, and perhaps even in British Leyland are not isolated events, but are part of a determined effort by American industrial power to influence what happens in British industry? Have the Government any policy to counter that?
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman has referred to the British computer industry, I hope he realises that the Government have done a good deal to help ICL during its days of difficulty. I hope he will also recognise that many American companies have provided jobs, especially in development areas. I hope he will do nothing to stop that process.
    Mr. Hayes: Will my right hon. Friend take the opportunity to condemn the violence and intimidation that are occurring on the picket lines at Wapping, particularly against the police? Will she try to persuade the leaders of SOGAT '82 and the National Graphical Association to take a leaf out of the book of the Leader of the Opposition and root out some of the extremists in their organisations?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. We totally condemn the violence that has been occurring, and which we saw on the television screens on Saturday night, arising from the demonstrations outside Wapping. We understand that the majority were not thought to be printers. Nevertheless, it is disgraceful that they should attack the police. We totally support the police.
    Mr. Kinnock: In condemning violence wherever it occurs, will the Prime Minister also acknowledge the contribution made by the leaders of SOGAT and the NGA to try to stop violence, and the way in which they have roundly condemned those who bring their unions and their activities into disrepute? When seven years of the Prime Minister's continuing policies have brought record and rising unemployment, record real interest rates, a record manufacturing trade deficit and a record tax burden, and when she tells the country that she will not change, is she not showing complete contempt for the people?
    The Prime Minister: I recognise what the right hon. Gentleman said, and I am glad that he totally condemns violence — I hope on each and every picket line or demonstration where it occurs. I should be grateful if he would confirm that. I also point out that this Administration have carried out policies that have led to a record standard of living, record production and output, record expenditure on and a record number of patients treated under, the Health Service and a record standard of living for pensioners.
    Mr. Kinnock: Looking at all of industry and at unemployment, is not the biggest record that of the wreckage that the right hon. Lady has brought?
    The Prime Minister: In the last two years, as the right hon. Gentleman will have heard from questions shortly before Prime Minister's Question Time, a record number of jobs have been created. We have a better record than any other country in Europe, with 700,000 jobs in the last two years. That, together with efficient industry, is the way to get more jobs.
    Mr. Nicholas Baker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Argentine Members of Parliament who are visiting Britain should be made to feel extremely welcome, but told that sovereignty is not available for discussion, and that the way forward between our two countries is to negotiate the commercial exploitation of the area around the Falkland Islands?
    The Prime Minister: I understand that Argentine Members of Parliament are in this country. We have done our best as a Government to restore commercial relations with Argentine to a normal basis, but our efforts have not met with reciprocation from the Argentine. I wish to make it absolutely clear that the sovereignty of the Falklands is not negotiable and that the wishes of the Falkland Islanders are and will remain paramount.

    Afghanistan
    Mr. Ron Brownasked the Prime Minister if she will seek to meet President Babrak Karmal to discuss his proposals for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I have no wish to meet the leader of a regime which depends on an occupying force of 115,000 Soviet troops for its survival.
    Mr. Brown: While the Prime Minister's knee jerk response was to be expected, does she not realise that a negotiated settlement is possible provided her Government stop aiding the counter-revolutionaries, which is now costing this country over £3 million per year—and it has not been rate-capped? More important, does she not appreciate that Karmal can use tribal power against Zia?
    The problems of Afghanistan will be small indeed compared to the problems of Pakistan. I suggest — [Interruption.]—that the sooner a settlement is reached the better.
    The Prime Minister: People who are citizens of an occupied country have a right to fight for their country. If the hon. Gentleman really wants peace, he should assist the Secretary-General's efforts to find a settlement by negotiating the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan without more ado.
    Mr. Churchill: Will my right hon. Friend offer her congratulations to the valiant people of Afghanistan on their six-year fight for national liberation against the most powerful war machine in the world? Will she confirm that there is nothing standing in the way of the Soviet Union withdrawing its forces, and that there is nothing to discuss with Mr. Babrak Karmal except possibly which country might offer him asylum once the Soviet forces have gone?
    The Prime Minister: Nothing must deflect us from the important task of securing the withdrawal of Soviet occupying troops from Afghanistan. I appreciate what my hon. Friend says.
    Mr. James Lamond rose—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a rare, definitive question.
    Mr. Lamond: In the nauseating performance that we had to put up with on "Panorama" last night, was it necessary for the Prime Minister to make statements such as those that she has made today? [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is about Afghanistan.
    Mr. Lamond: My question is about Afghanistan. The right hon. Lady says that she believes that people in an occupied country are entitled to fight for their freedom. Does the Prime Minister extend that same freedom to the people of South Africa, who are living in an occupied country, and whose leader, Nelson Mandela, has been in prison for more than 20 years?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman knows that the two countries are totally dissimilar. People of all colours in South Africa, whether white, coloured, Indian or black have a right to be there, and we believe that they should all have a right to take part in the government of their country. We deplore violence in that country as a means to that end.
    Mr. Terlezki: In an excellent television programme we saw Mr. Shcharansky reunited with his dear wife after 12 years of separation. On Afghanistan, does my right hon. Friend not believe that it is high time this House told Mr. Gorbachev to withdraw his 115,000 troops from Afghanistan and take them back to where they belong, in the Soviet Union, and to free Afghan people so that they can fulfil their own destiny in their own country?
    The Prime Minister: I agree wholeheartedly with what my hon. Friend has so aptly said.
    Mr. Nellist: Given the Prime Minister's sudden attack of double standards over Afghanistan and South Africa, how does she feel about American intervention in Central America?
    The Prime Minister: I had hoped that even the hon. Gentleman would agree that 115,000 Soviet occupying forces should be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Apparently he does not.
    Mr. Tony Lloydasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 18 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Lloyd: Which major industrial power would consider selling off its last significant domestic car producer to a foreign power? Does the right hon. Lady think that it is part of popular capitalism that she should act as a broker for the United States?
    The Prime Minister: Austin Rover is a mass car producer. It has only 4 per cent. of the European market compared with other mass car producers, such as Renault, Volkswagen, Fiat, Ford and General Motors, which have between 10 and 12 per cent. of the market. Austin Rover therefore has difficulty in competing. That is the measure of the task. I hope that the company will succeed in obtaining more of the market. If there is a British bid for Austin Rover, we shall look at it carefully.
    Mr. Marlowasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 18 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Marlow: Can my right hon. Friend hazard a guess as to why Labour Members, and perhaps the odd Conservative Member, seem to think that there is something wrong with outward investment from Britain because, they say, it destroys jobs in this country, and yet at the same time they complain about inward investment, whether by General Motors, Sikorsky or any other such company?
    The Prime Minister: I note my hon. Friend's cogent point. When we had inward investment, for example, with Nissan, half the Labour Members wanted the investment to go to their constituencies. They forget all that now.

British Ferries Ltd.
3.31 pm
Mr. Robert Hughes(by private notice) asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the continuing difficulties of British Ferries Ltd. to negotiate access to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge and what reciprocal action he intends to take under sections 14 and 15 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1974.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): British Ferries Sealink has been in close touch with my Department about its wish to serve Zeebrugge, and I am therefore well aware of these problems. My noble Friend the Minister for shipping and I have discussed the problem with the Belgian Minister of Communications, and my officials have been in frequent and urgent contact with their Belgian counterparts. I cannot understand why the port of Zeebrugge has not responded to British Ferries' request for access. Depending on future events, I remain ready to act in support of British interests. At present, I have not ruled out any course of action.
Mr. Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that British Ferries was banned from Ostend? Does he agree that the lack of faith appears to be on the side of the Belgian port authorities rather than Sealink? Why has the right hon. Gentleman apparently agreed to European Ferries marketing the operations of British Ferries in Britain—the Regie des Transports Maritime operations —given that that is part of the move to freeze Sealink out of Belgium?
Is it not absolutely clear that we are dealing with restraints on trade imposed by the Belgians? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the only way in which we can deal with this problem is by taking action under sections 14 and 15 of the Merchant Shipping Act and banning Belgian ferries from Britain? Will he confirm that he can do that immediately without parliamentary approval? Does he agree that this action could last for 28 days by which time the matter would surely be resolved? Will he act to save the jobs of the 250 seafarers that are clearly at risk because of this dispute?
Mr. Ridley: I confirm that, when European Ferries and RMT came together, it resulted in the exclusion of British Ferries from Ostend. I have made every conceivable effort to help British Ferries gain access to the port of Zeebrugge. I am convinced from my conversations with the Belgian Minister of Communications that the Belgian Government are not frustrating its efforts. European Ferries is entitled to market its service in any way it wishes. What is offensive is the action to deny another competitor—British Ferries—the right to serve a Belgian port. That is the point on which I have concentrated throughout.
I confirm that I remain able to use section 14, if necessary. I understand that British Ferries may be modifying its proposed operation into Zeebrugge, which could change the situation. That is why it is difficult to take decisions before the position has been clarified.
Mr. Peter Rees: My right hon. Friend knows about my continuing interest and concern in this matter. Does he regard the exclusion of a British ferry company from a Belgian port, such as Zeebrugge or Ostend, to be in breach of the fundamental principles and rules of the European Community?
Mr. Ridley: Yes, subject to the fact that it is operationally possible. There are operational difficulties which we have done our best to help the Belgians to solve. If British Ferries were to change its operational requirement, that would set up a new position, making matters more difficult. I remain determined to ensure that Belgian ports should be open to us if our ports are open to Belgian ferries.
Mr. David Alton: Have the Government made representations via the European Commission and, if not, have they any intention of doing so?
Mr. Ridley: No, Sir. This is a bilateral matter.
Sir Julian Ridsdale: For how long has the Secretary of State been in contact with the Belgian Government over this matter? Seamen's jobs are at stake and we are most anxious to see a speedy resolution. If necessary, we expect strong action from the Government.
Mr. Ridley: The matter has been going on since before Christmas. We have been frequently in touch with the Belgians at ministerial and official level. If necessary, I shall make contact again with my opposite number as soon as it is clear what the problem is. British Ferries submitted details of its operational plans a fortnight ago to Zeebrugge harbour. It has not yet received an acknowledgement, let alone a reply. I regard that as thoroughly unsatisfactory and discourteous. In view of the fact that British jobs are involved as well as ferry services to the Continent, I am taking the closest personal interest in the matter.
Mr. Ken Eastham: Is it not time that the Ministry took sterner action in view of the actions of the Belgian ports? They are not acting in the spirit and intent of agreements. I reinforce the point made by the Secretary of State that there has been more than one letter of communication between Sealink and the Belgian authorities. Every communication seems to be ignored.
Mr. Ridley: I welcome the interest of the House in this matter. Hon. Members' expressions of impatience at this treatment will strengthen my hand in achieving an early settlement.
Mr. Robin Squire: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is now a monopoly operating on any route between Belgium and Britain? Of its very nature, that must be unacceptable.
Mr. Ridley: That is another reason why I remain determined to find a solution to ensure that competition will continue between the English coast and the Belgian coast.
Mr. Bill Michie: As the Secretary of State has been aware of the problem since before Christmas and still has not been able to discover how to solve it, surely he should make a statement about when he is likely to implement the powers vested in him.
Mr. Ridley: It is a moving position and it is not one that has not changed. I would be happier to give an affirmative date for taking action if I were clear that British Ferries was not going to change its operational plans, thus changing the position.

Questions to Ministers
3.38 pm
Mr. Frank Cook: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have only two occasions, each of 15 minutes, during any working week when we can put questions to the Prime Minister. That is a maximum of 30 minutes in which to question the Prime Minister on her responsibilities for the nation's welfare. In view of today's display in response to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) when the Government Benches responded with a gesture clearly designed blatantly to waste time, is it possible for you, Mr. Speaker, to approach the appropriate authorities and, in accordance with the Rugby Football Union or the Football Association, seek some form of injury time that you might award at the end of Question Time?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman knows that I do not give my reasons, but he may have noticed that today Prime Minister's questions continued until 3.31 pm. That was injury time.

Conventions of the House
3.40 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall that yesterday the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) raised a point of order criticising me for having broken one of the conventions of the House. You will also recall that since I was elected to Parliament I have always been a great upholder of our conventions, traditions and, indeed, of you, Mr. Speaker.
Where the safety of children is involved, there may be times when one cannot act speedily and observe the niceties of the workings of the House. I spoke out on a particular issue, but not from the information from only one informant. It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth to be criticised for protecting children by the hon. Gentleman who introduced members of the IRA into the House.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. This sort of exchange does not help our proceedings. I dealt with the matter yesterday. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) was present. Irrespective of the speed with which events occur, the conventions of the House are important.
Mr. Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it on order for the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) to mislead the House about my remarks yesterday? I criticised him, not for not informing me of what he was doing in my constituency, although that would have been the decent thing to do, but for irresponsibly passing unfounded allegations to the media, who then crawled all over an estate and caused a great deal of hardship and hurt to the people of the area. It is the hon. Gentleman's irresponsible behaviour which has upset the residents of the area. They are demanding strongly that he visits the estate and apologises publicly to them.
Mr. Speaker: There is an early-day motion on the Order Paper about the matter, and that is the right way to deal with it.
Mr. Ken Eastham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It should go on record that this is not the first time that this has happened. The hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) knows of a similar incident in my constituency when I received complaints from a clergyman on behalf of his parishioners protesting about the hon. Gentleman's conduct, which I raised in the House. It is time that the hon. Gentleman observed the courtesy of informing the hon. Members concerned.
Mr. Dickens rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall give the hon. Gentleman one more opportunity, but not to prolong the matter.
Mr. Dickens: I shall not detain the House. I wish to place on record the fact that arrests and prosecutions have resulted from information that I have provided in the past.

Greater London County Hall
3.43 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the disposal of Greater London County Hall by the London Residuary Body until after 31st December 1988; to exempt Greater London County Hall from the provisions of section 100 of the Local Government Act 1985; and for connected purposes.
There are two main elements to the Bill. The first relates to the importance of the building that is Greater London county hall, and the second to the importance that it has had, has at present and can have in future as a building to serve the people of London, our capital city and the nation as a whole.
I should like to begin with a brief description of the building. County hall was built on a site which was previously derelict marshland that was acquired by the London county council in 1905. An architectural competition was held in 1907 and a unanimous choice was made by the assessors that the architect, Mr. Ralph Knott, should design a building to house London administration.
That scheme was accepted in February 1908 and thereafter construction began. The foundation stone of the main building was laid by His Majesty King George V in 1912 and the building was opened by the King in 1922. The building was completed in 1933.
There are also ancillary buildings, additional blocks other than the main building. Hon. Members will know that the whole structure was completed as the headquarters for the administration of London. That event was commemorated by a visit and an unveiling by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in November 1963. Since the passing of London administration from the London county council to the Greater London council, the building has remained as the centre administering London's affairs. County hall is also well known to hon. Members, as it houses the Inner London education authority.
The building is clearly of architectural importance. It was made a grade II listed building by the Minister of Works in 1951, the year I was born. The main reasons which justified that decision were the exterior and the principal floor. However, the whole building is listed.
Certain parts of the building are without doubt exceptional as contributions to the heritage of the city of London and of the country. The west door and the chairs behind the west door of the council chamber are made of oak believed to be some thousands of years old. The chamber walls are marble and the pillars were quarried in the Italian Alps. There is also Belgian marble in the building.
The whole building, the chamber, the reception areas and many of the rooms on the principal floor make up a building which Londoners have, from its erection, been proud to see as their administrative headquarters. At the head of the main staircase there are the names and coats of arms of successive lords lieutenant of the county of London since 1889. Inside the building there are conference rooms, committee rooms, exhibition halls and interview rooms as well as all the other ancillary, administrative offices. There is a ceremonial suite and a members' terrace.
The building has always been recognised for its importance and was most recently discussed in the Local
194
Government Bill which became the Local Government Act 1985. During the Bill's passage, two matters were raised which I hope mean that what I ask today is in accord with the information given in the Committee at the time.
Under section 62 of the Act, the residuary property of the GLC, including county hall, passes to the residuary body which will take over that function on 1 April 1986. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment—the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young)— accepted the importance of the building and that there should be no hasty decision about its future use. He said:
"The important point is that County Hall should be put to good use. It will be the responsibility of the London residuary body to ensure that that happens … They and the staff of the residuary body will need to continue in occupation for a time. Our intention is that at an early stage the London residuary body will institute a feasibility study of the possible future uses of the building."
The Under-Secretary of State later said:
"The freeholds of factory estates will transfer to the residuary body. The procedure for the county halls is roughly the same. They would transfer to the residuary body which would then consult and carry out a feasibility study on the best future use for that building."—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 28 February 1985; c. 1818].
I seek time for the London ratepayers—the people who pay for the building — local government and Parliament to consult properly and for the London Residuary Body to be properly appraised of the uses to which people wish the building to be put.
My Bill aims to keep the building in the hands of the London Residuary Body until 31 December 1988. That gives two and a half years in which the building could be used. It should not be kept in mothballs. As the law stands, it could be sold after 1 April. That would go not just against the spirit of what the Government intended when they introduced the Bill but against the wishes of the vast majority of Londoners, people interested in architecture, and the people of Britain.
My Bill would prevent the immediate sale of county hall. It would preserve it in public ownership for people to make a considered judgment about its future, separate from the issue of abolition. This is the issue which will confront people immediately. My Bill would give adeqate time for Parliament, local government and public bodies to consider whether they have a use for county hall before a decision is taken which could irreversibly lose it to the public domain.
The Bill would not, because it could not, prevent such a decision, but nor would it preserve county hall in mothballs. In the interim, the London Residuary Body would be under a duty to offer the building for use by bodies such as ILEA, the London joint and co-ordinating comittees and all other regional and public bodies which might be interested in it. I am not entirely serious when I say that it could possibly be used until our additional buildings are completed. It would help with the inadequate accommodation provided for hon. Members in this building
The Bill's purpose is to give the public services a chance to exercise a claim to the site and this historic, listed and important building. It would impose that duty on the London Residuary Body.
There are one or two pragmatic reasons for such a move. The London Residuary Body will employ many people. They must be housed. ILEA will continue, although in a new form. The county hall computer could

195
not be easily moved. If ILEA and other bodies were to move out of the main building, many of the functional aspects of the complex would remain in the main building —the boiler house, the kitchens and the like.
The inscriptions around the council chamber and elsewhere signify that the building should remain in public ownership. The building has been converted to be as available as possible to many people.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Even the SDP.
Mr. Hughes: I am being tempted from behind. It would be available to all the political parties. Disabled people can get in easily to use the building.
When it was announced that I would be seeking leave to introduce the Bill, I received a letter, and I shall end by quoting from it.
Mr. Brian Sedgemore: Only one?
Mr. Hughes: I have received several letters, but I shall quote from this one which comes from someone in Basildon:
"Dear Simon, subject County Hall"—
[Interruption.] The letter is not from someone I have ever met, a relative, or a friend—
"I share your concern over the future of County Hall. So much so that I wrote a letter to the Private Secretary to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales over this same issue. He replied knowing of the Prince's deep concern over this important building in the capital. What worries me is that at some future date some speculator will come along and buy up the whole shooting match and, to quote one of the Prince's favourite terms `put up some preposterous'"—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is straying. We never introduce the Royal Family in support of our arguments in this place.
Mr. Hughes: I strayed in quoting. I apologise, as I did not propose to suggest that the Royal Family were unanimously behind me, although I hope that they would be. The writer continued by reminding us how county hall grew out of what was a swampy flooded Thames river site in the 1920s. He revealed that he originally came from the best constituency of all, my own, Southwark and Bermondsey. The writer concluded that, if we froze the issue for two years, we would
"give time for the authorities to make up their minds as to what will happen to that fine building in the future".
I hope that the House will give us the time to make the best decision about an important building in the interests of Londoners, ratepayers and the country.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Simon Hughes, Mr. John Cartwright, Mr. Tony Banks and Mr. Edward Leigh.

Greater London County Hall
  GREATER LONDON COUNTY HALL
  Mr. Simon Hughes accordingly presented a Bill to prohibit the disposal of Greater London County Hall by the London Residuary Body until after 31st December 1988; to exempt Greater London County Hall from the provisions of section 100 of the Local Government Act 1985; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 11 April and to be printed. [Bill 86.]
Orders of the Day
  Drug Trafficking Offences Bill
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Drug Trafficking Offences Bill
    New Clause 2

      CASES IN WHICH RESTRAINT ORDERS AND CHARGING ORDERS MAY BE MADE
      '(1) The powers conferred on the High Court by sections 6(1) and 7(1) of this Act are exercisable where—

      (a) proceedings have been instituted in England and Wales against the defendant for a drug trafficking offence,

      (b) the proceedings have not been concluded, and

      (c) the court is satisfied that there is reasonable cause to believe that the defendant has benefited from drug trafficking.

      (2) Those powers are also exercisable where the court is satisfied—

      (a) that an information is to be laid under section 1 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 that a person has or is suspected of having committed a drug trafficking offence, and

      (b) that there is reasonable cause to believe that he has benefited from drug trafficking.

      (3) For the purposes of sections 6 and 7 of this Act, at any time when those powers are exercisable by virtue only of subsection (2) above—

      (a) references in this Act to the defendant shall be construed as references to the person referred to in subsection (2)(a) above,

      (b) references in this Act to the prosecuting authority shall be construed as references to the person who the court is satisfied is to have the conduct of the proposed proceedings, and

      (c) references in this Act to property available in respect of the defendant shall be construed as if, immediately before that time, proceedings had been instituted against the person referred to in subsection (2)(a) above for a drug trafficking offence.

      (4) Where the court has made an order under section 6(1) or 7(1) of this Act by virtue of subsection (2) above, the court shall discharge the order if the proposed proceedings are not instituted within such time as the court considers reasonable.'.—[Mellor.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      3.56 pm
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 8 to 17.
      Mr. Mellor: Perhaps I may set the scene for this afternoon's discussion. The Bill is supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It received an enthusiastic Second Reading and went into Committee. The evidence of the considerable good will that flows towards the Bill is the fact that the Bill completed its Committee stage in two sittings.
      A number of significant issues were raised during those debates, and I gave a range of undertakings. I said that the Government would reflect on those issues and return to them on Report. That will be done either by amendments or by explanation as to why, in our judgment, amendments were not moved or, on reflection, were not desirable. The fruits of that reconsideration are in the two new clauses and a number of amendments in my name which we shall deal with this afternoon.

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      There are certain other matters which were the subject of detailed discussion in Committee but which are not to be found in any of the amendments. I should like to take the opportunity on Third Reading to deal with the reasons why those matters have not been canvassed. I shall explain why we have, on reflection, decided that no change is needed or, as a result of further consideration, that it is not practicable at this stage to conclude our deliberations. I ask the indulgence of the House. I suggest that these matters should be addressed to another place. Of course, we would have the opportunity to reconsider the issue when the Bill returns.
      In that context I mention clause 15 and the precise terms of the new laundering offence which were the subject of a good deal of discussion. Also, on Third Reading, I should like to consider the position in Scotland, which was of interest to a number of Scottish Members. The problems are first, the applicability of the Bill to Scotland and, secondly, the extent to which Scottish law will need to be changed to reflect the changes that have been made in England and Wales. It has not been possible simply to apply the provisions of the Bill to Scotland, because the Bill draws on the established parts of the English and Welsh legal system which are not common to the different legal system in Scotland. Some kind of dovetailing must be effected between the two systems, and that has been the subject of further active consideration.
      4 pm
      Hon. Members may recall that last Friday week a private notice question was raised by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who leads for the Opposition on home affairs matters. He asked about cocaine sniffing kits and invited the Government to give urgent attention to this matter. In response not only to that question, but to the obviously very widespread feeling in the House, I said that action should be considered urgently to clarify whether any provision in the present law could properly deal with this problem. In the event that the answer to that was in the negative, I said that we would consider whether a new provision could be drafted that might be suitable for incorporation in the Bill.
      We have taken those discussions forward and further progress has been made. I shall describe that on Third Reading. I hope that there will be an opportunity for some discussion not outwith the rules of order as to whether it might be possible to make such changes to the Bill in the other place as would give effect to the widespread public feeling against retailers who seek to exploit the awful habit of taking cocaine by selling kits to facilitate that habit.
      New clause 2 is a major new clause designed to meet an important point made in Committee by a number of hon. Members. I particularly mention the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), whom I am pleased to see in this place. In Committee and on Second Reading it was suggested that restraint and charging orders should be available before the institution of proceedings. As it stands, the Bill provides that the appropriate point at which application should be made to a High Court judge is either when a warrant for arrest has been granted, even though the application might be made before the warrant was executed, or, when arrest took place without a warrant, at that point.
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      It was forcefully stated by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and other hon. Members that it was inappropriate to tie this arrangement so closely to the issue of proceedings, on the basis that that might be rather late in the day to trigger an important power in the Bill. It might be at such a late stage that the potential defendant, the suspect, would have the opportunity to do what we know people have done in cases under the present arrangements. When they think that they are liable to be convicted of the offence, they take steps to divest themselves of their property or to move it out of the jurisdiction so that they cannot be touched by the English courts. We wish to address that point. We have rethought our position, and the new clause gives effect to that rethinking.
      In practical terms there must be some link with a late stage in the proceedings, for a number of good reasons. First, it is a serious infringement of individual rights that property should be so restrained. That is a valid point and I do not abstain in any way from the enthusiastic advocacy of the need for this power in which I and many other hon. Members have been engaged for many months. However, this power cannot be given lightly because it is an interference with the liberty of the subject. Because this is a serious matter, we have given the power to a High Court judge, not to lesser judges. It will require the judge to take a balanced view as to whether it would be proper to make the order. Plainly, the only basis on which he can determine that it would be proper is if he is satisfied, on the merits, that there is evidence that the individual concerned has been involved in drug trafficking and has benefited from it.
      New clause 2(1), which deals with the straightforward situation when proceedings have already been started, is not a matter of concern. Instead, clause 2(2) is the nub of the matter. It says that where proceedings have not started:
      "Those powers are also exercisable where the court is satisfied—

      (a) that an information is to be laid under section 1 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 that a person has or is suspected of having committed a drug trafficking offence, and

      (b) that there is reasonable cause to believe that he has benefited from drug trafficking."

      The police will be able to go to court at the point at which they have their tackle in order and are ready to move against the suspect. That has the advantage of pushing the application a day or two back from the point of arrest so that leakage of information is less likely. I know that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fylde (Sir E. Gardner) has, in the work that he has done on the Bill, placed enormous emphasis on the need for there to be due process, even though he has rightly been calling for new powers. We do not want to take advantage of the public climate to introduce legislation that does not have the appropriate checks and balances. We move a few days back from the original decision, but at the same time the judge will not want to make this order unless he is satisfied that the evidence exists.
      I hope that I have met the spirit of the lively discussions that took place in Committee and that the new clause will commend itself to the House.
      Mr. Alex Carlile: I shall not delay the House for more than a few minutes. I am grateful to the Minister for considering and producing so quickly a new and satisfactory provision that brings the civil type Mareva

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      injunction powers into the criminal jurisdiction relating to drugs. It is crucial that the police should have the opportunity of freezing the assets of the suspect before they move in to make the arrest. We shall find that the use of that power, supervised as it will be by a High Court judge, will lead to the seizure of substantial assets that would not otherwise have been seized. It will have the additional advantage of leading to the obtaining of important evidence that might not otherwise have been obtained against the suspect. 'Therefore, I hope that hon. Members will support the new clause.
      Mr. Mellor: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for his welcome for the clause. We took very seriously his point about the Hodgson committee and its recommendation. The committee recommended that the order should be available once there was a prima facie case. We thought that there would be some cases in which the establishment of a prima facie case would be a rather stiffer test and therefore make restraint orders available at a later stage than the institution of proceedings. That is why we chose a formulation which is similar but not identical.
      Perhaps I might point out, so that the House will know the care with which we have addressed the matter of creating powers with proper checks and balances, that subsection (4) of the new clause is worthy of consideration. It provides that the High Court must discharge any order it makes if, in the event, proceedings are not instituted within what it regards as a reasonable time. I think that it would be oppressive if a High Court judge granted the order sought on the basis that proceedings were shortly to be brought—I suspect that is the basis under which the power in subsection (2) will be exercised—and then found that proceedings had not been issued. There might come a point when a court would properly want to discharge the order.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    New Clause 3

      STATEMENTS RELATING TO DRUG TRAFFICKING
      `(1) Where—

      (a) there is tendered to the Crown Court by the prosecuting authority a statement as to any matters relevant to the determination whether the defendant has benefited from drug trafficking or to the assessment of the value of the proceeds of drug trafficking by him, and

      (b) the defendant accepts to any extent any allegation in the statement, the court may, for the purposes of that determination and assessment, treat his acceptance as conclusive of the matters to which it relates.

      (2) Where—

      (a) a statement is tendered under subsection (1)(a) above, and

      (b) the court is satisfied that a copy of the statement has been served on the defendant, the court may require the defendant to indicate to what extent he accepts each allegation in the statement and, so far as he does not accept any such allegation, to indicate any matters he proposes to rely on.

      (3) If the defendant fails in any respect to comply with a requirement under subsection (2) above he may be treated for the purposes of this section as accepting every allegation in the statement apart from—

      (a) any allegation in respect of which he has complied with the requirement, and

      (b) any allegation that he has benefited from drug trafficking or that any payment or other reward is the proceeds of drug trafficking by him.

      (4) Where—
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      (a) there is tendered to the Crown Court by the defendant a statement as to any matters relevant to determining the amount that might be realised at the time the confiscation order is made from property available in respect of the defendant, and

      (b) the prosecuting authority accepts to any extent any allegation in the statement, the court may, for the purposes of that determination, treat the acceptance by the prosecuting authority as conclusive of the matters to which it relates.

      (5) An allegation may be accepted or a matter indicated for the purposes of this section either—

      (a) orally before the court, or

      (b) in writing in accordance with Crown Court Rules.

      (6) No acceptance by the defendant under this section that any payment or other reward is the proceeds of drug trafficking by him shall be admissible in evidence in any proceedings for an offence.'.—[Mr. Mellor.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 26 to 30.
      Mr. Mellor: This is another substantial new clause which again emanates from the helpful discussion we had in Committee. It particularly focuses on points raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile). I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not mind my saying, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) will agree with me, that they had a very good morning in Committee and made a number of sage contributions to which we have responded. I think that the hon. Member for Erdington will agree with me when I say, "If only it were always so".
      4.15 pm
      Mr. Alex Carlile rose—
      Mr. Mellor: Let me finish my little dig, then I shall give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
      We were engaged until a very late hour last night on an important measure for animal welfare on which there was a similar measure of agreement between myself and the hon. Member for Erdington. The alliance was somewhat more dismally represented than on this Bill by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), who is no substitute for the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery. He was aided and abetted by the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft). They received a fairly dusty response from the House, and I hope that they will attend a master class conducted by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery on how to make an effective contribution to non-partisan Bills. I suspect that they left the Chamber last night feeling rather aggrieved at the reception they received. I know that I can rely on the fairness of the hon. and learned Gentleman to agree that when he raises a good point we always take it seriously.
      Mr. Carlile: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the agreement in relation to my suggestions during the first meeting of the Committee caused me a good deal of anxiety? I shall ensure that his comments, which were very generous and which I appreciate, are not circulated to all alliance Members in this House or I may find that my views are rarely accepted by them.
      Mr. Mellor: I should be glad to welcome the hon. and learned Gentleman to the Conservative Benches if the amount of agreement becomes embarrassing to his colleagues.
      I shall address myself to the substantial new clause, which I hope is a sensible one. As it is a major new clause, perhaps I shall be forgiven if I go through it with a little care.
      The new clause derives from the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery in Committee. From the beginning, we had a provision in clause 2(2) enabling the prosecution to tender a statement to the court of what it believed to be the proceeds of the defendant's drug trafficking. The idea behind that is that in straightforward cases, where the amount of the proceeds is known to the prosecution, such a statement, if accepted by the defence, would provide a convenient way for the court to settle the amount of the confiscation order. There will be no need for complex discussions about the offender's property, how much he can prove to be legitimately acquired and so on.
      I stress the importance of those practical matters because, as I hope those hon. Members who have practised in the courts will appreciate, it is easy to take a view that is too academic in such matters. Ultimately, we have to recognise that throughout the country hard-pressed and busy courts are sitting.
      The Bill will entail a great deal of extra work for the prosecution, defence, judge and those who serve him in court and we have to try to fix upon procedures which will enable business to flow steadily and efficiently in the courts. They should not be procedures which will steamroller through an unjust result but procedures which allow the judge to receive the maximum help from the prosecution and defence. When matters are agreed, they can readily be disposed of. When they are not agreed and there is a dispute, the extent of the dispute can be properly defined and a proper discussion can ensue.
      In that spirit, we always intended that the defence should have the right to challenge such a statement from the prosecution. I see that the hon. and learned Gentleman is sending a note to Hansard. Anything that is said about his colleagues must be absolutely right and I can well understand that.
      The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery suggested that the defence should have the right to cross-examine the person making the statement and that the defence should have to give notice of the matters it wished to dispute. That finds its echo in the matters canvassed in the Roskill report on fraud. It is significant that many hon. Members who bring court experience to the debate recognise the need for court procedures, in many respects, to move into the 20th century. The hon. and learned Gentleman managed to achieve that in one subsection, but it has taken the Government a whole new clause. I think that suggests that we find it a more complex matter, but I hope that we have not been prolix for the sake of it.
      Before I go through the subsections of the clause, I shall refer to the main points. The intention is still to provide a short cut for the court to settle the amount of the confiscation order. If the defence accepts a prosecution statement and the judge is satisfied, the calculations can end there. It is important to bear in mind that it is the judge who makes the decision and it should not be cooked up between the prosecution and defence. Just as in other issues which are resolved between the parties, we must
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      leave the judge to intervene, if he feels that an improper arrangement has been made, and say that he will not accept it. If the defence says that it wishes to challenge parts of the statement, the undisputed parts will still provide some common ground and narrow the area about which arguments must be heard. That must be of considerable assistance to the court. The defence will have an express right to challenge and the prosecution will be notified of those matters which are to be disputed.
      We have not provided a specific right of cross-examination because in the circumstances envisaged by the proposed new clause that would be part of normal court proceedings. Although the initial prosecution statement might well include hearsay, we think that it would be preferable for any cross-examination to be of witnesses providing first-hand evidence in the interest of the prosecution and the defence. I think that it very much arose out of the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and others.
      In the new clause we have included a procedure that was not contained in the original Bill which seems to us to be a useful addition. The defendant is to be able to tender a statement as to the amount which might be realised from his property and from property in the hands of third parties which is liable to confiscation. If all or part of that statement is acceptable to the prosecution, that, too, will ease the task of the court in settling the amount of the confiscation order, particularly where the value of the property available is less than the assessed proceeds.
      I intend to look in a little more detail at subsections (1) to (5) and then to make a special point about subsection (6). Subsection (1) provides for the prosecution to tender a statement to the court. The content of the statement is not specified in detail, but it must be relevant to determining whether the defendant has benefited from drug trafficking or to assessing the value of his proceeds.
      It is envisaged that the statement would contain the prosecution's estimate of his proceeds, together with, wherever possible, information about the property that is alleged to be those proceeds: its value, the date when it was acquired and, where relevant, the amount and date of any expenditure alleged to have come from such proceeds. The new clause, like the present clause 2(2), does not require the prosecution to tender such a statement and in practice it will do so only in cases where it is satisfied that the full extent of the proceeds is known.
      If the defence accepts any or all of the statement, the court may treat the accepted parts of the statement as conclusive. If the defence accepts the statement in full, the court is likely to impose straight away a confiscation order for the amount specified in the statement. That, in a nutshell, is the short procedure. It meets the point of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and the hon. Member for Erdington that we might be taking too hard a line with the small time user pushers by making these provisions apply to them as well as to the person whom we primarily intend to catch — the large scale drug trafficker.
      We rejected the Hodgson committee's advice because we felt that we could not add the further complication of having to prove the value of the proceeds or of the drugs. We felt that this would be an impediment to justice. However, as a matter of common sense, where the individual concerned is a small user dealer — even though anybody who deals in drugs, for whatever motive, is a public menace and has to be dealt with—nobody

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      will want to bring all of the machinery that is intended to deal with the millionaire who has assets all over the place into play for the person who is operating from squatted property in central London or Glasgow.
      Therefore, the subsection (1) procedure provides a short form whereby the prosecution, reading between the lines, will agree on a relatively limited sum which the defence will be able to accept. The matter will be primarily disposed of in relation either to punishment or to the opportunities of treatment for the individual. The financial side will not come into play to any great extent. I hope that subsection (1) of the new clause recognises that there is that kind of straightforward case and that it does not make a straight way crooked, as sometimes we manage to do in the provisions that we introduce. There will, however, be more complicated cases. They are addressed in the subsection.
      Subsection (2) allows the court, if it is satisfied that a copy of the statement has been served on the defendant, to require him either to indicate his assent or to dissent from each allegation in the statement and, where he disagrees on any point, to indicate the matters upon which he intends to rely. This will have the advantage of narrowing down the areas of dispute while giving to the defendant the positive right of challenge and to the prosecution notice of how the defendant intends to disprove any element of the statement.
      Although the provision sets no particular time limit on the serving of the statement upon the defendant, the court will need to be satisfied that the defendant has had sufficient time to consider it before he is required to give his response. The court will be able to adjourn, if necessary, although the aim of the provision is to try to ensure that these matters should be dealt with as far as possible before rather than after an adjournment. However, one has to recognise that adjournments will be necessary in certain instances. Where guilt or innocence is at issue, one cannot expect matters to be resolved with the consent of the defendant when the issue of whether he is a drug trafficker is contested.
      Subsection (3) provides that unless the defendant disputes any allegation he may be regarded as accepting it. However—again I hope that this provides a check and balance safeguard that shows the respect we are paying to established court procedures—silence must not be taken as indicating acceptance of any allegation that he has benefited from drug trafficking or that any particular property is the proceeds of drug trafficking. Thus, if he is silent, he may be deemed to accept a statement that he owns a particular house, that it is worth £75,000 and that he acquired it four years ago; but he may not necessarily be deemed to accept, by silence alone, that it was the proceeds of drug trafficking. I hope that that is a clear and proper distinction. However, I should add that the assumption that it was the proceeds of drug trafficking will operate after he has accepted ownership, but he will retain his right to try to disprove the assumption. That dovetails neatly into the provisions that have already been agreed.
      Subsection (4) provides a new and useful procedure whereby the defendant can offer to the court a statement about his property and its value and other property in the hands of third parties which is liable to confiscation. If the prosecution accepts all or part of that statement, the judge may regard that acceptance as conclusive. By providing a basis for settling the amount that might be realised, this procedure will simplify the task of the court in deciding
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      the proper amount of the confiscation order in those cases where the assets available are less than the estimated proceeds. I imagine that that will be a relatively commonplace experience where someone has used the proceeds to live high on the hog, as is not an uncommon experience.
      Subsection (5) allows any acceptance or basis of challenge to be given either orally or in writing. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery sought a specific right of cross-examination by the defence. That is not included in the new clause. In the procedure we propose such cross-examination would, we believe, be part and parcel of normal court proceedings. However, it is envisaged that cross-examination will be allowed of witnesses who have first hand evidence, because that is always the best evidence.
      I direct the attention of the House in particular to subsection (6), which might need to be discussed. Subsection (6) provides that acceptance by the defendant that particular property was derived from drug trafficking is not to be admissible in evidence against him in other criminal proceedings. This provision has been included to encourage candour by the defendant so that his proceeds can be accurately and speedily assessed. I emphasise that the concession is limited to making his acceptance inadmissible as evidence. There is no question of providing immunity from prosecution if other independent evidence can be put forward. However, I tender this part of our proposals rather more tentatively than the rest. I have had first and second thoughts about it. There is a balance of advantage that I shall explain.
      We want to provide a procedure that can be speedily and sensibly carried forward in the hurly-burly of a busy Crown court. It will be an advantage if every inducement can be given to the defendant after the question of his guilt or innocence has been settled to get the mechanics of the confiscation order out of the way. It is not a question of offering immunity from prosecution. If he says something about the property that is to his detriment in another context it will not be used against him, but if other evidence tends to show that the particular item of property was the proceeds of, say, a bank robbery, that evidence will be admissible against him.
      If, however, the consequence was that in the unlikely case of an individual having persuaded the court that the items of property were not the proceeds of drug trafficking but were the proceeds of another crime and it was not possible subsequently to adduce other evidence which established that other offence so that he might be tried and convicted of it, it might seem to be inappropriate that he should have the opportunity to retain possession of property that had been acquired unlawfully, although not through drug trafficking. There is a balance to be struck. I would not hesitate, if it were the opinion of the House that subsection (6) was not appropriate, to give an undertaking to withdraw it in another place.
      Subsections (1) to (5), I believe, very much follow the wishes expressed in Committee two weeks ago. I am more troubled about subsection (6). I believe that the balance of convenience for including it in the Bill is a narrow one.
      The consequential amendments simply allow for the fact that the House has adopted new clause 3, if that be our decision, and amend the Bill accordingly.
      4.30 pm
      Mr. Alex Carlile: I am grateful to the Minister for bringing to the House and moving what I think is a welcome new clause.
      On Second Reading and in Committee I was concerned at what seemed to be an inadequate right for the person appearing before the court for sentence to challenge the statement made by the prosecution before the court as to the extent to which he had benefited from the proceeds of drug trafficking. My concern was particularly for third parties. I must confess that I still have some misgivings, although they may not be strictly relevant under this new clause, as to the protection given in the Bill to third parties.
      I accept what the Minister has said about the right to cross-examine. Under the general procedure set out in the Bill, and in this new clause in particular, there will be a right to cross-examine. I particularly welcome the Minister's statement to the effect that the evidence which will be called on behalf of the prosecution will be the best evidence available. I use the term "best evidence" as a term of art, which I think hon. Members will understand. Thus when the evidence is given it is not hearsay evidence and so it is not necessary to challenge hearsay evidence which is often met with a hearsay stonewall answer.
      I read subsection (6) with great interest. On balance, I think that it falls within the general pattern of the new clause and is a satisfactory addition to the original provisions in the Bill. I shall be interested to see how the new clause ultimately is operated and how it works in the courts.
      Many of us who have practised in the criminal courts over the years believe that there are many other areas in which there is room for the defence to be required to make statements to the prosecution before the hearing so that issues can be narrowed down. We have seen a number of notable experiments in relation to pre-trial reviews in particular in which it has been sought to narrow down the issues to shorten the length of trials and to reduce that very unwelcome element of surprise, which often leads to injustice to both sides in criminal cases. I hope that we shall see these provisions work well enough for the House to want to consider at some future date applying some similar provisions to other areas of the criminal law.
      I agree with the tentative and obviously reserved statement by the Minister to the effect that the provisions of subsection (6) are likely to encourage candour. I believe that they will indeed encourage candour and that defendants, who have, after all, been convicted and who are to be sentenced before the provisions of the Bill come into operation, will be seeking to settle any dispute by agreement without the need for a further lengthy hearing before the court. In my view, subsection (6) is likely to strike the right balance, and I hope that it will not be thought fit to withdraw it in another place.
      Mr. Keith Raffan: I welcome the new clause, which I think is an improvement on the previous provision. If it is sufficient to satisfy the concerns voiced by members of the Opposition and, therefore, gives more of an all-party push to the Bill—although we have already had that—the message must go out from the House that the Bill has strong all-party support. If the doubts expressed by Opposition Members have been allayed, the Bill is that much stronger.
      The point which I wish to raise briefly relates to a dialogue my hon. Friend and I had in Committee when I
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      raised the importance of international co-operation on this matter, something that I have always emphasised is of vital importance. While my hon. Friend accepted that that was a crucial point, he pointed out that, where a defendent had his tainted assets overseas and claimed that all his assets in this country were legitimately earned assets, the courts could still proceed against those legitimate assets to the total value of the tainted assets overseas. In the sort of dealing which might go on, albeit to speed up the process of law, which I welcome, the defendent could claim that all his assets in this country were legitimate and that all his assets in some country with which we do not have a bilateral agreement — Haiti, the Philippines or somewhere exotic — were the tainted ones. He could claim that none of his assets in this country were tainted but were earned through the sweat of his brow and years of labour. As a non-lawyer, I hope for some reassurance from the Minister.
      The Hansard report of Committee proceedings continues to state that I am a lawyer. I disclaim any such pretension, and no such label should be attached to me. If a defendent tries to be too clever by half—and we are dealing with the most sophisticated element of the criminal fraternity—and claims that all his assets in this country are legitimate, and that it is only in Haiti or the Philippines that his assets are tainted, I hope that the Minister will give us the reassurance that we shall proceed very hard and immediately against the legitimate assets of such a person to the cumulative value of the tainted assets overseas.
      Mr. Robin Corbett: The hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) has a difficult choice to make. I understand that, before coming to the House, he was a member of the press. I do not know which would win in a popularity competition between a journalist and a lawyer—and I say that as a former journalist.
      I am not sure that I can assist the Minister very much with regard to new clause 3. Having listened to his explanation, I want to thank him for the care and faithfulness with which he has responded to the points made in Committee. Like the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), I think that the balance is about right. Anything that can be done to encourage candour in the courts is especially welcome. Who knows, if it catches on there, it might even catch on here.
      Mr. Mellor: That is a shrewd blow aimed at the end of an amiable intervention by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett).
      In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan), may I say that in our preparation of the Bill we have had well in mind the fact that a major trafficker will almost certainly have some assets out of the jurisdiction. In addition, a major trafficker may well be involved in legitimate business and have taken to drug trafficking, or he may have gone into a business for a sufficient length of time as a cover for drug trafficking operations, so that one could not say that all parts of the assets of that business were tainted. We therefore resisted the temptation that our American experience might have led us into of laying emphasis upon the confiscation of the pieces of equipment that have been used in, or derived from, drug trafficking in favour of making a computation of the value of those items and making it mandatory for a court to make a confiscation order in the total sum, leaving it to the High Court, if necessary, itself to enforce that order against such property as it can find.

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      That is an important point, because if the tainted assets and the assets within the jurisdiction are one and the same thing, their recovery is perfectly straight forward. However, as in the example postulated by my hon. Friend, if the tainted assets are mainly outside the jurisdiction, the assets that cannot be linked to drug trafficking are within the jurisdiction, the offender refuses to bring those assets back into the jurisdiction, and we do not have arrangements with those other countries to enforce the order in their courts— we appreciate that it will be a time-consuming business to get those arrangements—it will be possible to satisfy the confiscation order by the seizure and disposal of the untainted assets that lie within the jurisdiction. If those untainted assets realise a sum sufficient to discharge the confiscation order, well and good. If there is a shortfall and it is clear that the offender could, if he chose, bring back other assets into the jurisdiction, he would be liable to serve the additional sentence of imprisonment in lieu of satisfying the court order.
      In the absence of a full-scale international agreement, which we have been seeking with great vigour, and which is being sought at present in Vienna at the meeting of the United Nations Commission, I cannot pretend that we can iron out all the problems that will result from people placing their assets overseas. But we shall be able to resolve many such cases, as I hope I have demonstrated today.
      I heard the reassuring remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) and the hon. Member for Erdington on subsection (6). I had to judge whether I should introduce the provision without including it in the new clause, or whether I should say, halfheartedly, "It is there, but I will remove it if you do not like it." I am glad that my decision to keep it in is apparently correct, although we must see what the other place has to say about it.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    Clause 2

      ASSESSING THE PROCEEDS OF DRUG TRAFFICKING
      Amendment made: No. 26, in page 3, leave out lines 17 to 29.—[Mr. Mellor.]
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 3, line 38, leave out 'at the time of' and insert 'at any time since'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 5.
      Mr. Mellor: I remind the House that the Bill originally provided for the assumption that the trafficker's property was derived from drug trafficking applied to all the assets that he held at the time of his conviction and all those that had been in his hands at any time during the previous five years. In Committee, we had a discussion, led by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), assisted by my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) and for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill), as to whether the period of five years was correct. Of course, I acknowledge that the period chosen was a
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      pretty arbitrary decision. Sometimes one can justify the particular period more than other times, but no one can ever say that he has the last word on the subject.
      The Government have reconsidered the matter in the light of the discussion in Committee. The hon. Member for Erdington said that the period should be extended to 10 years, although he made it clear that he was not wedded to that figure. He simply believed that the longer period might be appropriate. We arrived at the period of five years by answering this question: if a trafficker is asked to prove that his assets were not acquired as a result of drug trafficking, how long can we reasonably expect him to go back and for how long would he have kept the necessary records? For how long would he keep in touch with people who might be able to confirm what he said? We hit on five years as being a fair period.
      4.45 pm
      However, it emerged during the discussion and from further research that a recent Finance Act provided that VAT records, for example, should be kept for six years. The Inland Revenue expects people to produce information about their income and expenditure in a variety of circumstances, and although it has different time limits for different purposes, six years is fairly common. That is also the period for which employers are expected to keep records of employees' remuneration, and the period during which individuals may claim tax relief.
      In the hope that the amendment moves in the direction in which several hon. Members wish us to go, we invite the House to extend the period from five years to six years. I do not know whether anyone will press me to go further than that this afternoon. A longer period would increase the burden on the defence to an unacceptable extent, because many defendants who had had a legitimate income would not have the records many years later to prove that that was so, and we should not penalise them for that. If the prosecution can prove differently, it should not be inhibited by the six-year limit. Six years seems to be a reasonable period for the assumption to apply, although, where it can be shown that assets acquired earlier than that were the proceeds of drug trafficking, there will be no inhibition on the prosecution's seizing them.
      In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes asked why the relevant period for the application of the assumption was calculated back from the time of conviction. He suggested that the reference point should be the time of charging. Many hon. Members, including the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and the hon. Member for Erdington, shared his view. We wish to meet that point, but, in the interests of consistency with other parts of the Bill, especially clause 4, we suggest that the reference point should be the institution of proceedings. That will often pre-date charging, so I hope that the amendment will be accepted by the House.
      In reviewing the period during which the assumptions should apply, we also thought it right to cover any gap that might arise between conviction and the imposition of the confiscation order should the court need to adjourn for any reason. That is why we tabled amendment No.2.
      As we propose to extend the operative period for the assumptions in clause 2, we thought that, in the interests of consistency, we should do the same in respect of transfers of property for less than full value, which also have a five-year limitation. That provision is included in

      209
      clause 4. Although it is not strictly necessary for the periods in clauses 2 and 4 to be the same, it is sensible that they should be. That is why I ask the House to accept the amendment to clause 4, which would provide a six-year period. I hope that my explanations have helped the House.
      Mr. Corbett: Before the week is over, I shall have inflicted much damage upon the Minister's political career by thanking him for the way in which he has responded to points made in Committee. As he said, there is far more logic in a six-year limitation, especially in terms of VAT and some Inland Revenue practices. I also welcome the fact that the period will date from the time when the proceedings were instituted, which again is more logical.
      Mr. Raffan: I accept what my hon. Friend the Minister said about a period of six years. Ideally I would prefer even longer but one must be realistic. One cannot go beyond six years or a great deal of court time will be consumed. My hon. Friend is right; we do not want to do that.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) is not here but he made a valuable point in Committee to which my hon. Friend the Minister has responded by making the period apply from the institution of proceedings rather than from the date of conviction. My hon. Friend was adamant that the latter should not be the case. He was concerned that the period should not finish before conviction, otherwise assets acquired after arrest, but before conviction, would fall out of the frame. That would be unfortunate as someone could be on remand for some time. Such a person could still be receiving tainted money after proceedings had been instituted. I accept my hon. Friend's point that it would be in the defendant's interests to prolong the process of law so that he could get out of liability for as many tainted assets as possible, but I am still worried about the time between the institution of proceedings and conviction. What happens to tainted assets that are transferred during that time? My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes put it rather well—it falls out of the frame.
      Mr. Mellor: I refer my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) to amendment No. 3 which meets the relevant arrangements by providing:
      "at any time since the beginning of the period of six years ending when the proceedings were instituted against him".
      That relates to the timing of the assumption. We think that it would be extremely unlikely if there were any difficulty in the period leading up to trial. Such matters would be in recent memory and the prosecution authorities would have full tabs on what the person was up to because he would have been identified and charged. A great deal would be known about him. That is the time when one would expect the prosecution to know the answers and to not have to rely on the defendant, perhaps going back to before the date when the defendant came to notice. At that earlier stage, it is quite reasonable to say that the defendant knows far more about how he got his house than the prosecution. In serious cases, assets would have been frozen in any event.
      I appreciate my hon. Friend's sincerity. If, having considered the matter, I find that I have been overconfident, we shall not hesitate to examine it again in another place. I shall write to my hon. Friend if we have a chance to re-examine it.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendments made: No. 3, in page 3, line 40, leave out from 'him' to end of line 41 and insert
      'at any time since the beginning of the period of six years ending when the proceedings were instituted against him'.
      No. 4, in page 4, line 5, leave out 'in' and insert 'since the beginning of'.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

    Clause 3

      AMOUNT TO BE RECOVERED UNDER CONFISCATION ORDER
      Amendments made: No. 27, in page 4, leave out lines 31 to 44.
      No. 28, in page 5 line 1, leave out
      'of the matters specified in subsection (2) above'
      and insert
      'matter relevant for determining the amount that might be realised at the time the confiscation order is made from property available in respect of the defendant'.
      No. 29, in page 5, line 2, leave out 'a statement so tendered' and insert
      'an acceptance under section [Statements relating to drug trafficking] of this Act'.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

    Clause 4

      CONFISCATION ORDERS: DEFINITION OF TERMS
      Amendments made: No. 5, in page 5, line 18, leave out `five' and insert 'six'.
      No. 30, in page 6, line 13, leave out 'section' and insert 'sections [Statements relating to drug trafficking] and'.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

    Clause 5

      APPLICATIONS OF PROCEDURE FOR ENFORCING FINES
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move amendment No. 18, in page 7, line 37, leave out 'Any' and insert—
      'Where—

      (a) a warrant of commitment is issued for a default in payment of an amount ordered to be paid under section 1 of this Act in respect of an offence or offences, and

      (b) at the time the warrant is issued, the defendant is liable to serve a term of custody in respect of the offence or offences,

      the'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 19 to 21.
      Mr. Mellor: This group of amendments does not represent any change of policy, but it tightens up the draft and usefully links the new provision to the existing procedure of commitment of fine defaulters by warrant. These are improvements, albeit minor, which I trust will commend themselves to the House.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendments made: No. 19, in page 7, line 39, leave out from 'default)' to end of line 43 and insert
      'to be served in default of payment of the amount shall not begin to run until after the term mentioned in paragraph (b) above.'.
      No. 20, in page 8, line 1, after '4', insert 'or 9'.
      No. 21, in page 8, line 6, leave out from 'disregarded' to the end of line 10 and insert—
      '(i) any sentence suspended under section 22(1) of the said Act of 1973 which has not taken effect at the time the warrant is issued,
      (ii) in the case of a sentence of imprisonment passed with an order under section 47(1) of the
      Criminal Law Act 1977, or any part of the sentence which the defendant has not at that time been required to serve in prison, and
      (iii) any term of imprisonment or detention fixed under section 31(2) of the said Act of 1973 for which a warrant of commitment has not been issued at that time. '.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

    Clause 6
      RESTRAINT ORDERS
      Amendment made: No. 8, in page 8, line 30, leave out from beginning to end of line 34 and insert 'The High Court'.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
    Clause 7

      CHARGING ORDERS IN RESPECT OF LAND, SECURITIES ETC.
      Amendment made: No. 9, in page 9, line 27, leave out from beginning to 'may' in line 31 and insert 'The High Court'.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move amendment No. 22, in page 10, line 23, leave out 'state' and insert 'country'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 23.
      Mr. Mellor: The amendment is intended simply to make the terminology of clause 7 fully consistent with that in clause 17, so that there is no possibility of dispute about the relative meanings of "state" and "country". We discovered that state and country had been used when one of those nouns alone would have done. We have opted for country for reasons which elude me, but I am sure that they are extremely good.
      Amendment No. 23 is intended to bring the provisions relating to charging orders into line with those relating to restraint orders by specifying that an order must be discharged when the proceedings against the drug traffickers are concluded. A charging order is made only to secure payment of sums due, or which might become due, under a confiscation order: it is patently right that if the proceedings are discontinued, or if a confiscation is not made or is satisfied by payments from other sources, the charging order has no further purpose and must be discharged. It is a tidying-up which I hope shows our punctilliousness on these matters.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendment made: No. 23, in page 10, line 36, after `if', insert
      `the proceedings for the offences are concluded or'. — [Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

    Clause 10

      APPLICATION OF PROCEEDS OF REALISATION
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move amendment No. 24, in page 13, line 13, leave out
      `as mentioned in subsection (1) above'
      and insert
      `by any person towards the satisfaction of a confiscation order'.
      I hope that this also is a relatively straightforward matter. The amendment provides that money paid by the trafficker, or a third party, in satisfaction of a confiscation order should be treated in the same way as money collected by a receiver appointed under clause 9. That is, it will be
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      treated as money collected in payment of a fine and paid by the clerk of the relevant magistrates' court to the Secretary of State for onward transmission to the Consolidated Fund.
      I know that this touches on matters which were the subject of some discussion. I regret having to stick my head into the lion's jaws, but I am told that it is inevitable. I do so, and step back hastily.
      Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 16

      ENFORCEMENT OF NORTHERN IRELAND ORDERS
      Amendments made: No. 10, in page 17, line 11, leave
      out 'for' and insert
      `that for the purposes of'.
      No. 11, in page 17, line 12, after 'sections', insert
      `[Cases in which restraint orders and charging orders may be made]'.
      No. 12, in page 17, line 12, leave out second 'to' and insert 'this Act shall'.
      No. 13, in page 17, line 20, leave out 'and'.
      No. 14, in page 17, line 22, after 'institution', insert 'or conclusion'.
      No. 15, in page 17, line 24, leave out
      'as the case may be'.
      No. 16, in page 17, line 24, after `institution', insert `or conclusion'.
      No. 17, in page 17, line 25, at end insert
      `as the case may be, and
      (d) references to the laying of an information or the issue of a summons or warrant under section 1 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 included a reference to making a complaint or issuing a summons or warrant (as the case may be) under Article 20 of the Magistrates' Courts (Northern Ireland) Order 1981'.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

    Clause 17

      ENFORCEMENT OF OTHER EXTERNAL ORDERS
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move amendment No. 25, in page 18, line 31, at end insert
      'as they have effect in relation to a confiscation order'.
      This amendment is also proposed for clarification. It provides expressly that a number of provisions in the Bill — including those relating to restraint and charging orders and the realisation of property — should have effect in relation to those overseas confiscation orders which will be enforceable in England and Wales, just as they have effect in relation to confiscation orders made here.
      This is another part of the international element to which my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) and others attach such importance. When we have an arrangement with a country that has negotiated, or, as we hope, we are both parties to, an international convention on these matters, an order which affects property in Britain made by a foreign court will in this respect be treated precisely the same as an order by a British court against the same property. That was already implicit in clause 17, but, knowing how lawyers will argue about these simple points, I thought that we should put the matter beyond doubt.
      Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 18

      ORDER TO MAKE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move that amendment No. 6, in page 19, line 34, leave out from beginning to 'period' in line 35 and insert 'within such'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take Governent amendment No. 7.
      Mr. Mellor: This also is a technical matter but it is worthwhile. The Bill originally provided that where a circuit judge made an order requiring a bank or other holder of information to produce material to a constable, the bank should have to comply within seven days or
      "such longer period as the order may specify".
      The amendments give the judge a new discretion to specify a shorter period if he thinks that is appropriate. Although it seems technical, there is a real point which I think will be welcomed particularly by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett). The period originally was seven days. The hon. Gentleman, fresh from his discussions with the banks in the Select Committee on Home Affairs, suggested three working days. I must stress again that the banks have been most helpful in agreeing to the arrangements and have displayed a positive approach to the real difficulties in which financial institutions can be placed if unscrupulous people seek to make use of their services to launder dishonestly acquired assets. In Committee other hon. Members seemed sympathetic to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Erdington, so I undertook to consider it carefully.
      5 pm
      I have to report that the information holders that we consulted — the banks and the Inland Revenue —expressed serious reservations about three working days becoming the norm. They pointed out that the material in question might be at the other end of the country from the headquarters office on which the order was served and that they would have to identify and retrieve it, which might take time. Hon. Members can draw on their own experience of constituents' tax problems. Although the Inland Revenue always deals with our queries with cheerfulness, sometimes it takes longer than three days. The banks and the Inland Revenue have stressed that they would be happy to produce the information in less than three days wherever possible, but they did not want the embarrassment of regularly failing to produce the information on time.
      In my opinion, the holders of the information are justified in preferring seven days as the normal period, but we are giving a discretion to the judge to impose an earlier deadline than seven days if he thinks that is justified and practicable, just as the Bill from the first gave the judge discretion to specify a longer time. I hope that deals in a Solomon-like way with the dilemma that we face.
      Mr. Corbett: The hon. Gentleman has been his usual wise self. This is a sensible arrangement. I welcome the response by the banks and other holders of information that, where possible, they will not delay the provision of information.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendment made: No. 7, in page 19, line 36, at end insert—
      214
      `(2A) The period to be specified in an order under subsection (2) above shall be seven days unless it appears to the judge that a longer or shorter period would be appropriate in the particular circumstances of the application.'.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
      5.2 pm
      Mr. Mellor: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      I have the greatest pleasure in standing here, such a relatively short time after the Bill was introduced, to commend it to the House for Third Reading. The Bill has required a great deal of work by my officials and myself, but that work will have been worth while if it results in us having a mechanism whereby we can effectively deprive the drug trafficker of the enormous gains that he can achieve from a successful career pursuing that wretched crime.
      Once again—this is not empty piety —I must say how grateful I am to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the positive spirit in which they have engaged in discussions on the Bill. There has not been in any sense passive acquiescence in the passage of a measure that hon. Members were too embarrassed to oppose because of the climate but a full-hearted recognition on both sides that the matter must be addressed speedily. My memory of our discussions will be the recognition that if the matter had to be addressed at all, it had to be addressed properly. There could not be legislation by gesture. We had to provide a mechanism which is capable of being readily enforced, and which bites.
      When I introduced the measure in October, I said that the procedures we proposed would have the teeth of a shark. I believe that we have achieved that. Those who have participated in the discussions — I commend particularly the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile)—have considered the details and come forward with amendments which I have been able in Committee and this afternoon to accept or to embellish or work upon in a way that has strengthened the Bill. We should all feel a sense of shared achievement as we send the Bill to another place in the hope that it will be received there as positively as it has been here.
      Before turning to matters of general interest, I wish to take the opportunity of dealing with one or two pieces of unfinished business which arose in Committee and which I could not address by way of amendment on Report. It would be inappropriate if the Bill were to leave the House without a full account having been given of our consideration of such matters.
      Clause 2(6) provides that the court may adjust its assessment of the proceeds of drug trafficking to take account of changes in their value since they were received. In Committee it was suggested that such adjustments should be mandatory, at least where an increase in value was concerned. It was felt that reductions should continue to be discretionary. We have considered the point carefully, but remain convinced that mandatory adjustment would be impracticable, although attractive in theory.
      In some cases it is true that the courts would readily be able to calculate increases in value, but in many cases they would not. Traffickers may well move their money around rapidly. Drug proceeds might be combined with other money to buy assets which were resold and the sale receipts might be used with other funds in different

      215
      combinations to buy other property. Such a cycle might be repeated more than once before a trafficker was brought to justice. It would often be impossible for the court in reality to assess the increase in the value of the proceeds. In those circumstances, we do not think it would be feasible to make the adjustment mandatory. Discretion will enable the court to take account of any significant gains, if necessary on a broad brush basis. I do not duck the issue, but we have to be realistic. Often a broad brush approach will be the only way of painting the picture. That is what the courts will want to do.
      We are taking a fresh look at clause 2 to take account of the points made in Committee and to see whether, notwithstanding the reservations, we can clarify the provisions and make it easier for the courts to use the power of adjustment given to them by paragraph (b). If necessary, an amendment will be tabled in another place.
      Perhaps I may mention briefly two drafting points raised in Committee about which we have consulted the draftsmen. It was suggested that the word "present" should be inserted in clause 3(2)(c)—
      Mr. Corbett: The hon. Gentleman is pulling in the crowds.
      Mr. Mellor: Yes. I am glad hon. Members are now so interested in the Third Reading of a major Bill.

  British Leyland
  Mr. Terry Davis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As the Minister has just said, we are all interested in the Bill but we are also interested in other matters which are of great importance. During the last few weeks there have been several statements and questions about the future of British Leyland and the discussions with General Motors. I understand that at this very moment the Department of Trade and Industry is briefing journalists about further developments in the British Leyland saga. I and my lion. Friends resent very much the continued practice of the Department of Trade and Industry of using leaks and briefings instead of coming to the House and making a statement on a matter which is of extreme importance to many thousands of our constituents. I should like your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on how we can get a Minister from that Department to come to the House to make a statement at the earliest possible opportunity.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): The hon. Gentleman will realise that that is not a matter for the Chair. I am sure that the point which he has made will be duly noted in the quarters which can respond to what he has said.
  Mr. Joseph Ashton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There has obviously been a great deal of controversy since we returned after the Christmas recess about leaks and inquiries into the Westland affair. I am sure that none of us wishes to think that the Prime Minister was misleading the House less than two hours ago in some of her comments about British Leyland. In order to protect her reputation, she, or at least one of the Ministers responsible, should make a statement to the House almost immediately.
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for hon. Members suddenly to come into the Chamber in the middle of a debate on an important Bill and make party political points at a time when they know they will attract the maximum media attention? Is that the way this House must conduct its business?
  Mr. Terry Davis: I raised the matter because at this time officials from the Department of Trade and Industry are briefing journalists. Instead of that, Ministers should come to make a statement to the House.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point at issue is simple. The House of Commons has a sovereign right to know what the Government have decided about a basic industry. The matter has not been debated over a great number of hours in the Chamber, but we know that at this moment journalists are being given information which has not been given to the House. That is not only wholly unacceptable, but irresponsible.
  Mr. Harry Greenway: Further to those points of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and seek your guidance. We are debating the Drug Trafficking Offences Bill. It is designed to save lives and to hammer people who bring drugs into the country and make vast profits. It is a measure of the highest importance, and this vital debate is being interrupted by

  217
  Labour party members who came in to the House to make party political points of a dogmatic and cheap kind. I do not accept the sincerity of their points. They could have waited until the end of Third Reading to make those points. If they cared about stopping drug abuse, that is exactly what they would have done.
  Mr. Stuart Randall rose—
  Mr. Frank Dobson rose—
  Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Perhaps I can deal with the points that have been raised.
  I have already made it clear that this is not a matter for the Chair. Hon. Members have made their points. We should now return to the business before the House, which is the Third Reading of the Drug Trafficking Offences Bill.
  Mr. Peter Shore: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We all understand and sympathise with hon. Members who are taking part in the debate. Quite clearly, my hon. Friends would not have thought it right to intervene unless there was a matter of considerable importance taking place within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster but not in the Chamber. You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the issue of the disposal of British Leyland and its future is of the utmost current interest and importance, and it has been running now for more than the past week.
  We well understand that it is not for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to answer or decree on these matters. It is customary, particularly in the presence of the Leader of the House, who I am glad to see is now in his place, to put through you to him the need for an immediate statement on the matters which the press is now being briefed upon about the future of British Leyland. Surely it is now up to the Leader of the House to make some response and to make sure the House has the statement that it deserves on this important matter.
  The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): I am sure the House wishes to give proper consideration to the Drug Trafficking Offences Bill. I also recognise the point the right hon. Gentleman has just made. Of course, I will look into the matter and perhaps it could be further considered through the usual channels.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: In view of that exchange, I hope that we can now return to the business of the House.

  Drug Trafficking Offences Bill
  Mr. Mellor: As a Minister in that quiet Whitehall backwater, the Home Office, I am a stranger to controversy but it has enlivened my dull old life to be a witness to some controversy, even if I was not a participant. Perhaps I could return to an area in which there is rather more amity on display than in the one that has just been touched on. I hope that I was not dealing with matters at inordinate length, but I was trying to set the seal on the careful consideration the House has given to the Bill.
  I was dealing with points that were raised in Committee by the hon. Member for Erdington and by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery who speaks for the Liberal party. I was explaining why it was that in some instances I was not able to come forward with amendments to meet their points as I did on some of the other matters. I was dealing with two drafting points that were raised in Committee on clause 3(2). I have been back to the draftsman to consult him about those.
  In clause 3(2)(c) it was suggested that the word "present" should be inserted before "value" to make it clear that the property should not be valued as at the date of acquisition. I am advised by the draftsman that the earlier words in clause 3(2), by reference to the date the statement is made, were enough to put the matter beyond doubt. I hope that is helpful.
  Some points arose about clauses 18 and 19. Those clauses provide for a circuit judge to make an order or to grant a warrant allowing access to information that is likely to be of substantial value to a drug trafficking investigation. The hon. Member for Erdington suggested in Committee that a more appropriate test would be "relevance" rather the "value". I know that he was concerned to ensure that the criteria for such orders are sufficiently tightly drawn, and he raised a valuable point. I understand and share his anxiety that the criteria should be sufficiently tightly drawn.
  The phrase "substantial value" was taken from the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and is intended to be a sufficiently rigorous test to rule out any possibility that the powers would be used in marginal cases. In practice, I doubt whether much is likely to hinge on the distinction between "relevance" and "value". It is difficult to see how something could be of substantial value without also being of substantial relevance. Something could perhaps be relevant without being of value. If anything, on examination value may be the harder test to satisfy.
  I have consulted the draftsman and he has advised me that "relevance" could lead to unintended complications because of its technical meaning in relation to evidence. The hon. Gentleman will remember that that was the objection that sprang fully armed from my own brow as a former lawyer who some years ago hung up his wig and joined the human race. For those reasons, I am not proposing any amendment to the original version. [Interruption.] I knew that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) would enjoy that.
  Clause 15 contains a matter that we have not resolved, and it is about the formulation of the new laundering offence. The House may recall that that offence lies at the heart of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), who I am glad to see in his place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) both asked questions in Committee, having

  219
  been properly consulted by bank employees about their liability. Perhaps I ought to return to that point in order to satisfy hon. Members who have expressed anxiety.
  It is important that we get right any criminal offence, and particularly one that carries a maximum of 14 years' imprisonment. We have always accepted that this offence would be one of the more difficult parts of the Bill. From the start, it raised a number of tricky problems about the balance to be struck between effectiveness, on the one hand, and the risk of penalising essentially innocent behaviour, on the other. One of the difficulties about the activity that may give rise to the offence is that participating in a financial transaction will often look the same whether it is innocent or guilty. The mental element is all important. Defining what the mental element in the offence, or the mens rea, as they say in the Temple, should be has been exercising our minds.
  Obviously, we do not want a formulation that will pose insuperable problems for ordinary honest bank clerks going about their everyday duties, but we need a formulation that will be effective in enabling any person who assists the drug trafficker by laundering his proceeds to be brought to justice and convicted without placing an impossible burden on the prosecution. We want to send out a warning that those involved in handling other people's money have a duty to satisfy themselves that they are dealing with the sort of person with whom respectable institutions would deal.
  We have been looking carefully at the points raised by my hon. Friends, including the use of an objective test for the mental element of the offence, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, and the use of the word "suspect", which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes. Given the complexities of the laundering concept, we wanted to take further advice from the parliamentary draftsman and the Director of Public Prosecutions. I am not able to announce any conclusion, but, given the importance of this new offence, I hope that the House will agree that it is important to take sufficient time to satisfy ourselves about the best formulation. As soon as I can, I shall write to the hon. Members who have been worried about this aspect. I assure them that if, as a result of our deliberations, we conclude that some change is advisable, any necessary amendment will be tabled in good time in another place.
  I am not satisfied that we need to make a change at this stage, but I accept the legitimacy of the concern that has been expressed. We are driving ourselves on to examine the mental element to satisfy ourselves that we have done a precise job in formulating the offence in a way that is fair to those involved in financial deals and to the prosecution, giving it a proper opportunity to make this laundering offence stick. Some unscrupulous people are playing a vital part in facilitating drug trafficking by helping the principal to get away with his funds and to put them into legitimate assets. Does the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery wish me to give way? I see that he does not.
  In Committee, a number of Members referred to Scotland. Although the legal systems in Scotland and in England and Wales are complementary, their approaches differ greatly. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has announced that he intends at the earliest opportunity to introduce legislation to provide for the confiscation of the proceeds of drug trafficking in Scotland. It would not be practicable simply
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  to extend the provisions of the legislation to Scotland in view of the distinctive features of and separate procedures in the Scottish legal system. Until the Scottish legislation comes into force, provision must be made in the Bill to ensure that confiscation orders imposed by courts in England and Wales can be enforced against assets held in Scotland. Clause 14, as drafted, provides an enabling power for this to be done by Order in Council.
  Following discussions with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State, we propose to table amendments in another place specifying in some detail the procedures by which the Bill will be enforced in Scotland. Those procedures will replace clause 14 altogether. I am sorry that the complexities of drafting have not allowed us to do that in time for this debate.
  Essentially, we propose that any order made by the High Court in England and Wales in exercising its functions under the Bill will be automatically recognised and have effect in Scotland. The powers of any receiver appointed under the Bill will be automatically recognised in Scotland. In cases where it is necessary to proceed to measures of enforcement, these powers will be available once the judgment has been registered in the Court of Session.
  Police and Customs officers in Scotland will be given similar powers to those available to English and Welsh police under the Bill to ensure effective cross-border enforcement. Further points which occur when considering the Bill in another place might require other amendments or refinements. The provisions we have agreed would enable confiscation of proceeds to play a vital role in the Government's, overall strategy against drug trafficking by removing the major incentive to traffic in drugs and by attacking the funds that are necessary to finance drug trafficking operations.
  I come to a point which was specifically raised by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) in a private notice question. It concerns the sale in a number of shops in London and elsewhere of cocaine kits. Last Friday week, I undertook to consider as a matter of urgency the adequacy of the present law to prevent such sales and the possibility of introducing a clause to outlaw the sale of these kits—a practice that has caused much offence to so many people. Given the importance of this issue and its relevance to the Bill, I hope that I may take this opportunity to raise it today.
  We have looked carefully at the question whether any offence is committed under existing law by the sale of these kits. Although ultimately this is a matter for the courts, I have been advised that the incitement provisions of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 would bite on the sale of cocaine kits only in limited circumstances. To constitute an offence of incitement, there must be an element of persuasion. I understand that the kits are normally displayed and sold without any suggestion being made as to their likely use. Moreover, it is arguable that a person who buys a cocaine kit must either possess the drug or be determined to possess it. Hence, the question of incitement might not arise.
  It has been suggested that the existing regulatory powers should be used to ban the sale of cocaine kits. I have consulted the Department of Trade and Industry, but am advised that the consumer legislation for which it is responsible is concerned with the intrinsic safety of consumer goods and no existing regulations could be held to apply to cocaine kits.

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  For those reasons, we are inclined to think that the only effective answer will be the creation of a new specific offence. This in itself is not without difficulties because, as I explained last Friday week, the components of a cocaine kit are everyday items which are sold separately for legitimate purposes. Obviously, we would not want to penalise the sale of, for example, handbag mirrors or razor blades which have perfectly normal, straightforward uses. We want to ensure that any formulation of the new offence does not make it more difficult—this is an increasingly important point—for heroin addicts to obtain syringes and needles because of the increased risk of contracting AIDS and hepatitis which would be increased by the re-use of such items. We do not want to encourage addicts to go to "shooting galleries," as they are called in New York, where needles are used by a number of addicts, thereby facilitating the spread of these deadly infections.
  Mr. Jeremy Hanley rose—
  Mr. Mellor: I shall just finish what I was going to say and then give way.
  Obviously, we shall want to reflect and consult further with interested parties before reaching a final view on the best formulation of any new provision. Our initial thinking is that it should be made an offence for a person to supply or to offer to supply any combination of articles which, taken together, he knows or believes are likely to be used for the purpose of inhaling a controlled drug. It might be appropriate to provide in addition that a belief by the seller that the articles would be used to inhale a drug for medical purposes should be a defence to such a charge. We shall consider that point further.
  We shall pursue this point as a matter of urgency. It is possible that such a provision will be regarded as relevant to the Bill. I shall raise this point with the authorities in another place. If it does not prove to be practicable to include such a provision in the legislation, we shall consider possible alternative vehicles. I know that the House as a whole shares the Government's concern that early action should be taken on the sale of these kits.
  Mr. Hanley: I wanted to intervene before my hon. Friend gave that hopeful sign that there will be an end to the sale of drug paraphernalia. Will my hon. Friend and his Department be at pains to investigate how other countries, such as America, manage to rid themselves of certain drug paraphernalia? I believe that there is successful legislation in many American states banning this type of component kit.
  Mr. Mellor: What my hon. Friend says about America is true up to a point. There is no federal offence of selling drug paraphernalia because of the same difficulties that we have experienced on this side of the Atlantic. However, there is a model law for application by states, which has been drafted by our good friends in the drug enforcement administration in Washington. Some states have chosen to adopt that approach. We have drawn upon the American experience in our consideration of the provision. I hope that when it is polished up, it will have support from both sides of the House.
  Before we part company with the Bill, there are some basic principles that I should like to emphasise. It is
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  offensive to ordinary citizens to see traffickers living in style as a result of the misery that they have brought to others. The likelihood of losing their proceeds will be an important deterrent if we can make clear how effective and sharp-edged the Bill is.
  We must ensure that an effective remedy is available to the courts, so that proceeds cannot be used to finance further trafficking. Like a business, the danger is that proceeds from one deal could finance larger deals and allow ever greater quantities of drugs to be brought into Britain and to become freely available on our streets, thus threatening the future of our youngsters.
  The money must be removed completely from the drugs arena. Obviously, that is easier said than done, but our efforts during the past six weeks are an advance on the efforts made in the different and simpler era of the early 1970s when the House passed the Misuse of Drugs Act. At that time the House purported to give power to seize assets, which the courts have subsequently found to be too narrow and devoid of the mechanisms that we have introduced today.
  We have drawn on the international experience, which has informed the awareness of so many hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. We have especially considered the United States, which has a well-established criminal and civil forfeiture procedure. The United States example has spurred us on, because massive sums of money have been recovered from traffickers. Some significant breakthroughs have been made in the area of what happens to the money. Up to the present we have focused exclusively on what happens to the drugs. However, although the American example provided many insights and gave us a great spur to action, many of the United States provisions are alien to our legal system. The civil forfeiture procedure, though effective in America, is difficult for us to swallow. We have always expected such procedures to be linked to conviction. As links across the Atlantic have proved to be so controversial these days, I hope that we have not taken hook, line and sinker the American model, but that we have used the American experience to spur us on to a truly British answer to our problems. I give way to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: The hon. Gentleman keeps wanting to give way to me. What have I done?
  Mr. Mellor: The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery was leaning forward menacingly. I thought that I had lulled him to sleep or stimulated him to some great thought. He may feel that he is entitled to rest on his laurels having contributed so much to the Bill.
  We require a court to impose a confiscation order, because we wish to deprive every trafficker of his proceeds, however large or small. Bearing in mind our experience of forfeiture and confiscation orders in the courts, it is crucial that the confiscation order should not be an optional extra, but should be at the heart of the way in which a court deals with a drug trafficker. That is central to society's response to the problems posed by the drug trafficker.
  At an early stage we had to decide whether to go down the forfeiture or the confiscation road. Forfeiture had its attractions in that tainted property could be seized without the need for valuation, which is part of our present legislation. However, for reasons on which I have already

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  dilated to my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan), forfeiture did not give us the flexibility of confiscation. The attraction of confiscation is that, once a sum has been compiled that represents the proceeds of drug trafficking, it can be enforced against any property of the trafficker regardless of the source from which the property might have come. That provides the crucial flexibility that is required in cases such as those raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn. When some assets are overseas and some are domestic, we can lay our hands only on the domestic assets with forfeiture, we would be unable to touch non-tainted assets, but with confiscation we can.
  We have looked for the loopholes and tried to stop them in advance. The obvious loopholes are putting property in the names of friends and family and disposing of them before the end of the trial. We have not hesitated to lean across the civil law to take provisions that have worked well in that context, on the basis, "Why should the devil have all the good tunes?" If there are other loopholes, it is not too late for us to drive ourselves on to address the crucial points of detail. In the end, it is the small print rather than the large paragraphs that determines our success.
  I stress the importance of investigative powers, not simply because they will help us to ensure that we get all the proceeds, but because they will enable us to go further into the complex conspiracies that are involved in major drug trafficking. They will help us to gain information about people who never soil their hands with the drugs, but who rely on others to do so. Those people mastermind the drug-selling operation from a distance, but they are only too anxious to mastermind the spending and investment at close quarters, because they are in business to make money. Those financial dealings will provide the crucial evidence to enable us to smash more conspiracies and to catch even more of the prime movers than we have succeeded in doing up to the present.
  Going into the records of the Inland Revenue, banks and financial institutions is sensitive territory, however imperative the need to take action that drives us on. We must recognise that safeguards are applied to ensure that the authorities do not use drug trafficking as a pretext to throw on one side the liberty of the subject or to apply draconian powers to people who, are innocent.
  We must remember that some people who are not guilty of these offences will always excite suspicion. That is why we have been at pains to build into the provisions safeguards to ensure that, while they are hard-hitting, they will not put at risk the rights and welfare of ordinary citizens. That is why we have stressed the role of senior judges of the High Court at the restraint and enforcement stage. That is why we have considered even the singular matter of the investigative part of the Government machine going to court to ask another part of the Government machine to provide information that may be relevant to an inquiry. That is not to be done through cosy telephone calls, but through a judge deciding that it would be appropriate for the Inland Revenue to give records of suspects. That gives independence to the decision for access.
  Restraint will be available only in closely defined circumstances. We scoured that provision this afternoon and made some changes. We have taken particular pains to ensure that the rights of third parties are protected by specific provision for them to put their case to the High
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  Court before enforcement. We cannot leave third parties out of the matter. That would be to fail in our duty because we know that someone will always pass to third parties tainted money which must be recovered. Third parties have rights, which the Bill protects.
  We insist that there must be reasonable grounds for orders and warrants requiring the disclosure of information by banks and others, and that the bank or financial institution may be heard about whether or not it is appropriate that disclosure should be made. We recognised that that might lead to the leakage of information which could, if it were relayed back to the central figure, be damaging to the investigation, and we have not hesitated to create a criminal offence of leaking information. I hope that that will deter people from doing so.
  We are not an island in these matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Delyn, who has taken a great interest and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for having taken through the House the increase in penalties for class A drugs, has been at pains to stress the significance of the international aspects. I have had the opportunity to travel and visit some of the other key countries involved. I know that if the international community is to resist the drugs menace, it must break down the barriers to effective co-operation and action against drug traffickers. The trafficker is a man of the world who exploits national boundaries to give him the freedom to operate and the confidence to feel that, while he and his henchmen are united in their endeavours, the authorities are fragmented and do not work together. The international elements of intelligence and law enforcement have been improved dramatically. I speak in the presence of members of the Home Affairs Select Committee who have travelled the world and seen that for themselves.
  We have asked the House for powers, and it has been minded to grant us power to seek like-minded countries to enter into arrangements whereby any order made by their courts against a drug trafficker whose assets are located in the United Kingdom will be enforced as if that order were made in our Central Criminal Court. We expect them to do the same. That is the least we can expect as an international community if we mean what we say and are not merely gesturing about dealing with drug trafficking.
  I do not want to underestimate the problems and difficulties. It is time-consuming to negotiate these arrangements painfully and country by country, as those with any experience of negotiating extradition arrangements will know. We shall try to do so, assisted by the clear impetus for change evidenced in our European partners who work with us in the Pompidou group—the Council of Ministers concerned with drugs—which we chair and in which we have played an active role.
  The will exists, but it would be much better to draft a treaty with all countries with goodwill to deal with the whole of drug trafficking, to allow for mutual enforcement and for drug traffickers arrested in one jurisdiction to be shifted to another, and to make drug trafficking an international offence so that, wherever a trafficker commits an offence and wherever he is caught, the evidence is admissible against him. The fact that a man makes a drugs deal on the north-west frontier of Pakistan, intending to sell the drugs at a huge profit in Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool, should not make it less of an offence against the people of those cities than if he had robbed a high street bank in one of those cities.

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  Before much longer I hope to give an account of the efforts being made today in Vienna at the meeting of the United Nations Commission, at which 35 countries are represented, and of their positive responses to a new United Nations convention on drugs trafficking. They are thrashing out the various arrangements that need to be made.
  We are not defenceless against the failure to negotiate international arrangements. We must not be starry-eyed. Just as some countries stand outside the battle against international terrorism, others will be ready to seize the chance of becoming a banking haven for tainted money, and we must recognise that. That is why we have given ourselves great flexibility through the structure of the order, and why we shall give a trafficker with assets overseas the choice of either bringing them within our jurisdiction or of serving a longer period imprisonment.
  We were driven on this difficult journey by the feeling that, although we had increased the penalty to life imprisonment for drug trafficking, when a trafficker came out of prison he could live a life of ease and luxury on the proceeds. That was not enough to deter a ruthless or reckless person from becoming involved in the business. That spurred us on, and that is why we have worked so effectively together on the legislation. I urge the House to give the Bill a Third Reading.
  5.48 pm
  Mr. Corbett: On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), I welcome the Minister's remarks about cocaine kits. Welcome as they were, we continue to look to the Government to take urgent effective action against this new menace. Parents and most young people are horrified at developments involving glue sniffing and other solvent abuse.
  The Bill is an important new weapon in our national fight against drug abuse, which puts a generation of young people at deadly risk. However, it is only one weapon. By raising sharply the penalty for people who get caught taking part in the deadly trade, it may deter some people. The Bill might encourage others to get out of the drugs trade. When traffickers are caught and convicted, they will know for certain that all their assets will be taken unless they can prove that the assets were not bought or acquired with the proceeds of drugs trafficking.
  We all know that to win this war against drug abuse, which we are all determined to do, we need a multi-agency approach. Clobbering the convicted trafficker hits and hurts but only after the damage has been done. More action needs to be taken on the supply and demand sides.
  The Bill, as the Minister said, needs backing by the international community. Drug traffickers must be treated in the same way as acts of piracy or terrorism are treated by the responsible international community. The illicit drugs trade knows no international boundaries. Measures to chase and catch the traffickers and seize their assets need also to know no international boundaries. It is also important that every sensible step is taken to detect and prevent supplies of heroin and cocaine from coming into Britain in the present large quantities.
  The Government know that the Opposition have been critical about the cut of 11·5 per cent. in the strength of Customs and Excise officers since 1979, although we well
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  understand that there is more to combating trafficking than the proper manning of red and green channels at ports of entry. Nonetheless, effective manning at the ports of entry is essential.
  The number of Customs officers has fallen since 1978–79, although we are now pleased to see that it is planned to raise numbers to 26,000 by 1 April 1988. Just so that we all know where we all are on this matter, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) —will recall that when he gave evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs on 22 January 1986 it was put to him in question 520 in the minutes of evidence that the numbers of preventive uniformed staff at ports of entry would be back to where it was in 1979 by the end of the 1986–87 financial year. The Minister replied:
  "At the end of the financial year 1986–87 in terms of absolute numbers. It is a question of how they are used, of course, but that is right, yes."
  The House will welcome the hon. Gentleman's further statement that—
  "what we have to say is that given the scale of the threat we now face, and the way it is manifesting itself, do we need additional cover here? If the answer to that is 'Yes', I certainly can assure this Committee that there is no arbitrary economic reason as to why those resources should not be provided."
  We welcome that and I know that Customs and Excise staff and their trade unions will echo that welcome. The Customs and Excise staff are professional men and women anxious to do a professional job and ask only that they get the manpower, tools and training to do that.
  Mr. Mellor: I welcome the way in which the hon. Gentleman is putting that case. As one who has tried very hard to establish a climate of shared endeavour, it has pained me that there has been a great difference between us and the Customs officers' unions on these matters. Since my ministrial group was formed, substantial additional resources have been announced for Customs and Excise. I appreciate that it will always be a bone of contention as to whether reductions that were made in the pursuance of the Government's overall objectives were proper. That is probably a matter that is best left alone as different people will draw different conclusions.
  It is crucial that the resources are being made available. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear in the strongest possible terms that we support the Customs and Excise in its battle and reasonable requests will be considered in that spirit. I hope that we may go ahead on that basis. I am anxious to make it clear that we should lay to one side the sometimes rather harsh exchanges that we have had on these issues. I hope that we can pay full-hearted compliments to the way in which the Customs, in co-operation with the police, are trying to intercept as many narcotics smugglers as possible.
  Mr. Corbett: I am grateful for the Minister's remarks but, more important, I anticipate that those trade unions with members in Customs and Excise will take his remarks as an encouraging sign and try to build on them.
  The new investigative powers to track down the proceeds of trafficking in the Bill will demand a high degree of competence and skill from the police officers involved. Training is very much the key to the successful way in which the Bill's provisions can be effective. I hope that the Minister can give an unqualified assurance tonight

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  that any necessary training in relation to the Bill will get urgent priority and will not have to wait at the back of a queue because of a lack of staff or cash.
  Parliament is providing an important new weapon in the battle against trafficking and will have no patience if the use of these powers is in any way delayed or blunted because of inadequate training. The developing specialist drugs squads, aided by fraud squad members, will have to make the detailed and complicated financial searches. Traffickers will not usually leave a fully sign-posted route to where their converted assets are stored.
  My one disappointment with the Bill, and this will come as no surprise to the Minister, is that the novel step of turning the seized assets back against the traffickers has not been taken. I know the argument that the estimated £6·6 million a year will help to offset Government spending on drug abuse. I believe, however, that there has been a lack of imagination. The public would have understood and applauded the use of the assets to set up a trust to help to understand and combat addiction, to help to rehabilitate, treat and encourage people to come off and stay off drugs and aid the victims of abuse and their families. That was meant to be more than a mere public relations exercise. It was an idea to use the extra funds from such a sour source for such sweet and serious purposes, to supplement, not to substitute, what the Government are doing with taxpayers' money. Alas, that is not to be but I hope that when we consider confiscation of the proceeds of other profitable types of crime, we might debate the idea again.
  At the start of my speech I said that the fight against drug abuse and trafficking is a national fight. That is why the Opposition have been as insistent as the Government over the Bill and why we shall continue to call for and support every sensible measure to combat drug addiction and its sad and savage consequences.
  To underline our concern and approach, I now want to make the Government an offer. The Labour Opposition are ready to consider appropriate ways in which we might join in the work of the interdepartmental group on drug misuse, chaired by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, or in any other appropriate work. Fighting and winning the war against drug abuse is a job for all of us here and in all parts of the country at every level. It involves young people, parents, employers, voluntary groups, trade unions and everyone who cares about the nation's tomorrow. We are ready to play our part and discuss with the Secretary of State for the Home Department the offer that I have just made. We wish the Bill a speedy passage to the statute book and success when it comes into operation.
  5.58 pm
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I was going to begin my speech by saying what a pleasant surprise it was to come into the Chamber in mid-week and find so much accord and so little argument. However, barely had the Third Reading commenced than the House was invaded by a rabble of synthetically angry Labour supporters who sought to raise, rudely and discourteously to those hon. Members who were concerned with this important Bill, a matter which was puny by comparison. The only object of the exercise could have been to try to get the maximum publicity for a mischief-making sordid manoeuvre.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), who has tried so hard to present
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  a united, sensible and constructive front, should have been embarrassed by the activity of his colleagues. If the Labour party felt so strongly about the Bill, that might have been more evident if we had seen more of its members in the empty ranks behind the hon. Gentleman whom I have so greatly praised.
  I wish to congratulate the Government, in general, and my hon. Friend the Minister, in particular, on a Bill which will strike a substantial blow against the contemptible drug trafficker and the truly horrifying drug trade. and on moving so quickly to put the Bill on the statute book. I was not privileged to take part in the discussions which resulted in changes and improvements to the Bill during its passage since Second Reading. Improvements have been made to the mechanism through which the Bill's framework will operate.
  At the beginning of the discussions on the Bill, anxieties were expressed about safeguards. I hope that those have been ironed out. If they have not, they can, of course, be further considered in another place. There was anxiety about the laundering provisions. The issue is difficult, but it has been dealt with by the Government with great good sense.
  Anxiety has arisen about cocaine kits which are on sale in Soho. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for offering to consider the matter further. The public would not expect the Government to say—I do not suppose, in the light of what my hon. Friend said, that they will—that there is nothing that can be done. Of course something can be done if we have the will. I am encouraged to know that my hon. Friend is determined to ensure that something is done. I am optimistic that that problem will be solved before the Bill reaches the statute book.
  Alarm greeted the announcement of this measure at the Conservative party conference. It was thought by some that it was contrary to all the principles of justice that the burden of proof might be placed upon the defendant. That fear has been shown to be baseless. There never has been a need for the strict canons of evidence to be applied in the sentencing process. When a man has been convicted of a crime, the burden of proof that the proceeds of crime were present and identifiable will still have to be discharged in court in the normal way.
  It is astonishing, when one thinks about it, that the removal of the benefits of crime seems to have become such a novel concept. We talk about not allowing anyone to benefit from his crime, but confiscation has hardly been the basis of punishment for serious crime in this country since the forfeiture of property on conviction for felony was abolished. That was brutal and involved the complete extinction of all the rights and interests of persons who were convicted of felony. In the days long before the welfare state, the entire family suffered complete deprivation. It was necessary that the rules of a harsh and unfair age should have been corrected. But we seem to have swung too far in the opposite direction. It is only with legislation such as this that we return to the principle that everyone will uphold —that a man should not benefit from the proceeds of his crime.
  The first response of the law-abiding citizen when someone commits a crime is, "Let him not benefit from it." Only afterwards do we consider to what extent the offender should be further punished.
  We have still not confidently grasped that principle. We have not, for example, seriously considered using the precedent of this Bill to deal with the most serious of fraud

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  cases. I advocated as much the other day when we were debating the Roskill proposals. I hope that if the principles contained in this Bill are seen to be successful and helpful in deterring crime, we shall be able to extend them so that the substantial benefits which result from some of the frauds that are committed today can likewise be taken from the offender.
  To remove the enjoyment of the proceeds of crime when a person is sentenced must be a further deterrent. Previously drug offenders could say, "I may have to go to prison, but my wife and children will benefit." Prison might not be so great a deterrent. Prison was sometimes not considered important by offenders who had not previously done much to benefit their wives and children. Or the offender may have said, "I shall have a lot of money to enjoy when I come out."
  Those of us who have been engaged in the criminal process in the courts for a number of years know that men convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to four, five or six years' imprisonment have happily served the sentence confident in the knowledge that when they came out they would be able to enjoy £250,000 of ill-gotten gains accumulated from the offence. If the Bill is as efficient as we hope it will be, that will not be allowed to happen. There will be less temptation for offenders to commit crime. Crime might reduce rather than increase.
  The law-abiding citizen will think it right that an effort is being made to stop the criminal enjoying the benefits of the most horrifying of all crimes—drug trafficking. It is a crime of multiple murder, because many people die when they are led into drug addiction and drug dependence. The horror of drugs in our society is not a figment of our imagination; it is happening. There has been a great deal of criticism of television recently in this place, but one of television's great achievements has been the portrayal of how horrifying are the effects of drug addiction on young people.
  We have the record of what has happened in the United States to show how much worse the problem could become. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fylde (Sir E. Gardner), who has led the Home Affairs Select Committee, has recently returned from observing the scene in the United States. He warned us that in the United States the industry is second only to the motor industry in its size and turnover, which runs at perhaps $100 billion a year. It is almost too frightening to contemplate something like that here in the coming months and years.
  The United States has taken measures upon which this Bill is based. The money confiscated is spent on anti-drug measures and the building of prisons in the United States. I hope that the money which is seized from those terrible criminals will be put to constructive use in the prevention of crime and the deterrence of further crime in this country. Again, to deprive drug gangs of the finance on which they would found future drug activity is so sensible and desirable that one can only be surprised that we did not think it right to take such action long ago.
  I hope that the Government will not rest on their laurels when they have put the Bill on the statute book. This important measure is long overdue. It will not solve all our drug problems. More effort must be devoted to stopping the production of drugs. That requires determined
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  international effort. I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Government on initiating activities internationally which will help to reduce that evil.
  More effort must be devoted to the education of young people in our society to warn them of the appalling dangers of drug addiction. I compliment my hon. Friend the Minister and the Government on the steps they have taken in this regard. The broadcasting authorities should be praised for bringing the dangers of drug addiction so closely into our homes so that we and our children understand the miserable and appalling consequences of addiction.
  More effort must be directed towards stopping the importation of drugs through an adequate Customs and Excise body and with properly trained officers. The Government must be congratulated on changing their policy on the reduction of Custom and Excise officers which will strengthen the barriers against this evil. We must devote more effort to catching offenders through more and properly trained police officers. The guilty must be convicted and in that regard we can take pride in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and other legislation which make the conviction of the guilty more likely while at the same time protecting society against the risks of conviction of the innocent.
  There must be more effort to treat the afflicted victims. I have a great deal of sympathy with the final words of the hon. Member for Erdington. All of us must be concerned with the victim. This type of legislation stops future victims or reduces the number of future victims and this is the most positive action we can take. We must, however, concern ourselves with the treatment of those who have unfortunately already fallen foul of addiction.
  At the end of the day the whole community must turn itself, not into a neighbourhood watch force, but a community watch force to identify the victims and the traffickers and to be prepared to report them to the police and to support the police in their activities to stamp out this evil. It is only by action on all these fronts that we shall have a chance of controlling the horrifying scourge of drug addiction and diminishing and hopefully destroying the potentiality of its grip upon our society.
  6.12 pm
  Mr. Alex Carlile: I shall not detain the House long because several hon. Members wish to speak in the debate.
  I congratulate the Minister on the fair passage through which he has captained the Bill. The fair passage of the Bill has been especially remarkable because it is not one of those anodyne Bills which raise no issues of principle. This is not a Bill which avoids tackling head on some troubling civil liberty implications. There are those of us on both sides of the House who have had to examine our consciences and to judge carefully whether we were prepared to countenance breaches of what we would sometimes regard as almost sanctified civil liberty principles in order to meet the needs of the public interest.
  I agree with the Minister on the need for international co-operation. Unless true international co-operation can be achieved, many of the aims of the Bill will fail. Such co-operation could prevent the cultivation of dangerous drugs, in many countries. The Minister is right in saying that there is absolutely no use in this Parliament introducing what some may regard as draconian measures

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  if elsewhere in the world there is no let-up in the effort to prevent the pushing of drugs grown in those areas to people in the towns and cities of Britain.
  We have sadly reached the stage when the drugs with which we are principally concerned, heroin and cocaine, are not only available in cities such as London, Manchester and Liverpool. I have been told by police officers that such drugs are available even in remote rural areas such as in my own constituency of Montgomery. They are available in the small towns and villages of rural Wales and rural England.
  Against that background, I have decided that the Bill, despite some of its more worrying implications, must be supported. However, without seeking to sound a note of dissent, I am aware that there are many outside the House and many in the other place—not shackled by electoral constraint or by the sounds of clanking electoral chains—who still have some reservations about parts of the Bill.
  The discussions on the Bill have not adequately tackled the implications for third parties. I hope that those matters will be considered in another place and that the Bill will emerge from there with an assurance for us that third parties will never run the risk of losing property which they have purchased or acquired in good faith. I believe that that can be achieved.
  I have already exchanged letters with the Minister on the question of the use of powers similar to these in the much broader range of criminal offences. I look forward to the day when we can see the Hodgson report—not just a carefully chosen part of that report—expanded in applicability to a much wider area of criminal law.
  I welcome what the Minister has said concerning the examination undertaken by the Government of the sale of cocaine kits. The sale of such kits is a wicked activity. I was privileged to be one of the sponsors of a Bill which dealt with the prohibition on the sale of glue sniffing kits. I believe that that was the first of what may end up as a series of statutory provisions which will ensure that profit is not made by the criminally greedy out of the misery of others. We must take steps to close the loopholes which enable, for example, unprincipled newsagents to hang, inside the door of their shops, the equipment which causes misery and death. I hope that the Government will ensure that adequate provisions are put on the statute book.
  I fear that the Minister may have a false sense of security due to the assent from all parties to the Bill. I suspect that the aplomb and the dispassion with which he viewed the discourteous chaos which broke about around him during the debate will not have passed unnoticed. We may find that he is shortly translated, by promotion, to that graveyard of political ambitions, the Department of Trade and Industry. I hope not.
  6.18 pm
  Mr. Hanley: The members of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on their visit to the United States to investigate the terribly serious state of cocaine taking in that country discovered that there are three major areas involved in the drug trade. There is the supply, the demand and the profit. If one cuts off one of those three legs of the stool, there is a good chance of the other two dwindling by themselves.
  The Bill deals with one of those areas. It does little to deal with the supply of drugs or the demand for drugs. Separate measures must be taken by the Government and
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  successive Governments to deal with those areas. It deals for the first time with the profit elements in drug trafficking and the House should not only be grateful for but proud of that. Within a short time, the House has got to the bottom of this part of the triangle of drug trafficking and, in a scene of supreme co-operation, has managed to produce a Bill that is not only effective but has attracted agreement from both sides of the House. The House will be ennobled by the passage of this legislation.
  On behalf of the House, I thank both my hon. Friend the Minister and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett). Twice in less than a day we have seen what co-operation between the two great parties can bring to matters of tremendous importance and concern. Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member were in the Chamber just before 2 o'clock this morning co-operating on the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Bill. Again, just over 12 hours later, the two of them are constructively introducing a Bill that brings us far closer to an answer to this awful problem. My hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman have shown such co-operation that any future coalition, if we were to have one, would have to look to them both. I just wonder who would be the Home Secretary.
  The Bill creates three new powers. The first is the power to trace, freeze and confiscate the proceeds of drug trafficking; the second is the new offence of assisting another to retain the proceeds of drug trafficking; and the third is the new offence of disclosing information that might prejudice a drug trafficking investigation. Only last Christmas, my hon. Friend the Minister said:
  "The prospects of vast profits is a powerful lure, and a major reason why criminals are drawn into the evil trade of illicit drugs. Even the risk of long prison sentences is acceptable to some if a life of affluence awaits them on release. We have to ensure that drug traffickers simply will not have a chance of enjoying the proceeds of their contemptible activities and, just as important, that they and their associates have nothing left to finance further crimes."
  I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing to the House legislation that will leave the House achieving exactly what he intended such a short while ago.
  Let us look at the background. The Government's proposals for tracing and confiscating all the proceeds of the drug trafficking were developed in consultation with those directly involved not only in the operation of the new powers, including the police, Customs and representatives of the banks, but with representatives of other nations that have experienced this evil. The recommendations in the Bill can clearly be placed on three sources. The first is the fifth report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs, on which I am proud to serve, and which has been led so honourably and conscientiously by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fylde (Sir E. Gardner), and upon which the hon. Member for Erdington served. The second source is the publication "The Profits of Crime and their Recovery", the report of the Howard League working party chaired by Sir Derek Hodgson.
  The third source is evidence from my hon. Friend the Minister. It is rare in Select Committee experience that wherever the Committee has travelled, whatever it has seen, whatever the evidence that it has studied, the Minister has been there before it. It is so often the experience of a Select Committee that it recommends that a Minister should go and see what it has seen. In this case, my hon. Friend had seen it before the Committee and it is gratifying that the Minister and the Committee came to

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  the same conclusions in the same spirit of co-operation that we have seen today. It is also gratifying that the Select Committee, in its unanimous report, made several recommendations, some of which have been included in the Bill.
  The need for the proposed new powers was illustrated by Operation Julie in 1978. Those convicted after that investigation had manufactured and sold LSD on a vast scale. Huge profits had been made and the prosecution was able to trace £750 million worth of profits to assets in the hands of the defendants. In addition to long-term imprisonment, the court made an order for the forfeiture of the profits, but on appeal to the other place it was held that Parliament had never meant for the forefeiture orders to be used as a means of stripping traffickers of the profits of their unlawful enterprise.
  Members of the Select Committee and my hon. Friend the Minister, having seen the assets on display in Florida, know full well that we have to seize assets. The law as it stood after Operation Julie said that the power could be used only to forefeit property directly related to the offence, such as drugs themselves, but not to the equipment for making, the vehicles used for carrying, and the cash that was about to be used or had been handed for them. In Miami, the Select Committee saw the houses, aeroplanes and vast boats—almost ships—that had been financed out of the proceeds of drug trafficking. It is obscene to see the wealth that the profits from drugs have bought.
  It is frightening to envisage the power that drugs could buy. The Committee members stood in a small room, 10 ft by 15 ft, among $10 billion worth of cocaine and marijuana. That showed what wealth can be accumulated in a small space. I have been a chartered accountant for some years and have been privy to many stock takings. I have never stood in such a small space and been confronted by such vast wealth in assets. One could hire an army ready to die for the gold of that money. I am told that in Africa mercenaries are bought for less than that, and if they knew where that room was, the money could be multiplied 10 times over.
  As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the industry is worth $100 billion a year and is second only to the motor car industry. It is bigger than the gross domestic product of 15 out of 25 OECD nations. Therefore, it is an industry bigger than many independent democratic nations. One can imagine the damage it could do if put into the wrong hands. It is vital that we have the powers given by the Bill to ensure that people think again before taking to crime.
  Confiscation orders are only part of the Bill's powers, but they are harsh. If a person has been convicted in the Crown court of drug trafficking offences, the court is required to make a confiscation order that deprives the offender of the value of the proceeds of his trafficking. That will be in addition to whatever sentence the court otherwise feels is appropriate to the offence. That is not just getting down to bedrock; it is moving further.
  The confiscation order will not be limited to the proceeds of the offences for which the defendant is being sentenced, but takes into account all trafficking generally, and will do so by reversing the burden of proof. No hon. Member would take such a step lightly — one has to consider it carefully. The Select Committee considered it hard, and still recommended this step. To reverse the
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  burden of proof may be seen to be completely against the civil liberties of most of our citizens. It runs against British justice, which we have come to know and respect.
  In these cases, the court will be able to assume, unless the contrary is shown, that all the defendant's assets, together with any profits that have passed through his hands in the previous six years, represent the proceeds of drug trafficking. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for the amendment which clarified that period, not only increasing it from five to six years but clarifying the period over which the assets might be calculated. In the original Bill, I believe that it was unclear and could have led to delays in court procedure, but the Bill is now absolutely clear.
  Some people have expressed concern about the reversal of the burden of proof. I think it should be known outside the House that the prosecution must still prove that a person is guilty of the offence with which he has been charged. Having done so, it is easier for the defendant, rather than the prosecution, to explain how he acquired the money. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to ask the defence to establish what part of the offender's assets has been legally acquired. If he is unable or unwilling to answer, then, following a drug conviction, it is quite legitimate for the court to assume that it was obtained illegally.
  On the matter of the realisation of assets, once the confiscation order has been made the High Court will have power to appoint a receiver to legalise any of the offender's assets to satisfy the order. Assets which have been in the hands of the offender but have since been transferred to a third party for less than full value may also be included as long as the transfer has taken place within the previous six years or the assets can be shown to represent the proceeds of drug trafficking.
  In Washington, New York and Florida we saw that imprisonment often has no effect. We heard of agents in the drug enforcement administration being murdered, and in the past few days we have even heard of many employees of an airline being persuaded and bribed to carry drugs. We travelled by that airline. We know how the Customs officers are trained to spot the profile of those who are likely to be carrying drugs. We know that proper training for Customs officers is vital and keeping them up to date with modern techniques is expenive but important.
  I do not believe that the Customs officer we met in Atlanta, Georgia, was aware that between 50 and 100 employees of the airline who passed information to him about those who were likely to be trafficking in drugs were trafficking in drugs themselves. I have no idea whether he had any contact with them, but I know what a difficult task it is to spot such individuals who will go to any lengths to make what can be millions of pounds through their evil trade.
  However, imprisonment is important. I am glad that if the confiscation order is not satisfied in full the Bill will provide for increased maximum periods of imprisonment for default. The confiscation order may not be satisfied perhaps because some of the offender's property has been placed outside the jurisdication of the court, put away in some other country or given to another individual who cannot be traced. I am glad that the current maximum of 12 months' imprisonment will be increased dramatically. The Bill provides for a new progressive scale for the non-payment of the confiscation order with a maximum of 10 years for default of sums over £1 million. I hope that my

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  hon. Friend the Minister will consistently increase that period in the light of experience so that it will be effective as time passes. Those periods of imprisonment for default will be in excess of any other prison sentence imposed by the court.
  The Minister mentioned investigative powers which are so important. The Bill provides new powers to investigate the financial dealings of drug traffickers. We need to investigate those financial dealings, but it is not easy. We know how difficult it is to investigate the financial affairs of those involved in fraud in the City but, with respect, these sums of money are even bigger. They can mean, as we saw in America, multi-billion pound organisations with money laundering so clever that it is almost impossible to trace the funds through to the businesses—some often legitimate — set up by the traffickers. It costs a great deal of money to investigate fraud; and to investigate fraud on the scale of multi-billion pound organisations would be even more difficult.
  In the Bill, when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a person is engaged in drug trafficking the police or Customs officers will be able to apply to a circuit judge for an order requiring the disclosure of information which could be of substantial value to the investigation. The powers will be available in respect of information held by banks and other financial institutions and also information held by the Inland Revenue and other Government Departments. We need that co-operation.
  I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Minister has said that he will look again at the powers in respect of people such as bank clerks. In Committee I said that the legal committee of the Committee of London and Scottish Bankers shared a real concern
  "that the effect of the present wording would be to imperil the ordinary lowly bank clerk who might be said to have had grounds for suspicion about a particular transaction. All of the clerk's training will have been based on the bank's duty of confidentiality to its customers, which is enshrined in law by the decision in the case of Tournier and the National Provincial and Union Bank of England." — [Official Report, Standing Committee H, 30 January 1986; c. 5.]
  My hon. Friend is right to look at that matter again. In fact, the change of words which I suggested in Committee seems to have attracted careful research. I believe that eventually it will be shown that it needs some amendment, or an announcement in another place as to how the legislation will work.
  I am a little worried that suspicion, for example, by a police officer, is not enough upon which to make an arrest or charge an offender in any other type of legislation. It is commonplace in our law that no jury feels it can convict on suspicion alone. To raise the suggestion that mere suspicion by a bank employee who is taking part in otherwise routine bank transactions could result in a person being found guilty of an offence carrying 14 years' imprisonment—which, as my hon. Friend the Minister said in Committee, is the second highest penalty —shows how serious the matter is. It is still an extremely high penalty for suspicion. I do not want my hon. Friend to believe that in mentioning that I am trying to weaken the Bill. I want to ensure that juries convict but that they convict more often than they release those who, were it not for that provision, might get off.
  Another part of the Bill concerns the restraint order. Once proceedings have been instituted the prosecution will be able to apply to the High Court for an order freezing any assets which may subsequently be needed to satisfy a
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  confiscation order imposed on a defendant. We need restraint orders because they are another weapon in the armoury. As I mentioned before, two new offences are created by the Bill which facilitate the retention, control or investment of the proceeds of trafficking by another person, knowing or having reason to suspect that the person is a trafficker. I believe that that penalty is valid. As I have mentioned, I do not wish anybody to think that I want to water it down.
  The other offence is prejudicing a drug traffic investigation. That has been directed at those who, learning that police or Customs officers have obtained or applied to a circuit judge for an order requiring disclosure of information, tell the suspect that his affairs are being investigated. I am glad that that will be punishable by a sentence of at least five years.
  The Government's record which culminates with the Bill and which will continue is vital. The United Kingdom is spearheading a campaign to cut production in the source countries. Already nearly £4 million has been given to Pakistan. I visited Pakistan with the Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. We looked into the drug problem there and the question of international co-operation. I am glad that opium crop production has been cut. I am also glad that £1 million is being used to combat the illicit production of cocaine in south America, that during the past five years the number of Customs and Excise officers has more than doubled and that 150 additional officers are to be appointed this year.
  I know that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department has taken on board the words of the hon. Member for Erdington, that if it is to be an effective deterrent the force must have sufficient means with which to provide the deterrent. A national information and education campaign has been launched. Parole for drug traffickers has been severely restricted. Full Government support has been given to private Members' Bills such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) who last year so brilliantly steered through Parliament his Bill. The strength of the regional crime squads has been increased by 20 per cent. and a national drugs intelligence unit has been established.
  The Bill will be an effective weapon, but we must not forget those who are the victims of drug abuse. Education is vital if we are to cut down the demand for drugs, and international co-operation is absolutely vital if we are to cut down the supply of drugs. By legislation we can help to cut the triangle of drugs: the supply, the demand and the profit. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department and the hon. Member for Erdington and all right hon. and hon. Members who have joined together to help to protect the millions of people who might otherwise not only be injured by but die from the drugs menace.
  6.41 pm
  Mr. Tom Sackville: The Bill addresses the most serious problem that can affect young people. I was actutely aware that this problem would arise. During the early 1970s I lived in the United States where I became aware of the fact that a huge proportion of New York city's population was affected by drug addiction and that it caused social and criminal problems. They were so significant that they dominated New York city. Everybody was aware that muggings, street crime generally and gang

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  warfare in the city were largely caused by drugs. This continues to be a problem in many parts of the United States. I am afraid that it is now becoming a very large problem in the United Kingdom.
  No one should underestimate, however, the difficulty faced by the Government in trying to do something about it. Drug addiction causes immense difficulties. It is a form of affliction that has many causes but whose cures are not obvious. The Government undertake various forms of activity. It is extraordinarily difficult, with 40 million people arriving in this country, to detect the importation of drugs, even when Customs and Excise and the police become very good at detection in a particular area—for example, at Heathrow. Drugs enter this country in various ways—for instance, in cargo containers—but when the gap is plugged in one area it opens up somewhere else.
  Our police forces are not equipped to deal with the detection and distribution of drugs. The manpower that this would involve and the degree of co-operation from the public that would be required are not attainable. It is very difficult to find the places where dealings in drugs take place and to bring to book the people who are involved.
  There is much controversy over the method of treating addicts and the cost of providing treatment on the National Health Service. However, if we can cure 30 per cent., 50 per cent. or 70 per cent. of those addicts who present themselves for treatment, we shall remove them from the streets where they do harm to themselves and to others by selling drugs and involving others in drug abuse.
  We have been trying to establish a drug treatment centre in my Bolton constituency. The problems involved in trying to do so within our highly decentralised National Health Service are enormous. The agreement of the professionals has to be obtained. Furthermore, the public has to agree to expenditure of this kind, because that money would otherwise be spent on other forms of treatment. Fortunately, some progress has at last been made.
  We are also trying to educate children not to become involved with drugs. This is another highly contentious area. Many people feel that it could be counter-productive even to mention the subject to children. I am glad that the Home Office's interdepartmental committee is attempting to co-ordinate the efforts to educate children, adults and professionals about how to stop the spread of drug abuse. But it is not easy. Anything that can be done to attack the problem at its core is vital. The Bill falls very much into that category.
  Drug trafficking involves large sums of money, and very sophisticated criminals and criminal techniques have come to the fore. It is necessary therefore to remove the incentive for criminals to become involved in this trade. We shall then be able to interrupt the supply of drugs. This legislation, for which many right hon. and hon. Members have been asking for a long time and which was foreshadowed in the United States and elsewhere, will make a considerable contribution. If semi-organised criminals who have been involved in other forms of crime begin to dabble in the drugs trade but then find that they are subject to a new range of legal penalties because their assets are seized and because they are put under surveillance by financial institutions as suspected drugs traffickers, it will act as a considerable disincentive to them.
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  If it is not possible immediately to seize the assets of a suspect who is arrested because he is suspected of trafficking in drugs, is my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department satisfied that it will be impossible for that individual to exercise his right to contact his lawyer or somebody else, who may then be able very quickly to move his financial assets out of the country and thus defeat the objectives of the Bill? I ask him to look at the possibility of introducing an amendment to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 so that criminals in this category can be held incommunicado for long enough to obtain a restraint order, thereby ensuring that this cannot happen.
  Drug addiction is a disease that affects society. However, unlike other diseases, many people are making money out of it. They are cynically exploiting young people for gain. The Bill will make only a small dent in the drugs problem, but is it not morally right that these horrific criminals who exploit young people for enormous financial gain should be brought to book and stripped of all their assets? In this way, even if they are imprisoned, they will be unable to enjoy the proceeds of their crime at a later date, which is what is happening now. What good is it locking up a person for a crime if a year later, or even four or five years later, because the sums are so large in some cases, he knows that, having served the prison sentence, he has a fortune awaiting him outside? What good is it if we cannot ensure that that person is stripped not only of his liberty but of the proceeds of his heinous crimes?
  6.50 pm
  Mr. Keith Raffan: I wish briefly to give my particular and personal welcome to the smooth passage of the Bill through the House, following as it does my private Member's Bill, the Controlled Drugs (Penalties) Act. This, too, has been a non-partisan measure which has been given wholehearted support from every quarter of the House. For my Bill, I managed to get 11 sponsors representative not only of every party in the House but of every faction within each party—from saturated wet to bone dry on my own side and from militant moderate to immoderate militant in the Labour party. Indeed, I was glad to have the support of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) even though he thought that I would never get it through the House. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), who was so cagey about becoming a sponsor of my Bill eventually refusing to do so, has redeemed himself by the admirable way he has responded to the Bill on behalf of the Opposition during its various stages through the House.
  There is no difference between murder by heroin for financial gain and murder by shotgun in the course of armed robbery. If those found guilty of burglary and fraud are not allowed to retain their ill-gotten assets, why should drug traffickers be allowed to do so?
  The Bill, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, is potentially "a sharp new weapon" against major drug traffickers. How sharp it proves to be depends largely upon the implementation of the legislation.
  As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary knows, I am most concerned about international co-operation, which is vital. How sharp this weapon is depends to a great extent on that. We are dealing with highly sophisticated criminals. They are used to

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  laundering the assets of their crimes through a multiplicity of bank accounts and properties in a multiplicity of countries. I know that there are ways in which we can proceed against them. As my hon. Friend said on Report, we can proceed against legitimate assets here in this country to the value of the tainted assets abroad. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) made clear, we can add an additional custodial sentence if a major drug trafficker found guilty does not know his financial obligation and pay the full value of his tainted assets to the court. An additional sentence can be added to any other sentence he receives.
  But progress in international co-operation is vital. Bilateral agreements with other countries are time-consuming and difficult to conclude effectively. The alternative is by conventions initiated through the Council of Europe or the United Nations.
  The 35 member states of the United Nations most intimately involved in the problem are putting forward a draft convention but that is only 35 out of 150 members of the United Nations. If we do not proceed from the stage of a draft convention following the meeting in Vienna we must consider the question of a Council of Europe convention, as my hon. Friend has suggested. Indeed, he is on record as saying that
  "that is not a second rate option."
  I hope that he will follow though on this should the meeting in Vienna prove to be not satisfactory.
  The Secretary-General of the United Nations has proposed that in 1987 there should be a world conference at ministerial level to consider the whole question of drug trafficking. I hope that we will take the initiative at that world conference to ensure that the measures we have taken can be implemented effectively. Their effectiveness depends upon international co-operation. As my right hon. Friend said, it can be a sharp new weapon. Indeed, "Justinian" in the Financial Times, as quoted in Committee by myself and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) on Second Reading, described the Bill as
  "one of the most fearsome pieces of legislation in modern times, both in the investigative powers it gives to public authorities and in its penal sanctions".
  I do not think that I can pay any greater tribute to the Minister and his officials than that. We are dealing with one of the most evil criminal trades in the world. Our response to that trade should be an extremely fearsome piece of legislation. If in Standing Committee and on Report we have made it more fearsome, we have improved on the original.
  The Bill now moves to another place. I hope that we shall see it enacted before the summer. Meanwhile I look forward to hearing from the Minister what he anticipates will then happen, what progress he believes we can make towards achieving vital international co-operation through bilateral agreements with other countries, through a United Nations convention or through a Council of Europe convention on drug trafficking.
  6.56 pm
  Mr. Mellor: I thank all those who have contributed to the debate on Third Reading for their kind remarks about the measure and my contribution to it. I assure those who spoke of the overall context into which the proposal has to be set that in no sense will the Bill's passage through the House and the other place represent any slackening in the Government efforts. Indeed, we shall be spurred on to greater achievements.
  As I have said before, all of us who have studied the problem know that there is no escape from the drugs problem down the law and order route; success will come only because people reject drugs. As long as there is a market for drugs, there will always be ruthless people ready to meet that demand. What we have done today, I hope, will help to make the path of the drug trafficker a much less attractive one, and one fraught with many more perils than hitherto.
  I thank particularly the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) for some of the points he made. Dealing first with what he said about Customs officers, I should like to draw a line under some of the controversy that has raged in that respect. We now see a clear way forward. When I went to Heathrow, I was impressed by their work. One had only to go into the frightful room where they have to wait for people to pass motions to see whether they have a swallower on their hands to realise that it is a difficult job we ask our Customs officers to do, and we are lucky to have men of such talent and capability to carry out the work.
  I welcome too what the hon. Gentleman said about closer co-operation. If I may say so, I take that in the spirit in which it was offered, and I should like to follow it through. In dealing with an issue as important as this, we should focus on what we can do together and should not regard this as another opportunity for partisan dispute.
  I thank those hon. Members who commented on the proposal I canvassed about dealing with the menace of cocaine kits. From what has been said, I gather that my proposals meet with approval. I shall therefore continue with the efforts we are making to put them into final form and to examine whether they can be included in the Bill in the other place or whether some other way may be found. Given the amount of co-operation that exists, I am sure that this can be taken forward.
  The Bill now leaves the House and goes to the other place. I hope that it does so with the good wishes of all those present and that in the other place it will be dealt: with in the same spirit that it has been dealt with here, as a necessary part of the battle against drugs on which we are all embarked.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time, and passed.
  Mr. Speaker: We now come to the private business set down for consideration this day.

  British Leyland
  7 pm
  Mr. Peter Shore: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  I rose on a point of order nearly two hours ago, because we had heard that a press conference was taking place in which the Department of Trade and Industry was briefing journalists on further developments in the British Leyland saga. It was and is our view that such information should be given first to the House, not to the press, and we therefore asked for a statement.
  Since then, we have learnt that the Secretary of State himself briefed the lobby. We further heard, first, that three more bidders in addition to those named yesterday have come forward for the Land Rover division; secondly, that there is the likelihood of a reference of the General Motors bid to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission; and, thirdly, that a bid deadline has been set for mid-March, giving most companies only a few weeks to prepare while General Motors has had nine months of secret negotiations.
  We contend that this is proper material for a statement to the House so that the Secretary of State can be properly questioned about the new developments. We feel this all the more strongly since our request to the Minister for a statement was turned down only this morning, and our request for a Standing Order No. 10 debate was refused only yesterday.
  The Leader of the House concluded our earlier exchanges today by saying that the matter could be considered through the usual channels. May I, therefore, press him again to prevail upon his bashful colleague, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, to face the House tonight?
  Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Many hon. Members, not least myself, are determined to see a British solution to this problem. However, I urge the shadow Leader of the House not to play this game. It is a mischievous and dangerous game. If the message goes out that we are continually trying to drag this affair before the House at this stage, it would be even more dangerous. There are enough watchdogs in the House for Britain's interests without continually suggesting—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Is this a point of order for me?
  Mr. Beaumont-Dark: May I make this final point? The suggestion that every time a Minister holds a press conference or conducts a private briefing upon the problem he must make a statement in the House is mischievous and dangerous, and I urge the House to have nothing to do with the matter.
  Mr. Terry Davis: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Since the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) was not in the Chamber when I made my earlier point of order—I do not criticise him for that—he is not aware that his criticism is completely misplaced. The point of order that I raised with Mr. Deputy Speaker related to a briefing taking place on developments in the British Leyland affair, and I asked that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry should tell the House about such developments before he told the press.
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  It subsequently transpired that the Secretary of State found the time during a busy day to come to the Palace of Westminster to brief lobby journalists about the matter, but is now saying that there are no significant developments on which to make a statement. Surely the Secretary of State would not have found time in his busy day to come here and tell lobby journalists what they could have read for themselves in yesterday's Hansard.
  Mr. Andrew Faulds: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) said that it was mischievous for Members of this House to try to get a statement on these important matters in the House of Commons. There is nothing mischievous about that. The replies from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry yesterday were totally unsatisfactory. It is essential that these crucial matters, which concern the livelihoods of many thousands of workpeople throughout the country, many of whom we represent, should be chased with the figure responsible on that feeble Front Bench, and the figure responsible is the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He should come down here and make a statement on these matters and not get the easy ride that he does from press representatives.
  Mr. David Steel: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  May I make a slightly different suggestion from that made by the shadow Leader of the House? The Leader of the House is listening intently to our exchanges, and he should be aware that the mood on both sides of the House is that we do not like Ministers giving detailed briefings on Government attitudes towards developments in the British motor car and truck industries without giving them to the House first. A statement tonight done in a rush would do nothing but create an attitude of uncertainty and panic. I hasten to add that, if there is a statement, I shall be here. However, it would be far better to have a statement tomorrow afternoon or on Thursday, after the Cabinet has taken a view on the Government's industrial policy towards the future of the car and truck industries. A considered statement would be much better than a panic statement, but a statement we must have.
  Mr. Rob Hayward: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Are we not trying to pursue a new constitutional point, in that every time a Minister gives a briefing to the lobby, we must have a statement?
  Mr. David Winnick: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  You have deprecated several times the practice of Ministers notifying the press or appearing on radio or television without notifying the House of the details first. As for the point about mischief-making, you will know, Mr. Speaker, that had not the matter been raised originally by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), we would have had no information from the Government about what has happened. The manner in which the matter was raised originally gave rise to the present anxiety and controversy.
  If a Minister deliberately treats the House with contempt, are we not entitled to appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that a statement is made as soon as possible? As my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East

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  (Mr. Faulds) said, this matter concerns many of our constituents, not only those directly employed by British Leyland. Many firms in the black country and the west midlands rely for their continuation on supplying component parts to that firm. In those circumstances, we must be entitled to a statement, and that statement should be made tonight.
  Mr. Speaker: I am not responsible for any of these matters. The House knows that I cannot force the Government to make a statement. However, I notice from the Order Paper that there will be an Adjournment debate tonight on this very subject. It is likely that during that debate the Minister will say something which hon. Members who are making these points of order may wish to hear.
  Mr. Bowen Wells: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Is it not curious that the House should ask for such a statement when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has assured the House several times that, if he had anything further to report, he would do so? He made a statement to the House yesterday. Today, he met the lobby, as I understand it, further to explore what he said to the House yesterday. If there is nothing more to explain to the House, there is no point in his coming to the House.
  Mr. Speaker: I cannot answer points of order on such matters. I repeat that we shall have an Adjournment debate on this very matter. I think that we should wait to hear what happens then.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I will take points of order from the three hon. Members who have been rising.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Not only was this matter raised by the Opposition on the original private notice question, in a half-day debate and during a Standing Order No. 10 application yesterday, but it is one which many people believe questions the Government's good faith in respect of their election mandate.
  Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, when you considered the application under Standing Order No. 10, you had to take account of whether there should be a debate in Government time. You turned down the application, for your own reasons, which might have been influenced by the statement and the subsequent questions that you heard yesterday. If there have been further developments—there clearly have been—[HON. MEMBERS: "How do you know?"] It appears most likely; there would not be such interest in this point of order otherwise—are the Government not failing to pay proper respect to the House and to you, Mr. Speaker, by not making the next statement to the House on a subject on which an application under Standing Order No. 10 might arise?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I really do not think that I can help the House in this matter. I fully understand its importance, but, as I have already said and as the House well knows, I am not responsible for statements. I and the House know, however, that there is an Adjournment debate on the subject.
  The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker.
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  Perhaps I might also contribute by endorsing what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) said about this being a topic of great and general public interest which properly has to be considered by the House. Above all, it must be considered by the House in terms which are reasonable and well structured.
  I want to counter the issue that gives rise to the claim that there should be a statement at this time of the evening or later. A lobby briefing was given in which there was some initiative in Government policy which resulted in journalists knowing what has not yet been revealed to the House. I have to tell the House that this was a matter of consideration through the usual channels. I am sorry that there could not be agreement.
  I want to assert, however, that there is nothing extraordinary about a Minister seeing lobby journalists. Moreover, those lobby journalists know no more than hon. Members. There was no question of policy commitments being carried forward. [Interruption.] It is a matter of accepting the good faith of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I believe that he is entitled to claim that. Controversy can arise in a keen and lively fashion in this matter, but I do not accept the undermining of good faith in my right hon. Friend.
  You have also said, Mr. Speaker, that the matter will arise on the Adjournment tonight, but even more important is the fact that this is the type of topic which is naturally at the centre of political interest. If Opposition Members ceased making applications under Standing Order No. 10, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Selly Oak would pick up the baton. However, a case for a statement to be made this evening has not been made out.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Leader of the House has given a very fair explanation.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall take points of order only if they are directly concerned with my responsibilities.
  Mr. Barry Henderson: The Chairman of Ways and Means set down private business for 7 o'clock. You have previously told the House, Mr. Speaker, that it is improper for a statement to be made on a point of order. So far, 13 minutes of the time of my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie) has been taken up. Will he get injury time?
  Mr. Speaker: Private business does not get injury time.
  Mr. Peter Shore: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  I think that the House has not been satisfied with what the Leader of the House has said. An Adjournment debate replied to by a junior Minister is no substitute for a statement. If we cannot have a statement tonight, can we have one tomorrow?
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a matter for me.
  Mr. Biffen: I have already said that this matter is under constant examination, but I will say this to the right hon. Gentleman. After all that has been said about this topic, if this issue, with what it means for working people in the midlands and elsewhere, is to be conducted on the basis

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  of dressing up the press lobby on the pretext for a debate this evening, we know what the motives of the Opposition are.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can help me.

  Peterhead Harbours (South Bay Development) Order Confirmation Bill (By Order)
  Considered.
  Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Aberdeen. North (Mr. Hughes).

  Peterhead Harbours (South Bay Development) Order Confirmation Bill (By Order)
    SCHEDULE

      PETERHEAD HARBOURS (SOUTH BAY DEVELOPMENT)
      7.15 pm
      Mr. Robert Hughes: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 5, line 27, leave out '8·5' and insert '5·5'.
      In the discussions between the Aberdeen harbour board and the Peterhead authorities, the chairman of the Peterhead trustees had earlier agreed to the amendment and, therefore, I hope that it might at least be accepted. I give notice that when we get to amendment No. 4, I will seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with regard to a manuscript amendment to delete "6·5" and insert "7·5".
      It is necessary before dealing with the specifics of the amendments to give some background so that nobody is in doubt about the reasons for them. No one should be in any doubt that, despite the efforts of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie) to trivialise and personalise the issue, the amendments are not hostile to the development at Peterhead. The amendments, if carried, would still allow the trustees' objectives for safer and better port facilities to be achieved. Nor should anyone be in any doubt that the objections to the scale of the development come from ports other than Aberdeen.
      The amendments in my name have the approval of the Forth port authority and of the Dundee port authority, and the support of the Aberdeen stevedoring company. The amendments would still protect the harbour entrance, calm the waters of the inner and south harbours at Peterhead, increase the length of the cargo berths by 250 per cent., greatly improve facilities for the fishing fleet and allow any known deeply laden fishing vessel to berth. They would also allow for the handling of grain ships up to 6,000 tonnes. The evidence given by the Peterhead harbour master, Captain Auld, which appears on page 765 of the report of the inquiry of the parliamentary commissioners of Tuesday 7 May 1985 is consistent with that.
      The amendments are tabled in a genuine spirit of compromise which holds out the prospect of advantage for Aberdeen, but would still meet the stated aims of Peterhead. I resent the intemperate manner in which the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan described these amendments as "wrecking amendments". I hope that, even at this late stage, he will accept them. His personal attacks on Mr. John Turner, the general manager of Aberdeen harbour board, are in very bad taste. Mr. Turner cannot respond in kind, but I say on his behalf that he has sought only to do his job properly. I, however, am able to respond to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan's personal attacks on me. I speak for the interests of Aberdeen,

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      although not under any instructions or orders of the Aberdeen harbour board. I must examine the evidence and form a judgment.
      I was deeply resentful when I was telephoned at 7.30 this morning by BBC Radio Aberdeen to be informed that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan had accused me on the radio of double-crossing him last week. Had he made that charge in the House, I believe he would have been asked to withdraw it.
      On Second Reading the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan scuttled around the Chamber, advising those of us who were waiting to take part in the debate that he was agreeable to the Bill being referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament for further scrutiny. I was happy with that proposition and prepared to accept the findings of such a Joint Committee, whatever the outcome.
      With the knowledge that referral was on offer, I truncated my speech, and I believe that other hon. Members did likewise. Indeed, although we can only speculate, if our speeches had not been so short the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan might not have received the assent of the Chair when he sought to move the closure motion. For reasons that have not been explained to the House, the hon. Member resisted the motion to refer the matter to a Joint Committee of both Houses. In that he was successful, so the will of the House was that the matter should not go to a Joint Committee. Of course, I accept the will of the House.
      Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe the hon. Gentleman is reporting a private discussion. Is that in order?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): There has been nothing out of order in that respect so far.
      Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. No doubt the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan can give his own response later.
      Given the background which I have described, I utterly refute the charge of double-crossing. Such a charge might well be levelled against the hon. Member if there are to be any such charges.
      Following Second Reading, I hoped and believed that bilateral discussions would take place between representatives of the two harbour boards. Discussions have taken place, but they have not achieved agreement. That is unfortunate because we had hoped that that would happen.
      The hon. Member for Bristol, East (Mr. Sayeed) asked if it was in order to repeat private discussions, but the discussions have not been in private. The matters have been referred to by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan in both The Press and Journal and the Evening Express in Aberdeen; they have also been referred to by him in conversations on the radio. Therefore, I am saying nothing in the House which has not been said elsewhere.
      There have been many discussions among Members of Parliament with constituency interests. That takes me to the events of last Wednesday when the Bill was set down for further parliamentary discussion. During the days immediately preceding Wednesday there was talk of assurances being offered by the trustees of Peterhead harbour board that it would not handle oil-related traffic. As the assurances were not available in writing, efforts were made to ensure discussion on the Floor of the House so that we could find out exactly what the assurances were.
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      The hon. Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson), to whom I have given advance notice that I would bring his name into the proceedings, is in his place. He put his name to the amendments which stand in my name on the Order Paper so that we might discuss the matter further. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan has made no secret of the fact—indeed, he has stated publicly—that he warned off his hon. Friend. One of the less colourful phrases which he used was that the hon. Member for Fife, North-East had never seen a fish, except on a plate.
      Mr. Albert McQuarrie: The hon. Gentleman is talking absolute rubbish. He knows perfectly well that my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) represents a fishery constituency. If he were to get his facts right, he should be referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth). He should read the Order Paper and find out exactly what is on it. Obviously he knows so little about the matter that he cannot even get the basic facts right.
      Mr. Hughes: That demonstrates the problem we have had in trying to resolve the matter amicably.
      Mr. McQuarrie: The hon. Member should get his facts right.
      Mr. Hughes: The hon. Member had better keep his peace until the time comes for him to speak. I had a pet Great Dane and a pet Doberman Pinscher. Taming a Buchan bulldog is no problem, so he had better behave himself. The hon. Member said that he had publicly warned off his hon. Friend the Member for Fife, North-East.
      Mr. Barry Henderson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having told me that he would refer to me. May I say to him, as briefly as I can, that I have never been bullied by anyone to do anything in the House which I do not want to do, and I do not propose to start now. I disapprove considerably of the repetition of loose tittle-tattle and of conversations imagined or overheard in the Lobby outside the Chamber. At the time to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, I had a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie), when I told tuna that I was happy to be available for bringing together disparate interests if it would bring about peace in the dispute about fishing harbours. However, I was not prepared to stand in the middle of an argument between two interests where I did not have a direct constituency interest. My constituency interest is in both Peterhead and Aberdeen harbours being available to my constituents when they want to use them.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think we should get back to the amendment.
      Mr. Hughes: My remarks are germane to the amendment, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I take your point. If the hon. Member for Fife, North-East cares to look up the Aberdeen Press and Journal and Evening Express he will find exactly what was said.
      So that the issue might be resolved and so that we might have a discussion on it, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) was invited or encouraged to put his name to the amendments to protect the position. But he was persuaded that the assurances which were talked about last week were acceptable, and he withdrew his name. That left me. late

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      last Wednesday night, with the position on the amendments and on the motion in relation to Third Reading unprotected. Therefore, I put my name to the blocking motion and to the amendments, for two reasons. First, I wanted to ensure that we might have a discussion on the matters and obtain the response of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan. Secondly, I wished to see in writing or, more specifically, to read into Hansard the assurances which were apparently on offer. As the editorial in the Aberdeen Evening Express put it last Thursday:
      "He could do no less."
      Indeed, I could do no less than make sure that my constituency interest was protected.
      At 6.25 pm today I was given a copy of a letter headed and addressed to Mr. John Turner, general manager, Aberdeen harbour board, which says:
      "PETERHEAD HARBOURS
      (SOUTH BAY DEVELOPMENT)
      ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
      In consideration of the Aberdeen Harbour Board withdrawing all their objections to the Peterhead Harbours (South Bay Development) Order Confirmation Bill, I am empowered by the Trustees of the Harbours of Peterhead to confirm that they have agreed:
      `We will not seek oil related work for the Peterhead Harbours in the foreseeable future'.
      We trust that your Board will find this acceptable as has already been indicated by Mr. Gerald Malone, M.P."
      We now have the assurances in writing. They may well be consistent with the initial statement given by the promoters of the Bill. That is not fully acceptable to Aberdeen harbour board. I shall have to make my own judgment, but before giving that I would welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan. Throughout the period in which we have discussed the Bill we have sought to get consistency among the ports on the east coast of Scotland and to ensure that the objectives of Peterhead harbour trustees have been met, and to do that in the absence of any Government policy or guidance about port facilities available on the east coast which we all know are grossly over capacity.
      The amendments are worth while and should be acceptable. They have been put forward in a genuine spirit of compromise and agreement, with one harbour board being willing to consider the problems of the other. I hope a reciprocal case may be made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan.
      7.30 pm
      Mr. Malcolm Bruce: I should like to put on record my interest in this Bill and speak about the implications of the amendments and the eventual outcome. One of the saddest things about the progress of the Bill is the degree of bitterness that appears to have been generated between two neighbouring harbour authorities on the east coast of Scotland. That has not been an edifying event, nor is it in the best interests of port management and port authorities. Neither of the authorities emerged smelling like roses. The other thing we have witnessed is that it has caused a degree of animosity between Members of the House with neighbouring constituencies who have legitimate interests to defend. I do not want to dwell on that point. That animosity is regrettable, because the objective of all hon. Members must be to secure good neighbourliness.
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      I should like to see a development that could go ahead without threatening the survival of a neighbouring port while ensuring that another port is not unreasonably held back. The House will realise that in every sense of the word I am the man in the middle, because my constituency has Aberdeen harbour just outside on the south and Peterhead harbour just outside on the north. For that reason I am interested in the success and prosperity of both ports and I regret the conflict that has arisen.
      I was interested to hear the contents of the letter that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) read, giving the assurances that seem to make the specific point that Peterhead harbour trustees will not seek to run an oil base in the foreseeable future. While that could not be regarded as a legally binding statement and is open to interpretation, I feel that it is a declaration of good faith. I think that Aberdeen harbour board is more concerned about some of the other activities at Peterhead harbour. They are legitimate activities in which Peterhead is already actively engaged, and it would be unreasonable not to allow those activities to develop.
      There is now an element of compromise, and it is unfortunate that we could not get that compromise earlier. It is also unfortunate that we have had a number of false arrangements. Without those the Bill might have gone through the House to greater satisfaction all round not exactly without blood on the floor, but without so many sparks flying between individual hon. Members and between the relevant port authorities.
      I hope that we will be able to make progress and allow this Bill to go ahead. That will be a clear statement that Peterhead is seeking to develop its own business in its own right and in its own way to the greater good and prosperity of the north-east of Scotland, and not in a way that is aggressively predatory on its neighbour, because that is clearly not in the interests of the ports of north-east Scotland.
      I am as anxious as any other hon. Member to hear the reply of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie). I hope that he will reply in a constructive and conciliatory fashion that will enable us to proceed, to ensure that the development of Peterhead can go ahead, and that good relations will be restored between Peterhead and Aberdeen port authorities. Those things are in the interests of all of us who represent the north-east of Scotland.
      Mr. Henderson: Like the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce), I am anxious to see both these harbours operating effectively, and I am even farther away from them than he is. A number of fishermen from the east use both harbours and I share with the hon. Member for Gordon the anxiety that there seems to have been a falling out between these harbour authorities. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that neither of the authorities is smelling like roses. Aberdeen harbour would be a busier place and would have greater trade if it was not for the restrictive practices that we have seen there for too many years. Peterhead would do better for itself and better by the fishing industry if it did not overfill its fish boxes.
      It may well be that for reasons of parliamentary practicality my hon. Friend or the harbour authorities will make arrangements to bring about peace and get the legislation through. I deplore the fact that that kind of deal is necessary for the reasons that have been advocated. It is a case of one interest using the difficulties of

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      parliamentary procedure and private legislation to pursue its interests in the House. Private legislation procedures were designed to give legitimate room for objectors to plans that directly affected people in the locality. That is not the kind of thing included in some of the suggestions put forward.
      If a local authority or harbour trust or any other owner of a harbour wants to carry out harbour works and has to bring in a provisional order or an order of confirmation, leaving aside whether such a thing ought to have to be done in every case for harbour works, there should be some understanding that the harbour authority must be allowed to do what is necessary for the benefit of its harbour and for the community in which the harbour is set. The considerations about whether a harbour owner should or should not be allowed to carry out the work should be decided on how the work will affect people in the immediate vicinity and not people some distance away who are pursuing commercial interests of their own.
      Mr. McQuarrie: I regret that it is necessary for us to come back to the House to deal with this matter yet again. I regret also that I must take issue with the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) for his unwarranted attack upon me. It is quite unfair and untrue for the hon. Gentleman to say that I had an agreement before the end of the Second Reading which I did not honour. He knows perfectly well that the two votes taken in this House on 16 January were taken on the closure. He has only to look at the record to see that 119 hon. Members voted in favour of that closure.
      The following vote about a referral to the Joint Committee was also defeated. Those two votes reflected the will of the House, and the following day I spoke to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North in the Committee Corridor and I asked him, "What is your position about this Bill?" He said, "As far as I am concerned it is finished. I will accept the will of the House. When it comes to consideration and Third Reading I will not oppose it." I accepted that as the word of an hon. Member.
      I spoke to the hon. Member on Wednesday and he gave me to understand that if an assurance was given by Peterhead harbour trustees that they would not seek oil-related work in Peterhead harbour after the extension was completed, that would be satisfactory to him and he would not oppose the consideration and Third Reading. I obtained the assurance about oil-related work from a majority of the trustees and I brought down to the House that evening—
      Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. McQuarrie: No, I will not. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop my argument. I brought to the House that evening a copy containing signatures of the majority of trustees of Peterhead harbour and I handed a copy to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North. In that document is the very wording that the hon. Gentleman has quoted from the copy of the letter which he says he received this evening at 6.25. The Peterhead harbour trustees said:
      "We will not seek oil related work for the Peterhead Harbours in the foreseeable future."
      Mr. Robert Hughes: The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie) has confirmed my impression of last Wednesday, that he got assurances from the majority
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      of the trustees. That is different from an assurance by Peterhead trustees that they had held a formal meeting to assent to that. It was to clear up that confusion that I put down the blocking motion. The hon. Gentleman confirms exactly what I said earlier.
      Mr. McQuarrie: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but I want to clear his mind about the situation. He must accept that he asked me to be assured that this declaration of intent, if I can call it that, given by Peterhead harbour trustees would be in his hands before the Bill was called in the Chamber last Wednesday. I got that assurance because time was short and I had to get the assent of the various Peterhead trustees. There was certainly no time to hold a meeting of trustees. Mr. Colin MacRae, the trustees' clerk, went to all the trustees and obtained their consent to the wording.
      Paragraph 8 on page 2 of the statement on behalf of the promoters in support of Second Reading and against the motion to refer the Bill to a Joint Committee—which statement was available last Wednesday in the Vote Office—states:
      "The Trustees do not conduct any oil-related business and they have no intention of doing so when the harbour has been extended. The additional berthing space is required for fishing vessels and general cargo boats. Oil supply-boats are served either in the adjacent Bay of Refuge, which is not managed by the Trustees, at Aberdeen, where the berthing capacity is far greater and the facilities are more suitable, or elsewhere."
      What greater guarantee could the Aberdeen harbour board and its general manager, Mr. John Turner, want? That was a statement of intent, which was available to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North and other hon. Members. Hon. Members got what they wanted, but they persisted in their objections.
      The objections persisted because Aberdeen harbour board was determined that the Bill would not see the light of day in the House and in the other place. If it could maintain its blocking actions, it was determined to do so. As proof, I refer to the letter sent by Mr. John R. Turner to the chairman of the Peterhead harbour board on 15 January 1986. Its most pertinent sentence states:
      "We still have many friends in both Houses of Parliament, many of whom have not yet shown their hand."
      We have enough experience to know that that is a threat. It is not the language of compromise. It is a threat—"Do as I do, or I shall get you." The letter continues:
      "Your Bill could still be talked out, or continue to be repeatedly blocked."
      Is that the language of compromise? I do not think so, nor would any hon. Member who listened to that statement.
      For that reason, we have been faced with a great difficulty, which should never have arisen. The Bill was given a careful Second Reading. It was debated from 7 pm to 9.40 pm, and hon. Members had an opportunity to speak. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North suggested that he curtailed his speech, but I remind him that he spoke for 18 minutes that night and sat down when he felt like doing so. He was not compelled to do so. He had finished his speech and, as far as the House was concerned, he had said his piece.
      The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North has tabled four amendments. On amendment No. 1, if no dredging is permitted beyond 5·5 m below mean low-water springs, the first 40 m of the new south quay—work No. 3—would be at a depth of less than 8·5 m at mean low-water

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      springs. This would exclude ships in the 6,500 tonne class which draw 7 m or 7·5 m. Allowing 1 m for rough weather, it is essential to have a depth of 8·5 m.
      Despite what the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North said, there are no objectors to the Bill, apart from the Aberdeen harbour board. No hon. Member has been given the power to object on behalf of other authorities. Other authorities made their objections known during the public inquiry, but they have not sought to reiterate that objection on Second Reading. The views of Aberdeen harbour board were heard through the medium of hon. Members.
      A depth of 5·5 m below mean low-water springs is insufficient to enable the new south quay to take vessels in the 7,000 to 9,000 tonne range. The Aberdeen harbour board does not act, as it has purported, on behalf of residents. The chairman of the Peterhead harbour trustees and Captain A. D. Auld have confirmed that at no time had the trustees suggested a compromise in any unofficial meeting with the chairman and the general manager of the Aberdeen harbour board. They found it impossible to reach agreement with the Aberdeen harbour board, despite holding a number of meetings. The Peterhead harbour trustees did lead evidence on the requirement for the depth of water needed to take the size of the vessels envisaged.
      Amendment No. 2 proposes to shorten the length of the proposed new south quay by more than half from 303 m to 125 m. This will restrict the class of ship that can enter the harbour. About 90 per cent. of the ships in the 6,500 tonnes class are 135 m in length. They could not be moored beside a quay of only 125 m.
      If amendments Nos. 1 and 2 are accepted, the maximum size of ship that the harbour could accommodate would be about only 3,000 tonnes. This would seriously damage the scheme's economic viability, as the ships now using the harbour to load grain are greater than 3,000 tonnes. Most of the cost of the works is attributable to dredging and blasting. Contrary to what has been alleged in the Aberdeen harbour board's notes on its amendments dated 16 January, which it sent to hon. Members, it will be impossible to bring in a ship in the 24,000 tonne category, or anything like it. Such a vessel would have an average draught of 11 m and a length of 180 m. Even at high water, such a ship would be aground when berthed beside the new quay.
      7.45 pm
      The Aberdeen harbour board and its representatives are fully cognisant of the fact that it is impossible to handle vessels of more than 9,000 tonnes at its south breakwater quay. Vessels above that size require the assistance of tugs, which Peterhead does not possess and has no intention of acquiring. Perhaps that is another guarantee that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North would like. Vessels of this size would call only occasionally at the port. The Peterhead bay harbour already handles such cargoes. The Peterhead harbour trustees have never handled this type of trade, nor can they possibly do so. Because of the draught of such vessels and because the entrance to the harbour is on a lee shore, vessels of such size could not be manoeuvred. Construction of the south breakwater is expected to create a berm at approximately 8·5 m, give or take a metre or two, and Aberdeen harbour board knows that.
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      I turn to amendment No. 3. For purely technical reasons, a downward limit of deviation of 1·5 m is needed. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North has proposed a deviation limit of 0·5 m. Underwater rock blasting creates an inverted cone-shaped hole and the varying and unpredictable nature of the seabed makes it impossible to blast economically within a range of 0·5 m. The downward limit of deviation has been agreed with the Department of Transport. Ground conditions will require the removal of small pockets of soft or loose materials to gain a good foundation, and 1·5 m should be adequate — 0·5 m would certainly not be adequate.
      The trustees have demonstrated that they have no intention of handling vessels of the 24,000 tonnes rate and that those vessels will be handled only in Aberdeen. The vessels that require a larger draught are needed to move grain. Aberdeen harbour board has said that grain work is declining. If that is so, why has the port of Aberdeen constructed a grain quay at the expense of several million pounds? The Grampian regional council has decided that because the grain comes from the hinterland it should be handled by regional harbours covered by the Grampian regional council. A letter from the Buchan branch of the National Farmers Union of Scotland in connection with the extension to the quay states:
      "Grain has been exported from the port for many years, building up to 150,000 tons of barley and 25/30,000 tons of other grains, coming close on 200,000 tons per annum…We believe that to maintain the high standard experienced over many years…the extension of the harbour is essential."
      The branch has no hesitation in wholeheartedly supporting the proposal of the Peterhead harbour board.
      Amendment No. 4 asks that the depth of water within 5 m of the north face should not exceed 6·5 m. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North has referred to that. About 260 m of work no. 3 on the new south quay will stand in an existing natural depth of 8·5 m and more. Rock infilling to provide the foundation to the new quay will restrict the depth to 8·5 m, but for the trustees to have to fill in the seabed more than that deliberately to restrict the draught of vessels cannot be justified. Allowing for an underkeel clearance of one, 6·5 m at mean low water springs would accommodate a vessel of about 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes. However, coupled with amendment No. 1, not even a vessel of that size could be accommodated at the new south quay. Amendment No. 4 contradicts amendment No. 1.
      I have given the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North the assurances that he seeks in respect of the oil-related work that Aberdeen harbour board does not wish to be removed from its port. That assurance has been given to the hon. Gentleman in the statement that was available in the Vote Office and in a letter. If the hon. Member were really interested in the welfare of the fishermen, he would realise that the extension is paramount to them and not to any other trade, although it is allied to others. The extension is being built for the benefit of the fishermen. I hope that having heard my comments the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North will not divide the House, but that he will withdraw his amendments and allow the Bill a safe passage.
      Mr. Harry Ewing: If delaying the Bill last Wednesday served any purpose, it was that at least at 6·25 pm this evening we received an assurance from the Peterhead harbour board trustees that they would not seek oil-related work in the foreseeable future.

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      It is interesting that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie) should say in his closing remarks that the developments were primarily to ensure the safety of fishing vessels. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes), and the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) and I agree on the need to ensure the safety of fishing vessels. The amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North would meet that requirement. If the safety of fishing vessels using Peterhead harbour was the only matter at stake, the amendments could safely be accepted. Every fishing vessel that uses or is likely to use Peterhead harbour could continue to use it with more safety after the development if the amendments in terms of water depth, tide levels and rock blasting were included. The amendments would not jeopardise safety. They would add to the safety of fishing vessels using Peterhead harbour and the proposed new south bay development.
      Safety is not all that is at stake. The safety of fishing vessels is not the centrepiece of the Bill. We must be openly honest with ourselves and realise that the purpose of this privately promoted legislation is to extend Peterhead facilities into an area of land that the Peterhead trustees do not own. That has provoked the legislation and not developments that might take place at Aberdeen, Grangemouth, Leith or any of the Forth ports. Those developments take place on land owned by the Forth ports authority. The Peterhead harbour authority does not own the land on which the development is proposed. The Bill has been promoted not primarily in the interests of the safety of fishermen, but to expand the facilities at Peterhead to take in vessels of a greater tonnage.
      I accept what the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said about grain exports. I am glad that the Peterhead harbour trustees have put assurances in writing, not only to the Aberdeen harbour board but to other ports. I suspect that Montrose is also involved. I am glad that the Solicitor-General is with us in the debate. I am grateful that those assurances have gone to other ports that depend heavily on oil-related work to sustain employment. I know that Mr. Turner, the general manager at Aberdeen harbour authority, would welcome the assurance of Peterhead harbour trustees that they will not seek oil-related work in the foreseeable future.
      The Peterhead harbour trustees will be held in the years to come to the commitment that has been given in writing and that has now been put on the record of the debate. That is important for Aberdeen and Montrose and any port on the east coast of Scotland that deals with oil-related work. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) for objecting last Wednesday to the Bill going through on the nod, because that has given us the opportunity to place those guarantees on the record.
      When the harbour master at Peterhead, Mr. Auld, gave evidence to the public inquiry chaired by Lord Hughes, he made it clear that vessels of a tonnage not exceeding 5,000 were envisaged—in other words, vessels used for the export of grain. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan was talking, not of vessels under 5,000 tonnes, but of ships between 5,000 and 7,500 tonnes. That makes a massive difference to grain exports. While I am prepared to accept the Bill tonight, I would be failing in my duty to the east coast ports which at present handle grain exports if I did not register my fear that the development of Peterhead
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      harbour to take vessels up to 7,000 tonnes for exporting grain can have only a detrimental effect on the trade in grain from east coast ports.
      Mr. McQuarrie: Surely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that a grain exporter on the Forth, in Grangemouth or Montrose, would transfer grain all the way to Peterhead for export, rather than export it from those other ports? The only reason why the docks are being extended is to accommodate the grain brought from the hinterland to be sent out from Peterhead, and the importation of lime and fertiliser, which is solely for my constituency and others near Peterhead.
      Mr. Ewing: With great respect — usually when a politician says "with great respect" he is about to describe the person about whom he is talking as lacking in knowledge—I am sorry to tell the hon. Gentleman that his intervention betrays his lack of knowledge about what is happening in our ports at present. Exporters do not pay the road haulage costs between the point where the product is produced and the port of export. That is why our ports are suffering so much from the grid system, under which the ship owner pays the road haulage costs from Perth and further afield, not to Peterhead, but to Felixstowe.
      Of all goods for export which have their manufacturing base in Scotland, 75 per cent. are exported from Felixstowe. They are not exported from Scottish ports because the vessel owners find it cheaper to pay road haulage costs to Felixstowe than to have the vessel steam to Grangemouth, Leith or Montrose to collect the goods. I doubt whether the Peterhead harbour trustees will pay the road haulage costs of grain exporters from Tayside, Fife, Central region, south-west Scotland or another agricultural area, which seems to be what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.
      Mr. McQuarrie rose—
      Mr. Ewing: I shall not give way. The hon. Gentleman has been rather impetuous. He must remember that when Peterhead is developed it will be a non-scheme port, and so will trade at a distinct advantage to the scheme ports on the east coast which are part of the national dock labour scheme. However the hon. Gentleman seeks to present his argument, Peterhead harbour will be at an advantage.
      Mr. McQuarrie: The hon. Gentleman must not seek to put on the record that the Peterhead trustees or I are endeavouring to estabish a system under which they will pay for grain to come to Peterhead from any part of Scotland. They have no intention of doing so. The hon. Gentleman should not put across a message for which there is no justification. He is being extremely unfair to the Peterhead harbour trustees and to me to suggest that. He knows perfectly well that that is not so. He is not even sowing a seed which is a possibility. What he has said is unrealistic and most unlikely to happen.
      Mr. Ewing: I admire the authority with which the hon. Gentleman speaks on behalf of the Peterhead harbour trustees, and I hope that in years to come that authority will be backed up by their actions. We can only wait and see, as a former Prime Minister once said.
      The possibility of oil-related work no longer worries me, but grain export work gives me cause for serious anxiety. The hon. Gentleman said that Grampian regional council thought that all grain from Grampian region should be exported through what he described as regional

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      harbours, whatever that means. I should have thought that Aberdeen was a regional harbour in the Grampian region, so I am not sure what he means. If the Peterhead development is to be justified financially, and if there is to be an adequate return on the £17 million capital investment — Conservative Members are always in favour of that—
      Mr. McQuarrie: £13 million.
      Mr. Ewing: It will be £17 million before the job is finished. Big capital projects have a nasty habit of exceeding the original estimated cost. If the development is to be justified financially, the farmers in the region will have to grow far more grain than at present, and I do not believe that that is possible. That is what leads me to fear that grain will be drawn from other ports on the east coast to Peterhead. While I shall allow the Bill to go through tonight, I do so with fear and no little trepidation.
      Mr. Robert Hughes: I understood that amendment No. 1 was acceptable to the chairman of Peterhead harbour board, and that amendment No. 2 was not to be moved because it would represent a concession by Aberdeen harbour board.
      I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. McQuarrie), and I share many of the fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Ewing), who is worried about both oil-related and non-oil-related traffic. We now have assurances, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman confirmed the views of individual trustees which were presented to me on a piece of paper last Wednesday. We are here tonight precisely because that piece of paper was not good enough and because I wanted assurances in a proper form. I have fears not only for the future of Aberdeen but for the viability of Peterhead. I also have fears about the viability of the east coast ports in Scotland and for all the ports in the country because of gross over-capacity. The Government ought to have stepped in with a proper ports policy.
      I know the constituency of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan extremely well. I have many friends and relatives there. The suggestion that we were in some way trying to disrupt Peterhead and stop it having safe refuge and safe harbour is nonsensical.
      Having heard the assurances, and despite the fact that they are not totally acceptable to the Aberdeen harbour board, at the end of the day I and the House must justify our decisions and I must make my own judgment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Bill to be read the Third time tomorrow.

  British Railways (No. 2) Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  8.10 pm
  Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill, in common with its predecessors, stems from the duties placed upon the board by the Transport Act 1962:. As the House will know, I have had the privilege of proposing the Second Reading of a number of these Bills in the past. It may therefore be for the convenience of the House if I spell out the duties placed on the board by the Transport Act 1962:
  "It is the duty of the Board under the said Act of 1962 inter alia, to provide railway services in Great Britain and, in connection with the provision of railway services, to provide such other services and facilities as appear to the Board to be expedient, and to have due regard, as respects all those railway and other services and facilities, to efficiency, economy and safety of operation."
  The Bill is yet another milestone in establishing a safe, economical and viable railway system. Much of the Bill is concerned with the electrification of the east coast main line and related works. There are other matters which I shall refer to in my remarks.
  It may again be for the convenience of the House if I define what is meant by the east coast main line. That means the railway between King's Cross station in London and Edinburgh with a branch line to Leeds. Part I of the Bill defines the terms and objectives and incorporates certain general Acts in common with Acts of this type. Part II, clause 5, deals with the power to make works and to maintain them. Part III, clauses 24 to 37, gives power to carry out bridge works and these are the bridges concerned in the electrification of the east coast main line. Part IV deals with the purchase of land. Part V covers the incorporation of works provisions. Part VI deals with certain protective provisions which again are common to these Bills which relate to the Crown, police, electricity, gas and water authorities. Part VII deals with the miscellaneous provisions and there are two matters of some interest in this part of the Bill. Part VIII deals with general provisions which are standard planning, appeals, arbitration and the cost of the legislation. The schedules are self-explanatory.
  The proposed changes in the Bill are necessary because of the changes in use patterns generally, the new arrangements with local authorities which are being established by the board and a general policy of good housekeeping. Hon. Members will see that the Bill is in fact a substantial document. It deals with a number of matters other than those to which I have already referred, namely the electrification of the east coast main line.
  While I do not intend to recount all these changes unless hon. Members wish to refer to specific alterations, there are one or two changes which I shall highlight as they evidence the points I am trying to make. Clause V, concerns work No. 2, the new road and footpath at Bull's Lock, Newbury. This level crossing, which also carries a public footpath, is regarded by the British Railways Board as one of the most hazardous on the western region. It is situated on a curve; the maximum line speed at that point is 100 mph, and there is only limited visibility in each direction. The potential dangers are enhanced by the fact that the road approaches to the crossing are steeply graded, thus restricting visibility for road users. Additionally,

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  there is a history of indiscipline in the operation of vehicular gates by authorised users, and a number of near misses have been reported. Such use as has been made of the telephone installed at the crossing to enable drivers of road vehicles and those herding cattle to check with the signalman that the way is clear before crossing has been erratic to say the least. For a number of years, the board has wished to close the crossing and if the powers proposed in the Bill are granted by Parliament, the board will do so.
  That is a good example of trying to meet the criterion which I established at the beginning of my remarks to make the service safer and more efficient. The board will no doubt have many other opportunities in the future to carry out this type of improvement and clause V is a good example of what we are trying to achieve in the Bill.
  Similarly, in part II there is in clause 17 an example of what I mentioned earlier, namely, the relationship between the British Railways Board and the local authorities. As an example, I cite the case of Ermine street level crossing at Hibaldstow, Humberside. Under the Humberside county council's road scheme for the Brigg and Redbourne bypass, a length of Ermine street on either side of the Ermine street level crossing will be stopped up by the county council while it constructs a bridge to carry the new road over the railway a few yards west of the crossing. That will mean the isolation of the crossing from the rest of the road system and therefore, as a matter of good housekeeping, the board seeks power formally to stop up Ermine street between the crossing gates upon the completion and opening for public use of the new road. I cite those two examples, but there are others in the Bill and if hon. Members wish to refer to them I shall do my best to deal with them if I have permission to speak again.
  Part VIII of the Bill, under miscellaneous provisions, deals with an important change in the pension schemes of the British Railways Board. In clause 45, it is proposed that the board shall constitute a new pensions scheme entitled "British Rail Pension Scheme". That scheme will acquire the assets and liabilities of two other existing schemes, namely, the British Railways (Wages Graded) Pension Fund and the new section of the British Railways Superannuation Fund. Bringing these two funds together under one heading and bringing the assets and liabilities together in the way I have described will make the operation of the new scheme more efficient. The new scheme will obviously be much larger and hopefully will be more secure against the fluctuation in the values of assets.
  I want to make it clear that, in any changes of the kind that I have described, no benefits will be prejudiced in any way and that the people who will benefit from the scheme will be completely protected. It might again be worth noting that statutory authority is being sought on this occasion because of the enormous size of the assets involved. The total assets of the existing schemes total some £3,000 million. That is a very large operation indeed. I wish to make it clear that the new scheme should be an improvement and in no way a diminution of the services provided by the board's pensions schemes in the past.
  I should like to draw the attention of the House to clause 47 which comes under the miscellaneous provisions. It has caused some anxiety, because it relates to Hungerford bridge, which is not far from here. The clause relates to that part of Hungerford bridge alongside Charing Cross station which extends from ground level in Villiers street
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  to the point where it meets the flight of steps leading to the Victoria embankment, adjacent to the Embankment station. The change is being made because of the habits of vagrants who sleep and occupy the bridge to the discomfort of pedestrians. The bridge has to be closed, which means that pedestrians cannot use it.
  The entire length of Hungerford bridge is supposed to be a public thoroughfare. Section 8 of the Metropolis Toll Bridges Act 1877 requires the board to maintain and keep the bridge in substantial repair, suitable and open to the public at all times, for every description of foot traffic. Section 30 of the Act permits the board to stop up and discontinue any part or parts of the footbridge upon substitution of an alternative route for pedestrians which is adequate and proper.
  Notwithstanding those statutory duties, for a number of years the board has found it necessary completely to close the length of the footbridge to which clause 47 relates because the covered portion adjacent to the steps leading down to Villiers street was being misused and being occupied at night by vagrants. That resulted in numerous complaints from rail travellers and other members of the public.
  In an attempt to combat that problem, the board for a number of years has been nightly locking the gates giving access to the footbridge from Villiers street and at the top of the steps leading down to the Embankment. The board's staff, who were responsible for locking, were being threatened and subjected to much verbal abuse when they tried to evict the vagrants from the covered portion. That prompted the board to close the entire length of the footbridge.
  Following discussions with the GLC and Westminster city council, the board has agreed to improve the covered portions of the footbridge and, upon completion of the improvements, to reopen the footbridge. In return, and subject to clause 47 passing into law, the GLC and Westminster city council will relieve the board of its obligations under sections 8 and 30 of the 1877 Act to which I have just referred. The city council has agreed to accept the dedication of that length of the footbridge which will then become a walkway under section 35 of the Highways Act 1980.
  I have taken a little time to explain that point, because the bridge is a famous London landmark and one does not want to do anything to limit access to it. I hope that have explained that there are real problems in operating that part of the footbridge as we do at present. I hope that the new arrangements will be more satisfactory.
  This is not a controversial Bill. There are, and will properly be in its later stages, opportunities for detailed consideration. It is yet another milestone along the route to making the British Rail system more efficient, safer and more acceptable to the travelling public.
  8.23 pm
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: It was not originally my intention to object to the Bill at this stage, but in view of what was said by the Chairman of Ways and Means at the end of the proceedings on the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill last week, I thought that it would be useful to speak on this Bill now rather than when it came to the consideration of possible amendments.
  I welcome the electrification of the east coast main line and all British Rail's proposals to improve and modernise it. My only complaint about British Railways Bills is that

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  in the past the board has obtained powers through the House but has not had the finance to carry out its proposals, and some of them have never come about.
  I am worried about the way in which the Bill deals with footpaths. I am anxious about clauses 9, 11, 14 and 23, and the schedule, and clauses 28, 33 and 36. The point was made last week—I think it is one that the Chairman of Ways and Means accepts—that in some cases private Bills promoted through the House do not serve the best interests of local communities. It is not easy for local people who might use the footpaths to know of the Bill's existence. Most people who take their dogs out for a stroll, go along the footpaths in the summer, come back from their newspaper round, or whatever, do not look carefully at the British Railways (No. 2) Bill or any other of its private Bills.
  It would be far more satisfactory if British Rail dealt with the closure or diversion of footpaths as anyone else would have to do, not by promoting a private Bill but by serving notice on the local authority and asking for a diversion or closure. Notices would then be put up on the footpath or bridge and local people would have the right to object. If there were objections, the objectors would have the right to a local inquiry. The inquiry inspector would make a recommendation in favour of or against the closure or of a diversion. Local people would enjoy a simple procedure.
  Unfortunately, that has not happened in this case. We have a complicated procedure which is, on the whole, remote from local people—a private Bill. I suspect that one or two of the proposed closures will come as a surprise to many local people, because they will have been completely unaware of the Bill's existence.
  I know that British Rail will counter that argument and say that, even if it went through the local procedure, as an Act created the footpath, probably by diverting an earlier footpath, it would also have to seek parliamentary approval.
  We should be considering our procedures, but until we amend them I argue strongly that British Rail should go through the local consultation procedure of putting up notices and letting local people know whether the proposals would affect them adversely. If there were no objections, no one would need to take any action. If there were objections, their validity could be tested locally.
  At the moment the procedure is unsatisfactory. Local people know nothing about the Bill. It is fortunate that with such a Bill the Ramblers Association checks carefully. If there is a series of footpath closures, it may decide to petition against the Bill. The Ramblers Association then starts to write to the local associations to find out whether anyone is interested in the matter. We do not know whether anyone locally is genuinely interested because once the Ramblers Association writes to the local association it thinks that it had better protect the footpath. We have the unsatisfactory position where action is motivated from the centre rather than locally. We have no clear idea whether there is strong feeling locally or whether the Ramblers Association and others are merely pursuing a matter of principle.
  I plead with British Rail to deal with footpath matters for the time being by applying for local closure or diversion notices. Having obtained them, British Rail should incorporate them in the Bill, and it can then certify
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  that the local inspector found in its favour after a local inquiry. If it cannot convince local people and the local inspector, the closure should be left out of the Bill.
  I hope that that sort of consideration can be given. When the Bill goes into Committee and the Ramblers Association's petition is considered, British Rail will be able to say that, between Second Reading and the petition being heard, it has applied for local diversion and closure notices and the result is that in so many cases it has had a certain number of objections and in other cases it has not.
  There may be some difficulties of time with the Bill. I wish to make it clear to the House that if British Rail does not follow that procedure, then I shall seek, on consideration, to put down amendments to those footpath closures. It is unsatisfactory that footpaths can be closed by means of a Bill without local people knowing about it.
  I hope that when the House sets up a Committee to look into the private business procedure, it will consider the way that footpaths may or may not be closed by means of private Bills and will amend the Standing Orders to make it clear that proposals for footpath closures can only be put forward once there has been a local inquiry and the inspector has agreed that it is in the best interests of everyone for the footpaths to be closed.
  8.31 pm
  Mr. Henry Bellingham: I am glad that I have been called on the Bill. I support the electrification of the east coast main line. I support the other clauses in the Bill and, if necessary, I shall vote for them tonight.
  I wish to discuss other issues which involve the electrification of railway lines. The first matter concerns Stansted airport. British Rail is anxious to build a new line from Stansted station through to the airport. The Government's decision on the future of Stansted will be of crucial importance. My constituency would welcome that project going ahead. I hope that the line will be built from Stansted station through to Stansted airport and that it will have north and south facing connections. Thus, people will be able to travel from King's Lynn through to Cambridge and then to change and go from there to Stansted and on to the airport. It will obviously be a great benefit to my constituency.
  I am also concerned about the railway line from London through to King's Lynn via Cambridge and Ely. I am slightly troubled because there are no measures in the Bill to electrify the stretch of line from Cambridge on to King's Lynn. We feel slightly left out because the London to Norwich line is almost completely electrified and the London to Cambridge stretch is being proceeded with at a pace and will probably be completed by May 1987. That, therefore, leaves the stretch of line from Cambridge through to King's Lynn, the chief town of west Norfolk and one of the most important towns of East Anglia. I cannot overstress the importance of the rail link. We have a reasonable service and a good timetable, but, alas, the rolling stock is fairly old and many improvements could be made. I pay tribute to the efforts and loyalty of the local British Rail staff who work tirelessly to provide the best possible service to Norfolk and especially west Norfolk.
  We do have the odd complication, and unfortunately one such complication took place only 10 days ago. One of my constituents was travelling by train from King's Lynn to London. The constituent was subjected, alas, to eight stops and the train arrived 40 minutes late. My

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  constituent's breakfast also found itself on the wrong side of a locked door and the toilets in her compartment were filthy. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of this incident and he has probably had a word with BR about it. I am glad to say it is the exception to the rule. At the time I made some comments about the incident to the local paper and I may have gone over the top. I did say it was a disgraceful incident and that, in future, I would have to think twice about encouraging the Minister, should he come to my constituency, to travel there by train. I received some flak in the local press for saying that—it is easy to say things on the spur of the moment. Of course I totally back that railway line and when the Minister does come to my constituency I hope that he travels by rail rather than car.
  We need to have this stretch of line electrified. The rail link is crucial to King's Lynn. King's Lynn does not receive any regional aid. We are trying hard to get unemployment down and, over the past year or so, the unemployment level has been static. I believe we are winning the fight to create new jobs and the local economy, especially the small firms sector, is thriving. We are trying, all the time, to attract new firms into west Norfolk and into King's Lynn. We are also trying to improve the trunk roads. The borough council of King's Lynn and west Norfolk recently announced a major campaign to improve the A47 trunk road west from King's Lynn through to Peterborough into the midlands. The council is also backing me in my campaign to get the railway line electrified. We are trying hard to encourage existing firms to expand in King's Lynn, and we are trying to attract firms from outside. We are doing what we can to build up the economic base with a view to reducing unemployment. We are succeeding, and we shall continue to succeed.
  We recently had the excellent news that a major national organisation, the Construction Industry Training Board, announced that it would relocate its London headquarters in west Norfolk. I have campaigned for that for some time behind the scenes with the CITB management. The board has its Civil Engineering College and its training centre at Bircham Newton. It therefore made sense for it to move its headquarters up to west Norfolk. I pushed that decision as hard as possible and the board announced, only last week, that it will look for a substantial number of new local employees to join the headquarters at Bircham Newton.
  That is a major vote of confidence in west Norfolk and it bodes well for the future. I do not believe that that organisation or other organisations or companies would have come to west Norfolk, or indeed others will come, if they did not have confidence in the rail service. If incidents such as that which affected my constituent recently are repeated too often such companies may live to regret their decisions. I believe electrification will go ahead and it is important that it should proceed.
  The docks at King's Lynn are also expanding and there is a good deal of scope for an increase in freight and industrial traffic. It is a chicken and egg situation. If one has a better service then there will be more domestic and commercial usage of that service. If there is not this level and quality of service then less custom will be attracted.
  I believe that the electrification from Cambridge through to King's Lynn should proceed. The electrification of the Cambridge stretch should be completed by May 1987. If British Rail do not electrify the line from
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  Cambridge to King's Lynn, there will be problems. A major rail service from London to King's Lynn will have an electrified service as far as Cambridge but a second rate service from there to King's Lynn. A different set of rolling stock will have to be maintained to provide the service for the second leg of the journey. That would make the line inefficient and in the long run more costly. The cost of maintaining diesel locomotives is high. They guzzle fuel and they require a great deal of care and attention to stop them from breaking down. If traffic fell off on that part of the line, it would be vulnerable in the future. I would fight tirelessly to keep it, and I know that the people of west Norfolk, the county council, the borough council, and everybody else involved would fight to keep that line.
  If the line is not electrified, it could be vulnerable to a cost-cutting Government at some stage in the future—perhaps not in five or 10 years, but beyond that into the next century. It may be chopped by a future Beeching. If we spend money on electrifying the line, it will be saved for the foreseeable future. What is more, the electrification could go ahead on commercial grounds. British Rail has launched an appraisal of electrification from Cambridge to King's Lynn, the results of which will come out later in this year, and until we get that appraisal we shall not know the estimates and exact figures as to future traffic flows.
  However, the terrain from Cambridge to west Norfolk is very flat. There are few bridges and it would be relatively cheap to electrify this stretch of the line. It would represent first-class value for money. If we do not electrify, we shall be putting in jeopardy the economic and commercial future of west Norfolk and the expansion of many firms there. Of all the issues facing my constituency at the moment, without doubt the most important are unemployment, economic growth and the development of the small firms and agricultural sectors, but all these things are dependent upon good communications, good roads and good railways.
  Infrastructure is crucial to west Norfolk and there are times when I, as a Conservative Member, say that the Government should spend more money on certain parts of the infrastructure. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister agrees with me, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt). There are times when spending money on infrastructure for its own sake is not cost effective and will not create jobs, and in the long run will do the country economic damage. However, certain selective schemes can benefit a particular area and help firms there to get their goods to market, be more competitive and give them a more competitive edge against European rivals, so in this case the Government should go ahead.
  For such a scheme, we are not talking about much money, probably under £10 million, but it will guarantee jobs, help to create new jobs, encourage the small firms sector and boost the image of an important part of the country. That is money well spent. I shall be pushing my hon. Friend the Minister, and as soon as the appraisal comes out I shall be meeting him and the chairman of British Rail to do all that I can to stress the case for this project. It is crucial to the economic well-being and industry of King's Lynn and to the future of many people in my constituency.
  8.43 pm
  Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I apologise for not being present at the beginning of this debate and I hope that what I say has not already been covered by any hon. Member. I share the view of all those who have spoken about the need and the wish to see British Rail successful, efficient and commercially as viable as we can make it. I shall concentrate my remarks on a small aspect. However, I shall set them in a wider context because they give me cause for some concern about the way in which our railways are being run.
  Over the past decade, my constituency has seen considerable growth in its population, much of which uses the west country main line from Exeter, through Newbury to London, to a great extent for commuting. People want a fast, efficient and reliable service and I am sorry to say that they have not always had that, certainly not in the past 12 months. They want as much warning as they can be given by British Rail about possible hold-ups and they want to be sure that they are aware of any likely problems that may cause them to take an earlier train or to change their timetable to London or for getting home. Therefore, I stress the need for a safe, fast, efficient and reliable railway, and in particular one that is safe for passengers and for those who have to cross the line.
  When I received a letter dated 20 January from Mr. Simon Osborne, the principal assistant solicitor at British Rail, to remind me that the Bill was due for Second Reading soon, I read his letter with considerable interest. He kindly advised me about the section of the Bill that relates to the level crossing, known as Bull's Lock crossing, on the west of England main line near Newbury. He says:
  "This crossing is regarded by the Board's operators as one of the most hazardous on the Western Region, being situated on curved track giving only limited visibility at a point where the maximum line speed is 100 mph. The potential dangers are enhanced by the fact that the road approaches to the crossing are steeply graded, thus restricting visibility for road users."
  I have no doubt that he is correct in his comments, but that persuades me to ask the question, "If this danger has existed for so many years, why has the British Railways Board only now decided that it should do something about it?" I hope that I shall have an answer to that question tonight.
  The letter continued:
  "Added to this, there is a history of indiscipline in the operation of vehicular gates and a number of 'near misses' have been reported. Such use as is made of the telephone installed at the crossing, to enable drivers of road vehicles and those herding cattle to check with the signalman that the way is clear before crossing has been erratic, to say the least. Elimination of the crossing is therefore in everyone's best interests."
  That statement worries me because I wonder how many other such crossings exist on British Rail main line routes and can be described as having
  "a history of indiscipline … and a number of 'near misses' have been reported."
  We deserve an answer from British Rail to that question, as the safety of those using crossings is at risk, as is, perhaps more so, the safety of passengers travelling in the trains using the crossings, and of possibly finding the crossing blocked off by somebody crossing in a vehicle, or even by animals being herded across the line. Why has British Rail only now decided that this is a hazard, and so hazardous that it deserves to find its way into the annual Bill? How many more crossings of this kind can be described as having
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  "a history of indiscipline … and 'near misses' have been reported."
  What is involved in the work outlined in the Bill and its schedule? What does the work entail? In particular, would it affect trains crossing the culvert, because the idea is to re-route the private footpath and crossing through a culvert in the railway line? As comments on restructuring appear in the Bill, I wonder whether the work will affect trains using the line—for example, will they be able to pass over that part of the line only at a reduced speed thus clearly changing the projected arrival time at Newbury, Reading or Paddington? Will the culvert have to be strengthened, and when is work due to start? Last but by no means least, how much does the British Railways Board expect the work to cost and how soon does it think it will be finished once it is set in hand?
  I believe that, although the Bill in its entirety seems to be worthy of the House's support, the points to which I have drawn the House's attention raise wider issues and make me ask whether British Rail is examining its lines as carefully as it should. The west country line is not new, it has been in existence for many decades, and to be told now that the crossing constitutes a serious hazard on a 100 mph stretch and to be told only in 1986 that British Rail thinks that something should be done about it leaves me with a horrid feeling that there may be other dangers lurking on other main lines which British Rail would do well to look at as a result of tonight's proceedings and set in hand the work required to make them safe if such work is needed.
  8.50 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): It may be helpful if I give a brief indication of the Government's view of the Bill. The Government have considered the content of the Bill and have no objection in principle to the powers sought by the British Railways Board. A few minor points will need to be raised by the Department of Transport, but I have no doubt that they will be cleared up satisfactorily.
  There are petitioners against the Bill and they will have the opportunity to present their objections to the Select Committee. The Committee will be in a much better position than we are tonight to examine in detail the issues involved and it will have the added advantage of having expert evidence. I recommend to the House that the Bill be given a Second Reading and be allowed to proceed to Committee in the usual way for that detailed consideration.
  8.52 pm
  Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: I shall deal first with the points raised by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) regarding footpaths and other matters. He will know that local publicity is given in those situations. The reason why some of the conditions to which he referred are not always answered is because the Highways Act 1980 does not always apply to the situations we are talking about this evening. However, I can tell him that the local newspaper carried advertisements about the closures in December 1985 and notices were posted at either end of the footpath in November 1985. Therefore, the board is anxious to ensure that local people are aware of what is happening.
  As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, there are petitions, which will be considered in detail later. That is a valid

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  point, because ramblers and others use the footpaths and they have every justifiable reason to be aggrieved if they are suddenly closed and no proper warning is given. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's comments will have been noted by the board, and perhaps we can look at them again.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Bellingham) will be glad to know, as he probably does already, that the Airports Bill dealing with Stansted will come before the House soon. The point that he raised about the railway link with the proposed airport extension can be dealt with in that debate. However, I entirely agree with what he said about improving services in east Anglia and his own constituency. I assure him that the board has those matters under review and is anxious to press ahead with them. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support for the Bill. I hope that we shall be able to ensure that all of his constituents enjoy better journeys than the ones to which he referred and the one which some of us read about in the newspapers not long ago.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) raised an important issue. It is alarming that dangerous stretches of the railway still exist without action being taken. The board has been negotiating with land owners in that area for a considerable time. Even tonight, I am not able to give my hon. Friend a firm date as to when the work will start because negotiations are still continuing. All the clause will do is give the board the necessary authorisation.
  On the matter of the irresponsible behaviour of certain individuals, I can assure my hon. Friend that the railway police and others do what they can to ensure that breaches of regulations are dealt with, but, of course, they are somewhat overstretched. In a sense, the complaint which my hon. Friend makes points the need for these Bills. Many people have often thought that this sort of Bill should be handled by a Government Department, but, because the railways have been built over private land, special provisions have been required. The case of Bull's Lock crossing is a good example. Private landowners are concerned and it is partially for that reason that no action has been taken before. I made it clear in my opening remarks that the board is always anxious to find examples of danger and to deal with them as swiftly as possible. I can assure him that his remarks will be noted by the board and it will continue to do all it can to improve safety and efficiency.
  I have tried to deal with the points raised by hon. Members. I commend the Bill to the House, because I believe that it provides yet another helpful step in the development of the railway system.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed.

  Milford Haven Port Authority Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  8.57 pm
  Mr. Keith Best: I beg to move. That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This is a modest Bill. I am encouraged to be brief by the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. I tell the hon. Gentleman that, not only is it a modest Bill but it is a brief Bill. I wish that all legislation that came to the House were as brief. However, its brevity should not in any way diminish the importance of the Bill and I shall detain the House just a little to explain why it is important. I want to say why the promoters of the Bill have sought to move a private Bill rather than a harbour revision order. Some hon. Members may say that a harbour revision order was a better way to proceed. Section 62 of the Harbours Act 1964 gives a harbour authority the freedom to proceed either way. Despite the hopes initially entertained for the system, the harbour revision order is not particularly quick, simple or cheap. Even an unopposed order usually takes as long as a private Bill. An opposed order often takes more than a year even if it does not end in special parliamentary procedure. Some orders have taken much longer than that.
  Furthermore, the harbour revision order procedure can confuse the issue by permitting objections to be made that are outside the strict scope of the order that has been promoted. At the time that the board of the Milford Haven conservancy decided to promote legislation there was in process in Whitehall a harbour revision order, promoted by the Warkworth harbour commissioners, which, having started as a simple order, became a lengthy and costly affair because of the ramifications permitted by the objection and public inquiry procedure for harbour revision orders. The order that was subject to that procedure did not come into effect until about two years and four months later. The general manager of the Milford Haven conservancy board advised the use of the private Bill procedure, not least because of what had happened at Warkworth.
  Mr. Alistair Burt: My hon. Friend has described graphically the gloom and doom side of the harbour revision order procedure, but does he agree that he is overloading that side of the matter and that it is possible for harbour revision orders to go through all the procedures far more quickly than that? It is not unknown for harbour revision orders to take no more than two months. Does my hon. Friend also agree that it is impossible for the private Bill procedure to take less than eight months?
  Mr. Best: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. All things being equal, even if a private bill is opposed, this private Bill, having been laid in November 1985, should reach its final stages in July 1986. My hon. Friend asks why a harbour revision order is not appropriate. I understand that he is to oppose this measure. That fact alone will extend the procedure in the way that I described at Warkworth.
  The facilities at Milford Haven include five oil terminals that were built by oil companies—Esso, BP, Texaco, Gulf and Amoco—under powers conferred by an Act of Parliament in each case. Commercial facilities also include a ferry terminal that was built by the board at a total cost of £10 million, the facilities of Milford dock,

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  an enclosed dock that is owned by a separate statutory harbour authority, the Milford docks company and some other fairly minor installations. The former royal dockyard at Pembroke dock has been largely sold into private ownership. The board's ferry terminal occupies part of the site but the Ministry of Defence retains a section at the western end of the dockyard. Apart from commercial traffic, the haven is extensively used for recreational purposes. The diversity of the operations in the harbour make it necessary to have on the board interests other than those represented by the oil companies.
  Part I, schedule 1, to the Milford Haven Conservancy Act 1983 lays down that a representative of organised labour has to be on the board, a representative chosen after consultation with two district councils and with Dyfed county council. It is right that a broad diversity of views should be represented on a board such as this. The Bill is being promoted precisely for that reason: to ensure that no inhibition will be placed upon service on the board by anybody who might represent diverse views but who would be a significant contributor to the board's operations.
  By the mid-1970s Milford Haven had become the largest oil port in Great Britain, handling nearly 60 million tonnes of crude oil and oil products. Since then, because of such factors as OPEC and the exploitation of North sea oil, the haven's oil traffic has been substantially reduced. However, in 1985 it was still in excess of 30 million tonnes of oil and other cargoes. In that year, slightly over 26 million gross tonnage of dues-paid vessels entered the port. Of the five oil terminals originally constructed, that owned by Esso is largely disused because of the closure of the Esso Milford Haven refinery, and the BP terminal has been taken over by Texaco as a result of BP's decision to phase out much of the capacity at its Llandarcy refinery which was supplied with crude oil by pipeline from Milford Haven.
  The total capital employed by the board is approximately £20 million. Over the years about £10 million has been invested in a ferry terminal and about £7 million of capital expenditure was devoted to dredging the haven's deep water channel to enable 275,000 tonne tankers to be accepted on virtually every tide. Together with two subsidiary companies, the board's annual turnover is approximately £5·5 million. In recent years, average net surpluses before tax of about £1 million per annum have been achieved.
  The objectives of the Milford Haven Port Authority Bill 1986 can be simply stated. The first objective is to change the name of the Milford Haven conservancy board to the Milford Haven port authority. The second objective is to provide the board with the power to pay fees to ordinary members—that is, members of the board other than the chairman, vice-chairman and executive members — as well as travelling and subsistence expenses.
  To deal with the first of those objectives, the term "conservancy" in the board's present title has been the cause of much misunderstanding. It has been commonly assumed that the board's functions resemble those of the Nature Conservancy Council. It was for similar reasons that in recent years the former Harwich harbour conservancy board took steps to have the word "conservancy" deleted from its title. Furthermore, the title "Milford Haven Conservancy Board" has been a misnomer
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  since 1975. Before then the board's functions were indeed confined to those of a conservancy authority, as the Harwich harbour board functions still are. In 1975, however, Parliament conferred on the board a considerable extension of functions and powers by the Milford Haven Conservancy Act 1975, all this legislation now consolidated in the Milford Haven Conservancy Act 1983. In general the board's current functions and powers resemble those of other major trust authorities in Great Britain.
  Sir William Clark: Given that we have had the 1983 legislation, why did the Milford Haven Conservancy Board not bring forward the change of name and, indeed, the payment of non-executive members of the board? I understand that only one member of that board is non-executive and is not a salaried official of some oil company or other.
  Mr. Best: It may well be regrettable that the matter was not brought into the 1983 Act, but I remind my hon. Friend that that was very much a consolidating Act.
  Sir William Clark: My hon. Friend will surely agree that in a consolidating Act all the loose ends are tied up. I cannot see the justification for expenditure of some £8,000, £9,000 or £10,000 on a private Bill to change the title of a body or to pay the members of the board something that is already being paid by the private sector. Why is it necessary to increase the number of quangos—I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree with me in this matter—by paying fees to these non-executive people? There is no limit to the fees which they may be paid.
  Mr. Best: It merely brings the board into line with other port authorities. My hon. Friend has really answered his own intervention. Although consolidating measures are helpful in tying together loose ends, if some loose ends are still flapping, I am sure that he would be the last person to argue that they should remain flapping in the wind for ever. The promotion of this Bill is the opportunity to ensure that those loose ends are tied up firmly and that the Milford Haven board is brought into line with other port authorities.
  If I may deal with the point raised by my hon. Friend about the membership of the board, he will know that there are 12 members of the board. The chairman and vice-chairman are paid. There is facility under paragraph 19 of part 1 of schedule 1 to the 1983 Act, to which I referred, for payment of the chairman and vice-chairman. There is a general manager who is also paid. There are two representatives of oil companies, one from Gulf and one from Texaco, who are paid by their companies.
  I remind my hon. Friend that there are people on the board who do not receive any remuneration from the oil companies or by virtue of their membership of the board or by virtue of being paid officials of the board. There is, for example, the representative of organised labour who receives not much remuneration, and there are those who are appointed after consultation with the two district councils and the county council. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree with me that there should be no inhibition on a representative of organised labour, often a retired trade union official, as in this case, Mr. Driscoll; or indeed on representatives of local authorities from serving on a port authority and taking a substantial and necessary part

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  in the way in which the port is organised simply because they are not given any remuneration. That would be unjust.
  Mr. Burt: My hon. Friend will be aware that many local authorities appoint councillors to a wide variety of outside bodies and, as far as I am aware, the question of payment rarely, if ever, arises. Most local authority councillors accept the appointment to bodies with which the authority is connected as part of their duty, not something for which they should seek payment. Why should my hon. Friend seek, through the Bill, to breach that principle? Does he agree that it is dangerous to try to knock holes in the principle?
  Mr. Best: My hon. Friend misunderstands the purpose of the Bill. Perhaps I have explained it inadequately, but, in fairness to me, I hope that he agrees that he has not given me much chance to explain it so far. The representatives who are appointed by the Secretary of State after consultation with the district councils and the county council are not necessarily councillors. Local authorities can recommend that any individual should serve on the board. Therefore, what my hon. Friend has just said is erroneous. He might be right if it was the invariable practice that everyone appointed as a result of the consultation between the Secretary of State and the local authority was a member of that authority. But that does not follow under the Act. The local authority is not obliged to put forward the name of one of its members, nor is the Secretary of State obliged to appoint a member of the authority.
  My hon. Friend is saying that there should be a financial inhibition on people serving on an authority, such as a port authority, because they will receive no remuneration and are being asked to give their time free when the representatives of the oil companies are already being paid decent salaries—one does not begrudge them that—by the oil companies concerned.
  In a moment, I shall deal with another anomaly in the stance of the oil companies. It was an oil company that proposed a measure, which was adopted and is now enshrined in the Bill, to enable the fees that might otherwise be payable to a member of the oil company to be paid to the parent oil company, so that the company would benefit in any event.
  The Bill is designed simply to facilitate payment. It does not provide an obligation to make payment. It is simply an enabling Bill to allow the port authority to make payments to individuals as it sees fit. Most other port authorities which have a similar power exercise it to give some remuneration — usually a very small sum and nothing which could be regarded as a living wage—to those who serve on them. [Interruption.] If my hon. Friends will allow me, I shall proceed, because it is important to explain all the matters. Perhaps they would do me the honour of waiting to hear what I have to say, and then no doubt when they catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, they can make their own points.
  May I deal with the proposed power to pay ordinary board members fees? The Bill includes such a provision because it is thought to be unreasonable that members of the boards who devote time and effort to the conduct of the boards' affairs, and who may have no income derived from business in and around the haven, should not be remunerated apart from having their reasonable expenses
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  met. The proposed power would be discretionary—it would be for the board to resolve whether to exercise it and, if so, at what level to fix ordinary members' fees. Any fee offered could, of course, be waived by the member, and there is also provision for a fee to be paid to a member's sponsoring body if he so desires. As I said a moment ago, that was proposed by an oil company representative on the board.
  As will be stated later, the power is well precedented in other ports. The Rochdale report of 1962 will be well known by my hon. Friends the Members for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark) and for Bury, South (Mr. Sumberg). No doubt it has been their bedside reading for a long time in preparation for this debate. At paragraph 95, that report recommended that non-executive members of port boards should be paid a fee
  "as in the case of other statutory authorities or boards of public companies, the fee to be appropriate to the demands and responsibilities of the appointment."
  The report also said:
  "The purpose of this provision will be self-evident."
  It is in order for me to say something about the Bill's history. The idea of proposing a Bill and its content was put before the board in a paper by its chairman. It was circulated for discussion at the board's meeting in January 1985. There was lengthy discussion during which a variety of views were expressed. At the end, the board resolved to proceed with the Bill and authority was given to apply to parliamentary agents to draft it.
  The Texaco representative was absent. The Gulf representative showed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the proposal to pay fees to ordinary members, but he did not ask for a vote or for any dissenting view to be recorded in the board's minutes, which were duly approved at the following board meeting. The minutes of that board meeting, on 18 January, say this inter alia:
  "The chairman said that while some members might have reservations, the majority were clearly in favour of the board taking power to pay fees to ordinary members."
  I can provide a copy of the minutes if my hon. Friends would like that. They continue:
  "In further discussion, general agreement was reached that a private Bill should also provide for a change of the board's title to Milford Haven Port Authority."
  For the board meeting in September 1985, copies of the draft Bill were circulated to board members. They were also sent to the oil company refinery managers who have not served on the board, including a Mr. Havers of Amoco. At that meeting, both oil company representatives were present. One of them proposed that the draft Bill should be amended to provide that a member could ask for a fee to be paid to the body that employed him or otherwise was involved in his appointment to the board, rather than to himself. It is strange that the oil company representatives agreed, maybe tacitly, but certainly did not dissent from the idea that there should be payment of fees. Indeed, one was so non-dissentient that he proposed an amendment to how fees could be paid—to the parent body rather than to the member. It lies somewhat ill in the mouth of oil companies to say now at this late stage that they object to these modest proposals.
  Mr. Burt: It is not unknown for people to formulate views over a period of time. In this case, the dissent of oil companies was made known early. It is clear from my hon. Friend's description that the oil companies' representatives are in a considerable minority and that their objections carry little weight if the other members of the

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  board are opposed to the oil companies. Their anxiety has led to this debate. My hon. Friend cannot suggest that, because the matter has to go through a certain procedure before coming here, although the oil companies objected but could do nothing because of their slight power on the board, they could do anything other than allow the matter to come here. My hon. Friend cannot suggest that the matter coming here after all this time suggests a heartfelt change in attitude such as to make the oil companies' comment in any way reprehensible.
  Mr. Best: I can only assume that my hon. Friend has come uncharacteristically unprepared to the House. It is quite clear that he has not seen the minutes or discovered what proceedings took place. If he had read the minutes, he would realise that the oil companies raised no objections from January last year, when the matter was first proposed at a board meeting, until the beginning of this year. Indeed, the oil companies went along with the rest of the board. Both representatives were able to call for a vote or for objections to be entered in the minutes, but not once did they do that.
  Mr. Burt: On that point alone would not my hon. Friend agree that in a board of 12, where the oil companies have two representatives, the mere calling for a vote just for the sake of the record is pointless?
  Mr. Best: It is not pointless. If one feels strongly enough about a matter, presumably one would wish to have that objection registered. The objection was not registered. No opposition to the Bill was expressed at the meeting in September when the draft Bill was in front of the board. Indeed, the approved minutes of the meeting record that its content was generally approved.
  At the beginning of November the Amoco refinery manager, Mr. Havers, who was not a member of the board, expressed concern to the board's general manager about the Bill, confining his complaint to the payment of fees. The board's general manager suggested to him that he should wait to see how in practice the board might wish to exercise the powers conferred by Parliament, or, if he were not content to do that, to write to the chairman of the board on whose original initiative the Bill was being promoted. He chose not to adopt either suggestion at that time.
  However, Mr. Havers served on the advisory committee of Milford Haven, which had met on 29 October when he was present. At that meeting, when the general manager of the board explained in detail why it was proposed that there should be payment of fees, no objection was made by Mr. Havers; certainly none was recorded in the minutes. One can only assume that at that stage he was satisfied with the explanation that had been given by the general manager of the board to the advisory committee.
  The first written articulation of dissent was in a letter of 3 February of this year, some days after the Bill's Second Reading had been blocked and after petitions from his own oil company and two other oil companies had been lodged against the Bill. So at no time between January 1985 and January 1986 did either of the two oil company representatives on the board make further representations to the chairman.
  The petitions are all framed in identical terms, which does not show much inventiveness if nothing else, even to
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  the extent that in paragraph 3 there is an assertion that each of the three companies is represented on the board. That is not true in the case of Amoco, there being provision in the board's constitution for no more than two oil company representatives at any one time.
  As for the proposal to change the name of the board, the petitions offer no argument or appreciation of the reasons which were made clear in the discussions which led to the adoption of the proposed change of name and in which representatives of two of the petitioning oil companies took part. I do not wish to add, therefore, to what I said earlier about the reasons for the insertion of clause 2. The main thrust of the petitions is against the proposal to pay fees and much is made of cost considerations. I hope that both my hon. Friends will understand that by objecting to the Bill now they are doubling the cost of the Bill.
  Sir William Clark: How is that?
  Mr. Best: If the Bill is to be given a Second Reading tonight, as I hope it will be, it will go into Committee. If it is opposed, it will take much longer and, therefore, will be much more expensive than it might otherwise be.
  Sir William Clark: Surely it is an extraordinary principle to advocate in the House that if two hon. Members think a Bill is wrong they should not push their objection because it might add to the cost. I must point out that I have a connection with Texaco. My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) has not explained why the name should be changed from a conservancy to a harbour board. My second point is that it is creating another quango. My hon. Friend shares my views on Conservative philosophy and we are diametrically opposed to quangos.
  Mr. Best: I am diametrically opposed to a useless quango, but if my hon. Friend says we are dealing here with a quango he is also saying that the Port of London authority, the Medway ports authority, Dover harbour board, Shoreham port authority, Clyde port authority, Forth ports authority, port of Tyne authority, Tees and Hartlepool port authority and Ipswich port authority are also quangos. I do not know if my hon. Friend likes travelling around the country, but if he goes to all of those and accuses them of being quangos, he will not find himself a welcome guest. I am sure he would not say that they are all quangos, because they perform a perfectly proper function in managing their ports. That is the purpose of the board as presently constituted and the port authority as it would be if the Bill reaches the statute book.
  Sir William Clark: If it is now essential that we should pay these non-executive members of the Milford Haven board, why is it that up until now the board has been successful without making payments?
  Mr. Best: It is largely to bring it into line with other port authorities.
  Sir William Clark: It is in line.
  Mr. Best: It is not in line with other port authorities, because the authorities that I have mentioned and that are now on the record all have provision for payment of their members. That is an example of setting something on the record as a matter of precedent to ensure that this port authority, if the Bill goes on to the statute book, would have the same facility as existing port authorities.

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  On the matter of cost, let us say, ex hypothesi, that the payment to an individual member is in the region of £1,000 a year. That is in line with the payments made by other port authorities. That would amount to £8,000 per year, because there are eight members on the board who could be eligible for payment. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, some are already earning salaries. It is reasonable to suppose that two of those would be oil company members and would either not take the fee or would have it directed to their parent companies. In that event the effective annual cost would be reduced to £6,000 at most if all of the other six members decide to accept a fee.
  If the board were to conclude that the £6,000 per annum had to be found by making an increase in the conservancy due, the increase required would be approximately 0·6 per cent. on the current level of basic due. That stands at 3·6p per gross registered tonne and is beyond doubt one of the lowest conservancy charges of any major oil port in Great Britain. An increase of 0·6 per cent. would raise the due from 3·6p to 3·62p. That represents an addition of one fiftieth of one penny. I hope that neither of my hon. Friends would wish to argue that that will be a crippling burden on the oil companies. If they do argue that, then I suspect they will not carry the House with them.
  Sir William Clark: I am sure my hon. Friend is right in that point, but if it said in the Bill that the payment is restricted to £1,000 at today's figures, a lot of the opposition would fall.
  Mr. Best: My hon. Friend may serve on the Committee dealing with this Bill. I hope he will take the point that the matter he has just raised is one for Committee and not for Second Reading. By virtue of what he has just said and the way he has put it, he has generously conceded that there should be payment but that there should be a limit on payment, in which case look forward to supporting the Bill. I hope that he will be able to serve on the Committee and move an amendment that there should be a ceiling on the amount of payment. I do not know and I cannot speculate, but that might even find favour without going to a Division, particularly if that suggestion were addressed to certain members of the board.
  I understand that some port authorities make provision for a maximum payment to local authority members so that they do not receive remuneration in excess of what they might otherwise receive by way of attendance allowance at a local authority meeting. These are matters for the Committee, not Second Reading.
  I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading. It is a modest, important and necessary Bill. I hope that, in those circumstances, my hon. Friends will accept what I have said and will support me in the Lobby.
  9.29 pm
  Mr. Alistair Burt: I shall first make clear my interest in this matter. I have no financial interest to declare. I am not paid or retained in any way by any party to this matter. When I first became a Member, I took an interest in energy matters because of the great importance of energy costs to consumers, especially industrial consumers, in my constituency. I have retained that interest, which is uppermost in my mind when talking about the Bill. I make no secret of the fact that my concern about the oil industry and the costs affecting that industry, which has been through a boom period but is now in some
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  difficulty, is known to the oil companies, especially Gulf and Chevron. They have been in contact with me about the Bill, and I would not seek to hide that fact.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) made a good speech, but I am sorry that it was wasted on such a trifling issue. There is not much doubt that the Bill has little substance. There is no need for it to be before the House. This issue need not have troubled us. The Bill seeks to change the name of the Milford Haven Conservancy Board to the Milford Haven Port Authority and to provide for payments to be made to board members, and that is all. The change of name is of small consequence, but the matter of payment is one of principle. Despite that, I suggest that such a principle is not a suitable subject for this procedure and that it could have been handled in another way, if required. It is not required. In the context of the position at Milford Haven and the oil industry, it would be the wrong thing at the wrong time. The Bill does not deserve a Second Reading.
  I shall deal first with context. The port of Milford Haven is located at the south-western tip of Wales, surrounded by a coastline of outstanding beauty. The harbour waterway, which extends 15 miles inland, is ideally suited to sailing boats and similar pleasure craft. There are up to 1,000 sailing boats — ranging from dinghies to large ocean-going yachts—in the haven at any one time. Generally, the oil companies and the yachting fraternity live happily side by side.
  Historically, Milford Haven has had strong connections with the Royal Navy and the fishing industry. After the second world war, the naval presence was steadily reduced to the present armaments storage depot and underwater recovery facility. During the same post-war period, the size of the fleet fishing from Milford Haven declined as Irish sea and other local fish stocks were depleted. But the port's location placed it at a disadvantage with regard to the long call fishing grounds around Iceland. However, such disadvantage as the port suffered in relation to fishing proved to be no disadvantage in relation to the oil industry.
  The sheltered deep-water harbour and the port's good weather record proved to be attractive to the rapidly expanding oil importing and refining industry of the late 1950s and 1960s. Around 1960, BP constructed an ocean terminal on the south side of the waterway where crude oil, pumped in ever larger tankers, was off-loaded and pumped to the Llandarcy refinery some 70 miles away between Port Talbot and Swansea. Esso and Texaco followed closely and constructed oil refineries on the north and south shores respectively. Shipping activities increased significantly as crude oil was delivered and a high proportion of products were moved by sea to the consumer. Gulf and Amoco followed. Massive investment was put into Milford Haven. Government grants, especially regional development grants, proved to be an incentive.
  The immediate availability of a number of separate supplies of the then cheap fuel oil encouraged the Central Electricity Generating Board to construct the largest and the last oil-fired power station—the Pembroke power station—on the south side of the haven. The station is supplied by pipeline from the refineries. By 1976 the port supplied approximately 25 million tonnes — almost 25 per cent. of the United Kingdom's oil refining capacity—and 20 million tonnes of that capacity was located on the shores of the haven.

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  The House knows the problems resulting from the OPEC instigated price increases of 1973 and 1976. They triggered a series of events that have had a profound effect on the oil industry worldwide and, significantly and crucially, on the port of Milford Haven. The large increase in oil-based fuel prices depressed consumption, because of price, the switch to cheaper fuels, energy conservation and improved efficiency of use. By 1980 the European oil industry had almost 40 per cent. overcapacity. That problem affected all the oil companies that use Milford Haven today. The continued operation of the marginal refineries resulted in petroleum product volumes exceeding demand with a consequent reduction in product prices and refinery margins. Oil refining, especially at the less sophisticated and less efficient sites, became unprofitable. In the latter case it became highly unprofitable. As a consequence, the industry shut down the simple refineries and concentrated operations at the more sophisticated and lower cost locations.
  In the late 1970s the industry recognised the need to construct more sophisticated plant, which would produce more higher value products at the expense of low value products. The construction programme of those fluid catalytic crackers and, to a lesser extent, hydro-crackers and vis breakers was accelerated. Construction was concentrated at each company's best location. Texaco and Gulf and, separately, Amoco and its new partner, Murco, constructed two FCCs and associated plants at Milford Haven. However, the industry was changing and Milford Haven, through no fault of its own, began to feel chill winds.
  In 1983 Esso announced the closure of the Milford Haven refinery, which was followed in 1985 by BP's decision to rationalise its operation at Llandarcy, which resulted in the closure of the oil terminal at Milford Haven. The total refining capacity at Milford Haven had now been reduced to approximately 15 million tonnes per annum. Average throughput in the next year or two will probably be limited to about 12 million to 13 million tonnes. As I said earlier, that is almost half what it was 10 years ago, which is a significant decline.
  The recent fall in crude oil prices from about 28 dollars to 16 dollars a barrel has disrupted the industry. To say the least, the future is uncertain. In the long term, low oil prices should benefit industry in general. However, the switch to higher demand will take several years. While that process is continuing the capacity at places like Milford Haven will decline and the port will be in some difficulty. The need to watch costs will become paramount. That uncertainty makes the board's move to pay expenses to board members inexplicable to the oil companies.
  Has the relationship between the Milford Haven Conservancy Board and the oil companies always been bad? Has their relationship always ended up being debated in a contested private Bill of small consequence? The relationship between the board and the oil companies has not been all that bad. As the port grew in the 1950s and 1960s, it was obvious that an authority was needed. The conservancy board fitted the needs of the port and the oil companies, and it has worked closely with the major oil companies.
  The board's composition has reflected the variety of interests that it serves in the area. My hon. Friend the
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  Member for Ynys Môn has referred to the composition of the board, which is set out in schedule 1 to the Milford Haven Conservancy Act 1983. The oil companies nominate two members and Trinity House nominates one. There is one union representative, one representative of shipping agents and brokers, and two local authority representatives. The harbour master and the general manager serve as of right. There is a chairman, a vice-chairman and a representative of some body concerned with the environment. Therefore, there are 12 members, of which the oil companies have only two.
  All but the representative of the environmental body are or could be remunerated in some form, not through the oil companies, but through their everyday work. They accept membership of the board as a duty which they cheerfully perform. My hon. Friend never said that the board was short of members, or that there was great pressure from any existing members for payment.
  Mr. Best: I am sorry to say that my hon. Friend is factually incorrect. How can he tell the House that members who are appointed by the Secretary of State, after consultation with two district councils and a county council, must necessarily receive remuneration from elsewhere? The present membership is self-employed and is not necessarily receiving remuneration from another body.
  I listened with interest to my hon. Friend's paean of praise and his newfound enthusiasm for Wales. I am not sure how he squares it with his statement on 12 February when he intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd). The hon. Lady said that no mention had been made of Wales, and he said:
  "It was not worth mentioning." — [Official Report, 12 February 1986; Vol 91, c. 1020.]
  Is my hon. Friend trying to filibuster and talk the Bill out? So far, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark) has twice told him to slow down, and has passed him a note.
  Mr. Burt: If my hon. Friend wants to give me a demonstration of filibustering, he has just done so. He spoke for a considerable time about a small Bill and left many points which need to be cleared up. [Interruption.] I accept that he was generous in allowing interventions, but he will appreciate that there are many points to be considered and that I have made all my remarks relevant.
  The only irrelevance during the past few minutes has come from my hon. Friend. He rightly referred to a remark I made in a debate last week. The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) had been describing a remarkable character who lived in the last century called Mr. Smith O'Brien, who apparently thought so little of anywhere but Ireland, a constituency of which he represented, that he did not participate in English or Scottish affairs. The hon. Lady, in an aside, said that he made no mention of Wales, and I remarked that Wales was not worth mentioning. Indeed, at the time of Mr. Smith O'Brien, Wales was not worth a mention because he did not give it one. It is to the credit of the hon. Lady and others who have represented Wales since then that it is now impossible to disregard Wales. I have spent many happy holidays in Wales and there is no suggestion that the feelings of Mr. Smith O'Brien are my feelings. I am pleased that my hon. Friend has allowed me to correct that misunderstanding and misapprehension. The hon. Lady, to whom I spoke afterwards, took the whole matter as a joke. She

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  appreciated my apology. The sense of humour of the hon. Lady and of the people of Wales will now be satisfied by my explanation. Whatever Mr. Smith O'Brien may have thought of Wales, I have nothing but the greatest admiration and respect for it. My forebears are Celtic, so I have a close affinity with that great Principality.
  I take my hon. Friend's point seriously regarding the members appointed by the Secretary of State in consultation with the local authorities. I fully accept that if they are not remunerated, my earlier words do not stand true, and I withdraw them.
  Most of the members of that board receive money from their general occupations and they serve on the board as a matter of duty. I refer to a matter which my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn failed to mention in his speech: that the board members were clamouring for payment and there was a dearth of people waiting to serve on the board, so there was a strong case for change.
  We in the Conservative party are supposed to leave matters alone unless a problem should occur. Change for the sake of change is not necessarily the best maxim for the Conservative party. Yet the tenor of the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn was that we should have change for the sake of change. He could suggest no benefits that would accrue from the change he proposed.
  I believe that the relationship between the board and the oil companies is good. The board performs the usual functions of a port authority. My hon. Friend made the point that he seeks only, in some way, to make the board's power equal to that of other port authorities around the country. However, the Bill does not seek any major powers. The conservancy board at Milford Haven already provides for and maintains safe navigation in the harbour. It controls the construction and operation of marine facilities and identifies and designates safe moorings. It ensures that the harbour is operated in a safe and effective manner. There is nothing of substance in the Bill to affect the serious matters that relate to harbours. There are just two small inconsequential points.
  I maintain that that fact alone has prompted the greatest concern amongst the oil companies. There is no suggestion that the Bill seeks major powers. The board already performs the functions that all port authorities perform and, by and large, the board does that well. That is one of the reasons why the oil companies and the board have had such a good relationship for so long.
  The board's facilities have expanded to meet the needs of a new authority. Additions have been made to staff and equipment as the port's activity has increased. A purpose built administration building and control centre was completed in 1964. The board has a good record of steadily increasing the channel size, in navigation aids and the design and economy of launches leading to the current replacement of the harbour radar surveillance by a more powerful and highly sophisticated system.
  The record of the Milford Haven Conservancy Board on oil pollutiion prevention is highly commendable with its system of committees and working groups manned by oil company and board staff, usually led by the harbour master. The harbour has developed effective operating procedures for the prevention of and cleaning up of such pollution. In general terms, the relationship between the board, particularly its operating staff, and the oil companies is at a very high level. I am sure that the oil
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  companies would wish me to pay tribute to the good work that has been done by the conservancy board and its staff over many years.
  The competent professionalism of the board's officers and staff is highly regarded. They, in turn, are aware of the oil companies' environment and the pressures upon them and generally react in an understanding manner.
  If everything is working so well, as generally it is, why is there need for change? My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Ynys Môn said that the changes would bring the board into line with others. I would like to know what the benefits would be. I can see the two changes outlined in the Bill, but my hon. Friend has not suggested how the consumers, the people who use the Milford Haven port authority, would benefit from the changes. My hon. Friend has not made the case for benefit, so I believe that the need for the Bill has not been made. There has been no desire for payment from board members. Again, I stress that my hon. Friend did not suggest that the board is short of members. So why is there a need for change?
  Mr. Best: The benefit would come in the same way as my hon. Friend and I receive a parliamentary salary. It would mean that nobody need feel inhibited in serving on a port authority as a result of financial impecuniosity.
  Mr. Burt: I accept the point, but I challenge my hon. Friend to say whether he has any evidence to show that anyone of whom he can think has been inhibited from serving on the board due to lack of remuneration. My hon. Friend remains in his place.
  I shall deal with some of the financial aspects which are crucially important to the oil companies. In 1969, a major dredging scheme was undertaken. At that time, the board had no cash reserves, but it had an overdraft. The Treasury said that as a condition of the loan the board should aim to make a profit sufficient to build up over the years a cash reserve of £500,000. The dates are significant. In 1969, the board had no cash reserves. The reserves have been increased over the years and now stand at just below £3 million, compared with an inflation rate target of £2·7 million. The excess will be consumed in paying for the new radar surveillance system in 1986. The cash reserves have been invested successfully over the years. The dividend and the yield form part of the board's income and capital growth helps to protect and increase the cash reserves.
  When determining harbour dues, the board balances its effective income from harbour dues, based on the oil companies' estimates of future traffic, from investments and major project income against operating capital expenses. A net margin is targeted, first, to inflation-proof reserves and, secondly, to obtain a return of 10 per cent. on capital employed.
  In 1975, the National Ports Council, with the approval of the Labour Government, recommended that port authorities should aim to receive a return on capital employed of not less than 10 per cent. That latter target has plainly rankled in latter years when oil companies have been losing money.
  From an early stage, the conservancy board provided transport for harbour pilots to and from vessels in the harbour. The cost of those services is recovered from the pilotage authority. The board has no control over the pilots or the pilotage authority other than through representation on the management committee and good working relationships.

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  In 1970, the board supervised a large dredging project to allow the safe passage of larger ships in and out of the harbour. The £6·4 million expenditure was funded through the conservancy board by a loan and grant under sections 11 and 12 of the Harbours Act 1964. The beneficiary companies, initially Esso, BP and Texaco, are effectively repaying that loan over 25 years. Esso and BP are obliged to maintain repayments until the loan is discharged, on a ship or pay basis.
  In 1978, and after much activity by the board, the British, Irish and Steam Packet Company effectively contracted the Milford Haven Conservancy Board to construct a roll-on/roll-off terminal at Pembroke dock for a newly established Pembroke dock to Rosslare passenger service. B and I in turn contracted repayment of that loan, plus a suitable profit element. The outstanding loan is about £9 million. B and I pays port dues on appropriate shipping movements in addition to those charges.
  Those large financial transactions appear to have whetted the board's entrepreneurial appetite. It acquired two private companies operating within the port—the Marine and Port Services Company, a small boat repair and construction company to which my hon. Friend has referred, and D. V. Howells, which is also a small boat construction and repair company.
  The board provides accountancy services to those two subsidiaries. The purchase and continued operation of those two companies has been a bone of contention between the oil companies and the board from the outset. The acquisition of the subsidiaries was not seen to be consistent with the board's functions. In addition, the board has resisted fallback suggestions made a number of times to integrate the two operations in favour of cost savings.
  The board's operating revenue is obtained from port dues, capital project income, pilotage charges and investment income. In excess of 95 per cent. of the port dues will fall on the remaining oil companies—Amoco, Gulf and Texaco—in the future.
  Bearing in mind the port authority's financial problems, the decline in traffic and the fact that BP and Esso have gone and the large part played by the oil companies in its finances — 95 per cent. of all port dues — and the consequential need for great confidence between the board and the companies, the Bill's timing is wrong.
  At a time when costs need to be reduced to as low as possible—that affects many industries other than the oil industry — and when the board needs to be seen to be doing as much as possible to help, it comes along with this proposal, and the Bill, to increase expense, no matter that it is by a small amount. It is sending out the wrong signals at the wrong time. Bearing in mind the good relationship over the years between the oil companies and the conservancy board, this seems a great shame. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn would agree.
  Mr. Best: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He has not maintained, as I mentioned earlier, that ex hypothesis there might be a net increase of £6,000 to discharge payments of dues. Does he accept that if that is right, the extra revenue would involve an increased charge per gallon of ·000001p? Is he seriously telling the House that will cripple the oil companies?
  Mr. Burt: No, of course not. My hon. Friend persists in missing the point of principle in referring to the figures. I do not quarrel with those figures. Can my hon. Friend point to anything in the Bill which fixes the costs at the levels which he has just mentioned? Once again my hon. Friend remains seated. It is a point of principle. There is no guarantee that the costs which he has mentioned will come to pass. In all common sense, the costs will be in that region, but no one knows that and it does not say so in the Bill. It is the point of principle that has concerned the oil companies. In a time of great financial stringency, when the oil companies have to cut back—indeed, some oil companies have had to leave Milford Haven—the oil companies now see a couple of extravagances coming from their boards —the promotion of the Bill and the suggestion of expenses being paid.
  If my hon. Friend and those who promote the Bill had put forward the need for the changes and the need for expenses to be paid then there would have been more sympathy. That has not been done. There is a bone of contention over the period of time which has elapsed since this matter first arose between the oil companies and the conservancy board through discussions that took place at board level.
  The proposals to change the conservancy board's title and to pay fees to ordinary board members was raised at the January 1985 meeting. I have a copy of the appropriate minutes—despite what my hon. Friend has suggested. The Gulf representative disputed the need to pay fees on the basis that all members were already salaried by interested organisations. It was pointed out that those circumstances may not always apply and that one member was in that category. The resolution was carried. My hon. Friend has asked why more protest was not made. I have already explained that the composition of the board is 12 members, and the oil companies hold two posts. There is no point in fighting again and again for a vote which always goes the same way. My hon. Friend will see that the minutes for the January meeting clearly state:
  "Some members did not feel that payment of a fee to ordinary board members as well as their expenses was altogether appropriate in the circumstances of the Milford Haven Conservancy Board."
  The objection of the oil companies was clearly stated—their dissent was marked. There was no point in forcing a matter to the vote time and again when the odds were so stacked. The oil companies had no wish to pursue the matter in that manner.
  At a later meeting the Gulf representative asked for the inclusion of clauses to allow payment of fees to be made to members' employers in the event that fee payments were made. This is also a matter to which my hon. Friend has made reference. The reason was that the oil company members who serve on the board had no wish to profit themselves through such fees. It was a straightforward matter for them to direct the payment of those fees to their companies.
  Mr. Best: An acceptance of the principle.
  Mr. Burt: No, there was no acceptance of the principle. The oil company representatives in a minority, with no constitutional power to block the motion, were anxious not to be seen to profit by it. They were thus seeking to fund the money back through their companies. In the circumstances, that was an honourable thing to do. The suggestions to the contrary by my hon. Friend are completely rejected.

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  In April 1985 consultants were appointed to review B and I's lack of profitability with a view to rationalising the business. Since that time, the oil companies' representatives on the conservancy board have been seeking to suggest stringent economies, but they have not been forthcoming.
  The Bill has proceeded, but the oil companies have made their opposition clear from the start, and suggested that the Bill was unnecessary and of no benefit to them or anybody who used Milford Haven. Alas, the Bill has still come to the House. I am sure that it is with the great regret of all that the matter has come this far, but there is no doubt that the matters that have so concerned the oil companies have been matters of principle and should, if the Bill is to proceed in this way—
  It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned. Debate to be resumed on Thursday 20 February.

  Representation of the People
  10 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): I beg to move,
  That the draft Representation of the People (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) Order 1986, which was laid before this House on 14th January, be approved.
  Articles 2 to 4 of the draft order increase the present limits on candidates' expenses at parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom and local government elections in Great Britain in line with changes in the value of money. Article 5 provides for a similar increase in the case of candidates' expenses at ward elections in the City of London. If the draft is approved by both House, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will make an order as soon as possible thereafter in time for this year's local government elections on 8 May.
  Mr. Robin Corbett: Are we to be together again?
  Mr. Mellor: The hon. Gentleman and I have been together for so many days that we should get this one over as quickly as possible.
  Article 1 provides for the order to come into operation on the day after the day on which it is made. It will then enable candidates who are in the middle of an election campaign to incur expenses to the new limit permitted by the order. It will not, however, validate expenses in excess of the present limits which have been incurred before it takes effect.
  The current limits for parliamentary and local government elections prescribed by section 76(2)of the Representation of the People Act 1983—excluding those for GLC and ILEA elections—were originally fixed by order in March 1982. So too were the limits for ward elections in the City of London prescribed by section 197(1) of that Act. By the end of August 1985, however, the retail price index has risen by 20·2 per cent. My right hon. Friend accordingly decided to increase those limits by a similar amount under sections 76A and 197(3) of the 1983 Act. Those provisions enable him to vary such limits by means of an order subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament, but only to take account of changes in the value in money since they were fixed.
  All the major political parties and local authority associations in Great Britain were consulted about the proposed increases and raised no objection to them, although one of those consulted asked whether it would be possible for the figures to be rounded up or down to become more easily committed to memory —for example, by changing the rate for parliamentary elections in county constituencies from £3,240 plus 3·7p per elector to £3,500 plus 3·5p per elector. However, sadly, such rounding is outside the scope of the order-making power, and the present figures do not seem to have caused returning officers and election agents any insurmountable difficulty.
  The making of an order at this time will enable all the candidates at this year's local government elections in Great Britain to fight a more effective campaign. As for the effect of the order on parliamentary by-elections, I can best illustrate this by telling the House that the present limits in county and borough constituencies of 60,000 electors will be increased from £4,560 and £4.080 to

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  £5,460 and £4,920 respectively. This does not, however, preclude a further increase before the next general election. I hope, therefore that the House will give this measure its full support.
  10.3 pm
  Mr. Robin Corbett: The Minister will be relieved to know that I should like to get this 48-hour love-in over as soon as possible. Like other hon. Members, we were both here late last night and early this morning.
  The Opposition welcome this measure. I have just one thought to leave with the Minister on a point which I understand is not covered by the order. Perhaps he could take on board the thought that the House should attend to some control of the national expenditure by political parties at elections. We limit that in terms of candidates, and yet we leave open ended the matter of national advertising campaigns of political parties. That cannot make any sense. Although I understand that the order does not deal with that, I hope that we shall bring our minds to bear on it.
  10.5 pm
  Mr. Simon Coombs: I am encouraged to follow the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) because it touches closely on a matter which has been in my mind. I support the order, but it seems rather strange that in 1986 we continue to behave as if the methodology of communication with the electorate at election time is the same as it was 50 years ago. As the hon. Member for Erdington said, that emphasises the effect of the national control of elections rather than the ability of the local candidate to communicate with his electorate.
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  We live in the television age and it is through that medium that national policy and national figures can impinge upon local electors. By such an order local candidates are prevented from having their fair share of the argument. After all, the figure that is available for expenditure by a candidate in any election, if divided by the number of electors, would not cover the cost of a first class stamp if the candidate wished to send something other than a freepost missive to his electors. It would not cover the cost of a telephone call of substantial duration to any of his electors and it barely covers the cost of printing an electoral address which he may wish to send to his electors.
  We seem to be dealing with the philosophy of large public meetings and small electorates when the candidate was able to reach his electorate much more easily than is now the case because, now the people have television to watch, a candidate can hardly maintain an audience of more than a few hundred at any meeting in his constituency during an election campaign.
  I hope that, as the years go by, we shall consider the philosophy that lies behind orders such as this one. I am not making a personal plea. I spent less than the other candidates in the election which brought me to the House. I am not making a plea for expenditure of United States proportions because they go too far, but I am arguing for a revision of the philosophy which seems to put all the emphasis on national elections and far too little on local elections.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Representation of the People (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) Order 1986, which was laid before this House on 14th January, be approved.

  British Leyland
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
  10.7 pm
  Mr. David Gilroy Bevan: I am obliged that I have been fortunate enough to be able to have an Adjournment debate on one of the most vital industries in the heartland of Britain, in Birmingham. So far, there has been no debate on the machinations that have affected the car factory near my constituency. I make a declaration of interest in PPG Industries, but I am nevertheless more concerned to make a declaration of interest on behalf of the numerous members of my constituency who work either in Freight Rover or in Range Rover. Probably over 60 per cent. of the work force actually resides in Yardley.
  I shall briefly refer to the construction of the Land Rover Leyland Group. It comprises Leyland Vehicles Limited, Land Rover Group and LRIH which is a company dealing with international matters. Land Rover Group includes Land Rover and Freight Rover. I am not concerned about Leyland Vehicles, the heavy group. The truck division is reputed to have accumulated losses of £500 million. However, it is worth noting that General Motors may not just be interested in Land Rover, Range Rover and Freight Rover as sweeteners. However, it may be interested in the truck division so that it can get its hands on Scammell, which is a subsidiary of Leyland Truck.
  Mr. Robert Atkins: Will my hon. Friend accept that in Leyland Truck as well as in Leyland Bus uncertainty and lack of information is causing most of the aggravation to the work force?
  Mr. Bevan: I agree. I shall deal later with the bus division.
  Through its Scammell subsidiary, the truck division is one of the two companies that has put in tenders for the £120 million defence order that is shortly to be issued by the Ministry of Defence for rapid fire rocket launchers, which will be able to serve up at a collossal rate of fire power the ammunition needed for those fire launchers. That might be the entrée for General Motors, which is an excellent American company. That might be the real reason why General Motors is trying to get the 1 billion dollar order that may be forthcoming from the Pentagon for similar rocket launchers at a later date. If that is its strategy, it means that it is not intent upon obtaining Land Rover as a sweetener. If that is its intent, we must look at it again.
  There are 8,500 people involved in Land Rover, the majority of whom are from Yardley. There are 1,700 people at Freight Rover. The Land Rover factories—14 throughout the United Kingdom—were located as far away as Cardiff. They are now centred upon Lode Lane, Solihull, a few hundred yards over the boundary. All that they have bequeathed to Yardley, Acocks Green and Tyseley are eight empty, old factories.
  I do not object to that move, because it did not adversely affect the employment of my constituents. However, their future needs to be assured. Their concern has been expressed to me during the several visits that I have made to factories in the area, on tours in the area and by letters. Their concern is not merely for themselves.
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  They want to continue to work for what they consider to be a unique British manufacturing company in the case of Land Rover and Range Rover.
  The only active factory that is left in Yardley—those eight plants having been bequeathed to the Lode Lane complex where they are rationalised into one unit and are able to compete and take orders from the rest of the world — is BL Technology. It is worth looking at Freight Rover. It is located in Common Lane. Again, that is not in my constituency but the constituency of the of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis). It is interdependent. Land Rover supplies the engines and the gear boxes: the 3·5, the two litre diesel and the 77 mm gearboxes. Freight Rover supplies Land Rover with the pressings, which is another interdependency. Austin Rover supplies the engines and the axles. Perkins now supplies a diesel engine. There is, therefore, an interdependency in the estalishments.
  It is not true to say that there is vast overproduction in the Land Rover and Range Rover side of the business. There is none. Not a single vehicle is kept in stock. Every vehicle that is made by Range Rover and Land Rover is sold, so there is no stock piling. In the rapid growth market to which I refer, which is the four wheel drive market throughout the world, we must note with apprehension that General Motors, which has a shopping list at its disposal and which is reputed to have some £5·77 billion to spend in buying companies, and only a fortnight ago bought the "Lotus" company, also owns 35 per cent. of Isuzu, a four-wheel drive light truck manufacturing business which has doubled its turnover in the Last year, and is selling well. Freight Rover with its particular vehicle, the Sherpa, has 13·9 per cent. of the market. a sizeable percentage and far bigger than the figure to which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred on television last night of 4 per cent. for the whole industry in Europe.
  Mr. John Mark Taylor: In the context of the Prime Minister's interview last night, in which she referred to the virtue of wider share ownership, does my hon. Friend not consider that, with its recovery plan well advanced, floating Land Rover on a management buy-out with employee participation might even now represent an opportunity to achieve wider share ownership?
  Mr. Bevan: Indeed, I welcome it. I would have thought that my hon. Friend has seen a paragraph which I intended saying later in my speech. His pre-emption, however, is welcome. Of course I consider that that would be a reasonable option, and one which is after all encouraged in almost every theatre of operations.
  In regard to the shipyards which will be privatised later this year, if that is the option chosen, in regard to its operations it will consider a management buy-out with management, the work force and the investors all comprising part of such a buy-out.
  What I object to—I do this as an erstwhile surveyor and one who carried out many estate deals prior to my coming to this place, with many qualifications, dare I say, for doing so —is what I consider to be quite the wrong way of negotiating the sale of this or any other business is to do it in secrecy, to do it behind closed doors and to do it with merely one other customer in pre-determined mind. That is no way to create a deal, that is no way to excite the best figure from the market. It is so extraordinary that, following the leak of this particular

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  matter, the tree is being shaken and down from the branches of that tree come purchasers, and every day that continues like falling leaves on the industrial greensward below.
  More and more we are told that Lonrho is now interested. We are told that Aveling Barford is interested, a previous subsidiary of BL. We are told tonight that three other firms are interested, although I do not know which firms they are. But the more we know about the matter, the more interest there will be. It would be wrong to announce at this stage, having treated in secret with a predetermined purchaser, that the omelette must be served up by Easter. A very addled egg will be delivered if this time limit is put upon it.
  We must ask—why all the rush? We have invested £2 billion in the company, as the Government are always kind enough to remind us. The Government have no money. They have only the people's money and, therefore, they have invested taxpayers' money in this ingredient and act as trustees. They must get a decent yield from that investment. The Government are not considering, are they, taking back any portion of the £1·6 billion that they have invested in the form of guarantees, letters of credit or the agreements that have been mentioned? There is no suspicion of that. Therefore, normally one would have asked that time be allowed for the reformation and rationalisation of Land Rover so that it can produce its supurb new models—the 90 and 110 versions of the Land Rover and the Vogue version of the Range Rover, which goes faster, which has a fifth gear, and which is an excellent vehicle for the markets of north America. I understand that an organisation of about 60 distributing agents is about to be appointed. Since there cannot now be time for that to happen, let us privatise if we must, but let us privatise to the best British buyer, in which the people can take a shareholding.
  Mr. Roger King: My hon. Friend has explained why General Motors would be interested in Land Rover and Range Rover, but why on earth is it interested in Freight Rover? That company shares a factory with Austin Rover, obtains its components from Austin Rover, sells its products to Austin Rover, and produces a range identical to that produce by General Motors. Could it be that General Motors wishes to buy it simply to close it down?
  Mr. Bevan: That is the fear of my constituents.
  Yesterday, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lyell) said that the people of Luton would be happy to see such an arrangement between General Motors and British Leyland. That is precisely why the people of Birmingham are unhappy. They want the British flag to continue flying over their enterprise. They know that Bedford Trucks is about to announce a loss of about £120 million. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) said, the ranges are identical. The people of Birmingham foresee possible doom and eclipse if the matter continues.
  The bus business is different. In a previous existence, as chairman of the West Midlands passenger transport authority, I ordered buses from British Leyland and Metro Cammell at £7 million a time, but that is no longer possible. The grant has gone, and there has been privatisation and all sorts of things, including delicensing,
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  have taken place. I would be happy for the bus division to go to Laird where there is a natural home of it at Metro Cammell, but not this.
  Mr. Terry Davis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bevan: I am afraid that I must deny the hon. Gentleman an intervention.
  Land Rovers and Range Rovers are individually crafted as no other vehicle is. We know that 70 per cent. of models produced are exported. There was a 40 per cent. increase last year in exports to Switzerland and a 10 per. cent. increase to Europe. The vehicle, with its immense potential, is about to be sold off in a shotgun wedding as a bartered bride. We ask that the marriage banns be given time to be read properly so that the names of the suitors can be understood, and that our belief in the factory be allowed to continue with the British flag above it and not struck, as the flag over Fort Dunlop has been, and not even as the flag over Westland has been.
  10.24 pm
  The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Morrison): I am more grateful than usual that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Bevan) has had the opportunity to discuss the future of Range Rover, Freight Rover, and Land Rover. I gather that there was a little local difficulty earlier today about possible developments on the future of British Leyland as a whole.
  We have had a very busy day in the Department of Trade and Industry. We have had a lot of discussions about the future of BL. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) will remember, we had earlier today a delegation composed of trade unionists from Range Rover and Land Rover, and members of the local council. We discussed the future of Range Rover and Land Rover at great length. Despite the fact that we have had a busy day discussing the future of BL, since my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a statement yesterday afternoon in answer to a private notice question, there have been no new developments.
  I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Yardley. I am aware that the future of Land Rover (UK) has been argued and discussed in the west midlands and the country as a whole. It has been discussed publicly and privately, with conviction and cogently. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins) said, the present uncertainty is bound to be a worry. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Yardley in that I do not think that it would be sensible for that uncertainty to go on and on. Keeping the future shrouded in mist would cause serious anxieties among employees and be bad for the future of the businesses.
  Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: We are all sympathic about the busy day that my hon. Friend has had. Will he forgive me if I say that we are even more sympathetic about the busy days that lie ahead of him? Before he concludes those busy days, will he give the House one pledge, that before he closes the chapter on this lamentable affair, before he agrees on what will happen to Land Rover and British trucks, and before any agreement is signed the House will, bearing in mind the importance of the issue, debate it before ink is put to paper? That would satisfy many of us, and we would go to bed happy after our busy day as well.
  Mr. Morrison: I know that my hon. Friend is a very busy man. We have known each other for 20 years. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it quite clear that, when any announcement of anything concrete is to be made, it will be made to the House and it will be debated. I quite appreciate what my hon. Friend has just said.
  Mr. Terry Davis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bevan: May we therefore discount the statement that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made yesterday in the House that he would inform the House when negotiations had been concluded? That is not enough, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) has pointed out.
  Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend will appreciate that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is not using the House as a negotiating House. Obviously negotiations will take place with all the separate parties, whether GM or other parties. When a conclusion to negotiations is reached my right hon. Friend will immediately make a statement to the House and he will accept that it will be for the House to debate and decide upon the result of those negotiations.
  Mr. Terry Davis: We are dealing with a serious point. What is of concern to hon. Members on both sides is that there should be a debate in the House after negotiations have been concluded but before anything is signed, sealed and sold off. We are anxious not just to know the result of negotiations but to have an opportunity to debate the result before the matter is finally signed. The hon. Gentleman should go a little further—as his right hon. Friend did not do yesterday —and give us that assurance.
  I should like two other assurances. [Interruption.] These are important matters for my constituents who work at Freight Rover. Will the Minister follow up the assurances given yesterday by his right hon. Friend about consulting the people who work at Land Rover and Freight Rover and give us an assurance tonight that they will be consulted before anything is signed, sealed and delivered so that the House may debate the issue in the knowledge of what the people who work in the companies want?
  Will he also make sure that in the negotiations a legally enforceable undertaking is sought that production of Sherpa vans will not be removed from Washwood Heath and production of Land Rovers will not be transferred from Solihull to Spain?
  Mr. Morrison: On the first point, the hon. Gentleman and I came to the House on the same day and I have always understood that the House was sovereign; the House has total and complete control over what happens. If the House decides to go in a particular direction, that is the decision of the House.
  On the hon. Gentleman's last point, I understand from his constituency point of view why he raises it, but it would be totally misleading of me to make any predictions about what may happen because at this stage I do not know what deal there may be with whom, albeit I have accepted that the deal with General Motors is further down the course than the others. In those circumstances, he will understand that I cannot commit myself. I understand the crucial and important point that he has made on behalf of his constituents.
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  In the few seconds which are left, may I talk about the future of Land Rover, Range Rover and Freight Rover? Of course, they are all crucially important, but my right hon. Friend and I have to consider them in the context of the vehicle industry as a whole. Land Rover, Range Rover and Freight Rover comprise one of the many jewels in the crown of the west midlands. But I hope that the House will appreciate that tens of thousands of jobs are dependent upon foreign car manufacturers. Ford, General Motors and other car manufacturers are established vehicle manufacturers in this country. To a great extent, in some cases to a major extent, they source from United Kingdom component suppliers.
  My hon. Friends from the west midlands should remember that in west midlands terms it is dangerous industrially and politically to appear to be anti-American. If we appear to be anti-American the business and jobs that come with American investment may be driven away. [Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (:Mr. Dewar), knows perfectly well that there is a substantial number of jobs in the Scottish economy thanks to American investment, as is the case in other parts of the United Kingdom.
  I hope that all hon. Members agree that the Government's policy must be directed towards a competitive United Kingdom based commercial vehicle industry. We have to decide on the future not just of Land Rover and Range Rover, but of Freight Rover, Leyland Trucks and Leyland Bus. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble knows Leyland Bus very well. That company is not part of any potential deal with General Motors and can be set aside for the purposes of this debate. Nevertheless, it is crucial that solutions are found for the bus industry, too, and those solutions will not be easy to find.
  I think it is accepted that there is over-capacity in the truck industry, and some people say that in Europe that over-capacity is 40 per cent. For that reason, if we are to maintain a competitive truck manufacturing industry, we cannot stay precisely where we are. We have to ensure that the truck industry becomes more efficient to meet the demands of the market place. If it does not become more efficient, we have to accept the fact that it could disappear.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Yardley raised, as he did last night when he came to see me, the defence implications. I assured him last night that we are satisfied about that. I accept that Freight Rover has been successful over the past few years, and that has been due to the good work of the management and the work force. The problem with the van industry is not dissimilar, and if we did not look properly at the problem we would be courting potential disaster for the whole of the industry in the United Kingdom.
  I accept entirely the points made by my hon. Friend about Freight Rover. I hope that he will accept that it is right to look at the industry as a whole. Strong arguments were advanced in favour of retaining Land Rover, Range Rover as an independent United Kingdom company. My hon. Friend the Member for Yardley and several of my hon. Friends have made that point. Management buy-out is talked about. I understand that. I was brought up in the back of a Land Rover, and as the youngest son I still sit in the back of a Land Rover, so I know about the Union

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  Jack flying over Land Rover. But we have to look at the long-term future, and I would like my sons and grandsons also to be brought up in the back of a Land Rover. The important—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at twenty-three minutes to Eleven o'clock.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL
  Social Security (Appeals)
  Social Security (Appeals)
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  Radio Interference (Pinner)
  Radio Interference (Pinner)
  Textile and Clothing Industries
  Textile and Clothing Industries
  Grants (Faversham)
  Grants (Faversham)
  Pharmaceutical Companies (Investment)
  Pharmaceutical Companies (Investment)
  Multi-fibre Arrangement
  Multi-fibre Arrangement
  Manufacturing Investment
  Manufacturing Investment
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Farmers (Bad Weather Assistance)
  Farmers (Bad Weather Assistance)
  Burroughs Machines
  Burroughs Machines
  Westland plc
  Westland plc
  Regional Aid
  Regional Aid
PRIME MINISTER
  Royal College of Nursing
  Royal College of Nursing
  Arms Control
  Arms Control
  Anglo-Irish Agreement
  Anglo-Irish Agreement
  Sir Robert Armstrong
  Sir Robert Armstrong
  British Leyland
  British Leyland
  Turkey
  Turkey
  Warship Tenders
  Warship Tenders
  Museums (Sponsorship)
  Museums (Sponsorship)
  Workplace Visits
  Workplace Visits
  Engagements
  Engagements
WALES
  Planning Controls
  Planning Controls
  Education Expenditure
  Education Expenditure
  Menai Straits Marine Nature Reserve
  Menai Straits Marine Nature Reserve
  National Museum of Wales
  National Museum of Wales
  Student Grants
  Student Grants
  Higher Education (Advisory Board)
  Higher Education (Advisory Board)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Industry and Education
  Industry and Education
  Students (Financial Assistance)
  Students (Financial Assistance)
  Alvey Programme
  Alvey Programme
  Inner London Education Authority
  Inner London Education Authority
  Teacher Training
  Teacher Training
  GCSE (Representations)
  GCSE (Representations)
  Plant Breeding Institute and National Seed Development Organisation
  Plant Breeding Institute and National Seed Development Organisation
ENVIRONMENT
  Tobacco Companies (Advertisements)
  Tobacco Companies (Advertisements)
  Building Regulations
  Building Regulations
  Council House Sales
  Council House Sales
  Rate Support Grant (Stockport)
  Rate Support Grant (Stockport)
  Vacant Land (Cheltenham)
  Vacant Land (Cheltenham)
  Rates
  Rates
  Community Charge
  Community Charge
  Crown Property
  Crown Property
  Local Authority Services
  Local Authority Services
  Housing (Redevelopment)
  Housing (Redevelopment)
  Right-to-Repair Scheme
  Right-to-Repair Scheme
  Stockbridge Village Trust
  Stockbridge Village Trust
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Cancer (West Cumbria)
  Cancer (West Cumbria)
  Pensions
  Pensions
  Retirement Age
  Retirement Age
  Ambulance Service
  Ambulance Service
  Orphans
  Orphans
  Hip Replacement
  Hip Replacement
  Abortions
  Abortions
  Under-age Girls (Contraception)
  Under-age Girls (Contraception)
  NHS (Expenditure)
  NHS (Expenditure)
  Orthopaedic Waiting Lists
  Orthopaedic Waiting Lists
  Christmas Bonus
  Christmas Bonus
  Pensioners (Cost of Living)
  Pensioners (Cost of Living)
  Community Charge
  Community Charge
  Single Payments
  Single Payments
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Haiti
  Haiti
  PLO (January Statement)
  PLO (January Statement)
  Libya
  Libya
ENERGY
  British Gas (Sites)
  British Gas (Sites)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Licensing (Occasional Provisions) Act 1983
  Licensing (Occasional Provisions) Act 1983
  Advisory Committee on Community Radio
  Advisory Committee on Community Radio
  Holloway Prison
  Holloway Prison
  Prisoners (Visits)
  Prisoners (Visits)
  Drunkenness (Cautions)
  Drunkenness (Cautions)
  Gaming Machines
  Gaming Machines
  Prisoners (Statistics)
  Prisoners (Statistics)
  Police (Duties)
  Police (Duties)
  News International Plant, Wapping
  News International Plant, Wapping
  Print Workers (Police Action)
  Print Workers (Police Action)
  Lorries (Grosvenor Road, SW1)
  Lorries (Grosvenor Road, SW1)
  Metropolitan Police
  Metropolitan Police
  Animal Experiments
  Animal Experiments
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Capital Investment
  Capital Investment
  London Financial Markets
  London Financial Markets
  VAT
  VAT
  Civil Servants
  Civil Servants
  Nationalised Industries (Surplus Land)
  Nationalised Industries (Surplus Land)
DEFENCE
  Wood Farm Camp, Malvern
  Wood Farm Camp, Malvern
  Fleet Supply Ship
  Fleet Supply Ship
SCOTLAND
  Scottish Development Agency and Highlands and Islands Development Board
  Scottish Development Agency and Highlands and Islands Development Board
  Leith Academy
  Leith Academy
  Rowntree-Mackintosh Plant, Edinburgh
  Rowntree-Mackintosh Plant, Edinburgh
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Hospital Nursing Services
  Hospital Nursing Services
  Health and Social Services Boards (Elderly Persons)
  Health and Social Services Boards (Elderly Persons)
  Griffiths Report
  Griffiths Report
  Health and Social Services
  Health and Social Services
  Health Visitors
  Health Visitors
HOUSE OF COMMONS
  "Official Report"
  "Official Report"
EMPLOYMENT
  Labour Statistics
  Labour Statistics
  Careers Service
  Careers Service
  School Leavers
  School Leavers
  Youth Wages
  Youth Wages
  Youth Training Scheme
  Youth Training Scheme
  Graduates
  Graduates
  Inner City Areas
  Inner City Areas
  Unemployed Persons (New Homes)
  Unemployed Persons (New Homes)
  West Yorkshire
  West Yorkshire
  London
  London
  Special Measures
  Special Measures
  Pilot Schemes
  Pilot Schemes
  Basildon
  Basildon
  European Community Ministers
  European Community Ministers
  Wages Councils
  Wages Councils
  Small Firms
  Small Firms
  Conference Industry
  Conference Industry
  Tied Accommodation
  Tied Accommodation
  Tourism
  Tourism
  Long-term Unemployment
  Long-term Unemployment
  Corporate Pensioners
  Corporate Pensioners
  Textile and Clothing Industries
  Textile and Clothing Industries
  Community Programme
  Community Programme
  Enterprise Allowance Scheme
  Enterprise Allowance Scheme
  Small Businesses
  Small Businesses
  Manufacturing Industries
  Manufacturing Industries
  Sunderland
  Sunderland
  West Midlands
  West Midlands
  Hotel Accommodation
  Hotel Accommodation
  Training Courses
  Training Courses
  Local Enterprise Agencies
  Local Enterprise Agencies
  Knitwear Industry
  Knitwear Industry
  Wage Levels
  Wage Levels
  Job Opportunities
  Job Opportunities
  Sterling Metals Ltd.
  Sterling Metals Ltd.
  Disabled School Leavers
  Disabled School Leavers
  Lost Working Days
  Lost Working Days
  Tin Mining Industry
  Tin Mining Industry
  Careers Offices
  Careers Offices
  Tourism (Grants)
  Tourism (Grants)
  Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme
  Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme
  "Lifting the Burden"
  "Lifting the Burden"
  Adult Training
  Adult Training
  Jobcentre, Newcastle upon Tyne
  Jobcentre, Newcastle upon Tyne
  Students (Temporary Work)
  Students (Temporary Work)
  Unemployment Information Campaign
  Unemployment Information Campaign
  Unemployment Benefit Offices and Jobcentres
  Unemployment Benefit Offices and Jobcentres
  Tourism (Promotional Policy)
  Tourism (Promotional Policy)
  Business Start-ups
  Business Start-ups
  Eastleigh Railway Workshops
  Eastleigh Railway Workshops
  Wages Scheme
  Wages Scheme
  Apprenticeships
  Apprenticeships
TRANSPORT
  Railway Grants (Faversham)
  Railway Grants (Faversham)
  Channel Tunnel
  Channel Tunnel
  M2 (Widening)
  M2 (Widening)
  Lorries
  Lorries
  Road Accident Statistics
  Road Accident Statistics
  Bus Subsidies
  Bus Subsidies
  Maritime Services (Eire)
  Maritime Services (Eire)
  British Rail Engineering Ltd.
  British Rail Engineering Ltd.
  British Railways Board (Land)
  British Railways Board (Land)

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

Cyprus: Soviet Proposals
Lord Broxbourne: 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 made any response to, or comment upon, Soviet proposals for the solution of the Cyprus problem; and whether they have any alternative proposals to be made internationally, through the Commonwealth or by way of individual British initiative.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, these proposals do not call for a formal response from us. We continue to believe that the United Nations Secretary-General's initiative offers much the best prospect of a peaceful, just and lasting settlement in Cyprus. We have lent the Secretary-General every support and encouragement in his task.
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that reply. Does she not agree that, whatever the motivation of the Soviet, Her Majesty's Government should pursue by every means possible a satisfactory solution to this difficult problem for the best of reasons: long association with, and deep affection for, this lovely but troubled island where there are nice people on both sides, although they are having difficulty in seeing each other's point of view—rather like Parliament, your Lordships may think? Would it not be right for Her Majesty's Government to do all that they can by way of cooperation, help, guidance and efforts at rapprochement, possibly even offering to act as arbitrator in this difficult dispute, or by what continental lawyers call an aimable compositeur?
Baroness Young: My Lords, it is not for me to say what are the motives of the Soviet Union in making this proposal. But I am glad to be able to say that the Soviet Union has made clear its support for the Secretary-General's initiative in his proposals.
With regard to my noble friend's other questions, I can only confirm to him yet again that we continue to believe that the United Nations Secretary-General's initiative offers the best prospect of a settlement.
Lord Caradon: My Lords, will the Minister assure us that in the discussions which have been taking place, and I think are still taking place, with a representative of the Turkish Government, he has been made fully aware of the strength of feeling in this country at the long delay which is taking place and the obstruction
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which is being placed in the way of the settlement urged by the Secretary-General of the United Nations? Is it true that he has been made fully aware of the strength of feeling in Cyprus, in Europe, and particularly in this country?
Baroness Young: My Lords, yes. I hope that the Secretary-General is fully aware of the importance that we attach to his initiative and of the very full support that we have given him throughout the long, complex and patient negotiations that he has been undertaking.
Lord Oram: My Lords, in view of the continuing tension in Cyprus, and in view of the visit of the Turkish Prime Minister which is impending, is not the Question by the noble Lord particularly timely at this point? Will the noble Baroness notice that in the Question by the noble Lord there is the suggestion of involving the Commonwealth in the seeking of a solution? Will she take particular note of that and always make sure—not only in relation to Cyprus but in relation to other difficult areas—that our Commonwealth partners are drawn in in a helpful way?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I can confirm to the noble Lord that the Prime Minister of Turkey is at present in London making his official visit here. I had the opportunity to have talks with him yesterday and among the matters discussed was the problem of Cyprus.
On the second point that the noble Lord raises, yes, the Commonwealth has taken an interest in the question of Cyprus following upon the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting of 1984. But we, as a Government, believe that the Secretary-General's initiative must be supported at the present time and that it offers the best way forward.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, with regard to the question by my noble friend about involving the Commonwealth, is not our problem that the Commonwealth is generally on the other side?
Baroness Young: My Lords, it is very difficult for me to answer a generalised question such as that. I am quite sure that there are very many members of the Commonwealth who hope very much that there will be a settlement in Cyprus.

Motorways: Winter Driving Conditions
2.41 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are taking any steps to prevent accidents on motorways in bad weather conditions.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am pleased to tell my noble friend that in the past fortnight we have issued full advice on winter driving to newspaper feature writers; and, as part of our wider programme,

503
the current phase of the rolling publicity campaign is directed at motorway driving. But ultimately safety depends on individual drivers responding to the prevailing conditions.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, while I thank my noble friend the Minister for that very encouraging reply, may I ask him whether he has drawn the attention, through the press, of motorists who still drive with blurred front and rear lights which cannot be seen in adverse conditions? Furthermore, may I ask my noble friend whether it has ever been suggested that hazard lights, which draw everybody's attention, could or should be used in adverse circumstances on the roads?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, we draw the attention of people to the need to keep their lights clean at all times and in good working order. This year we shall be sending a little reminder leaflet out with people's vehicle excise duty reminder forms—therefore it will go to some 20 million people—concerning the use of lights on cars. With regard to the second part of my noble friend's question, there are mixed views about the use of hazard warning lights on moving vehicles. The use on the move is at present prohibited under the Road Vehicle (Lighting) Regulations 1984. It is a definite point that to be effective hazard lights should be used sensibly and sparingly. There is a risk of overuse and their misuse could lead to confusion to other motorists.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, when the noble Lord mentioned the press, does that include the broadcasting authorities?
Lord Brabazon: My Lords, I understand that it includes all parts of the media.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I have asked this question on a previous occasion, but I should like to ask the noble Lord the Minister again whether anything can be done to stop or at least discourage the use on vehicles of excessively bright rear lights during times of bad visability on motorways, as they are dazzling, dangerous and, frankly, against the law?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, yes, that is against the law. This is one of the features to be included in the little leaflet which will be sent to all those renewing their tax discs this year. It states:
"Do not switch on rear fog lights just because it is dark or raining. Use them only when visability is less than 100 metres, and remember to switch them off at other times".
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, at this stage is my noble friend prepared to say whether the Department of Transport will consider the offer being made by an electronics company to light the whole length of the M.25, as was stated on the news last night, and which the police seem to favour, in order to reduce accidents in fog?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, yes, the department is considering that proposal at the
504
moment. However, as I am sure my noble friend knows, at the end of the day it is up to the driver not to drive too close to the vehicle in front whatever the circumstances, whether the road is lit or unlit, whether it is foggy or whether there are perfect driving conditions.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I should like to follow up my noble friend's question. Most noble Lords will agree with the Minister's reply that this is a personal responsibility. However, can radio and television programmes be used not just to issue warnings but to give information concerning the proper use of vehicles in bad weather? When warnings of bad weather are broadcast, are they broadcast on all programmes or merely on Radio 1 and Radio 2?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, if I may deal with the second of the noble Lord's questions, I am not sure how wide an exposure the information receives, but I hope that as a result of the briefing advice that we have sent to all motoring and transport correspondents, with suggestions as to what they might include both in articles that are written and presumably radio broadcasts, our suggestions will be heeded.

Manufacturing Industry Output
2.45 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: 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 by how much the output and productivity of manufacturing industry have increased since 1979, and how this compares with the period 1974–79.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, in the year up to November 1985 manufacturing output was 5½per cent. lower, on average, than it was during 1979. On the same comparison output per head was 23½ per cent. higher in 1985 than it was in 1979. Between 1974 and 1979 manufacturing output fell by nearly 3 per cent., and output per head increased by 5½ per cent.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, as we have heard a great deal of abuse about reducing productivity, poor capital investment and a general derogation of British industry, will my noble friend take an opportunity to make these facts rather more widely known? These figures are very startling and need to be more widely appreciated in every part of our nation.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for his reception of this information. We shall certainly take every opportunity to ensure that the public at large as well as industry itself appreciate the great strides that have been made in all directions since 1979.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, does the noble Lord include in "all directions" the figure which he has just given for the fall in manufacturing output since

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1979? Will he let the nation know about that fall and the reasons for it? As the noble Lord who has asked the Question has included investment, this time will the Minister answer me directly as to whether it is a fact that today investment in manufacturing industry is 18 per cent. lower than it was in 1979?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, in reply to the first question of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, perhaps I may say that I believe that I answered him quite fully on 21st January when he posed a very similar Question. Dealing with investment, it is perfectly true that investment is at a lower level than it was in 1979. However, there has been a 4 per cent. growth per year since 1981, which I think to some extent redresses the unfair balance which the noble Lord is trying to indicate.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that this improved productivity has been accomplished in a period of rising energy prices; but will he accept that one of the by-products of the collapse of the OPEC cartel and the collapse of crude oil prices must now mean that there is an opportunity for industrial prices to improve still further?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, my noble friend will appreciate that the point he makes is but one factor in a whole range which manufacturing industry has to take into account. Yes, to some extent they will improve, hut not of course to an extreme extent.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, will the noble Lord kindly, give us the figures for the comparison of productivity? He has already told us of improvement in productivity over the past five years in this country. Can he give us the comparative figures of increases in productivity with our main competitors—that is to say, the United States, Japan, France and Germany?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, not precisely. I regret to tell the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, that without notice I cannot do that. However, I can tell him, as I stated on 21st January, that in general terms, if one drew a graph, industrial production in the United Kingdom would look very similar to that in France and West Germany. But this afternoon I do not have figures for the United States of America.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, can the Minister give the proportion of manufactured goods bought in 1979 and 1985 respectively which was met by domestic output? As consumption has increased considerably over this period, is not the fall of 5½ per cent. an underestimate when taken together with the growth in the use of these products over the same period? Has not the fall been much more startling than the one he mentioned?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not think that the fall has been more startling if one takes into account the fact that in 1979 we started from a very much lower base. The noble Lord himself will probably recall that in 1979 British manufacturing industry was overmanned to such an extent that productivity was totally uncompetitive compared to
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that of our European competitors, and therefore the baseline from which the noble Lord derives his figures would not provide as fair a comparison.
Lord Somers: My Lords, is it possible to say what percentage of the drop in production has been due to strikes or other industrial troubles?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not have the figures. I do not think that that comparison would be helpful considering that in manufacturing industries management and workforce, all those concerned, have improved the position so dramatically in the last five or six years that now our strike record is one of the best—when I say "the best" I mean "the lowest"—of all the industrialised nations. That is a great credit to all those involved in the manufacturing industries.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we on this side of the House welcome the increase in productivity which has taken place among those who are fortunate enough to be employed in manufacturing industry? Is he aware that unemployment has increased by 2 million since his party came into office? Is he further aware that he has not satisfactorily answered the question with regard to investment in manufacturing industry? Is this matter not very important? Will the noble Lord bear in mind that the manufacturing performance in total has been such as to produce a deficit in our trade balance in manufactured goods of some £6 billion per annum as against a surplus of over £2 billion before 1979?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, asks a number of questions. So far as investment is concerned there has been, as I have said, a 4 per cent. growth in investment a year since 1981, which is quite considerable and is reflected in the greater competitiveness of our manufactured products which achieved a record volume of exports last year. If the noble Lord, as he has on more than one occasion, seeks to take out of the current account and the trade deficit isolated instances, of course he will get the kind of figure that he mentions. We tend to look at the whole position with regard to our trade both at home and overseas, which on current balance is in credit again.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: My Lords, will the noble Lord do us the courtesy of replying to the point made by my noble friend Lord Bruce, that the productivity of an extra 2½ million people is nil, and that in giving productivity figures he should make allowances for that fact?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, in answering my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing I said that output per head was 23½ per cent. higher in 1985 that it was in 1979; I think that demonstrates the better competitiveness of industry, which has resulted in an export performance of the nature I have given. If we had stayed with the figures of employment and overmanning which obtained in 1979 our manufacturing industry would not be in the very healthy state it is today. It is due to this Government's

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policies that our manufacturing industry is so much more successful than it was in 1979.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the most encouraging figures were admirably put across by our right honourable friend the Prime Minister on the "Panorama" programme last night? Does she not merit the approval and admiration of this House?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I saw most of the "Panorama" programme, and I believe that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister gave a very true and very encouraging account of the state of the nation as it is today.

Business Statement: Lighting
2.56 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Local Government Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7.30 p.m. for a short period, and that during this adjournment the Second Reading of the Marriage (Wales) Bill will be taken.
It may also be for the convenience of the House if I now inform your Lordships that, as part of the effort by the television company—the television committee—to find ways of lighting the Chamber other than by the slightly obtrusive scaffolded lights, one of the chandeliers above the Strangers' Gallery will be turned off during this break. It is hoped that this will happen while the Sitting is suspended. This test is a preliminary to the possible removal of such a chandelier for tests and modifications.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it would not be a good idea to let the television companies know that they may be wasting their money? We may decide not to continue televising this House, and the change would involve a waste of money if and when we came to that decision.
Lord Denham: My Lords, this test is being carried out by our own television committee. They see it as part of the research necessary to produce the report on which my noble friend and others will subsequently make up their minds, and to enable them to see what sort of lighting can be used if and when your Lordships decide that further experimentation, or possibly something more permanent, may happen.

Alcoholics Anonymous (Dispositions) Bill [H.L.]
2.58 p.m.
Read a second time, and referred to the Examiners.

County of Cleveland Bill [H.L.]
Read a second time, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
Harrogate Bogs Field etc. Bill [H.L.]
Read a second time, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.

Business of the House
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the names of the Lord Harris of Greenwich and the Lord Hooson set down for 26th February shall each be limited to 2½ hours and that Standing Order 35 and paragraphs 10 to 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates shall apply to each debate.—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Gaming (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Report received.

Atomic Energy Authority Bill [H.L.]
3 p.m.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendment be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons amendment be now considered.—(Lord Gray of Contin.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[References are to bill 56 as first printed for the Commons]
After Clause 7, insert the following new clause:—
"Powers of Authority with respect to exploitation of results of research.
.—(1) The Authority have power, and shall be deemed always to have had power, to exploit commercially by selling, licensing the use of or otherwise dealing with any intellectual property—

(a) resulting from research and development carried out by the Authority or carried out by another person in pursuance of arrangements with the Authority, or

(b) which is at the disposal of the Authority by virtue of arrangements for the exchange of results of research and development or the carrying out of research and development in collaboration with another person.

(2) For this purpose "intellectual property" includes patents, trademarks, copyrights, registered designs and any other scientific or technical information of commercial value.".
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do agree with the Commons in their amendment.
This amendment arises from legal doubts about the extent of the authority's present powers to exploit the results of its research. In carrying out research and development for the Government and other customers, the authority has naturally made a number of valuable discoveries and inventions, the rights to many of which belong to the authority. This intellectual property which the authority has acquired can be exploited, profitably, for example by licensing the technology.

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The Government believe this desirable both because it brings revenue to the authority and encourages it in its research to look for ideas which can be commercially successful, and also because it aids the transfer of technology to private companies. The authority has for some years been successfully exploiting its discoveries and we would hope that this would continue under the trading fund. Following discussions with the authority, the Government have decided that there is a need for clarification of the authority's power to dispose of its intellectual property commercially and that this justifies introducing an amendment which puts it beyond doubt that the authority has and is deemed always to have had this power.
This amendment will ensure that the authority can exploit its discoveries profitably whether by selling, licensing the use of, or otherwise dealing with the intellectual property arising from those discoveries, including joining with others in a company to exploit them. It also ensures the authority is able to exploit commercially its intellectual property where this arises from research and development carried out for the authority in pursuit of its functions, by contractors, for example, or by a university research department. It also covers intellectual property which is at the disposal of the authority under exchange and collaboration arrangements.
At a time when we are encouraging a more commercial approach by the authority, it would be a nonsense to leave it in doubt about whether it could exploit the results of its research, which would otherwise have only limited application. However, I have to say that we are not altering the powers in a way which would extend the authority's functions beyond our previous understanding of the position. Thus the authority cannot undertake the serious manufacture of articles for sale in the non-nuclear field, and the amendment is written so as to leave that situation unaltered. The Government believe that such an extension of the authority's powers would be contrary to their general policy of reducing, not expanding, the public sector's role in the economy. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said amendment.—(Lord Gray of Contin.)
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I should like first of all to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, for his courtesy in writing to me about the Commons amendment and for explaining it so well. I should like to say on behalf of the Opposition that I believe the Commons amendment is very sensible. Indeed, we welcome it since it clarifies beyond all doubt the authority's position. I have to add that we should prefer the amendment to extend the authority's right to manufacture, but this is not the time to argue that point. The Official Opposition will not obstruct the Commons amendment.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, in welcoming the amendment I thank the noble Lord the Minister for explaining its scope. I cannot resist saying, from a personal point of view, how glad I am to note that the Government are attaching such importance to intellectual property, where so much wealth resides,
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and that the Atomic Energy Authority will attempt to exploit a whole number of useful inventions.
In saying that, I wonder whether the Government have noted that the commercial activities of the authority are somewhat limited by the scope of the amendment. I have indicated on the telephone to the office of the noble Lord the Minister the points I have in mind. If the Atomic Energy Authority is to exploit commercially its own inventions it may want to purchase other inventions allied to its own research and development. That is a basic transaction common to commercial exploitation in industry; that is to say, the purchase of intellectual property belonging to people outside the authority. It does not seem to me that, so far, the powers of the authority are clear in relation to that one matter.
It is also possible that an employee of the authority has an invention which he owns. Difficult situations can arise with employee inventors and the scope of their ownership. I do not see that this amendment covers the position where the Atomic Energy Authority would wish to purchase the invention of an employee.
I should like to raise another point. Subsection (2) of the amendment seems to limit the powers of the authority because it defines intellectual property as including,
"patents, trademarks, copyrights, registered designs and any other scientific or technical information of commercial value".
In my experience it is often difficult to decide what is the commercial value of particular know-how. In the usual jargon associated with intellectual property, intellectual property is usually said to cover know-how, whereas in this definition the Government have decided to replace know-how by,
"any other scientific or technical information of commercial value".
If this were to be redrafted I should have thought that the words "of commercial value" should be left out to give the authority full power to deal with intellectual property other than property which is immediately of commercial value, or can be conceived to be of commercial value, because it is so difficult in the early stages of an invention to decide whether it has commercial value.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, for his acceptance of the Commons amendment and for the way in which he welcomed it. I am always slightly apprehensive when I hear that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has been in touch with my private office, particularly when it is on a subject, such as this, on which he is an acknowledged expert. I am appreciative of the fact that he took the trouble to advise me of the two points he wished to raise so that I might have the opportunity of having them examined and having an answer prepared for him.
To take the second point first, the words are not in any sense crucial but do not seem likely in practice to be a restraint on a power to exploit commercially. They apply only to the words,
"any … scientific or technical information".
If that information is of no commercial value it seems improbable that the authority would be able to exploit it commercially; and, to the contrary, if it can so exploit it, then it has some commercial value.

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On the first point the noble Lord raised, many of the inventions made by employees will already belong to the authority. Section 39 of the Patents Act 1977 provides that in fairly wide circumstances employees' inventions belong to the employer. Those circumstances are broadly that, first, the invention was within the employee's normal or specially assigned duties and might reasonably be expected to arise from those duties; or, secondly, the invention was made in the course of the employee's duties and at the time of making it he had a special obligation to further the interests of the employer's undertaking because of the nature of his duties and the responsibilities arising from the nature of the duties. All other inventions belong to the employee. The authority's staff handbook draws attention to these provisions.
It does not seem likely that there will be a significant number of inventions which do not belong to the authority already. Accordingly, there does not seem any need to make special provision for any other inventions in respect of which the authority would have the same power as in relation to any third party's inventions. Those powers will depend on the use to which the authority wish to put the invention. If they require it for the purposes of conducting research in the non-nuclear field, the necessary power to acquire is already conferred by Section 2(2)(b) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act 1954 as read with Section 4 of the Science and Technology Act 1965, since such research is to be treated,
"as if such research were research into matters connected with atomic energy".
Clause 8 would allow the commercial exploitation of any intellectual property so acquired.
As my honourable friend said in another place, it is not intended that the clause should extend the functions of the authority beyond what they were believed to be. There is no intention to extend the powers of the authority to allow them to trade in intellectual property in the purely general sense. Therefore, such an extension of the power as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, seems unnecessary.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising these points. I am glad that we have had the opportunity to look at them again. I wonder whether, with that explanation, he would be prepared to agree to the amendment made in another place.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for his explanation on this matter. I again apologise for bringing it to his attention at such short notice. All I can do at this stage, having raised these matters, is to wish the authority every success in their commercial exploitation.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Local Government Bill
3.12 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Elton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AMPTHILL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Duty to make rate on or before 1st April]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Elton: This clause was generally welcomed at Second Reading. There are no amendments on the Marshalled List dealing with it. Therefore, I think it will suffice if I merely formally move that the Committee let this clause stand part of the Bill. I beg so to move.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Prohibition of political publicity]:
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2 line 16, leave out (", or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect.").
The noble Baroness said: We now come to the contentious part of the Bill, Part II, which is also the heart of the Bill. In moving Amendment No. 1 I should like also to speak to Amendment No. 7.
Our aim, together with that of all the local authority associations, and a great many voluntary organisations, is to improve the Bill, make it more workable and bring it more into line with the Widdicombe Committee's interim report. We understand that the Government's aim also is to have the Bill in line with the interim report. I quote from the Minister at Second Reading where he says:
"Your Lordships will know that that committee"—
that is the Widdicombe 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".—(Official Report. 4/2/86; col. 1016).
We do not agree with that. We think that the Government have gone beyond the recommendations of the Widdicombe Committee and we are aiming to bring them back to those recommendations.
The first amendment, which reads,
"Page 2, line 16, leave out (', or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect,')",
and Amendment No. 7, which reads,
"Page 2, line 26, leave out ('or can reasonably be regarded as likely')",
are supported by all parties, as no doubt the Committee will have noticed. As I say, they are designed to bring the clause into line with the recommendations of the interim report.
The committee was keen to emphasise, in paragraph 181, that,
"legislative change should be seen as law reform rather than necessarily involving new restrictions".
Accordingly, they recommended, in paragraph 244(a), that,

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"there should be an express statutory prohibition of local authority publicity of a party political nature".
In other words, their proposal was to set down in statute law what is already the case on the common law. The present legal position is that it would be ultra vires for a local authority to publish party political material, in the sense that a decision to publish such material would be actuated by an irrelevant or improper motive, which would be party advantage. It is generally agreed, however, that it would be extremely difficult for the courts to apply in practice this kind of test of the intention of an authority.
Widdicombe expressed dissatisfaction with intent or design tests. In the context of the newly-established distinction between information and persuasion under Section 142—that is the result of the recent cases—they say:
"We accept that it can be difficult to determine the purposes of a local authority. We think the contents of the material is the best test. The Bill should therefore contain a statutory declaration of the existing law which outlaws publicity because of improper motives but applying a material test. This comes down to a test of apparent design or intent. A judge should be able to look at the material and judge from that alone whether there appears to be party political intent".
That is exactly what is contained in the first part of the test in the Bill, the prohibition of publication of material which appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party. The Bill as drafted, however, goes on to prohibit material which can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect political support. The expression,
"can reasonably be regarded as likely"
is interpreted as,
"a reasonable person could regard it as likely".
It can be seen that this is a test of considerable severity. It means that even if the balance of reasonableness was against the likely effect on political support, the material is still open to being banned because a reasonable person could think it likely. Or, to put it another way, material is open to being banned if it is not perverse to think that it is likely to affect political support. The severity of this test means that the clause would catch an enormous range of publicity never intended to be caught by Widdicombe. For example, a court might well have to decide that campaigns against rate capping and abolition could be reasonably regarded as likely to affect political support for the Government of the day. The Widdicombe report explicity defended these campaigns. It said, in paragraph 221:
"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. In the recent context that includes issuing information about abolition and rate capping".
The possibility of prohibition under Clause 2 would not extend to just posters or leaflets. The responses made by the threatened councils to the White Paper Streamlining the Cities were published and would have been open to challenge. Likewise, the Transport Bill enacted last Session was opposed by many local authorities of all political persuasions and by all three English associations. Remember, the ACC as well as the ADC was Conservative controlled at the time. A large number of authorities issued information which
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could be caught by the Bill. The report published by Tory controlled Plymouth District Council, for instance, which detailed their fear of being left with running only on profitable routes, could have been open to being banned.
At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, implied that the Isle of Wight County Council's campaign of the early 1970s would not be open to being banned because all those involved were Conservative. This is not the case. Plymouth's report could still quite easily, possibly, be regarded as likely to affect political support for the party in government and thus banned, despite the fact that the same party controls Plymouth.
Another example of publicity which could be banned under the Bill is that issued by Hereford District Council. Hereford was used by the Department of Transport as an experimental area to try out deregulation in advance of the Bill. The Liberal-controlled council published a research report critical of the experiment. It is clearly important that this sort of information is published to inform public debate. The clause as presently drafted could be used to censor it. The issue need not be one of national significance for the test in the Bill to bite.
An example of a local campaign which could be open to challenge was "Hell under Helink" attacking the renewal of the licence for the helicopter link between Gatwick and Heathrow by the Secretary of State. That campaign was supported by the following local authorities: Surrey County Council, Elmbridge, Epsom Ewell, Guildford, Hounslow, Kingston-upon-Thames, Mole Valley, Richmond-upon-Thames, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Woking and the GLC.
This first amendment therefore brings the test in Clause 2 into line with the requirement of the Widdicombe Report and avoids all these difficulties of interpretation. Clause 2(3) brings voluntary organisations financed by local authorities within the scope of the Clause 2(1) test. This would mean that, for instance, the Child Poverty Action Group would have been unable to issue their recent publicity about the possible effect of the Green Paper on reform of the social security system. That publicity was wholly local authority funded. Likewise, those Citizens Advice Bureaux 100 per cent. local authority funded could well be prevented from issuing their annual leaflet which explains the effects of social security uprating on claimants.
Widdicombe was acutely aware of the danger of slapping on new controls. The report said:
"We are anxious not to deal with problems in a way that would have a deleterious effect on local authority publicity as a whole".
They were aware of the dangers of definitional problems. They said:
"We wish to avoid new controls that will be imprecise or raise major definitional problems".
The Government appear to have ignored these warnings. We think that the words
"can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"
will give rise to major definitional problems and we ask for them to be deleted from the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Broxbourne: The noble Baroness started her eloquent observations by saying that these

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amendments go to the heart of the matter. If I may respectfully venture to vary the anatomical metaphor, do they not seek rather to eviscerate the Bill? Other possible anatomical—
A noble Lord: Analogies?
Lord Broxbourne: I was thinking more in the surgical context. Other possible variants of her anatomical metaphor occur to me but no doubt they will occur to Members of the Committee according to their respective imaginations.
I should like to start what will not be a wholly uncontroversial contribution with what is, I think, an uncontroversial observation. I think that we in this Committee share a common purpose, a purpose to put into clear and acceptable statutory form the prohibition of what is in effect party political propaganda. That, I think the noble Baroness will agree, is a shared purpose. It should also be common ground that whatever statutory formula is adopted will require interpretation by the courts. The noble Baroness made as part of her case the alleged difficulty that the courts would have in interpreting. I must ask her to accept that this is not so. We need have no doubts about the capacity of the courts for this task.
Learned judges wrestle daily with the complexities of town and country planning legislation, of rating legislation, of copyright, of the rent Acts—as to which that distinguished lawyer and parliamentarian of other days, D. N. Pritt, observed on one occasion, "Anybody is very lucky who is ever right about anything in the rent Acts". Learned judges who deal daily with this will regard the matters arising under the Local Government Act 1986 not perhaps as light relief but at any rate as welcome relief from these arduous and complex tasks. I share the confidence expressed by Widdicombe, himself a very notable contributor to the unravelling of the complexities of law in these matters, in paragraph 237 of his report—confidence as to the emergence of a body of precedent to guide local authorities in the practical application of the law.
The amendment would exclude the statutory test prescribed by the Bill which the courts will have no difficulty in interpreting. But what is the alternative? To identify possible alternatives is, in my submission, enough to exclude them. To make the obvious test of proven effect would place an impossible burden of proof on the complainant. It would ensure that this provision is a dead letter from the start—and it may be that that, of course, is the intention of the amendment.
The other possible test is intention or motive. This would be to give statutory effect to that to which Mr. Justice Glidewell, as he then was, was driven in the ILEA case owing to the unsatisfactory state of existing law. He decided that one, if not the main, consideration animating ILEA in its decision was persuasion as against information. It contravened the Wednesbury principle by taking into account an irrelevant consideration. If ILEA's purpose had been to inform it would have been within Section 142 of the Local Government Act 1972. But as its purpose—or primary purpose at any rate—was to pursuade then it was not within Section 142. This approach which was followed by Mr. Justice Nolan in a case soon after
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necessarily involves an inquiry into and an assessment of purpose or motive. But ascertainment of purpose or motive, information or persuasion, is palpably an unsatisfactory test—unclear, uncertain and difficult to apply. After all, human nature is notoriously complex and local authorities are not exempt from this general law of nature.
Neither of those two possible alternatives fits the Bill. I think that Members of the Committee may therefore wish to apply the Sherlock Holmes principle: "When you have excluded that which is impossible, that which remains is the solution". And that which remains is the statutory test proposed in this Bill. It is no different in principle from the well-tried and well-established test of "reasonably foreseeable", a test daily applied by the courts in the assessment of damages in negligence claims and other actions in court. Indeed, the formula proposed by the Bill rests on a very firm foundation, on a veritable bedrock of precedent.
The wording—and I am sure that each of your Lordships has this very much in mind at present—reflects that of paragraph 5(a) of Part 1 of Schedule 7 to the Companies Act 1985. I am glad to see noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite nodding assent. The words there are:
"reasonably be regarded as likely to affect public support for a political party".
I may venture on a little thought-reading. It may of course occur to noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench, "The Companies Act 1985: was that 1985 Act not an Act of this iniquitous Tory Government?" If they had that thought they would overlook the fact that the Companies Act 1985 was of course a consolidating Act. The words have a longer parentage than that.
3.30 p.m.
Whence then do they derive? They derive from Section 19 of the Companies Act 1967; and then the question inevitably arises: who put that Act on the statute book? What party was then in power? I can see the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, in his place but there are other noble Lords who were distinguished ornaments of that Administration. I come to this question: which noble Lord, then Minister, commended those words at that time to this Chamber? Do I detect a reminiscent glint in the expression, for example, of the noble and learned and infinitely distinguished Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones? Do I recognise in his well-loved features a sort of complacent recollection of paternity over those 20 years? If it is not so, no doubt he will rise and tell the Committee: otherwise we are left to conjecture, and no doubt in due course we shall be informed.
There is just one other question to be asked, and this goes to the generality of Members of the Committee opposite: what causes them now to repudiate what they commended then? What causes them to decry in Opposition what in office they then extolled? Can we not put to them the question that was plaintively put to Sir Robert Peel when he changed his mind about the Corn Laws all those years ago?—
"He has convinced others",
said the Morning Herald of that day,
"how comes it that he has not convinced himself?"

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The test proposed in the Bill has proved practical and effective in the context of the Companies Acts for nearly two decades. Why should it not prove so in this context also? I shall continue no longer. It would be an act of supererogation. This is what lawyers call "an open and shut case" and I urge the Committee therefore to recognise it as such and to save precious time by not seeking to argue the unarguable but to reject the amendment and to keep the clause as it stands.
Lord Denning: I hope that your Lordships will reject the amendment and will support the Bill as it stands. We are here dealing with party political propaganda and how far a local authority can indulge in it. The question raised in this discussion is: how is the judge to deal with the matter? Is he to go by the design or the intention of the man who publishes it? The man may say, "I didn't intend it to be party political propaganda". Or is he to go by the effect on the ordinary population, on the people? In other words, is it to be subjective, according to the man who writes it, or is it going to be objective, according to the people who read it?
On this we have a good legal principle in regard to any material that is published like that. It arises particularly in the law of libel. We do not go by the intention of the writer and what he intended: we go by the effect which it has on the people who read it, and it is judged in that way. There is a case—quite an amusing case—called Hulton v. Jones. We all know about it: it appeared in the 1910 Appeal cases. A Sunday paper wrote an amusing article about a visit to the motor races at Dieppe. In the course of that article they described the incident of a lady saying, "Hey, there goes Artemus Jones with a woman who is not his wife. Who do you think she is?"
They thought obviously that there was no such person as Artemus Jones and that he was entirely imaginary. But there was a good county court judge called Artemus Jones; and he said, "All those people who read that thought it was me who was walking along the shore at Dieppe with a woman who was not my wife." He said, "It does not matter what the newspaper may have thought. They may have thought it was nobody; but everybody else, or at least a great many people, thought it was me." So he brought a libel action and, according to the House of Lords, he was right. You do not go by what the writer meant or knew; you go by what the effect on people is. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Loreburn, said:
"A man charged with libel cannot defend himself by saying that he in his own breast did not intend to defame anyone if in fact he did so.
Similarly, with this test of propaganda, it is no use whoever writes it saying, "I didn't intend it to be party political". The question is: what was its effect upon reasonable people? That is just what the Bill as it stands says. Let the judge decide the case according to its effect on the reasonably minded people. That is a very good test to apply and I suggest that we uphold the Bill as it stands and reject the amendment.
Lord Kilmarnock: As my name is attached to the amendment, it might be convenient if at this stage I gave the view on this matter from these Benches. We
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support the recommendation of the Widdicombe Committee's interim report that,
"there should be an express statutory prohibition of local authority publicity of a party political nature".
But in setting out to achieve this the Bill, in our view, goes well beyond Widdicombe and becomes an exercise in what a Tory Member in another place called "overkill". It also fails, particularly in Clause 2, to meet a very important Widdicombe requirement in respect of what is stated in paragraph 175:
"We wish to avoid new controls that will be imprecise or raise major definitional problems".
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, have just told us that these problems do not exist and I shall return to that in a moment; but in my submission Clause 2 as drafted is imprecise and raises major definitional problems.
I have read the Widdicombe interim report from cover to cover. It is an extremely clear, balanced and objective document. The Government themselves have said that they are legislating on the basis of Widdicombe. Therefore I think that all our efforts at this Committee stage of the Bill should be directed at bringing the Bill back into line with Widdicombe. The main Widdicombe proposals were: no publicity under Section 137 of the Local Government Act, with one exception; all publicity to be covered by Sections 111 and 142 of the Local Government Act (which were to remain unchanged) and by the total prohibition of publicity for a political party. That is the essence of Widdicombe. In paragraph 123, Widdicombe held that local authorities are themselves intrinsically political, both in the manner in which they are elected and internally organised and in the subject matter with which they deal.
It follows that there is a legitimate area of political expression within local government. The problem is where to draw the line. Widdicombe recognised that there is a difficulty in distinguishing between (and I now quote from paragraph 126):
"material that may be the subject of political controversy or may reflect the view of the majority party, but is issued in furtherance of the interests of a local authority, and material that is issued in furtherance of the interests of a political party."
It is the latter in Widdicombe's view, and in our view, that should be banned and the question is: how? Widdicombe was quite clear in paragraph 133 that,
"the content of the material is the best test"—
not intention, which can only be guessed at or surmised; nor its effect on people who may be disposed to stretch the meaning in pursuit of their own ends, but what is actually written down.
This leads us to expect a strictly material test. When we look at Clause 2 we see that it does indeed begin in that way:
"A local authority shall not publish any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect"—
fine, so far. That is a material test. If it carries a party label or bears the name of a politician, it is clear to the commonsense view that it is politically designed. But I come now to the insidious and highly subjective phrase,
"or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"—
and, suddenly, a whole hornets' nest, Pandora's box or whatever metaphor you prefer, is opened up. Bang

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goes our nice, clear, material test. Enter doubt, dispute, discord, imprecision, unfairness—all the things that Widdicombe warned against. It goes far beyond the outlawing of political broadsheets, propaganda and huge hoarding advertisements featuring well-known politicians, which is surely what we seek to ban.
The noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, have said there is no difficulty for judges in interpreting these words. But there is a great deal of difficulty in the day-to-day interpretation of these words by the people who are affected by them and who will not know where they are. The legal assurances that have been given to us this afternoon by noble Lords prominent in the legal profession will be of little comfort to them.
So small wonder that alarm bells have been jangling in all sorts of quarters. Local authority chief executives believe the Bill to be unworkable in the day-to-day administration of local authorities. They point out that quite straightforward and hitherto legitimate publicity about council plans or policies might be said to be likely to affect public support for the party having control of the council.
The local authority associations point out that the second part of the test would prohibit material if any reasonable person could think that it would be likely to affect political support, even if most reasonable people thought it would not. It takes only one reasonable person to object or disagree; and any rational person can be described as a reasonable person. Yet we all know that perfectly rational people have a wide range of views and local authorities believe that the clause could prevent publicity to promote the "take-up" of legitimate policies, such as cheap fares or even the selling of council houses.
The voluntary bodies are also very concerned, because Clause 2(3) brings them fully within the ambit of Clause 2(1) if they receive any local authority funding. As I suggested at Second Reading, organisations formed with the aim and object of raising the public level of consciousness about homelessness and so on could be caught as being in conflict with the policy of the government, whereas the main aim would be action and any political effect would be a by-product.
The Council for Racial Equality believe that Clause 2 would prevent a local authority from funding a voluntary organisation which is campaigning on an issue on which any political party has taken a contrary stance. The National Front is the obvious example. The British Refugee Council believes that its activities would also be affected. I will not give any other instances, because I am sure that other noble Lords have plenty up their sleeves.
The important thing, I suggest, is to go back to first principles and to what we want to achieve. Widdicombe aimed at a "workable framework" and said in paragraph 224 that,
"the law must be made as clear as possible. The aim must be to end the present situation of uncertainty".
This refers to the difficulty for the courts in applying the present test of intention under administrative law. Therefore, an express statutory prohibition is needed.
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What appears on the face of the statute must be clear and unequivocal. This amendment would achieve that effect, and would leave the clause with plenty of bite on the abuses and excessive forms of party political propaganda at the ratepayers' expense, which we all want to see brought to an end. I hope that the Committee will support the amendment.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Three points seem to have arisen on this amendment. The first was the gallant attempt of the noble Baroness to establish that the words which she wants to take out of the Bill would be difficult of construction for the judiciary. That point has been so effectively demolished by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and by my noble friend Lord Broxbourne that I do not propose to spend any time at all on it. I think your Lordships will agree that that point is out.
The second is the point which the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, has been seeking to make, that the words in the Bill are not precisely consistent with the Widdicombe Report. That is a matter on which argument could be protracted. But it does not seem to me that that is a decisive point at all. I have a very high regard for the Widdicombe Report, but that report was not an attempt to draft a Bill. It was an exercise in dealing with a subject and in putting ideas together. It was not an attempt at drafting. Therefore, it does not seem to me that it is a very serious objection, when you come to the totally different exercise of drafting a Bill, that it is not—if it is not—wholly identical with the wording of the Widdicombe Report. It is perhaps a matter of comment, but it does not seem to me to be decisive.
The third point, which seems to me the most important, is the practical effect. Do any of your Lordships really think that it would be right in the future for a local authority, at the expense of ratepayers of all political views, to publish material which can be reasonably regarded as likely to affect public support for a political party? I doubt whether you would find anyone outside who felt that expenditure of ratepayers' money in that way was justified.
Your Lordships have to remember in considering this Bill, or in amending this Bill, if you like, that when it is law there will be a number of people—and noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite can identify them even better than I can—using very considerable ingenuity to try to find loopholes in it. It is really essential, if we are to do what the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, says we should do and prevent political propaganda on the rates, that this Bill should be watertight. That may well involve fairly strict provisions, if your Lordships regard this particular one as strict, being none the less justifiable.
I need only remind your Lordships of who will be trying to drive, if not a coach and horses, a hammer and sickle through the Bill. Your Lordships may recall the observations of Mr. David Blunkett who, as your Lordships may recall, Sheffield Council has the misfortune to be led by. He said quite recently in a publication called Marxism Today:
"Campaigning for public services, public enterprise and collectivism cannot be underestimated. We are in the business of raising political consciousness and awareness".

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Or there is Mr. Ted Knight who leads Lambeth and who went out of his way to use council property in support of a political demonstration on the part of the Left. When criticised, he said:
"If we need to authorise more expenditure to fight this Government we will do so".
We are dealing with that kind of thing which is rampant throughout the country, which in certain areas is very conspicuous and which noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite, to their credit, do not seek to justify.
Therefore we should, as a legislature, be failing in our duty if, for the sort of reasons that have been put today, we were to weaken the structure of the Bill, so that these determined men, who want, if they can, to continue spending public money in support of their own political ideas, are given any opportunity of driving a hole in it. For those reasons I hope we shall reject the amendment.
Baroness Seear: Does not the noble Lord who has just spoken agree that the remarks of David Blunkett would have been caught by the phrase,
"appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party",
and that that would remain in the Bill if the amendment were accepted?
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I think that the noble Baroness must have misunderstood me, and that must certainly have been my fault. I was quoting the words of David Blunkett, not as words that were to be published at the public expense but, far more significantly, as an indication of the approach which he and others will make to the new law when this Bill is law; and therefore we should be forewarned. That was the point, and I am sorry if I did not explain it with sufficient clarity for the noble Baroness to understand it.
Baroness Faithfull: I speak with enormous diffidence in that I feel like an inexperienced David taking on three Goliaths: the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, my noble friend Lord Broxbourne, and my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. But I think that there is an opposite point of view to be put and I consider that it was very well put by the noble Baroness, Lady David, and by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. Perhaps I may put my point of view, realising that I do not have the power of oratory of noble Lords who have spoken before me.
I personally should like to have seen quite different tests. I should like to have seen the test of whether the intention of the publicity was targeted on party political policy. I should like to have seen the test whether the publicity conformed with the aims and objectives of the voluntary organisation concerned and of the local authority in its professional work. However, the test of political publicity is to be the publicity material which is to be put forward.
I had written a speech but I propose not to read it. I shall instead take up the points made by the noble and learned Lord and by other noble Lords. They have looked at one point of view only. They have not looked at the point of view of the local authorities trying to do a good job of work. They have not looked
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at the point of view of the voluntary organisations. It would be quite wrong of me to disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, but one has to remember that the words left in the Bill are going to inhibit local authorities and voluntary organisations in the work which they have to do. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, would like them to be inhibited, but the provision affects the work in more ways than one. It may inhibit party political wrongdoing but it may also inhibit the work which local authorities rightly should do and voluntary organisations should do.
The voluntary organisations have to look at every penny they have; and the thought that they might be taken to court would give them cause for perhaps withholding services which the public rightly should have. Perhaps I may draw the Committee's attention to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, at Second Reading. The noble Lord pointed out that some local authorities might be deterred from giving money to a voluntary organisation because they were fearful that this interpretation would put them in the wrong. I hope that we will think very carefully before we reject this amendment. I hope that we will think of those many local authorities which do good work and the voluntary organisations which do good work and that we will not make it more difficult for them to give a service to our community.
Lord Mottistone: Before my noble friend sits down, will she perhaps explain to us how this amendment will help the voluntary organisations and how it is that if the amendment is not carried the voluntary organisations will suffer? It does not seem to me that this part of the Bill and the general sense of what we are talking about has any bearing on the voluntary organisations.
Baroness Faithfull: I think that the phrase,
"or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect",
is so broad that it is difficult for the ordinary person to interpret it.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has done the Committee a great service in pointing out that voluntary organisations are greatly jeopardised by the wording of Clause 2(1). The main reason for that lies in subsection (3) of Clause 2. Subsection (3) reads:
"A local authority shall not give financial or other assistance to a person"—
"a person" there will include voluntary bodies—
"for the publication of material which the authority are prohibited by this section from publishing themselves".
It is that agency principle, as it were, which catches the voluntary bodies and of course places them in exactly the same jeopardy.
The argument for this amendment has been put with very great force and cogency by my noble friend Lady David, and indeed by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. I totally agreed with what they said, as of course I agreed with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. My purpose in intervening at this stage is to try to challenge the propositions which were articulated by the noble Lord, Lord

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Broxbourne, and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. It is a very rash or brave person who takes on both those distinguished gentlemen at one and the same time; or, alternatively, a person who is very convinced of the rightness of his cause. It is in that category that I place myself.
The argument of the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, was that the effect of the amendment was (to use his words) to eviscerate the whole purpose of Clause 2(1) of the Bill. Why should that be so? The problem is that of a minority of local authorities misspending public moneys for overtly or directly political purposes. They are very few in number. The abuses occurred at a very special point in time, in 1982, 1983 and 1984—perhaps not to be repeated again whether or not the Bill is passed. It was nevertheless a localised problem which Widdicombe suggests should be dealt with in a fairly modest way.
Widdicombe's proposals very wisely are not spelt out. The recommendations are fairly broad in their purport and merely say that there should be a specific statutory prohibition upon the expenditure of public moneys for the particular purposes that I have mentioned. That is wholly achieved by what will remain of this subsection if this amendment is carried; for what will remain will be this declaration of principle:
"A local authority shall not publish any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party".
That is a broad and sweeping provision and will in my submission carry with it many dangers. It is infinitely narrower in scope and better restricted than the totality of what we have with the second limb that the amendment seeks to remove.
4 p.m.
The noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, very properly reminded the Committee that the words in question are not mint issue; that they are currency that has been in circulation for some time. They appeared in the Act of 1985 and had their origins in Section 19 of the Companies Act 1967. They were placed in that piece of legislation in order to deal with the question of companies that used shareholders' money for political purposes. It was not a prohibition. It was a provision that legislated for setting out clearly in the accounts of a company the fact that a political contribution was made.
The context in which those words were used in 1967 was totally different from the context in which they now appear, for this reason. In so far as those words dealt with the specific endorsement of moneys for political purposes—not a prohibited purpose but a purpose that had to be identified publicly—they were dealing (were they not?) with something that was entirely outside the mainstream of a company's function. Whether or not a company, in its memorandum and articles of association, is entitled to contribute to the funds of a political party is one thing; but nobody would suggest that one of the main purposes of a company is to make such contributions.
In the present context, one is dealing with one of the main objects of local government. The point was made
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by the Widdicombe Report that local government now finds itself in a more acutely controversial political environment than ever before. It made the point also that it is likely that such acuteness will be greater accentuated in the future than in the past. In other words, whereas politics can be a tangent to a company in the making of a political contribution, and inevitably it will be so, it is something utterly central to the function of every local authority. For whether or not an authority wishes that to be the case, and whether or not it be an independent authority, it will inevitably be involved with the rough and tumble of political issues from day to day. That, in my very humble submission, is the fault with this provision.
Turning to the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, he says that the test here is the test of reasonableness; that it is a test well known to Her Majesty's judges in many fields; and that it is a test that Her Majesty's judges have to apply in cases of defamation where they decide whether certain expressions can be construed in a certain way by right thinking members of society.
With very considerable respect—which I, like everybody else in this Committee, have for the noble and learned Lord—I do not believe that he had pitched the argument at the correct level. The law of libel deals with a totally different situation. It deals with the situation where a person comes before the courts and says, "I have suffered injury on account of this tort that has been committed against me". We are dealing with a situation that is totally different. In the case of Hulton v. Jones, which was decided in 1925 or thereabouts, the courts found that it was reasonable for words written as a piece of fiction to be ascribed to Mr. Artemus Jones—who later became a very distinguished county court judge in Wales and was a very great figure in the Principality.
The Defamation Act 1952 changed all of that. Such accidental defamation can now occur only with almost the connivance of the defendant himself, for the defendant has every opportunity of issuing an apology, and so forth. The difficulty as I see it—and in this I follow the stance that was taken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, on Second Reading on 4th February—is that Her Majesty's judges must be kept out of the arena of politics. As I said on Second Reading, no doubt the judges will do their work very conscientiously and in an even-handed way. However, the ultimate test is not what their own intentions are but how the ordinary citizen views the functions of those judges in that particular regard. If the ordinary citizen believes that judges have been enmeshed in political controversies—unwillingly it may be—that will have the inevitable effect of decreasing the high opinion that society at large has for the work of the judiciary.
My argument is this. The words objected to create a very wide sphere over and beyond the provisions of the first limb. The first limb deals with a publication that,
"in whole or in part, appears to be designed",
and goes on to state:
"or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect, public support for a political party".
I have made the point before that the subsection does not give any clue as to how substantial or insubstantial

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that public support has to be. If such support were in terms of millions, one can understand that. Or if it were in terms of hundreds of thousands of persons who would switch their support from party A to party B, then one could understand it. But what if a court were to find that it was highly likely that hundreds of people from the whole kingdom would be affected in such a way; is such an application to fail or succeed?
I believe that one of two evils would occur. If the courts placed a very harsh interpretation on that provision, then the work of local government would be emasculated. A local authority would in no way be able to serve as the voice of the community that it should be and that Widdicombe conceives it to be. It would be utterly monstrous. If on the other hand Her Majesty's judges were to say, "This is impossible. It is wholly unwarrantable. We shall have to give our own gloss and our own common-sense view of the situation", they they would have become legislators; people who were arbitrating in a highly delicate, critical situation. In my submission, either of those two consequences would bring about very grave and undesirable results.
Widdicombe never suggested anything that goes so far as subsection (1) at all. In fact, I rather fancy that if Widdicombe had been asked specifically whether it agreed with the remainder of Clause 2(1), with the offensive words removed, it would have said, "It goes somewhat beyond what we had in mind". It is on that basis that I commend the amendment to the Committee.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: A good deal has been said about paternity of the words that are proposed to be excised. Anybody looking at cols, 1077 and 1078 of Hansard for the Second Reading might be forgiven for supposing that I was the putative father. In fact, I mentioned those matters on Second Reading to seek clarification from my noble friend the Minister on the drafting of Clause 2(1), which had two limbs. Having attended with great care to all the speeches from all parts of the Committee today, it is manifestly apparent to me that the second limb has an important practical effect.
It is equally clear that the origins are as expounded by my noble friend Lord Broxbourne. Therefore, for those reasons I am unable to support this amendment. Having raised the matter on Second Reading, I felt I owed an explanation to your Lordships.
Lord Hayter: I put my name to this amendment so I venture to put forward some observations to your Lordships. You will remember that on Second Reading every speaker made clear that he supported the basic intention of the Bill. The majority of speakers on Second Reading made it clear that they thought the Bill as drafted went far beyond its original intention. As so many of your Lordships are mixed up with voluntary organisations, it is on that ground that I appeal to you to be very thoughtful about the proposi-tion which is being put to you. This amendment tries to bring back to the Bill the basic objective and thus avoids the concerns in the hearts and minds of so many of us.
First let me outline the point on which we are all agreed. We all agree that explicitly party political
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propaganda should not be published by local authorities—that is quite clear—or by the voluntary organisations funded by them. Secondly, we all agree that the starting point for deciding whether or not material is party political is to look at the evidence of the material itself. Thirdly, we all agree that in looking at that material we should determine whether or not it is intended to affect support for a political party.
Where many of us disagree with the Government is over the inclusion of this second test in the Bill: the test of the material's effect as well as the test of the material's intention. The phrase in Clause 2,
"can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"
takes the Bill way outside this basic intention. It means that material which was never intended to affect public support for a political party could still be illegal simply because a few reasonable people might think it would have that effect.
Let me at once say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that there are people who might have designs of the kind that he envisages; but when one thinks of the hundreds and thousands of voluntary organisations it is similar to looking for Reds under the beds to imagine even that the vast majority of these voluntary people have these nasty ideas which seem to be thought of as being part of their make-up. It is just not so.
I give two examples of what might happen under the Bill as it stands. The first example is of a local tenants' group receiving a grant from the local authority for running expenses. The group uses part of this money to issue a newsletter to all the tenants on the estate. It carries an article criticising the Government's privatisation policies because of the effect they would have on the tenants living on the estate. Some tenants who previously had supported the Conservative Party might decide not to vote at the next local government election; having read the newsletter they decided they disagreed. The newsletter's article did not run down individual politicians or contain overtly party political phrases but simply set down the effect of privatisation as seen by the editor of that newsletter in that locality. Could it not be argued that the newsletter has affected support for a political party? Noble Lords on the other side would say, "yes". This was not the intention but by criticising a policy strongly associated with the Conservative Party it could obviously have this effect.
If noble Lords on the other side who are so learned in the law are right, what does this mean? No tenants' group would dare to put forward such a letter. They would never dare to give advice on the peculiarities of their situation.
4.15 p.m.
My second example is of a rural community council receiving a grant from a local authority and concerned about the impact of the Transport Act on bus services. Fair enough. It issues a leaflet explaining its concern and urging people to contact their local Conservative Member of Parliament so that he can bring the matter to the attention of the Minister of Transport. They make the point that the Act was introduced by a Conservative Government—which is true—and as a result of seeing the leaflet some people decide that they are not going to vote for their local Member of Parliament at the next election.
Once again, the tone of the leaflet is not overtly party political but it contains information which results in people changing their political standing. Has not the leaflet affected support for a political party? If noble Lords on the other side of the House say, "yes", does that not mean that no transport users' association would dare to bring forward any criticism of any Government policy which affected their own interests? In both cases a voluntary organisation is doing no more than issuing publicity in pursuit of its own aims and objectives. The purpose of the publicity is not to affect public support for a political party; nevertheless, that could be one of its unintended side effects.
We all hope and assume that support for political parties is at least partly based on support for its policies. Clause 2 would therefore mean that voluntary organisations would be in danger of acting illegally whenever they used local authority funds to publish views criticising or supporting a particular policy of the Government or a political party.
In his winding-up speech on Second Reading, the noble Lord the Minister sought to reassure the voluntary sector on this issue. He said:
"Under the Bill, voluntary organisations will continue to be able to use local authority money to campaign on matters of concern to them"—
such as the two examples I have just given—
"including Government policies, so long as the presentation of local authority-funded publicity does not contravene the terms of the prohibition in Clause 2".—[Official Report, 4/2/86; col. 1092.]
But the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said that the Minister is wrong and that they would be caught in the examples I have given. Therefore, I have grave fears of what the result of the Bill will be if we do not come to some other arrangements so far as this amendment is concerned. In other words, if a voluntary organisation affects support for a party's policies, it could always be argued that it was affecting support for the party itself.
It seems clear to me that the Bill should go back to its original objective. The noble Lord the Minister said that he was concerned about party political material, and we do not disagree with him on that. If party political material is what he is concerned about let us have a Bill which says so instead of the rather unclear phrases used at present.
If we want to use the test of reasonableness which is in the Bill as it stands, why do we not apply that so far as this Bill is concerned? The Committee is full of reasonable people and I would guess that the majority would agree that the logic of this amendment is reasonable and fair. I draw your Lordships' attention to the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum which accompanies the Bill, although loosely attached to it. It states:
"Clause 2 prohibits local authorities from publishing, or giving financial or other assistance to another person to publish, material designed to affect public support for a political party".
We are all agreed on that. There was none of this nonsense about reasonableness in the Explanatory Memorandum, so why not stick to what is said? I believe that our amendment is correct. This is what Widdicombe wanted. This is what we want. This is what the noble Lord the Minister said he wants. Therefore, why not have a Bill which says the same?
Lord Gisborough: I believe that there is considerable concern by the voluntary sector over this Bill, and it has already been shown. I hope that the Government will make a great effort to reassure those organisations and to show that they will not, in fact, suffer. There is also great concern shown by the councils, and we have all had a mass of papers in this respect. It has been suggested that there will be no less than a paralysed silence from councils in case they are sued by any one ratepayer of either party. It is necessary for the Government to give reassurance on this matter.
I have with me a mass of papers which have been sent to me by one council to show how even-handed and non-political are the publications of this particular body. They are not designed to be political nor to affect political thought and they have been sent to me to prove it. I can read any of them to your Lordships but I shall take just one which relates to the transport system. It is an argument "for" and an argument "against", and therefore one would think it must be fair. On the left of the page the argument is for the public bus system and on the right of the page it is against the private bus system. The terrible things it says about the possible private bus system are amazing. It is entitled: "Don't let them stop your bus". That may be designed to be non-political and it is said to be an example of something which is even-handed, but I really do not think that any reasonable person would regard it as such.
Information about what actually will happen is one thing but criticism is quite another, and I do not think that that publication could be described as anything other than criticism. I hope that this amendment will be rejected.
Lord Dean of Beswick: May I first of all say that I came in only at the end of the speech on this subject by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, but that I was able to catch the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, about this matter. I have been privileged to be a Member of this Chamber for just over two years and it is not very often that I have heard noble Lords of whatever political persuasion in this House mention the names of individuals. But the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, did mention Mr. David Blunkett, who is the Leader of the Council in Sheffield. I do not think for one moment that Mr. David Blunkett would expect me to rise in his defence, since I do not view politics through the same eyes as he does—and I do not say that as a pun, because Mr. David Blunkett suffers the tragedy of being blind. He is not blind politically: politically he is very mature.
Lord Winstanley: If the noble Lord would allow me, is not the real point whether or not the noble Lord's contribution on this matter could reasonably be regarded as likely to affect public support for Mr. Blunkett?
Lord Dean of Beswick: I am grateful to the noble Lord from the Liberal Bench; but I want to say that whether noble Lords from the same political party or different political parties agree or disagree with Mr. Blunkett's viewpoint, nevertheless he has a privilege possessed by none of us in this Chamber, whether we I support my party, the Government party, minority

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parties, or are Cross-Benchers. He has the privilege of being elected; and if people do not like him, they have the privilege of rejecting him. I think it is hitting somewhat below the belt to suggest that someone who has to justify his existence triennially by returning every three years to the ballot box will not be very well accepted by people inside this House, among whom I count myself, who will not be facing the electorate again.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: If the noble Lord will allow me, and since he referred to my speech, perhaps I may say that if the noble Lord was good enough to listen to my speech, he will have realised that I was making the point that there are certain leaders of local authorities in this country who want to drive a hole through this Bill. I thought it right to support that general proposition by quotations, and when I give a quotation I attribute it to the person who made it, which I think your Lordships will agree is the fair and proper way to do it.
Lord Dean of Beswick: I do not disagree for one moment that that is the case; but it seems to me that inescapably the person concerned must face the verdict of the electorate. We do not have to go through that procedure, and I would venture to say that that consideration may well govern some of the remarks made on occasions in this Chamber. I think that one of the mistakes that we make in this Chamber—whether we are sitting on this side of the House, are supporters of the Government, members of the SDP/Liberal Alliance, Law Lords or Cross-Benchers—is to assume that we know better than the electorate what the people want. I think that we are in a very dangerous position if we go to the end of the road with that argument.
In the last session, during the passage of the Bill which resulted in the dissolution of the GLC and the metropolitan counties noble Lords made the point that we were following a very dangerous road indeed. I make no apologies for the leaders of the GLC, who unwittingly I think—or maybe it was deliberate—helped the Government in that process. When they were tinkering with local government in the last session the Government were warned to be very careful about what they were doing and to make sure that they were not in fact tinkering with the processes of democracy. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, was leading the arguments on local government from this side of the House during the last session. Various speakers from this side of the House and from the Cross-Benches warned the Government that they were embarking on such a course and that the result would be chaos and would mean large areas of the country (which I think covered about 24 million people) being denied representation at a level which was vital to their interests as a community.
I must come back and tell noble Lords that quite recently I have been meeting with various people in this House, not just representatives from the GLC but from the Greater Manchester Council, from West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Midlands, who say that local government has now been plunged into absolute chaos by what the Government forced through Parliament and through your Lordships'
530
House during the last session. Some of us said then that there would be no coherent decisions made, that there would be fragmentation and that difficulties would manifest themselves far and away beyond any sense of objectivity.
Finally, in closing, I shall say that I rose to point out quite briefly that we must be very careful, whether we are Back-Benchers who are supporting the Government or noble and learned Lords on the Cross-Benches who are putting a point of view. We cannot assume, because we are supposed to have superior knowledge, that we know best what democracy and the ballot box are all about. I suggest that in looking at this amendment noble Lords will have to look at it more carefully than has been indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
Lord Bellwin: I have to smile at the apocalyptic scenario which those who support this amendment are painting. It seems to me that this is where I came in. I have been watching these scenarios being painted so often by noble Lords opposite that I feel it is very nice to be back home. Indeed, I have almost missed it, and it is nice to hear them again. The fact that I disagree with the argument now, as I always did in the past, means, I say again, that nothing has changed.
I am not quite sure what the noble Lord, Lord Dean, was talking about when he referred to abolition. I am not clear where that is apposite in relation to the amendment; but if he would like to know—and I am sure it will be no surprise to him—I totally disagree with the conclusions which he has reached at a date before abolition has even come into effect. The fact is that we have always said about it that those who wish to make it work would make it work very well indeed, and that will be the majority. Those who wish to make sure that it does not work too well in the early stages will also be able to achieve that if that is what they want. The change becomes effective on 1st April. It is a little early to talk about the chaos and all the rest that may go with it.
4.30 p.m.
Let me briefly address myself to the amendments and the observations that have been made; we have gone on a bit on the subject. My noble friend Lady Faithfull said that the Bill, as it is, will inhibit work that local authorities should do. What on earth does preventing an authority spending all its ratepayers' money on party political propaganda do to inhibit the work that it should do? I thought that the work of a local authority was to try to deliver services efficiently and economically for the benefit of all the citizens within that authority. I do not believe now, any more than I ever have done, that it is necessary to spend money on party political propaganda, and the same is true of many other leaders of all parties.
Lord Dean of Beswick: The noble Lord—
Lord Bellwin: I did not interrupt the noble Lord. Perhaps he will allow me to finish, as time is going on. I have never thought it necessary to spend money on party political propaganda.
For all that has been said today by noble Lords who support the amendment, I believe that we must come

531
back to the basic theme. Everyone says that they are not against the suppression of money being spent on party political propaganda, but they wish to qualify that through the amendment. They say that they fear that the provision is so broad that it will bring in other people. Voluntary bodies who do not wish to indulge in spending money in that way have nothing to fear. My noble friend Lord Elton gave that assurance at Second Reading, and so far as I can see that is absolutely correct.
The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said that the authorities that offend are few in number. But he went on to say that politics are central to the function of every local authority. With respect, that is a contradiction. It is not an obligation, or indeed a right, of any authority to spend ratepayers' money, which comes from people of all party persuasions, on propaganda that supports the views of one party. That is what we are talking about. That is the theme of the Bill and of this clause. I see nothing in it that inhibits me from supporting it, and I hope that your Lordships will reject the amendment.
Lord Grimond: I wonder whether I may raise again a question that I am sure has been raised before. It is a very simple one. It seems to me that if Clause 2 applied to the Government it would forbid the publication of any large fall in the unemployment figures. Although that would not be designed to affect, it certainly could reasonably be regarded as likely to affect, public support for a political party. Applying that to local government, in certain parts of the country one sees large notices saying that this road widening or this bridge was undertaken by the local authority, often in collusion with the EC or some other body. Although that is not perhaps designed to affect support for the majority party on the local authority, it is certainly likely to do so and in fact is intended to do so. It is intended to make out that the local authority is a good one and therefore that the people who control it are good.
Later parts of this clause and other clauses may answer my point, but I should like to be reassured about exactly what will happen if we do not make the amendment and leave the words,
"or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"
in the Bill. Whether we intend it or not, it seems to me that they would cut out a great deal of what is now put out by local authorities at least under the impression that they are simply giving the public information. But they know at the back of their minds that it is inform-ation favourable to them. One seldom sees notices, or indeed government releases, which say that a terrible mistake has been made either by the local authority or by the Government. Perhaps I may have an answer to what must be a simple question and an old one.
Earl De La Warr: I shall try to be brief. I ask my noble friend when he comes to reply, which I am sure will be straightaway, to give the Committee special help on one aspect of the discussion. It has seemed to me that every noble Lord who has spoken has agreed with Widdicombe that the test is the content of the material, and that only. But those who have opposed the amendment have asked, "Why should not the
532
offending words remain in?". When I saw the amendment I asked exactly the opposite: "Why should they be there?" I cannot speak for the judges, but to the average layman the clause is so much simpler if one takes them out. One gets a closer juxtaposition of what matters; it is the words:
"shall not publish any material",
and
"public support for a political party".
Looking at the provision as an absolute layman, I believe that to leave those words out could strengthen the Bill in making the Government's intention clearer and an easier matter for the judges to deal with.
There is some point which I must have missed. I hope that my noble friend will tell the Committee, particularly as there seems to be such a strong case for making the clause clearer and leaving the words out, why it would be so greatly weakened if we removed them. I should be enormously grateful if he could explain that to us before some of us make up our minds.
Lord Butterworth: I shall be brief in making a point that may be of some importance in view of the way in which the argument has been developed this afternoon. We are agreed on the need for a general statutory prohibition. The difference between us is on the nature of the tests to be applied. Whatever form of words is used to make the statutory prohibition, there will be difficult cases at the edge where decisions have to be made. It would seem to me reasonable to use tests which have been applied successfully over a long period of years. Both those tests ultimately depend upon the test of reasonableness.
The first is: could one reasonably suppose that the material has been designed to affect public support for a political party? The second test, which again is a test of reasonableness, is: if one comes to the conclusion that the ordinary consequences of publishing the material will be to affect public support for a political party, the material will be caught. We know that those tests are frequently used in the ordinary law—they are fundamental in the law of negligence—to limit the liability to the consequences that can be reasonably foreseen.
The point that I should like to make is that the test of reasonableness is frequently used in administrative law. It is well known to local authority officials, and one can have the utmost confidence that they will have no difficulty in applying the test.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Cameron of Lochbroom): I am glad to acknowledge that in this debate we have obviously much in common. We are all clear that there is an abuse of local authority power, and we are all clear that it ought to be stopped. The abuse is quite clearly the use of public money to further or to disparage the purposes and prospects of any political party.
It was generally agreed at Second Reading that it cannot be right to take money from ratepayers and taxpayers and to use it against parties which those ratepayers and taxpayers support. The way in which this is being done—and Members of the Committee will have had ample opportunity of seeing it being

533
done here in London—is to use that money to finance publicity intended to secure the fortunes of the ruling party. That money may be spent either directly—and for that one finds the purpose of Clause 2(1)—or through an agency. The Bill provides for the latter contingency in subsection (3)of the clause, but that is not the subject of the present amendment.
Perhaps while I am pausing at subsection (3) I should just make a reply to certain concerns which have been expressed by my noble friend Lady Faithfull, by the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, and by my noble friend Lord Gisborough. Perhaps I may make it quite clear, in looking at this clause, that it is not directed at voluntary organisations but at a local authority. The prohibition is directed at a local authority. It will no doubt come out later in the course of this Committee's debate that the prohibition in subsection (3) is that,
"A local authority shall not give financial or other assistance to a person for the publication of material".
It is those words which are so important when one is considering, first, the evil at which this clause is directed and the limits of what this clause does.
The evil is not simply, as perhaps at one stage the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, seemed to be suggesting, one of just a little local difficulty. It has been recognised in the Widdicombe Report that this is something which has grown up over the years, in an abuse which, sadly, we cannot now consider will just suddenly wither away. It was because of that that the Widdicombe Report made quite clear the requirement for a statutory prohibition.
Clause 2(1) prohibits the publication of material which appears in the first place to be designed to affect public support for a political party. Those words remain in the clause even if, contrary to what I shall suggest Members of the Committee should do, this amendment were to secure the Committee's agreement. I would simply say that if that be so it is recognised that those words have a perfectly obvious content and can easily be dealt with. I therefore suggest that the criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, on that count was not justified.
The group of words to which objection has been taken has been rehearsed on numerous occasions this afternoon. The Widdicombe Inquiry made it quite clear in paragraph 229 that consideration would have to be given to the precise drafting of a statutory prohibition. We gave it that consideration. We addressed the problems of definition against the background of what the committee of inquiry concluded rather than using its words literally. The Bill is seeking to define exactly what we mean by "material of a party political nature" and to do so in terms that will enable the courts to make an objective judgment.
4.45 p.m.,
In our view it is essential, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, pointed out at Second Reading that the courts are provided with a clear test. I am very happy to think that today the noble and learned Lord has made it abundantly plain that in his opinion—it is one to which I would certainly defer—that provides the clear and proper test which we are seeking to provide: to define the mischief which we are seeking to
534
outlaw so that both local authorities and, if need be, the courts could form a view of the material before them, in the light of that clear test.
The problems of definition in Part II of the Bill are not simple. We do not wish to propose a test which would depend on the intention of those who produced a particular item of publicity for the reasons which Widdicombe explained. Case law in the general area of local authority information on powers indicates that the test of intention, which requires the courts to consider the dominant purpose of the authority, is not the best one. That was made abundantly plain again in speeches which have been made this afternoon. Nor do we consider it desirable that the test should depend upon proof of the effect on public support, because that is an impossible burden to discharge. That was quite clearly recognised this afternoon.
What is to be done is for the local authority at the start to consider the material. It has the tests upon which that is to be considered. In the event that the local authority publishes—having looked at the material against those tests—it then becomes a matter for the courts to look at the material and to consider its apparent design, or to take a reasonable view of its likely effect. I make no bones about this. The amendment proposed would, if passed, seriously undermine Clause 2 of the Bill. I would wish to argue most strongly against it. The prohibition in the Bill of party political publicity is in two parts, and both of them are important elements of the definition of material which we are seeking to outlaw.
First, local authorities would be prohibited from publishing material which appeared to be designed to affect public support for a political party. Secondly, they would be prohibited from publishing material whether on its own or as part of a campaign which would, on a reasonable view, be regarded as likely to affect such public support.
The second limb of the test reinforces the first, and without it the definition of "party political publicity" would be wholly inadequate. Without that the test would simply be directed to the motive of the publisher so far as that could be derived from consideration of the material and not to the likely effect of its publication. That cannot be right and I entirely endorse all that has been said by my noble friends behind me, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Broxbourne and Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
I am sure that Members of the Committee will agree that the developments that we have seen in recent years are the efforts and resources which some councils are intent on devoting to production of campaigning publicity which, while not apparently designed to promote or disparage a political party, would nevertheless on any reasonable view be regarded as achieving the same result at the end of the day. The second limb of the prohibition tackles this problem. I am aware that some Members of the Committee are concerned that the definition is too broad. It is suggested that in some ways it goes beyond Widdicombe. I have already made the point that Widdicombe did not provide any definition. He merely said that there should be a statutory prohibition.
Particular anxiety has been expressed about the use of the word "reasonably". This was an issue which was discussed at some length during Report stage of the Bill in another place, but it certainly bears repeating. The phrase,
"can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"
required local authorities, and the courts, to take a reasonable view of the likely effect of publicity on public support for a political party.
I am very grateful indeed to my noble friend Lord Broxbourne for his reference to the Companies Act. It has to be borne in mind that that Act provided that in its annual report a company had to include the specification of donations or subscriptions (and here I read from the 1967 Act):
"to a person who to its knowledge is carrying on or proposing to carry on any activities"—
and noble Lords should observe that this is the test about which directors have to make up their minds—
"which can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect public support for … a political party".
The Act says "such a political party", but that is of no consequence here. Therefore, when the directors are preparing their report, in giving that donation or subscription to that person, they have to ask themselves: "At that time was he a person who to our knowledge was carrying on or proposing to carry on these activities?"
An offence was created in the failure of the report to include that material. In 1967 on summary conviction the offence could amount to a period of imprisonment not exceeding six months or a fine, then not exceeding £200. It is that particular test which of course is to be found today in the Consolidation Act, and I am thankful that, if the test is not passed by the directors, Parliament has decreed that it shall no longer be summary imprisonment but merely a fine. However, the point is that it is still a criminal offence and, in the event of failure of the report to include such details, the courts have to decide whether that person had been carrying on activities which could reasonably be regarded as likely to affect public support for a political party so that that entry had to be made in the company accounts.
I suggest that there is no difference in principle between a company and its directors and a local authority and its members. If directors are expected to be able to answer that test, why should it be difficult for a local authority to ask the same question and reach a proper answer in relation to material placed before it for the purpose of publication?
In my submission, although the question that may be asked in each case may start with a different word—activities" for the directors and "material" for the local authority—there is no difficulty in answering either. I am particularly beholden that noble Lords in Committee also reminded us that in other spheres local authorities have no difficulty in answering questions on similar points. Every day local authorities use the power contained in Section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, which deals with the subsidiary powers of local authorities. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that that section enables a local authority to do anything which is calculated to
536
facilitate or is conducive to or incidental to the discharge of any of their functions.
This power gives statutory force to a principle established in common law; the courts have held that a corporation may do not only those things for which there is express or implied authority but also whatever is reasonably incidental to those things, and, therefore, although Section 111 does not refer in terms to that which is reasonably incidental, the courts will construe that section as only authorising that which is reasonably incidental. The test of reasonableness is one which is well known to the courts and, as noble and learned Lords and noble Lords have said this afternoon, it is also one with which local authorities are perfectly familiar.
The purpose behind including the word "reasonably" in the prohibition is to prevent material from falling under the prohibition where the possibility of its affecting public support for a political party is too remote or fanciful. The likelihood has to be regarded as a reasonable one; and again I am in entire agreement with what has been said by noble Lords, and in particular with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Broxbourne and those of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. That is a test with which the courts have been familiar over the years and, so far as I am aware, have never found any difficulty in applying.
At another level I think concern has been expressed that, given that local authorities operate in a political climate, where political parties are operating, the courts will, on a reasonable view, consider that even objective factual publicity can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect public support for a political party. The fear has been expressed that the courts will be drawn into the political arena in applying our tests. We believe that these fears too are based on certain misapprehensions. I was surprised that some noble Lords alluded to this, because in our judicial review procedure it has been a matter of comment that the judges have been able to come into what is, I think, termed the "political sphere", and indeed the fact that they have done so has been regarded as being of the very greatest importance.
I should like to emphasise from the start that we are not asking the courts whether they prefer Conservative or Labour publicity. They are not being asked to make political judgments of that kind. They are simply being asked to apply an objective test of whether the material before them,
"appears to be designed or can reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"
public support for a political party. They must decide whether the material falls foul of Clause 2, be it in support of the Labour, the Conservative, the SDP or the Ecology Party. They will of course have to operate this test in a political climate, but the courts are not neophytes to party politics. The Scottish case of Meek v. Lothian Regional Council in 1983 illustrates this perfectly well. The court said then that if Parliament had intended to restrict a local authority to the publication of purely factual information regarding decisions made, as opposed to publishing explanations or justifications for the decisions made, Parliament would have said so. Parliament must have appreciated that party politics prevail in local government. I

537
suggest that that judgment is a salutary one. Contrary to what some expressions of view may be, the law is not an ass.
We consider that in interpreting Clause 2 the courts will be mindful of the purpose of this legislation. The courts are required to look at the material itself and will have no difficulty in drawing a distinction between factual information about the services provided by a local authority and the impact of central and local policies on those services, and material which contravenes Clause 2. We have provided a guide in Clause 2(2)(a) and (b) to those matters to which the court will have to have particular regard.
In my submission, it is for that reason that I would respond to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Grimond, because in that case it would be quite clear, if the courts were to have to decide upon that matter, that the publication of the unemployment figures was not something falling within the mischief which this Bill is intended to outlaw.
What we are doing here in this clause—and in particular Clause 1(1) and (2)—is telling local authorities to look carefully at the material produced by them; to bear in mind its effect if published as well as their intention in publishing it. The same advice as would be given, I suggest, to any person asking about the law of defamation. I suggest that if, for instance, one was asked to tell him what he was to do, in short compass one would say, "Choose your words with care. It's no good saying you didn't intend to defame another person if at the end of the day the effect of your words is to defame him".
This amendment accepts that a local authority would have no difficulty in judging whether or not material appeared to be designed to affect public support for a political party. If this amendment were carried it would swallow the camel; but it is surely straining at a gnat to say that a local authority cannot also judge that material on the test in the second part of Clause 2(1).
I have set out in some detail why we consider the test that is proposed in Clause 2 to be a fair and objective one. To limit that test in the sense proposed by the amendment would seriously undermine the effectiveness of the prohibition on party political material as a whole. No doubt some of the blatantly party political material which has, sadly, become commonplace in a very small minority of authorities would still be caught. But it is the Government's firm belief that to accept this amendment would remove any effective constraint on the use of public funds to finance at public expense the less immediately obvious but still insidious political publicity which has become increasingly familiar in local government. I have no hesitation in asking the Committee to reject this amendment.
Baroness David: We have had a long debate on this amendment and I shall certainly not take up much of the Committee's time now. The Minister spent a great deal of time on the courts, on what would happen in the courts, and on what the judges would be able to do, and the judgment of the local authorities about whether they would be taken to court or not. My noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan answered the early comments from the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne,
538
and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and also dealt with the question of reasonableness and the Companies Act.
What those who object to the amendment seem to have forgotten is the effect of this Bill on the local authority associations. They have all objected to the length to which the Government have gone in drafting the Bill, and so have the voluntary organisations. These are not made up of foolish people. They are not frightened of nothing. When the Minister says that the Bill is not directed at the voluntary organisations but the local authorities, Clause 2(3) of course means that the voluntary organisations can be got at in this way, because a lot of them exist to go in for publicity and informing the public.
I should like to quote a little from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, who, after all, are not a foolish bunch of people. They are frightened by this clause. They say:
"We believe that Part II of the Local Government Bill as presently drafted will prove to be unworkable in the day to day administration of local authorities and have disturbing constitutional implications for local government."
They go on:
"The Clause we consider most potentially litigious is Clause 2 of the Bill, which provides for the making of judgments on the basis of the intention and effect of publicity material, rather than its actual nature. … This provision [in Clause 2(1)] is far too widely drawn."
They go on:
"In any local authority where political control is exercised as in Lord Elton's words"—
at Second Reading—
"'political argument and political commitment are a necessary part of local government', publicity about Council plans or policies might be said to be likely to affect public support for the party having control. If the Clause remains in the Bill as it stands, it is likely to restrict the information which the public receives about Council policies and plans."
The Government have given reassurances and they say what their intentions are, but we do not think that reassurances are enough. We want it to be on the face of the Bill so that they really know what they can do. I shall read out what it says in the Explanatory Memorandum as the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, did.
"Clause 2 prohibits local authorities from publishing, or giving financial or other assistance to another person to publish, material designed to affect public support for a political party."
If Clause 2 did just that we should be happy with it, but it goes much further.
I would ask the Committee to support the amendment, and to give some reassurance by so doing to the local authority associations (all against this clause as it stands), and the voluntary organisations, who again are all against this clause as it stands.
5.6 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 147; Not-Contents, 138.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Aylestone, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Bancroft, L.

Alport, L.

Banks, L.

Amherst, E.

Barnett, L.

Attlee, E.

Bernstein, L.

539

Birk, B.

Kissin, L.

Blease, L.

Leatherland, L.

Blyton, L.

Lincoln, Bp.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Listowel, E.

Bottomley, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Lockwood, B.

Brockway, L.

Longford, E.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Buckmaster, V.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

McNair, L.

Caradon, L.

Mais, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Chandos, V.

Mayhew, L.

Collison, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Crawshaw of Aintree, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Morton of Shuna, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Mountevans, L.

David, B.

Mulley, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Nicol, B.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Northfield, L.

Ogmore, L.

Denington, B.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Diamond, L.

Oram, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Parry, L.

Donoughue, L.

Phillips, B.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Elystan-Morgan, L.

Plant, L.

Ennals, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Ezra, L.

Faithfull, B.

Prys-Davies, L.

Falkender, B.

Raglan, L.

Falkland, V.

Rea, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Reilly, L.

Foot, L.

Rhodes, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Rochester, Bp.

Gallacher, L.

Rochester, L.

Galpern, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Glenamara, L.

Seear, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Seebohm, L.

Grey, E.

Shackleton, L.

Grimond, L.

Shepherd, L.

Hampton, L.

Silkin of Dulwich, L.

Hanworth, V.

Simon, V.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Stallard, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stedman, B.

Hayter, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Henniker, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Heycock, L.

Strauss, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hooson, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hunt, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hunter of Newington, L.

Underhill, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Vernon, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Jacques, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Jeger, B.

Whaddon, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

White, B.

John-Mackie, L.

Wigoder, L.

Kaldor, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Kearton, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

Kilmarnock, L. [Teller.]

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Kirkhill, L.

Kirkwood, L.

Winstanley, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Belstead, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Bessborough, E.

Allerton, L.

Boardman, L.

Ampthill, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Arran, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Auckland, L.

Broxbourne, L.

Bauer, L.

Butterworth, L.

Bellwin, L.

Buxton of Alsa, L.

Beloff, L.

Caccia, L.

540

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Marley, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Merrivale, L.

Cathcart, E.

Mersey, V.

Cawley, L.

Middleton, L.

Chelmer, L.

Milverton, L.

Chelwood, L.

Molson, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Monson, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Cottesloe, L.

Morris, L.

Craigavon, V.

Mottistone, L.

Craigton, L.

Munster, E.

Crathorne, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Nelson of Stafford, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Denning, L.

Onslow, E.

Eccles, V.

Orkney, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Pender, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Elton, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Ferrers, E.

Portland, D.

Fortescue, E.

Radnor, E.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Gainford, L.

Renwick, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Rochdale, V.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Rodney, L.

Gisborough, L.

Romney, E.

Glanusk, L.

Rugby, L.

Glenarthur, L.

St. Davids, V.

Gray of Contin, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Gridley, L.

Selkirk, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Shannon, E.

Grimthorpe, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Somers, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Hankey, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Harvington, L.

Sudeley, L.

Henley, L.

Suffield, L.

Hives, L.

Swansea, L.

Holderness, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Terrington, L.

Hood, V.

Torphichen, L.

Hooper, B.

Torrington, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Trefgarne, L.

Killearn, L.

Trumpington, B.

Kimball, L.

Ullswater, V.

Kimberley, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Vickers, B.

Kinnaird, L.

Vinson, L.

Layton, L.

Vivian, L.

Long, V.

Waldegrave, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Lyell, L.

Westbury, L.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Wolfson, L.

Mancroft, L.

Young, B.

Manton, L.

Young of Graffham, L.

Mar, C.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Margadale, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.16 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing Lord Orr-Ewing moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 18, at beginning insert ("(a)").
The noble Lord said: I shall also speak to Amendment No. 3. The object of this amendment is to try to bring back a provision which existed in the original Bill but which was deleted by the Minister at a very late stage in the Commons debate. He seemed to be having some difficulty with Opposition criticism and agreed to delete it from the Bill. I think this was unfortunate and so do some of my noble friends, because it has tended to weaken the Bill quite

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alarmingly. By taking it out local authorities are allowed to give money to bodies which may be indentified with political parties. It will, for example, allow a local authority to give large sums of money to groups attacking Government policies on privatisation, on housing, on defence, or perhaps the National Health Service.
We have to remember that it is not just political parties which spend a lot of money. The GLC, for example, used to give considerable sums to CND. CND is not a political party, although it may be allied with the militant Left in the Labour party in some places. It was worked out by Professor Regan of Nottingham University that with CND support the anti-nuclear zones campaign cost no less than £10 million of which a large amount was spent on publicity.
It would seem that the clause originally drafted by the Government is necessary. It would be a devastating blow to the Local Government Bill if it remained out. It would slow down exposure of corruption in political propaganda on the rates and this would tend to continue. We are asking for the reintroduction of the subsection which would prevent local authorities from using ratepayers' money for such operations as CND and financing certain publicity. I was recently looking at one of the CND leaflets called, Thirty questions and answers about CND. CND claims that it is political but not party political.
I concede that it is difficult to frame words which will catch those who are trading on the rates and using a great deal of publicity and not catch those who are behaving honourably in every way. I should like to point out that by taking this provision out the Government have, perhaps inadvertently, weakened Clause 3 because it refers back to everything that is in Clause 2(1) and was in Clause 2(1)(a) and (b) before the amendment.
I hope the Government will think seriously about this. I and others have had a large number of representations on it. The deletion would seem a strange weakening of the Bill and one which could give too much liberty to the wrong-doers in these areas. I am not pretending that the majority are wrong-doers, but we are aware of the problems of Liverpool. I was interested to see objections made because the speech of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter named someone. I thought that the Leader of the Labour Party had been naming Derek Hatton in no mean way on television and elsewhere in recent days. No one seemed to object to that naming. However, there are wrong-doers and we know it. Everyone knows it. No genuine Labour democrat, wherever he may sit, would wish to see this kind of corruption and huge grants being levied and ladled out to those who are trying to twist the system.
I should point out to those in local government and also to the goodwilled in this House, who believe in the best they know rather than in the worst in humanity, that these wrongdoers are very light-footed. They are very well advised by clever lawyers generally of rather Left-wing persuasion. They are very well equipped to drive a coach and horses through any little loophole that may appear. I should urge my noble friend to look again at this and perhaps bring back the provision at a later stage of this Bill.
Lord Denning: Perhaps I may say a word in support of this amendment. It seems to me that the clause as it stands in the Bill is likely to produce much difficulty of interpretation. It is very necessary to have everything in this Bill clear for the judges to decide. If I may say so, the first obscurity occurs in the words, "political party". The courts will have to define and say what is a "political party". Of course, there is no difficulty about those who are represented in this Chamber or in another place, or those who are represented on local authorities, or the candidates themselves, or those who represent political parties. But then if one goes beyond the parties in this Chamber and in the other place, what does one do with all the many other organisations which may come into question? What will one do with the National Front? What does one do with the Communist Party? What will one do with the Militant Tendency? I can mention hundreds of examples, such as the National Council for Civil Liberties. There are all kinds of them. Are they political parties or not?
The Church of England is a party but it is not, I hope, a political one. What about the party for Saving our Sunday? It is a political issue in this Chamber. Is Saving our Sunday a political party? The words "political party" are completely ambiguous. Judges will have the greatest difficulty in deciding what they apply to unless they restrict them to the political parties as known in Parliament and in local government. Thus the courts may feel constrained to limit political parties in that way. If political parties are so limited, surely it is very necessary to have the matter explained by an amendment such as that now put forward. That is because I suggest that one can tell a party only by its objectives.
I should have said that the CND was a political party because of its objectives, or maybe the anti-Fascists, or whatever one may like to call them. There are dozens of parties which I suggest are political and therefore should be controlled. For instance, take the councillors in Liverpool. Are they allowed to provide the funds of the city in favour of those who are of militant tendencies? It is in order to clear up such ambiguities as that, that I think there should be some amendment—not necessarily in these words but one like that which the noble Lord, Lord On-Ewing, proposes.
If a body is identified in its objectives with a political party, then one should tell the court so. Otherwise one may find them limited a great deal. In other words, I urge an amendment on these lines to make it clear to the judges what they are to do and how they are to decide. I appeal for more clarity in this provision affecting political parties. Accordingly, I support the amendment.
Lord Mottistone: Perhaps I may briefly support my noble friend's amendment in principle. I am not quite sure that the wording meets exactly what he argues. I hope that perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench can explain to us why this provision was withdrawn in another place and whether he has something more cogent to go in its place.
I think the key matter is not misuse of ratepayers' money on activities which are probably party political in the sense that we know party politics both in

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Parliament and in local government, but in regard to bodies which are clearly of an extreme political kind. Such a body may, in one way or another, receive money from the ratepayer who in no way has been asked if he wants to support some extreme Left- or Right-wing organisation. He has been asked only if he will vote for a particular party of the ordinary kind in his local government.
I should have thought it was very important to widen Clause 2(1) to make quite certain that this potential misspending of ratepayers' money on bodies that they have probably never even heard of before an election is covered by this Bill.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: I am a little worried about this. I agree in general with what the noble Lord is trying to do in 99 cases out of 100. Today I am just running into the hundredth in relation to our inner city areas. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is forming task forces. These task forces have to go into the inner city areas and try to persuade young blacks, who hate the police—really hate them and often have quite good reason to—and who regard the Government and the establishment as wholly hostile to themselves, to change their opinions. This has been done elsewhere and I think we may succeed in doing it here.
However, we must do it by putting a good deal of money into groups and getting them to help themselves. If one asks a local authority, who must be involved, to put money into a group of this kind, it seems to me that it can perfectly honestly answer, "There is not a single man here who is not a Maoist"—or whatever the definition is—"Why should I help them?"
I think my case is perfectly clear. Clearly, one wants to help these people to change. One cannot do it without giving them money, and it seems to me that this amendment may make it impossible for one to do so. I am expressing a worry, not more than that, but I believe it needs thinking about.
Lord Elton: I have a certain sense of déja vu, starting a Local Government Bill in your Lordships' Chamber with a defeat on the first amendment. That said, I turn to the matter in hand. This amendment effectively proposes a new Clause 2(1)(b), broadly on the lines of the subsection in the Bill originally introduced in another place. As my noble friend Lord On-Ewing has explained, when Clause 2 was originally drafted there were two subsections in Clause 2(1). It went beyond the present wording and stated in 2(1)(b) that a local authority should not publish material which appeared to be designed to affect or could reasonably be regarded as likely to affect public support for,
"a body, cause or campaign identified with, or likely to be regarded as identified with, a political party".
My noble friend has put forward an amendment which does not quite restore the original wording but which nevertheless carries approximately the same message.
My noble friend Lord On-Ewing is aware that Clause 2(1)(b) was removed from the Bill by a Government amendment in another place. My honourable friend there (who I shall now describe as the Minister for Environment, Countryside and Local
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Government, but for reasons of time shall in future refer to only as either the Minister for Local Government or simply my honourable friend) explained in Committee that he considered that Clause 2(1)(b) made the Bill's definition of prohibited party political publicity too wide. It was interpreted as going beyond the Government's original intentions. He gave an example of publicity which might have fallen foul of that subsection: an example which may be of particular interest to some Members of the Committee. He expressed fears that local authorities might be prevented from funding publicity by the Coronary Prevention Group to persuade the public to adopt a healthier diet. Such publicity might conceivably fall within the prohibition if the campaign was supported by one political party but not by another.
5.30 p.m.
I think therefore that we were well advised to reconsider the scope of Clause 2 and remove Clause 2(1)(b). We do not want to stop local authorities funding fair-minded publicity on issues which happen to be the subject of controversy between the parties. We have said all along that local authorities, under the provisions of this Bill, should be able to publish material on matters such as rate limitation, abolition of the GLC and metropolitan county councils. Provided that—and this is very relevent to the fears expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, during the last debate; because it seems to me that the removal of this amendment did a great deal to remove the anxiety that he was concerned with and indeed the removal was motivated by exactly his concern—the presentation of these causes is not party political it is not the purpose of the Bill to stop them.
It will perhaps not always be only the councils controlled by the Labour Party that want to do such things and it is well to bear that in mind. When I referred to such things, perhaps I misled Members of the Committee by interpolating a sentence between that one and the one before. What I am saying is that there are plenty of causes which are politically susceptible to support by one party and not by another which are not of themselves political causes and which either party may wish to support. We do not want the Bill to be drafted so as to prevent local authorities in an apolitical way supporting such a cause.
My noble friend expressed concern that Clause 2 as drafted might not prevent local authorities from funding publicity by front organisations pursuing party political objectives. I should like to assure the Committee on this point. Clause 2(3) of the Bill is important because it prevents local authorities from assisting other organisations or individuals to publish party political material. Its precise words are:
"A local authority shall not give financial or other assistance to a person for the publication of material which the authority are prohibited by this section from publishing themselves".
The wording of Clause 2(1) as it originally came to us was effective and to the point and my honourable friend in another place made another technical but I think important point. He pointed out that to add what was proposed, a restricted version of Clause 2(1)(b), would not only make the meaning of the prohibition less clear; it could also serve to weaken it.
This is because the courts will generally construe a statute in a way which gives effect to all the words in it and they would wish therefore to construe Clause 2(1)(b) in that way; and I am advised that there is a danger here because, in order to give effect to Clause 2(1)(a), they might well take a narrower view of Clause 2(1)(a) than they otherwise would have done by taking the second subsection into effect. As we are dealing with points for lawyers, I heard with great interest what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said in his second cogent intervention this afternoon as to the definition of a political party. I think that all I should like to do at the moment is to draw the attention of the noble and learned Lord to the fact that Clause 2(1)(b) is not connected to Clause 2(1)(a) as an exemplification of it but as an alternative. The word in between is "or".
Therefore, although it would provide a definition of the object of the payment of the local authority's money, it would not provide a definition, in my view, of the "political party" which, as he rightly says, does not exist in law. The result of removing Clause 2(1)(b) from the Bill was to remove any implication that it might restrict the interpretation of Clause 2(1)(a) and to allow Clause 2(1)(a) to have its full natural scope. That leaves us with a clear statement of general principle.
To summarise, any material published by a local authority which appeared to be designed to effect support for a body, cause or campaign clearly identified with a political party should be caught by Clause 2(1) in the Bill as drafted. Other assistance to a body whose purpose was to promote a political party would, by virtue of Clause 2(3), be prohibited by the Bill if it were used to finance publicity of a kind that the authority itself was prohibited from funding by virtue of the clause.
Again I look at the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, because I am aware that he is afraid that the effects of this legislation will be to cut off voluntary bodies from funding by local authorities for fear of being caught by some aspect of the Bill. His fear, I hope, has been hugely—and, I suggest with great humility, unduly—allayed by the recent decision of this Committee. But if it remains I would ask him to consider whether he really thinks that it would be a proper use of the money subscribed compulsorily by ratepayers to fund the sort of activities we have now arrived at a definition of, by agreement of the Committee, as being unsuitable for the funding of the local authority. Why should the fact that they are being pursued by a voluntary body suddenly make them acceptable? I am sure that the noble Lord would not think that it did.
What he is afraid of is that some analogous activity which is not party political might be caught. I can assure him—and I am sure that on reading the Bill again he will accept my assurance—that it will not be so caught by this subsection. The test in Clause 2(1) is a strict but fair test, but it has changed since I had made up my mind what to say and I have had only a brief time to consider in the new light the implications of the rest of the clause. So, while not uttering the firm and conclusive, I hope, negative that I had proposed (because I think I ought not to shut any doors at this moment) I have to ask my noble friend if he will be
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kind enough not to press this amendment, because my predisposition at the moment is still against his amendment but I should like time to look at it.
Lord Denning: May I just say one word? I have heard the argument of my noble friend Lord Elton, and there is a great deal in what he says. If we had in Clause 2(1)(b) as proposed it might restrict the width of Clause 2(1)(a)—that is, the political party—and one would not wish to restrict it in any way. It may be better to keep it in in its wide terms as it is at the moment and leave it to the judges to interpret.
I think it is impossible to define the words "political party". It is like an elephant: you can tell it when you see it, but you cannot define what it is, and so it is with "political party". I think the judges will be able to say yea or nay on whether or not the National Front is a political party. Judges will be able to decide this pretty well, so perhaps it is better to leave the clause as in the Bill and not to try too much by way of amendments.
Lord Orr-Ewing: In view of the assurances given, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Obviously the Front Bench would like to look at it in view of the last amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 18, at end insert ("except where the material is published for the purpose of carrying out the duty of the local authority under section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976.").
The noble Lord said: It might be useful if I read the actual provisons of Section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976. Section 71 provides that:
"it shall be the duty of every local authority to make appropriate arrangements with a view to securing that their various functions are caned out with due regard to the need—

(a) to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination; and

(b) to promote equality of opportunity, and good relations, between persons of different racial groups.

I am certain that there is no Member of the Committee in this Chamber who does not agree with the sentiments in that Act. This amendment is essential to ensure that the Bill before us is to be subordinate to the duties placed upon local authorities by that 1976 Act. Speaking in Standing Committee in another place on the 10th November, the honourable Mr. Waldegrave, the Minister concerned, said at col. 169 of Hansard:
"Certainly local authorities have a statutory power to do anything incidental to the carrying out of their statutory duties."
It is our view that unless this amendment is agreed that statement could be in danger.
Many local authorities have used publicity material to fulfil their statutory duties under the 1976 Race Relations Act. Further, most community relations councils are funded at least in part by their particular local authority. It must be stressed also that the Commission for Racial Equality, which I emphasise is a statutory body, also helps the funding of community relations councils.
The Commission has expressed its own concern with the provisions in Clause 2 and the memorandum, which I am sure other noble Lords as well as myself will have received, stated that this Clause 2 and also Clause 3:
"may damage progress towards racial equality."

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It continues:
"The restrictions contemplated would prevent bodies such as the CRCs from carrying out essential work. The restrictions could also hamper local authorities promoting racial equality work."
A local authority could be held to contravene the political test which we have debated already in subsection (1) because such publicity material could be construed as illegal if it affects public support for a political party. We must remember that there are the National Front and the British National Party. Far be if from me to give a legal interpretation of what is a political party; but the National Front contests elections and parliamentary elections and I think the British National Party has done so on occasions.
Publicity issued by a local authority in carrying out its duties under the Race Relations Act could be caught by subsections (a) and (b) in subsection (2). They could also be affected by subsection (3) in so far as a local authority may finance, if only in part, a community relations council or black or ethnic minority voluntary organisations, which themselves issue publicity to counter racist propaganda.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has stated that it has legal advice to the effect that, for instance, the National Front could and probably would have a field day challenging financial assistance given by a local authority on the grounds that the community relations council's publicity material would affect public support for their political party. I remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, saying that it is the effect on people reading the particular material that is important.
On Second Reading on the 4th February, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said this at col. 1092 of Hansard:
"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".
The first point I would make is that the Government's good intentions do not necessarily guarantee good legislation. It is what the courts will determine. There are lawyers, including those advising the Commission for Racial Equality, who take a different view from the Government's lawyers. There is clearly room for doubt. That doubt must be removed, and that is what I believe the amendment will do.
5.45 p.m.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred to direct attacks on a particular position. Clearly, the particular position of the extremist parties concerned is a racist one; and attacking racists in general or one or other racist policies in particular could, if successful, possibly appear to be designed to affect public support for racist parties. It suggested that there is a wide gulf between promoting racial equality or dealing with race relations questions and attacking the particular position of, say, the National Front.
On behalf of the Opposition, I would say that there is no difference. There are occasions when community relations councils' or voluntary bodies' campaigns against racism bring them to a campaign against particular political manifestations. In particular,
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campaigns have been waged against particular meetings or marches and have called for the banning of such events. These campaigns often require that the extremists be named, for instance, in leaflets, posters or press releases. I have in front of me an article which appeared in the Observer only last Sunday, 16th February. Other noble Lords may have seen it. It says, "Racists turn on schoolchildren"; and it commences,
"An alarming rise in racist attacks on schoolchildren has been blamed on the National Front and other right wing groups. Teenage victims have been subjected to verbal abuse and physical violence".
The article goes on to say that their own investigations reveal that the National Front and the British National Party have been active around schools in London, Bradford and Manchester, where some of the worst racial attacks have been reported. Later in the article it says:
"Last December the NUT warned its members that the National Front was renewing efforts to gain influence among children".
One of my own grandchildren in a quiet little area of Devon was subjected to having a leaflet handed to him, along with others, going to a comprehensive school in Devon. I mention this because local authorities in these areas may consider it necessary themselves to issue leaflets, warning parents about the interference of the National Front in connection with their children. Community relations councils may decide to do that, and they could come within the provisions of this Bill as it is drafted at present.
This amendment in no way seeks to change the declared purpose of the Bill. What it does is to tie down the proviso to the carrying out of the duty imposed on local authorities by the 1976 Act. That Act demonstrated that good race relations and the elimination of racism were activities which it is the proper concern of the state to promote. The amendment makes this Bill subordinate to that Act so as to make the restrictions on publicity it contains subordinate to the promotion of that accepted public good. I hope that your Lordships will support this essential amendment.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: I obviously recognise the concern expressed by the noble Lord opposite. We would certainly not wish to prevent local authorities issuing or funding publicity that promoted good race relations. We recognise the duty which is set out in statute, to which the noble Lord has referred.
However, we have to look at this amendment in the light of Clause 2(1) as it now stands. I would say to the noble Lord opposite—because he made some refererence to the Commission for Racial Equality's representations—that I understand the exception which is sought here was suggested by them in the event that Clause 2 was not amended to be more narrowly worded than it was when we started this afternoon. That is made abundantly plain by the fact that at another part of the same document they refer to their interpretation of Clause 2 and to the fact that anything said on the merits of the issue could
"reasonably be regarded as likely to affect"
public support for a political party. That phrase has been excised, as a result of this Committee's decision a short time ago.
However, I would say two things, which are more to the point. First, the amendment is unnecessary, as I

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think my noble friend Lord Elton explained at Second Reading, because we consider that the courts would not hold that material promoting racial equality or dealing with race relations questions would be prohibited. Indeed, I suggest that the courts would construe the clause as it now stands in the light of the purpose of the provision, bearing in mind the statutory duties on local authorities and the considerations to which they are required to have regard, which are set out in Clause 2(2). The courts would be able to draw a distinction between material which provides objective information and promotes good race relations, on the one hand, and material which openly attacks the National Front, on the other.
That brings me to an important point. The amendment proposed would exclude all material promoting good race relations from the prohibition on party political publicity. There is a basic principle at stake here. If, as Clause 2(1) sets out, the prohibition is to be that a local authority shall not publish any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party, on what basis can material which does that very thing be justified as an exception? I should have thought—as I understand all noble Lords accept—if the principle is that all such material is objectionable, that to provide an exception here—that the material within Section 71 of the 1976 Act should be excluded—would effectively drive a coach and horses through that principle.
I suggest to the noble Lord opposite that, in the light of the manner in which Clause 2(1) now stands, together with the consequential amendment to Clause 2(2), he might wish to reconsider the position. It seems to me that what is being sought, and the point that was being made by the Commission for Racial Equality have effectively been met by the earlier decision of the Committee this afternoon.
Lord Winstanley: May I intervene on that point? The noble and learned Lord appears to be suggesting that, since certain words have now been taken out of this clause, these words in this amendment are no longer necessary. Is he therefore saying that the Government will not seek to re-insert those words which have been taken out?
Lord Elton: It may be appropriate, as I am in charge of the Bill in the Committee, if I may say that plainly the amendment was carried against the wishes of the Government. I cannot therefore give any undertaking whatsoever to the Committee that the Government will not wish to reinstate it. But that is a decision that has to be made in another place.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: Perhaps I may also respond to one point which was made by the noble Lord opposite. I should like to make it abundantly plain that we are not in any way intending to place a gag upon bodies such as local community relations councils. If such a council wishes to put out publicity which directly attacks the National Front, this Bill does not prevent it from doing so. That is perfectly plain. A council itself is free to produce such publicity, provided that that publicity and that material is not funded by the local authority for that purpose. That is a point which I wish to make absolutely plain. A
550
council must use its own money and it is important that we make the distinction between public and private funds.
As I said, we are confident that the promotion of good race relations and the general duties of local authorities under Section 71 of the Race Relations Act will not be undermined by anything in this Bill, and we do not believe that material that knocks down racist arguments should be excepted from the provisions of Clause 2(1), if it be material which is published by a local authority and which is designed to affect public support for a political party. I hope I have made that abundantly plain.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: Before the Minister sits down, I should be very grateful if he could deal with one matter which causes a great deal of worry to us on these Benches. It is purely a matter of legal interpretation and it is something which is part and parcel of Amendment No. 5. But since we have not yet come to Amendment No. 5, is the Minister saying that it is the view of the Government that an attack upon a political party is not to be regarded as something which falls within the scope of the now amended Clause 2(1)? If that is so, then it may well be—I cannot speak for my noble friend Lord Underhill—that this amendment can be looked at in a different light for, as the Minister has said, there will be occasions when what has to be attacked is not merely an idea but the body or organisation propagating that idea: for example, the National Front.
If it be that an attack upon the National Front would be regarded as by way of equal and opposite effect, as it were, engendering public support for a political party under Clause 2(1), then the very situation described by my noble friend Lord Underhill is caught by this. If, on the other hand, it be that an attack upon a political party is not to be so regarded—and I appreciate that I am anticipating events in discussing the content of Amendment No. 5—the situation is wholly different. I am sure the Minister will forgive me for intervening in this way. It is a matter about which we are genuinely concerned and which seems to hinge upon that particular interpretation.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: I hoped I had made it clear why we considered that the amendment was unnecessary, if what was being done was in pursuance of the duty under Section 71 of the Race Relations Act. What I was saying was that if the material about race relations, which was paid for at public expense, was used as a platform for a party political attack then however abhorrent are the policies of the National Front—and I think we are all agreed about that—it would in the Government's view be wrong to allow party political material which attacked the National Front and which was produced at the ratepayers' expense to be used for that purpose.
It is for that reason that I say it would be wrong to allow this exception to be introduced into the Bill, because the result of it would be that some material which would constitute an attack upon a political party and which was otherwise prohibited would be allowed, whereas material which did not appear to be designed as an attack upon a political party, although it was prepared for the purposes of the Race Relations

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Act obligation, would not. We say that that would be outside the mischief which this Bill is intended to attack. It is for that reason that I suggest to the Committee that this amendment should not be pressed further.
Lord Denning: I think that the local authorities may well be able to do their positive duty under the Race Relations Act—namely, to promote good relations and so forth—and still obey the negative duty that they must not indulge in political propaganda. It is a very narrow line. It is a very difficult matter for the courts to decide where the line should be drawn. Perhaps the safer way would be to include the amendment. But I should like it to be considered to get the matter quite clear on what should be done; perhaps by some other amendment later.
6 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: Before the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, comes to reply and to make up his mind as to what course to pursue, I should like to say just a brief word on the amendment as one of the signatories to it. So far in Committee we have become a little too preoccupied about what might or might not happen in certain circumstances in the courts. What really matters is what, when the Bill becomes an Act, local authorities will do and what they may not do. That is very much more important; indeed, I think it is extremely unlikely that the courts will be greatly troubled in the matter. All these arguments about how learned judges will interpret this or interpret that seem to me not to be the real issue. What to me is the real issue is whether the Bill will stop local authorities doing with public money some things which all of us in all parts of the Committee are agreed they should not be doing, but also whether the Bill could stop local authorities doing some things which they have a duty clearly to do. That was our problem with an earlier amendment and it is now our problem here.
Earlier the noble and learned Lord in reply said that the Bill as it stood was clearly in accordance with the recommendations of the Widdicombe Report. It was not.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: That is right.
Lord Winstanley: The Widdicombe Report made it perfectly clear that with the retention of certain words which are not now deleted local authorities would not then be able to do things which Widdicombe considered local authorities should actually do. Here it is a question of us putting words into the Bill so that there is not the risk, which I think would exist were those words not put in, that local authorities might be disinclined to do something which they ought actually to do. I believe that without the words which are in the amendment, or without some other kind of clarification or reassurance, there is a genuine danger that local authorities might be disinclined to carry out work of this kind which I believe, and which all of us wherever we sit in the Committee believe, local authorities should do.
Perhaps I may go further because there is the relationship when we extend this to subsection (3) with
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regard to voluntary bodies and financial assistance for voluntary bodies. We have at the moment a government who, rightly or wrongly, recognise and understand that there are many things locally which ought to be done which cannot now be done by local authorities. We understand, for example, that many of the duties which fall on social services departments cannot be effectively fulfilled. The Government's avowed policy at the moment—I do not necessarily say it is a policy with which I disagree—is that we are perforce in that circumstance bound to rely more and more heavily on voluntary bodies of one kind or another. Those voluntary bodies can function only if they receive help—practical help and financial help—from local government.
Many of the functions referred to in this amendment are matters which probably will be dealt with to a very considerable degree by certain voluntary bodies. Those voluntary bodies will need assistance, financial and otherwise, from local authorities. I merely say this to the Committee: please do not let us get too bogged down with what a learned judge is or is not going to say at the end of the day about something. I hope, and I think we all hope, that not many of these cases will come to the courts. Let us remember that the wording of the Bill might have a profound effect not only on what local authorities do—by stopping them from doing things which they should not do—but if we are not extremely careful it might discourage local authorities from doing some very necessary things which we all think they ought to do. That is why I think that these words should be in.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I feel that the situation has been entirely changed by the decision of the Committee earlier this afternoon. When I read the Marshalled List this morning I had very considerable sympathy with this amendment because one realises that the functions of local authorities under the Race Relations Act are delicate and can well impinge on political situations. But that danger could have arisen only if the words,
"likely to affect public support for a political party",
had remained in the Bill. The Committee has decided, rightly or wrongly, that they shall not, and therefore the only type of material which could now be caught by Clause 2 is that which,
"in whole or in part appears to be designed to affect … support for a political party".
Any action plainly designed to support or oppose a political party is, as I the Committee generally agrees, rightly to be banned by the Bill. It does not stretch the imagination too far to suggest that a local authority, determined if it can to get round the provisions of the Bill—as I said to the Committee on an earlier amendment, there are quite a number of local authorities which will certainly be that—might very well purport to act under Section 71 of the Race Relations Act but put into it a good deal of material designed to affect political support.
I do not think that that is too remote a danger, and I believe that it would be a mistake to overlook it. The really difficult problem, which worried me when I read the Bill earlier, is that perfectly genuine and sincere action under Section 71 might be caught on the basis that it was reasonably thought,
"likely to affect public support".

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This has now gone. It therefore seems that as the Bill now stands the noble Lord opposite should withdraw the amendment. If, as may be the case—obviously, I have no idea whether or not it will be the case—steps are taken to repair the damage done to the Bill by the Committee's earlier decision then it will be appropriate to put down the amendment again. It may well be that it would have a more favourable reception. But as of now it seems not only otiose but rather dangerous.
Lord Silkin of Dulwich: I agree very much with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and I disagree with the remarks which have just been made. As it appears to me, it is not, I agree, a question of what ultimately the courts are likely to find in a particular case; what in practice happens—we are talking now I hope about sensible local authorities and not about extremist local authorities—is that if they want to do something, if they want to issue some document, which is what we are concerned with, they will be advised by their officers whether they can do so within the law. In a case that may be a borderline one their officers are probably going to take legal advice.
The legal advice—and I speak from a great deal of personal experience on this matter—will very often be that there is a very real danger, because whatever your real intention may be—the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, was right to draw attention to that—what is said in the Act is that they must not publish material which,
"appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party".
That will be the question to which the lawyers advising on whether they can safely publish the material will address their minds. "Is there a chance that the court might take the view that this document appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party?" If there is such a chance, the lawyers are very likely to say to them, "I would not take the risk if I were you because if you take the risk there is at least a real chance that in time to come you will be surcharged, that you may be disqualified, and why take a risk in doing so?" As a result of that, a document which could be very valuable where the purpose is quite genuinely not the purpose which the Act is designed to cover, cannot be given effect to because of that doubt. It seems to me that we ought not to put local authority members and local authority officers in that kind of position if, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said a moment ago, it is possible to make the matter absolutely clear by including in the Bill a provision that does make it clear.
Lord Mottistone: When a lawyer is giving advice, surely he does not refer to only one Act of Parliament that is relevant to the matter. If the particular material relates to race relations then surely the lawyer will refer to the Race Relations Act as much as to the provisions of this Bill when it becomes an Act. He will take the whole of the legal advice in the round.
I do not see why we should make a single exception for Section 71 of the Race Relations Act. There must be dozens of similar provisions that could be included here. If someone produces material on some other subject, the lawyers advising on whether or not that
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material would fall foul of the law will look at all the relevant legislation. They would not narrow their minds and look at just one Act. I know that the noble Lord is more experienced in the law than I am, but I believe that what I have said is reasonable.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: Those of us who have been associated with community relations work are worried in a particular way. The lawyers have said in effect that material that criticises racialist attitudes could be interpreted as being designed to undermine support for the National Front. The Minister himself has just said that if one attacks the National Front directly, then that would be illegal under the Act.
What worries us is that when the CRC's were being set up—and I had a great deal to do with that—they were meant to serve as a partnership between central government, through the CRCs, and local government, through the local authorities. We had many battles with local authorities in getting them to make their contributions. As time passed, more and more local authorities made contributions, but there are still some that make very few. There are still local authorities that make a contribution only grudgingly. Frankly, what is worrying to a person like myself is that if some local authorities that are at present making contributions but are doing so only grudgingly, are told "You may have some problems with your CRC and you would be wiser not to make a grant", then such authorities would stop giving grants. That is why I was grateful to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, say that it would be safer to make the proposed amendment.
The amendment could do no harm. It may well be as the Minister said, that the amendment is unnecessary, but it can do no harm. The danger is that if the amendment is not made some harm might be done because of the way in which Clause 2 is interpreted and that, as a consequence, community relations councils may find themselves in financial difficulties. I hope that the Government will take the amendment on board in that spirit.
Lord Broxbourne: Before my noble and learned friend the Minister comes to reply, can he amplify that which was said in reply to the point that was made so cogently and succinctly by my noble friend Lord Mottistone? He argued that the matter should be looked at in the round and having regard to all relevant statutory provisions, whether or not they were specified.
As my noble and learned friend knows so well, there is in law a principle known as expressio unius exclusio alterius. In applying that principle, it occurs to me—and having listened, with respect, to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Mottistone—that if Amendment No. 4 is adopted with its express reference to one statute then that would be to exclude all other statutes from consideration. It would be a question simply of considering this Bill and the Race Relations Act. That does not seem to be a very workmanlike approach. The Committee should be grateful to my noble friend for raising that point, and it will be grateful also to my noble and learned friend for any comments he may be able to make.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Hayter: I believe that the Comittee probably wants to get this matter settled and so I will cut short my own observations. It is not a question, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, of whether a voluntary organisation of any kind will put out publicity designed to support a body such as the National Front. It is the other way around.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: If the noble Lord will allow me, I did not say anything about a voluntary body putting out information. I referred to a local authority and a purported exercise of its duties under Section 71 of the Race Relations Act, in putting into such material party political propaganda. I said nothing whatsoever about voluntary bodies.
Lord Hayter: But the noble Lord did use the word "support". That is not our point at all—it is the other way around. Let me give the Committee an example. In October 1985 Wellingborough Community Relations Council, partly funded by the district council, wrote to the head teacher of a local school urging him to withdraw an invitation to a National Front member to talk to pupils of the school. The letter stated:
"Whereas all other political parties you have invited accept the reality (and future) of Britain as a multi-racial society, the National Front does not … By inviting the National Front to your school you add respectability and social acceptability to them as a so-called 'political party'."
I would take it that as the Bill is now drafted, such would be illegal. It is because of that situation that it is felt that the words in the amendment should be added.
I have received also legal advice from the Commission for Racial Equality, which says that:
"The public stance of CRCs on many equality issues would be in opposition to many of the policies of a political party like the National Front and would, inevitably, affect support for such a party".
That is the wording we have to bear in mind.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations states:
"Many community relations councils play a vital role in publicising the effects of racism and countering the arguments of racist organisations, including the National Front … The Bill was patently not aimed at them, yet this clause would put in peril any reliance by CRCs on local authority finance for publicity. The National Front could (and probably would) have a field day challenging such financial assistance on the grounds that CRC publicity material would affect public support for them, or could reasonably be regarded as likely to affect support for them".
That is our point.
At the time of the Bill's Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, stated:
"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".—[Official Report, 4/2/86; col. 1092.]
Unfortunately, that statement does not provide the reassurance we are seeking. First, as I have said, some lawyers take a different view from the Government's lawyers; secondly, there are occasions when community relations councils need to produce material that itself directly attacks a particular
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position of the National Front. I do not suppose that anybody here would like to prevent the CRCs from doing so. There is no harm in making it absolutely plain that, so far as race relations are concerned, we have inserted this additional phrase so as to make matters quite clear.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: Perhaps I could make one or two remarks in view of the expanded debate that has taken place. I think it is perhaps important once again just to bear in mind how the clause presently stands. It states—and I shall abbreviate:
"A local authority shall not publish any material which … appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party".
We have all agreed that the test shall be applied to the material itself. We are also agreed that it would be wrong that a local authority should intentionally publish material if it appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party after it is published.
We are concerned about the Race Relations Act and the duties under it, but as my noble friends Lord Mottistone and Lord Broxbourne on the Benches behind me have just reminded us, local authorities have other duties which they have to carry out, and would have to carry out, against the background of this Bill. I think the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, can appreciate as well as I can the force of the argument that if you make an exception in relation to a duty under one Act, that would suggest that when carrying out duties under other Acts, which might have precisely the same questions arising, they are not so excepted. It seems to me, from what I was saying in relation to the way the test is put and accepted, certainly by those who put forward the amendment at an earlier stage, that it would be wrong to have an exception of this character.
I had intended, and did say, that we are of the view that promotion of good race relations and general duties of local authorities under the Act would not be undermined by anything in this Bill. I took as my example of a possibility where material which would be excluded should be caught by the principle the policies of the National Front; I took that merely as an example. I think your Lordships could well comprehend other areas where it could be said that what appeared to be carrying out duties under the Race Relations Act might, in fact, be a cover for an intentional attack upon other political parties.
It seems to me that in the light of what happened earlier we ought to consider the point at which we have now arrived. There are quite clearly dangers in having such an exception. I think that one noble Lord said earlier that another form of words might perhaps be better. I would certainly say that this form of words, for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Broxbourne, carries with it great dangers. We are obviously concerned not to impose upon a local authority anything which would hinder it in properly carrying out its duties under the multifarious Acts with which it must comply.
I am very concerned that this kind of exception, apart from the fact that it seems to me to make a very substantial breach in what I understood to be the principle which was generally accepted in all parts of the House, also has other implications and it might be

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better to consider all these points before we reach the next stage. Certainly as far as the Government are concerned we have heard new points and we certainly wish to consider the matter further in the light of that.
Lord Underhill: I am naturally disappointed with the Government's reply. I am certain it is not because the Government do not have sympathy with the question of race relations. I am certain that their views are as strong as those of any other section of your Lordships' House. When I moved the amendment I deliberately used the wording of Clause 2(1) as amended by your Lordships' decision this afternoon:
"appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party".
I deliberately used those words, leaving out the words which your Lordships deleted by carrying the amendment. The noble Lord the Minister referred to the memorandum of the Commission for Racial Equality. I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, quoted from that memorandum, which I have here. It does not confine itself solely to the words which your Lordships deleted this afternoon. It goes far beyond that. As the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, said, the commission would support the amendment I have moved.
Most publicity material which a local authority, community relations council, or one of the other voluntary bodies to which I have referred, may wish to issue in connection with the Race Relations Act 1976 must inevitably deal with the issue of racialism and in that respect affect support for those organisations and parties which support racialism. I am not a lawyer but that seems to be common sense. I am pleased that two noble legal opinions in the form of a former Master of the Rolls and a former Attorney-General have both supported the general principle of this amendment, which justifies my going through with the amendment.
It appears to me that it would be easier for the courts to decide any issue that might be referred to them if they are confined to the points of the Race Relations Act than if reference to that was not in the Bill. The amendment solely refers to the exception of the provisions of the Race Relations Act. I am certain it is the wish of the Committee that we ought to safeguard any local authority that wishes to embark upon publicity to deal with the question of racism.
Before concluding may I remind your Lordships of Sunday's Observer article on racism affecting our children. What are we going to do about that? Unless we include this amendment, if a local authority acts it will find itself in difficulty in the courts for the simple reason that it will affect public support for a political party; and no one can deny that the National Front is a political party in that it contests many seats at general elections. I am sorry that the Government cannot accept the amendment, but I am certain that noble Lords will wish to do so.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: Before the noble Lord sits down, will he allow me to ask him a question on a matter of information? He made reference to a document which was received from the Commission for Racial Equality. I made reference to that earlier, and in particular to paragraph 15 of that document,
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because this is what I understood the commission to be saying at that point. It said:
"Unless clauses 2 and 3 are amended to be more narrowly worded than at present"—
it was dealing with Clause 2 as it stood when we started this afternoon—
"the Commission seek a general exception for local authority activities undertaken or local authority funding given with a view to working towards the elimination of racial discrimination or to promoting equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups generally in the area of the authority."
The reason why I raised this point is that I understood from what was said in that paragraph that the commission was not concerned if a narrower wording was achieved. It is in that light that I made certain suggestions to your Lordships which I am sure the noble Lord opposite fully understood: that in view of what has been said already this afternoon we ought perhaps to reconsider the whole matter against the more general points that have been made. I wanted to make clear that we were quoting from the same document, so that there is no dubiety in our understanding.
Lord Underhill: I thank the noble and learned Lord for referring to paragraph 15. I can, of course, refer to other paragraphs which are much wider. I believe there is general sympathy for what we are aiming at in this amendment and naturally we want to carry something on those lines. If the Minister is not only prepared to have a look at this but agrees to have consultations before the next stage of the Bill, I would be prepared not to press the amendment.
Naturally we must have consultations because the Commission for Racial Equality is interested in this, voluntary organisations are interested in it and so are local authority associations. Can the Minister say whether he will be prepared to ensure that there are adequate consultations before the next stage, in which case I shall not press the amendment tonight?
6.30 p.m.
Lord Elton: The noble Lord is seeking to impose on the Government a procedure which is far from precise. My noble and learned friend has quite clearly said that this is an issue which the Government wish to consider between now and Report stage. That is normally an offer which is accepted by an Opposition which wishes to move an amendment but the Government are acutely unhappy with the wording proposed and without commitment agree to consider the issue as well as the wording to see if something can be arranged—and that is said without commitment.
The noble Lord seems to be proposing that there should be quasi non-statutory consultation. I can undertake that any consideration we give to this matter will be done in the light of the views of the bodies which have an interest and have expressed it. I cannot give an open-ended undertaking to consult everybody because, quite frankly, there is not time between one stage of the Bill and another. It normally takes six or eight weeks.
If the noble Lord is satisfied with the normal, conventional undertaking to consider in good faith the amendment proposed both in its present form and in

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other possible forms between now and Report, I should have thought that that was a generous and acceptable offer and that the noble Lord could safely take it away.
Lord Underhill: The offer that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has made is one that I am prepared to accept. I think that noble Lords will recognise that we wish the Government to come forward with something which will assist the local authorities and the community relations councils in carrying out their proper work as laid down in the 1976 Act. We should expect to see something coming forward at Report stage. Therefore, in those circumstances I agree to withdraw the amendment, but we reserve the right ourselves to come forward if the Government do not move satisfactorily.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 22, leave out second ("to") and insert ("makes its point by the promotion or denigration of").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 5. Clause 2(2) contains two paragraphs which identify particular points to which in the first instance the local authority and ultimately the courts have to have, respectively, "particular regard" and "regard".
This amendment relates to the first paragraph—Clause 2(2)(a):
"particular regard shall be had to whether the material refers to a political party or to persons identified with a political party".
The first half of this paragraph—reference to a political party—is unexceptionable; we have no objection to it. There have been a very small number of instances of authorities using the names of parties on literature—for example, a leaflet from the Liverpool City Council referred to the "Labour City Council". It could well be that any challenge to such literature under the existing common law would show it to be unlawful, and thus a statutory declaration of the present law in subsection (1) would of course cover the point.
There can be no real objection to the Bill drawing attention to this point, though it might be said that reference to a political party is likely to be so clearly unlawful that it is unnecessary. However, the second item contained within Clause 2(2)(a)—"persons identified with a political party"—is highly undesirable. It addresses a quite different point. It is not clear what is meant by "persons identified with a political party". It could well be that any councillor who is elected under a party-political label could be regarded as being identified with that party; even more so, the mayor or the leader of a council or the chairman of an important committee. Any council wants to keep its electorate reasonably well informed about what it is doing. This provision could mean that a local council's newsletter could not feature the opening of a housing scheme or a school extension by a councillor, or for that matter by a government Minister.
On the other hand, it could be that the courts would interpret "persons identified with a political party" more narrowly to mean so identified in the minds of
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the electorate. That might mean that it would be all right for the council's newsletter to feature a ceremony involving an unknown back-bench councillor but not the committee chairman or the leader; or it might mean that the leader of the Sheffield or Westminster City Councils could not perform the ceremony, or sign the preface to a leaflet or the annual report, but that the leader of an obscure rural district who is unknown nationally could do so.
Even if the test in Clause 2(1) is restricted to the apparent design test, as it is now since the first amendment was passed, it can be seen that the presence of this potentially wide and extremely vague "particular regard" item could serve at best to muddy the newly clarified waters. If Clause 2(1) remains unamended, the range of publications which this paragraph will cover will be that much larger and its consequences that much more unfortunate. However, the paragraph does attempt to address a genuine concern which has been expressed by Widdicombe—and it is a concern that we accept. The committee was worried about publicity where:
"A point is conveyed by reference to well known politicians".
The committee no doubt had in mind examples of publicity which contained "knocking copy" directed, for instance, at government Ministers, and used that to make its point.
The amendment attempts to address this particular concern without all the consequences that I have just described. The amendment changes the point at which the "particular regard" bites, from "refers" to the specific Widdicombe concern with making a point by reference to a politician. To make things clearer still, we have avoided this use of a vague form—refers"—and have said,
"makes its point by the promotion or denigration of"
a politician. It must be remembered that publicity knocking a party or person can be just as effective as publicity in favour of a party or person. That is why we have put in "promotion or denigration". I beg to move.
Lord Elton: I am a little puzzled by what the noble Baroness has said. I thought I understood her position before she started speaking, but I am not quite so certain that I do now. However, as this is almost invariably the effect of my own speeches, I extend to her the usual sympathy.
The amendment which she has moved proposes a relatively small adjustment to Clause (2)(2)(a), which is the part of the clause concerning the prohibition of party political publicity which states that:
"In determining whether material falls within the prohibition … particular regard shall be had to whether the material refers to a political party or to persons identified with a political party".
The noble Baroness then went on to say that the sort of identification was not stated nor was the stature of the people involved with the party and that this made the target of the provision very difficult to identify. I observed at that point that of course her amendment does nothing to change that situation.
It is emphatically not the case that Clause 2 is intended to ban local authorities from referring to a council member by name or from explaining his party political affiliations. It is perfectly legitimate that a

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local authority, when, for instance, it is publishing its annual report, should include a picture of the leader of the majority group on the council and explain that a particular political party has controlled the council during the past year. These are things which I think the noble Baroness was anxious to preserve as the normal activities of a council.
That is all part of bringing information to the public about local government and improving local government accountability. But we recognise that the use of party political associations in conjunction with imbalanced publicity may reinforce a message so that it is likely to affect public support for a political party. Local authorities and the courts are therefore asked to have particular regard to such references in determining whether material falls within the prohibition. The Bill does not say that such a reference must of itself render the publication of the material unlawful. It is just a consideration.
The amendment proposes that those interpreting Clause 2(1) should not in general have regard to the use of references to party politicians in determining whether material falls within the prohibition. They need only take such references into account when they clearly promote or denigrate a politician. As far as I can see, that does not identify the politician, which was the difficulty of the noble Baroness. The amendment would simply remove one clear test and introduce another which is arguably clear.
I think that the noble Baroness suggested that her amendment took us closer to Widdicombe. If that is what she thinks, I have to tell her that that is not what the Widdicombe Inquiry recommended. If she turns to paragraph 228 of its report she will find that it says:
"We wish to rule out such practices as … publicity which makes its points by reference to well-known politicians".
The inquiry was not concerned with whether material, so defined, either promoted or denigrated politicians; it was merely concerned that it referred to them. So the noble Baroness has taken us away from Widdicombe, and I think that it is important to notice that.
Clause 2(2)(a) is intended to implement the intention behind what the Widdicombe Committee was saying, and again it was not drafting. It said that material should not make its point by referring to party politicians. The clause covers that in a way that ensures that we are not banning references to such politicians in the context of non-partisan publicity.
In my view the amendment would not clarify the intention of Clause 2(2). I fear that it would serve to weaken its force. A significant amount of publicity has been produced which displays the images of well-known politicians prominently in association with highly sloganised messages about issues of political controversy. It cannot be said that such material promotes the politicians in question, and I am sure that those paying for the campaign would have been horrified if it had. Nor can it always be said that it denigrates them. The reference is used simply to highlight a party political message. We should not wish material of that kind to fall outside the prohibition of party political publicity, and I do not honestly think that the Committee as a whole would either. But the proposed amendment would make it less clear that that material is covered, and it would
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therefore be likely that it would escape. I hope that the Committee will not entertain the amendment.
Lord Denning: It seems to me plain that under Clause 2(2) all that the local authority will have to do is to have regard to whether the persons are identified with a political party. It can take into account whether the point is made one way or another; it can take that into account as much as it likes in coming to its decision. It seems to me that the amendment is quite unnecessary.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: The faith that the Minister and the noble and learned Lord have in the phrase "have regard to", or the phrase "due regard" which the Minister used, staggers me. I should be more interested if we could quantify or measure such phrases. The town clerk may say to the chairman, "Before you take the decision you must have due regard to a range of matters", and the chairman may reply that due regard has been given to them. But how do we measure due regard? The phrase is designed as a cover-up or a cop-out. I shall be interested to hear the Minister tell the Committee what needs to be taken into account and how long should be spent on weighing or measuring "due regard". Can he tell us how many original intentions of a local authority committee or a chairman have been thwarted after due regard has been given to representations?
6.45 p.m.
Lord Elton: The statute book is scattered with such references, telling the courts, chief clerks and council leaders that they should have regard. We all know what the phrase means. It is not difficult. The Bill is trying to identify certain practices which we all agree should not continue. Those practices are a form of publicity which is either implicitly or explicitly party political and paid for out of non-party political funds. In our view that is a subversion of non-political funds. There is no difference between the two sides of the Committee on that. All we are trying to do now is to identify how one tells when that is happening. How one tells whether something is political often simply turns on whether a political person is involved. So we have said that one thing to look out for is a political person being involved. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord would like us to say that the people involved must either be cried up or cried down.
Let us imagine that the noble Baroness took a political profile more appropriate to the other place; I imagine that she would have a hugely popular following. If as a result there were to be stickers in a campaign all round the place saying "Follow Nora; we all adore her!", that would be promoting the noble Baroness, and it would clearly be political. But suppose there was a political campaign but the sticker merely said "Nora was here!", that does not promote her, that does not denigrate her, but it involves her as a politician.
What we are trying to do is to show that there are things which identify a campaign as political but which on their own are not political. That is why I hope that the noble Baroness will take the point that I am trying to make. What she proposes would weaken the protection in the Bill.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Or give it an aura of respectability. In my humble opinion the Minister is demonstrating the shoals of uncertainty that will flow from attempting to "have due regard to". He is absolutely right; legislation is studded and pitted with references to "having due regard". I simply want him to tell us how that due regard is to be taken.
The Minister said that there should be no dubiety, but I respect the views of the Association of Town Clerks, though he may put them on one side. If he shares my regard for that association he will have read its submission which mentions specifically Clause 2(2). The Society of Local Authority Chief Executives also tells us that it is concerned and says that if the legislation is to work the provisions should be concerned only with the nature of publicity. It talks about material which should be subject to assessment and goes on to say:
"Clause 2(2) mirrors this concern as it refers to the effect for which the campaign appears to be designed".
I do not know whether the noble Lord's study of local government in practice equates to that of a great many other members of the Committee. I say with due temerity that he is a master of legislation and the national picture. But I am a local politician. In part, everything that I am associated with, by accident or by design, is identified with the Labour Party, if not directly associated with it. I am proud to wear various hats on behalf of different groups within the community, and I am known not only in my former manifestation but in my present one, among other things, as a party politician. Whatever I am involved in may be reported in the local press. Reference may not be made to my political allegiance, but most people who read about my activities are aware of the allusion, whether the event is promoting the Labour Party or not.
What this amendment is seeking to do is contrary to what the Minister says. The amendment questions why there should be all this constraint? Town clerks and councils do not have the kind of ulterior political motive that the Minister and his colleagues are seeking to eradicate, and about which we on this side of the Committee are making very little comment. We are saying, for goodness' sake, why do you not have the clauses of the Bill and the words on the face of the Bill drawn as widely as possible?
In the London Borough of Enfield—does the Minister wish to come in?
Lord Elton: I am a little puzzled because the noble Lord is spending all his time telling us that the dangerous words are "to have regard to", but the amendment does not take them out; it leaves them in. I am a little mystified because the amendment substitutes different words which are affected by "have regard to".
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I made something of the words "having due regard" because the Minister rests on the premise that if one had due regard to a great many other things everything would be all right. I am speaking to the amendment in the sense that we are saying that the only action of a council which ought to cause reflection is that which is quite clearly
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designed to promote or denigrate, not merely to give publicity to.
A few moments ago the Minister said quite fairly that if a council issued a press release and a picture of the leader of the council or the chairman of a committee, that would be unexceptionable. We are seeking to write on the face of the Bill words which will make quite clear not what is unexceptionable but the kind of things which are outside the scope of the Bill. As we know, a lot of advertising is knocking the subject matter. We know that over the past two years a great deal of publicity has become personalised. With regard to the GLC it was "the anti-Ken Livingstone Bill"—Ken Livingstone as a person and as a leader of the council. In that way he was identified.
One would argue that part of the raison d'être for the publicity to continue regarding the GLC centred upon the personality of Ken Livingstone. That would certainly not be allowed if our amendment were carried. On the other side of the argument the personality was the then Secretary of State, Mr. Patrick Jenkin. A great many of the advertisements were designed to knock the ability and the arguments of the Minister.
In this amendment we are seeking to tighten up this matter. The Minister seems to believe that the words we are putting forward will weaken it. I do not believe that. They are genuinely designed to try to make matters a little more flexible for the councils which have to live with this Bill in the future. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is moved to make some comments. I shall gladly give way if he wants to do so.
Lord Mottistone: It is only to say that the noble Lord is making a tremendous labour over this. Does the noble Lord have to go on and go on wandering around his subject? Can he not come to a point? Having listened to what has been said, it seems to me that there are quite a lot of matters of this nature—going into the detail is splitting hairs, and one or two of the other amendments are similar—which might come into the code of practice, the subject of a later clause, rather than be dealt with here.
I can see the arguments, but I think my noble friend was absolutely right when he was saying that the noble Baroness, Lady David, might be mentioned either in a congratulatory way or in a derogatory one, or even just because she is here. That makes great sense. I think that this amendment is definitely narrowing this issue. We have spent quite a long enough time on it.
Lord Broxbourne: Before the noble Lord resumes, may I ask him one mercifully short but possibly not unimportant question? He constantly refers in his argument to "due regard to be had"—I lost count of the number of times before my noble friend the Minister intervened. Since the intervention, the noble Lord has used those words several times. My copy of the Bill says "particular regard". That is, in my experience, an unusual and very strong form of words. Does it not stress the strength of the obligation resting on the local authority? Does that not allay some of the anxieties of the noble Lord in that regard?
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Taking the second point first, I know what the Bill says, and I heard what the Minister said. The Minister used the words "have due regard", not "particular regard". That could have been a slip. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Broxbourne, has made. "Particular regard" are stronger words. I sense that the Minister has moved ever so slightly. I am genuinely puzzled as to the precise way in which a council committee—which is in effect what we are talking about—will be advised about authorising publicity. I am puzzled as to what is the "due regard" or the "particular regard".
I apologise to the Committee if we consider something to be very important which the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, says is splitting hairs. It is simply because I agree with the amendment and the noble Lord does not; and I can understand that. The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, said that he could see the argument. That is fair enough. He may not accept it. As far as we are concerned on this side of the Committee, we have responsibilities not only to the debating niceties when considering an amendment in this Committee but to hundreds of thousands of people ouside, and certainly thousands of councillors outside, who will have to live with the wording on the face of the Bill once it becomes an Act. We know the undue haste that the Government have shown in trying to get this legislation onto the statute book. I therefore make no apology for having laboured the point, if that is what the Committee feel, in order to try to make sure that people outside are well aware that we are seeking to improve the Bill in the form of the amendment on the Marshalled List.
Lord Silk in of Dulwich: I rise to suggest that the blemish in this amendment is perhaps that it is too narrow; it does not go far enough. I say that for two reasons. First, the point was made by the noble Lord the Minister that it refers only to persons whereas, to deal with the point which was quite rightly raised by my noble friend who moved it, it ought to refer to a political party as well. Second, whereas to promote or denigrate may be too strong an expression, as the Minister has said, it seems to me that mere reference is too weak an expression.
Let me take an example. A document might quite properly, and no doubt in many cases will, refer to the Government and give the view of local authorities with reference to the Government's policies. So far as I am aware, the present Government still consist of persons who are identified with the Conservative Party. The document may refer expressly to the Government party in the same way. In Clause 2(2)(a) whoever makes the decision as to whether a document appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party is required to have "particular regard" to the question of whether there is a reference to the party or persons identified with it. In my example, they are the Government. That is going very far. It is weighting the balance too far in that direction.
If the Minister was prepared to look at the whole wording of that paragraph again and to come up, if he can, with a form of words which goes some way to meeting the point which my noble friend made in opening, and does not confine it solely to the persons but addresses itself to the party as well, I should feel
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satisfied by that. Unless the Government are prepared to look at it again, I should think it necessary to support my noble friend even though I do not believe that her amendment goes as far as I would wish it to go.
7 p.m.
Lord Elystan-Morgan: The general arguments in favour of this amendment have been put with great clarity by many noble Lords, including the mover of the amendment, my noble friend Lady David. However, there is one particular point which I would wish to raise, which exercised my mind at Second Reading and which indeed I have already mentioned today in an intervention. It turns on the word "denigration" in the amendment. I think that that is a significant word because I believe that there still remains one massive matter in Clause 2 upon which the Committee has still not had the advice of the Government as to its exact meaning: that is, the meaning of the words in Clause 2(1):
"public support for a political party".
The important word there is "for". Does it include an attack upon a political party?
On Second Reading I advanced the argument that clever psephologists tell us that political trends are affected not so much by positive feelings of support for parties but by utterly negative feelings of objection. If that be the case, a negative move is of very much greater importance than positive action. I cannot for a moment believe that the Government intended to concentrate only upon that which was supportive in a constructive sense. I believe that they intended to include negative matters as well. If that be the case, then I am sure that the Committee would wish to see it clearly spelt out in some appropriate part of the Bill at a later stage. If that be not the case, then now is the time to say so, because clearly the interpretion of that particular phrase,
"public support for a political party"
will colour the whole of the clause itself.
It may well be that I should have made those remarks in the clause stand part debate, but I think that the matter is germane to the issue raised in so far as it related to denigration. I should be very grateful indeed to have the specific opinion of the Minister upon that particular matter.
Lord Elton: The noble Lord has gone some considerable distance down the page, up the page and outside the question on the Marshalled List, but I concede that it is part of the context of the amendment and, subject to correction from almost any quarter, particularly from the left-hand quarter (and indeed I am strengthened in my supposition) I would say that the psephologist to whom the noble Lord referred would accept that where you increase support for one party you diminish it for another, not perhaps in absolute terms—and I know that there are complications on the other side of the Committee where sometimes alliances hold and sometimes, I am given to understand, they may not. However, the fact is that if you increase the support for one political grouping you diminish the support for another. So I think that the noble Lord can rest assured that we have implied symmetry even if we have not expressed it.

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I am mystified by the apparent changes of status of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, between the moments when he is speaking and the moments when he is listening. I hope it means that he listens with more authority than he speaks. The noble Lord has asked what we actually mean in the Bill. I think that it is probably the back row but two in which the
"deaf adder who stoppeth her ear"
is inclined to roost.
The noble Lord has asked what all these tests mean. I shall be brief but, like him, I am a layman and therefore my arguments have the merit and the weaknesses of his in that they are based on unschooled non-solicitored" views, but I think that they are comprehensible.
Sitting at the council table or in the caucus the councillors, with or without the town clerk, will consider what they wish to do. They will look at the material and they will consider, first, whether it is either in whole or in part actually designed to affect public support for a political party. They know what they have designed it for, so there is no difficulty there. They then go on and say, "But having made a very simple decision, what is the next thing?" It is that, in determining whether the answer to that question was as they suppose, they ought particularly to have regard to whether it refers to a political party. That is a simple test. If it does and it is still not designed to affect support for that party, if it simply says, "Your local council in the control of party X has achieved the following in the last year", all is well. It is the annual report. We do not want to stop it and nor does the noble Lord.
Then they say, "Does it refer to a person identified?" Yes, it refers to the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has put in yeoman service these many years. Provided that it is not designed to affect support for a political party, that is perfectly all right. Had the reference in the Bill been changed, as the noble Baroness proposes, they would have had to ask themselves not whether it refers to Ted Graham but whether it makes its point by promoting or demoting him. At that point the test has changed because it will only catch a campaign which is linked into the council by Lord Graham of Edmonton's name if it either promotes or denigrates him.
If you break that link there, it seems to me and, I understand, to my noble friends behind me that you will let into legal practice many practices which all Members of the Committee wish to prevent. We have nothing against the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton; we want him to be favourably mentioned in the annual report of his local authority, if, as I assume, he deserves it. But we do not want that to be the cover for political activity which would not be caught without this test. That is the only reason it is there.
We have spent a very long time on this amendment. Whether we can deal with the next amendment in 22 minutes is another matter, but we have spent a long time on this one. I hope that I have made my position clear. If noble Lords opposite say anything else with which I disagree, I hope the Committee will take it on
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trust that I do disagree with it, and if they press this amendment I still think that we should resist it.
Baroness David: What has emerged from this quite lengthy discussion is that there is still a good deal of dissatisfaction with the wording of that part of the clause. However, I am not absolutely wedded to my amendment, so I should like to read very carefully what the Minister and everyone who has spoken to the amendment have said and then decide what we do at the next stage. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 23, leave out from ("party") to end of line 27.
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley. The purpose of the amendment is to remove what we regard as an unclear provision which would extend the prohibition laid down in Clause 2 to campaigns. In effect, what is proposed is the deletion of subsection 2(b) of Clause 2. Paragraph (b) is one of the tests which Ministers have stated are subjective tests to determine whether publicity material is illegal under the Bill.
In Standing Committee in the other place on 12th December the Under-Secretary of State, Mrs. Angela Rumbold, said (at col. 242 of Hansard):
"One of our tasks in the Committee is to look at Widdicombe's report again to see to what extent we are following his proposals and suggestions".
As was said by many noble Lords at Second Reading, that is just what the Government have not done, or if they have taken another look at Widdicombe's proposals and suggestions they have just put them on one side and done nothing about them.
We also find that on 10th December, two days prior to making that statement, also at Standing Committee (at col. 127 of Hansard) the same Minister said:
"The publicity material would be prohibited if it formed part of a campaign identified with a political party".
We find that the London Boroughs Association, which is not a Labour organisation, have themselves expressed concern about the Bill and have stated that it goes far beyond Widdicombe. They stress in particular that it would be wrong if a democratically elected council was not able to promote a campaign for its policies simply because those policies were also those of the majority party and therefore would be identified with that party and come within the scope of the Bill. As other noble Lords have said, many chief officers have expressed concern at having to give advice of that kind under the provisions of the Bill as they stand at the moment.
To save time I shall not give quotations from Widdicombe. That is not because there are not vast numbers of quotations in Widdicombe to justify a campaign either by a single local authority or by groups of local authorities. It runs throughout the whole of the Widdicombe Report that local authorities are political institutions and have a full right to campaign on government-proposed legislation as well as on matters affecting their own authorities.
I have no desire to repeat again the number of items on which a local authority may consider it necessary and desirable to publish material as part of a campaign either as a single authority or in co-operation with other authorities. My noble friend Lady David indicated the large number of authorities which were involved in the campaign concerning the helicopter leak. In connection with the Government proposal for Stansted we know that there were rival consortia of local authorities—one on one side and one on the other—making their proposals.
We know that there is certain to be campaign activity about proposals for local authority airports under the forthcoming Airports Bill, which is still being debated in the other place. Inevitably there will be campaign activity on the Government's proposals for rating and a poll tax. In fact attention was drawn in the Standing Committee in the other place to a statement which appeared in the Scotsman while this Bill was still going through. I have the Scotsman article in front of me dated 11 th December. It is headed, "Tory campaign to push rate reform". It starts:
"A special task force of civil servants will be set up inside the Scottish Office to co-ordinate a Government campaign to win public acceptance of its controversial rating reforms early next year."
I am not criticising that. The Government have the right to do that if they so desire.
Lord Elton: Would the noble Lord forgive me? I may be missing his argument. I think he was saying that the quotation from the Scotsman would be debarred by the Bill. I could be wrong, because plainly that was not paid for out of the rates—unless there is something about the Scotsman that I do not know and the noble Lord does.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Underhill: I am referring to the Scotsman article because from that other things could ensue. The article goes on:
"This move has set alarm bells ringing in the Scottish Office and, according to Scottish MPs, has led Ministers to mount the publicity campaign to combat the inevitably hostile response among many voters to the new tax."
That is the point of quoting from the Scotsman article.
The Government have every right to conduct a campaign to promote their policies, but equally there might be a campaign by a single local authority association, by all the local authority associations, or maybe by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities against the Government's proposals: in other words, criticising the party which happens to be the government of the day.
We would suggest that unless this amendment is carried campaigns of that nature could find themselves ruled illegal under the proposals in the Bill. The need for the amendment is made more apparent by a statement—I am sorry to say again by the Minister, Mrs. Rumbold—in Standing Committee on 10th December, at col. 129, when she said:
"The material must be linked to the statutory functions of a local authority."
That is clearly saying that it would be wrong for local authorities to conduct a campaign against the Government's campaign in favour of their proposals for rating and a poll tax.
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I suggest that that statement is absolutely contrary to what Widdicombe suggested, and would rule out the type of campaign activity which Widdicombe suggested it would be right and proper for a local authority to conduct. To make matters worse, in referring in Standing Committee in the other place to some possible activity that a local authority might conduct, the same Minister (at col. 129) said that it would be wrong and distasteful if that particular activity were offensive politically and put on at ratepayers' expense. When asked offensive to whom, the Minister replied (again at col. 129):
"Offensive to anyone. I accept that may not be offensive to all, but if it caused offence to anyone in a local authority it should be caught within the provisions of the Bill".
That seems to be both a strange and frightening statement by a Minister in Standing Committee on a Bill in the other place.
Where does Widdicombe stand? Do the Government reject all the proposals that Widdicombe made as to the type of activity on which it would be right and proper for either a single authority or for a group of authorities to conduct a campaign? Unless we have this amendment taking out the reference to a campaign, we are going to have big problems for the courts. It would be far better if the reference to campaigns was left out, and perhaps the Government could find some words which would fit in with what Widdicombe suggested. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alport): Amendment proposed, page 2, line 23, leave out from ("party") to end of line 27. I have to advise your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 7.
Lord Denning: I can hardly see the point of this amendment. Suppose the words in subsection (2)(b),
"where material is published as part of a campaign",
and so on, are omitted, there are still the opening words:
"A local authority shall not publish any material which, in whole or in part, appears to be designed to affect".
Even if that subsection were deleted, the local authority would still have to consider this material about the campaign. I do not think that the amendment would succeed in keeping out the material. The courts would have to consider the whole of it anyway.
Lord Winstanley: Surely the noble and learned Lord's argument goes both ways. He says that he does not see the point of the amendment, and I can well understand that; but does he see the point in the subsection that it seeks to delete? Frankly, I cannot see any point in that at all. We are dealing here with a part of the Bill which deals with material which is published. What are the things which can be published? Leaflets; advertisements; posters; stickers; things of that kind.
You cannot publish a campaign. Subsection (2)(b) deals with campaigns. What is a campaign? I do not know. You cannot publish a campaign. As I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, will accept, we already have a situation whereby if a leaflet, an advertisement, a poster, or a sticker, is political on

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the definitions we have agreed to in this Bill, then it should be banned. But if it is not political within that definition, then it should not. What on earth has a campaign to do with it? I hope that the Minister will explain why he found it necessary to put in this elaboration of something which does nothing to the Bill. Therefore I put the noble and learned Lord's argument the opposite way round. I accept that he asks what is the point of the amendment, but I also ask him what on earth is the point of Clause 2(2)(b)?
Lord Elton: I shall try to be brief although I cannot be as brief as the last two speakers. I ought to start by putting the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, into the picture about the article in the Scotsman to which he referred and which he was kind enough to illuminate for me on my intervention. I understand that the article was entirely speculative, that there is no special unit and no campaign at the present time. But if there were it would have to comply with the Government's conventions just as a campaign by a local authority would have to abide by the conventions set by the Bill. The amendment would remove the requirement that in determining whether material is published as a part of a campaign particular regard shall be had to the effect which the campaign appears to be likely to achieve—appears to be designed to achieve. Your Lordships will recognise the words I am seeking to leave out of my brief when they may occasionally creep in by mistake.
The requirement is necessary because not infrequently publicity material, which in itself appears to be innocuous, can contribute materially to the overall effect of a campaign, just like the "Nora was here" stickers that I was speaking of. Or the "Ted is one of us". I am sorry the noble Lord has left.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: That is strong language.
Lord Elton: Oh, the noble Lord has moved! It is strong language, but that is helpful because I had thought of giving the example of a sticker saying, "If it's a Red it's got to be Ted", which would clearly be caught by the Bill, but if it just said, "It's got to be Ted", then it would not be caught. I speak from hypothesis which is dangerous because I do not know what the courts would decide but as an example it will serve. If it is merely a reference to the noble Lord, Lord Graham, in a form of shorthand, courteous but nevertheless shorthand—
Lord Graham of Edmonton: That is a matter of—
Lord Elton: We are not trying matters of fact and opinion. I am merely trying to give an example. I perhaps misheard the noble Lord. The point I am making is that an entirely neutral sticker involving the name of a known politician, for example, could be generated in large numbers and dished out to an organisation which could then deploy it as part of a campaign. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, does not recognise a campaign when he sees one, but there have been a number in London which most of us have recognised. There have been stickers on people's lapels and some of them could be
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taken on their own to be perfectly innocuous and meaningless if it were not for the fact that on the hoardings were other messages with which they linked. Material might be considered party political when considered in the context of a party political campaign of which it forms part and be entirely innocuous otherwise. That is why there is this requirement.
We drafted the Bill with care to make it as clear as possible, given the nature of the issues with which it is dealing. I think I have said enough to show why we have put this provision in. The provision which the noble Lord would have us exclude is there for a purpose, which is to make it clear that in deciding whether material is prohibited particular regard shall be had to the context in which it is published, if that context is a campaign. The Government's concern was that material which appeared to be fairly neutral and informative when considered in isolation—this was the example I was trying to give—might, as part of a campaign, be a fundamental component of an authority's drive to win support for a political party. We have to deal with the whole paraphernalia of campaigning, including stickers—the noble Lord is pregnant with interruption.
Lord Winstanley: I have been listening as closely as I can and I think I understand the noble Lord so far. I merely ask him one question. Where material has been published, not as part of a campaign, but published months and months previously and is subsequently used in a campaign, then clearly it escapes from this altogether, does it not?
Lord Elton: I think we should be up before the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, considering what it had been designed for in those circumstances. As I said, it is dangerous to go for hypothesis. But if it were designed to affect public support for a political party then it would be caught. If the noble Lord tells me that it was not designed to affect a political party and could not be expected to then it would not be caught.
Lord Winstanley: May I make it a little more clear?
Lord Elton: I think I have it. The noble Lord is saying that here is all this wonderful stuff in the attic which they thought was no good and it fits in, as luck would have it, with a campaign. I think I need notice of the question because the problems that occur to me are twofold. One is what was in the minds of the people when they designed it, because the test is what from the material it appears was in their minds. In the circumstances that the noble Lord gives it would appear that unless they had prior knowledge of the campaign this would not be caught.
I cannot think we are talking of many cases, but the supposition is interesting. On the other hand, if some devious member had thought, "Let us put £150,000 into all these tee shirts", and then forgot them and wheeled them out in two years' time just before an election, then they would have been designed for that purpose. But the noble Lord cannot put me in the position of a court. I can only say what it seems to me would be the relevant consideration to the court and that is what the Bill itself can do. I think I have explained that.

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Much material of this type is entirely legitimate and even some of the slogans we have seen are, in isolation, acceptable. I think I am going over in the words of others ideas which I have already expressed. If the noble Baroness and the noble Lord find I have left something out I shall try to return to it if that is desired.
Lord Silkin of Dulwich: The noble Lord the Minister has clearly explained this paragraph to his own satisfaction, but, with all respect to him, he has not explained it to my satisfaction. I still do not understand the purpose of it or what it will achieve.
If one can take one or two concrete examples, which may be the best way of considering it: in the days of the late Lord Brooke of Cumnor as Housing Minister there were campaigns against the Rent Bill which he was promoting. Such campaigns, which could quite properly be conducted by local authorities because they feared the effect on their housing stock, were campaigns against a particular measure. But it was equally clear that the campaign would be likely adversely to affect public support for the political party which was putting forward the legislation. That was precisely what happened. In the same way, looking at it from the other side—
Lord Elton: The noble Lord has relied in part upon a part of the wording of the Bill which his own party has removed.
Lord Silkin of Dulwich: What I am saying is that this paragraph is totally unnecessary and that it is extremely difficult to follow precisely what it is intended to do. The example that I have given indicates that on many occasions the campaign will have a dual effect. It will have the effect of enhancing the view relating to the issue and it will also have the effect of affecting public support for the political party whose measures are being opposed and the political party opposing those measures.
One can look at it the other way round as well. If a political party is attacking the education policy of a government of a different complexion to that of the noble Lord one can see exactly the same thing. In certain areas the campaign will affect both the issue and the popularity of the party which is putting forward particular legislation or is intending to do so.
If one looks at the wording of this paragraph, what it provides is that:
"where material is published as part of a campaign, regard shall be had to the effect which the campaign appears to be designed or can reasonably be regarded as likely to achieve.".
That will include, or may include, an adverse effect on the political party concerned. If the Minister doubts what I am saying, perhaps I may ask him directly this question. In the two examples that I have quoted does he take the view that the document, leaflets, or whatever they may be, that are issued in relation to a campaign, whether it be in respect of a rent Bill or in respect of some education measure, are not leaflets which are designed or which appear to be designed to achieve, among other things—certainly not alone but among other things—that which is provided for in Clause 2(1); that is, affecting support for a political party?
7.30 p.m.
Lord Elton: I am grateful to the noble Lord for a clear exposition of a clear difficulty. I am sorry if I appear to have explained matters to my own satisfaction. Self-satisfaction is something which I think I have never actually achieved in my performance in your Lordships' Chamber. However, I hope I can do something to satisfy the noble Lord. We are looking at Clause 2(2)(b). The test there is applied to material which is published as part of a campaign. The regard to which we are referring, if the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, will forgive my using the term, is a regard to the effect which the campaign appears to be designed to achieve.
I am in a procedural difficulty here because the noble Baroness has not actually moved the second leg of the amendment, the first leg of which she carried against my noble friend. However, I think one can make certain assumptions about the shape of the clause that we are notionally looking at. The test therefore is: what was the campaign intended to do? If it is a factual campaign, saying, "If we proceed with this policy the effects will be so and so; if we proceed with another, they will on the contrary be such and such", that is not designed to change support for a political party. The incidental effect on the national voting figures when a local authority, pursuing the interests of all its electors, puts before them the consequences of national policy, does not get caught by a definition which asks whether the material was designed to alter the support for that party. It is designed to inform the public and they can make up their own minds about which party is supporting the right policy.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I should like to say that I have listened very carefully and I find that increasingly I come to the conclusion that paragraph (b) does not appear to be necessary. In any case, I should like to ask the noble Lord the Minister this question. Is it not true that the Government appear to regard paragraph (b) as less important than paragraph (a)?—because paragraph (a) says that "particular regard shall be had" to certain matters and paragraph (b) says merely that "regard shall be had" to them. What is the significance of "particular regard" as opposed to "regard"? Incidentally, all this is an additional argument for having a look again at paragraph (b).
Lord Elton: The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has had such long experience of patient and silent listening to noble Lords dissecting the words of legislation that it is no surprise to me to be entirely surprised by his question. I am not aware of any order of preference in the fact either that (b) comes after (a) or that the word "particularly" has been omitted from (b). However, I must confess that this had not struck me as a matter of significance until the noble Lord put it to me. I shall certainly consider, between now and Report stage, whether the word "particularly" ought perhaps to be inserted in order to restore a proper balance between the two considerations.
However, the main issue, which I think we have come a little way from, is this. We are simply concerned that material which might appear neutral

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when it is not part of a campaign, and which is the material which links the intentions of the authority to the campaign, should not by its neutrality escape the effects of the Act: so that the consequence is that the campaign itself, which is of a nature of which the Committee disapprove, also escapes the effects of the Act. That does not seem to me a peripheral consideration. I should think that if anybody is going to think again between now and Report stage it might be helpful if noble Lords opposite read with care what I have said and return to the charge. I cannot encourage them to think that I shall spend much time going through this, except in so far as the word "particularly" or "particular" might with benefit be included in the part of the Bill which the noble Lord opposite wishes to remove.
Lord Underhill: I accept the comment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that the amendment which I proposed would still have no effect because of the opening subsection of Clause 2. Equally, I think there is strong validity in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, as to why, on the other hand, we have Clause 2(2)(b) in the Bill at all. I shall read very carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said but I find it very difficult to find any justification for the Government having it in.
One reason, in addition to others, for having it out is that it would be of great assistance to chief officers and to the legal departments of local authorities who have already expressed their concern about when they are going to be asked for advice. It will also be of great assistance to local authority associations. I know a little about these, being the president of one. Local authority associations will be seeking support from their affiliated organisations to take part in certain campaigns. Their chief officers will have to advise them. It is far more difficult when they see Clause 2(2)(b) there. What was the Government's purpose in inserting reference to campaigns?
I must return to what I said at the outset: that is, that the insertion of Clause 2(2)(b) would seem to imply a sound criticism of a considerable part of Widdicombe in its reference to what is right and proper for a local authority, by itself or with other local authorities, to campaign upon.
I shall, with my colleagues, as the noble Lord says, think very seriously about what he has said. I hope the Minister will also look carefully at why, if the Government think everything is covered by Clause 2(1) as now amended, there is any necessity to clutter up the issue, to make it more confusing, by having Clause 2(2)(b) in at all. It seems to me that that will make it far more difficult for the authorities and serve no purpose at all in furthering the Government's objectives under Clause 2(1). I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 26, leave out ("or can reasonably be regarded as likely").
The noble Baroness said: I spoke to Amendment No. 7 with Amendment No. 1. They were grouped
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together. Therefore I should now merely like formally to move Amendment No. 7.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Skelmersdale: I think this is an appropriate moment to break. I suggest that we do not return to this business until twenty minutes to nine. I therefore beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Marriage (Wales) Bill
7.40 p.m.
Lord Gibson-Watt: My Lords. I beg to move that the Bill he now read a second time.
It is not often in your Lordships' House that we discuss a matter which is purely Welsh and therefore I am very glad to see my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies on the Opposition Front Bench and, indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady White. I do not see anybody on the Liberal Benches. I do not complain about that. I only, in passing, refer to the fact that had it not been for their former Leader. David Lloyd George, the necessity for this Bill tonight would not have arisen because the Welsh Church would not have been disestablished and the Act of 1949 would have applied to Wales as well as to England. I would only add, in passing, that I received an apology from his grandson the noble Earl, Lord Lloyd-George, because he cannot be in the House tonight to support this measure.
This Bill has already passed through all its stages in another place. It has been very ably conducted by Mr. Donald Coleman. It is in fact a simple Bill and, as noble Lords will see, quite a short one. The reason for it is that Section 23 of the Marriage Act 1949 did not have effect in Wales largely because the provisions of Section 23 were originally enacted in a Church Assembly Measure. The Act of 1949 was a consolidation measure.
Section 23 says:
"Where two or more benefices are held in plurality under the Pastoral Reorganisation Measure 1949 the bishop of the diocese in which the benefices are situated may in writing direct where banns of matrimony of persons entitled to be married in any church of those benefices may be published and where marriages of those persons may be solemnised".
Your Lordships can well appreciate that, largely because of a change in church attendance and a shortage of clergy, churches are grouped today and that this applies to Wales as well as to England. Section 6 of the 1949 Act provides for the place in which banns of matrimony are to be published. Because Section 23 does not apply to Wales, the Church in Wales have to look to Section 6(3) of the Act, which said:
"Any parish in which there is no church or chapel in which divine service is usually solemised every Sunday shall be deemed to belong to any adjoining parish or chapelry".
The word "adjoining" in this instance is not defined in the 1949 Act but "adjoining parish" is taken to mean a parish which borders one lacking regular Sunday services. Such a parish may not be in the same group.

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A consequence of such publication in an adjoining parish is that, while the marriage might be solemnised in that adjoining parish by virtue of Section 12 of the 1949 Act, it would not be proper to solemnise it in the parish church which lacked regular Sunday services, because banns of matrimony cannot properly be published there. I have explained why the 1949 Act did not extend to Wales. Having, I hope, clarified the whole situation to your Lordships' total satisfaction, I would hope that this small Bill would put the matter right. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Gibson-Watt.)
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords. I am sure that the Church in Wales is grateful to Mr. Donald Coleman for having initiated this private legislation in another place, and indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Gibson-Watt, of the Wye in the District of Radnor in rural Wales, for having introduced the Bill in your Lordships' House and for having clarified the significance of this short, two-clause Bill and why it is required by the Church in Wales. The noble Lord has pinpointed the important point of practical difficulty over the publication of the banns of matrimony on three consecutive Sundays which is sometimes experienced in a number of the rural ecclesiastical parishes when they have been amalgamated to form a single benefice to provide improved pastoral care.
He has shown how the Bill can alleviate, if not resolve, the practical difficulty which has been experienced. It is in a sense a sad commentary on rural life that this amending legislation should be necessary, because behind the Bill lies the larger problem of rural depopulation and also the increasing problem of depletion of the rural clergy. Given the long history of rural depopulation in Wales, what is surprising is that the difficulties which over recent years have been experienced were not foreseen in 1949 when the Marriage Bill was enacted. If I may say so, I am also a little puzzled by the fact that the Church in Wales has had to resort to a Private Bill to bring about this small, non-controversial amendment to a public Act of Parliament. Perhaps the Minister can explain why that has been necessary.
The noble Lord, Lord Gibson-Watt, referred to absentees from certain Benches. I, too, am a little puzzled that there is no one on the Prelates' Bench this evening. I am just wondering whether they have not forgiven the Welsh for their declaration of independence. The Bill confers upon the bishops of the Church of Wales that degree of flexibility which they may require when it has become necessary to share resources with the adjoining parish or parishes. I am sure that it will bring joy to many rural parishes. I am sure that the bishops will welcome the Bill. We give our blessing to the Bill and we hope that the Minister can give an indication that it can be enacted and delivered to the bishops before St. David's Day.
7.48 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, I should first like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Gibson-Watt for so ably and succinctly explaining this Bill. As your Lordships know, the Government traditionally adopt
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a neutral stance on matters of church government and this Bill is no exception. That, I think, is the answer to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies. My noble friend has described how his Bill seeks to amend the Sixth Schedule to the Marriage Act and I do not think that I need repeat what he has said.
Under the Pastoral Measure 1983 (and formerly under earlier Measures of 1949 and 1968) ecclesiastical livings enjoyed by a vicar or rector may be grouped and held in plurality by the incumbent. It is in these groupings that an English diocesan bishop may give administrative directions. The power to give directions is not exercisable by a bishop in the Church in Wales because, as my noble friend has said, Section 23 of the 1949 Act, which in itself was a consolidation Act, relates to the provisions of a Measure of the Church of England and such a Measure does not of course extend to Wales. I assume that Section 23 was not extended to Wales by the Marriage (Wales and Monmouthshire) Act 1962—as were some other sections of the 1949 Act—because no parishes in Wales were then grouped or, if they were, no inconvenience had been caused to or foreseen for couples who were to marry in such groupings.
The inconvenience, as I understand it, is that Section 12 of the 1949 Act, which also applies to Wales, requires that any marriage by banns shall be solemnised in the church or in one of the two churches where banns have been previously published. Banns cannot be published in a church where there are no regular Sunday services so that a couple in a plurality in Wales, who wish to be married by banns but whose local church is not in regular Sunday use, have to be married in a church in an adjoining parish where there is a regular Sunday service. Extending Section 23 to Wales would enable the Bishop in Wales to do what a Bishop in England can do now; namely, to direct that banns are read in a church in regular use and that the marriage is solemnised in the couple's local church, although it is not in regular Sunday use.
As I said at the beginning, the Government historically take no sides on issues of church government such as this, which was passed through another place in record time. However, we certainly_have no objection to this Bill.
Lord Gibson-Watt: My Lords, I think I have a right of reply, and my reply will be very short. I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Glenarthur for voicing the Government's fair wind to this Bill. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, for his support. I should like to return to a reference I made in my earlier speech to the Liberal Benches and to say to the noble Earl, Lord Grey, that I meant no "rudery", if I may say so. I merely wished to make some reference to the Liberal Party in view of the fact that David Lloyd George had some hand in something that happened to the Welsh Church some years ago. I do not want to go into that issue further; but I should like to say that I am most grateful to noble Lords for not impeding this Bill in any way. I hope that it will be able to go through its other stages with equal speed.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.40 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.53 until 8.40 p.m.]

Local Government Bill
House again in Committee on Clause 2.
[Amendment No. 8 not moved.]
Lord Winstanley Lord Winstanley moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 30, at end insert—
("(4) Nothing in this section shall prevent the exercise by a local authority of its functions under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985.").
The noble Lord said: I do not intend to take very long in moving this amendment, because I think that the whole matter is fairly clear. This amendment should be looked at in association with a later amendment, though the two are not grouped. The later amendment, No. 22, says the same thing but states, "Nothing in this Act", and so on, whereas this amendment merely states, "Nothing in this section". The part which we are discussing deals with publications, which are material which is published and which offends and is regarded as political within the definitions which we have already laid down in this Bill. This amendment states:
Page 2, line 30, at end insert—
("(4) Nothing in this section shall prevent the exercise by a local authority of its functions under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985.").
I am probably as confused as everyone else. I have a vague idea that this is Information Year. Perhaps last year was Information Year or maybe next year is. But whether or not this is Information Year, I certainly believe—and I think that other noble Lords will agree with me—that we are now at a time when access to information is a popular cause embraced by all parties, in theory at least, both overtly and covertly.
I do not think I need say too much about the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985. save that that was, as noble Lords will remember, a Private Member's Bill which was piloted through another place by Mr. Robin Squire and at that time it received all-party support. There had been earlier versions of the same Bill, moved by other honourable Members of another place on other occasions, which were designed to do the same thing.
I think I am right in saying that all those Private Member's Bills, of which this is a part, stemmed from a very much earlier Private Member's Bill which was then piloted through by Mrs. Thatcher, MP. as she then was, and I think it was a Bill concerning the admission of the press to local authority meetings and so on. But, at any rate, the Bill has a parentage which ought to commend it to noble Lords opposite.
The Bill as we now have it defines publicity as,
"any communication, in whatever form, addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public".
It seems to me that an enormous amount of material would be included under that definition—and making
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documents available as required by the Local Government (Access to Information) Act would of itself probably constitute publication. I should not have thought that it was the intention of the Government in producing this Bill to do anything that would interfere with the proper operation of the 1985 Act.
There was a great deal of discussion of this matter in another place at various stages of the Bill, and I do not think it would be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to quote from all the debates which took place, but I think that the situation has been left unclear and this amendment seeks to clarify it.
With regard to this subsection, we wish merely to say:
"Nothing in this section shall prevent the exercise by a local authority of its functions under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985."
That is an aim which I am sure will be shared by noble Lords in all parts of your Lordships' Committee, but whether it will be shared by noble Lords on the Government Front Bench I wait to hear. I beg to move.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Elton: If I may summarise the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985, which, as the noble Lord suggests, comes into effect on 1st April this year, in general terms it does three things. First, it provides for public access to council meetings and to meetings of committees and sub-committees; secondly, it provides for public access to agendas, reports and minutes of all meetings subject to certain specified exceptions; and, thirdly, it opens to public inspection certain background papers which relate to the subject matter of reports to council, committee or sub-committee meetings. The papers are those which, in the opinion of the proper officer, disclose any facts or matters on which an important part of a report is based and which had been relied on to a material extent in the preparation of that report.
The Act also provides that copies of the agenda for any meeting, any further statements or particulars, as are necessary to indicate the nature of the items included in the agenda, and documents supplied to council members, such as reports, if the proper officer thinks fit, should be supplied to the press on request and on payment of an appropriate charge.
That is what the Act does, and it is quite clear that there is a firm distinction between "publicity" as defined in the Local Government Bill,
"any communication … addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public",
on the one hand, and internal papers primarily for use by the local authority or councillors, to which members of the public and the press who are interested can obtain access, on the other. The fact that these papers are open to public inspection does not mean that they are addressed to the public, or to a section of the public, and they therefore do not constitute "publicity" under the terms of this Bill.
The proposed new clause therefore seems to us to be unnecessary, but similar fears were expressed in the Commons, as the noble Lord has said, and it may be

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that your Lordships are concerned that local authorities might use the Clause 2 prohibition in this Bill as an excuse for not complying with the requirements of the Act for access to information. We are advised that such provisions are unnecessary, since the present Bill would not, in any case, apply to material made available for public inspection under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985, as I have said. But, given the general anxiety on this point, we have it in mind to table an amendment at Report to clarify the matter. I hope that the noble Lord will be patient until then.
Lord Silkin of Dulwich: Before the Minister sits down, I wonder whether he can tell the Committee the position the other way round. If a local authority were minded to use its agendas or reports to it for the purpose of political propaganda, knowing that under the provisions of the 1985 Act the public will have access to that material, would the Bill bite upon it?
Lord Elton: From the mists of hypothesis I cannot quite conjure up a sufficiently concrete idea of what the noble Lord is suggesting. Is he suggesting that an agenda might be so termed as to be politically designed to influence support for a political party?
Lord Elystan-Morgan: The agenda or the reports that go with the agenda might be couched in such language that they comprised not agenda or reports but documents that were passed to the public, and so the mischief of the Bill would apply. Will the mischief of the Bill apply to that kind of document, or will such documents be saved by reason of the fact that they are agenda or reports?
Lord Elton: As I tried to make clear earlier, the agenda and reports and the material as generally described in the Local Government (Access to Information) Act would not be caught by the Bill because they are not published in the sense that the Bill means by published. I hope that that is sufficient answer to the noble Lord.
Lord Winstanley: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for the undertaking which he has given to the Committee. If I have understood his undertaking correctly, it is that he understands that the present situation is unclear and that the Government will bring forward an amendment or some process which will at least clarify matters. That is something for which I and, I am quite sure, other Members of the Committee will be very grateful.
The need for clarification is urgent and clear. It would seem to me that, in order to comply with its responsibilities and obligations under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985, a local council might very well find that documents it was required under that Act to produce, to publicise and to circulate to people could in themselves be regarded as perhaps capable of influencing support of a political party one way or another. That could mean that local council officers might indeed feel that before they could fulfil their obligations under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 they might have to censor and amend and alter documents which would otherwise he published in full.
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There is no question but that there is an urgent need for clarification. I am glad to have the noble Lord's assurance that that clarification will in due course be forthcoming. Whether or not your Lordships will accept what comes on that occasion remains to be seen, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness Nicol: I apologise for coming in rather late on this debate and I hope that this point has not been clarified in my absence. I have been present for as much of the Committee as possible. I am very anxious about the definition of a political party. I do not know whether the Minister is satisfied that this can be clearly defined in the Bill. It seems to me that there is endless room for misinterpretation.
As an example, what about independents? Are they ever, when they group together, to be known as a political party? We have a council in our area in Cambridgeshire which until recently was dominated by independents, but they were clearly a party acting as such and could, had they so wished, have put out propaganda in their name; and it could not have been said to be for a political party.
What about ratepayers' groups? I am sorry to quote Cambridge again but we had a very active anti-planning group, the name of which I had better not quote. They managed to get some representatives on the council and had they so wished they could have published material out of the rates which could have been used to support them in their election. In fact, they made valiant attempts for that to happen. Would they then he a political party? Can the Bill in its present form make this clear?
We have already referred to the National Front taking the council to court for publishing anti-racist material. That may have been dealt with. I am not too happy about that part of the debate which I heard. I believe that if the Minister says he is going to look at it, hopefully we shall come up with something a little more watertight. There is also the question of an advertisement for equal opportunities which could be published by a council. Does that constitute political propaganda published by a party if it is known that that party supports equal opportunities?
I shall not go on too much about it but there are parties of the extreme Right and of the extreme Left which could benefit from the kind of thing we are doing unless matters are clearly defined. The National Front is easy to spot but others are not. They do get in one by one, and they do form groups. As we know to our cost, we see what Militant Tendency has done in some areas. Would that be a political party even though it was named as it is? I know it is not an easy problem but I think it is one that the Government must clear up. I hope that, if not now perhaps later, the Minister can give some satisfactory answer about his definition of a political party.
Lord Denning: Perhaps I may say one word. I have two or three times asked: what is a political party? No one has been able to give a definition. The noble

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Baroness, Lady Nicol, has given illustrations. Are independents a political party? Are ratepayers a political party? Is Militant Tendency a political party? Is the National Front? I am afraid it is impossible to define. I should very much like Parliament to do it but I am afraid that as it is it must be left to the judges. They I am sure would welcome guidance upon it because it is an almost impossible task without the legislature having given us its definition.
I am very anxious that the interpretation of the words "political party" should not involve the judges in political matters. If the Government could define "political party" it could help us a great deal but otherwise we simply have to leave it to the judges. As I say, you cannot define an elephant; you only know one when you see it. I only wish that something can be done between this and a later stage to help the judges in deciding what is or is not a political party.
Baroness Nicol: As it is Committee stage perhaps I may make just one more small point. Surely we do not want local authorities, or the possibly innocent ratepayers, to have to go along the path of involving the courts in order to get this definition. It is an expensive business. The difficulty is that having done it once for one group presumably they would then have to do it for every group that came along. I support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. It is up to the Government. They are making this legislation and it is up to them to say now to whom they wish it to apply.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: I wish only to comment on Clause 2 stand part. Having sat through the discussions on the various amendments, I feel particularly strongly on the last debate we had on Clause 2 which was on campaigns. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, when speaking to an early amendment, suggested that there would be many who would be looking for ways of driving holes through this piece of legislation. I have some experience in the North-East of England and I can think of no better way for holes to be driven through this proposed legislation than in the sphere of campaigns. I ask my noble friend to take very seriously the threat in this regard.
If campaigns are excluded from the rigours of the eventual Act they will give vast scope for so many people to seek ways of eluding the legislation. We live in an age in which public relations consultants appear to become more numerous with every succeeding year. Some of them are very skilful. We live in an age in which the machinations of those who produce propaganda seem to become ever more prevalent, and again ever more skilful. Campaigns could be a great danger to the proposed legislation and what it is intended that it should achieve.
I hope also that great care will be taken to examine campaigns by voluntary organisations. I should like someone to find out for me at some time what is a voluntary organisation. Is a voluntary organisation, for instance, the North-East Media Development Council, which is receiving a large sum of money at this time from the Tyne and Wear County Council—albeit in its dying days? Is the Trade Unions Studies Information Unit a voluntary organisation? It
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has received, again from Tyne and Wear County Council, 125,000. Is the Low Pay Unit a voluntary organisation? That body also has received £120,000. Such bodies can conduct campaigns that could be very damaging to the proposed law.
Lord Silkin of Dulwich: I rise partly to support what was said by my noble friend with regard to political parties, and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. When I read the words in question, I immediately turned to the various definitions to learn what is a political party, but I did not find any such definition. I remain ignorant, and the noble Lord who has just spoken increases my ignorance when he refers, quite rightly, to the mounting of campaigns. I ask myself this question: when does a campaign, or those who conduct it, become a political party?
We know, for example, that environmentalists have in the past started off as a voluntary organisation but at some stage have become a political party. At what stage they do so, and at what point in time they fall within the mischief of Clause 2, is not clear to me. That is something that ought to be clear in the Bill. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, rightly said, it is not a task that ought to be thrust upon judges because it inevitably involves some form of political judgment—and judges do not wish to be involved in political judgments, and quite rightly so.
While I am grateful for the undertaking given by the Government that they will reconsider various parts of Clause 2 before Report stage, I hope that they will look again at the point I made in regard to Amendment No. 5, which perhaps could more properly have been made in respect of Clause 2 stand part. I am bound to say that the very fact that at this stage of the legislation the Government have still not made it clear what this vital part of the Bill really means (and do not have that clear in their own minds, otherwise they would not be prepared to take this clause away and look at it again) indicates how extremely difficult it is to carry out a task whose origin, clearly, is blatantly political. In my view, Clause 2 is a perfect example of the difficulties into which one can get.
Baroness David: We have had a long discussion on Clause 2, and that is indicative of how difficult the Government have found it to word the clause in a way that is acceptable to any party in this Committee. We are glad of course that the Government have decided to look again at various problems that have arisen. We are even more pleased that the Committee has decided to accept the amendment that we put forward.
The sad point about all of this is that the relationship between central and local government is bad. That is what comes out of all our discussions. The trust between them has gone. On Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said that the relationship between central and local government was in deplorable condition. That has emerged very clearly today. I hope that we can improve the situation before this Bill becomes an Act, because that will be very important for the future of the relationship.
A great many people in this Committee who have been involved in local government feel very strongly about that relationship. Widdicombe took a sensible view—and a very liberal one; the report supported

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local government. What we fear is emerging—particularly from Clause 2—is that support for local government is lacking in the present Government. I hope that after the discussions we have had today the Government will seriously consider the amendments that have been proposed and which Ministers have agreed to look at again. It might make for a better relationship all round if they will do so.
Lord Elton: Perhaps I may try to pull together the various points that have been made, in proposing that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill. I agree with the noble Baroness, and, with even greater felicity, with my noble friend Lord Sandford, that the relationship between central and local government is not what it should be. It is interesting—is it not?—that the differences between them seem to turn on money. It is the use of local authority money—which is, after all, electors' and ratepayers' money—that is at the centre of our discussions. We are all agreed that there are certain purposes for which that money ought not to be used. I believe we are all agreed also that it is not a bad thing that central government should be saying that that money should not be so used. At the moment, our arguments are about the "how" and not the "what" of the Bill.
The bad relationship between central and local government is mostly wedded to questions of finance on a much wider scale. In another debate earlier this Session, I brought to your Lordships the Green Paper on reform of local authority finance, for which it seems to me one of the strongest arguments available—and it is a compelling one—is that the whole way in which we finance local government at the moment throws local and central government into conflict. I do not think we can look for any clauses in this Bill to resolve that problem. I accept, however, that we ought to legislate in terms which are not provocative and should be aware of the bearing of the drafting that we use upon the people who are affected by the legislation.
Having said that by way of preface, I now turn to the first point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, and echoed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. I pick it up at the point where the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, asked when does a campaign become a political party. I am not absolutely certain that I recognise the process of genesis which he describes. It seems to me that a campaign is an activity and that a political party is a group of people. It may be that what the people indulge in makes them become—
Lord Silkin of Dulwich: When the noble Lord reads Hansard I think he will see that the sentence began, "When does a campaign" and I changed it to, "When do those conducting a campaign".
Lord Elton: The noble Lord has neatly shot that rather small fox.
As to the question of a definition of a political party, of course I understand and recognise the anxiety of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, in particular, not to give the making of a political decision to the judges. I would not personally think that the decision as to whether a group of people were conducting themselves in a way which made them a political party
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was itself a difficult political judgment. When I say "difficult" I do not mean a difficult decision to make, but a decision which would put one in a difficulty as a result of having made it.
I must go back to what I thought was a delightful speech earlier this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Broxbourne who, with far greater eloquence and humour than I, pointed out to noble Lords opposite that the question of what is a political party is not answered in the Bill which the party opposite put on the statute book in 1967. The test is there. The test is, and I quote from Section 19(3) of the Companies Act 1967:
"For the purposes of this section a company shall be treated as giving money for political purposes if, directly or indirectly—
(a) it gives a donation or subscription to a political party of the United Kingdom or of any part thereof".
I am not aware of any definition in the definitions clause of that Act of Parliament of what is a political party. Therefore, if this is the difficulty I can only say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that I regret it if we are placing the judiciary in a difficulty but it is one under which the judiciary has laboured with singular felicity for the past 19 years.
Lord Denning: I do not know that I have had to decide the question. It may be in the statute but I do not know of any case in which it came up.
Lord Elton: If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, does not know of a case, I am almost certain one does not exist, but I should like to take advice on that. Having said that and, I hope, made my position clear, I commend the clause to the Committee.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 10:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
("ILEA classified as a local authority.
. The Inner London Education Authority shall be treated as a local authority for the purposes of sections 137 and 142 of the Local Government Act 1972.")
The noble Baroness said: This matter probably should have been dealt with earlier but in the general rush of legislation and the busy-ness of last summer it was not. The Bill deals, among other things, with the restriction of local authorities powers under Section 137 and 142 of the 1972 Local Government Act. The debate on these powers on Clause 3 will show how the Government and Opposition parties have different conceptions of the role and nature of local government. These two general powers are central to that debate. Before Clause 3 is debated it is therefore important to be clear about what is, and what is not, a local authority and this amendment is designed partly to clarify that position.
As I said, by a strange act of omission, perhaps due to the limitation of debate in another place on the Local Government Bill 1985, the new Inner London Education Authority which comes into being on 1st April 1986 was denied powers under Sections 137 and 142 of the 1972 Act.
As regards Section 137, its use by the Inner London Education Authority has been somewhat limited in the past because the authority was constituted as a special committee of the GLC, and by agreement most

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of the available resource under Section 137 was disposed of by the GLC. However, the authority used the power for one particularly important social purpose. In certain areas of inner London suitable premises for the holding of meetings are difficult to find. Schools and other educational premises are often the only premises convenient to residents of the area. For many years the authority has made it a practice to permit tenants' associations, for example, free use of educational premises in these situations. The loss of revenue is charged to the authority's accounts under the provisions of Section 137, which authorises expenditure which in the opinion of a local authority is in the interests of its area or any part of it or all or some of its inhabitants.
9.15 p.m.
In its new, directly elected form, without the close relationship with the GLC, the Inner London Education Authority may well need a general power of this kind for what are modest purposes in financial terms and which would carry very significant benefits for small groups of residents living in the inner London area. It certainly needs it to continue the long standing benefit afforded to tenants' associations and which brings them into schools.
Also, without powers under Section 137 the new Inner London Education Authority would not be able to raise a 2p rate. With the demise of the GLC, this puts the only overall body for London at odds with the shire counties, where both the county councils and the district councils will still be able to raise a 2p rate. In an area such as inner London where there is a great need and where there is a shortage of money available for voluntary groups, do the Government agree that perhaps there are some voluntary organisations which it is appropriate for an education authority to fund?
I could quote one or two cases where help has been given through the GLC and where there is almost an educational input. For instance, it gave money to the Hotel and Catering Industries Training Board and to the Women's Computer Centre and Micro-System, both of which are involved in educational advancement in the field of technology. I should think we would all wish that to continue. It provides information and runs courses for women working with information technology, and there is also the Safe Women's Transport Group. Schemes are funded throughout London, and though such schemes do not have a direct educational link is it not appropriate for an education authority promoting courses at its adult education institutes to concern itself about safe transport for women course members? I may say that these schemes have been approved by the Secretary of State and therefore he has approved the spending of public funds on such schemes.
I move on now to Section 142. All the Inner London Education Authority's expenditure on information and publicity has been conducted since 1965 under provisions similar to what is now Section 142 of the 1972 Act. The authority has often used Section 142 to issue publicity. For example, it has made arrangements whereby on application the public may readily obtain information concerning the services available within the area of the authority which are provided
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either by the authority, by other authorities, by government departments, by charities or by other organisations. It has also arranged for the display of pictures, cinematographic films, models or the holding of exhibitions relating to such matters and has prepared, joined in or contributed to the cost of the preparation of pictures, films, models or exhibitions to be displayed or held as aforesaid.
A good example of this was the exhibition "Schools" which was held in the Royal Festival Hall in October 1984. This account of what goes on in secondary schools was visited by more than 30,000 people, including the Secretary of State for Education and Science and his junior Ministers. The authority is planning a second exhibition on primary education for 1987 and there must be doubt whether Section 111 is adequate for its purposes here.
With the passing of the GLC, the authority, which depended to some extent on the general inquiry service, will have to provide a larger facility. Many of the public's inquiries about local government in general can be expected to reach ILEA as the largest local authority in London. It is only logical that the authority's inquiry service should stock information about London's local government to issue to inquirers, just as the borough and other information services stock information about ILEA.
Though the authority used Section 142 for its recent publicity on electoral registration—I have copies of the publicity—there is doubt whether in future it could publish such information since electoral registration is not a function of ILEA but of the boroughs; yet of course the authority has an interest in registration as a directly elected body and as an educational body wishing to encourage responsible citizenship.
As is evident, the material is wholly neutral in tone—your Lordships cannot see it, but I have it and I can assure you that it is—but it is effectively presented to interest young people and their parents. If any Member of the Committee would like to see it later, I shall be delighted to display it.
If Section 142 is to be restricted to functions, ILEA needs Section 137 to be able to continue to assist the Home Office in that way and to do the other less than common but useful things which Section 137 permits. As well as the leaflet which ILEA circulated. I have one which the Home Office supplied and which was accompanied by the Home Office video. There is nothing to choose between them in the way of effectiveness.
I hope I have made the case that ILEA, as a big authority and the only one for the whole of London, should be granted those powers. I hope that the Government will give that a sympathetic hearing. I beg to move.
Lord Denning: My I suggest that under the law as it stands ILEA is able to perform not only all the activities which it is entitled expressly to perform but everything reasonably incidental thereto? It seems to me that all the illustrations which the noble Baroness has given are reasonably incidental to its activities. It might be undesirable to extend its powers to make it equivalent to a local authority under two sections of the 1972 Act which are widely drawn and which need a good deal of interpretation.
Baroness David: Is the noble and learned Lord suggesting that ILEA can do these things out of its own resources or out of resources under Section 111?
Lord Denning: I am not sufficiently familiar with the legislation, I am afraid, to answer that question. I would hope that it is out of its own resources or anything that it can legitimately acquire.
Lord Underhill: Can the noble and learned Lord explain exactly how he believes ILEA can meet the expenditure from its own resources and why he says that Sections 137 and 142 of the 1972 Act are not relevant and should not apply to ILEA? I know that he stated that, but can he explain it?
Lord Skelmersdale: In spite of the fact that my speech has been paraphrased in three short sentences by the noble and learned Lord, it is with some relief that I answer the noble Baroness, turning as we do from the Bill to the well travelled paths of the Local Government Act 1985. In this respect it is not as well travelled in this House as it was in another place where this issue was discussed.
The 1985 Act conferred on the new ILEA a number of local authority powers. In particular, paragraph 16 of Schedule 14 to the Act applied to the new ILEA powers under some 25 sections of the Local Government Act 1972. Your Lordships' Committee will note that that paragraph dealt not only with the new ILEA but also with the new authorities established by Part IV of the 1985 Act: that is to say, the new joint police authorities, fire and civil defence authorities and passenger transport authorities. The noble Baroness's amendment would create certain new powers for only one of the new joint authorities; namely, ILEA. I should add that none of them is a local authority.
The failure, as the noble Baroness sees it, of the 1985 Act to confer wider powers on ILEA was not a matter of inadvertence. In framing the abolition legislation the Government gave careful consideration to the position of the proposed new authorities. Schedule 14 to the Act represents the outcome of that consideration. Nor was this consideration exempt from parliamentary scrutiny, as I said.
Against that background, I turn now to the specifics of the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness. I shall deal first with those relating to Section 142 which have some relevance to the subject matter of the present Bill and then with those relating to Section 137, although the proposal to confer those powers really goes well beyond the scope of the present Bill.
Section 142 of the 1972 Act confers on local authorities general powers to provide information. As will emerge shortly, when your Lordships turn to consider subsection (1) of Clause 3 of the Bill, Section 142 powers are fairly wide-ranging. They are general powers which, in the Government's view, are appropriate to the situation of general-purpose local authorities, providing a range of services to the inhabitants in their areas. We do not, however, believe that it is either necessary or desirable to confer such powers on single-purpose authorities.
The fact that ILEA has not been given Section 142 powers will not in any way constrain its ability to put
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out any necessary information about its services. As the Committee will appreciate, the specific powers conferred on ILEA by the 1985 Act—and they are themselves wide-ranging—carry with them powers to do anything necessary to the discharge of those statutory functions. Such incidental powers are implicit in the statutory powers themselves; but, to make assurance doubly sure, Section 111 of the 1972 Act has provided that a local authority—and in that narrow respect that includes the new ILEA—should have the power to do anything,
"calculated to facilitate, or conducive or incidental to, the discharge of its functions".
Clearly, therefore, the new ILEA will have fully adequate powers to make available information relating to all or any of its statutory functions. There is no need to give the authority the general local authority powers contained in Section 142.
The other section cited in the amendment is Section 137. This is, of course, the so-called "free tuppence"—the power for local authorities to incur expenditure up to the product of a 2p rate in any year—on things for which they have no specific statutory powers but which they judge to be in the interests of inhabitants of their area. This gives only the power to spend money, not, as I understood from a remark from the noble Baroness, to raise the money.
I will, if I may, deal with this limb of the noble Baroness's proposal rather more briefly, as the powers in Section 137 are of limited relevance to this part of the Bill, and because the general arguments against accepting the noble Baroness's proposal are broadly the same as those I have outlined in relation to Section 142.
I am sure that the Committee will recognise that Section 137—even more than Section 142—is a power which is particularly relevant to the needs of general-purpose local authorities. The latter section, Section 137, is sometimes regarded as an embryonic form of the power of "general competence" which some previous inquiries have suggested should be given to local authorities, and which is sometimes advocated by noble Lords opposite, particularly when they are on that side of the House rather than this. But that concept was essentially related to the position of local authorities providing a range of services, and serving the inhabitants of their area in a general sense. I do not believe that anyone could seriously advocate such powers—even in the limited form of Section 137—for single-purpose authorities.
To illustrate the point, the Committee might care to consider the difference between Section 137 powers in the hands of, say, a London borough council and ILEA. The London boroughs already have many statutory powers, and will have even more after 1st April of this year. The gaps in those powers, which they need Section 137 to fill, are relatively minor. By contrast, although ILEA will have some very major and significant powers, its range of powers will be fairly restricted. It would surely be odd, to say the least, to confer on such an authority the power to spend—albeit to a limited extent—on a whole range of other matters going far beyond the purposes for which the authority is established, and cutting across the powers of the London boroughs.

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I am advised that when schools are not available for public meetings Section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972 would allow ILEA to hire other buildings for this purpose. And, yes, it is appropriate to advertise the adult education courses or any other provided by ILEA, and Section 111 would again provide this power. Nor is there any doubt about the primary school exhibition to which the noble Baroness referred.
In summary, it would be both unnecessary and inappropriate to confer on the new ILEA the powers proposed by the noble Baroness. That was indeed the view that Parliament took in passing, only some six months ago, the Local Government Act. Neither the facts nor the arguments have changed since that Act was passed.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, said that if Section 142 is to be restricted to functions, the ILEA also needs Section 137. I hope that I have been able to show her why this makes no difference in respect of the very narrow position occupied by the new ILEA. I therefore invite the noble Baroness not to pursue this amendment.
9.30 p.m.
Baroness David: I feel that I have been bombarded with words and I have been unable to take them in that fast. Therefore, I shall certainly have to read what has been said before I consider what to do at the next stage. However, I should like to emphasise that of a number of authorities that the noble Lord mentioned, the ILEA is the only directly elected authority for the whole of the London area. It is therefore in a very special position in that respect.
Educational matters cover a very wide area. I think that the noble Lord claimed that the ILEA would be able to issue necessary publicity under Section 111, which allows authorities to do anything which facilitates or is incidental to the discharge of their functions: that is a statutory declaration of a long-standing common law principle. However, in fact, I understand that Section 111 would be strictly limited to such things as job advertisement and statutory notices, and would not allow, for instance, the exhibition which has been mentioned. The noble Lord has said that it would, or that it would be able to do it under some other of its powers: but I shall have to read about that. I am not satisfied with the answer, and I shall certainly study what he had said in very much more detail. I suspect that I shall be coming back at the next stage of the Bill. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 [Other restrictions of existing powers]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Airedale): In calling Amendment No. 11, I have to point out that if the amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 12.
Lord Winstanley Lord Winstanley moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 2, line 31, leave out subection (1).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 11 which stands in my name and the names of
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noble Lords and noble Baronesses from all parts of the Committee, from which the noble Lord opposite will deduce that this particular amendment has support from members of all parties in the Committee. It is a very simple amendment. It seeks merely to delete subsection (1) of Clause 3 of the Bill. Subsection (1) of Clause 3 is limited. It is described very clearly and briefly in the side note on the printed Bill as:
"Other restrictions of existing powers".
In other words, it is a further move to restrict the powers of local government, and of course, as it says in the Bill, it relates in particular to the general powers to provide information. This part of the Bill refers to Section 142 of the Local Government Act 1972 and to Section 88 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, which give local government powers to provide information. I suspect that, in limiting the powers of local government still further, at present the Government have a rather more limited view of what ought to be the powers of local government than sometimes do those ratepayers and others who depend on local government. However, as to this matter, I think it is fairly clear.
The Government propose to remove those particular powers provided under those particular Acts and to substitute the provision that they can provide:
"information relating to the functions of the authority".
What are the functions of the authority? That is the important matter. I think that this is where we shall differ. People who depend upon the authorities sometimes think that the authorities' functions or obligations ought to range rather more widely than they do now, certainly more widely than perhaps the noble Lord opposite thinks they should.
However, it seems to me that along this path lie great dangers, and I suspect that to leave the Bill unamended in its present form without the deletion of this particular subsection would, or might well, stop local authorities providing information on a whole number of matters which, according to the Bill, do not strictly relate to the functions of the authority but which are nevertheless of vital importance to the residents in that authority area and indeed also to central government.
I shall give one or two brief examples. At the moment the Government are rightly conducting their own campaign to improve the take-up level of various social security and other benefits. It is a campaign in which I and many other noble Lords and noble Baronesses have assisted and have worked very hard. The low level of the take-up of benefits in certain areas at a time when the need for those benefits is desperate is tragic. It is right that campaigns should be conducted.
To exclude local government from those campaigns would be absurd. They are placed in a position in which they can campaign, and often do. Indeed, bearing in mind that local government social services departments often have to provide help and assistance, or feel they ought to be able to provide help and assistance to people—which sometimes at the moment they cannot do because of their lack of resources—they will surely wish to take part in campaigns designed to promote the take-up of certain benefits.
Take, for example, single parent benefits. This is a group of people who are perhaps underprivileged in various ways, and who perhaps cannot be provided for altogether adequately by local government social services departments, but is effectively catered for by at least two national voluntary organisations which are in part assisted by local government. For local government to campaign to provide information designed to improve the take-up rate of benefits of one kind and another is surely desirable, but local government might be prevented from so doing under the Bill as it now stands.
Let us look at campaigns regarding road safety. I doubt whether road safety is strictly a function of local government, though I have no doubt that there are things local government does that are related to road safety. I should like to feel that local councils of whatever rank they may be—whether they be counties, boroughs, or whatever—are playing their full part in campaigns of that kind in their own areas.
In the extremely cold weather such as we have at the moment let us look at the utmost importance of campaigns with regard to hypothermia; providing information to elderly people as to how to keep warm, how to avoid getting cold, and providing information to local citizens as to what to do if they find an elderly person suffering from hypothermia. Nobody could say that that is a function of local government, but it is something local government ought to be doing. However, it is something that local government could not do if this clause remains unamended.
I note that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, has a later amendment which removes some of the shackles from parish councils, and very properly. I do not think that we should discriminate in that way. If the shackles should be removed they should be removed from local government in general. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that parish councils should be free to do a whole number of things which perhaps they feel now they are not free to do, but I hope that the noble Lord in his turn will agree with me that perhaps local government ought to be able to do some of these necessary social things which are not strictly within the functions of local government as defined in the Bill as it now is. I beg to move.
Lord Mottistone: I would briefly say that I shall come to this subject from a different point of view in Amendment No. 12. Amendment No. 13 is another one again.
Lord Denning: May I suggest that we leave the Bill as it stands and do not accept the amendment? Section 142, which is in wide terms, can give powers to provide information as to local government matters affecting the area. There is an unreported case which dealt with that. The judge, Mr. Justice Glidewell, drew the distinction between "information" and "persuasion". I am not sure that that is a very clear distinction.
As it is an unreported case, perhaps I may read from the Widdicombe Report, at paragraph 68. It is again all about the Inner London Education Authority. The report says:
"Westminster City Council sought judicial review of certain decisions of ILEA to publish material under section 142(2) on the
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grounds that in coming to their decisions, ILEA had taken into account an irrelevant consideration, namely their wish to persuade members of the public of the undesirability of the Government's proposal for rate-capping so that the public could bring pressure to hear on Members of Parliament to reconsider the maximum precept for ILEA".
I fear that on a wide interpretation of Section 142 that was information as to local government matters affecting the area, and the judge, sensibly, managed to overcome that difficulty by drawing a distinction between "information" and "persuasion".
To avoid the undue width of Section 142 the Government have taken a wise course in restricting it to,
"information relating to the functions of the authority".
I realise that that,
"relating to the functions of the authority".
is again quite a difficult, wide phrase to interpret. We have to understand what are the functions and whether this relates to it. I agree that, but the alternative suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Mottistone is to restrict it to describing the services provided by the authority. That is too restrictive.
I should like this to be within the powers of a local authority to provide information as to the desirability or not of the Okehampton by-pass, for example, or whether we should have grammar schools or whether local authority housing should be available for purchase. We have had all these matters discussed in the courts and I think it is right that local authorities should be able to give information on all local matters relating to the functions of the authority. I should not wish to do what my noble friend Lord Mottistone describes. On the whole it is difficult.
I suggest that the Bill has the balance about right in saying,
"information relating to the functions".
Lord Hayter: There are still problems despite what the noble and learned Lord has said. I have here the example of an advice agency that sends out information in the city of Winchester. They could send out information about education grants in that city if it were funded by the Hampshire County Council, but not if it were funded by the Winchester District Council. Why is that? It is because Hampshire is an education authority and Winchester is not. On the other hand, the advice agency could send out leaflets upon house improvement grants if it were funded by Winchester District Council but not if it were funded by Hampshire County Council. Why? This time the roles are reversed and Winchester is the housing authority and Hampshire is not. That is the sort of nonsense that we on this side of the Committee feel we should try to remove by the amendments before us.
Another inference about Section 142 is that an agency cannot send out some of this information, but can supply it if it is asked for. That seems ridiculous. It is important that the advice agencies should be able to provide a flexible information service. In some situations perfectly legitimate and completely non-political publicity may be prohibited. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, has already mentioned some examples, but I have an even better one. A district

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council having no social service or education powers will be prohibited from giving a grant to any voluntary organisation which it might have in its vicinity to enable it to print anti-drug leaflets for distribution in its area. The district council could not use Section 152 powers because it has no functions relating to drug abuse. It could not therefore use Section 137 because the anti-drug publicity was the main purpose of the grant. That sounds mad to me. Thus amending this clause should go a long way towards overcoming the voluntary sectors' concerns about it.
The local authority case has been put forward. The parish councils' case will be put forward and the Government have said that they sympathise with it. I hope it will be agreed that the voluntary sector is just as strong. From all points of view, the narrowing of Section 142 will result in less information and a less well-informed public. That is bad for the public and bad for open government.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Sandford: I should like to speak briefly to this amendment. That is not to encourage those who have moved it to press it to a Division at this stage, even if they were intending to do so, but in order to ascertain the mind of my noble friend on the Front Bench about Section 142 and, if necessary, to seek to change it between this stage and the next.
I found it difficult to enter with much enthusiasm into the lively debates we had on Clause 2 because I do not think it is a clause which, whether or not it is amended, serves any useful purpose. It is true that it will muzzle those local authorities which are now in the grip of the Militant Tendency and other extremists. I think my noble friend said at Second Reading there were some 13 in number. However, that is dealing only with the symptoms. It is no good merely muzzling those authorities while they are under the control of those kinds of people. Militant Tendency and extremists like them have to be got rid of altogether, lock, stock and barrel. We cannot be content with anything less than that.
When that is done, there will be no authorities left to abuse the use of these powers in the way that has been taking place. I should like to congratulate the party opposite on the start that they have made with Liverpool and encourage them to get on with the rest of them with all due despatch. That is the way to deal with that problem.
Meanwhile, we must do two other things. First, we must prevent this Bill from achieving what might be thought to be rather difficult, and that is making relations between central and local government even worse than they are already. Secondly, we have to safeguard the interests of the 400 or more local authorities which are not in any way involved in this abuse and have not been throughout the whole of this long period. I think we must look carefully at Section 142.
The Widdicombe Committee looked carefully at this matter. The conclusion to which they came is set out in paragraph 233 of their report:
"We propose that Section 142 of the 1972 Act should be left unchanged".
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That is quite categorical.
"It provides an acceptable and long established definition of the proper scope of local government publicity powers".
With that firm conclusion, I should entirely agree. I think we all want to hear why the Government have departed from it. Unless they can satisfy us on that score, I think we shall have to look to the Government to come back with something which is by no means so restrictive as the present wording.
It is totally unacceptable to reduce the scope of Section 142 to the functions only of the local authority. As one report after another, all quoted in the Widdicombe Report, said, the scope of local authorities is far wider than the sum of their functions alone. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say to that point, particularly what has led the government to depart so radically from the Widdicombe report on this point.
Lord Elton: The debate precipitated by this amendment has revealed a number of concerns among your Lordships as to why we think it necessary to adjust the scope of Section 142 at all. My noble friend Lord Sandford merely produced in the punchiest form the question that all your Lordships had at the back of your minds. As I tried to explain at Second Reading, we are seeking to clarify what in recent years has become increasingly a grey area. By substituting the words, "information relating to the functions of the authority" for the words, "information on matters relating to local government", we are clarifying the scope of the power under Section 142. A small number of local authorities have interpreted the phrase, "information on matters relating to local government" very widely indeed and in ways that could not have been Parliament's intention in passing the 1972 Act or the 1948 Act where they first appeared.
At that time there were well-understood and accepted conventions in local government which members and others applied as a matter of course to the activities of their authorities, including the production of publicity. The broad parameters of the law combined readily, with that essential substructure of convention; but unhappily that is no longer the case, at least in some local authorities. There are many others (I am glad to agree with my noble friend) where everything is as it should be. But it is clear that in the view of the others there is virtually no issue of political controversy which they do not take in some sense to be a matter relating to local government.
In these new circumstances, the effectiveness of what was in 1940 and in 1972 an easily recognised definition, and therefore an easily defined restriction, of the reasonable bounds of local government publicity has been substantially undermined. We need therefore to make it clear that Section 142 excludes such matters as foreign policy and defence policy, which do not relate to local authority functions. We need to do so because some authorities have taken the term "local government matters" to include foreign policy and defence policy.
That is the answer to my noble friend's question. We consider that it is entirely appropriate to make such a clarification. We recognise that in this respect we have a difference of judgment with the Widdicombe

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Inquiry. In paragraph 195, they considered whether to narrow Section 142 to exclude subject matters such as nuclear deterrence which arguably might have too tenuous a bearing on local government matters. Considering that on balance they came down against such a change, I accept, as my noble friend has said, that we are going further than their recommendations in this respect in considering that some adjustment is necessary. But I want to stress that the proposed change to the local authorities Section 142 powers is not intended to affect the legitimate information activities of the vast majority of local authorities. Most of them do not interpret the term "local government matters" in the way I have described.
I will turn to a couple of illustrative points that were made. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, was concerned about whether it would be possible for a local authority to have a campaign to increase the take-up of welfare. I remind him that local authorities have social work departments and that that sort of thing is their province. I am advised that in any case authorities have also relied on Section 71 of the London Government Act 1963 for this purpose; so that this would not be cut off by what we propose. Similarly, local authorities are, in general, highway authorities and therefore road safety is a perfectly legitimate matter for them to proselytise upon under the terms of Section 142 as we propose to redraft it.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, who was concerned about advice centres, that under Section 142(1) a local authority can make arrangements for an advice centre to make available information about the services available within its area provided by the local authority, by other local authorities, by government departments, by charities or by voluntary organisations. That is the whole gamut. It is not changed by what we propose. So I can reassure him on that.
I now turn back to my honourable friend the Minister for Local Government, who agreed in another place that we should nevertheless consider further whether the drafting of Clause 3(1) is yet exactly right. We certainly wish to exclude matters which arc outside the proper sphere of local government. I do not know whether I can carry my noble friend with me on that but I think a great many of his noble friends and mine would think that the days in which it was proper to lavish public money on campaigns about foreign policy, when the public money came from the pockets of ratepayers, ought now to be behind us. We do think that is right; but we would certainly not wish to be too restrictive and so exclude matters which are the proper concern of local authorities.
The case that our proposals might unduly constrain parish councils, for example, has been powerfully made in another place already and I do not doubt that it will shortly be made here perhaps even more powerfully. It is clearly right that these councils should be able to continue to publish their newsletters referring to the services available in the parish, but provided by other tiers of local government. We have therefore undertaken to look again at the drafting in this respect. However, I should like to confirm my undertaking given during the Second Reading debate
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to bring forward an amendment to Clause 3(1) at Report stage for that purpose.
The undertaking to do that does raise some difficult issues. We do not wish to be over-restrictive about what local authorities may or may not do. Your Lordships have given some cogent examples of publicity put out by local authorities that we need to think about very carefully. I have only dealt with those by means of an obvious and immediate answer. I have to say, incidentally, that there are legal doubts as to whether local authorities do now have the power to engage in publicity activities in some areas which noble Lords might like to see them indulge in. We shall be looking very carefully at the drafting of Clause 3(1) to make sure that it does not go further than was intended, bearing in mind the very helpful comments that have been made during this debate.
I hope that the noble Lord recognises that Section 142 of the Local Government Act 1972 has been interpreted too freely by some local authorities and that its scope needs to be clarified. Equally, I hope I have persuaded him to await our proposals at the next stage, which will, I hope, serve both to narrow that use satisfactorily and, so far as possible, to allay the fears he has voiced that what we propose goes too far.
Lord Sandford: I wonder whether I may comment before the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, responds to what my noble friend has said. I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said about his willingness to reconsider this: I am glad that he is going to do so. I do assure him that the present formulation he has chosen is about the most restrictive that could have been selected. If he is looking for a better phrase and is still determined to depart from Widdicombe—and I really think that Widdicombe's argument for leaving things as they are is very compelling, because the members of the committee knew as well as my noble friend did what has been going wrong in this area—and if my noble friend is looking for another phrase that would do the job better, the one used in the report itself, which referred to matters which are "the proper concern of local government", is one with which I personally should be satisfied and it is better than what is proposed at the moment.
Lord Elton: I am most grateful to my noble friend for his comments. I see that I am to have other helpful comments in a minute and I undertake to read them all with great care and draw them to the notice of my honourable and right honourable friends.
Baroness David: I should like just to ask the Minister a question. When he said he was considering some redrafting of Clause 3(1), was he referring just to parish councils or will he make it rather wider than that? We certainly should not be satisfied with an amendment which dealt only with parish councils. I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said. What he suggested would seem to be quite a possible amendment, although I have not fully considered it. Again, of course, this is a matter of trust between local and central government, and I think it would be a very nice gesture if the Government in this case could decide to follow Widdicombe and leave things as they are.
10 p.m.
Lord Elton: The noble Baroness has asked me to clarify my undertaking and I am very glad to do so. I undertook at Second Reading, and I again repeat my undertaking, to bring forward an amendment at Report stage to Clause 3(1) to deal specifically with parishes. I am also undertaking de novo at this stage to look at the rather wider issue raised by noble Lords on all three sides of the Committee in the last half-hour or so, to see whether we are confident that we have this right and whether there is some other phrase which might exercise both the degree of restriction that we think is required and the degree of liberty which other Members of the Committee think is necessary.
Lord Winstanley: I should like to say in conclusion that I think that the noble Baroness, Lady David, is being a little optimistic when she says that she hopes the Government will leave things as they are. No government ever leave things as they are and I doubt whether this one will do so. Nevertheless, in view of what the noble Lord has said, and the manner in which he has said it, in a moment I shall most certainly beg leave to withdraw this amendment. But I am glad that it has been thought about very carefully because the point is of immense importance.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, pointed very clearly to what is at the root of all our anxieties, which is that the Government are determined to limit the
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activities of a handful—or, if you like, two handfuls—of authorities who have misused funds and ratepayers' money in a number of ways. The Government are quite right in their determination to deal with that. But as the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said, it would be tragic if we unnecessarily shackled hundreds of local authorities that have behaved in a perfectly proper manner over the years under parties of different complexions. I certainly wholly agree with him there that that would be a very great mistake.
I would also say to the noble Lord that we are not talking here only about local authorities. We are talking very much about voluntary bodies whom local authorities fund in this way. At a time when the Government have acknowledged not once, but over and over again, that we have become increasingly dependent on voluntary bodies of one kind or another in relation to benefits and welfare provision of one kind or another—this is something which we all acknowledge—the Government should be extremely chary of doing anything at all which could possibly interfere with the funding of voluntary bodies, which do such admirable work, by local government. I am very delighted to hear that this is being looked at again and I look forward with interest and with some optimism—but perhaps not as much as the noble Baroness—as to what we shall hear in due course. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 3, line 4, leave out ("relating to the functions of") and insert ("describing the services provided by").
The noble Lord said: I have two amendments down on different subjects and they are both probing. The first one, No. 12, adds to the debate which we have just had on Amendment No. 11. If I may, I will use that amendment to put some other ideas in my noble friend's mind for him to take into account as he goes on. I do not think it will be particularly palatable to those noble Lords who spoke on the last amendment.
The functions of a council are now so wide that it is hard to think of any area of national policy upon which they could not comment. My noble friend has mentioned foreign policy and defence policy. For example, the social services functions of a council may be used to justify campaigns about policing, immigration, refugees, health—all sorts of things that are not the affair of councils.
It is not the purpose of local authorities to conduct campaigns or even to comment on matters of national politics. It is the function of a Member of Parliament to represent local opinion and it is a profound constitutional shift for this function to be assumed by a council. Local authorities are the creation of Parliament and are set up to administer certain services laid down by Parliament at local level.
The expression "relating to the functions or seems to be inviting councils to stray into areas of persuasion rather than of pure information. Amendment No. 12 remedies that problem by restricting the information which councils may publish to a description of the services which they provide, with no possibility of the persuasive or campaigning element. When I spoke at Second Reading I said there was a difficult problem about how to cope with the 17, or whatever it is, councils that we all agree have strayed beyond their hounds. My noble friend Lord Sandford says that 400 councils have not. I beg to suggest to the Committee and to my noble friend that it is quite important that the 17 do not swell in number. Of course, we hope that noble Lords opposite will manage to curtail and control those extreme elements which they are tackling, as in Liverpool, but over the years we have to be sure that that is always so.
So I put to my noble friend that when he comes to look at Clause 3(1) he bewares of using "functions" for the very reason that it gives too much freedom to the people who do not need it. Perhaps the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Sandford is a good halfway point for the particular word that is used there. I beg to move.
Lord Winstanley: Before the Minister replies, perhaps I may say a very brief word. I was most interested in what the noble Lord said about it being the business of the Member of Parliament to deal with the local problems of local people. I just thought I would say—
Lord Mottistone: I did not say that. I said it was the function of the Member of Parliament to represent
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local opinion on the matters which are outside the scope of the local authority.
Lord Winstanley: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for correcting me. It is my recollection of activities in another place (and I am sure it is shared by noble Lords who I see around me who have worked in another place) that one spent an enormous amount of one's time dealing with problems of constituents that should in fact have been taken to local councillors but instead were brought invariably to the Member of Parliament. I just hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, was not trying to—
Lord Broxbourne: The noble Lord recalls those agreeable days in the other place. I am sure that, good constitutionalist as he is, he always answered those letters by pointing out the true constitutional position as expounded just now by my noble friend.
Lord Denning: Perhaps I may suggest that this amendment ought not to be pressed in any way. It is far too restrictive of the powers of the local authorities and, as has been suggested, it would be much better for the Government to reconsider the whole matter and get it on a proper footing.
Lord Elton: I am grateful to my noble friend for his succinct but clear summary of his reason for moving this amendment. I think that in fact I have already put on record a great deal which is sympathetic to his point of view. I have explained that, like him, we do not think that the current definition of these powers is appropriate. My noble friend has chosen a way of circumscribing them which I fear may push the balance too far the other way.
We are in agreement with the conclusions of the Widdicombe Committee that local authorities are bodies limited by statute, and that they do not have a general competence and never have done. As the Widdicombe Committee said, it is right for local authorities to be able to explain their views on matters affecting them even where those matters are the subject of controversy.
I must therefore take issue with part of what my noble friend has said. I cannot agree that local authorities are mere providers of services and should not be allowed to conduct campaigns or even comment on matters of central government policy which—and this is important—affect the way they carry out their functions, so long as they do not do this in a party political way or in a way that would not comply with the normal standards of good practice which we intend to set out in a code.
My noble friend's amendment would, I fear, prevent local authorities from producing useful publicity. It would, for example, stop them from telling their inhabitants about any regulatory functions such as the level of parking fines. It might even prevent a local

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authority from justifying its service levels or explaining its plans for future provision of services, or the factors affecting its decisions. It would not be right to prevent local authorities from producing publicity of that kind, and it would not be in the interests of the ratepayers to which the local authority would be accountable.
My noble friend is aware of my anxiety to strike the right balance. He knows that I am not content with where we are. He will be pulling in one direction and my noble friend Lord Sandford will be pulling in another. Gradually, others of your Lordships will tally on behind each of them, and eventually, shortly before breaking point, I hope that I will be able to persuade your Lordships to adopt a reasonable position—and that I propose to do at the next stage.
Lord Mottistone: That is a splendid undertaking and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 3, line 5, at end insert—
("( ) In section 142 of the Local Government Act 1972, subsection (2)(a) (power to publish information) shall have effect in its application to parish and community councils as if there were substituted for the words "the functions of the authority" the words "the services available within the parish or community provided by any local authority (including the council of the parish or community), or by government departments or by charities and other voluntary organisations.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is of a somewhat different nature, as your Lordships will recognise. Again it is a probing amendment, and again I am most encouraged by that which my noble friend has already said both on Second Reading and just now. If the Committee will forgive me, I shall spell out why it is important for parish and community councils that there should be an amendment made to the Bill along these lines.
An important role of parish and community councils is the provision to their inhabitants of information about services, activities and events in the village or town. Normally that role is carried out in one or more of three ways: first, the production of a newsletter or magazine giving information about forthcoming events and news of changes to local arrangements; for example, a change in the opening hours of the Citizens Advice Bureau in the nearest town; secondly, production of a handbook about the area giving permanent information, such as the addresses and telephone numbers of public bodies, etc.; and, thirdly, the support of magazines produced by voluntary bodies, especially the churches, that contain public information. Varying methods are used, usually at very low cost, to distribute that information.
The effect of Clause 3(1)(b) as worded would be to reduce very much the parish council's power to spend money on the publishing of information. Instead of having the power to publish information on matters relating to local government, the power is restricted to publishing information about the functions of the parish council. This matters much more to parish councils than it does to major authorities because the large authorities can produce information documents and make them available for the public to collect from
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their offices. Very few parish councils have full-time officers and few villages have any places where, during the working day, documents can be collected by casual inquirers.
Effective distribution of information in parish areas requires a power in the council to be able to spend money on reasonable distribution arrangements. If parish councils are restricted to publishing information about their own functions only, most of the benefit of their information work will be lost. The amendment provides for parish and community councils to continue to have the power to publish information about the services of all local authorities and of other bodies that are provided in the parish. The proposed power complements for parishes the power that the Bill already leaves for them, of assembling such information. I beg to move.
Lord Denning: For many years I was president of the National Association of Parish Councils. I heartily support the amendment.
Lord Underhill: Before the Minister replies, perhaps I may raise one point. The amendment refers to the substitution for the words in the Bill, which are,
"the functions of the authority"
of the words,
"the services available".
It may well be that the parish or community council would wish to publish information about services that are not available but should be available.
The amendment goes on to refer to services available
"provided by any local authority",
but, again, it may well be that there are services that the parish council believes ought to be provided by, say, the county council that are not being provided. The amendment would prevent the parish council or the community council from doing that. As the noble Lord the Minister has promised to look at these matters—and we readily accept his undertaking—I hope that he will bear my points in mind when considering this amendment.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Elton: It is certainly no part of this Government's policy that the Bill should have an adverse effect on the legitimate publicity activities of parish, town or, indeed, community councils. I should like to acknowledge the valuable job that these councils do with their existing powers in publishing and distributing material about local services in their areas either by way of specific information in the form of a parish newsletter or on general topics such as school closures.
We have already undertaken to look closely at this matter to ensure that parish councils are not unduly constrained by our proposals and I have undertaken to bring forward an amendment at Report stage. I regret that it has to be Report stage but it is very difficult to get the amendment drafted because it will have to be a balanced response to a number of conflictng considerations. First, if, as my noble friend Lord Mottistone proposes, we are to allow parish councils to publish and freely distribute information about the

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local services provided by other local authorities, by government departments, charities and other voluntary organisations, we have to consider whether to give similar powers to the other tiers of local government. Or are we intending to make an exception of parish councils while preventing district councils from providing similar information? We shall certainly have to take great care in this matter.
On the other hand, we have to have regard to the reason we have decided to amend Section 142 in the first place, which is the need to ensure that local authorities' publicity does not go beyond what is properly the concern of local authorities.
I do not think I need go further on this theme. All I am saying is that we are aware of the difficulties. I will take careful note of the addition by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, to that list of difficulties and we will come forward with an amendment at Report stage.
Lord Mottistone: I am most grateful to my noble friend. I draw just one thing to his attention. Amendment No. 13, as opposed to Amendments Nos. 11 or 12, seeks to add a new subsection which relates particularly to parish and community councils. It might be possible to amend subsection (1) in such a way as to encompass everyone else's opinions and have another subsection which deals with local councils. I merely put that in my noble friend's mind.
Lord Elton: My experience of the noble Lord's patient assistance in the cable and wireless and data protection Bills leads me to suppose that any suggestions he makes on drafting should be given careful attention; and they will be.
Lord Mottistone: I thank my noble friend. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Orr-Ewing Lord Orr-Ewing moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 3, line 14, at end insert ("and the expenditure on such incidental publicity shall not exceed ten per cent of the expenditure on the main purpose.")
The noble Lord said: This is another probing amendment. I have two such amendments and I am now speaking to the first of them, Amendment No. 14.
Subsection (2) of Clause 3 is very welcome. It prevents councils from issuing publicity under Section 137 of the Local Government Act 1972, which is the section that allows councils to spend the product of a 2p rate on anything which in the opinion of the council is of benefit to the area. That is very widely interpreted. I remind your Lordships that for the London boroughs the product of a 2p rate is £38 million and nationally a 2p rate amounts to £120 million, so we are talking about big money.
Unfortunately, the Bill as at present drafted makes an exception to the ban on the use of Section 137 for publicity. It allows Section 137 money to be spent on publicity if it is ancillary to some other main purpose of expenditure.
Let us suppose that a local council is organising an exhibition. It might cost £100,000 to do that. It would be quite free, if it wished, to spend £1 million on publicising that exhibition and the cause which is
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being promoted. It is only reasonable, if we are trying to bring in some measure of sense, for the recalcitrant few to be subject to a limit. I underline that point, that it is not the 400 but the 17 or so; and that might spread if we do not take measures of this sort. Expenditure on publicity may be incurred directly by the council or money may be given to other people, to recipients of a grant. For instance, they might get a professional exhibition organiser to do the organising.
It is not clear in the Bill at present how much money may be spent on publicity in relation to the particular main purpose. It simply says that it should be incidental to the main purpose. This amendment therefore seeks to establish by statute a clear relationship which councillors and officers will know for certain when they decide to spend money. Without some clarity provided by the amendment an uncertain position will remain, which some councillors may be tempted to exploit and which may give rise to potential court cases.
Until there has been a case, no one can be sure just how much incidental expenditure can be incurred, and therefore we put 10 per cent. in this amendment. It may be that, when he comes to reply, the noble Lord, may feel it is not the right amount, or perhaps this is not the right drafting, but the principle seems to be a sound one and I hope very much that we shall receive support for the amendment from all parts of the Chamber. There must be some way of controlling the total amount for publicity on a project. I beg to move.
Lord Denning: In speaking to this amendment, may I plead for clarity in regard to the Bill itself? I have found the greatest difficulty in understanding it on page 3, subsection (2). I first had to go to sections 106 and 137 of the 1972 Act and then I had to read the Widdicombe Report, where I found on page 66:
"It should be made clear that section 137 … may not be used for publicity by local authorities".
On the next page it continues:
"The exclusion of publicity from section 137 … should be so framed as not to prevent bodies funded under that section from issuing publicity to promote their own aims and objectives".
I found the explanation for that on page 63; namely, that section 137 is being used too widely:
"It should be freed from involvement with publicity, by amendment to make it clear that a local authority cannot use it to incur expenditure on advertising of any nature whatsoever. The amendment should be framed in such a way as not to prevent bodies receiving grants … from issuing publicity for their own aims and objectives".
I should have thought from what Widdicombe recommended that grants should not be made to voluntary bodies, and so on, for publicity, simpliciter. The grant should be made for their own aims, objectives and purposes; and in lump sums so to speak, not stating how much is to go to publicity or otherwise.
I do not find that very clearly spelled out in the section as it now stands in the statute itself. I am almost probing and should like an explanation of the section itself; but also, if the understanding of it by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing is right, I certainly should support a restriction on the amount that local authorities can spend.
Lord Elton: The subsection to which the amendment seeks to add a restriction is a subsection to

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be added to section 137 of the Local Government Act 1972. That section permits local authorities to spend up to a specified amount on purposes for which they have no other authority to spend. The limit stands at present at the product of a 2p rate, which I concede is a not inconsiderable sum for some of the larger authorities—though in passing I would remind my noble friend that the GLC does not offer the best example of the likely product, given that it is the largest of the seven biggest authorities in the land and that all seven of them will cease to exist in less than a couple of months' time. But the principle is nonetheless important, even if the sums involved are a little smaller than those that have been mentioned.
I then come to a difficulty. Clause 2 already prohibits the publication, and therefore expenditure on the publication, of party political material either by a local authority directly or through an agent such as a voluntary organisation. That prohibition is not limited in its effect to expenditure under any particular power or the provisions of any particular section of any particular Act. It is general, and it will bite on this section of the 1972 Act as on any other. It is clear, therefore, that local authorities will not be permitted to use their powers under Section 137 to fund voluntary organisations for publicity which falls within the party political prohibition, and, further, that Section 137 spending is in general limited to the product of a 2p rate.
Our Bill further provides in subsection(2)(c) that a local authority may fund publicity under this provision only where that publicity is incidental to the main purpose for which the assistance is given. That is the only publicity that it can fund under the provision.
In considering the additional limitation which my noble friend's amendment proposes, we need to bear two things in mind. The first is that the publicity being funded is necessarily non-party political. The second is that many voluntary organisations are campaigning organisations by nature, and quite properly so. Their campaigning is hound to involve a significant element of publicity. I think of the Cancer Research Campaign, for instance, Age Concern or the Howard League. My difficulty then is this, and it is two-fold. (One of the difficulties my noble friend has kindly waved away.) It is, first, to wonder whether the choice of any proportion is a proper way to limit that activity, and, secondly, if it is, to decide what is it that makes 10 per cent. acceptable and 11 per cent. too much—or 15 per cent. and 17 per cent. or whatever.
My noble friend may think that our Bill lets in too many causes and keeps out too few, but I am sure that he will accept that there are a lot of good ones, and the disadvantage of what he proposes seems to me to be that it would hit the good as hard as the bad. Given that we have, I believe, excluded what we all want most fervently to exclude and what this part of the Bill is primarily directed at—which is to say, party political campaigns—and given the filter in the first subsection which means that the expenditure is ancillary to a non-political campaign anyway. I wonder whether my noble friend will consider his probing amendment in the light of what I have said and perhaps come back to me if I have not altogether allayed his fears.
Lord Orr-Ewing: I shall consider that. I concede that we do not want to inhibit the good for the sake of stopping the bad. Like other compromises all through the Bill, it is difficult to find a way to do what I want without causing some suffering to the good voluntary organisations. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Orr-Ewing Lord Orr-Ewing moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 3, line 21, at end insert—
("(3) The Secretary of State may by order set a limit to the total amount which may be spent by local authorities on publicity, and such limit may be set on a per capita basis or by reference to an amount of percentage of the rate, and the limit may be varied by order.")
The noble Lord said: This again is a short probing amendment. It seems to be sensible. There has been much discussion about whether a financial limit should be placed on the amount that councils spend on information. It is clear that the need for councils to publish information about the services available in their areas is small in relation to the overall amount spent on the services themselves, even if they seek to draw attention to benefits, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said.
Again, some councils have proved time and again to be rather untrustworthy. At present there is absolutely no limit to the amount which they can spend on publicity. As recent events demonstrate, it is perhaps only a matter of time before some councillors take advantage of that. The Government may not feel that it is right at this stage to place a limit on the amount which may be spent on publicity, but it would seem sensible to take reserve powers to do so in case, as will almost certainly happen, some councils abuse the law. The amendment provides for such an eventuality. It would allow the Government to place a limit, if necessary, but it does not require them to do so. It seems sensible to give some fall-back powers to the Secretary of State. It is very much a reserve which one hopes will be used only where it is necessary, and perhaps not at all. I beg to move.
10.30 p.m.
Baroness David: We would object very strongly to this amendment. It seems to give the Secretary of State quite unnecessary—almost unlimited—power to control the publicity of local authorities. I should think that if we want to make the situation between central and local government even worse this amendment would be guaranteed to do that.
Lord Elton: I am grateful to my noble friend for bringing forward this idea, which is to give a power to the Secretary of State, which he would not have to use unless it was appropriate so to do, to set a financial limit on spending on information. We see a number of difficulties arising from this. Placing a crude limit on expenditure might mean that some local authorities gave priority to controversial publicity at the expense of more routine and necessary publicity. In other words, if they are hell-bent on doing what we do not want them to do, and if the only thing which restrains them is a ceiling, then they will use what they have under the ceiling for the purposes they want and of which we disapprove—if I may use the "we" in a not

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too partisan sense—and not on the things which we think they should.
My noble friend suggested therefore that the power might be a reserve power. I recognise that the requirement in this Bill for local authorities to keep an account of their publicity expenditure would mean that in future we knew more about the level of authorities' total expenditure on publicity, which would make it easier to set an appropriate level for them to observe once we knew what their existing level was. We might want to bear in mind the possibility of imposing a financial limit on local authority publicity spending at some time in the future. But I think—and the noble Baroness opposite will at least for once find something with which she agrees in a speech of mine—that this would be a matter of last resort.
I must refer to the reservation expressed by Mr. Peter Newsam on page 68 of the report. We are in another context—that of the Green Paper on rate reform, to which I referred earlier—seeking to retire central government from the direct control of a great deal of local authority activity. The British people know best and it is proper for Parliament to lay down general parameters and definitions of the acceptable; but the gentlemen in Whitehall do not always know best and we are reluctant to give them special powers when these are not necessary.
We do not think that it is apparent that they are essential at the moment. But we have the main Widdicombe Report coming along in the future. I think that at that stage we shall be bearing in mind the proposal of my noble friend in case it by then appears that it is essential to use it. But we should be reluctant so to do.
Lord Orr-Ewing: I have listened to my noble friend with interest and sympathy. I am not someone who wants to see a greater centralisation. However, the two advantages of giving the Secretary of State power, are first, that one does not have to bring another Bill forward, should it be necessary—and everyone has deplored the nine local government Bills that we have had already since 1979; secondly, it means that there is a fall-back position which I should have thought would possibly restrain local governments who were totally bereft of a conscience in these fields and who suddenly find that they have a lot of money and will spend it on some great campaign and huge advertisements. One has only to look at the way certain capitalist people are spending money on advertisements, not in our local papers but in our national papers, on take-over bids to see how much can be spent on a campaign.
I should have thought that it was worthwhile having a power in the Secretary of State's hands to stop that. But I am quite happy to leave that and withdraw this amendment and consider the matter at another stage of this Billl.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness David: Perhaps I may make one comment. We are not altogether happy about Clause 3, but we have expressed our reservations. What we do about the
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other parts of the clause depends very much on the amendments which will be brought forward by the Government at Report stage.
Lord Elton: The reservations are noted.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Lord Skelmersdale: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before eleven o'clock.

  DRUG CONFERENCE, PARIS: UK PARTICIPATION
  DRUG CONFERENCE, PARIS: UK PARTICIPATION
  NUCLEAR WEAPON TESTING: OPINION POLL
  NUCLEAR WEAPON TESTING: OPINION POLL
  PBI AND NSDO: PROJECTED PRIVATISATION
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  M.25 SWANLEY-SEVENOAKS SECTION: COST
  M.25 SWANLEY-SEVENOAKS SECTION: COST
  M.25 A.10-M.11 SECTION: COST
  M.25 A.10-M.11 SECTION: COST
  CARRIERS OF HAZARDOUS WASTE: LICENSING
  CARRIERS OF HAZARDOUS WASTE: LICENSING